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SCRIBNERS 
MAGAZINE 

PUBLISHED  MONTHLY 
WITH  ILLUSTFATIONS 


VOLUME  LV 
JANUARY-JUNE 


CHARLES  SCFIBNER'S  SONS  NEW  YORK 

CONSTABLE  &  COMPANY  LIMITED  LONDON 


Copyright,  1914,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


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CONTENTS 


OF 

SCRIBNER'S   MAGAZINE 

Volume  LV  January-June,  1914 

PAGE 

ALPINE   ROAD   OF  FRANCE,   THE Siu  Henry  Norman.  M.P.,        137 

Illustrations  from  photographs  by  the  Author  and  others.  Author  of  "The  Flow- 

ing Road,"  etc. 

ANDREWS,  MARY  R.   S.      The  Fete  of  M'sicur  Bob 327 

ARTIST  AND  PUBLIC Kenyon  Cox 512 

AS   BETWEEN  FATHERS  AND   SONS.     Point  of  View 660 

AS  IN  HIS  YOUTH Rahu  D.  Paine.       ...      246 

Illustrations  by  H.  C.  Wall. 

AVT-WARr>    M<r    T    ^  T'^^    ^^d    Man-of- War's    Man — English 

j\xuyMAt\.u,    w.  J.  ^      Naval  Life  in  the  Eighteenth  Cenlur II 31 

BEARD,  WOLCOTT  LeCLEAR.    Her  Friend,  Sergeant  John 520 

BENEFIELD,  BARRY.     Soldiers  of  Time, 447 

BENLLIURE.    MARIANO— SCUPLTOR.      (Shane    Leslie.) 

Field  of  Art.     Illustrated 133 

BRAVEST  SON,   THE. Mauy  Synon 3S0 

Illustrations  by  N.  C.  Wyeth. 

BRAZILIAN  WILDERNESS,  A  HUNTER-NATURALIST 

IN  THE, Theodore  Roosevelt, 

Illustrations  from  photographs  by  Kermit  Roosevelt 
and  others. 

I.  THE  START.   II.  UP  THE  PARAGUAY 

(First  Article) 407 

A  JAGUAR-HUNT  ON  THE  TAQUARY   (Second 
Article) 539 

THE     HEADWATERS     OF     THE      PARAGUAY 

(Third  Article).     {To  be  continued), (Hi? 

BREAKING  INTO  THE   MOVIES Ru  hard  Harding  Davis,   .      275 

Illustrations  from  the  "Soldiers  of  Fortune"  films,  and 
from  photographs  made  especially  for  Scribner's 
Magazine. 

BROWN,  KATHARINE  HOLLAND.     Raw  Prose 633 

BUSINESS    OF  MARRIAGE,  THE.      Point  of  View 531 

BURNS,  THE   PORTRAITS  OF J.  Cuthbbrt  Hadden,    .       .      113 

With  reproductions  of  rare  portraits. 

BUTLER,  HOWARD  CROSBY.     Sardis  and   the   American 

Excavations 343 

CANADIAN  ROCKIES.     Ste  New  Field  for  Mountaineering. 

CAVALRY  OF  THE   SEAS,  THE  LIGHT 1).  Pu.vrr  Mannix.    ...      573 

Illustrations  by  L.  A.  Shafer.  Lt.-CommanderlT.  S.  Navy. 

CHAMOIS-HUNTINCJ   IN   SWITZERLAND P.  KUhnku 762 

Illustrations  by  A.  li.  Frost. 

Victor II  of  the  "Constitution" 
CHAPMAN,  CARLTON   T.  \        Over  the  "Java."  December 

29,  1912 Facing  page     539 


CONTENTS 


IV 

pAoa 

M  MiKi,  Wood  Martin,         .        92 


CHARITY. 

lUuKtrmllun  by  l-uriiw  \Vi»U'«»ll  HlU'luo<  k. 

.  .        I    Thr    Stuff    that     Drrdtn.s    Arr 
t'HITTKNDKN.  (JKKALI).    j    '  ^,^,,"{}n 


359 
324 
719 


CLirr<>RI>.  MKS.  W.  K.     Thr  (IhosI  on  thr  SInirs 

KNlNli  CONVKRSATION Muandkk  Matthews,     . 

.  ..  >- i  iTiTioN  ••    \frr<»in    ni-    rm;.   <)\  i<:i{    I'lno 

..ttv»-  .      Caklton  T.  Chapman, 

,  .,  Facing  page     539 

iUHM\r  ()  IIRIKN.   IMFKR Amanda  Mathews.         .      .      395 

IlliUitntUoii  by  F.  ('.  Yolui 
(H)W  COrVTRV.  THK   FAIR   IN   TKK W.  Heubeut  Dunton,  .      454 

!IIu>tr.ition«i  by  the  Author,  one  of  thiMU  n>pr()(lii(-(>(l  in 
colors 

li».\.   KKNYON.     Artist  and  PubHc ^12 

(H-RTISS.  PHIIJP.      The  Geniuses  of  Lutloiis  Hill •  81 

DAVIS.   RICHARD   HARDING.      Breaking  into  the  Movies 275 

DKMON  OF  THE  AFTERNOON.  THK.     Point  of  View 131 

DOMINANT  STRAIN.  THE Katharine    Fullerton 

Gerould,    .....      591 

DUNN.  H    T.     The  New  Romance 193 

Dl'NTON.  W.   HERBERT.      The  Fair  in  the  Cow  Country 454 

DWIGHT.  H.  G.     Greek  Feasts '*86 

EATON.  WALTER  PRICHARD.      Upland  Pastures 726 

ENGRAVING  ON  WOOD.  CONTEMPORARY.      ^William 

Walton.}    Field  of  Art 271 

EVERY  MOVE Gordon  Arthur  Smith,       .      705 

Illustrations  by  Andre  Castaigne. 

EXPERIENCE Gordon  Hall  Gerould,      .      293 

Illustrations  by  James  Montgomery  Flagg. 

FETE  OF  M'SIEUR  BOB.  THE Mary  R.  S.  Andrews,    .      .      327 

Illustrations  by  Philip  R.  Goodwin. 

FIELD  OF  ART.  THE. 

Benlliure,  Mariano — Sculptor  (Shane  Leslie).  Illus- 
trated  133 

Engraving  on  Wood.  Contemporary  (William  Wal- 
ton.)    Illustrated 271 

Meunier,    Constantin — An    Appreciation     (Cornelia 

Bentley  Sage).     Illastrated, 535 

Sculptures,   Some  Recent   Small   (William  Walton). 

Illastrated 663 

Tenniel,  Sir  John — Cartoonist  (Frank  Weitenkampf ) . 

Illustrated 793 

Winter  Landscape,  The  Appeal  of  the.  (Birge  Harri- 
son).    Illustrated, 403 

FIGUIG   (North  Africa  and  the  Desert), G.  E.  Woodberry,    .      .  234 

FLEET  GOES  BY.  THE Mary  Synon 195 

FRANKLIN.  BEN.     See  Patriotic  Pilgrimage.  A. 

GENIUS  LOCI.  THE Abbie  Carter  Goodloe.     .  257 

GENIUSES  OF  LUTTON'S  HILL,  THE Philip  Curtiss 81 

Illustrations  by  Angus  MacDonall. 

GENTLEMAN  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL.  A— Some  Remin- 
iscences OF  Charles  King, Gertrude  King  Schuyler,      611 

GEROULD.  GORDON  HALL.   \     Experience 293 

(     Occupation, 620 

GEROULD.  KATHARINE  F.  \    V^^  Tortoise.  46 

(    The  Dominant  Strain 691 


CONTENTS  V 

PAQB 

GHOST  ON  THE  STAIRS.  THE •      Mrb.  W.  K.  CLiFroRD.  .      .      324 

GOODLOE,   ABBIE   CARTER.      The  Genius  Loci .      267 

GORDON,  ARMISTEAD  C.     Maje:  A  Love  Story 2.221 

GREEK   FEASTS H.  G.  D  wight 486 

Illustrations  from  photographs  by  the  Author. 

HADDEN,  J.  CUTHBERT.     The  Portraits  of  Burns 113 

HARRISON,  EARLE.     Scenes  on  Old  Trails— The  Transcon- 
tinental Motor-Roads  of  To-morrow, 173 

HER   FRIEND.  SERGEANT  .lOHN Wolcott  LeClbar  Bkaru.       520 

Illustrations  by  F.  C.  Yohn. 

HIATT.  WALTER  S.     Sparks  of  the  Wireless 502 

HIGHWAYS.    See  Motor  and  the  Highways. 

HUNTER-NATURALIST     IN    THE     BRAZILIAN     WIL- 
DERNESS. A.     See  Roosevelt.  Theodore. 

HUTCHINSON.  JR..  ROLLIN  W.     Motorized  Highway  Com- 
merce,  181 

INTERNATIONAL  DIFFICULTY.  AN. Frontispiece.     Facing  page     137 

From  a  painting  by  S.  Werner.     Reproduced  in  colors. 

r  Transcontinental    Trails — Their   Develop- 
JOY,  HENRY  B.  ment   and    What    They   Mean    to    This 

1      Country 160 

KING,  CHARLES.     See  Gentleman  of  the  Old  School,  A. 

KUHNER.  P.     Chamois-Hunting  in  Switzerland 762 

"LESSENING  YOUR  DENOMINATOR."    Point  of  View 533 

LIFTING  OF  THE  BURDEN,  THE Edith  Rickert,         ...      749 

LINCOLN  HIGHWAY.  See  Transcontinental  Trails. 

MADERO.  THE  TRAGIC  TEN  DAYS  OF.     An  American 

Woman's  Letters  from  Mexico Alice  Day  McLaren,    .      .        97 

MAJE:  A  LOVE   STORY Armistead  C.  Gordon,  2.221 

Illustrations  by  Walter  Biggs,  one  of  them  reproduced  in 
colors. 

MAN-OF-WAR'S  MAN.  THE  OLD.     English  Naval  Life 

in  the  Eighteenth  Century. W.  J.  Atlward    ....        31 

Illustrations  by  the  Author,  four  of  them  reproduced  in 
colors. 

MANNIX,    LT.-COMMANDER    D.    PRATT.       The    Light 

Cavalry  of  the  Seas, 573 

T»>r*r,ciT     r^x.^.^x^r^w    n.    I  With  the  WintcT  Mail 120 

MARSH,    GEORGE    T.   {  „..       .^     „  •        /-.  rr  ^^. 

[  When  the  Prince  Came  Home,  644 

MARTIN.  MABEL  WOOD,     Charity 92 

MATHEWS.  AMANDA.     Cormac  O'Brien,  Piper 395 

MATTHEWS,  BRANDER.     Concerning  Conversation 719 

McLAREN.  ALICE   DAY.      The  Tragic  Ten  Days  of  Madcro 

— An  American  Woman's  Letters  from  Mexico 97 

MEXICO.     See  Madero.  The  Tragic  Ten  Days  of. 

MEUNIER.  CONSTANTIN — An  Appreciation.      (Cornelia 

Bentley  Sage.)    Field  of  Art, 535 

Illustrated. 

MILLER.  HENRY  AND  ALICE  DUER.      Worse     Than 

Married 475 

MORSE,  EDWIN  W.     The  Trick  of  the  Voice, 785 


VI 


CONTENTS 


MOTOU   AM>    I  hi:    llii.lIWAYS.  TIIK. 

AN    INTKKNArioXAl,    I  >I  KKK  T  l/P  V 

Krtiin  it  paint iiiK  by 

KoprmliKHHl  In  roIoFN 
TIIK  ALI'INK   KOAD  oK   KliANClO 

IllusCrations  from  plioioiiiaplis  My  tlio  Aiil  lior  and 

t)th««rs. 
TKXNSCONTINKN  TAIi       TltAlliS.      'I'ukik      De- 

VKI.OI-MKNT      AXU      W II  AT     TllKY      MkAN      TO     ThIS 
('«)rNTKY, 

lllu-stratocl. 
SCENKS    ON'    OI.l)    TRAILS.     Thk    Transconti- 

NKNTAI.    M()T(»H-KoAI>S    OK    To-MOnROW. 

l.ninir'n'  photonraplis  by 

KoprtHlurod  In  colors. 
MOTORIZED  HK.HWAY  COMMERCE,   .      .      . 

Illustrat<xi. 
NEW   ROMANCE.  THE. 

From  a  painting  by 

Roproducod  in  colors. 

MOTORIZED  HIGHWAY  COMMERCE 

Illu.s(rat<?d. 

MOINTAINEERING.   A   XEW   P^ELD  FOR 

Illu.stration.s  from  photographs. 

MOVING  PICTURES.     Sec  Breaking  into  the  Movies. 

MOUNTAIN  CLIMBING.    .See  New  Field  for  Mountaineering. 

MUNNERN. 

Illustration  by  Florence  E.  Storer. 

FIRST  YEARS  AS  A  FRENCHWOMAN 

Illastralions  from  photographs  and  drawings. 

I. 


S.  Wkrnkh, 


FrontispiecX 


Sir  IIknuy  Norman,  M.P.,  .      13. 
Author  of  "The  Flowing 
Road,"  etc. 


Henry  IJ.  .Joy 16Ci 

President  of  the  Lincoln 
Highway  Association. 


Earle  Harrison 


173 


RoLLiN  W.  Hutchinson,  Jr.,    181 
Motor- Vehicle  Engineer. 


H.  T.  Dunn, 


193 


MY 


RoLLiN  W.  Hutchinson,  Jr.,  181 
Motor- Vehicle  Engineer. 

Elizabeth  Parker,         .       .      591 


Georgia  Wood  Pangborn,       583 
Mary    King    Waddington, 


AT     THE     MINISTRY     OF     PUBLIC    IN- 
STRUCTION     (1876-77) 


II. 


III. 


AT  THE  MINISTRY  OF  FOREIGN  AF- 
FAIRS AND  THE  BERLIN  CONGRESS 
(1877-78) 


M.  WADDINGTON  AS  PRIME  MINISTER 
(1879) 


60 

203 
363 


NAVY.   WITH   THE. 

Throe  paintings  by 

Reproduced  in  colors. 

NEW  ROMANCE,  THE. 

From  a  painting  by 

Reproduced  in  colors. 

NORMAN,  SIR  HENRY,  M.P.     The  Alpine  Road  of  France, 

NORTH  AFRICA  AND  THE   DESERT 

TUNISIAN  DAYS 

FIGUIG 

TOUGOURT 

ON  THE  MAT 

TRIPOLI 

OCCUPATION.      (Anothek  Story  of  Peter  Sanders,   Re- 
tired Gambler), 

Illustrations  by  James  Montgomery  Flagg. 
OLD  TRAILS— AFOOT  AND  ALONE.     Point  of  View, 
OLD     TRAILS.     SCENES     ON.     The     Transcontinental 

AlOTOR-ROADS   OF  To-MORROW. 

Lumiere  photographs  by 

Reproduced  in  colors. 

ON  THE  MAT   (North  Africa  and  the  Desert), 

ORACLES,  ON.     Point  of  View, 

PAINE,  RALPH  D.     As  in  His  Youth 


Henry  Rbuterdahl,      .      .      307 


H.  T.  Dunn, 


G.  E.  Woodberry, 


193 
137 

16 
234 
311 
436 
559 


Gordon  Hall  Gerould,   .   620 


Earle  Harrison. 
G.  E.  Woodberry, 


789 

173 

436 
401 
246 


CONTENTS 


Vll 


PAQK 

PANGBORN,  GEORGIA  WOOD.      .\[unn('rn .r,j^.j 

PARKER.   ELIZABETH.     A  New  Field  for  Mountainicrind -,91 

PATRIOTIC    P1L(;RLMAGE.   a Annk  H.,LLi.v<iHW«,HTH 

VV'h.\kton.  774 

Illustrations  from  photographs. 

PEOPLE  AND  PERSONALITY.     Point  of  View 5:12 

PLATITUDES   EVERY   CHILD   SHOILD    KNOW      Point 

of  View i;{() 

POINT  OF  VIEW.   THE. 

As  Between  Fathers  and  Sons.  (itjO.  Plaliludes  Every  Child  Shoulti  Know.  VM). 

Demon  of  the  Afternoon.  The,  131.  Threshold.  The — The  Real — The  Symbol.  H\l . 

"Lessening  Your  Denominator,"  r>'.V.\.  Unnatural  Natural  History,  <j«)l. 

Marriage,  The  Business  of.  5;n.  Unstrenuous  Life,  The  Gospel  of  the,  ()5«). 

Old  Trails — Afoot  and  Alone,  789.  Washington's    Birthday    Reminiscence,     A — 
Oracles,  On,  401.  "Tlie  Mount  Vernon  Ladies'  Association" 

r.        1  J  T>  1-4.       ro.i  ''^"tl  lt>»  Found(!r;    Its  Administration    MV.) 

People  and  Personality,  532.  '  .^wiumm  hchhmi.  o.i.». 

POLITICIANS  AND  THE   SENSE  OF  HUMOR.    .      .       .      Hknhy  S.  Phitchktt.      .       .        77 

PRITCHETT,  HENRY  S.     Pvliticians     and     the    Sense 

Humor,         77 

QUALITY  OF  MERCY,  THE Simkon  Strinsky.     ...      738 

Illustrations  by  Hanson  Booth. 

RAW  PROSE, K.vTHAKiNK  Holland  Bkown    033 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Raleigh. 

REUTERDAHL,  HENRY.      With  the  Navy^Three  Paintings,      .       .       .  • ,^07 

RICKERT.  EDITH.     The  Lifting  of  the  Burden 749 

ROBSON,  MOUNT.     See  Mountaineering,  A  New  Field  for. 

ROGERS,  FRANCIS.     The  Singing  Teacher, 4GG 

ROOSEVELT,  THEODORE.     A    Hunter-Naturalist    in    the 

Brazilian  Wilderness, 407.  539.  GG7 

SANDERS,  PETER,  STORIES  OF.     See  Gerould,  Gordon  H. 

SARDIS  AND   THE   AMERICAN   EXCAVATIONS,      .       .      Howard  Ckoshy  Bltlkr.    .      343 
Illustrations  from  photographs  by  members  of  the  ex- 
pedition. 

SCHUYLER,  GERTRUDE  KING.     A  Gentleman  of  the  Old 

School (ill 

SCULPTURES,      SOME      RECENT      SMALL.        (William 

Walton).     Field  of  Art, tir»3 

Illustrated. 

SINGING  TEACHER,   THE Francis  Rookr.^,  .       .      400 

SMITH,  GORDON  ARTHUR.     Every  .\fove 705 

SOLDIERS  OF  TIME Barky  Bknkkiki.d,    ...      447 

Illustration  by  Alonzo  Kimball. 

SOUTH  AMERICAN  ARTICLES.     See  Roosevelt,  Theodore. 

SPARKS  OF  THE  WIRELESS Walter  S.  Hiatt,     .       .       .      502 

Illustrations  by  L.  A.  Shafer. 

STRUNSKY,  SIMEON.     The  Quality  of  Mercy 738 

STUFF  THAT   DREAMS  ARE   MADE  ON,   THE,         .      .      Gkrald  (^hittkndkn,     .       .      359 
Illustration  by  Victor  C.  Anderson. 

SWITZERLAND.     See  Chamois-Hunting. 

SYNON.  MARY.i!;;''^^;'^''''^;"'^'^ ^-^^ 

\7  he  Bravest  Son,  3S0 

TENNIEL.    SIR    .lOHN— CARTOONIST.       (Frank  Weit(Mi- 

kampf.)      Field  of  Art 793 

Illustrated. 

THRESHOLD,  THE:    THE  REAI^— THE  SYMBOL.     Point 

of  View 207 

TORTOISE,   THE Katiiauim:  F.  Gkrould,      .         40 

TOUGOURT  (North  Africa  AND  THK  Dkhkkt) ( ;.  E.  Woodhkruy.  311 

TRANSCONTINENTAL    TKAILS.     Thkir    Dkvkloi-mknt 

AND  What  Tiiky  Mkan  t«)  This  Countky,  .      IIknuy  H.  .Ioy 100 

Illu.strated.  IMosidml of  the  Lincohi 

iliKhwa>    .AsstM'iation 


vii 


CONTENTS 


THICK  or  TUK  VOICK.  THK. 

TMIPOU   (No«T«  ArMr4  ai»p  t«b  I)««k«t) 

!  \\   I»AYj* 

,    .   .  .ilRAL   NATIRAL   IIISTOUY.      IN>im  t'f  Virw. 
UNsTTRKN  rot's*  LIKK.  THK  (J<»S|»KL  oF.     I'..iiii  ..f  \  i.w 


111...- 

WAllDi 


,    WalUY  KInK  St<»n«*  rt'pr(MliH«»l   in   lint. 
.i>ui  in  i^Uitr 
M  \KV     KIN(i.      Mm     h'iisl     Yairs    (is    a 


PAOB 

Kdwin  W.  Morbk,     .  7^5 

tJ.    K.    WOOUUKKHY,      .  559 

(i.    K.    WoOUUlOKHY.     ...  16 

661 
659 

Wm.ikk    ruKn  aki)    Katon,      726 


()().  203,  AM 


WAMlll  N' .  1  « '  >       .^ff  I*atrii>tlr  IMlKrimimr.  \. 

\l  \H|||\«iT<»V  **      HIKrilDAV      KKMINISCKNCE.     A- 

•T'  >r    Vkm.son    Lauikh"    Am.hociation'     and 

It*  Iti»  Auminintkatios.      PdIhI  of  View, 

WKKNKK.  N.      .\i,  Inlrrnatitmal  IHtUcuUy 

WIIAKTON.      ANNK      HOLMNlJSWOKTH.      A      Palriotic 
I'llnrtnuti/f 

WHKN  THK  PRINCE  CAMK   IIOMK 

lUuNtratkioii  by  Fraiik  E.  Schoonover. 

WINTER  I.ANI)srA!»K.  THK  AFPKAL  i^V  THK.      (Birge 
Hanisun.)     F'it'kl  of  Art 

Illustrmted. 
W I R  K  LE88.     Sft  Sparks  of  the. 
WITH  THE  WINTER  MAIL 

lUustmtionii  by  Frank  E.  Schoonover. 
WOODBKRRV.  (rEORGE   E.     North  Africa  and  the  Desert.    . 
WORSE  THAN   MARKIKI) 

lUiMtratiuns  by  K.  P.  Ott^^ndorff. 


.       .       .       .      399 
Facing  page     137 


Geohge  T.  MaB8H, 


George  T.  Marsh, 


774 
644 

403 
120 


.      .       .       .    16,  234,  311,  436,  559 

Henry     and     Alice     Dueb 

Miller,       .....      475 


POETRY 

CHANDOS.    SIR    JOHN,    AND    THE    EARL    OP    PEM- 
HROKK.      A  Ballad  kho.m  Fkoissart,       .       .       .       , 
lUastnitlon  by  Frank  Craig. 

CHILD.  CHILD 

GIFT  OP  GOD.  THE 


E.  Sutton, 


Grace  Fallow  Norton, 

Edwin  Arlington 
Robinson, 


PAOll 

469 
202 

485 


HOMEWARD  R(^AD.  THE 

HOW  .>ipKIN(;   COMES  TO  SHASTA  JIM.          .      . 
IN   TUK   HIGH   HILLS 

LINES  UPON   READING  A  GARDEN  ANNUAL, 
Decfjration  by  the  Author. 

LIVE  THY   LIFE 

MOTHER.  THE. 

NIGHT  AND   DAY.     Sonnet 

OLD   FAIRINGDOWN 

PAX   ULTIMA 

POETRY  OF  THE  FUTURE,  THE 

REPRIEVE 

RETURN 

SOLACE 

STUDENT  SONG 

SUMMONS.  THE 

SWIMMING  BY  NIGHT 

TRODDEN  WAY.  THE 

WITH   WALTON  IN  ANGLE-LAND.        .      .      ' 


Charles    Buxton    Going,  788 

Henry  van  Dyke,     .      .      .  690 

Maxwell  Struthers  Burt,  306 

Mildred  Howells,         .       .  530 

Florence    Earle    Coates,  76 

Laura  Spencer  Portor,      .  28 

C.  A.  Price 465 

Olive  Tilford  Dargan,      .  724 

Victor  Starbuck,     .       .      ,  658 

Austin  Dobson,         .      .      .  H2 

Charlotte  Wilson,        ,      .  398 

David  Morton,  ....  435 

Walter  Malone,      .      .      .  773 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  1 

William  R.  Benet,         .      .  760 

Alice  Blaine  Damrosch,  .  632 

Martha  Haskell  Clark,   .  7i8 

Robert  Gilbert  Welsh,  .  266 


Draw 71.  by  W.  J.  Ayhuard. 


CLOSE   QUARTERS. 


— "  The  Old  Maii-of-War's  Man,"  page  31. 


ScRiBNER's  Magazine 

VOL.  LV  JANUARY,   1914  NO.   1 


STUDENT    SONG 

BY  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

They  say  that  at  the  core  of  it 

This  life  is  all  regret; 
But  we've  scarce  yet  learned  the  lore  of  it, 

We're  only  youngsters  yet. 
We  only  ask  some  more  of  it,  some  more  of  it, 

We  only  ask  some  more  of  it 

— The  less  we're  like  to  get! 

Though  ill  may  be  the  close  of  it, 

It's  fair  enough  at  morn; 
And  the  manner  to  dispose  of  it 
Is  just  to  pluck  the  rose  of  it 

When  first  the  rose  is  born. 
Is  first  to  pluck  the  rose  of  it,  the  rose  of  it,  the  rose  of  it. 

Is  just  to  pluck  the  rose  of  it, 

The  de'il  may  take  the  thorn! 

The  opinions  of  the  old  of  it 

Depict  a  doleful  land; 
For  the  guide-books  that  are  sold  of  it, 

The  ill  that  we  are  told  of  it, 

Would  make  Columbus  stand. 
But  come  let's  take  a  hold  of  it,  a  hold  of  it,  a  hold  of  it. 

But  come  let's  take  a  hold  of  it 

With  Alexander's  hand. 

When  sages  call  the  roll  of  it 

How  sad  their  looks  appear! 

But  there's  fire  in  every  coal  of  it 

And  hope  is  in  the  soul  of  it 

And  never  a  word  of  fear. 
So  love  we  then  the  whole  of  it,  the  whole  of  it,  the  whole  of  it, 

So  love  we  then  the  whole  of  it 

For  as  long  as  we  are  here. 

Copyright,  1913,  by  Charles  Scribncr's  Sons.     All  rights  reserved. 

Vol.  LV.— I  x 


MAJi::   A    LOVE    STORY 

BY   ARMISTEAD    C.   GORDON 

I  1    I    t    S  T  U  A   I    I  ()  N  S      I!  Y      \V  A  LT  E  R      I)  I  (>  C.  S 


•'In dreams  she  <:ro\vs  iK)t  oUWr, 
The  lands  of  dream  amonj;, 
Though  all  the  world  wax  colder, 
Though  all  the  songs  be  sung, 
In  dreams  doth  he  behold  her, 
Still  fair  and  kind  and  young." 

— Andrew  Lang. 

KRCULES!" 

His  eyes  shone  with  an 
unaccustomed  light,  and 
his  stride  was  elastic  as  he 
came  out  on  the  long, 
rickety  portico,  on  whose 
bottom  step  Hercules  stood  waiting  for 
him.   His  speech  was  that  of  the  centurion. 

''Hercules,  get  my  portmanteau  out  of 
the  closet,  and  put  my  white  shirts  in  it. 
Put  in  at  least  half  a  dozen.  Take  the 
clothes-brush,  and  dust  off  my  broadcloth 
suit.  Get  my  Wellington  boots  from  be- 
hind the  bed  and  black  them!" 

''What  dat  you  say  do,  Maje?" 

''I  want  my  pleated  shirts  put  in  the 
portmanteau,  and  my  black  broadcloth  suit 
dusted.     And  I  want  my  boots  blacked." 

Maje's  wishes  were  repeated  in  a  high- 
keyed  voice  that  betokened  excitement. 
A  burst  of  loud  laughter  came  in  response 
to  the  speech. 

"  Jes  lissen  at  him  now !  His  completed 
shirts,  an'  his  broadclof  suit!  An'  his 
boots  behine  de  bed! 

"  Maje,  you  know  you  ain't  got  no  com- 
pleted shirts.  All  de  shirts  you's  got  is 
hickory  ones,  like  dat  one  you  got  on  yo' 
back;  an'  two  o'  dem  is  in  de  tub  from 
lars'  week.    You  ax  Fans'.    She  got  'em." 

The  voice  of  Maje's  interlocutor  waned 
from  an  unrestrained  accent  of  amuse- 
ment, as  at  the  antics  of  a  little  child,  to 
a  softer  note  that  was  conciliatory  and 
coaxing. 

"You  go  and  do  what  I  tell  you,"  re- 
sponded Maje.  "Don't  you  stand  there 
talking  back  to  me,  you  black  rascal!" 

"Dus'  yo'  broadclof  suit!  Well,  well, 
well,  an'  sho'  enuf !  Black  yo'  Wellin'ton 
boots!    Tooby  sho',   tooby  sho'!   Now, 


Maje,  honey,  lissen !  Don't  you  know  you 
ain't  had  on  dat  suit  sence  de  man  come 
here  wid  de  wagon-load  o'  vittles  what 
yo'  ma  sont  back?  Maje,  de  moths  is 
done  corrupted  dem  clo'es  'twel  dey  ain't 
nothin'  but  holes  in  'em." 

A  cloud  came  over  Maje's  withered 
countenance. 

"An'  dem  boots?  Dey  ain't  been  no 
boot,  nur  shoe  nuther,  blacked  in  dis 
here  house  for  thirty  year.  But  dem 
Wellin'tons  sho'ly  did  have  a  shine  on  'em 
dat  mornin'  when  de  man  come  here,  an' 
mis'  she  put  on  her  rustlin'  robe  o'  silk 
an'  trail'  down  fur  ter  see  him.  Don't 
you  remembrance  it,  Maje?  She  made 
me  shine  dem  boots  dat  day,  while  she 
kep'  de  man  an'  his  ambylance  waitin', 
untwel  a  rooster  could  ha'  sho'  nuf  seed 
hisse'f  in  'em,  like  dat  chicken  dat  was 
on  de  blackin'  box  top." 

The  cloud  vanished  from  Maje's  brow. 
A  vision  arose  in  the  little  man's  memory 
of  a  day  in  the  far  past,  when  the  spot  on 
which  he  stood  was  in  the  enemy's  coun- 
try. He  was  convalescing  from  his  last 
wound  at  the  time, — a  time  when  things 
were  drawing  to  a  climax  in  the  South. 
It  was  a  wound  in  the  arm,  and  not  so 
dangerous  as  that  which  had  left  its  visi- 
ble and  ineffaceable  scar  there  above  his 
left  eye.  Hercules  was  right.  At  his 
mother's  request  he  had  put  on  the  long- 
tailed  coat,  the  baggy  black  trousers,  and 
the  low-cut  vest,  showing  a  broad  ex- 
panse of  white  pleated  shirt-bosom.  He 
remembered,  too,  that  the  boots  had  shone 
that  morning  with  an  unwonted  and  re- 
splendent lustre. 

"  We'll  let  these  people  understand  that 
we  will  accept  no  favors  from  them,"  she 
had  said  to  him,  as  they  came  down  the 
stairs  together  to  where  the  front  door  was 
flung  wide  open  to  the  summer  morning. 
She  was  arrayed  in  her  watered-silk  best ; 
and  he  recalled  now  that  Hercules  had 


Maje:  A   Love  Story 


said,  watching  her  in  admiration  from  the 
back  part  of  the  hall: 

''Jes  Hssen  at  mis'  silk  coat!  Every 
step  she  take,  it  say:  'Ain't  we  rich? 
Ain't  we  rich?'" 

Standing  almost  where  Maje  now  stood, 
an  orderly  in  blue  uniform  had  touched 
his  cap  and  had  said  to  her: 

"The  general,  madam,  has  sent  you 
some  provisions.  He  hopes  that  you  will 
pardon  him,  madam;  but  he  knows  that 
food  is  scarce  and  hard  to  get  where  two 
armies  have  passed." 

He  had  made  a  gesture  as  he  spoke  in 
the  direction  of  an  army-wagon  drawn 
by  four  horses,  which  stood  at  the  door  on 
the  driveway.  It  was  stored  with  bacon 
and  flour  and  tea  and  coffee  and  sugar, 
and  a  hundred  articles  to  which  she  and 
her  household  had  long  been  unaccus- 
tomed. Maje  recalled  now  across  the  years 
that  at  the  time  there  was  not  a  dust 
of  meal  or  a  cupful  of  flour  in  the  store- 
room, or  a  rasher  of  bacon  in  the  plun- 
dered smoke-house. 

"Tell  the  general,"  Maje's  mother  had 
said  serenely  to  the  orderly,  "we  do  not 
need  his  provisions.  We  have  enough  of 
our  own." 

There  was  not  a  fowl  or  other  domestic 
animal  within  a  radius  of  miles,  and  she 
knew  that  he  knew  it. 

"But,  madam,"  the  soldier  protested, 
"he  has  sent  these  articles  to  you  for 
your  brother's  sake.  The  fact  that  your 
brother  is  on  our  side  ought  not  to  in- 
fluence you  in  such  a  matter  as  this.  He 
is  one  of  our  most  distinguished  generals." 

The  color  had  risen  to  her  cheeks  and 
her  eyes  had  kindled;  but  her  visage  was 
one  of  Spartan  sternness  in  all  its  lines. 

"I  have  no  brother,"  she  had  said; 
and  the  watered  silk  rustled  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  was  still. 

"You  have  no  brother?"  the  blue-uni- 
formed soldier  had  queried  in  astonish- 
ment; "why,  madam,  he  is " 

"He  is  dead,"  she  had  replied.  "He 
died  on  the  17th  of  April,  1861." 

The  puzzled  look  had  faded  from  the 
orderly's  face,  as  he  recollected  that  it 
was  the  fateful  day  when  the  State  had 
left  the  Union  to  which  her  brother  had 
remained  loyal. 

The  whole  proud  story  now  flashed 
through  Maje's  mind  in  the  suggestion 


wrought  by  the  simple  words  of  Hercules. 
Moths  had  destroyed  and  rust  had  cor- 
rupted many  other  and  finer  things  than 
the  old  suit  since  then. 

"Well,  what  am  I  going  to  do?"  Maje 
queried  of  his  companion.  "You  know 
your  Mars'  John  is  coming  to  take  me 
back  home  with  him  this  morning.  It's 
nearly  time  for  him  to  be  here,  now." 

Maje  cocked  his  eye  at  the  sun.  It 
was  the  only  time-piece  on  the  place,  but 
it  was  sufficient. 

"I  wrote  to  him  about  Mary's  letter," 
he  continued,  "and  I  told  him  that  I 
wanted  to  pay  him  and  Sally  a  visit  be- 
fore I  go  to  call  on  her." 

"Maje,  you  done  forgot.  He  ain't  no 
Mars'  John  o'  mine,  nuther  o'  Faus'es. 
De  war  done  over  dese  pars'  thirty  year. 
I  ain'  got  no  master.  I'm  a  free  nigger, 
jes  as  free  as  any  white  man,  even  ef  me 
an'  Faus'  is  stayed  here  wid  you  sence  yo' 
ma  died." 

"  I  think  I  see  a  wagon  now,"  said  Maje 
irrelevantly.  "It's  turning  the  bend  in 
the  old  road,  near  where  the  big  barn  used 
to  stand,  close  to  the  high  pine.  Isn't  that 
a  wagon,  Hercules?" 

"I  'clar  ter  Gord,  Maje,  I'm  glad  you's 
gwine  away  wid  your  cousin.  Dat  man 
been  beggin'  you  an'  beggin'  you;  an' 
when  he  offer  ter  do  fur  ye,  an'  offer  an' 
offer,  you  treat  him  like  yo'  ma  done 
treat  de  soljer  wid  de  ambylance.  You 
jes  as  proud  as  yo'  ma  was." 

"It's  undoubtedly  a  wagon,  with  two 
mules,"  said  IVIaje.  "I'm  afraid  they'll 
have  a  terrible  time  getting  through  the 
brush." 

"  Yes,"  responded  Hercules, "  I'm  'feard 
dey  will.  It's  a  scandalous  shame  fur  a 
man  ter  shet  hisse'f  off  f'om  de  worl'  fur 
nigh  forty  year,  like  you's  done,  'twel  eben 
de  road  up  to  yo'  front  porch  is  growed  up 
wid  pines  and  sassafrage.  You  done  driv 
allyo'  frien's  away,  wid  yo'  proudness;  an' 
y'aint  got  no  kin,  'scusin'  yo'  cousin  John, 
neither.  Ef  'twa'n't  fur  me  an'  Fans',  dcy 
wudden  eben  be  a  foot-paf,  f'om  here  to 
Kay  Martin's,  fur  ter  go  an'  git  a  meal's 
vittles  fur  ye." 

It  was  a  strange  story  thus  interwoven 
with  the  faithful  and  half- regretful  speech 
of  the  black  man;  and  it  was  a  strange 


Majc:  A   Love  Story 


pair  of  friends  who  now  stood  together  on 
the  broken  steps  of  the  dilai)idated  man- 
sion, awaiting  the  slow  and  hibored  ap- 
prcKich  of  a  vehicle,  which  its  driver  sought 
to  direct  along  what  had  once  been  a  car- 
riage-way, but  was  now.  as  Hercules  had 
descril)ed  it.  literally  a  patch  of  ground, 
covered  with  broom-sedge  and  grown  up 
with  scrub  pines  and  sassafras  bushes. 

A  giant  negro,  six  feet  six  inches  high, 
towered  abo\e  the  attenuated  figure  of 
a  small  white  man,  who  had  apparently 
addressed  his  last  remark  to  his  com- 
panion's waist-line.  The  negro's  face  was 
as  black  as  ink;  but  his  hair,  like  his 
expansive  teeth  and  rolling  eyeballs,  was 
white.  Maje  was  accustomed  to  say  of 
it.  whenever  Hercules  had  recently  washed 
it.  that  it  reminded  him  of  the  vision  which 
Saint  John  the  divine  beheld  in  the  Apoc- 
al\i>se,  of  him  whose  head  and  his  hairs 
were  white  like  wool, — as  white  as  snow. 

As  the  larger  man  responded  to  the 
smaller  man's  talk,  where  they  stood 
facing  each  other  on  a  middle  step,  he 
stooped  down  to  him,  half-squatting,  as  a 
grown  person  stoops  to  speak  to  a  little 
child.  Yet  there  was  nothing  infantile 
in  Maje's  appearance.  His  bearing  was 
the  perfection  of  accustomed  dignity. 
His  beard  was  long,  and  his  hair  hung  in 
untrimmed  locks  about  his  shoulders, 
over  the  collar  of  the  rough  shoddy  jacket 
that  he  wore;  and  his  hair  and  beard  were 
also  white.  But,  unlike  the  negro's,  the 
locks  of  the  white  man  were  straight  to 
where  they  curled  at  the  extremities;  and 
they  were  silvery  in  their  whiteness  from 
frequent  combings.  Maje  always  pro- 
tested against  Faustina's  trimming  his 
hair  and  beard  with  the  old  sheep-shears, 
though  she  and  Hercules  both  made  a 
point  of  insisting  on  it  at  least  once  a 
year,  in  summer.  He  did  not  like  to  be 
''fingered,"  and,  moreover,  the  gentle- 
men of  the  old  school  had  all  worn  their 
hair  long  in  his  boyhood.  The  daguerreo- 
type of  his  father  on  the  library  mantel- 
piece showed  the  hair  worn  that  way.  It 
was  a  species  of  unspoken  protest  on  the 
part  of  those  vanished  men  of  his  father's 
day  against  the  puritanism  of  a  more 
northern  and  ascetic  region. 

Maje's  shoulders  were  slightly  bent, 
and  this  made  him  look  even  smaller 
than  he  was.    But  it  was  the  stoop  of  the 


scholar,  and  not  of  old  age,  and  bore  tes- 
timony to  the  perusal  of  the  worn  vol- 
umes and  the  study  of  the  well-thumbed 
dictionary  in  the  library,  which  had  kept 
him  from  going  mad  in  the  long  period 
of  his  self-imposed  solitude.  He  saw  no 
new  books  or  magazines  or  papers,  but 
lived  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  far  past. 

Once  Hercules  had  brought  him  back 
from  Kay  Martin's  a  newspaper  wrapped 
about  some  rashers  of  country  bacon — 
"a  streak  o'  lean  and  a  streak  o'  fat" — 
and  Maje  had  chanced  to  pick  the  paper 
up  and  to  read  in  it  some  fugitive  verses 
that,  beginning 

'Tn  close  communion  with  the  mighty  dead, 
I  spend  the  pleasant  years," 

continued  with  a  rhymed  recital  of  the 
books  which  the  poet  loved. 

They  pleased  Maje  so  much,  as  being 
applicable  to  himself,  that  he  cut  the 
verses  out  with  the  sheep-shears,  and 
tacked  them  up  on  the  wall  by  the  library 
window,  where  he  could  peruse  them 
whenever  he  wished. 

One  day  he  read  the  lines  to  Hercules, 
who  squatted  down,  after  his  custom,  to 
listen : 

"In  close  communion  with  the  mighty  dead, 
I  spend  the  pleasant  years." 

''Umhum!"  said  Hercules,  maintain- 
ing his  attitude,  and  with  a  simulated 
interest. 

"Giving to  all  for  laughter,  laughter, — dread 
For  dread;  and  tears  for  tears." 

"Umhum!"  said  Hercules,  still  affect- 
ing the  interest  he  did  not  feel. 

"  With  Homer's  warriors  on  the  plains  of  Troy 
Fighting  I  seem  to  be; 
I  hear  the  conquering  Greeks,  all  flushed  with 
joy, 
Shouting  for  victory!" 

"What  was  dey  fightin'  'bout,  Maje?" 
queried  Hercules.  "Gord  knows,  I  ain't 
never  found  out  yit  what  none  o'  de 
fightin'  was  'bout, — Bloody  Wrangle,  an' 
de  balance." 

"It  is  the  way  of  the  world,  Hercules," 
said  the  major.  "  We  all  have  to  fight — 
with  weapons,  or  some  way." 

"Umhum!"  said  Hercules,  accepting 
the  statement  as  he  had  accepted  the 
verses. 


Drnwii  by  Walt.-r  lii;^iis. 

He  saw  \w  new  b<;oks  ur  magazines  <.i-  papers,  but  livcil  in  tlie  atn.nspliere  uf  ilie  lar  past.-PaKe  4. 


() 


Maje:  A  Love  Story 


,  .  >i»Hxi  as  clean-limbed  as  the 

Al>'  idere.     It  was  his  proud  boast 

that  mis'  had  told  him  he  was  no  ordi- 
n.irv  Guinea  nii^.^er,  but  that  his  grand- 
lalher  had  been  the  chief  of  a  tribe  on  the 
Congo  River  back  in  Africa. 

These  two,  white  man  and  black  man, 
had  been  born  on  the  same  night,  and  on 
the  same  plantation,  sixty-one  years 
before. 

The  nativity  of  the  one  had  been  in  a 
chamber  of  the  now  desolate  mansion  on 
whose  decrepit  steps  they  stood,  at  a 
time  when  it  was  furnished  forth  with 
puq^le  and  fme  linen,  as  are  kings'  houses; 
and  he  had  come  into  the  world  amid 
light  and  color  and  with  rejoicings  that  a 
man  child  was  born. 

The  outhouse  was  still  standing  also, 
but  now  roofless  and  deserted  out  there 
in  the  back  yard,  where  the  other  had 
been  ushered  at  once  into  life  and  slavery 
two  hours  before  the  birth  of  him  who 
was  thenceforth  to  own  and  possess  him, 
body  and  heart  and  soul. 

The  family  doctor  boasted  that  on  this 
auspicious  night  he  had  killed  two  birds 
with  one  stone. 

The  big  black  baby,  clad  in  scant  rai- 
ment had  been  formally  presented  next 
day  as  a  birthday  gift  to  the  little  white 
baby  in  his  silken-lined  cradle;  and  nei- 
ther had  dreamed  of  the  tremendous 
tragedy  that  lay  behind  the  giving  and 
the  receiving. 

''He'll  make  a  likely  fellow  when  he's 
a  man,"  was  the  judgment  passed  upon 
Hercules,  as  he  received  his  name.  ''  The 
boy  couldn't  have  a  finer  body-servant." 

That  next  day  was  a  festive  and  red- 
letter  one  on  the  plantation,  wherein  no 
man  had  worked. 

Thenceforth  the  two  had  grown  up  to- 
gether, friends  and  comrades;  and  to 
neither  of  them  ever  came  the  thought 
that  the  bondage  of  the  one  might  mark 
the  degradation  of  the  other.  Playmates 
and  companions,  they  had  shared  with 
each  other  the  joys  and  delights  that 
youth  squanders  with  prodigal  hand,  and 
had  each  been  happy  in  the  happiness  of 
his  associate.  They  had  fished  for  mul- 
lets in  the  river  a  mile  away,  shaded  by 
overhanging  willows;  they  had  set  hare- 
traps  and  made  partridge-pens  in  eager 


l)artnership;  they  had  gone  swimming 
together,  symphonies  in  ivory  and  ebony, 
among  the  lily  pads  of  Boler's  mill-pond, 
and  had  dashed  diamonds  at  each  other 
through  the  summer  air  in  innumerable 
water-battles.  Theirs  was  the  fine  and 
not  uncommon  story,  long  since  told  to 
the  end,  of  the  white  boy  and  the  black 
boy  on  the  old  plantation. 

They  had  even  gone  to  school  together. 
But  this  part  of  their  association  had  been 
solely  in  the  going;  for  the  Congo  had 
stopped  at  the  door  of  the  Void-field 
school-house,"  when  the  Caucasian  had 
entered  in. 

''He  got  de  eddication  when  me  an' 
him  was  boys,"  Hercules  often  said  to 
Faustina.  ''  He  reads  all  o'  dem  books  in 
de  liberry;  but  I  kin  lose  him  in  ha'f  a 
mile  o'  de  front  po'ch.  I  done  been  ter 
town,  an'  rid  on  de  kyars  an'  seed  things. 
Maje,  he  ain't  nuver  lef  de  place,  nur 
uver  eben  read  a  newspaper,  sence  de 
s'rrender.  Let  alone  dat,  he  ain't  nuver 
eben  been  ter  Kay  Martin's." 

As  long  ago  as  their  boyhood  now 
seemed  to  Hercules,  with  all  its  glow  of 
unselfish  mutual  affection,  the  big  man 
found  it  hard  to  realize  that  there  had 
grown  almost  as  far  into  the  past  a  later 
time,  when  he  had  been  close  by  the  little 
man's  side  as  he  fell  with  a  bullet  in  his 
head  at  the  Bloody  Angle.  Hercules 
could  scarcely  remember  the  day  when 
Maje  did  not  have  that  scar  there  on  his 
forehead. 

"He  picked  me  up  and  carried  me  out 
like  I  was  a  baby,"  the  major  said  to  the 
hospital  surgeon. 

"Yes,"  the  latter  had  cheerfully  ac- 
ceded; "the  general  was  here  this  morn- 
ing to  ask  about  you.  He  said  he  saw 
your  big  black  man  taking  you  to  the 
rear  like  you  were  a  bundle  of  cheese  and 
crackers." 

"  Dat  w^hat  mis'  tole  me  ter  do  wid  him," 
Hercules  had  commented,  as  he  stood  by 
the  invalid's  bedside  and  watched  the  doc- 
tor bandage  the  wound,  whose  mark  re- 
mained thenceforth.  "Dat  what  she  tole 
me;  an'  I  done  it.  I  been  totin'  him  roun' 
all  his  life.  I  'spec'  I  gwi'  tote  him  'twel 
he  die." 

Hercules  had  spoken  in  concrete  lan- 
guage, and  the  surgeon  had  never  learned 


Drawn  by  Walter  Big^s. 


"  Kf  he  ain't  done  an'  gone  an'  i)nt  on  his  sworJ,  too!"  —  l^agc  13. 


Maje:  A   Love  Story 


that,  figuratively,  the  big  black  man  did 
not  cease  to  "tote"  the  little  white  man 
till  the  end  came. 

It  was  at  this  Bloody  Angle  that,  after 
the  colonel  fell,  Maje  had  led  the  regi- 
ment into  the  jaws  of  death. 

His  name  was  in  the  commanding  offi- 
cer's report;  and  he  had  w^on  his  promo- 
tion there  from  captain  to  a  staff  posi- 
tion as  major.  The  lasting  memory  of 
it,  incomprehensible  to  Hercules,  was  a 
proud  one  for  the  old  veteran.  More 
than  a  hundred  times  since  then  a  con- 
versation, that  came  at  length  to  be 
almost  stereotyped  in  its  main  features, 
had  taken  place  between  them  on  the 
subject. 

"Here' I" 

"Whatche  want  now,  Maje?" 

Hercules  had  a  hurried  way  at  times  of 
running  his  words  together. 

"  You  remember  the  Bloody  Angle,  don't 
you,  Hercules?" 

The  negro  squatted  to  where  Maje  sat, 
in  order  to  get  their  faces  on  a  level. 

"Duz  I  remembrance  it?  I  reck'n  I 
duz.  I  ain't  nuver  gwi'  furgit  it.  I  was 
leety-moty  skeered  ter  death!  Whatche- 
comin'  over  it  ag'in  fur,  Maje?" 

"Heitules,  stand  up,  sir!" 

Hercules  arose,  and  the  major  arose 
also. 

Stepping  back  a  pace  from  where  the 
black  giant  surveyed  him,  the  little  man 
drew  himself  up  to  his  full  height  and 
said: 

"Hercules,  I'm  as  poor  as  a  rat.  No- 
body knows  it  better  than  you  do." 

"Gord  'Imighty  knows  dat's  de  trufe," 
interjected  Hercules. 

"The  four  thousand  acres  of  the  old 
plantation,  running  for  two  miles  along 
the  river,  and  rich  as  cream,  have  dwin- 
dled away  now  to — to  how  many  acres, 
Hercules?" 

"'Bout  a  hunnerd  an'  thirty  seben  is 
lef  sence  de  lars'  deed " 

"And  the  house  hasn't  had  a  coat  of 
paint  on  it  for  thirty  years.  The  barns 
and  stables  have  fallen  down.  The  back 
porch  is  propped  up  with  beams,  that  are 
also  dropping  with  decay.  The  window- 
panes  are  smashed,  and  the  frames  are 
stuffed  with  rags  and  scraps  of  paper." 

He  cast  a  tragic  glance  a})out  him. 

"Umhum,"    commented   Hercules. 


"Hit's  jes  like  you  say,  Maje.  Hit's  de 
Gord's  trufe." 

"The  front  yard  is  grown  up  with 
broom-sedge  and  scrub  pines  and  sassa- 
fras. The  very  jimson  weeds  blossom 
at  the  back  door  in  summer.  Even  the 
paling-fence  about  the  old  graveyard  has 
rotted  down.  Here',  I'm  as  poor  as  Laz- 
arus. But,  by  the  shining  heavens,  Her- 
cules, a  million  dollars  couldn't  buy  the 
memory  that  I  was  the  first  man  who  got 
into  the  Bloody  Angle!" 

" Look-a-heah,  Maje!"  said  Hercules; 
"you  ain't  got  no  sense.  What  you  want 
ter  git  in  dar  fust  fur,  anyhow?  Fur  ter 
git  yo'  brains  blowed  out?  All  you  got 
fur  it  was  ter  have  dat  man  shoot  a  hole 
in  yo'  haid.  He'd  ha'  kilt  you  nex'  crack, 
ef  I  hadn't  a  hit  'im.  I  busted  his  crus' 
wid  my  fis'.  Fo'  Gord  sake,  Maje,  don't 
talk  ter  me  'bout  no  million  dollars  along- 
side o'  dat  turrible  place." 

Hercules's  admonition  was  unnecessary. 
Maje  by  this  time  had  resumed  his  seat, 
and  his  mind  had  gome  elsewhere. 

But  the  negro  rambled  on. 

"A  million  dollars!  Umph!  I  wud- 
den  'a'  gi'n  twenty-five  cents  fur  ter  ha' 
got  dar  fust.  I  did  got  dar;  but  I'd  'a' 
gi'n  a  five-dollar  bill  ter  ha'  been  fur,  fur 
away!  Dat  'ar  awful  place  ever-lastin' 
skeered  de  liver  an'  lights  out'n  me. 
Wheneber  Faus'  hear  me  hollerin'  in  my 
sleep  dese  nights,  she  say  she  knows  I's 
a-totin'  you  out  o'  de  Bloody  Wrangle. 
Nor,  sir!  No  million  dollars!  You 's  fool- 
ish. You  could  buy  back  de  whole  plan- 
tation wid  dat,  an'  paint  de  house,  an' 
stock  de  place,  an'  clear  out  de  brush 
on  de  lawn,  an'  live  on  de  fat  o'  de 
Ian',  like  yo'  pa  did;  an'  we  could  open 
up  an  account  at  Kay  Martin's,  an'  pay 
by  de  mont',  stidder  by  de  week,  an' — 
an' — good  Lord,  Maje!  a  million?  Dat 
hole  in  yer  haid  is  done  pair-erlyze  yo' 
brain!" 

Life  was  a  fierce  and  endless  struggle 
for  the  ex-slave  and  his  wife,  who  with 
unquestioning  fidelity  made  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  ex-slave-owner  their  own,  and 
kept  up  with  the  very  sweat  of  their  dark 
faces  what  was  left  of  the  place  and  its 
helpless  master.  That  he  long  since  had 
ceased  to  take  any  care  for  the  future  was 
a  joy  to  their  simple  hearts.  His  peace 
of  mind,  and  his  almost  childish  content- 


e< 


Maje:  A   Love  Story 


11 


ment  in  his  books  and  his  garden  fulfilled 
their  dearest  wish. 

Sometimes  Hercules  would  tiptoe  to 
the  library  door,  where  in  summer  the 
lord  of  the  devastated  demain  sat  se- 
renely reading  some  ancient  story  of  an- 
other world  by  the  open  window  through 
which  the  honeysuckle  vine  intruded  the 
fragrance  of  its  bloom  in  despite  of  the 
ever-encroaching  broom-sedge, — or  where 
in  winter-time  he  sat  before  the  blazing 
hearth,  which  his  black  friend  kept  e\'er 
replenished,  and  perused  in  its  turn  some 
other  well-w^orn  volume;  and,  seeing  him 
thus  happy  there  in  his  undisturbed  realm 
of  the  imagination,  would  go  back  to  the 
kitchen  and  say  to  Faustina: 

"Faus'j  Maje  he  ain't  got  no  money 
nur  nuthin',  an'  he  don't  want  nobody 
aroun',  'scusin'  you  an'  me, — jes  we-all, — 
but  he's  happy,  all  de  same.  I  reck'n 
hit's  de  man  dat  don't  want  much,  dat's 
de  happies'." 

And  Faustina  would  never  dream  that 
her  liege  lord  had  solved,  in  this  sage 
conclusion,  the  profoundest  problem  that 
rexes  the  philosophy  of  the  thing  called 
life. 

To  the  distorted  imaginations  of  those 
who  dwell  long  in  physical  solitude,  apart 
from  their  kind,  come  at  times  odd  im- 
pulses to  abnormal  action. 

In  some  strange  freak  of  fancy  Maje 
had  taken  it  into  his  wounded  head,  after 
nearly  forty  years,  to  write  a  love-letter 
to  his  old  sweetheart,  from  w^hom  the 
circumstance  of  war  and  later  penury  had 
long  separated  him.  He  did  not  know, 
indeed,  when  with  painful  and  unaccus- 
tomed penmanship  he  indited  his  belated 
epistle  upon  the  cheap  paper,  with  the 
cheaper  pen  and  ink  of  Kay  Martin's 
grocery,  whether  the  witching  girl  of  his 
young  manhood  was  yet  in  the  land  of  the 
living.  But  an  answer  had  come  to  Kay 
Martin's  store  at  the  crossroads,  which 
was  now  a  post-office  on  a  lately  estab- 
lished government  star-route. 

It  was  the  old,  sweet  story.  She  had 
never  loved  any  other  man.  She  had 
never  married.  She  had  been  as  faith- 
ful as  he  was.  She  knew  of  his  gallant 
record  as  a  soldier.  She  loved  him,  as 
she  had  always  loved  him.  She  hoped 
to  see  him  again  some  day.  She  was. 
Vol.  LV.— 2 


as  she  had  been  for  thirty-seven  years, 
his  own  JMary. 

''What  the  devil  am  I  going  to  do, 
then?"  queried  Maje  of  Hercules.  "I 
certainly  can't  wear  this  suit!" 

He  regarded  ruefully  the  coarse  and 
threadbare  habiliments  that  had  been 
patched  by  Faustina,  at  elbows  and  at 
knees,  until  they  looked  as  if  they  would 
hardly  hang  together. 

"De  moth  ain't  corrupt'  yo'  uniform," 
responded  Hercules. 

"My  what?"  asked  Maje,  surjDrised. 

"Yo'  uniform!  I  say:  yo'  uniform! 
Dem  clones  you  had  on  when  you  got  dat 
hole  in  yo'  haidi  Dat's  what  I'm  talkin' 
'bout.  I  done  looked  in  de  cedar  chis' 
whar  yo'  ma  put  'em.  Yo'  hat's  in  dar, 
too." 

A  smile  lit  up  the  wrinkled  face  of  the 
major.  The  carryall  with  its  pair  of 
huge  mules,  had  at  last  wound  its  tortu- 
ous way  to  within  fifty  feet  of  the  door. 

"Wait,  John!  I'll  be  back  in  a  min- 
ute!" Maje  called  to  the  thicket  of  pines; 
and  the  man  on  the  rear  seat  of  the  ve- 
hicle straightened  himself  up,  and  lifted 
his  derby  hat  in  response,  and  blew  a 
cloud  of  smoke  from  his  Havana,  as  in 
salutation.  He  was  Maje's  far-off  cousin 
and  only  living  relative — a  prosperous 
young  banker  in  the  city,  which  the  old 
man,  after  years  of  repeated  refusals, 
had  at  last  consented  to  visit,  mo\ed 
by  Mary's  letter. 

Maje  vanished  through  the  door,  and 
Hercules  remained  on  the  steps  to  do  the 
honors. 

"He  done  gone  to  put  on  his  clo'es," 
he  explained  to  the  visitor,  as  the  equipage 
drew  near  to  the  porch. 

Hercules  spoke  apologetically,  as  if  it 
were  Maje's  habit  to  live  ordinarily  in  a 
state  of  nature. 

Cousin  John  looked  up  at  the  giant 
negro  with  interest.  He  was  not  unfa- 
miliar with  the  story  of  his  devotion;  and 
he  had  seen  him  once  before,  ten  \'ears 
ago,  when  he  and  Sally,  unin\ite(l  and 
unwelcome,  had  ventured  to  come  to  the 
place,  because  Hercules  had  got  Kay  Mar- 
tin to  write  and  say  that  the  major  was 
not  well. 

When  they  had  come  then,  Cousin  Sall\''s 
cool  hand  on  the  old  soldier's  scarred  lore- 


12 


Majc:  A   Love  Story 


head  had  brought  hack  the  past  all  too 
vivid! V.     He  could  not  stand  it. 

"I  haven't  pot  any  place  to  keep  you," 
he  had  said,  removinij:  her  hand  from  his 
hot  brow  with  a  touch  of  his  own.  ''I 
should  be  plad  to  see  you  and  John,  if  I 
were  well,  and  you  could  be  comfortable. 
But  you  can't  be.  I  have  no  room  for  you 
to  spend  the  night.  Has  your  carriage 
gone  back?  I  didn't  know  that  you  were 
coming.  The  company-apartment  has  not 
been  aired." 

It  was  so  evident  to  the  visitors  then 
that  their  visit  irritated  and  vexed  him 
that  tliey  assured  him  that  they  had  only 
come  for  half  an  hour;  and  when  the 
time  had  elapsed,  they  drove  away  again. 
Now  things  were  different;  and,  though 
his  stay  was  to  be  equally  as  brief,  John 
was  tremendously  welcome. 

**  How  is  he,  Hercules?  "  queried  Cousin 
John.  '*  What  made  him  run  up  the  steps 
and  into  the  house?  What  did  he  say?" 
"He's  all  right,  sir.  He  say  he  jes 
gone  after  his  clo'es.  He's  a-lookin'  for- 
rud  ter  goin'  wid  you  wid  considible 
pledjer,  sir.  He  ain't  visit  nobody  fur  a 
long  time, — not  sence  his  ma  died." 

The  boy  who  drove  the  team  wondered 
at  the  old  negro's  dignified  courtesy  and 
at  his  great  height. 

''Ef  I  might  make  so  bold,  sir,"  Her- 
cules continued  almost  breathlessly,  after 
he  had  asked  the  visitor  to  come  in  and 
the  invitation  had  been  declined  until  the 
major  should  return — ^'ef  I  might  make 
so  bold,  would  you  mind  me  goin'  wid 
you-all  ter  de  train?  I  tole  Faus'  I  war 
gwine  ter  ax  ye;  an'  she  say  I'm  a  fool, 
an'  what  I  want  ter  ride  ter  de  depot 
twenty-five  miles,  jes  ter  walk  back 
ag'in?  I  tole  her,  I'll  walk  back.  Duz  ye 
know  how-come  I  w^ant  ter  go?  " 

The  black  man's  voice  had  subsided 
to  a  whisper.  He  stooped  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  carryall  as  he  spoke.  He 
seemed  to  be  afraid  that  Maje  would  re- 
turn before  he  could  tell  why  he  was  so 
anxious  to  go  to  the  depot. 

"No,  I  do  not,"  answered  Cousin 
John,  smiling.     ''I  have  no  idea." 

"He  ain't  seed  no  train  fur  thirty-odd 
year,  Maje  ain't.  He  ain't  nuver  seed 
no  train  like  de  one  he  gwine  git  on — dat 
Lightnin'  Express.  I  jes  want  to  see 
Maje  when  he  gits  in  dat  'ar  kyar." 


"But  it  will  be  at  night,"  protested 
John. 

"Dat'U  make  it  all  de  mo'  turrible  fur 
him,"  responded  Hercules  with  the  tone 
and  air  of  one  telling  the  story  of  Blue- 
beard to  a  little  child. 

"And  you'll  have  to  walk  home  in  the 
night." 

"De  moon's  shinin',"  said  the  black 
man.  "Hit'U  be  about  perched  up  yon- 
der on  de  limb  o'  de  big  pine,  when  I  gits 
home  in  de  mornin'.     I  know  dat  moon." 

The  steam  poured  from  the  nostrils  of 
the  mules  upon  the  cold  February  air; 
and  Cousin  John  buttoned  his  fashionable 
beaver  overcoat  more  closely  about  him, 
and  thrust  his  gloved  hands  deeper  into 
his  pockets  as  he  surveyed  the  house. 

Hercules  resented  the  critical  con- 
templation by  the  stranger  of  the  ob- 
trusive squalor  and  desolation  of  the  old 
mansion. 

"Maje,  he  been  talkin'  'bout  gittin' 
somebody  ur  'nuther  from  de  cote-'ouse  ter 
come  down  here  an'  paint  it,"  he  said  dep- 
recatingly.  "Hit  do  need  paint,  some. 
But  I  been  discouragin'  him  ag'in  it,  on- 
twell  de  summer-time  come." 

"You  ought  to  cut  these  pine  bushes 
ofif  the  lawn,  and  dig  up  this  broom- 
sedge,"  said  Cousin  John. 

He  could  see  that  Hercules  was  an- 
noyed. The  presence  of  the  pines  and 
the  broom-sedge  had  been  a  secondary 
matter  to  the  black  man  in  his  struggle 
for  the  household's  daily  bread. 

"Maje  say  he  gwi'  have  dat  done,  too, 
when  he  paint  de  house.  Dat'll  be  time 
enough." 

His  brow  grew  wrinkled  and  he  rolled 
the  whites  of  his  eyes  in  such  an  alarming 
fashion  that  Cousin  John  thought  he  was 
going  to  have  a  fit. 

Hercules  was  wondering  how  he  could 
get  away  without  seeming  to  be  impolite. 

"  I  gwi'  git  him ! "  he  said  at  length,  and 
turned  to  ascend  the  creaking  steps.  But 
before  he  reached  the  top  he  halted. 

Maje  stood  in  the  doorway  clad  in  the 
old  uniform.  There  were  tw^o  rusty  gilt 
stars  on  either  side  of  the  collar  of  the 
long- tailed  gray  frock  coat,  which  w^as 
buttoned  to  his  chin  over  his  hickory 
shirt;  and  on  each  sleeve  w^ere  frayed 
bands  of  gilt,  and  gilt  "  worms,"  that  were 


Maje:  A   Love  Story 


13 


corroded  to  the  color  of  rust.  A  double 
row  of  brass  buttons  ran  up  the  front  of 
the  coat.  The  pale  blue  trousers  had  a 
stripe  of  rusted  gilt  cord  down  the  outer 
seam  of  each  leg;  and  on  Maje's  head  was 
a  battered  and  mildewed  black  felt  hat, 
the  brim  of  which  was  pinned  up  on  one 
side,  and  bore  the  broken  remnant  of 
what  had  once  been  an  ostrich  plume. 

"  For  Gord's  sake! "  exclaimed  Hercules 
at  the  apparition,  and  hastened  toward  it. 
*'Ef  he  ain't  done  an'  gone  an'  put  on  his 
sword,  too!" 

Maje  stood  erect,  at  attention,  with 
kindling  eyes,  and  grasping  with  his  left 
hand  the  hilt  of  the  long  unused  weapon. 
His  scholar's  stoop  was  gone.  It  seemed 
as  if  time  had  lifted  three  decades  from 
his  thin  shoulders. 

The  big  negro  squatted  down  in  front 
of  the  small  military  figure,  until  his  white 
head  was  on  a  level  with  the  broken  plume. 

''Now,  Maje,"  he  murmured  in  a  tone 
of  pleading,  ''don'tche  do  dat,  honey, 
don'tche  do  it!  You  ain't  gwine  ter  no 
Bloody  Wrangle  now,  dearie.  Jes  lef '  de 
sword  here  wid  Fans',  Maje.  She  gwi' 
keep  it  fur  ye  'twell  you  come  back.  Jes 
lef  it  wid  her,  honey!" 

As  he  spoke,  he  gently  unbuckled  the 
belt;  and  taking  the  weapon  in  both 
hands,  he  carried  it  into  the  house. 

Ten  minutes  later  Hercules  came  out 
with  a  pair  of  leather  saddle-bags  swung 
over  his  shoulders;  and  the  mules  began 
their  slow  and  tortuous  way  back  through 
the  pines,  toward  the  old  road  where  the 
barn  once  stood.  The  driver  and  the  big 
black  man  sat  in  front;  and  on  the  seat 
behind  them  were  Cousin  John  and  the 
major,  both  very  erect. 

The  broken  plume  in  Maje's  hat  danced 
in  the  chill  February  air. 

Kay  Martin's  saw  them  go  by. 

The  star-route  carrier  had  just  thrown 
his  slim  mail-bag  on  the  stoop  of  the  little 
crossroads  store.  The  mail  to  and  from 
Kay's  was  scant  and  irregular.  There 
were  seven  or  eight  men  and  boys  from 
the  sparsely  settled  neighborhood  who 
were  accustomed  to  gather  at  the  i)ost- 
office  twice  a  week  on  the  pretence  of 
getting  the  mail.  Their  real  object  was 
to  loaf  and  hear  the  news. 

As  Kay  stei)ped  out  on  the  porch  to 


pick  up  the  bag,  the  carryall  went  by, 
with  the  mules  at  a  swinging  trot. 

''  War's  bruk  out  ag'in,  an'  the  maje  an' 
Here'  air  on  thar  way  back  ter  the 
Bloody  Angle,"  said  ''Coon"  Rogers, 
peering  over  Kay  Martin's  shoulder,  as 
he  arose  with  the  mail-bag  in  his  hand. 
"Fus'  time  I've  seed  him  since  Appo- 
mattox." 

"Is  that  him?"  queried  the  others  with 
one  acclaim,  pressing  forward  to  get  a 
view  of  the  passing  show. 

"Does  he  always  go  that  way?"  one 
of  them  asked. 

Maje  was  unknown  by  sight  to  these, 
his  nearest  neighbors,  the  haunters  of 
Kay  Martin's  grocery.  "Coon"  Rogers 
and  Kay  himself,  alone  of  all  the  gather- 
ing, had  ever  beheld  him.  They  were  of 
his  generation,  and  had  been  of  his  regi- 
ment in  the  blurred  and  misty  past. 

"That's  surely  him,"  said  Kay  ]\Iar- 
tin,  "and  old  Here'.  I  don't  know  the 
t'others.  I  saw  'em  go  by  a  pair  o' 
hours  ago,  and  took  'em  for  drummers. 

"First  time  I've  saw  the  old  man  fur 
five  year,"  said  Mr.  Martin.  "Then  he 
was  out  in  the  fields  when  I  went  to  the 
old  place." 

"He  needs  a  shave  an'  a  hair-cut,"  re- 
marked one  of  the  younger  loafers  irrev- 
erently. 

"Don't  ye  say  anything  ag'in  him," 
said  Kay  Martin,  turning  on  the  speaker 
and  making  a  hostile  demonstration  with 
the  mail-bag. 

The  black  hat  and  the  gray  uniform 
vanished  down  the  road. 

"He  ain't  no  bigger'n  a  pound  o'  soap; 
but,  by  whillikins,  thar  warn't  no  gamer 
fightin'  man  in  the  whole  army  than  he 
was.    Ain't  that  so,  Coon?" 

"Coon"  assented. 

"Ef  he  wants  ter  live  ter  himself,  and 
sell  his  plantation  by  the  acre,  and  act 
foolish,  by  whillikins,  he's  got  a  right  to. 
It's  his'n.  And  that  hole  he's  got  in  his 
head  gives  him  leave,  too.  Don't  it. 
Coon?" 

Again  "Coon"  assented. 

"I  seen  him  when  he  got  it,"  said 
"Coon"  Rogers,  reminiscently.  ''Her- 
cules was  thar  with  him  jes'  like  he's  been 
ever  since.  I  seen  the  black  man  tote 
him  out  when  he  was  hurt." 

"Maje  has  been  openin'  up  a  corrc- 


14 


Majc:  A   Love  Story 


sixnulcncc/'  observal  Kay  Martin  lo 
Mr.  Rogers,  as  he  flung  the  mail-bag  on 
the  counter  and  proceeded  to  tit  a  key 
from  his  jxH-ket  into  I  lie  brass  lock.  He 
seemed  oblivious  of  the  gaping  interest  of 
the  crowd. 

"  He  has?  Vou  don't  say ! "  responded 
"Coon"  with  emphasis.  "Well,  well,  I 
do  declare!" 

"He's  written  one  letter  to  a  lady,  and 
he's  got  one  letter  in  a  lady's  handwrite, 
from  the  same  post-office.  He's  also  been 
writing  to  his  cousin  John.  But  I  don't 
think  that  counts." 

"Looks  like  he's  a-breakin'  his  spell," 
commented  "Coon"  Rogers. 

"I'll  tind  out  all  about  it  the  next  time 
Hercules  comes  here,"  said  the  postmaster. 
"Well,  I'm  plum'  glad  to  hear  it,"  said 
"Coon"  Rogers.  "Thar  ain't  no  better 
man  in  the  worl'  than  him.  An'  he's  a 
scholard,  too;  an'  that's  what  you  don't 
come  acrost  ofting  these  days,  'spite  o'  all 
the  free-schools.  W'hy,  Kay,  they  tell  me 
that  man  knowed  all  o'  them  books  thar  in 
the  Hberr)'  befo'  he  went  into  the  war;  an' 
that  while  he's  been  a-sellin'  off  the  Ian', 
an'  a-sellin'  off  the  Ian',  till  it's  most 
gone,  he  ain't  never  sold  any  book  yet." 
"He  jes  reads  'em  an'  reads  'em," said 
Kay  Martin,  holding  a  newly  arrived 
post-card  to  the  fading  light  of  the  little 
window,  in  order  that  he  might  the  bet- 
ter decipher  its  message.  "But  he  don't 
take  any  newspaper.  Here'  says  he 
don't  want  to  know^  nothing  about  what's 
goin'  on.  All  he  wants  to  know  is  what's 
done  gone  on." 

"I've  heerd  tell,"  responded  Mr.  Rog- 
ers, "that  his  cousin  John  has  offered 
him  money,  an'  a  home  an'  whatever  he 
wants.  He  won't  leave  the  place,  an'  he 
won't  accept  favors  from  nobody.  He'd 
starve  fust." 

"But  don't  he  take  all  he  can  get  from 
the  black  man?"  asked  the  irreverent 
youth,  who  had  suggested  the  shave  and 
the  hair-cut. 

"Looky  here!"  said  Kay  Martin,  glar- 
ing at  him  fiercely.  "Don't  you  know 
that's  a  different  thing?" 

He  deigned  no  further  explanation  to 
his  interlocutor;  but,  turning  again  to 
Mr.  Rogers,  said: 

"  Maje  ain't  never  got  it  out  of  his  head 
yet  that  Hercules  belongs  to  him  now, 


just  as  he  did  when  his  pa  gave  him  to 
him." 

"He  has  sho'ly  stood  by  the  maje," 
commented  Mr.  Rogers. 

"Yes,"  responded  Kay,  as  he  sorted  a 
slim  package  of  newspapers,  sticking  them 
in  their  respective  pigeon-holes  above  the 
counter.  "Yes.  But  Maje  knows.  That 
old  nigger  told  me  the  last  time  he  was 
here  that  the  major,  long  time  ago,  before 
he  had  sold  off  so  much  of  the  land,  had 
wrote  his  will,  and  left  the  place  to  Her- 
cules and  Faustina.  Here'  said  he  had 
seen  the  paper,  an'  that  Maje  had  read  it 
to  him  in  his  ow^n  handwrite." 

"Yes,  but  that  will — it  ain't  never  cut 
no  figger  to  Hercules,"  responded  "  Coon  " 
Rogers  contemptuously.  ' '  Them  thar  two 
have  loved  one  another  since  the  night 
they  vv'ere  born.  Here'  ain't  toted  Maje 
all  this  time,  along  of  no  will!" 

Which  was,  as  Hercules  would  have  ex- 
pressed it,  "the  Cord's  truth." 

It  was  ten  o'clock  at  night  when  the 
mules  and  the  carryall  reached  the  sta- 
tion, and  the  driver  and  passengers 
alighted. 

The  moon  had  not  yet  risen;  and  the 
light  from  the  window  of  the  little  rail- 
road depot,  where  the  agent  sat  in  his 
shirt-sleeves  manipulating  the  telegraph 
key,  seemed  to  Maje  and  Hercules  to  be 
burning  a  hole  in  the  darkness.  They 
paused  side  by  side  on  the  platform  out- 
side the  room  and  peered  in,  while  John 
paid  the  boy  and  dismissed  him  and  the 
team  to  their  home  a  mile  farther  up  the 
road. 

When  John  got  back  to  where  he  had 
left  the  two  old  men  on  the  station  plat- 
form, he  heard  Hercules  admonishing  the 
major  in  a  low  and  confidential  voice. 

"You  ain't  been  nowhar  fur  so  long,  I 
can't  he'p  bein'  sort  o'  anxious  'bout 
you,"  he  said.  "I  wish  dey  had  axed  me 
ter  go  wid  you.  Dey  oughter  done  it. 
But  dey  didn't.  How  is  a  white  gent'- 
mun  gwi'  git  along  widout  no  body-serv- 
ant? You  jes  boun'  ter  have  one.  But 
dey  nuver  axed  me;  an'  we-all  ain't  got 
no  ready  money,  an'  too  proud  ter  beg." 

"I  don't  need  you.  I'll  do  all  right," 
responded  the  major  somewhat  testily. 

"Now,  lemme  tell  you  sump'n,  Maje," 
protested  Hercules,   while  Cousin  John 


Maje:  A  Love  Story 


15 


stood  back  in  the  shadow.  "You  dunno 
what  you  talkin'  'bout.  You  duz  need 
me;  an'  w^hat's  mo',  you  needs  me  all  de 
time.  Dat's  de  reason  how-come  I  come 
here  wid  you  dis  night.  Duz  you  reck'n 
I  wants  ter  walk  home  twenty-five  miles 
fur  fun?     'Ca'se  I  don't. 

''I  tole  him  I  wanted  ter  come  here  fur 
ter  see  you  git  aboard  de  kyars,  'ca'se  you 
ain't  nuver  seed  no  kyars  like  what  you's 
gwine  ter  see.  But  I  was  jes  foolin'  him. 
I  knows  dem  kyars  ain't  gwi'  faze  you. 
I  done  seed  you  in  de  midst  o'  fire  an' 
brimstone  'fo'  now.  Hell  ain't  got  nuthin' 
hotter.  Ef  dem  kyars  was  ter  come  along 
outen  de  firmyment,  'stid  o'  on  de  railroad 
track,  'twudden  set  you  back  none.  You 
ain't  'feard  o'  nothin',  Maje;  an'  you  nuver 
ain't  been.  What  I  come  along  ter  dis 
here  depo'  to-night  fur  is  to  take  keer  o' 
you,  an'  keep  you  out  o'  trouble.  I  warn't 
suspicionin'  de  train  would  skeer  you,  nur 
nothin'  like  dat.  I  was  suspicionin'  you 
was  gwine  ter  git  on  de  track  onbeknownst, 
an'  git  runned  over,  ur  sump'n'." 

"Hercules,  you  black  rascal,  I'm  no 
baby!"  said  the  little  man  in  the  uni- 
form indignantly. 

"I  knows  ye  ain't,  Maje;  but,  Maje, 
honey,  when  you  git  dar,  you  jes  stick 
close  ter  him,  an'  don't  you  walk  in  de 
middle  o'  no  street." 

John  went  to  get  the  tickets. 

"How's  the  train?"  he  queried  of  the 
man  with  his  hand  on  the  instrument; 
while  the  sleepy  young  negro  sitting  on 
the  bench  in  the  little  waiting-room,  in 
front  of  the  red-hot  stove,  stared  at  the 
stranger  from  the  city. 

"On  time,"  was  the  laconic  response. 

"How  long  now?" 

"Five  minutes." 

John  moved  out  of  the  close,  hot  room 
into  the  coolness  of  the  winter  night. 

Hercules  was  still  admonishing  the  ma- 
jor, whose  interest  seemed  absorbed  in  the 
telegraph-instruments  and  the  wires  on 
the  table  inside. 

"Now,  Maje,  honey,  I  wants  you  ter 
promise  me  fur  ter  be  keerful.  I  don't 
want  nothin'  ter  happen  ter  you " 


Hercules  was  stooping  down  to  him,  in 
his  most  persuasive  attitude. 

Maje  saw  John  emerge  from  the  opened 
door  three  feet  away. 

"Shut  up,  you  confounded  idiot!"  he 
said  to  his  body-servant. 

"Railroad I"  yelled  the  sleepy-looking 
young  negro,  rushing  from  the  stove- 
heated  room  out  into  the  open  air. 

A  deep  roar,  increasing  in  volume  and 
strength,  smote  on  the  ears  of  the  com- 
pany. 

"Railroad I"  yelled  the  young  negro 
again. 

A  semaphore,  with  a  red  light  on  it, 
went  up  in  the  darkness  above  the  roof 
of  the  station;  and  Maje  thought  of  the 
lights  of  the  signal  corps  of  long  ago. 
Down  the  blackness  of  the  night  a  glitter 
and  shimmer  appeared,  and  ran  with  light- 
ning-like rapidity  along  the  iron  rails  un- 
til, with  a  reduplication  of  the  roar,  it 
illuminated  the  depot,  the  platform,  and 
the  surrounding  vicinity. 

A  great  mogul  engine  swept  by,  fol- 
lowed by  many  cars. 

"My  Gord!"  shouted  Hercules  above 
the  tremendous  din,  "she  done  gone  on 
an'lef'him!" 

The  train  stopped,  and  Hercules  saw 
Maje  mount  the  steps  of  the  long  green 
sleeping-car  nearest  them,  with  the  se- 
renity that  marked  his  customary  ascent 
of  the  stairway  in  the  hall  at  home. 

There  was  a  groaning  and  pufiing  and 
starting  of  confined  and  released  steam 
for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  a  creaking  and 
rattling  of  the  train  as  it  resumed  its 
journey. 

"  Good-by,  Maje  I  "  called  the  black  man 
to  the  rear  platform  of  the  last  coach ;  and 
he  rubbed  the  back  of  his  horny  hand 
across  his  eyes. 

Then  he  set  out  homeward  down  the 
road  by  the  light  of  the  newly  risen 
moon. 

"  I  b'longed  ter  him,"  he  communed  with 
himself,  "an'  I  always  is  gwine  ter  b'long 
ter  him — freedom,  nur  no  freedom  I" 

It  was  a  confession  of  the  self-denying 
servitude  of  love. 


(lo  be  concluded.) 


Vol.  LV.— 3 


TUN  ISIAX     DAYS 

BV   G.    E.   WOODBERRY 


W*.^  ~  mate  in  my  nist 

lan^—  _-  Tuniiw     It  was  a 
tine  sea-L»icture  framed  in 
November  dawn- 
over  the  ripi^ing 
.  . :_   ,     i  to  the  few  pink 
douds  eastward,  iay  the  great  Wue  moan- 

-:_-   ----  ^)el|JinL      In 

Go!ett2,  the 


rise,  there,  was  the  hill  of  C 


e  of  far  Tunis.     Car: 


West- 


01  ^ 

the 


-aallow  broad  lake  na^  . 
s  some  miles  ' 
.-  :ne  right  and  le- :  .    .: 
waters,  frei  in  the  raw.  c 
"r;    and  grade: 
^  ■  sreat  white  l      .:  .  _  :   .  . 
:::  uolands,  stranee.  solirarv. 


CA- "CVLCU. 


round  the  befl-timed  play,  and  to  the  Taude- 
\-ille  stage  with  gymnasts,  Fnoidi  acting, 
fat  Jewess  dancers,  and  a  worid  U^tly  cdl- 
joying  itsdf;  as  it  looked  from  railed  low 
boxes  on  the  spacioos  floor — man,  womai^ 
children,  with  tahks»  g;la.sses,  straws^  and 
bright-colofed  things  to  drink,  waiteiSyiniia- 
dans — always  a  pretnr  scene,  with  incidents, 
and  ridi  in  human  relations:  or  one  v-e- : 
nioregraTdTbjastairwaTtotfaepriya:^  :: 
baccarat  in  its  iq^per  seduskn  of  the  '  i::- 
ing-card.  ItwasajJeasantandpcditer  ::: 
—herever  one  mi^t  stnfl  abcxit,  ani  iz 
rvery  corridcM'  and  at  zH  b-irs  the  grini 
toikite  of  capitals,  nt:  —  :z — e  ez 

adventunas — c: 

ofTraiisseanei  _..;_:._.     _^ 

still  in  Christer: 

I  stiq^ied    :::     i 
nar,  on  a  br 
briDiant  cr :        _ 

with  drawn  scretais:  7        :     r 

-    ~^y  by,  f-  r:~'  "  -. 

from  tir  .  s 


:o  see  the  Frez 


IS  by  night. 

vc  <^  Ldl^-el- 

T^  ~  -dan,  the 

fdcsfcpt 


of  a  M< 


zam- 


n 


Bassex  enoogfa  was  my  first  acquaint- 
ance with  the  land-side,  weary,  cfaeeriess, 
desc^ate,  like  windy  prairies  in  autumn,  un- 
inhabited, miinhabitabie:  and  I  was  cfaiDed 
to  the  bone  wh^i  I  came  back  to  die  hotd, 
then  in  the  bud  oi  its  first  seascxi.  It  is 
mwe  sob»  now,  but  di^i  it  had  a  near  cous- 
inship  to  Moote  Cario;  it  was  ddightfuHy 
irrespcHisible,  vivacious^  gay.  One  passed 
to  the  picturesque  bar  and  die  cafe,  tiiiick 
with  interesting  groiqjs;  or  widi  equal  ease 
to  the '' Utde horses"  widi  their ever-dfesolv- 
ii!g  banks  of  faces,  a  covey  of  all  natioiis^ 
16 


tivity  It: 
of  aflTE: 
lined  wi: 
were  as 


everv 


1  sat  dov 
HaceHalfc 
qiaces  or  sc 
andsunoon 
ings.     It  w 


St  in  the 


Tuni 


isian 


Days 


17 


shadows,  the  foreground  brightened  by  ir- 
regulariy  placed  open  cafes  with  tables  out- 
side and  Ijenches  within,  all  completely  filled 
with  men,  drinking,  smoking,  playing  at 
simple  games,  quite  orderiy,  without  bois- 
terous noise  or  muscular  disorder,  or  joking 
— admirable  public  behavior.  It  charmed 
by  its  novelty — costumes  and  persons,  mass 
without  individuality — the  scene  of  a  new 
land.  What  folly  to  think  that  there  are  no 
more  worlds  to  discover !  The  scene  was  to 
me  as  if  no  one  had  ever  looked  on  it  before. 
I  observed  the  faces,  the  attitudes,  the  doings 
of  this  strange  people  as  if  I  had  just  landed 
from  another  world;  and  I  would  gladly 
have  stayed  longer,  but  with  the  early  clos- 
ing habits  of  Moslems,  the  square  began  to 
thin,  and  I  wxnt  with  the  rest  through  the 
fast  emptying  street  with  a  glad  feeling  that 
in  a  world,  now  grown  altogether  too  small 
and  neighborly,  I  had  happened  upon  one 
last  true  relic  of  the  "far  away." 

It  was  four  days  later,  however,  that  the 
true  holiday  came,  the  feast  of  rejoicing 
after  Ramadan  is  over — Little  Bairam.  It  is 
celebrated  at  Tunis  with  special  zeal.  The 
morning  streets  were  overflowing  with  men 
and  children  in  their  best  apparel;  but  the 
latter,  in  particular,  beautifully  attired. 
Such  gold  jackets,  such  tiny  burnooses,  such 
scarlet  and  crimson,  turquoise  and  emerald 
— and  pinks!  Such  chubby  fat  faces  in 
their  barbaric  borders  of  clothes — or  deli- 
cate refined  features,  stamped  with  race,  set 
off  by  their  greens  and  blues!  Such  vivac- 
ity, too;  pure  childish  fun  and  pleasure  in 
a  national  holiday!  There  were  strings  of 
open  carts  of  the  rudest  construction — like 
tip-carts  for  gravel — completely  filled  with 
these  children  heaped  up  like  nosegays, 
their  brilliancy  of  color  set  off  by  the  rude- 
ness of  the  common  cart.  This  seemed  one 
of  their  principal  pleasures — taking  a  ride. 
But  there  were  others.  In  a  packed  cross- 
street  I  was  addressed  by  two  gallant  lads 
of  perhaps  fifteen,  who  were  selling  tickets 
at  an  entrance;  with  faces  and  figures  full 
of  hospitable  welcome  to  the  stranger  they 
invited  me  in,  and  I  went.  Inside  was  a 
small  barn-like  theatre,  with  a  curtain,  a 
stage  and  an  audience;  and  there  I  saw 
"the  shadows,"  pictures  thrown  upon  a 
screen,  and  the  histrionic  art  was  thus  prac- 
tised with  lifelike  effect.  I  had  read  of 
"the  shadows,"  but  I  never  expected  to 
see  them.     I  came  out  after  a  while,  and 


the  boys  saluted  me  with  very  cheerful  and 
animated  smiles  as  I  passed  them.  I  spied 
another  show,  a  little  further  on;  and  this, 
undaunted  by  my  former  experience,  I  also 
entered.  It  was  the  puppets — also  a  trav- 
eller's treasure-trove — the  French  gendarme 
was  the  universal  and  unpitied  victim,  and 
the  plots  were  realistic  incidents  from  things 
as  they  are.  The  audience  was  almost 
wholly  of  children,  from  six  or  less  to  twelve 
or  more,  many  of  them  with  nurses  or  at- 
tendants; they  took  an  active  and  even  ex- 
cited interest,  and  did  the  necessary  reckon- 
ings and  sums  which  the  transactions  on  the 
stage  called  for,  and  shouted  out  the  answers 
as  at  a  school  exhibition,  it  might  be,  though 
the  transactions  in  cjuestion  were  not  of  a 
sort  ever  shown  at  an  American  school,  and 
would  have  evoked  much  remonstrance; 
but  the  children  were  very  happy  through  it 
all,  thoroughly  enjoyed  it,  in  fact.  I  went 
behind  the  curtain  and  saw  the  puppets  en- 
gineered; and  I  left  the  little  theatre-goers 
with  fresh  ideas  of  juvenile  amusements. 

So  all  the  morning  I  passed  among  the 
gayly  decked  crowd,  with  one  and  another 
small  adventure,  always  handsomely  treat- 
ed, aided,  saluted.  A  people  of  kind  and 
gentle  manners,  old  and  young;  and  I  am 
glad  that  I  first  saw  them  so  fortunately  in 
their  days  of  pleasantr}'  and  taking  pride 
in  their  own.  The  experience  threw  an  at- 
mosphere of  cheerfulness  over  the  land  and 
the  people,  and  softened  many  a  darker 
scene  of  their  common  days,  of  their  penury 
and  hardship — their  load  of  life.  I  could 
always  think,  even  when  all  was  at  its  worst, 
that  they  still  "had  seasons  that  only  bade 
live  and  rejoice,"  when  many  went  bravely 
clad  and  fed  full,  and  the  whole  city  was 
vivid  with  a  spirit  of  general  joy.  The  fixed 
expression  of  the  crowd  was  one  of  resigned 
patience  under  habitual  control ;  tiic  gayety, 
the  ha])piness,  the  holiday  were  relieved 
on  a  grave  background — a  temperament,  a 
character,  an  essential  living,  unknown  to 
me,  something  secret,  profound.  It  was  my 
first  true  contact  with  Islam.  One  way,  at 
least,  by  which  a  religion  may  properly  be 
measured  is  by  its  etlkient  power  on  thosr 
who  profess  it;  certainly  the  Moslem  failli 
is  very  effective  on  its  believers;  the  sincer 
ity  of  that  faith  is  the  first  thing  one  learns 
about  it  in  practical  observation.  How  often 
since  then  have  I  gathered  with  them  at  this 
and  otherfetes,  and  seen  the  carpeted  streets, 


IS 


Tunisian   Days 


\  walls,  ihcst^lcmn  processions, 
'  •0.  llu*  line  horses,  the  men 
:  the  l»arl)aric  display— illu- 
nuiiaiions.  tia-works.  parailes:  hut  I  have 
never  Inrcn  so  struck,  as  in  these  Iirst  Tu- 
nisian ila\-s.  with  the  spirit  of  gentle  happi- 
ne-^  that  made  my  earliest  impression  of 
ihc  race  as  I  met  it  on  the  shore  of  the  sea. 


I! 


RWGING  ihroui^h  the  country  by  rail,  I 
found  one  of  the  oldest  lands  of  earth  wear- 
i-      '  ,  familiar  to  my  eyes  years  ago, 

V  \         .  an  West.    It  seemed,  at  times, 

like  a  hallucination  of  memor}'  with  odd 
dilTerences.  such  as  one  might  have  in  a 
dream.  Now  and  then  one  came  to  a  larger 
and  well-gardened  station,  some  watering- 
place  of  the  richer  citizens  in  summer;  or  to 
a  thriving  seaport;  but,  in  general, the  stops 
were  at  way  stations,  as  in  all  thinly  popu- 
lated districts — a  simple  crossing  of  the  long 
gray  roads,  with  a  few  buildings  for  the  busi- 
ness of  the  line,  vast  spaces  round  about, 
possibly  slightly  improved,  with  fields  or 
orchards  or  little  groves,  a  crowd  of  loafers 
hanging  on  the  gates  or  fence  of  the  enclo- 
sure to  whom  the  arrival  of  the  train  was  the 
day's  event,  a  farm-wagon  of  modern  make, 
with  horses,  awaiting  some  expected  passen- 
ger and  driving  off  to  some  home  lost  in  the 
expanse:  in  a  word,  the  impression  was  of 
colonial  things,  of  the  opening-up  of  a  coun- 
try, of  reclaiming  the  soil.  What  one  really 
saw  ever}'where  was  a  frontier. 

In  the  newspapers  there  was  the  same 
absorbing  theme  —  colonization ;  the  local 
news,  the  daily  happenings,  were  character- 
istic of  an  agricultural,  industrial,  com- 
mercial life  of  the  nature  of  an  invasion  of 
the  waste.  Here  large  depots  for  machin- 
ery  were  rising;  there  men  of  broad  enter- 
prise, or  s}-ndicate  companies  had  planted 
olives,  or  corn,  or  vines,  on  a  vast  scale  over 
miles  of  territory;  further  on,  a  new  line 
was  making  accessible  the  phosphate  wealth 
of  Gafsa.  Modern  civilization,  mechanism, 
communication,  organized  exploitation, 
penetrating  a  new  countr}^,  were  what  one 
felt,  as  if  that  region  were  truly  new  like  a 
savage  land.  Yet  how  many  times  civili- 
zation, in  one  or  another  form,  has  rolled 
oyer  it !  In  reality,  it  is  one  of  the  most  an- 
cient beds  of  the  human  torrent,  bare  and 
forsaken  as  it  looks  now.     And  now  it  is 


again  a  new  frontier — the  place  of  the  in- 
vasion of  a  new  era  by  a  new  race  with 
new  designs. 

This  impression,  nevertheless,  is  mainly  a 
thing  of  the  mind,  of  recollection  and  obser- 
vation ;  to  the  eye  it  is  not  so  noticeable,  such 
is  the  extent  of  the  natural  spaces,  the  con- 
tour and  atmosphere  of  things  held  in  these 
far  horizons,  the  new  temperament  of  that 
landscape,  and  so  characteristically  native 
still  is  the  aspect  of  indigenous  human  life 
not  yet  displaced.  The  earth  has  the  look  of 
the  wild.  A\'hatever  may  have  formerly  been 
its  culture  and  occupancy,  all  had  lapsed 
back  to  the  primitive;  a  land  of  plains — 
melancholy  tracts  under  a  gray  sky  or  vast 
empty  spaces  under  a  brilliant  sun — edged  in 
far  distance  by  lone  mountains,  caressed  on 
broken  shores  by  a  barren  sea;  full  of  soli- 
tude, sadness.  Here  and  there  some  great 
ruin  stood,  not  unlike  Stonehenge  on  Salis- 
bury plain,  or  even  cities  of  ruins;  the  land  is 
strewn  with  them — temples,  courts,  baths, 
cisterns,  floors,  columns,  reliefs,  arches  of  tri- 
umph, theatres;  but  they  seldom  count  to 
the  eye.  Antiquity,  like  the  frontier,  is  also  a 
thing  of  the  mind,  in  the  main ;  the  past  and 
the  future  are  both  matter  of  reflection,  in 
the  background  of  memory  and  knowledge 
it  may  be,  but  not  noticeable  in  the  general 
landscape.  It  is  a  place  where  human  fate 
seems  transitory,  an  insignificant  detail,  as 
on  the  sea — or  like  animal  life  in  nature,  in- 
different. 


IV 


Once  on  such  an  excursion  on  the  eastern 
seacoast,  the  Tunisian  Sahel,  I  left  Sousse  be- 
hind in  the  noon  glare,  a  busy,  thriving,  pleas- 
ant place,  swarming  with  Arab  life  in  its  well- 
worn  ancestral  ways  and  with  French  enter- 
prise in  its  pioneering  glow.  The  old  Saracen 
wall  lay  behind  me  towered  and  gated,  a  true 
mediaeval  girdle  of  defence,  and  I  gazed  back 
on  the  white  city  impearling  its  high  hillside 
in  the  right  Moslem  way,  and  then  settled 
myself  to  the  long  ride  southward  as  I  passed 
through  cemeteries,  criss-crossed  with  Bar- 
bary  fig,  and  by  gardens  adjoining  the  sea, 
and  struck  out  into  the  plain,  spotted  with 
salty  tracts  and  little  cultivated.  It  is  thus 
that  a  ride  on  this  soil  is  apt  to  begin — with 
a  cemetery;  it  is  often  the  master-note  that 
gives  the  mood  to  a  subsequent  landscape,  a 
mood  of  sadness  that  is  felt  to  be  sterile  also, 


Tuni 


sian 


Days 


19 


impregnated  with  fatalism.  A  Moslem  bury- 
ing-ground  may  be,  at  rare  places,  a  garden 
of  repose;  a  forsaken  garden  it  is  usually, 
even  when  most  dignified  and  beautiful  with 
its  turbaned  pillars  in  the  thick,  cvpresses; 
but  it  is  always  a  complete  expression  of 
death.  The  cemetery  lies  outside  at  the 
most  used  entrance  of  a  town;  and,  as  a  rule, 
in  the  country  it  is  of  a  melancholy  indescri- 
Ijable — it  lies  there  in  so  naked  a  fashion, 
a  hopeless  and  huddled  stretch  of  withered 
earth  in  swells  and  hummocks,  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable from  common  dirt  and  debris 
— the  eternal  potter's  field.  It  is  a  fixed  fea- 
ture in  the  Tunisian  landscape,  which  is  made 
of  simple  elements,  whose  continuous  repeti- 
tion gives  its  monotony  to  the  land.  A  ride 
only  rearranges  these  elements  under  new 
lights  and  in  new  horizons. 

Here  the  great  plain  was  the  common  back- 
ground; my  course  to  Sfaxlay  overit,  broken 
at  first  by  a  blossoming  of  gardens  round  a 
town  or  village,  and  twice  I  came  out  on  the 
sea;  but  always  the  course  was  over  a  plain 
with  elemental  mark  and  quality — with  an 
omnipresence  as  of  the  sea  on  a  voyage.  The 
line  between  man's  domain  and  nature  is  as 
sharply  drawn  on  this  plain  as  on  a  beach; 
where  man  has  not  labored  the  scene  stretches 
out  with  nature  in  full  possession,  as  on  the 
ocean;  his  haljitations  and  territory  are  is- 
lands. Everything  is  seen  relieved  on  great 
spaces,  individualized,  isolated;  fields  of 
grain,  green  and  moving  under  a  strong  land 
wind;  or  olive  groves — silvery  gleams — on 
the  hillsides,  clumps  of  trees,  or  long  lines  of 
them,  whole  hillsides,  it  may  be;  or  there 
are  gardens,  closed,  secluded,  thickly  planted 
with  pear  or  peach  or  fig  or  other  fruit, 
with  vegetables,  perhaps,  beneath  and  palms 
above.  The  figure  scenes,  too,  are  of  the 
same  recurring  simplicity, — a  man  leading  a 
spirited  horse  in  the  street,  a  camel  meagre 
and  solemn  and  solitary  silhouetting  the  sky 
anywhere  within  a  range  of  miles,  boys  in 
couples  herding  sheep  in  the  middle  distances. 
The  town  or  village  emerging  at  long  inter- 
vals is  a  monochord — a  point  of  dazzling 
white  far  off,  dissolving  on  approach  into  low 
houses,  a  confused  mass  of  uneven  roofs 
skirting  the  ground  except  where  the  min- 
aret and  the  palm  rise  and  unite  it  to  heaven 
— to  the  fire-veined  evening  sky,  deep  and 
tran(|uil,  or  the  intense  blue  noon,  or  the  pink 
morninggloryof  the  spiritualized  scene  of  the 
dawn.     The  streets  are  silent;  l)y  the  Moor- 


ish cafe  lie  or  sit  or  crouch  motionless  figures, 
sometimes  utterly  dull,  like  logs  on  the  earth, 
or  else  holding  pipes  or  gazing  at  checkers,  or 
vacant — always  somnolent,  statuescjue,  sed- 
entary. There  are  no  windows,  no  neigh- 
borhood atmosphere — only  a  stagnant  ex- 
terior. The  feeling  of  a  retreat,  of  repose,  of 
being  far  away  is  always  there.  These  towns 
have  a  curious  mixture  of  the  eternal  and  the 
ruined,  in  their  first  aspect;  as  of  things  left 
by  the  tide,  derelicts  of  life,  all.  A  ride  in 
the  Sahel  is  a  slow  kaleidoscopic  combination 
of  these  things,  a  reiteration  without  new 
meaning, — the  town,  the  cemeter}',  the  grove, 
the  garden,  the  plain,  the  fields,  camel  and 
sheep,  and  herdboys, — horizons,  somnolence, 
tranfjuillity.  What  a  ride!  and  then  to  come 
out  on  the  sea  at  Monastir  and  ^lahdia, — 
such  a  homeless  sea!  There  may  be  lx)ats 
with  bending  sails,  the  fisher's  life,  suggesting 
those  strange  outlying  islands  they  touch  at, 
exile-islands  from  long  ago,  where  Marius 
found  hiding,  and  where  the  Roman  women 
of  pleasure  of  the  grand  world  were  sent  to 
live  and  die,  out  of  the  world — still  the  home 
of  a  race,  blending  every  strain  of  ancient 
blood.  Mahdia,  once  an  Aral)  capital  and 
long  a  seat  of  power  in  different  ages,  is  a 
famous  battle-name  in  Mahometan  and  cru- 
sading and  corsair  annals;  it  stood  many  a 
great  siege  on  its  rocky  peninsula,  in  Xorman 
and  other  soldiering  hands,  however  lifeless 
it  may  seem  now;  Init  as  one  looks  on  its  di- 
minutive harbor,  a  basin  hewn  in  the  rock,  it 
seems  now  to  speak  rather  of  the  enmity  of 
the  sea  and  the  terror  of  tempest  on  this  dan- 
gerous coast — shallow  waters  and  inhospi- 
table shores.  History,  human  courage,  was 
but  a  wave  that  broke  over  it,  and  is  gone 
like  the  others,  a  momentary  foam;  but  the 
sea  is  always  tlie  sea.  I'.verywhere one  must 
grow  familiar  with  the  neighboring  coast-line 
before  the  sea  will  lay  off  that  look  of  enmilv 
it  wears  to  all  at  the  first  gaze;  it  is  foreign 
always  by  nature.  To  descend  here  at 
Mahdia,  and  to  walk  by  its  waves,  to  hear 
its  roll,  to  look  off  to  its  gulfs  and  hill-tops 
afar,  however  brilliant  may  be  the  scene,  is 
to  invite  the  deej)est  melancholy  that  the 
waste  sea  holds — so  meaningless  that  world 
lies  in  its  monotony  all  about.  1  remem- 
bered the  Moorish  prince  wht)  her<,\  after 
his  long  victories,  stood  rellecting  on  the 
men  who  were  great  before  him,  and  how 
their  glory  was  gone.  It  is  a  more  desolate 
port  now.     One  gladly  turns  to  the  land 


20 


Tunisian   Days 


—ami  there  meets  the  plain,  equally  vaguely 
hostile. 

.S)  1  nxle  on  by  the  unceasing  stretch  of 
ihc  way,  through  town  and  by  garden  and 
ga>ve.  into  the  ever-enveloping  plain  that 
openetl  U-fore.     It  was  like  i)Utting  lo  sea  at 
e\*cr>'  fresh  start;  and  late  in  the  afternoon, 
on  the  last  far  crest  of  the  roliini:  plain.  I  saw 
the  ga»at  ruin,  F.l  Djcm,  that  rose  witii  im- 
mense commanding  power  and  seemed  to 
dominate  a  worKI  of  its  own  sterile  territory. 
It  is  a  great  ruin. — a  colosseum:  arches  still  in 
heaven,  and  piled  and  fallen  rocks  of  the  old 
colossal  cinjue;   it  still  keeps  its  massive  and 
uplifte*!  majesty,  its  Roman  character  of  the 
eternal  city  cast  down  in  the  waste,  its  monu- 
mental splendor, — a  hoar  and  solemn  token 
of  the  time  when  there  were  inhabitants  in 
this  desolation  to  till  the  vast  theatre  on  days 
of  festival,  and  the  line  of  its  subject  high- 
way stretched  unbroken  to  Tunis  and  south- 
ward,a  proutl,  unending  urban  way  of  villas, 
a  road  of  gardens,  where  now  only  stagnates 
the  salty  plain,  sterile,  lifeless.     The  hamlet 
lx?sivle  it  is  hardly  perceptible,  like  a  mole- 
hill, a  mere  trace  of  human  life.     I  sat  out 
the  sunset :  and  after,  under  a  cold  starry  sky, 
Orion  resplendent  in  the  west  and  the  eve- 
ning star  a  glor}-,  I  set  off  again  by  the  long 
road  through  the  sparkling  April  darkness 
and  a  wind  that  grew  winter-cold  with  night, 
southward  still — the  vast  heavens  broken 
forth  with  innumerable  starr}^  lights  —  till 
after  some  hours  of  speeding  on  a  route  that 
was  without  a  living  soul,  I  came  again  on 
belated  groups  of  walking  Bedouins  and  fra- 
grant miles  of  gardens  dark  by  the  roadway 
and  many  a  thick  olive  grove,  and  drew  up 
at  Sfax. 


V 


Sfax  is  the  southern  capital  of  Tunisia. 
It  has  always  been  an  important  site,  and 
under  the  new  rule  of  the  French  thrives 
and  prospers  commercially  in  true  frontier 
fashion  as  the  chief  market  and  base  of  the 
country  being  opened  up  in  the  inland  be- 
hind it,  whose  seaport  it  is.  It  is  also  an  old 
Mahometan  stronghold  and  its  inherited 
life  and  customs  go  on,  as  at  Sousse,  in  the  im- 
rnemorial  Arab  ways.  I  remember  it  as  the 
city  of  the  olive  and  the  sponge.  In  the  early 
morning  light  the  open  spaces  about  the  mar- 
ket were  littered  with  young  boys  at  their 
open-air  breakfast,  which  may  be  seen  at 


most  Mediterranean  seaports  on  the  Moslem 
side— the  vender  beside  his  cooking  appa- 
ratus, the  boys  with  saucers  of  soup  or  sops 
of  bread,  and  on  all  sides  the  beginnings  of 
labor;  but  all  this  meagre  human  life  was 
framed  in  an  exquisite  marine  view  beyond. 
The  wharf  was  thickly  lined  with  the  strange- 
looking  boats  of  the  sponge-fishers,  their 
(ireek  flags  at  half-mast  in  honor  of  Good 
Friday,  their  sailors  in  Albanian  costumes, 
their  gear  heaping  the  open  spaces  with  ropes 
and  nets  and  endless  tackle.  It  was  all 
charming,  one  of  the  vignettes  of  travel  that 
will  haunt  the  memory  for  years — the  odors, 
the  little  tasks,  the  look  of  the  toil  of  the  sea, 
the  sponges  in  dark  heaps,  the  blue  Mmpid 
morning  air  crossed  with  strange  spars  and 
ropes,  and  the  host  of  fluttering  flags. 

Later  in  the  day  I  got  its  companion  scene 
from  a  hilltop  some  miles  south  of  the  city 
whence  one  commands  a  view  of  olive  or- 
chards sloping  down  in  one  vast  grove,  in 
lines  of  regular  intervals,  as  far  as  the  eye 
can  reach,  and  lost  to  sight  on  all  sides,  with 
nothing  to  break  the  expanse — only  millions 
of  olive-trees  regularly  planted,  filling  the 
entire  broad  circling  landscape.  A  little 
tower  surmounts  the  hilltop  and  from  its 
round  apex  one  surveys  the  whole;  the 
sense  of  this  dot-like  centre  enhances  the 
impression  that  the  scene  makes  of  a  living 
weft  of  mathematical  lines,  like  an  endless 
spider's  web.  It  is  a  unique  sight.  The 
geometrical  effect  is  curious,  like  an  im- 
mense garden-diagram;  the  similarity  of 
the  round  bullet-like  heads  of  the  trees,  all 
alike  in  shape,  is  a  novel  trait  of  monotony; 
the  silver-gray  of  the  foliage,  mixed  with  the 
reddish  tones  of  the  soil,  gives,  in  so  broad 
a  view,  a  ground  earth-color  quite  new  to  the 
eye;  and  the  sense  of  multitude,  in  which 
nevertheless  individuality  remains  persist- 
ent and  acutely  distinct  on  so  vast  a  scale, 
makes  an  indelible  impression. 


VI 


I  SEEK  in  vain  the  secret  of  the  charm  that 
Tunis  lays  upon  me.  Coming  back  to  it, 
one  feels  something  intimate  in  the  city,  such 
as  there  is  in  places  long  lived  in  and  cher- 
ished, impregnated  with  memories,  subtil- 
ized by  forgotten  life  and  feeling.  It  has 
sunk  deeper  into  the  senses,  the  affections. 
Can  the  charm  be  merely  its  soothing  air,  its 
weather,  which  after  all  is  our  physical  ele- 


Tunisian    Days 


21 


ment?  It  has  a  marvellous  sky;  all  hues 
that  are  celestial  and  live  in  heaven  are 
there.  The  clarity  of  its  clKin,L,'cal)le  blues 
excites  and  calls  the  eye,  from  hour  to  hour; 
and  on  rainy  days  its  grays  are  soft  envelop- 
ing mantles  for  the  sight.  Its  peculiar 
trait  is  a  greenish  tint  in  the  blue,  pervasive 
but  not  defmed,  an  infusion  of  clear  em- 
erald, translucent,  such  as  one  sees  in  winter 
sunsets  in  New  I'>ngland;  but  here  in  early 
summer  you  will  distinguish  it  at  high  noon, 
after  the  rainless  days  of  late  spring.  Tra- 
dition associates  heat  with  this  coast,  as 
Vv'ith  the  Mediterranean  generally;  but  that 
is  an  illusion  of  the  foreigner.  Tunis  is 
often  chilly,  bitterly  cold  at  times,  though 
without  the  fall  of  snow:  it  lies  under  the 
heights  of  the  Atlas,  and  the  winds  bring 
down  the  snow-chill  on  their  wings.  I  re- 
member one  February  when  there  wxre  no 
trains  from  Algiers  for  live  days,  the  snow 
blocking  the  road;  it  lay,  at  some  places  on 
the  line,  nine  feet  deep.  But  whatever  may 
be  the  weather,  the  atmospheric  charm  re- 
mains; it  is  always  soothing,  and  has  nar- 
cotic quality. 

A  fine  landscape  in  fine  weather  is  always 
captivating,  and  assimilates  the  traveller  to 
the  land.  One  is  always  at  home  in  the  sun ; 
and  a  noble  view  finds  a  friend  in  every  eye. 
One  or  two  such  experiences  will  make  the 
fortune  of  a  whole  journey,  and  after  a  while 
be  its  whole  memory.  But  in  some  regions, 
some  cities,  the  spell  is  perpetual:  it  is  so  at 
Tunis.  The  prospect  is  broad,  and  wher- 
ever one  turns,  the  eye  wanders  off  delight- 
fully. The  most  complete  view  is  from  the 
western  hill,  where  is  a  beautiful  great  park 
of  rolling  land  with  woods  whence  you  will 
see  the  white  city  southward;  it  lies  like  a 
great  lily  on  its  pads  of  green  background, 
with  its  motionless  blue  waters  round  about 
— a  lake-country  scene:  level  waters  like  a 
flood,  all  floored  and  streaked  with  purple 
and  blue  bands  and  reaches — a  water- 
prairie — to  where  Carthage  gleams  white 
on  its  own  green  hill,  amid  a  horizon  of 
snowy  villages  dazzling  in  the  sun;  and 
between,  nearer,  isolated  roofs  that  flash 
emerging  from  their  obscure  green  gardens 
and  tree-clumps,  here  and  there;  farther  still 
to  the  southeast,  as  the  eye  travels  out  over 
the  long  lake  into  the  gulf  and  the  sea,  rises 
a  mass  of  mountain  blues  that  bound  the 
entrance  to  the  land  and  its  harbors.  It  is 
a  view  fit  for  a  Greek  amphitheatre. 


Wherever  you  go  you  are  always  coming 
out  on  these  massive,  spacious,  beautifully 
colored  prospects,  while  strips  of  city  or  vil- 
lage amid  the  spring,  set  in  the  master-tone 
of  blue  that  envelops  and  combines  them — 
sky,  and  lake,  and  sea,  themselves  infinitely 
changeable  with  the  light  and  the  distance 
and  the  hour.  Even  in  the  most  unexpected 
places  Heaven  will  open  these  far-ofi  ways 
over  a  new  land.  I  remember  going  into 
an  obscure  and  blind  street,  in  the  Arab 
quarter,  among  buildings  in  all  stages  of  ap- 
parent decay.  I  lifted  the  knocker  at  the 
lovely  nail-studded  door  of  an  ancient-look- 
ing house,  and  passed  at  once  into  an  inner 
court  with  a  fountain,  beautifully  decorated, 
cool,  shadowy,  exquisite  in  repose  and  the 
sense  of  luxury;  and  I  was  led  on  through 
a  maze  of  stairways  and  passages  till  I  came 
out  on  a  large  room  below  the  roof,  with  a 
balcony;  and  stepping  forward  I  saw  un- 
rolled as  if  by  enchantment  the  whole  sea 
view.  There  must  be  many  such  command- 
ing points  of  vantage  in  the  houses  on  the 
crest  of  the  thickly  built  hill — old  Tunis, 
where  the  Arabs  live.  From  this  station  I 
overlooked  the  lower  city  with  all  its  roofs 
and  streets.  The  multitude  of  green-tiled 
roofs  on  different  levels  made  the  color- 
ground,  whence  rose  the  numerous  low  while 
domes,  the  slender  minarets  also  touclied 
with  green  or  tipped  with  golden  balls,  the 
greater  domes  of  the  mosf[ues,  the  mass  of 
the  citadel;  broad  French  faubourgs  and 
avenues  were  enclosing  and  defining  lines, 
with  irregular  masses  of  foliage,  and  deep, 
narrow  streets  sank  in  the  near  scene,  full  of 
their  native  life.  It  was  an  architectural 
wilderness  of  form  and  color,  arresting,  viv- 
ifying, oriental  in  mass,  feeling,  and  detail, 
with  the  suggestion  of  a  dream,  of  evanes- 
cence, and  round  it  was  poured  on  all  sides 
the  still  blue  element — sky,  ocean,  air.  In 
Tunis,  I  noticed,  everything  seemed  to  end 
thus,  in  something  beyond,  in  a  mood;  life 
constantly  distilled  its  dream,  and  it  was  a 
dream  of  the  senses. 

The  senses  are  constantly  appealed  to; 
they  are  kept  awake,  alert,  attentive,  and 
they  are  fed;  they  have  their  joys.  We  do 
not  habitually  use  our  senses  for  joy;  anil 
this  is  a  part  of  the  spell  of  Tunis,  that  there, 
under  a  Southern  sky,  the  senses  come  into 
their  own  again.  It  is  not  merely  the  in- 
stinct of  curiosity  that  is  kept  active  by  an 
ensemble  so  variouslv  novel  and  insistent — 


*» 


Tunisian    1  )ci)'S 


for  example,  these  paulioned  minarets,  a 
5,  re.  ending  in  a  preen 

p.  ,-;*>nal  in  shai>e  witli  tlie 

gallon'  and  its  awning,  tipixHJ  by  llic  three 

«,  *     '  '  ,         ,  It  —  haunting  one  like 

a  .......^ ,  ;      .  s;inie  instinct  crudely 

excititl  l»y  the  ensemble  of  a  population  so 
fcvign  in  physiognomy,  garl),  and  physical 
l)chavior  as  the  Arab  in  its  multifarious  as- 
pects, its  color  and  movement,  all  the  unac- 
customed surface  of  life.     A  street  in  old 
Tunis  is  truly  seen  only  when  there  is  no 
one  in  it;  it  is  then  that  it  is  most  impress- 
ive, and  yields  up  its  spirit.    What  privacy ! 
those  blank  walls!  those  rare  high  windows 
beautifully  set!  those  discreet  hanging  bal- 
conies of  latticed  wood  and  iron!  those  nail- 
studded  doors  in  exquisite  patterns,  that 
seem  to  have  been  rarely  opened.     An  old 
house,  set  in  some  deep  forest,  is  not  more 
retired.    And,  if  one  passes  within — silence, 
and  soft  footfalls,  and  refmement  of  all  sense- 
impressions,  the  constant  presence  of  deli- 
cately moulded  handiwork,  tiles  cooling  to 
the  eye,  wrought  stucco,  carved  wood;  and 
in  those  interiors,  with  their  beautiful  ceil- 
ings and  wainscoting,  are  columns  that  seem 
of  pagan  purity,  fountains  as  of  woodland 
solitude,  courts  of  garden  peace.     It  is  won- 
derful, how  this  efifect  of  harborage  and  se- 
clusion has  been  attained  by  an  art  so  sim- 
ple— flowers,  water,  plaster,  wood,  traceries, 
colored  tiles.     The  city  must  be  full   of 
Ijeautiful  objects  of  this  old  art.     It  is  not 
in  this  or  that  house  only,  nor  in  the  public 
museums  where  rare  examples  are  collected 
and  massed,  that  one  feels  this  artistic  qual- 
ity in  the  old  race.     It  is  felt  in  the  handi- 
crafts ever}'where,  the  decoration  of  the  sur- 
faces, the  enamelling,  the  gilding,  the  effort 
and  liking  for  what  is  wrought  in  lovely  pat- 
terns and  relieved  work  of  every  description. 
There  is  a  detail  in  the  Tunisian  sense  of 
beauty,  an  omnipresent  and  conscious  dec- 
orative spirit,  something  native  and  human. 
It  is  not  only  in  the  palace,  but  in  the  street, 
as  one  treads  the  narrow  ways,  and  looks 
into  the  bright  shops,  and  loiters  in  strange 
comers.     It  is  an  art  of  the  senses — decora- 
tion is  most  olDviously  that.     Rooted  in 
barbaric  taste?  possibly;  but  most  things 
human  are  rooted  in  barbarism.     Unintel- 
lectual?  perhaps,  in  the  European  sense. 
Unemodonal  ?  certainly  not  on  the  European 
scale  of  the  emotions.     Not  developed  from 
the  beauty  of  the  human  form?  of  course. 


Hut  there  is  a  spirit  of  the  senses,  as  there  is 
a  spirit  of  the  intellect;   and  it  has  its  own 
art,  a  distillation  of  its  life,  as  I  intimated  in 
speaking  of  the  landscape,  that  leads  one 
into  the  mood  of  a  dream — a  dream  of  the 
senses.     This  art  is  akin  to  that  landscape 
— it  is  of  the  life  of  the  senses ;  and  the  Arabs 
were  always  frankly  a  sensual  race.     And, 
however  it  be,  the  city  has  an  artistic  tem- 
perament, to  me;  it  has  no  factory  qualities, 
in  its  aspect,  its  wares  or  its  people;  it  is  yet 
virgin  of  the  future,  a  dying  perfume  of  the 
past.     This  flavor  that  I  find  in  its  art  is 
not  Arabian,  though  it  flowered  from  that 
desert  root;    it  is  Andalusian,  and  comes 
from  the  skill  and  temperament  of  those  old 
exiles  who  were  driven  out  from  the  south- 
ern shores  of  Spain  in  successive  waves 
of  the  Moorish  emigration,  each  in  turn 
sowing   broadcast   seeds   of   the  most  ex- 
quisite Arab  art  all  along  the  shores  of 
North  Africa,  and  richly  here  at  Tunis.     It 
was  an  hereditary  art,  in  families  of  build- 
ers,   wood-carvers,    stone-cutters,    stucco- 
moulders,  painters,  gilders,  dyers,  embroid- 
erers, leather-w^orkers,  damaskeen-workers, 
illuminators — the  Tunisian  arts  of  daily  life, 
that  gave  to  life  that  brilliant  and  exquisite 
surface  in  dress,  utensils,  interiors,  and  also 
broad  urban  artistic  effects  of  luxury  in  the 
look  of  its  commerce,  the  display  of  its  multi- 
colored crafts  and  the  vistas  of  its  minaret- 
haunted  sky.   Tunis,  in  fact,  is  not  altogether 
native,  not  of  the  pure  desert  blood ;  from  the 
thirteenth  century  w^ell  into  the  times  of  the 
Renaissance,  it  had  a  flavor  not  unlike  that 
of  a  Greek  colony  in  Sicily  or  on  old  Italian 
coasts;  it  was  grafted  with  the  flower  of  An- 
dalusian culture,  transplanted  in  adversity 
and  flourishing  on  the  African  soil — bloom- 
ing, perishing,  and  leaving  this  exquisite 
memory  of  itself,  this  intuition  of  vanished 
refinement  and  elegance,  like  a  perfume. 

To  this  Andalusian  infusion  is  also  traced 
the  charm  of  the  manners  of  the  Tunisians, 
that  gentleness  of  breeding,  softness,  and  ur- 
banity blended  with  an  immovable  dignity, 
which  is  so  indescribable  a  racial  trait.  It 
is  not  the  least  foreign  thing  about  them, 
and  adds  to  ihefond  of  mystery  that  they 
exude;  for,  notwithstanding  all  that  can  be 
seen  or  told,  or  gleaned  from  the  past,  mys- 
tery is  of  the  essence  of  the  traveller's  im- 
pression at  his  first  contact  with  the  Arab 
race.  It  is  a  silent  landscape,  a  speechless 
folk,  an  incommunicable  civilization;  it  is 


Tunisian   Days 


23 


not  only  the  closed  mosque,  the  secluded 
house,  the  taciturn  figures  strange  in  garb 
and  pose,  immovably  contemplative;  but 
their  life — all  that  they  are — seems  a  closed 
book  in  an  unknown  tongue,  a  scroll  un- 
rolled but  unintelligible.  The  feeling  of 
racial  mystery  is  intense,  and  all  external 
impressions  lead  the  traveller  finally  back  to 
that — the  insoluble  soul  of  the  race.  It  is 
not  merely  Islam.  These  shores  from  the 
dawn  of  knowledge  have  been  one  of  the 
most  fertile  couches  of  the  animal,  man; 
here  the  young  barbarian  has  been  born  and 
bred,  and  passed  away,  through  all  the  cen- 
turies, and  every  civilization  of  the  West  has 
been  seeded  in  conquest,  and  has  flowered  in 
cities,  typical  capitals,  and  withered  away, 
leaving  among  the  native  race  its  ruins  in 
their  fields,  in  their  blood,  on  their  faces — 
like  the  Christian  cross  still  tattooed  on  Ka- 
byle  foreheads.  It  is  a  race  that  assimilates 
but  is  not  assimilated.  It  has  taken  the 
color  and  form,  more  or  less  impregnated 
with  the  spirit,  of  the  genius  of  Carthage, 
Rome,  Byzantium,  Islam,  France;  it  has 
felt  the  impact  of  Greek,  Norman,  Span- 
iard; but  it  was  ever  a  race  of  inexhaustible 
resistant  power,  independent,  tenacious,  re- 
bellious. It  was  never  submerged  or  ex- 
terminated. It  is  a  fine  race.  Tunis  is  one 
of  its  cosmopoHtan  cities,  where  it  has  drunk 
of  every  foreign  stream  and  influence,  has 
been  civilized,  softened,  informed — a  city 
of  the  various  Mediterranean  world,  with 
great  colonies  of  other  folk  in  it,  Italians, 
Jews,  Maltese — a  New  York,  as  it  were,  on 
its  own  scale.  In  old  Tunis,  Arabized  as  it 
is,  the  desert  race  is  itself  only  an  infusion; 
yet  so  persistent  is  the  ideal  of  race  on  its 
own  soil,  and  so  nomadic  is  the  provincial 
population,  that  one  feels  the  presence  of 
that  old  racial  soul,  rightly  or  Wrongly,  into 
which  the  strength  of  the  desert  and  the 
mountains  has  passed,  which  never  breathed 
the  breath  of  Europe,  which  remains  in  its 
own  loneliness  as  in  a  fastness.  It  attracts 
and  perplexes  the  human  mind  that  would 
fain  make  acquaintance  with  it,  but  is  op- 
pressed by  a  feeling  of  impotence.  And 
the  exquisite  personal  demeanor  of  the  Tu- 
nisians is  enigmatic  in  its  impression ;  it  is 
like  the  charm  of  some  Chinese  painting  or 
scroll  that  only  emphasizes  the  unintelligi- 
bility,  the  incommunicability  of  the  too  va- 
riant spiritual  past.  With  such  delightful 
manners,  such  identical  refinements  of  taste, 


it  would  be  so  easy  to  be  friends!  But 
no;  it  is  more  rational  to  think  of  it  all  as 
an  artistic  growth  of  a  foreign  culture,  a 
part  of  the  lovely  Andalusian  inheritance 
of  the  land. 

To  a  mind  with  a  historical  background 
it  is  odd  to  find  Tunis  so  completely  a  mod- 
ern city.  The  Andalusian  tradition  is  un- 
concentrated,  and  slight  in  its  elements  of  re- 
ality, in  things;  its  full  experience  is  rather 
an  imaginative  memor)';  and  of  the  times 
before  that  there  is  nothing  left.  In  the 
suburban  countr}'  there  are  more,  though 
few,  relics  of  past  ages,  but  there  the  mem- 
or}' works  more  freely.  One  recalls,  look- 
ing off  to  the  sea-towering  Mountain  of  the 
Two  Horns,  that  on  one  of  those  peaks  rose 
the  ancient  temple  of  Baal.  The  harbors 
of  Carthage  are  fascinating  to  the  eye  of  the 
imagination;  but  the  specific  remains  there 
are  scanty  and  mediocre,  they  arouse  no  re- 
action deeper  than  thought ;  and,  in  the  mu- 
seum of  Carthage  one  dwells  most  on  the 
curious  fact  that  what  little  has  come  down 
to  us  of  that  far-off  life  has  found  its  way 
only  by  the  grave  itself;  here,  as  in  so  many 
places,  the  tomb  has  been  the  chief  con- 
servator of  life  in  its  material  aspects  and 
what  may  be  inferred  from  them  of  the  soul 
of  dead  populations.  It  is  rather  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Cathedral  that  mem- 
ory expands,  for  beside  the  near  home  of 
the  White  Brothers,  who  have  spread  their 
mantles  and  left  their  bones  throughout  the 
Sahara,  a  noble  mission  nobly  done,  here  sur- 
vives the  only  recorded  anecdote  of  the  his- 
tory of  this  ridge,  that  must  have  been  the 
place  of  innumerable  tragedies — the  mar- 
vellously vivid  Christ'an  story  of  St.  Louis's 
death.  The  narrative  is  as  fresh  and  poign- 
ant as  if  it  were  written  yesterday;  and 
on  the  spot  one  likes  to  remember  that 
the  chivalrous  and  good  French  crusader 
and  king  is  a  Moslem  as  well  as  a  Christian 
saint.  It  is  a  symbol  of  peace  and  concil- 
iation. The  past,  however,  is  here  a  barren 
field.  Antitjuity  is  felt,  not  in  the  survival 
of  its  monuments,  but  in  the  sense  of  the 
utter  waste,  the  annihilation  of  the  past, 
the  extinction  that  has  overtaken  all  that 
human  life  and  its  glory  and  struggle- 
Punic,  Roman,  Visigothic, — the  emptiness 
of  the  place  of  their  l)atlles,  religions,  pleas- 
ures, buildings  and  tombs.  It  is  all  debris: 
it  is  of  the  slightest — little  archaH)logical 
heaps  and  pits  in  a  vast  horizon  of  silent  sky 


24 


Tunisian    I )a\s 


and  sea.  The  mint!  Ijccomes  merely  pessi- 
mistic, suncying  ihc  scene;  ihe  mootl  of 
far  •        '     ■     -tlu' mcxxl  of  the  frozen 

HK-K I  calaslrophe.— lloodsof 

ihc  eternal  nothingness,— a  mood  of  tlic 
pir    ■      '    i-t:  and  one  is  i^lad  to  come  l)ack 

lo  ^- ..-ok,  hke  Ariana,  a  village  midway 

U-lwcen  Carthage  and  Tunis,  where  ruin 
lx*comes  again  romantic  and  human.  1  he 
\cry  roses  bloom  there  as  in  a  deserted  gar- 
den of  long  ago.  It  was  there  that  the  Haf- 
sides,  the  rulers  of  the  golden  age  of  Tunis 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  had  their  country- 
seats,— fair  as  the  paradise  at  Roccada, 
where  one  "was  gay  without  cause  and 
smiled  without  a  reason,"— surrounded  by 
garvlens,  with  great  lakes  shadowed  by  pine 
and  cypress,  and  gleaming  with  kiosks  lined 
with  marble  and  faience,  with  ceilings  of 
sculptured  wood  gilded  and  painted,  and 
cookxl  by  the  fresh  waters  of  many  fountains. 
The  love  of  the  country  was  always  a  trait 
here, — an  Aral)  trait, — the  rich  like  to  get 
out  of  the  city  to  some  place  of  quiet,  pri- 
vacy and  repose,  such  as  La  Marsa  to-day 
by  the  sea  near  Carthage.  The  sense  of  the 
reposeful  country  mingles  with  that  of  the 
beautiful  city  in  the  past  as  well  as  now ;  and 
the  Ilafsides  were  great  civilizers,  builders, 
favorers  of  trade,  patrons  of  the  arts  and  of 
science.  Their  works  and  their  gardens  are 
gone  alike.  Time  drives  his  ploughshare 
often  and  deep  in  an  African  city;  and  it  is 
not  alone  on  the  green  and  shining  levels  of 
the  suburban  country,  with  its  great  spaces 
and  imperial  memories,  where  every  mari- 
time and  migratory  race  has  written  some 
half-obliterated  line  of  history,  that  the 
mountains  look  on  the  sea  and  there  is  a 
great  silence;  but  ruin  is  a  near  neighbor  in 
the  city  as  well.  How  many  nooks  and  cor- 
ners, full  of  the  romance  of  places  left  to  de- 
cay! That,  too,  is  an  Arab  trait;  to  leave 
the  old  to  decay  and  forgetfulness.  It  is 
natural  that  things  should  die,  and  be  let  lie 
where  they  fall.     Oblivion  is  never  far  off. 

What  lassitude  at  last!  Is  it  only  the 
nen-e-soothing  weather,  which  cradles  and 
lulls,  week  after  week,  the  wearied  Western 
mind  ?  Is  it  only  a  renaissance  of  the  senses, 
coming  into  their  own,  restored  and  vivified 
with  strange  forms  and  colors,  accepting 
the  impermanence  of  things  human,  and 
content  to  adorn  and  refine  the  sensual  mo- 
ment, to  withdraw  and  enjoy?  or  is  it  a  new 
world,  a  new  mode  of  human  life,  with  its 


own  perceptions  and  intuitions  and  valua- 
tions, a  new  form  of  the  protean  existence  of 
men  on  the  earth,  with  another  memory, 
psychology,  experience?  Whatever  it  be, 
it  is  a  spell  that  grows. 

VII 

I  LIKE  to  pass  my  afternoons  in  the  shop  of 
the  perfumer  in  old  Tunis.  I  come  by  cov- 
ered ways,  where  the  sunlight  sifts  through 
old  rafters  on  stained  walls  and  worn  stones, 
and  soon  discern  in  the  softened  darkness 
the  low  small  columns  wound  with  alternate 
stripes  of  red  and  green — bright  clustered 
colors:  down  the  winding  way  of  dimmed 
light  in  the  narrow  street  opens  on  either  side 
the  row  of  shallow  shops,  shadowy  alcoves  of 
bright  merchandise;  and  there  in  the  heart 
of  old  Tunis,  each  in  his  niche,  canopied  by 
his  trade,  and  seeming  an  emanation  of  the 
things  he  sells,  sit  the  perfumers.  A  throng 
passes  by,  now  dense,  now  thin, — passes 
forever,  in  crowds,  in  groups,  in  solitude, 
rarely  speaking;  and  over  against  the  silent 
movement  sit  the  merchants, — tranquil  fig- 
ures in  perfumed  boxes — whose  business 
seems  one  long  repose.  A  languid  scent 
loads  the  dusky  air. 

Just  opposite  the  venerable  Mosque  of 
the  Olive,  an  isle  of  sanctity  still  uncrossed 
by  the  heathen  Frankish  sea,  right  under 
the  shadow  of  its  silence-guarded  doors, 
stands  and  has  stood  for  centuries  the  shop 
where  I  love  to  lounge  away  hours  that  have 
no  attribute  of  time.  My  host — I  may  well 
call  him  so,  we  are  old  acquaintances  now 
— salutes  me,  his  robe  of  fading  hues  de- 
taching the  figure  from  the  background  as 
he  rises;  his  serene  face  lightens  with  a 
smile,  his  stately  form  softens  with  a  ges- 
ture, he  speaks  a  word,  and  I  sit  down  on 
the  narrow  bench  at  the  side,  and  light  the 
cigarette  he  has  proffered,  while  his  only 
son  quickly  commands  coffee.  How  well  I 
remember  years  ago  when  the  child's  soft 
Arab  eyes  first  looked  into  mine !  He  is  taller 
now,  beautifully  garbed  in  an  embroidered 
burnoose;  and  he  sits  by  me,  and  talks  in 
low  tones.  What  a  relief  it  is,  just  to  be 
here!  What  an  ablution !  The  very  air  is 
courtesy.  There  is  no  need  to  talk;  and  we 
sit,  we  three,  and  smoke  our  cigarettes,  and 
sip  our  coffee,  with  now  and  then  a  word, 
and  regard  the  street. 

A  motley  street,  like  the  bridge  at  Stam- 


Tunisian   Days 


\Liy 


boul — a  provincial  form  of  that  unfathom- 
able sea  of  human  faces;  and,  here  as 
there,  an  unknown  world  in  miniature,  di- 
verse, novel,  brilliant — the  African  world. 
The  native  predominates,  with  here  and 
there  a  flash  of  foreign  blood,  round-faced 
Sicilians,  Spaniards  whose  faces  seem  in 
arms,  French  in  uniforms;  but  always  the 
native — every  strain  of  the  littoral  and  the 
highland,  every  tint  of  the  desert  sun :  black- 
bearded  Moors  of  Morocco,  vindictive  vis- 
ages; fat  Jews  of  Djerba  laughing;  negroes 
— boys  of  Fezzan  or  black  giants  of  the  Sou- 
dan; Arabs  of  every  skin,  hints  of  Gothic 
and  Vandal  blood  and  the  old  blond  race 
long  before  all,  resolute  Kabyles,  fair  Cha- 
ouia,  Touaregs  with  white-wrapped  faces, 
caravan-men,  Berber  and  Bedouin  of  all 
the  land ;  women,  too,  veiled  or  with  chil- 
dren at  the  open  breast.  That  group  of 
Tunisian  dandies — how  they  stroll!  olive 
faces,  inexpressive,  with  the  jonquil  stuck 
over  the  ear,  swinging  little  canes,  clad  in 
fine  burnooses  of  pale  blues  or  dying  greens 
or  ashy  rose!  Those  bare-legged  Bedouins, 
lean  shoulders  looped  in  earth-brown  folds 
— how  they  walk !  Every  moment  brings  a 
new  challenge  to  the  eye.  What  life  his- 
tories! what  unspeaking  faces!  how  closed 
a  world!  and  my  eyes  rest  on  the  shut  gates 
of  the  ancient  Mosque  of  the  Olive  over 
against  me;  I  feel  the  spell  of  the  unknown 
sealed  in  that  faith,  this  life — the  spell  of  a 
new  life  of  the  spirit  of  man,  the  mystery  of 
a  new  earth-life  of  his  body. 

One  falls  into  revery  and  absent-minded- 
ness here,  as  elsewhere  one  falls  asleep.  But 
not  for  long.  A  lady,  closely  veiled,  stands 
in  the  shop  with  her  shorter  low-browed  at- 
tendant. I  hear  low  syllables  softly  mur- 
mured; I  am  aware  of  a  drop  of  perfume 
rubbed  like  dew  on  the  back  of  her  hand 
just  below  the  small  fingers,  not  too  slim;  I 
watch  the  fall  of  the  precious,  twinkling 
liquid  in  the  faceted  bottle;  I  mark  the  deli- 
cate handling  of  the  small  balances.  It  is 
like  a  picture  in  a  dream,  so  still,  so  vivid  in 
the  semi-darkness  of  the  booth.  She  is 
gone,  and  the  fancy  wanders  after  her — 
whither?  The  boy's  taleb,  his  teacher  of 
the  mosque  school,  passing,  sits  down  for  a 
moment — an  alert  figure,  scrutinizing,  in- 
telligent, energetic.  There  has  been  some 
school  excitement,  some  public  commotion  ; 
master  and  boy  botii  scan  the  last  paper 
with  eagerness.     I  ask  about  the  boy's  les- 


sons; but  with  a  kind  look  at  my  young 
friend,  and  a  half-re[)ly  to  me,  he  puts  the 
(juesiion  aside,  as  if  one  should  not  say 
pleasant  things  in  a  boy's  hearing  too  much. 
He  is  soon  off  on  his  alTairs;  and  other 
friends  of  the  shop  come  andgo,  nottoooften, 
some  hearty,  some  subtle,  but  all  cordial, 
merchants  who  would  woo  me  away  to  other 
shops  behind  whose  seemingly  narrow  spaces 
lies  the  wealth  of  great  houses — oh!  not  to 
buy,  but  only  to  view  silken  stutTs,  trilles 
of  wrought  silver,  things  begemmed,  inlaid 
sword  and  pictured  leather,  brass,  mosaic, 
horn,  marvels  of  the  strong  and  deft  brown 
Arab  hand  in  immemorial  industries;  the 
wealth  of  a  large  world  is  nigh,  when  I  please 
— it  is  but  a  step  here  to  Samarcand  orTim- 
buctoo;  but  1  say,  lightly,  "Another  day." 

I  love  better  to  sit  here,  flanked  by  the 
huge  wax  tapers,  overhung  by  the  five-fin- 
gered groups  of  colored  candles,  amid  the 
curiously  shaped  glasses  and  mysterious 
boxes,  the  gold  filagree,  the  facets,  the  ivo- 
ry eggs — and  to  breathe,  only  to  breathe, 
diffused  hidden  scents  of  the  rose  and  the 
violet — jasmine,  geranium — essences  of  all 
flowers,  all  gardens,  all  odorous  things,  till 
life  itself  might  seem  the  perfumed  essence 
of  existence  and  the  sensual  world  only  an 
outer  dusk.  Oh,  the  delightful  narcotism! 
I  was  ever  too  much  the  Occidental  not  to 
think  even  in  my  dream, — I  am  conscious 
of  the  feeling  through  all, — "What  am  I,  an 
alien,  here?"  But  it  is  sweet  to  be  here,  to 
have  peace,  and  gentleness,  and  courtesy, 
young  trust  and  brave  respect,  and  breed  ing ; 
it  is  balm.  The  darkness  falls;  the  passer- 
by grows  rare;  it  is  closing-time.  There  is 
a  drop  for  my  hand  now,  for  good-by.  The 
boy  companions  me  to  the  limit  of  old  Tunis. 
It  is  good-night.  It  is  a  departure — as  if 
some  shore  were  left  behind.  It  is  a  nostal- 
gia— a  shadowy  perception  that  something 
more  of  life  has  escaped,  of  the  irretrioval)le 
thing,  gone,  like  something  tlown  from  the 
hand.  And  as  I  come  under  the  Gate  of 
France  into  the  liglits  of  the  brilliant  avenue, 
I  find  again  him  1  had  eluded,  whom  1  heard 
as  the  voice  of  one  standing  without,  saying, 
"What  am  I,  an  alien,  here?" — I  am  again 
the  old  luiropean. 

\11I 

Quick  music  comes  down  the  evening 
street — the  clatter  of  cavalry — the  beautiful 
rhythm  of  horses'  backs — flash  of  I'rench 


*>r. 


Tunisian   Days 


UI 


■cd  wiili  ihc  African 

s<.u...^       , - icurs.  j^uns— a  gallant 

and  lively  scene  in  the  massed  avenue!  I 
love  the  French  soMiers  in  Africa;  I)ul  it  is 
with  a  dee|KT  feeling  tlian  mere  martial  ex- 
hilaration that  one  sees  them  to-night,  lor 
this  is  an  annual  fete-day.  and  their  march 

cor- 'urates    the    entry  of  the   French 

lr».  .Tunis.    One  involuntarily  looks 

at  the  faces  of  the  natives  in  the  crowds- 
impassible.     But  the  old  Furopean  cannot 
but  feel  a   thrill  at  the  sight  of  France, 
the  leader  of  our  civilization,  again  taking 
charge  of  the  untamed  and  reluctant  land 
and  its  intractable  people  to  which  every 
mastering  empire  of  the  North,  from  the 
dawn  of  our  history,  has  brought  in  vain  the 
force  of  its  arms  and  the  light  of  its  intelli- 
gence.    The  hour  has  come  again,  and  one 
feels  the  presence  of  the  Xapoleonic  idea, 
clad,  as  of  old,  in  the  French  arms;  for  it  is 
from  Xapoleon,  that  star  of  enlightenment 
— Xapoleon  as  he  was  in  his  Egyptian  cam- 
paigns— that  the  French  empire  in  Africa 
derives;  and  if,  as  the  heir  of  the  Crusades, 
France  was  through  centuries  the  protector 
of  Christians  in  the  East,  and  that  role  is 
now  done,  it  is  a  greater  role  that  she  in- 
herits from  Xapoleon  as  the  friend  of  Islam, 
with  the  centuries  before  her.     Force,  de- 
monstrated in  the  army,  is  the  basis  of  order 
in  all  civilized  lands;  that  is  why  the  pres- 
ence of  the  French  uniform  delights  me;  but 
it  is  not  by  brute  force  that  France  moves  in 
the  essential  conquest,  nor  is  it  military  lust 
that  her  empire  in  Africa  represents  and  em- 
bodies.    It  is,  rather,  a  striking  instance  of 
fatality  in  human  events  that  her  advan- 
cing career  in  X'^orth  Africa  presents  to  the 
historical  mind:    a  slight  incident — a  bey 
struck  one  of  her  ambassadors  with  a  fan — 
forced  on  her  the  occupation  of  Algiers,  and 
in  the  course  of  years  she  found  herself  sad- 
dled with  a  burden  of  colonial  empire  as 
awkwardly  and  reluctantly  as  was  the  case 
with  us  and  the  Philippines.     There  were 
anti-colonialists  in  her  experiences,  as  there 
were  anti-imperialists  with  us;  and  the  ar- 
guments were  about  the  same,  essentially,  in 
both  cases — the  rights  of  man,  a  new  fron- 
tier, an  alien  people,  with  various  economic 
considerations  of  revenue,  tariff,  exploita- 
tion.   That  oljscure  element  of  reality,  how- 
ever, which  we  call  fate,  worked  on  continu- 
ously, linking  situation  with  event,  difficulty 
with  remedy,  what  was  done  with  w^hat  had 


to  be  done,  till  the  occupation  spread  from 
.Algiers  into  the  mountains,  along  the  sea- 
board, over  the  Atlas,  into  the  desert,  ab- 
sorbing the  neighboring  land  of  Tunis,  skirt- 
ing the  dangerous  frontier  of  Morocco — and 
now  the  vitalizing  and  beneficent  power  of 
French  civilization,  as  it  might  almost  seem 
a"^ainst  the  will  of  its  masters,  dominates  a 
vast  tract  of  doubtful  empire  whose  issues 
are  among  the  most  interesting  contingen- 
cies of  the  future  of  humanity.  It  is  a  great 
work  that  has  been  accomplished,  but  is 
greater  in  the  tasks  it  opens  than  in  those  al- 
ready achieved. 

The  policy  of  pacification  and  penetra- 
tion is,  indeed,  one  of  the  present  glories  of 
France.  There  has  been  fierce  fighting, 
hard  toils  of  war;  the  land  has  been  the 
training-school  of  French  generals;  and, 
were  it  known  and  written,  the  story  of 
French  campaigning  in  the  mountains  and 
the  desert  would  prove  to  be  one  of  those 
heroic  chapters  of  fine  deeds  obscurely  done, 
rich  in  personal  worth,  that  of  all  military 
glory  have  most  moral  greatness.  The 
esprit  of  the  soldiers  was  like  that  of  de- 
voted and  lost  bands — they  were  there  to 
die.  But  it  belongs  to  military  force  to  be 
initial  and  preparatory,  occasional,  in  its 
active  expression ;  thereafter,  in  its  passivity, 
it  is  a  guarantee ;  it  is  order.  The  great  line 
of  French  administrative  policy,  whether 
playing  through  the  army  or  beyond  it,  w^as, 
nevertheless,  the  child  and  heir  of  Napo- 
leon's idea;  amity  with  Islam.  To  respect 
rites,  usages,  prejudices,  to  make  the  lead- 
ers of  the  people — chiefs,  judges,  religious 
heads  —  intermediaries  of  power,  to  find 
with  patience  and  consideration  the  line  of 
least  resistance  for  civilization  by  means  of 
the  social  and  racial  organization  instead  of 
in  opposition  thereto,  and  to  display  there- 
with not  a  spirit  of  cold,  proud,  and  superior 
tolerance  but  a  frank  and  interested  sym- 
pathy— that,  at  least,  was  the  ideal  of  the 
French  way  of  empire.  It  had  its  disinter- 
ested elements — respect  for  humanity  w^as 
implicit  in  it.  What  strikes  the  close  stu- 
dent of  the  movement  most  is  not  the  mili- 
tary advance,  but  the  extraordinary  degree 
to  which  the  military  advance  itself  w^as  im- 
pregnated with  intelligence,  scientific  ob- 
servation, scholarly  interest,  economic  sug- 
gestion, engineering  ambition,  as  if  these 
French  officers  were  less  men  of  arms  than 
pioneers  of  knowledge  and  public  works. 


Tunisian   Days 


27 


The  publications  through  fifty  years  by  men 
in  the  service  on  every  conceivable  topic  re- 
lating to  the  land  and  its  people  in  scientific, 
economic,  and  historical  matters,  are  innu- 
merable; they  constitute  a  thorough  study 
of  vast  areas.  Such  a  fact  tells  its  own  story 
— a  story  of  devotion  in  a  cause  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

Peaceful  penetration  does  not  mean 
merely  that  the  railroad  has  entered  the 
Sahara,  and  the  wire  gone  far  beyond  into 
its  heart,  and  the  express  messenger  crossed 
the  great  waste;  nor  that  the  school,  and 
with  it  the  language,  are  everywhere,  sub- 
duing and  informing  the  mind;  nor  that 
agricultural  science,  engineering  skill,  eco- 
nomic initiative,  and  even  philanthropic 
endeavor,  hospitals,  hygiene,  are  at  work, 
or  beginning,  or  in  contemplation;  but  it 
means  the  restoration  of  a  great  and  almost 
forsaken  tract  of  the  earth — from  the  Medi- 
terranean and  Lake  Tchad  to  the  Niger  and 
the  Atlantic — with  its  populations,  to  the 
benefits  of  peaceful  culture,  safe  commerce, 
humane  conditions,  and  to  fraternity  with 
the  rest  of  mankind.  It  is  not  the  brilliant 
military  scene  that  holds  my  eye  in  the 
packed  avenue,  with  its  double  rows  of  trees 
shadowy  in  the  air,  lined  with  brilliant  shops 
and  stately  urban  buildings,  opera,  cathe- 
dral, residence — the  familiar  modern  met- 
ropolitan scene  in  the  electric  glare;  but  I 
see  the  work  of  France  all  over  the  darkened 
land  from  the  thousand  miles  of  seacoast, 
up  over  the  impenetrable  Atlas  ranges,  down 
endless  desert  routes — carrying  civilizing 
power,  like  a  radiating  force,  through  a  new 
world. 


IX 


Tunis  is  the  gateway  by  which  I  entered 
this  world — the  new  world  of  France,  the 
old  w^orld  of  the  desert.  It  was  almost  an 
accident  of  travel  that  I  had  come  here, 
refuging  myself  from  the  life  I  had  known, 
and  seeking  a  place  to  forget  and  to  repose, 
away  from  men.  I  had  no  thought  of  even 
temporary  residence  or  exploration;  but 
each  day  my  interest  deepened,  my  curios- 
ity was  enlivened,  my  sympathies  warmed, 
and  slowly  I  was  aware  that  the  land  held 
me  in  its  spell — a  land  of  fantastic  scenery, 
of  a  mysterious  people,  of  a  barbaric  history 
and  mis-en-sccne,  a  land  of  the  primitive.  1 
coursed  it  from  end  to  end. 


The  best  description  of  North  Afric?.  as  a 
visual  fragment  of  the  globe  is  that  which 
delineates  it  as  a  vast  triangular  island, 
whose  two  northern  horns  lie,  one  oil  Spain 
at  (Gibraltar,  the  other,  with  a  broader  .strait, 
ofT  Sicily — with  a  southward  wall  overlook- 
ing the  Sahara  like  an  ocean,  and  running 
slantingly  to  the  Atlantic,  whose  seaboard 
makes  the  narrow  base  of  the  triangle. 
This  immense  island  is  gridironed  through 
its  whole  mass  with  mountains,  ranging 
southwest  and  northeast,  and  hence  not 
easily  penetrable  except  at  those  remote 
ends;  it  is  backed  by  table-lands  of  varying 
breadth  between  the  Northern  and  the  Sa- 
haran  Atlas,  which  form  its  outer  walls,  and 
the  conglomeration  of  successive  ranges  at 
varying  altitudes,  with  their  high  plateaus, 
is  cut  with  deep  gullies,  valleys,  pockets, 
fastnesses  of  all  sorts — a  formidable  coun- 
try for  defence  and  of  ditlicult  communica- 
tion. Under  the  southern  edge  of  the  Sa- 
haran  Atlas,  like  a  long  chain  of  infre(iuent 
islands,  runs  the  line  of  oases  in  the  near 
desert  from  the  northeasterly  tip  of  the  low- 
lands of  the  isle  of  Djerba  southwesterly 
the  whole  distance  to  the  Atlantic,  and  here 
and  there  pressing  deep  into  the  waste  of 
sand  and  rock;  under  the  northern  wall 
stretches  the  arable  lowland  here  and  there 
on  the  Mediterranean  coast  where  lie  the 
mountain-backed  ports.  At  the  highest 
points,  in  Morocco,  lies  perpetual  snow,  and 
the  land  is  snow-roofed  in  winter. 

Among  these  wild  mountains  in  antiquity 
lived  an  indigenous  blond  race,  whose  blue- 
eyed,  clear-complexioned  descendants  may 
still  be  met  with  there,  and  mixed  with  them 
a  darker  population  from  the  sunburnt  des- 
ert and  lowlands,  the  (ietukc  and  Numid- 
ians  of  history,  of  whom  Jugurtha  was  a  fine 
and  unforgotten  type;  on  these  original  and 
tenacious  races,  whose  blood  was  inex- 
pugnable, poured  the  immigrant  human 
lloods  through  the  centuries  from  north  and 
south,  west  and  east,  but  the  natives  main- 
tained their  hold,  and  the  stock  survived. 
The  Punic  immigration,  with  its  great  cap- 
ital of  Carthage,  only  touched  the  coast; 
the  Romans  established  a  great  province  in 
Tunisia,  founded  cities  and  garrisomnl  the 
country  as  far  as  the  desert  and  into  the  RilT, 
and  made  f)unitive  e\|)editions  among  the 
nomads  to  the  south;  the  \'i>igoths  llocked 
from  Spain,  overran  the  whole  country, 
and  passed  away  like  sheets  of  foam;  the 


2S 


The  Mother 


1  ics  n-huilt  the  fortresses,  ami  their 

\     '.  hordes  in  suc- 

1        1  to  the  western 

iH  I  an.  and.  settling;,  Arabizeti  great  tracts  of 

'.  the  land  Mos- 

..,  .:       .Tegnation  than 

1  it  had  been  Romanized  and  Chris- 
ill  the  years  of  their 

.- ininance  new  llootls 

of  fresh  desert  blood  poured  up  from  the 
ra.  much  as  the  barbarians  fell  from 
I.  V  i.orth  upon  Rome.  The  massive  island 
wpN  thus  always  in  the  contention  of  the 
i  -  as,  rising  and  falling;  yet  the  Ber- 

U.  .  M'.nl,  the  Berber  spirit,  continually  re- 
cruited from  the  Sahara,  seems  never  to 
have  really  given  way;  taking  the  changing 
colors  of  its  invaders,  it  persisted — a  rude, 
im'.cpendent,  democratic,  tierce,  much-en- 
during, untamable  race.  It  wears  its  Is- 
lam in  its  own  fashion.  It  keeps  the  other 
stocks,  that  dwell  in  it,  apart — the  Jews,  the 
Turks,  Italians,  Maltese,  Spaniards,  they 
are  but  colonies,  however  long  upon  the 


soil,  and  even  though  in  some  instances  they 
adopt  native  costumes  and  ways.  And  now 
it  is  the  turn  of  France — that  is  to  say,  of 
dominant  Western  civilization  in  its  most 
humane  and  enlightened  form. 

How  many  interests  were  here  combined ! 
a  land  of  natural  wildness,  of  romantic  and 
solemn  scenes,of  splendid  solitudes  and  vary- 
ing climates;  a  past  dipped  in  all  the  colors 
of  history;  a  race  of  physical  competency, 
savage  vitality,  where  the  primitive  ages  still 
stamped  an  image  of  themselves  in  manners 
and  actions  and  aspect;  the  fortunes  of  one 
of  the  great  present  causes  of  humanity,  to 
be  paralleled  wjth  Eg}'pt  and  India,  a  w'ork 
of  civilization !  It  could  not  but  prove  a  fine 
adventure.  And  so  I  turned  nomad,  and 
fared  forth.  Bedouin  boys,  rich  with  my  last 
Tunisian  copper,  gave  me  delighted  good- 
bys,  as  they  ran  after  my  carriage,  scream- 
ing bright-eyed ;  and  I  felt  as  if  I  had  already 
friends  in  the  lonely,  silent  land  as  the  long 
level  spans  of  the  high  aqueduct  marched 
backward,  and  the  train  sped  on. 


THE   MOTHER 


By  Laura  Spencer  Portor 

AxD  there,  mayhap,  tall  angels,  wide  of  wing 
And  full  of  glor}'  bring  thee  gifts,  and  play 
About  thee  on  the  holy  Christmas-day, 
While  I,  v>-ithout  thee, — I  stand  far  away. 

And  one,  I  think,  more  gentle,  blue  of  eye,  one  other, 

Being  herself  a  mother, 
Brings  thee  a  sprig  of  heavenly  roseman-, 
Or  some  small  heart-shaped  bauble  which  thy  hands 
Feel,  and  know  not  what  mighty  pain  and  joy 
Wrought  it,  and  says  (not  understood  of  theej, 
"  It  is  thy  mother's  love," — because  she  understands. 

0  thou,  my  little  boy! 
My  little,  little  boy! 

Go  spend  thy  Christmas  happily. 

1  would  have  thee  remember  nought. 
Yet  if  of  me  thou  hast  a  thought,— 
Hang  it  upon  God's  Christmas-tree 

Low  down,  low  down,  dear,  within  reach  of  me! 


JJraiL'H  ij   ,,'.  J.  Aj.iL'uyd. 


%0 


Cast  their  officers  adrift  in  a  boat.  —  Page  43. 


THE    OLD    MAN-OF-WAR'S    MAN 

ENGLISH    NAVAL    LIFE    IN    THE    EKHITEENTH    CEXTURV 

By  W.  J.  Aylward 

Illustrations    by    thk    Author 


^^S^^^HE  English  navy  of  the  lat- 
ter half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  especially  inter- 
esting, not  only  because  it 
was  then  approaching  the 
height  of  its  renown  as  a 


mighty  engine  of  destruction  but  because 
out  of  the  complex  customs  and  usages 
in  vogue  then  have  been  evolved  the 
present-day  standards  of  all  navies. 

One  has  only  to  rummage  a  very  little 
among  the  splendid  archives  of  a  nation 
given  to  preserving  its  history  to  realize 
how  all-important,  how  all-engrossing,  was 
the  floating  defence  of  the  England  of  that 
period  to  the  man  in  the  street  as  well  as 
to  the  lord  in  his  castle.  The  one  never 
knew  when  he  would  be  rudely  snatched 
away  from  his  home,  the  other  when  his 
castle  might  be  taken  from  him. 

The  necessity  of  the  times  demanded 
harsh  measures.  It  was  no  phantom  Ger- 
man airship  in  the  sky  then  but  a  ver}-- 
real  France  which  up  to  Trafalgar  boldly 
threatened  invasion.  Those  were  literally 
days  of  wars  and  rumors  of  wars;  of  im- 
mense fleets  afloat  and  building,  calling  in- 
cessantly for  recruits;  and  the  profession 
of  a  fighting  sailor  was  one  of  active  em- 
ployment. In  that  century  also  the  Brit- 
ish navy  found  itself  and  abuses  began  to 
disappear.  It  became  the  standard  then 
as  it  is  to-day — a  position  due  to  a  people 
wise  enough  to  spend  at  one  time  four 
fifths  of  the  public  revenue  upon  its  float- 
ing defence. 

Ever  since  the  time  of  William  the  Nor- 
man's landing  at  Hastings,  Britain  has  al- 
ways relied  on  its  sea  service  to  repel  the 
invader  by  destroying  him  abroad.  It 
must  be  confessed  this  scheme  succeeded 
fairly  well,  for  somehow  those  old  ships 
which  snatched  their  power  from  the  tem- 
pest and  fought  the  sea  on  his  own  terms 
eventually  found  their  quarry  and  had  it 


out  with  him  in  any  quarter  of  the  watery 
globe  in  which  they  happened  to  meet. 

We  may  sniff  in  this  day  of  high-jww- 
ered  steel-clad  fortresses  at  the  quaint  wal- 
lowy  ships  of  a  bygone  age  with  their 
tiers  and  tiers  of  guns  peering  out  from 
red-lidded  ports.  But  those  same  old  pic- 
turesque ships  had  advantages  that  the 
later  breed  will  never  possess,  nor  did 
they  become  obsolete  in  a  few  short  years. 
What  ten-million-dollar  battle-ship  of  to- 
day can  keep  the  sea  in  active  serxice  for 
six  months?  Yet  it  was  not  uncommon 
then  for  a  ship  of  the  old  school  to  remain 
on  a  foreign  station  for  ten  years,  and 
Collingwood  on  one  occasion  went  for 
twenty-two  months  without  making  port  I 

They  were  singularly  simple  and  self- 
sustaining,  and  with  their  timber  hulls 
and  hempen  rig  could  grapple  in  a  death- 
struggle  in  mid-ocean,  throw  a  prize-crew 
aboard  a  captured  enemy,  patch  both 
ships,  send  the  prize  home,  and  proceed 
on  a  voyage  quite  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Let  a  battle-ship  to-day  once  run  out  of 
coal  and — as  coal  is  contraband  of  war — 
be  in  a  position  where  she  is  unable  to  re- 
plenish her  bunkers  and  she  will  be  not 
only  absolutely  defenceless  but  in  a  short 
time  be  untenable  for  her  own  company. 
Literally,  coal  means  existence  to  her,  and 
her  effectiveness  is  dependent  wholly  ujum 
her  bunker  su])j:)ly. 

What  life  was  like  in  the  tween-decks  of 
an  old  line-of-battle  shij),  crowded  as  the 
men  were  amid  the  wilderness  of  heavy 
guns  and  their  confusion  of  gear,  we  can 
I)retty  well  guess.  Of  the  millions  who 
have  lived  it  a  few,  fortunately,  have 
left  a  record.  Sometimes  it  is  decidedly 
warped  in  judgment,  and  again  it  is  frankly 
antagonistic  to  the  service;  but  still  these 
men  had  o])|)ortunities  for  observation 
denied  ourselxes,  and  somewhere  on  a 
cross-bearing  between  the  bitter  satires  of 

31 


32 


The  Old   Man-()t-\\'ar's   Man 


Ward  and  the  caricatures  of  Smollett,  on 
the  one  hand.and  the  jMCtures  by  Marryat 
in  a  milder  hue  and  of  a  somewhat  later 
dav.  is  the  truth. 

Naturally,  the  ix>int  of  view  had  much 
to  do  with' the  writer's  views  on  his  en- 
vironment. Marr>at  wrote  from  the 
vantage  of  the  C|uarter-deck,  while  most, 
if  not  all.  the  other  writers  were  men  on 
the  lower  deck,  who  from  quieter  walks 
in  life  had  been  brutally  pressed  against 
■^  will  into  a  service  for  which  they 
...  c  in  most  cases  unlittecl.  As  the  real 
man-o'-war's  man  who  formed  the  back- 
lK>ne  of  the  ship's  company  was  not  given 
to  literary  effusions,  we  are  left  in  the  dark 
as  to  his  valuable  opinions,  except  where 
he  has  been  quoted  to  suit  the  purposes 
of  a  more  gifted  shipmate.  He  usually 
despised  as  unseamanlike  such  things  as 
reading  and  writing. 

There  can  be  no  question  about  it — life 
in  the  Georgian  na\T  was  insufferably 
hard.  According  to  Slansfield:  "It  was 
brutalizing,  cruel,  and  horrible;  the  kind 
of  life  now  happily  gone  forever;  a  kind 
of  life  which  no  man  to-day  would  think 
good  enough  for  a  criminal.  There  was 
barbarous  discipline,  bad  pay,  bad  food, 
bad  hours  of  work,  bad  company." 

This  is  putting  the  case  strongly,  and 
to  one  not  born  or  bred  to  the  sea  it  is 
exactly  what  it  must  have  seemed.  How 
then  did  they  get  men  to  enter  the  serv- 
ice? There  were  several  ways  in  vogue. 
A  captain  on  being  appointed  to  a  vessel, 
besides  attending  to  her  armament  and 
equipping  her  for  a  voyage,  had  also  the 
responsibility  of  furnishing  her  with  a 
crew.  He  set  about  this  by  establishing 
a  recruiting-ofhce  ashore,  generally  at  a 
sailors'  tavern,  and  placarding  the  fact 
through  the  town  and  the  surrounding 
country  ^Aith  the  announcement  that 
'"Captain  Blank,  R.  N.,  was  now  fitting 
out  H.  M.  Ship  So  and  So  for  a  cruise  in 
foreign  waters."  Following  this  came 
promises  of  unlimited  rum,  prize-money, 
and  the  King's  bounty.  When  the  gul- 
lible one  came  to  the  bait  he  was  pHed 
generously  with  drink  and  flattery,  the 
King's  gold  jingled  before  his  staring  eyes, 
and  his  befuddled  brain  filled  with  stories 
of  the  joys  of  life  in  the  King's  navy 
loudly  bawled  in  the  sea  ballads  of  the 
day.    That  these  joys  were  not  unknown 


is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  bounty  was 
at  one  time  al)ove  seventy  pounds  sterling. 
When  these  gentle  means  failed  to  com- 
l)lcte  his  number  the  captain  sent  a  few 
boat-loads  of  sturdy  fellows  ashore  after 
dark  in  charge  of  an  officer.  This  party, 
or  "press-gang, "  proceeded  to  the  resorts 
of  merchant  sailors  and  picked  up  any 
stragglers  they  found  in  the  streets.  In 
times  of  need  no  male  between  boyhood 
and  old  age  w^as  safe. 

"The  lieutenant  and  his  band  dogs  to- 
gether make  a  w^oful  noise  in  all  the  sea- 
port towns  around  the  kingdom ;  he  beats 
up  all  quarters  and  rummages  all  the  Wap- 
ping  ale-houses  as  narrowly  as  he  would 
a  prize  from  the  Indies.  ...  In  fine,  he 
is  a  perfect  hurricane  in  a  little  town  and 
drives  the  laggard  dog  along  the  street  with 
as  much  noise  and  bustle  as  butchers  do 
swine  at  Smithfield." 

Once  aboard  and  under  the  hatches 
the  impressed  man's  fate  was  sealed,  and 
a  sentry  placed  over  him  with  orders  to 
shoot  him  if  he  attempted  to  escape.  At 
the  captain's  convenience  the  men  were 
brought  on  deck,  and  then  it  was — 

"Brown,  don't  look  so  blue!  How 
long  have  you  been  to  sea  and  how  old 
are  you?" 

"Twenty  years,  your  Honor,  and  I  am 
thirty-two  years  old." 

"You  can  hand,  splice,  reef,  steer,  and 
heave  the  lead,  eh.  Brown?" 

"Why,  yes,  I  doubt  I  might,  your 
Honor." 

Brown  refuses  to  accept  the  King's 
bounty:  "Then  you'll  go  without,  that's 
all."     Another  man  is  brought  up: 

"Jennings,  how  long  have  you  been  at 
sea?" 

"Four  years,  your  Honor." 

"Where  have  you  served?" 

"Nowhere,  your  Honor." 

"Come,  sir!  No  impudence  or  I'll 
marry  you  to  the  gunner's  daughter! 
Forward  there!  Send  the  boatswain's 
mate  aft  with  the  cat!" 

"Beg  your  pardon,  your  Honor,  I 
meant  I  never  served  in  a  man-o'-war " 

"Time  you  should  and  amongst  other 
things  learn  manners!" 

A  third  man  is  brought  up  on  deck  and 
it  is — 

"Baker,  who  are  you?" 

"A  tailor,  your  Worship." 


Drawn  hy  W.  J.  AyhvanL 


Flogging  was  tl.c  must  co„.,n..n  f,.,-,n  ..f  p.,„i.l„n..n, V,  A...u  in  .lu-  f-rooon  .l.c  w.,..i  was  pa.sc.l  to 

call  all  hands  lu  witness  punisjnncnt.  — Page  39. 


JJ 


Petty  officers  ashore. 


''Don't  worship  me.  What  brought 
you  here?  " 

"That  air  lef tenant  and  his  gang,  sir, 
took  me  as  I  was  going  home  last  night." 

"  Tell  the  truth,  sir !  You  were  guzzling 
and  cackling  like  a  goose  at  the  Magpie." 
The  captain  enters  the  man.  "Well,  Mr. 
Baker,  for  all  that  you  are  just  going  to  ship, 
instead.  We  want  tailors  aboard  as  well 
as  ashore,  so  you'll  drive  your  needle  and 
be  an  idler  in  one  of  his  Majesty's  ships." 

It  explains  if  it  does  not  excuse  the 
barbarous  punishments  for  even  small 
offences  dealt  out  to  hapless  culprits  to 
know  that  it  was  the  custom  for  magis- 
trates to  send  their  condemned  prisoners 
aboard  a  man-o'-war  with  a  request  to 
the  captain  to  ship  them.  Sheriffs  in  in- 
land counties  found  this  an  easy  way  to 
get  rid  of  undesirable  citizens  and  sent 
thieves,  beggars,  and  poachers  in  shoals  to 
the  nearest  port,  while  criminals  at  the 
assizes  were  sometimes  given  the  hard 
alternative  of  choosing  between  a  long 
jail  sentence  and  service  in  the  King's 
navy.  A  man-o'-war,  like  the  gallows, 
refused  nothing. 
Vol.  LV.— 4 


Naturally,  a  ship's  company  under  such 
conditions  became  a  highly  flavored  as- 
sortment of  rogues  with  every  species  of 
jailbird  represented,  and  had  to  be  ruled 
with  an  iron  hand,  if  at  all. 

These  creatures,  with  the  scum  drawn 
by  a  high  bounty,  were  loathed  and  de- 
spised by  the  decent  sailors  who  were 
forced  to  associate  with  them,  for  the  gen- 
uine seaman  of  the  period  was  quite  a  dif- 
ferent man.  Ned  Ward,  so  harsh  on  his 
officers,  boldly  describes  him  as  the  most 
" Glorious  piece  of  the  Creation!" 

"He  can  no  more  sleep  in  sheets  than  in 
a  horse-]:)ond,  and  put  him  in  a  feather- 
bed and  he  shall  fancy  he  is  sinking 
straight,  but  put  him  in  a  hammock  and 
he  shall  lie  a  whole  night  dormant  as 
Mahomet  between  two  loadstones.  He 
looks  most  formi(la])le  when  others  ap- 
pear most  drooping;  for  see  him  in  bad 
weather  in  his  fur  cap  and  Wapping 
Watch-coat  and  you  swear  the  Czar  was 
just  returned  from  Muscovy,  and  yet  he 
is  never  in  his  true  figure  but  in  a  i)itche(l 
jacket  when  he  is  as  invulnerable  to  a  cud- 
gel as  a  hog  in  armor." 

35 


'M\ 


The  Old   Man-(>f-\\'ar\s  Man 


fi)r  the  ofliccrs  or  to  crawl  on  obscure  mis- 
sions with  the  rats  among  the  casks  and 
cables  in  the  gloomy  depths  of  the  lower 
hold.  Only  the  hopelessly  unfit  were  sent 
ashore. 

After  all,  there  was  something  of  a 
democracy  in  the  little  world  of  a  ship's 
company,  even  under  a  system  that 
seemed  to  inspire  each  man  to  look  down 
upon  those  beneath  him.  Men  of  birth 
and  breeding  did  men's  work  alow  and 
aloft,  and  we  hear  of  a  disgusted  lieuten- 
ant hailing  the  mizzen-topsail  yard  with 
''My  Lords  and  Gentlemen."  The  lieu- 
tenant of  that  speech  himself  may  have 
been  of  gentle  birth  or  he  may  have 
''crawled  through  the  hawse-pipes"  and 
so  worked  aft.     For  all  we  know  he  may 


The  paymaster. 

"He  was  e\'er  ready  to 
spend  his  blood  on  any  quar- 
relsome occasion,"  we  are 
told,  and  on  pay-day — "If 
he  be  sober  at  that  juncture, 
he  is  damnably  puzzled  in 
contriving  ways  to  spend  his 
hatful  of  money.  But  if — 
as  he  commonly  is — devilled  The  captain. 

with  flip,  he  scorns  to  spend 
one  thought  upon  the  matter  but  straight, 
while  it  is  still  warm  in  his  cap,  fairly  sits 
down  to  the  cards  or  hazard  and  generally 
throws  it  away  beforfe  sunset." 

He  extols  further  virtue  of  "this  blunt 
sea-animal,"  declaring  him  to  be  of  more 
value  to  the  nation  than  the  most  flutter- 
ing beau  in  it,  but  ending,  alas,  with  the 
seaman's  usual  lament  that  "sailors  are 
no  longer  what  they  used  to  be." 

Such  a  man  was  always  placed  in  a 
position  of  semi-authority  or  at  a  respon- 
sible station.     The  young  and  spry  aloft 


A  boatswain. 


have  been  the  very  same  of  whom  Lord 
Cochrane  tells,  who  received  him  on  re- 
porting for  duty  "with  a  lump  of  grease 
in  one  hand  and  a  marUnespike  in  the 
other,  dressed  in  seaman's  clothes  well 
daubed  with  tar,  for  he  had  been  inter- 
rupted in  setting  up  the  rigging." 

"A  ship,"  says  Glascock,  "is  a  little 
world  governed  by  its  own  laws  and  cus- 
toms." And  over  this  little  world,  deal- 
ing out  its  rough  justice,  was  the  captain. 
On  him  depended  the  safety  and  happi- 
ness of  the  whole  ship's  company  and  on 
as  captain  of  a  top,  perhaps;  the  steady,    his  shoulders  rested  the  heavy  responsi- 


reliable  men  on  the  forecastle  or  as  gun 
captains  in  the  batteries,  while  the  more 
or  less  inefficient— those  "without  art  or 
judgment"— were  placed  in  the  waist,  in 
the  despised  afterguard,  to  fetch  and  carry 


bility  of  the  successful  outcome  of  a 
cruise  or  expedition.  Interest,  or  "pull" 
as  we  call  it  now,  had  much  to  do  with 
obtaining  a  command,  but  it  must  be  said 
that  no  interest  was  strong  enough  in 


The   Old  Man-of-War's  Man 


37 


those  days  to  keep  inefficients  in  respon- 
sible positions.  The  execution  of  Ad- 
miral Byng  on  his  own  quarter-deck  is 
but  a  dramatic  example  of  how  severely 
failure  was  punished. 

In  the  rough  sea  life  of  the  period  no- 
body lived  well  in  a  man-o'-war  or  any 
other  ship,  for  that  matter.  Pickles  and 
a  table-cloth  did  not  materially  lessen  the 
discomforts  and  dangers  suffered  by  the 
officers  and  men  alike  in  being  "half- 
baked  in  the  tropics  or  wholly  frozen  in 
Spitzbergen,"  or  the  abject  misery  of 
standing  watch  and  watch  of  a  winter's 
night  in  dreary  blockade  of  a  channel 
port.  The  sailors  realized  this,  for  we  find 
one  philosopher  saying:   "No  one  grum- 


A  seaman. 


The  lieutenant. 


bles  at  his  lot  in  an  engagement  or  curses 
the  bullet  that  unlegs  him,  because  all 
aboard  are  alike  exposed  to  misfortune"; 
but  for  a  port  admiral  they  had  the  ut- 
most contempt.  To  one  of  these  who  sent 
them  to  sea  without  necessity  on  Christ- 
mas Eve  they  dedicated  a  ballad  in  the 
nature  of  an  anathema. 

There  is  something  truly  fine  about  the 
absolute  devotion  of  a  seaman.  Even 
under  treatment  scarce  human  he  was  al- 
ways ready  to  do  his  duty.  Fielding,  in 
his  "Voyage  to  Lisbon,"  notes  this  and 
extols  him  for  virtues  he  knew  not  of  till 
he  made  his  memorable  voyage  a  dying 
man.  Though  i)roi)erly  indignant  at  the 
cruel  gibes  that  greeted  his  aj)|)carance 
aboard  ship,  he  was  amazed  at  the  cheer- 
fulness and  faithfulness  under  stress,  and 


The  chaplain. 

tells  of  a  sailor  leaping  over- 
board to  save  a  kitten  when 
the  ship  was  under  way  and 
at  sea.  He  rightly  decided 
there  were  two  kinds  of  flesh 
— land  flesh  and  sea  flesh. 

From  the  comfortable  van- 
tage of  a  softer  age  the  life 
of  a  man-o'-war's  man  in  the 
eighteenth  century  seems  an 
incredible  thing.     That  a  hu- 
man being  could  be  triced  up  and  his  bared 
back  cut  into  ribbons  on  the  mere  whim 
of  an  officer  is  now  happily  impossible, 
although  not  so  then.     That  there  were 
tyrants  who  abused  their  powers  is  only 
too  patent  from  the  records  of  mutinies 
that  occurred,  but  that  they  were  as  com- 
mon as  many  writers  would  have  us  be- 
lieve is  not  true.     The  victories  of  that 
day  could  not  have  been  won  by  galley- 
slaves. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  men  preferred 
a  "taut  hand"  to  a  lenient  master.  The 
one  meant  a  smart  ship,  one  in  which  he 
could  have  a  proper  pride,  while  with 
slack  disci])line  inevitably  came  disorder 
and  slovenliness. 

Sir  Peter  Parker  was  a  good  deal  of  a 
martinet,  but  a  prime  seaman.     He  swore 


38 


The  Old   Man-of- War's  Man 


he'll  make  the  men  under  him  "i^^uch 
their  hats  to  a  midshipman's  anit.  il  it 
were  but  hung  on  a  broomstick  to  (Iry.  ' 
Vet  his  crew  wtirshij>pe(l  him.  while  an- 
other who  tlogjzcd  daily  woukl  lia\e  his 
crew  half  in  mutiny  all  the  time.  De- 
spite their  ditTerence  in  rank  and  social 
status  a  cajitain  had  to  have  something 
more  than  the  resjiect  due  to  his  legal  au- 
thority to  get  the  most  out  of  the  force 
under'his  command.  It  was  that  "some- 
thing" which  in  Nelson  they  say  double- 
manned  the  ships  off  Cadiz  by  his  merely 
joining  the  fleet. 

When  we  think  of  the  old  figh  ing  ship 
we  naturally  see  her  thundering  broad- 
sides and  glorified  in  brilliant  clouds  of  her 
own  smoke.  But  battles  and  yacht-races 
and  football  games,  or  any  encounter  be- 
tween men,  are  won  or  lost  in  the  long 
hours  of  preparation.  Colling\vood  block- 
ading the  French  and  Spanish  fleets  in 
Cadiz  for  months,  after  Nelson  pursued 
them  for  nearly  two  years,  is  but  one  in- 
stance of  fighting  under  old  conditions. 
It  was  the  long-sustained  gruelling  grind 
that  tried  men's  souls.  The  German  gen- 
eral in  1870  expressed  it  when  he  said  that, 
''  Having  done  with  the  pastime  of  war,  we 
will  now  take  up  the  serious  business  of 
life,  which  is  drilling." 

An  action  indeed  was  hailed  as  a  break 
in  the  dead  monotony  of  heavy  routine 
under  an  iron  discipline,  though  in  itself  a 
battle  could  be  the  severest  kind  of  toil, 
and  men  have  been  know^n  in  a  long-sus- 
tained fight  to  drop  exhausted  by  their 
cumbrous  guns  and  sleep  amid  the  roar  of 
broadsides  and  splintering  crash  of  shot 
striking  home. 

Captain  Hull,  writing  of  the  man-of- 
war's  man,  says:  "  His  range  of  duty  in- 
cludes the  whole  world:  he  may  be  lost  in 
the  wilderness  of  a  three-decker,  or  be 
wedged  into  a  cock-boat  of  a  cutter;  he 
may  be  half-fried  in  Jamaica  or  wholly 
frozen  in  Spitzbergen;  he  may  be  cruis- 
ing six  days  in  the  w^eek  in  the  midst  of  an 
hundred  sail  and  flounder  in  solitude  on 
the  seventh;  he  may  be  peaceably  riding 
at  anchor  in  the  morning  and  hot  in  ac- 
tion before  sunset." 

Whether  open  to  a  fresh  breeze  off  blue 
water  or  to  a  pleasant  view  of  peaceful 
harbor  the  open  ports  meant  much  to  the 
comfort  and  health  of  poor  Jack;  but  in 


anything  like  rough  weather  this  boon  was 
impossible. 

The  food  was  notoriously  bad,  and  it 
was  said  that  "where  one  died  by  shot 
ten  died  by  bad  provisions."  To  cite  one 
case  alone  Admiral  Hosier  on  the  West 
India  station  buried  his  ship's  company 
twice  over.  This  was  largely  due  to  the 
habit  of  men  demanding  the  same  fare 
which  they  were  accustomed  to  eat  in 
home  waters  and  the  fact  that  the  daily 
ration  included  a  gallon  of  usually  spoiled 
beer.  This,  with  a  salt  diet,  ran  up 
the  mortality  to  a  fearful  extent.  The 
scourge  of  the  sailor,  merchant  or  naval, 
in  those  days  was  scurvy.  What  the  an- 
nihilation of  yellow  fever  on  the  Isthmus 
meant  to  the  building  of  the  Panama 
Canal  the  elimination  of  scurvy  meant  to 
the  efficiency  of  a  sailing  fleet. 

The  man-of-war's  man  would  have  been 
made  more  content  by  an  occasional  run 
ashore;  but  this  was  necessarily  denied 
him.  The  navy  was  so  big  and  men  so 
precious  that  those  in  command  dared  not 
give  them  an  opportunity  to  desert.  There 
was  little  risk  of  this  happening  to  any  ex- 
tent, however,  as  during  the  wars  the  pen- 
alty for  such  an  offence  was  disgraceful 
death,  and  the  reward  for  the  capture  of 
deserters  was  so  tempting  to  greedy  folk 
ashore  that  the  very  people  whose  exist- 
ence he  guaranteed  were  glad  to  deliver 
the  sailor  to  the  executioner. 

That  loyalty  was  the  rule  need  not  be 
stated  here  and  that  such  a  precious  thing 
was  bestowed  on  some  unworthy  masters 
is  also  true.  That  the  men  were  ill-used 
there  is  no  denying,  and  even  under  a  hu- 
mane commander  it  was  quite  within  the 
power  of  a  boy  of  a  midshipman  to  fol- 
low the  best  man  in  the  crew  from  day  to 
day  and  vent  upon  him  all  the  indignity 
and  abuse  the  little  demon  could  invent. 
The  bo's'n  and  his  mates  as  a  rule  carried 
canes  and  "starters"  or  "persuaders" 
with  which  they  were  accustomed  to  beat 
men  striving  to  do  their  duty. 

No  wonder  Johnson  remarked  that  he 
didn't  see  why  men  went  to  sea  when  there 
were  jails  ashore,  and  that  a  proverb  ran: 
"Those  who  would  go  to  sea  for  pleasure 
would  go  to  hell  for  pastime."  The  top- 
men  especially  came  in  for  more  than  their 
share  of  ill  treatment.     Their  work  was 


The  prison  hulk. 


always  under  the  eye  of  the  deck  officer 
and  they  lived  in  continual  terror  lest  some- 
thing should  go  wrong  aloft  and  bring  in- 
stant punishment.  That  this  punishment 
was  severe  is  proved  by  the  case  of  one  man 
called  to  the  deck  to  receive  it.  Instead 
of  obeying  the  order  he  deliberately  walked 
to  the  end  of  the  yard  and  jumped  over- 
board. 

Flogging  was  the  most  common  form  of 
punishment  inflicted,  sometimes  for  tri- 
fling offences. 

At  eleven  in  the  forenoon  the  word  was 
passed  to  call  all  hands  to  witness  punish- 
ment. The  captain  then  appeared  with 
the  curt  order  to  ''Rig  gratings!"  He 
then  called  the  first  name  on  the  list  of 
offenders: 

" Drunk  aboard  ship!  What  had  he  to 
say?" 

There  was  nothing  much  to  be  said  ex- 
cept to  express  the  '"ope  that  his  'onor 
would  overlook  it  this  time."  Vain  hope; 
and  in  a  jiffy  he  was  triced  with  his  bare 
back  ready  for  the  cat.  After  the  article 
of  war  relating  to  the  offence  had  been 
read  and  sentence  ])r()n()unced,  at  the  curt 
command  of  the  cai)tain  the  boatswain's 
mate  transformed  the  groaning  victim's 
muscular  back  into  a  mass  of  bleeding 


flesh.  No  doubt  many  hardened  offend- 
ers received  their  medicine  and  were  car- 
ried groaning  or  weeping  by  their  com- 
rades below  to  the  surgeon's  care;  but 
sometimes  up  would  come  an  athletic 
young  giant,  straight  as  an  arrow,  with 
the  bearing  of  a  Hon,  a  topman.  He  had 
'^  transgressed  his  jNlajesty's  laws,"  it 
seemed,  in  being  responsible  for  bungling 
the  furling  of  a  toi^galhmt  sail,  with  the 
admiral  looking  on!  What  had  he  to 
say? 

There  were  extenuating  circumstances, 
it  appeared.  It  was  true  that  he  had 
offended,  but  it  was  also  true  that  the 
clew-line  had  fouled  in  its  block.  In  fal- 
tering tones  he  begged  forgiveness  and 
hoped. 

''Strip,  sir!" 

Slowly  off  came  the  blue  jacket  with  its 
brightly  polished  gilt  buttons,  Jem's  red 
weskit  and  Bill's  gay  silken  handkerchief 
from  his  choking  throat  and  (Iropi)ed  in  a 
pitiful  heap  of  foolish  hnery,  unavailing, 
to  the  deck.  Off  came  the  checkered 
shirt  and  striped  guernsey  leaving  a  sin- 
cvry  torso  abo\'e  his  snowy  wide  trousers 
bare  to  the  breeze.  In  a  deathlike  silence 
he  stepped  to  the  blood-clotted  spot  be- 
neath the  grating  and  extended  his  scjuare 

39 


4() 


The  Old   Man-(^f-\Vars  Man 


wrists  to  the  tlcft  luuul>  o[  \u>  c\ccu{um- 
'     '^rn  each  of  his  sil^  • '  "'  ankles: 
.'chI  u|>.  sir  I" 
1  hen  the  brutal  coniiiuiiul; 
••Boatswain,  do  your  duty!" 
But  life  was  not  a'll  ^\wm  and  work  and 
cruel  punishment  for  Jack.     It  had  its 
'  -'  -'-•  -;|x)ts  tix),  and  nical-time  was  a  real 
;v)n-  dinner-time  the  i)leasant  hour 
oi  the  day.     This,  too,  was  the  hour  wlicn 
the  grog  was  served  out  to  a  hvely  tunc, 
and,  grog  being  a  sort  of  legal  tender,  bets 
were  settled  and  accounts  squared,  those 
who  did  not  care  for  navy  rum  purchasing 
many  perquisites  from  their  more  bibu- 
lousfy  inclined  mates.     The  latter  got  into 
trouble  at  once  by  any  over-indulgence. 
The  temptation  was  great,  for  by  saving 
the  noon-day  ration  and  putting  it  with 
his  evening  tot  quite  a  fair  state  of  illumi- 
nation could  be  attained,  as  each  man  drew 
half  a  pint  of  raw  spirits  a  day.     Admiral 
Vernon,  nicknamed  ''Old  Grog"  because 
of  a  coat  he  wore,  was  the  first  to  dilute 
the  seamen's  drink.     His  name  survives 
to-day  for  the  enticing  mixture  served  on 
board  British  naval  vessels. 

Though  anything  like  organized  sport 
was  unknown,  save  perhaps  boat-racing, 
the  men  had  certain  rough  amusements  of 
their  own  and  always  were  much  given  to 
bufTooner}'.  This  hilarity  had  to  be  kept 
within  certain  strictly  defined  limits,  as 
anything  like  soldiering  on  duty  or  gam- 
ing at  cards  and  dice  out  of  season  was 
strictly  punished.  To  this  end  the  mas- 
ter-at-arms had  his  petty  spies  among  the 
crew  to  apprise  him  of  any  quiet  little 
game  going  on  between  the  guns.  These 
spies  were  called  "white  mice"  and  were 
loathed  by  the  men,  who  often  had  revenge 
for  their  treachery.  Nor  was  the  master- 
at-arms  entirely  free  from  this  danger  as 
he  went  about  with  his  dim  lanthorn  on 
his  rounds  in  the  black  night  of  the  lower 
hold. 

Among  other  changes  in  this  period  of 
development  music  was  introduced.  Be- 
sides taking  the  place  of  the  chantey  at 
hauling  and  hea\dng  it  gave  an  added 
comfort  to  the  quiet  dog-watch  when  the 
men  gathered  on  the  forecastle  in  little 
groups  to  hsten  to  their  own  country 
songs  and  to  dance  a  lively  reel  to  an  in- 
spiriting air  or  sing  "ship-made"  verses 
of  their  own.    Where  a  little  attention 


was  |)aiel  to  the  need  of  recreation  among 
men  full  of  animal  spirits  and  suppressed 
by  a  hard  code  there  was  little  danger  of 
imiliny  raising  its  ugly  head. 

Bui  mutiny  was  rare  and  never  broke 
out  without  good  reason.  The  one  at 
Spithead,  where  the  fleet  was  in  revolt,  was 
managed  so  judiciously,  the  demands  were 
so  moderate  and  just,  and  the  behavior 
of  the  men  so  restrained,  that  they  gained 
their  point  and  immunity  was  given  the 
offenders.  That  of  the  Nore  was  quite  a 
different  matter  and  was  instigated  and 
managed  largely  by  a  man  named  Parker, 
self-styled  "Admiral  of  the  Mutiny." 
Parker  was  the  type  of  man  whom  the 
sailor  always  despised  and  even  called 
"sea-lawyer."  His  history  is  brief:  he 
was  of  smooth  and  polished  address,  but  a 
crook  who  entered  the  navy  to  escape  a 
jail  sentence.  Within  eighteen  months  he 
had  hoisted  his  rebel  flag  and  entered  upon 
his  brief  day  of  power.  He  strutted  the 
quarter-deck  for  a  time  before  dangling 
with  some  of  his  luckless  mates  at  the  end 
of  a  yard-arm. 

During  these  mutinies  some  of  the  fine 
qualities  of  the  sailors  show  to  advantage, 
while  others  are  more  amusing.  It  seems 
the  self-appointed  officers  were  not  above 
enforcing  honors  to  themselves,  and  one 
bo's'n  upon  refusing  to  pipe  a  boatload  of 
what  Jackey  called  "dehcates"  up  the  side 
was  triced  up  and  given  three  dozen  of  his 
own  cat.  In  another  ship  the  delegates 
were  told  to  sheer  off  and,  refusing  to  do 
so,  the  marines  were  ordered  to  fire  over 
the  heads  of  those  in  the  boat.  This  so 
infuriated  the  men  that  they  were  going 
to  hang  the  lieutenant  of  marines,  when 
the  captain  of  the  ship,  stepping  forward, 
said  that  his  subordinate  had  but  done  his 
duty  in  carrying  out  an  order  that  he  had 
given,  that  he  himself  was  the  guilty  one 
if  any,  and  that  he  was  ready  to  die  if 
need  be.  Fortunately  the  men,  appreci- 
ating so  brave  an  act,  refused  to  punish 
either. 

In  another  instance  of  a  fleet  mutiny 
the  men  of  a  ship  sent  each  day  a  boat 
ashore  with  a  message  to  the  wife  of  the 
captain  to  allay  the  fears  of  that  lady  for 
her  husband's  safety  and  at  the  success- 
ful termination  of  the  revolt  the  men  cele- 
brated their  victory  by  a  tremendous 
parade  ashore  in  which  the  popular  com- 


Building  a  three-decker. 


manders  were  carried  on  the  shoulders  of 
their  men  or  drawn  by  them  in  carriages 
through  the  streets. 

Quite  different  from  these  successes  was 
the  sordid  tale  of  the  Hermione  and  Pig- 
gott  her  captain.  He  was  one  of  the  worst 
type,  and  a  series  of  cruelties  culminated 
in  the  death  of  two  men.  During  sail  ex- 
ercise one  day,  to  induce  extra  spryness,  he 
said  that  he'd  flog  the  last  man  down  off  a 
yard.  In  the  mad  scramble  to  escape  that 
distinction  two  sailors  fell  at  his  feet  in 
broken  heaps.  He  coolly  ordered  them 
hove  overboard.  That  night  the  men 
rose,  murdered  their  commander,  and  next 
day  cast  their  officers  adrift  in  a  boat; 
later  sailing  the  ship  into  a  South  Ameri- 
can ])ort  and  turning  her  o\'er  to  the 
Spaniards. 

The  "press"  was  a  horrible  cruelty,  but  it 
had  the  merit  of  success.  When  a  bounty 
equal  to  almost  a  thousand  dollars  to-day 
did  not  attract  men  in  sufficient  numbers 
the  necessity  of  the  times  demanded  se- 


vere measures.  One  of  its  many  hard- 
ships, and  one  which  brought  trouble 
with  us  later,  was  the  practice  of  bring- 
ing-to  a  merchant-shi])  at  sea  and  taking 
so  many  men  out  of  her  that  sometimes 
the  captain  did  not  have  enough  men  to 
work  her  home. 

Under  favorable  circumstances  this 
treatment  was  resented  forcibly,  and 
somewhat  earlier  merchant-ships,  being 
armed,  sometimes  fought  the  King's 
smaller  ships  successfully.  Strangely 
enough,  no  steps  were  taken  to  punish  of- 
fenders in  this  respect,  and  the  captured 
men  who  found  themselves  in  unwelcome 
service  bore  no  grudge  against  their  cap- 
tors for  broken  heads.  As  Commander 
Robinson  ])uts  it:  "No  bad  blood  seemed 
to  be  engendered  by  these  encounters,  as 
the  King's  officers  were  but  doing  their 
duty,  while  conceding  the  right  of  the  men 
to  resist." 

The  practice  of  not  allowing  the  men 
liberty  in  a  home  port  led  to  a  disgraceful 

4J 


The  Old  Maii-()f-\Var's  Man 

^P^.  ..,;^,  \v.i^  Mirrouiulcd  added  to  the  ordinary  trials  of  departure, 

j','  .^  and   inlested   with   shore  the  ship,  surrounded  by  shore  boats  that 

lick  with  a  pay-day  has  always  ])our  a  motley  throng  into  her,  became 

Ik  "•       andwithsuchapav-davas  i)andemonium.     The  Jews,  trying  to  close 

l^.  .   then,  with  ix-rhaps  three  out  their  stock— or  worse,  trymg  to  realize 

years'  wag<^  and  several  hundred  pounds  on  unwise  credits— added  their  wails  to 

pri/e-monev  hcapeil  in  a  gHltorinG;  pile  in  the  clamorous  cries  of  wash-ladies  and  other 

the  .  r.>u  n  .'>f  !ii^  tanxuilin  hat.  he  was  fair  bum-boat  folk  who,  with  their  long  bills. 


Deserters. 


plunder  for  those  who  supplied  him  with 
delights  and  comforts  he  was  unable  to 
obtain  for  himself. 

'Jew  pedlers  scented  afar  a  ship  to  be 
paid  off  and  flocked  in  droves  with  tin 
watches  and  all  the  petty  gewgaws  and 
finer}'  dear  to  a  sailor's  heart.  Although 
all  visitors  were  searched  for  liquor  and 
sentries  placed  in  the  chains  saw  to  it  that 
none  came  through  the  ports,  it  came 
aboard  somehow^  in  a  steady  stream.  And 
with  the  drink  came  the  ladies  and  with 
the  ladies  came  trouble.  Discipline  under 
the  circumstances  was  impossible.  The 
ship  became  dirty,  the  rigging  slovenly 
and  neglected,  wMle  the  shrill  cries  of  the 
bargainers  in  the  lower  deck  mingled  with 
the  discordant  music  of  the  fiddlers  and 
the  wildly  suggestive  stepping  of  the  reels 
on  the  forecastle. 

All  this  hilarity  came  to  a  head  on  sail- 
iiig-^ay;  a  day  of  confusion  anyway,  when. 


shrilly  demanded  payment  or  coaxingly 
entreated  tipsy  Jack,  who  hoped  to  settle 
all  ''out  of  the  bunt  of  the  fore-topsail." 
The  sailors'  wives  and  sweethearts,  lov- 
ingly disputing  the  long  accounts  run 
by  their  swains,  added  their  little  mites 
to  the  general  melee,  while  Jack  him- 
self, feeling  he  was  being  defrauded,  often 
enough  entered  the  noisy  argument  with 
a  blow  of  his  fist  which  sent  a  Jew  sprawl- 
ing on  deck  and  his  wares  into  the  hold 
to  be  seen  no  more.  All  disputed  points 
v/ere  settled,  and  the  combatants  parted 
by  the  rough  hand  .of  the  sergeant  of 
marines  with  his  guard,  when  the  word 
was  passed  to  clear  the  ship  at  sunset. 

We  can  picture  the  actual  morning  of 
sailing.  The  dawn.ing  day  finds  the  ship 
astir  with  the  bustle  of  departure  and  the 
sun's  low  slant  strikes  its  first  warm  shaft 
on  great  folds  of  loosened  canvas  hanging 


The  Old  Man-of-War's  Man 


45 


in  the  gear  and  swayinj^  in  the  crisp  air. 
On  top  of  the  fresh  breeze  tiny  cloudlets 
come  tumblinfij  o\er  the  dark-wooded  and 
castellated  hill  and  hover  above  the  sleep- 
ing town  gray  by  the  water's  edge.  The 
ship  chafes  fretfully  at  her  cable  as  though 
anxious  to  be  off. 

Floating  over  the  green  ruflled  surface 
of  the  water  come  the  shrill  pipe  and 
hoarse  bawl  of  the  bo's'n,  the  thin  melody 
of  a  fife  and  with  it  the  rhythmic  under- 
tone and  steady  clank  of  the  capstan- 
pawls  as  round  and  round  the  marines  and 
waisters  go.  The  ship  slowl}'  crawls  up 
on  her  anchor. 

"  Short,  sir! "  roars  from  the  head  to  the 
cjuarter-deck.  At  the  order  the  panting 
men  rest  on  the  bars.  Then  along  the  gear 
and  gun  cluttered  deck  orders  fly  thick 
and  fast,  echoed  by  the  bawling  bo's'n  and 
his  mates.  Like  mad  hares  the  men  scurry 
about  alow  and  aloft,  when  suddenly,  as 
if  by  magic,  the  delicate  spars  and  lace- 
like rigging  disappear  and  the  ship  is 
clothed  in  shimmering  canvas  billowing  in 
a  great  mass  against  the  masts  and  shrouds 
on  yards  already  trimmed. 

Once  more  the  men  strain  at  the  cap- 
stan, and  as  the  anchor  breaks  its  hold, 
she  pays  off,  and  fills  away,  the  yards  are 
squared,  the  water  gurgles  around  her 
forefoot,  and  through  the  silent  roadstead 
and  its  silent  ships  she  glides  majestically 
down  to  the  sea.  Only  a  few  fishermen 
returning  with  their  night's  harvest  are 
there  to  bid  farewell  and  make  obeisance 
as  she  passes  by  letting  fly  their  sheets. 
As  the  hour  is  long  before  colors,  this 
homely  sea  tribute  is  unanswered. 

Clear  of  the  head  her  bluff  bows  square- 
ly meet  the  old  swell  coming  up  channel 
and  she  lifts  her  gallant  beak  from  drip- 
ping cascade  that  flies  to  leeward  in  shim- 
mering spindrift,  to  flash  for  a  moment  in 
the  great  billow  rolling  there,  and  then 


join  her  foaming  wake  that  sparkles  in 
the  morning  sun. 

The  ports  are  thrown  open  to  the  sweet 
land-breeze  and  through  them  the  green- 
carpeted  white  cliffs  of  his  native  land 
seem  especially  radiant  to  the  homesick, 
heartsick,  or  seasick  lad  in  the  lower  deck, 
fresh  from  the  pangs  of  a  parting  that  may 
last  a  dozen  years.  His  reveries  are  rude- 
ly disturbed  l)y  the  bo's'n ,  for  there  is  much 
to  be  done  in  the  way  of  cleaning  ship  and 
removing  the  traces  of  a  long  stay  in  port. 

Off  Falmouth  she  swings  into  the  wind 
and  with  her  main-yard  aback  makes  her 
final  courtesy  to  the  land  of  her  birth,  while 
the  pilot  clambers  down  into  his  bobbly 
boat.  He  stands  there  for  a  moment  and 
with  his  cap  in  his  hand  wishes  his  lord- 
ship ''a  pleasant  and  successful  cruise/' 
a  kindness  which  his  lordship  acknowl- 
edges with  a  cold  nod.  Another  nod  to 
the  lieutenant  and  he  enters  his  cabin. 
Once  there,  removed  from  the  gaze  of  his 
subordinates,  perhaps  he  too,  as  the  land 
comes  in  range  of  his  cabin  windows, 
gazes  back  where  dwell  all  he  holds  most 
dear. 

Off  Ushant  he  opens  his  orders  and  lays 
his  course  northerly,  southerly,  westerly — 
he  knows  not  till  then  where  })ublic  busi- 
ness or  "private  occasion"  may  lead  him. 
And  out  on  the  deepening  blue  water  with 
him,  his  fortunes  bound  with  his,  goes 
Jack. 

As  the  day  grows  old  and  gilds  her 
flaxen  sails  the  beautiful  old  ship  ])lunges 
on  in  perfect  unison  with  an  empurpled 
sea  that  lifts  her  on  in  an  embrace  she 
still  seems  to  keep  for  wood  and  hemp 
and  canvas  alone.  The  red  sun  dips,  the 
shadows  creep,  the  stars  steal  out,  and  into 
the  great  void  of  night  called  the  Past 
the  ship  gently  disappears,  and  with  her 
goes  that  "blunt  sea-animaT'  sometimes 
called  Jack. 


\"..i..  ],\'.— 5 


Tllli    TORTOISE 
\]\   Katharine   Fullerton  Gerould 


,:<:v^v?.^^>>?^l  IFRK  arconly  three  things 
^  worth   while— fighting, 

drinking,  and  making 
k)ve."  It  was  Chahners 
who  said  it  to  me  as  we 
came  out  of  the  theatre, 


and  were  idhng  along  towards  the  club. 
We  had  been  seeing  a  very  handsome — 
almost  elegant  —  melodrama.  Very  im- 
pressionable chap,  Chalmers,  I  thought, 
for  I  was  quite  sure  that  he  had  never 
done  any  lighting;  he  was  apparently  a 
total  abstainer;  and  he  positively  ran — 
as  whole-heartedly  as  a  frightened  cow^ — 
from  a  petticoat. 

"What  about  work?"  I  asked,  as  we 
turned  into  the  club.  Chalmers  is  a  fiend 
for  work:  always  shut  up  in  his  labora- 
tory, dr>''-nursing  an  experiment. 

'*  Work  is  an  anodyne — a  blooming  ano- 
dyne.'' He  hunched  his  shoulders,  and 
his  brown  coat — the  coat  of  a  toilsome  re- 
cluse, if  ever  there  was  one;  there's  some- 
thing peculiarly  unworldly  about  brown 
tweed  for  a  man's  w^ear — creased  into 
lumpier  curves  than  ever. 

''It's  a  mighty  slow^  one.  If  I  wanted 
a  quick  effect,  I  think  I'd  take  to  cocaine. 
Must  be  exciting,  slewing  round  the  cor- 
ners of  Montmartre,  dropping  your  francs 
into  a  basket  that  swings  down  from  God 
knows  where,  with  the  blessed  stuff  all  in 
it  waiting  to  be  inhaled.  And  all  over 
inside  of  a  year."  Thus  I  to  Chalmers, 
knowing  that  we  were  very  far  from  Mont- 
martre.  Chalmers,  I  should  say,  was 
magnificently  dependable;  you  were  as 
safe  in  dropping  a  lurid  suggestion  on  him 
as  on  the  shell  of  an  ancient  turtle.  I 
rather  liked  that  idea,  which  struck  me 
just  then;  in  fact,  his  clothes  were  much 
the  color  of  tortoise-shell. 

''But  I  don't  want  it  over.  You  see 
.  .  .  I've  agreed  to  hang  on."  His  keen 
glance  at  me,  more  than  his  words,  sa- 
vored of  explanation. 

"Oh I"  I  made  the  syllable  as  non- 
committal as  possible.  The  lips  that  are 
at  one  moment  so  fluent  in  confession  will 
46 


grow  stiff  with  resentment  after  the  hour 
of  confidence  is  over.  For  that  reason  I 
dislike  to  have  people  tell  me  things:  I 
always  expect  that  they  will  some  day 
hate  me  merely  because  they  told. 

We  sat  down  at  a  table,  and  I  ordered 
a  highball.  Chalmers  fussed  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  committed  himself  to  a 
pate  sandwich  with  apollinaris.  I  didn't 
think  of  asking  him  to  join  me.  We  had 
been  trying  for  five  years  to  get  Chalmers 
to  take  a  drink.  For  a  year  there  were 
always  bets  going  on  it;  but  it  had  been  a 
long  time  now  since  any  of  us  had  made 
or  lost  anything  on  the  chance  of  Chal- 
mers's potations. 

At  the  same  time,  my  curiosity  was 
aroused.  There  had  never  been  any  mys- 
tery about  Chalmers.  There  isn't  any 
about  a  tortoise,  if  it  comes  to  that.  The 
beast  has  been  made  much  of  mytholog- 
ically,  I  believe;  but  even  in  India  they 
only  accuse  him  of  holding  up  the  world. 
No  one  pretends,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  he 
keeps  anything  under  his  shell  except  him- 
self. But  Chalmers  didn't  seem  to  be  even 
bearing  a  burden.  He  was  simply  Chal- 
mers. He  had  come  among  us,  an  accred- 
ited student  of  physics,  with  letters  of  in- 
troduction from  German  professors  and 
Colonial  Dames;  he  had  performed  the  ab- 
solutely necessary  conventional  duties ;  he 
was  vaguely  related  to  people  that  every 
one  knew;  he  was  so  obviously  a  gentle- 
man that  no  one  would  ever  have  thought 
of  affirming  it.  His  holidays  were  all 
accounted  for — in  fact,  he  usually  spent 
them  with  one  or  another  of  our  own 
group.  There  wasn't — there  isn't  now — 
a  single  thing  about  Chalmers  that  any 
one  could  have  the  instinct  to  investigate. 
It  had  never  occurred  to  any  of  us  that 
we  didn't  know  as  much  about  Chalmers 
as  we  did  about  the  people  we  had  been 
brought  up  with.  We  happened  not  to 
have  been  brought  up  with  him,  because 
he  had  happened  to  be  brought  up  abroad. 
His  father  had  been  a  consul  somewhere. 

On  this  occasion,  anyhow,  my  curiosity 


The  Tortoise 


got  the  better  of  my  fixed  rule.  I  decided 
to  lead  Chalmers  on. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  your  noble 
industry  is  nothing  but  a  poor  substitute 
for  a  drug?" 

He  smiled  quaintly.  His  green  eyes 
shone  under  his  dark  eyelashes.  Very 
taking  eyes  they  were:  well  set  in  his  head 
and  pleasantly  intimate,  with  a  near- 
sighted brilliancy. 

"I  didn't  say  it  was  a  poor  substitute. 
And,  anyhow,  cocaine  might  charm  away 
the  hours,  but  only  work  can  charm  away 
the  years.  I've  got  into  my  stride — for 
eternity,  it  would  seem.  And  some  day, 
you  know,  I  may,  quite  incidentally,  do 
something  in  spectrum  analysis  that  will 
be  significant.  I've  got  all  the  time  in  the 
world." 

''Are  you  so  sure?" 

*'Well — it  looks  as  if  I  were  in  for  a 
long  wait." 

He  spoke  as  unconcernedly  as  if  he  had 
his  lease  of  life  locked  up  in  his  safe- 
deposit  drawer. 

I  drank  some  whiskey,  and  waited  a 
minute,  wondering  whether  to  push  his 
confidence  over  the  edge,  send  it  spinning 
into  an  abyss  of  revelation.  Finally,  I 
decided. 

"I  didn't  know  that  anything  but  a 
contract  with  the  devil  could  make  you  so 
sure." 

"Oh!  it  doesn't  have  to  be  with  the 
devil."  He  sipped  his  virtuous  apolli- 
naris.  "Did  you  notice  the  heroine's  sis- 
ter?" he  went  on. 

I  hadn't  noticed  her  much.  I  had  been 
paying  my  money  to  see  Maude  Lansing 
act,  and  my  frugal  eyes  had  attached 
themselves  to  her  exclusively  from  the 
first  act  to  the  last. 

"A  vague  little  blonde  thing,  wasn't 
she?" 

"Blonde,  but  not  so  vague  as  you'd 
think.  At  least,  I  don't  think  she'd  be 
vague  if  you  gave  her  anything  to  do. 
She  had  to  be  vague  to-night,  of  course. 
But  didn't  you  see  her  deliberately  sub- 
duing herself  to  the  part — holding  her- 
self in,  so  as  not  to  be  too  pretty,  too 
angry,  too  subtle,  too  much  in  love?  She 
did  everything  vaguely,  I  imagine,  so  as 
not  to  hog  the  stage.  But  give  her  a 
chance  and  she'd  j)lay  up.  I  was  always 
expecting,  you  know,  that  she  would  hog 


the  stage.     She  could  ha\e  done  it.  .  .  . 
It  quite  got  me  going." 

"Did  you  think  her  better  than  Maude 
Lansing?"  It  was  something  new.  at 
least,  to  have  him  notice  a  woman  so 
closely. 

Chalmers  tasted  his  pCitc  and  half-nml- 
ded  aj)provingly  at  it. 

"Oh!  I  don't  know  anything  about  that. 
She  is  the  only  woman  I  have  ever  seen 
who  looked  like  the  girl  I  married." 

I  set  down  my  glass  quickly.  I  had 
drunk  most  of  the  whiskey,  and  therefore 
none  of  it  was  spilled.  Chalmers  married  I 
Why — why — we  knew  all  about  him,  from 
cradle  to  laboratory;  or,  at  least,  as  much 
as  men  do  know  of  other  men  who  have 
no  scrapes  to  be  got  out  of.  I  looked  nar- 
rowly at  Chalmers.  Was  it  possible  that 
he  had  been  lying  low  all  these  years,  with 
the  single  intention  of  peq:)etrating  even- 
tually the  supreme  joke  ?  And  if  he  was 
merely  a  humorist  of  parts,  why  had  he 
not  assembled  the  crowd?  Why  had  he  se- 
lected only  one  of  his  intimates?  His  inti- 
mates! That  was  precisely  what  we  were. 
Yet  none  of  us  knew  that  he  had  been 
married.  Chalmers  himself  might  easily 
not  have  mentioned  a  dead  wife,  but  no 
end  of  people,  first  and  last,  had  turned 
up  and  contributed  to  Chalmers's  biog- 
raphy, and  it  was  odd  that  none  of  them 
should  have  mentioned  his  bereavement. 
Unless 

"No  one  knows  I  am  married.  No  one 
has  ever  known.  If  I  told  you  all  about 
it,  you'd  see  why.  And  I  think  I  shall. 
That  girl  started  it  all  up  again." 

He  leaned  across  the  table  and  laid  his 
hand  on  my  arm.  His  eyes  glinted  en- 
couragingly at  me.  "  Cheer  up,  old  man! 
You're  not  in  for  anything  sordid.  But 
curious — oh,  very,  very  curious!  Yes,  I 
think,  without  vanity,  I  may  say  very 
curious.  ...  I  meant  what  I  said  just 
now,  coming  out  of  the  theatre.  There 
aren't  but  three  things  worth  whilc^ — and 
I  mayn't  have  them.  I  mayn't  fight,  be- 
cause I  might  get  killed  before  I've  a 
right  to;  I  don't  drink,  for  the  sake  of  the 
l)altry  hours  that  might  be  subtracted 
from  the  sum  of  my  years  if  I  did;  and, 
being  married,  I  naturally  can't  \ery  well 
make  love.  Can  1?"  He  turned  on  me 
with  such  a  tone  of  ingenuous  query  that 
I  wondered  if  it  was  a  joke,  after  all. 


4S 


Tlic   Tortoise 


I  tried  to  be  cynical.    "That  (Iqiciuls 

'  **'*0h.  no,  it  doesn't:*  It  was  I  lie  old 
Chalmers  who  smiled  at  me— ingratiat- 
ing, youthful,  adventurous,  gay.  I  had 
often  wondered  why  Clialniers  KK)kcd  ad- 
venturous, his  habits  being,  if  e\er  any 
man*s  were,  regular  to  the  point  of  mo- 
notony. It  occurred  to  me  now  that  per- 
haps he  looked  ad\enturous  because  he 
had  had  his  adventure  already.  In  any 
case,  it  was  very  satisfactory  to  find  at 
last  something  in  his  life  that  matched 
with  the  look  in  his  eyes— something  that 
would  take  the  curse  off  his  e\en  temper- 
ament and  equable  ways. 

'•\'ery.  ve-y  curious,"  he  repeated. 
"And  all  these  years  I've  wanted  to  tell 
somebody,  just  in  case  I  should  drop  out 
suddenly.  I've  left  written  instructions, 
but  I  should  really  like  some  one  to  under- 
stand.   It's  all  rather  preposterous." 

"  It's  preposterous  that  you  should  sud- 
denly be  married." 

"Ves— of  course.  Well:  I've  got  on 
pretty  well,  and  I'd  rather  you  didn't  men- 
tion ft  to  any  of  the  others.  But  if  any- 
thing should  turn  up,  you  can  say  you 
knew  it  all  along." 

''Fire  ahead." 

On  the  strength  of  the  narrative  about 
to  come  I  ordered  another  highball.  Some- 
times you  want  something  to  fiddle  with, 
something  to  intervene  between  you  and 
your  friend  when  it  is  hard  for  eyes  to 
meet.  But  he  had  promised  me  that  it 
should  be  nothing  sordid,  and  when  the 
drink  came  I  set  it  trustfully  to  one  side 
— in  reserve,  as  it  were.  .  .  . 

"Time  was  when  I  knocked  about  the 
world  a  bit.  My  parents  were  dead,  I  had 
no  close  kin,  and  there  was  money  enough 
to  do  what  I  wanted  to,  provided  I 
wanted  something  modest.  I  had  a  great 
notion,  when  I  came  out  of  Gottingen,  of 
a  Wanderjahr.  Only  I  was  determined  it 
shouldn't  be  hackneyed.  There  was  a 
good  deal  of  Wilhelm  Meister  in  it,  all  the 
same,  with  a  strong  dash  of  Heine.  I  fan- 
cied myself,  rather,  at  that  time:  wanted 
to  be  different — like  every  other  young 
pilgrim.  I  didn't  want  the  common  fate 
— not  I.  I  hadn't  any  grievance  against 
the  world,  because  I  had  a  complete  faith 
in  the  worid's  giving  me  what  I  wanted  in 
the  end.    But  I  distinctly  remember  prom- 


ising myself  to  be  remarkable.  I  sha'n't, 
of  course,  unless  there  is  something  in 
spectrum  analysis.  I  used  to  quote  Heine 
to  myself: 

'  Du  stolzcs  Hcrz,  du  hast  cs  ja  gewollt! 
l)u  wolltcst  glucklich  sein,  unendlich  glucklich, 
Oder  unendlich  elend,  stolzes  Herz, 
Und  jctzo  bist  du  elend.' 

Of  course,  I  never  believed  that  I  should 
be  'unendlich  elend,'  but  I  should  have 
preferred  that  to  anything  mediocre.  At 
that  age — you  know  what  we're  like. 
The  man  who  would  look  at  the  stars  by 
daylight,  and  tumbled  into  the  well. 
That's  us,  to  the  life. 

'T  met  her  in  a  villa  above  Ravello. 
Some  charming  French  people — or  at 
least  Monsieur  was  French,  though  Ma- 
dame and  the  money  were  American — 
were  keeping  guard  over  her.  The  Amer- 
ican wife  had  known  her  somewhere,  and 
w^as  being  good  to  her  in  her  great  misfor- 
tune. I  w^on't  go  into  explanations  of  how 
I  came  to  frequent  their  villa.  They  were 
among  the  scores  of  people  I  had  met  and 
known  in  this  or  that  pleasant,  casual 
way.  I  used  to  go  up  and  dine  with  them ; 
I  prolonged  the  Italian  interlude  in  my 
Wanderjahr  more  or  less  for  the  sake  of 
doing  so.  I  had  notions  of  going  on  to 
Egypt,  but  there  was  time  enough  for 
that.  I  stayed  on  even  more  because  I 
liked  the  villa — an  old  Saracen  stronghold 
on  the  edge  of  the  Mediterranean ,  modern- 
ized into  comfort — than  because  I  liked 
them,  though  they  were  pleasant  enough. 

''At  first  I  wished  the  girl  were  not  there. 
She  never  talked;  she  was  just  a  stiff  fig- 
ure, swathed  in  black  up  to  her  throat, 
sitting  day  by  day  almost  motionless  on  a 
parapet.  She  was  a  harsh  note.  Wher- 
ever you  were,  she  was  in  the  middle  dis- 
tance, a  black  figure  looking  out  to  sea. 
It  didn't  take  many  days  for  her  to  get  on 
my  nerves.  She  was  like  a  portent.  I 
fancy  she  got  on  theirs,  too,  but  they  WTre 
helpless.  I  gathered  that  Madame  C. 
had  a  good  deal  of  talk  with  her  daily,  in 
hours  when  they  were  alone;  and  before 
very  long  she  permitted  me  to  share  her 
perplexities.  She  didn't  want  to  desert 
her  young  friend;  but  the  girl  seemed 
to  have  sunk  into  a  kind  of  apathy.  She 
thought  perhaps  a  specialist  ought  to  see 
her.    A  very  American  touch,  that!    Un- 


The  Tortoise 


49 


luckily,  the  girl  had  no  close  kin;  there 
was  no  one  to  turn  her  over  to  officially. 

"Before  long  I  knew  the  whole  story. 
The  young  lady's  fiance  was  a  civil  engi- 
neer, and  had  been  employed  by  Portu- 
guese interests  in  East  Africa.  He  had 
gone  into  the  interior — more  or  less — on  a 
job  for  the  Nyassa  Company:  headquar- 
ters Mozambique.  There  was  supi)osed 
to  be  money  in  it,  because  the  Portuguese 
had  been  growing  ashamed  of  their  colo- 
nial reputation,  and  had  been  bucking  up 
to  some  extent.  Plence  the  job  with  the 
Nyassa  Company.  She  had  wanted  to  go 
out  with  him,  but  he  would  not  permit  it. 
Quite  right,  too:  Mozambique's  no  place 
for  a  woman — or  Lourenyo  Marques, 
either.  /  know.  Damn  their  yellow,  half- 
breed  souls!  .  .  .  She  had  been  waiting 
for  him  to  finish  his  job  in  the  interior, 
and  come  home  to  marry  her.  The  date  of 
their  marriage,  I  imagine,  had  not  been 
very  far  ofF. 

"Suddenly,  letters  had  ceased  to  come. 
There  had  been  a  horrid  interval  of 
months  when  there  was  no  word  out  of 
Africa  for  her.  Cablegrams  were  un- 
answered. The  people  at  the  other  end 
must  have  been  very  unbusinesslike  not 
to  give  her  some  inkling  of  the  reason  why 
they  couldn't  deliver  them.  I  suppose  it 
was  the  uncertainty.  There  he  was,  up 
on  the  verge  of  Rhodesia  or  beyond,  pros- 
pecting, surveying,  exploring:  it  was 
quite  on  the  cards  that  he  should  lose  his 
way,  or  be  infinitely  delayed,  or  fail  some- 
how of  his  communications  with  head- 
quarters on  the  coast.  Beastly  months 
for  her,  anyhow!  Then  letters  did  come. 
...  I  never  saw  any  of  them,  but  I  can 
imagine  just  the  awkward  vocabulary  of 
them:  a  Portuguese  head  clerk  in  Mo- 
zambique trying  to  break  it  to  her  or- 
nately that  her  man  had  died  of  fever  up- 
country.  Can't  you  imagine  those  letters 
— in  quaint,  bad  English,  on  thin  paju^r, 
worn  to  utter  limpness  and  poverty  with 
being  clutched  and  carried  and  cried  over? 
I  never  saw  them,  but  I  can.  .  .  . 

"Well:  I  don't  need  to  go  into  it  all. 
Indeed,  there  were  many  details  that  ]\Ia- 
dame  C.  had  forgotten,  and  that  she 
naturally  couldn't  ask  the  girl  to  refresh 
her  memory  of  for  my  benelit.  What  was 
troubling  Madame  was  the  girl's  condi- 
tion.   Apparently  she  had  loved  the  man 


consumingly;  and  considered  herself  vir- 
tually dead — entirely  negligible,  at  least, 
as  pitiful  and  worthless  a  thing  as  a  child 
widow  in  India.  But  you've  noticed,  per- 
haps, that  the  very  humble  are  sometimes 
l)ositi\ely  overweening  about  some  spe- 
cial thing.  The  damned  worms  u-onl  turn 
— any  more  than  if  they  were  elephants  in 
the  path!    And  so  it  was  with  her. 

"She  was  determined  to  go  out  and 
fetch  his  body  home.  The  people  in  Mo- 
zambique had  to  confess  that  they  didn't 
know  where  those  sacred  remains  were. 
The  epidemic  had  run  through  the  little 
cam]),  and,  by  the  time  the  man  himself 
had  keeled  over,  the  few  natives  that  were 
lefthadn'tner\'e  enough  to  do  anything  for 
him.  They  remembered  him,  raving  with 
fever  and  dropi)ing  among  the  corpses.  A 
few,  who  were  not  already  stricken,  got 
away — probably  considering  that  there 
was  a  lively  curse  on  his  immediate  neigh- 
borhood. There  had  been  complete  de- 
moralization. A  few  of  them  had  even- 
tually strayed  back,  as  I  said;  joining  any 
one  who  would  take  them  home.  Their 
casual  employments  delayed  them  a  good 
deal,  and  by  the  time  they  turned  in  a 
report — to  use  formal  language  in  a  case 
where  it  is  a  sore  misfit — there  was  noth- 
ing to  be  done.  I  didn't  gel  this  from  Ma- 
dame C. ;  I  got  it  from  her,  later,  when  she 
told  me  everything  she  knew  about  it. 
But  I  put  it  in  here,  which  is,  after  all, 
where  it  belongs." 

Chalmers  stopj^ed — he  had  been  talking 
steadily — and  lighted  a  cigarette.  I  took 
the  opportunity  to  sip  a  little  whiskey. 
Through  his  introduction,  I  had  been 
staring  at  him  fixedly.  ]\Iy  own  cigarette 
had  burned  to  ashes  in  my  fingers;  when 
I  felt  the  spark  touch  them,  I  dropped  the 
thing,  still  without  looking  at  it,  into  the 
tray.  He  hunched  his  shoulders  in  the 
si)eckled  brown  coat  and  bent  forward, 
his  arms  folded  on  the  table.  The  little 
movement  of  his  head  from  side  to  side 
was  very  like  a  tortoise.  .  .  . 

"Well,  you  see,  .  .  .  of  course  she 
couldn't  go  alone,  and  of  course  there  was 
no  one  to  see  her  through  a  thing  like 
that.  I  am  sure  she  hadn't  money  enough 
to  pay  any  one  for  going  with  her.  If  she 
had  tried  to  go,  she  wouldn't  have  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  much  except  get  into  the 
newspapers.     She  had  sense  enough   to 


50 


The  'i\)rtt)isc 


realize  it,  or  the  C'shad  sense  enough  to 
make  her.  Hut  if  she  couldn't  do  that, 
she  wouldn't  do  anything:  else.  Siie  sun- 
ply  sat  and  brixxled.  kwking  seaward. 
She  apparently  intended,  at  least,  not  to 
let  iio  of  her  'idea.  She  may  ha\e  had 
stime  notion  of  mesmerizing  the  universe 
with  her  ol)session— j\>^t  ^^^'  fitting  tight 
and  never  for  a  moment  thinking  of  any- 
thing else.  There  she  sat,  anyhow,  and 
Madame  C.  sent  out  her  do\cs  in  vain. 
Thev  all  eame  hack  from  the  parapet, 
drencht^l  with  Mediterranean  spray.  So 
it  went  on.  The  girl  might  hiwe  been 
watching  for  some  fabulous  creature  to 
rise  up  from  the  waves  and  take  her  to  her 
goal.  She  would  cheerfully  have  em- 
barked for  East  Africa  on  a  dolphin,  I 
think.  At  all  events,  she  wouldn't  leave 
her  parapet,  she  wouldn't  leave  the  villa, 
she  wouldn't  descend  to  the  conventional 
plane.  I  don't  mean  that  she  didn't  talk 
like  a  sane  woman ;  I  mean  only  that  she 
sat  at  the  heart  of  her  obsession,  and  that 
when  you  came  within  a  few  feet  of  her 
you  knocked  up  against  it,  almost  tan- 
gibly. A  queer  thing  to  meet,  day  after 
day'  ...  It  ended  by  my  being  dis- 
tinctly impressed. 

"Ver}'  like  the  girl  in  the  play!  Just 
the  same  blonde  vagueness,  just  the  same 
effect  of  being  cast  inevitably  for  an  un- 
important, a  merely  supplementary  part. 
But  one  is  never  fooled  twice  by  that  sort 
of  thing.  I  tell  you,  Maude  Lansing  will 
lind  herself  some  day  doing  chambermaid 
to  that  girl's  heroine.  ...  If  I  was  im- 
pressed, it  was  by  the  cul-de-sac  she  had 
got  herself  into.  She  couldn't  go  forward, 
and  she  wouldn't  go  back.  She  sat  there, 
waiting  for  the  world  to  change.  In  the 
end — after  Madame  C.  had  wrung  her 
hands  for  your  benefit  a  few^  hundred 
times — you  began  to  damn  the  world  for 
not  changing.  It  seemed  to  be  up  to  the 
per\-erse  elements  to  stop  the  regular  busi- 
ness of  the  cosmos  and  waft  her  to  her  goal. 

'T  could  hardly  have  talked  to  her 
about  anything  but  her  plight.  It  was  a 
week  or  two  before  I  talked  to  her  at  all ; 
but  in  the  end  I  found  that  if  I  wanted  to 
continue  to  come  to  the  villa,  I  should 
have  to  brave  that  presence  on  the  par- 
apet—domesticate myself  in  that  per- 
vasive and  most  logical  gloom.  So  I  did. 
She  was  a  positive  creature:  there  wasn't 


the  faintest  hint  of  apology  or  depreca- 
tion in  her  manner.  She  would  see  you 
on  business,  and  only  on  business — the 
business  being  her  tragedy.  Don't  mis- 
understand—  "  (Chalmers  frowned  a  little 
as  he  looked  at  me).  ''She  was  neither 
lachrymose  nor  hard;  she  was  just  infi- 
nitely and  quite  decently  preoccupied  with 
her  one  desire  and  her  helplessness  to 
achieve  it.  She  didn't  magnify  herself. 
It  isn't  magnifying  yourself  to  want  a 
proper  funeral  for  the  person  you  love,  is 
it?  She  was  even  grateful  for  sympathy, 
though  she  didn't  want  a  stream  of  words 
poured  out  over  her.  She — she  was  an 
awfully  good  sort." 

Chalmers  dug  his  cigarette-end  almost 
viciously  into  the  tray,  and  watched  the 
smoke  go  out.  We  both  watched  the 
smoke  go  out.  .  .  . 

''Before  long  we  had  talked  together 
a  good  deal,  especially  during  the  hour 
before  dinner,  when  the  sun  and  the  sea 
were  so  miraculous  that  any  other  miracle 
seemed  possible.  Such  easy  waters  to 
cross  they  looked,  in  the  sunset  light! 
You  forgot  the  blistering  leagues  beyond; 
you  forgot  that  it  took  money  and  men 
and  courage  and  endurance,  and  all  kinds 
of  things  that  are  hard  to  come  by,  to  get 
to  the  goal  she  was  straining  for.  I  sup- 
pose it  wouldn't  be  honest  to  say  that  she 
ever  passed  her  personal  fervor  on  to  me 
— I  couldn't  in  the  nature  of  things  care 
so  much  about  recovering  that  poor 
chap's  bones  as  she  did — but  I  did  end  by 
wishing  with  all  my  heart  that  I  could 
help.  Little  by  little,  it  seemed  a  roman- 
tic thing  to  do — to  go  out  searching  for 
the  spot  where  he  had  died.  Of  course, 
getting  the  bones  themselves,  except  for 
extraordinary  luck,  was  all  moonshine ;  but 
she  didn't  see  that,  anci  her  blindness  af- 
fected me.  Finally,  my  Wanderjahr  be- 
gan to  shape  itself  to  new  horizons.  Why 
shouldn't  I  have  a  try?  ...  I  dare  say  I 
posed  a  little  as  a  paladin,  though  not, 
I  hope,  to  her.  Anyhow,  I  decided  to 
broach  it. 

"I  don't  suppose  you  can  understand 
it — an}^  of  it — for  the  simple  reason  that 
I  can't  describe  her.  She  was  the  kind  of 
person  who  sees  very  clearly  the  differ- 
ence between  the  possible  and  the  impos- 
sible; who  never  attempts  anything  but 
the  possible;  yet  who  sets  every  one  about 


The  Tortoise 


51 


her  itching  to  attain  the  impossible.  Not 
'for  her  sake,'  in  the  conventional  sense; 
no,  not  that  at  all.  Simply,  she  has  set 
before  you  so  clearly  the  reason  why  a 
thing  can't  be  done  that  you  long  to  con- 
fute her,  just  as  you  sometimes  long  to 
confute  fate.  She  was  as  convincing  and 
as  maddening  as  a  natural  law.  P^ach  of 
us,  sooner  or  later,  has  tried  to  get  the 
better  of  some  little  habit  of  the  universe. 
You  felt  like  saying:  'Stop  looking  like 
that;   I'll  do  it— see  if  I  don't.' 

''That  was  the  spirit  in  which  I  went 
to  her  late  one  afternoon,  on  her  para- 
het.  The  C's  had  been  away  all  day  and 
were  not  to  return  until  evening.  Ma- 
dame C.  had  exasperated  me  the  night  be- 
fore by  proposing,  quite  baldly  and  kindly, 
that  the  girl  be  decoyed  into  a  sanatorium. 
The  C's  couldn't  keep  her  much  longer 
— they  were  off  for  Biskra — and  it  was  up 
to  me.  I  had  lain  awake  half  the  night, 
exploring  the  last  recesses  of  disaster  into 
which  my  idea  might  lead  me;  I  had 
sailed  far  out  on  the  bright  waters  all  day, 
perfecting  my  courage.  I  could  have  writ- 
ten as  bitter  a  little  allegory  about  it  all 
as  Heine  himself.  Secretly,  in  a  tawdry 
corner  of  my  mind,  I  thought  Wilhelm 
Meister  was  a  poor  stick  compared  to  me. 
But  it  was  honest  romance:  I  was  willing 
to  pay." 

I  finished  my  whiskey  as  Chalmers's 
voice  dropped  and  died  down,  and  he 
busied  himself  a  little  nervously  with  light- 
ing a  pipe.  His  green  eyes  had  flecks 
of  brown  in  them.  Once  more  in  the 
speckled  brown  figure  opposite  me  I  saw 
the  tortoise  beyond  the  reach  of  biol- 
ogy, which  upholds  the  world,  which  car- 
ries the  burden  of  all  human  flesh  and 
spirit. 

''I  told  her  that  I  was  ready  to  go;  that 
I  could  scrape  together  enough  money  for 
the  expedition  without  entirely  impover- 
ishing myself.  My  figures  hadn't  been 
quite  so  reassuring  as  that  when  I  totted 
them  up  on  a  piece  of  hotel  pajKT  at  dawn, 
but  at  least  I  had  left  magnificent  mar- 
gins for  everything. 

''She  smiled — I  had  never  seen  her 
smile  before,  and  at  the  moment  it  made 
her  thanks  seem  profuse — but  she  shook 
her  head.  She  was  beautifully  simple 
about  it.    I  liked  her  for  that. 

" '  It  wouldn't  do.     Not  that  it  isn't  di- 


vinely good  of  you  I  But,  you  see,  the 
point  is  that — '   she  stopped. 

" '  Well? '  My  heart  was  beating  hard. 
I  had  become  enamoured  of  my  Idea.  I  no 
more  wanted  to  be  balked  than  she  did. 

"'The  point  has  always  been  that  I 
should  go  myself.' 

'"Then  go  yourself!' 

" '  Carrying  off  all  your  money?  I  can't 
— Don  Quixote.'  There  was  nothing  play- 
ful in  her  tone;  and  she  had  me  all  the 
more  because  there  wasn't.  She  was  mere- 
ly registering  facts.  Even  the  '  Don  Quix- 
ote' was,  to  her  mind,  a  fact  that  she  was 
registering.     She  was  splendidly  literal. 

" '  Come  with  me.  I  don't  propose  that 
you  should  go  alone.' 

"She  frowned  a  little;  and  in  that 
frown  I  read  all  the  weariness  of  the  hours 
of  past  talk  with  Madame  C.  Presently 
she  looked  up  at  me,  very  kindly,  a  little 
questioningly,  as  if  for  the  first  time  my 
personality  in  itself  interested  her. 

"'You  know  that — even  for  me — that 
is  impossible.' 

"I  knew  what  she  meant:  that  she 
would  have  been  ready  for  any  abnegation, 
being,  herself,  as  I  have  said,  negligible; 
but  that  the  world  must  be  able  to  pick 
no  flaw  in  the  rites  paid  to  the  shade. 

" 'If  you  will  marry  me,  it  is  not  impos- 
sible.' 

"That  is  what  I  said — just  like  that. 
I  had  determined  that  nothing  should  be 
an  obstacle.  She  didn't  change  her  pos- 
ture or  her  expression  by  the  fraction  of  a 
millimetre.  She  looked  silently  past  me 
at  the  ilexes  as  if  she  had  not  heard.  But 
she  had  heard.  I  think  that  at  that  mo- 
ment— no,  I  don't  except  all  that  came 
after — I  touched  the  highest  point  of  my 
romance.  .  .  .  She  thought  for  a  moment 
or  two  while  I  waited.  I  suj^pose  she  was 
considering  what  in  the  world  to  say  to 
that,  and  deciding  that  the  world  would 
have  no  right  to  say  anything;  that  it 
would  be,  and  legitimately  so,  between 
her  and  me.  The  dead  themselves,  of 
course,  can  be  trusted  to  understand.  It 
didn't  take  her  long — you  see,  she  was  a 
girl  of  one  idea,  and  of  one  idea  only. 

"'Very  well,  I  will  marry  you.'  The 
words  came  as  simply  from  her  lii)s  as  any 
others.  We  didn't  at  that  time,  or  at  any 
time  before  our  marriage,  have  any  dis- 
cussion of  the  extremely — shall  I  say? — 


52 


'I'hc   TortcMSC 


individual  nature  of  our  relation.    That 
was  the  one  thing  we  couldn't  have  talked 
of.    It  would  ha\  e  been—you  see?— (juite 
imiKnisible   lor  either   to   imply,   by  ap- 
proaching the  subject,  that  the  other  i)er- 
hai>s  didn't  understand.    I  couldn't  even 
be  so  crass  as  to  say,  'Look  here,  my  dear 
girl,  of  course  I  quite  recognize  that  you 
don't  in  any  sense  belong  to  mc';   or  she 
be  so  crass  as  to  say  in  turn,  '1  know  it.' 
No.  ...  I  suppose'  I  have  never  been  so 
near  the  summit  as  I  wiis  that  evening, 
alter  she  had  'accei)ted'  me,  and  we  had 
lK)th   silently   laid  our  freedom   on   the 
altar  of  that  dead  man.     Neither  of  us 
realized  all  the  inevitable  practical  results 
of  such  a  compact.    We  simply  thought 
we  had  thrown  the  ultimate  sufficing  sop 
to  Cerberus,  and  that  all  our  lives  we 
should  hear  him  contentedly  crunching  it. 
lam  quite  sure  that  her  mind  turned  as 
blank  a  face  to  the  future  as  mine.   Quite." 

His  voice  rang  authoritatively  across 
the  table.  I  said  nothing.  What  could  I 
say?  What  is  the  j^roper  greeting  when 
you  cross  the  threshold  of  such  an  habi- 
tation? I  offered  him  a  silence  that  was 
at  least  respectful. 

'*  Well :  I  won 't  bore  you  with  too  many 
details.  She  pulled  herself  together  and 
said  her  visit  must  end.  We  did  not  tell 
the  C's.  We  merely  let  them  get  off  to 
Tunis.  It  would  not  have  been  easy  for 
her  to  explain  to  Madame  C.  all  the 
things  that  we  had  never  condescended  to 
explain  to  each  other.  She  was  a  Catho- 
lic, by  the  way.  We  were  married  by  a 
parish  priest  in — no,  on  second  thoughts, 
I  won't  even  tell  you  where.  The  place 
has  kept  the  secret  hitherto.  It  is  better 
so.  I  left  her  at  once  to  make  arrange- 
ments for  the  quest.  It  took  some  time 
and  a  good  deal  of  frenzied  journeying  to 
realize  on  my  securities.  I  gave  her  a 
letter  of  credit,  so  that  she  could  be  in  all 
incidental  ways  independent  of  me.  That 
was  necessar>%  because  I  was  to  go  out  to 
Mozambique  first,  and  she  w^as  to  follow 
only  when  I  sent  for  her.  Very  soon,  you 
see,  I  began  to  realize  the  practical  incon- 
veniences of  travelling  with  a  woman  who 
bears  your  name  and  w^ho  is  a  total  stran- 
ger to  you.  It's  damned  expensive,  for 
one  thing."  Chalmers's  smile  was  nearer 
the  authentic  gleam  of  irony  than  anything 
I  had  seen  before  during  the  evening. 


"Well:  I  went.  I  interviewed  the  prop- 
er people;  I  saw  one  of  the  creatures 
who  knew  the  spot  where  our  man  had 
died.  Eventually,  I  arranged  the  expe- 
dition. Then  I  cabled  for  her.  She  took 
the  Dunvegan  Castle  at  Naples.  ...  By 
the  time  I  met  her  at  the  steamer  she  had 
grown  incredible  to  me.  I  could  more 
easily  have  believed  her  a  sharer  in  some 
half-forgotten  light  adventure  than  my 
duly  registered  wife.  She  was  unreal  to 
me,  a  figure  recurring  inexplicably  in  a 
dream,  a  memory — of  exactly  what  sort 
I  was  not  quite  sure.  My  feet  lagged 
along  the  pier.  .  .  .  She  soon  set  all  that 
straight.  I  had  wondered  if  the  sop  to 
Cerberus  would  require  our  seeming  to 
kiss.  She  managed  it  somehow  so  that  no 
stage-kiss  w'as  necessary.  She  dissipated 
the  funk  into  which  I  had  fallen  by  prac- 
tical questions  and  preoccupations;  she 
came  upon  my  fever  like  a  cool  breeze  off 
the  sea.  She  had  made  her  point;  she 
had  achieved  her  miracle;  and  in  every 
incidental  way,  little  and  big,  she  could 
afford  to  show  w^hat  a  serviceable  soul  she 
was.  She  was  a  good  thing  to  have  about. 
There  were  times  when  the  situation  got 
on  my  nerves,  in  Mozambique,  before  we 
started.  It's  such  a  small  hole  that  we 
seemed  always  to  be  bumping  into  each 
other.  I  couldn't  make  out  her  private 
attitude  towards  me:  I  used  to  wonder  if 
she  had  any,  or  if  she  simply  thought  of 
me  as  a  courier  in  her  own  class.  I  was  so 
endlessly  occupied  with  engaging  men  and 
beasts,  and  camping  kit  and  supplies — 
what  was  I  but  a  courier?  The  paladin 
idea  was  fading  a  little;  though  now  and 
then  at  night  I'd  look  up  at  the  Southern 
Cross  and  let  the  strangeness  of  the  thing 
convince  me  all  over  again.  I  don't  think 
I  wanted  anything  so  commonplace  as 
gratitude  from  her;  but  I  did  want  in  her 
some  sense  of  the  strangeness  of  our  alli- 
ance, with  all  the  things  it  left  unsaid. 
Perhaps  I  wanted  her  to  realize  that  not 
every  man  would  have  responded  so 
quickly  to  the  call  of  impersonal  romance. 
I  can  look  back  on  all  that  egotism  of 
youth  and  despise  it;  but  there's  some- 
thing not  wholly  ignoble  in  an  egotism 
that  wants  only  good  fame  with  one's  self 
and  one's  secret  collaborator.  Anyhow, 
there  were  moments  when  my  dedication 
seemed  solemn;  just  as  there  were  other 


The  Tortoise 


53 


moments  when  I  seemed  like  an  iniide- 
quate  tenor  in  a  comic  opera.  I  never 
knew  just  how  she  hovered  between  those 
two  conceptions.  We  were  destined  to 
see  each  other  only  by  lightning  flashes — 
never  once  in  the  clear  light  of  day. 

"  I  can't  tell  you  how  I  came  to  hate  the 
Portuguese  before  we  left  that  mean  little 
hole.  You  laughed  at  me  once  for  rend- 
ing Blakely  to  shreds  over  Camoens.  I've 
read  Camoens  in  my  day  and  hated  him, 
as  if  something  in  me  had  known  before- 
hand that  I  was  eventually  to  have  good 
reason  to  loathe  every  syllable  of  that 
damned  language.  My  stock  is  southern, 
too — South  Carolina — and  you  can  im- 
agine how  I  enjoyed  seeing,  at  every  turn, 
the  nigger  the  better  man.  Portugal 
ought  to  be  wiped  off  the  map  of  Africa. 

"Well — I  got  our  arrangements  made 
as  well  as  I  could.  It  was  lucky  I  had  left 
handsome  margins  for  ever^'thing,  be- 
cause the  graft  was  sickening.  They 
wouldn't  let  )iour  own  approved  consign- 
ments leave  the  dock  without  handing  out 
cash  to  at  least  three  yellow  dogs  that 
called  themselves  officials.  I  had  hoped 
to  find  some  sort  of  female  servant  for  her 
— I  shook  at  the  thought  of  having  her  go 
off  on  a  trip  like  that  without  another 
woman  to  do  things  for  her  that  I,  in  the 
circumstances,  couldn't  very  well  do. 
But  there  wasn't  a  wench  of  either  color 
or  any  of  the  intervening  shades  that  a 
nice  woman  could  have  had  about  her. 
She  was  very  plucky  about  it  all.  As  I 
say,  she  had  made  her  great  point  and 
didn't  care.  The  morning  we  started  she 
stuck  a  gentian  in  my  buttonhole  and 
another  in  hers — and  she  smiled.  A  smile 
of  hers  carried  very  far.  And  so  we 
started. 

"I  needn't  give  you  the  details  of  our 
trip.  People  write  books  about  that  sort 
of  thing:  keep  diaries  of  their  mishaps, 
and  how  Umgalooloo  or  Ishbosheth  or 
some  other  valuable  assistant  stole  a 
bandanna  handkerchief  and  had  to  be 
mulcted  of  a  day's  pay — all  very  interest- 
ing to  somebody,  no  doubt.  To  tell  the 
truth,  the  concrete  details  maddened  me; 
and  we  seemed  to  li\e  wholly  in  concrete 
terms  of  the  smallest.  I,  who  had  planned 
for  my  Wanderjahr  a  colossal,  an  almost 
forbidden,  intimacy  with  JMatonic  ab- 
stractions!   I  had  always  rather  meant  to 


go  in  for  biology  eventually,  but  I  got 
over  that  in  Africa:  we  were  much  too 
near  the  lower  forms  of  life.  And  to  this 
day,  as  you  well  know,  I  can't  bear  hear- 
ing Harry  Dawes  talk  about  folk-lore. 
He's  driven  me  home  from  the  club  a 
good  many  nights." 

I  caught  my  breath.  It  was  almost  un- 
canny, the  way  Chalmers's  little  idiosyn- 
crasies were  explaining  themselves,  bit' by 
bit.  I  felt  the  cold  wind  of  a  deterministic 
law  blowing  over  my  shoulder — as  cold  as 
Calvinism.  I  had  always  loved  tempera- 
ment and  its  vagaries.  Now  I  wasn't  sure 
I  wanted  the  light  in  Chalmers's  eyes  ex- 
plained, to  the  last  gleam.  Mightn't  any 
of  us  ever  be  inexplicable  and  irresponsi- 
ble and  delightful? 

''Of  course  they  had  given  us  maps 
in  Mozambique — not  oflicial  ones,  oh,  no  I 
those  would  have  come  too  high.  The 
Nyassa  Company  had  to  pretend  to  be 
amiable,  but  they  didn't  fork  out  any- 
thing they  didn't  have  to.  Small  loss  the 
official  maps  were,  I  fancy;  but  those  we 
had  weren't  much  good.  It  wasn't,  how- 
ever, a  difficult  journey  to  make,  from 
that  point  of  view,  and  the  cheerful  sav- 
age who  had  abandoned  our  hero  swore 
he  knew  where  to  take  us.  In  eight  weeks 
we  reached  the  spot  that  he  declared  to  be 
the  scene  of  the  death  from  iexer.  I  dare 
say  he  was  right:  he  knew  the  villages 
along  the  way;  he  had  described  the  to- 
pography, more  or  less,  before  we  started, 
and  it  tallied.  We  pitched  camp  and 
spent  three  horrible  days  there.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  we  might  as  well  have 
hunted  for  the  poor  fellow's  bones  under 
the  parapet  at  Ravello.  I  saw — and  if 
you'll  believe  me,  I  positively  hadn't  seen 
before — what  moonshine  it  all  was.  She 
ought  to  have  been  put  to  bed  and  made 
to  pray  God  to  make  her  a  good  girl  be- 
fore she  dragged  anybody — even  me — out 
on  such  a  wild-goose  chase  as  that.  There 
wasn't  a  relic — except  certain  signs  of 
some  one's  having  cleared  ground  there 
before,  and  one  or  two  indescribable  frag- 
ments, ])icked  up  within  a  tive-hundred- 
yard  radius,  that  might  have  been  parts 
of  tin  cans.  Why  should  there  ha\e  been? 
If  there  had  been  any  ])lun(ler,  natives 
would  ha\e  found  and  taken  it,  as  they 
would  ine\  ilably  ha\e  remoNcd  anil  des- 
tr()}c(l  any  coq)oral  vestiges  out  of  sheer 


rA 


The   ']\^rtoise 


8U|Krstition  and  hostility.  I  luul  learned 
their  little  wa>'S,  since  Ravello.  The  rank 
soil  in  the  wet  seastMi  would  have  done  the 
rest.  I  wondereil— cruelly,  no  doubt— 
whether  she  had  expected  him  to  bury 
himself  with  a  cairn  atoji.  and  a  few  note- 
books (lockai  up  in  a  despatch-box)  deco- 
rously waiting  for  her  in  his  grave.  On 
the  strength  of  the  savage's  positive  dec- 
laration that  at  such  a  distance— two 
davs— from  the  last  village,  beyond  such 
a  s'tream,  beneath  such  and  such  a  clump 
of  trees,  he  had  seen  the  white  man  fall  in 
the  last  delirium,  she  searched  the  place, 
as  vou  might  say,  with  a  microscope.  I 
thought  it  extremely  likely  that  the  fellow 
was  lying  for  the  sake  of  our  pay,  but  I 
had  to  admit  that  I  couldn't  prove  it. 
Certainly,  his  information  was  the  only 
thing  we  could  reasonably  go  on:  we 
couldn't  invest  all  Portuguese  East  Africa 
with  an  army  and  set  them  to  digging  up 
ever)-  square  inch  of  soil  in  that  God- 
forsa'ken  countr>-.  If  this  clue  failed,  we 
could  only  return.  But  there  was  a  mo- 
ment when,  in  her  bafBed  anguish,  I  think 
she  could  have  taken  a  good  close-range 
shot  at  the  inscrutable  nigger  who  had 
been  with  him,  and  had  left  him,  and 
could  not  even  bring  us  to  his  body.  The 
girl  on  the  stage  to-night  was  like  that, 
though  you  don't  believe  it.  Vague,  in- 
deed I  Maude  Lansing's  a  fool  if  she 
keeps  her  on. 

"You  see" — Chalmers  shifted  his  posi- 
tion and,  ever  so  little,  his  tone  of  voice. 
It  was  extraordinary  how  straight  he  w^nt 
with  his  story,  considering  that  he  had 
never  told  it  before.  He  seemed  to  have 
dragged  it  out  from  some  receptacle,  in- 
tact, not  a  thread  frayed,  in  perfect  order, 
ready  to  spread  before  me.  The  pattern 
was  as  clear  as  if  it  were  just  off  the  tor- 
turesome  loom.  He  seemed  to  know  it  by 
heart. 

"You  see"— he  w^ent  on — "she  had 
been  changing  steadily,  all  through  that 
march  of  ours.  You  would  have  said  that 
the  tropical  sun  had  forced  her  growth. 
She  had  been  a  cold,  immature  thing  in  It- 
aly— passions  dormant  and  sealed.  Now 
they  had  worked  their  way  up  to  the  sur- 
face, and  were  just  beneath  the  skin.  She 
would  have  shot  the  nigger.  Before,  I 
suppose,  she  had  lived  with  ideas  only; 
even  he  must  have  been  chiefly  an  idea, 


though  a  tremendous  one.  The  daily 
contact  with  all  sorts  of  unsuspected  facts, 
the  hopeless  crudeness  of  the  hinterlands 
most  of  us  never  get  into,  had  worked  on 
her.  There  may  be  something  subtle  in 
the  tropics — people  talk  as  if  there  were. 
I  should  say  they  were  no  more  subtle 
than  the  slums.  The  body  demands  a 
hundred  things,  and  it  becomes  a  matter 
of  the  utmost  moment  whether  you  get 
them  for  it  or  not.  You  can't  achieve 
subtlety  until  the  body  is  lulled.  That 
life  has  complications  of  its  own;  but  I 
shouldn't  call  it  subtle.  Very  far  from  it. 
And  savages  make  you  feel  that  it's  sub- 
tlety enough  merely  to  have  a  white  skin: 
there's  something  irrelevant  and  ignoble 
in  pushing  subtlety  further.  In  the  end 
the  sun  wears  you  out,  I  suppose,  and 
makes  you  want  nothing  very  much;  but 
at  first  it  merely  makes  it  intolerable  not 
to  have  everything  on  the  very  instant. 
...  I  merely  meant  to  explain  that  she 
was  a  changed  creature — a  good  sport 
always,  but  inclined  to  impatiences,  an- 
gers, delights,  and  fervors,  that  I  fancy 
she  had  never  felt  before.  Her  tongue 
was  loosed;  she  was  lyric  about  cool 
water,  violent  about  native  trickeries.  I 
don't  mean — Heaven  forbid! — that  she 
was  vulgar.  She  had  a  sweet  distinction 
all  her  own.  She  was  merely  real  and 
varied  and  vital.  And  I  dare  say  the  fun- 
damental formality  of  our  relation  was  all 
the  subtlety  we  could  stand.  It  put  an 
edge  on  everything. 

"We  were  very  near  the  line  of  Rhode- 
sia, and  for  various  reasons  we  decided  to 
cross  over  and  come  down  far  enough 
south  through  British  territory  to  strike 
the  Zambezi  and  its  boats.  If  there  was 
any  information  to  be  picked  up,  we 
should  be  more  likely  to  find  it  in  that 
direction  than  by  going  back  the  way  we 
had  come,  which  was  utterly  barren  of 
clues.  I  had  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
others  who  had  survived  the  fever  had 
gone  on  to  the  Rhodesian  villages.  We 
started  in  the  cool  of  dawn;  and  I  ought 
to  say  that  there  were  no  backward 
glances  on  her  part.  She  was  convinced 
that  there  was  nothing  in  that  precise 
spot  for  her;  and  I  think  she  had  hope  of 
finding  something  in  the  miles  just  be- 
yond. I  could  see  that  she  did  not  more 
than  half -believe  the  identifications  of  the 


The  Tortoise 


55 


negro  who  had  been  on  the  earlier  expe- 
dition. True,  his  guttural  gibberish  did 
not  sound  like  information;  but,  after 
all,  he  was  the  only  link  we  had  with 
that  supreme  and  sordid  adventure.  We 
pushed  on." 

Chalmers  threw  back  his  head  and 
stretched  his  arms,  but  went  on  presently 
in  a  more  vibrant,  a  more  intimately 
reminiscent  tone.  The  club  was  nearly 
empty — it  was  getting  on  for  midnight. 
I  seemed  to  myself  to  be  quite  alone  with 
the  tortoise  that  upheld  the  world. 

"I  suppose  this  is  the  point  in  the  nar- 
rative to  say  rather  a  difficult  thing — 
though  it  ought  to  be  clear  that  I've  no 
cause  or  wish  to  paint  myself  anything 
but  the  mottled  color  most  of  us  are.  I 
spoke  of  what  the  tropics  had  done  to  her: 
fulfilled  her  in  all  kinds  of  ways.  We  had 
strange  talks  by  the  fire  at  night;  moving 
on,  after  the  necessary  practical  discus- 
sions, into  regions  of  pure  emotion.  The 
emotion  was  all  over  the  incidents  we  en- 
countered; we  marshalled  our  acts  and 
made  our  decisions,  and  then  leaned  back 
and  generalized  with  passion.  Whatever 
Africa  had  done  to  her  inwardly  it  had  at 
least  taught  her  to  talk.  I  had  never  had 
any  particular  sense  of  her  being  on  guard 
• — there  was,  from  the  very  first,  some- 
thing strange  and  delicate  in  the  flavor  of 
our  understanding — but  now  I  had  the 
sense  of  her  being  specifically  and  glori- 
ously off  her  guard.  We  seemed  to  know 
each  other  awfully  well."  Chalmers's  face, 
as  he  looked  down  at  his  pipe-bowl,  was 
curiously  boyish,  for  an  instant.  He  might 
have  been  speaking  of  a  playmate  in  his 
childhood. 

"  Put  it  that  I  fell  in  love  with  her.  I 
don't  choose  to  analyze  my  feeling  more 
than  that.  There  was  everything  in  it 
to  make  me  the  prey  of  a  passion  for  her 
— so  long  as  we  hadn't  begun,  in  Mozam- 
bique, by  hating  each  other.  She  was 
straight,  she  was  fine,  she  was  thoroughly 
good;  she  was  also,  in  her  unfailing  fresh- 
ness and  her  astonishing  health,  infinitely 
desirable.  By  the  law  of  every  land  she 
was  my  wife.  There  wasn't  a  barrier  be- 
tween us  except  the  frail  one  built  of 
things  that  had  never  been  said.  Of 
course,  I  knew  that  to  her  the  barrier 
doubtless  looked  insuperable.  She  con- 
sidered herself  the  inalienable  property  of 


the  man  whose  bones  we  were  fantas- 
tically hunting  for.  Well:  can't  you  see 
that  that  very  fact  was  peculiarly  con- 
structed to  whet  my  hunger?  It  was 
maddening  to  know  that  shadows  could 
effectually  keep  two  strong,  sinewy  crea- 
tures ai)art.  Our  utter  isolation  in  our 
adventure  flung  us  upon  each  other. 

*Doch  es  tiilt  ein  styg'schcr  Schatten 
Nachtlich  zvvischen  mich  und  ihn.' 

"One  night  she  had  a  bad  dream;  she 
moaned  and  cried  out  in  her  slee}>,  and 
I  had  to  stand  outside  her  tent  and  listen 
while  she  woke  and  wept  and  finally 
quieted  down  with  little  sobs  like  a  child's. 
I  couldn't  even  go  in  and  lay  my  hand  on 
her  forehead  to  soothe  her." 

He  shook  his  head,  and  over  his  face 
crept  the  shadow  of  the  burdened. 

''Well:  that  was  what  I  was  in  for,  and 
I  knew  I  was  in  for  it  as  long  as  I  should 
desire  her.  Finally,  I  only  prayed  that 
we  might  get  safely  back  to  Mozambique 
where  I  could  leave  her  forever.  I  knew 
that  before  my  fever  ebbed  it  would  rise 
in  a  horrid  flood.  I  wanted  her  des])er- 
ately;  I  should  want  her  more  desperately 
before  I  got  through  with  it,  and  I  had, 
for  my  honor's  sake,  not  to  let  her  know. 
It's  odd  how  many  situations  there  are  in 
life  that  make  it  an  insult  to  tell  a  woman 
you  love  her.  But  I  think  you'll  agree 
with  me  that  this  is  rather  an  extraordi- 
nary case  of  it. 

"All  this  time  I  hadn't  the  faintest  ink- 
ling of  what  she  felt:  whether  she  knew 
or  what  she  would  have  thought  of  me  if 
she  had  know^n.  There's  something  tre- 
mendous in  the  power  of  ideas.  Think  of 
how  easy  it  would  have  been  for  me — I 
won't  say  to  take  what  I  wanted,  though 
against  that  background  it  wouldn't  have 
seemed  such  a  preposterous  thing  to  do — 
to  insist  on  her  talking  it  out  with  me 
some  night  by  the  tire;  how  little  she 
could  have  turned  her  back  on  me  if  I 
wanted  to  ask  her  a  question.  But  I  was 
as  tongue-tied  as  if  we  had  been  in  a 
drawing-room,  surrounded  with  all  the 
parai)hernalia  of  chaperonagc.  And  yet 
sometimes  it  didn't  seem  possible,  with 
her  face  and  her  si)eech  changing  like  that 
week  Ijy  week,  that  there  shouldn't  be 
some  change  in  it  for  me. 

"I  often  wondered  if  she  ever  had  mo- 


'At 


lUc  Tortoise 


mcnls,  as  I  did  of  thinking  that  that  man 
hat!  never  liveil.  Hut  I  could  only  .s^o  on 
assuming  that  she  gave  him  every  llu)u«!:ht 
she  had.  I  never  knew.  l>y  the  way,  what 
she  lelt  -she  never  told  me.  I  said,  a 
little  while  back,  that  we  nc\cr  saw  each 
other  in  the  dear  light  of  day— only  in 
lightning  flashes.  In  spite  of  our  sem- 
l)lance  of  intimacy,  that  was  true.  For 
when  a  man  is  obsessed  with  the  notion  of 
wanting  to  make  very  definite  love  to  a 
woman,  her  im[^ersonal  conversation  is  a 
kind  of  haze  at  best.  I  know  that  we 
talked;  but  I  know  that,  after  the  fiasco, 
when  we  ate  our  meals,  when  we  rode 
side  by  side  along  those  unspeakable 
trails,  when  we  sat  by  the  fire  in  the  eve- 
ning. I  hardly  knew  or  cared  Avhat  we 
talked  of.  I  kept  a  kind  of  office  in  my 
brain  quite  tidy  for  the  transaction  of 
business:  the  rest  was  just  a  sort  of 
House  of  Usher  where  I  wandered,  want- 
ing her.  By  the  time  we  struck  the  first 
Rhodesian  village  I  didn't  even  feel  sure 
I  could  hold  my  tongue  all  the  way  south 
and  east  again.  I  only  prayed  to  God 
to  deli\'er  me  from  being  an  utter  and 
unspeakable  brute.  That  was  what  my 
romance  had  led  me  to — that  I  was  hang- 
ing on  to  common  decency  by  the  eye- 
lids! 

''You  understand  there  was  added  to 
my  most  inconvenient  and  unfitting  pas- 
sion for  the  girl  all  the  psychology  of  return 
from  a  lost  battle-field — if  you  could  in 
name  so  dignify  that  pitiful  clearing  which 
was  our  frustration.  Everything  was  over, 
and  why  the  de\il  shouldn't  something 
else  begin?  That  was  the  refrain  my  blood 
kept  pounding  out.  I  dare  say  you  don't 
understand — you  live  among  the  civilized 
and  are  used  to  reckoning  with  shadows. 
It's  different  out  there  on  the  well-nigh 
uninhabited  veldt.  A  platitude,  I  know. 
Funny  how  people  despise  platitudes,  when 
they're  usually  the  truest  things  going !  A 
thing  has  to  be  pretty  true  before  it  gets 
to  be  a  platitude  at  all.     Humph! 

"We  struck  into  northeastern  Rhode- 
sia— days  and  days  over  the  veldt;  and 
after  the  rains  it  was  blooming  like  the  rose. 
Gladiolus  everywhere—'  white  man's  coun- 
try-, past  disputing.'  No  'baked  karroo' 
there.  Pretty  starkly  uninhabited,  though. 
Of  course  we  were  hundreds  of  miles  north 
of  the  mines  and  the  other  activities  on  the 


edge  of  the  Transvaal.  Mashonaland,  it 
would  really  be  more  properly  called;  and 
it  describes  it  better,  sounds  wilder — as 
it  was.  We  were  heading  west  across  the 
tail  of  Nyassa,  and  then  south — to  the 
Zambezi  or  the  railroad,  it  didn't  much 
matter  which.  That  man  was  as  lost  to 
us,  e\^ery  corporal  vestige  of  him,  as  if  his 
ashes  had  been  scattered  like  WycHffe's. 
But  there  on  the  rampart  above  Ravello 
both  she  and  I  had  felt  that  the  search 
was  imperative:  I  no  less  than  she.  We 
were  both  pretty  young." 

His  head  dropped  on  his  breast  for  a 
moment.  He  looked  as  if  he  felt  his  bur- 
den. I  suppose  the  tortoise  sorfietimes 
wonders  why.  .  .  . 

"Then  one  afternoon  we  dropped  into 
the  heart  of  a  storm — tropical  thunder, 
tropical  lightning,  skies  blacker  than 
you've  ever  seen,  a  wind  that  churned  the 
heavens  into  a  pot  of  inky  broth.  I  had 
been  wondering  for  days  what  we  should 
do  w^hen  w^e  struck  something  besides  the 
eternal  huddled  villages  of  the  natives 
with  their  tobacco-plots  and  mealie-fields, 
their  stupid  curiosities,  their  impudent 
demands  for  gifts — something  more  like  a 
house,  people  you  could  count  people, 
W'ith  a  touch  of  white  in  their  complex- 
ions. Strange  coincidence,  that  it  was  by 
the  real  lightning-flash  that  I,  for  the  only 
time  in  my  life,  saw  her  clear;  strange,  too, 
that  the  revelation  should  have  come  on 
the  heels  of  our  first  approach  to  any- 
thing like  civilization.  It  was  only  the 
plantation  of  a  man  who  had  made  his 
little  pile  by  trading  in  Kimberley,  and 
had  trekked  up  to  the  edge  of  the  wilder- 
ness to  live  there  in  peace  with  his  aged 
wife,  and  his  cattle,  and  the  things  that 
without  too  much  trouble  he  could  coax 
out  of  the  good-humored  soil.  His  estab- 
lishment was  the  first  earnest  of  European 
activities  seething  somewhat  to  the  south- 
ward; the  first  reminder  of  Europe  that 
we  had  had  since  leaving  the  last  Portu- 
guese outpost  on  the  way  to  the  Nyassa. 
The  trip  had  not  been  hard,  as  such  trips 
go:  we  had  run  into  no  wars;  no  famine 
or  drought  or  disease  had  visited  us.  We 
had  been  in  luck;  for  I  was  a  shocking 
amateur,  and  anything  like  a  real  expedi- 
tion I  could  not  have  managed,  of  course. 
Yet,  even  so,  I  had  been  straining  my  eyes 
for  the  sight  of  a  white  man;    for  some 


Tlie  Tortoise 


)i 


form  of  life  that  more  nearly  suited  my 
defmition  of  'colonial,' 

"And  so  we  stumbled  into  his  com- 
pound at  eight  in  the  e\ening,  after  end- 
less floundering  about  in  the  storm.  We 
had  had  to  dismount  from  our  donkeys 
and  lead  the  frightened  beasts  by  the 
bridle.  Eventually  we  could  discard  them 
for  horses  or  ox-carts,  but  for  a  little  while 
still  we  might  need  them,  and  we  clung  to 
them,  though  the  temptation  was  to  let 
them  go — with  a  kick." 

Chalmers  hesitated.  "Why  do  I  find 
it  so  confoundedly  hard  to  come  at?  I'm 
not  writing  a  diary  of  accidents  and  self- 
congratulations  like  the  explorer  fellows. 
The  only  point  in  the  whole  thing  is  just 
what  I  can't  manage  to  bring  out!"  He 
mused  for  a  moment.  "The  whole  place 
white  with  hail  after  the  storm  .  .  . 
thick  on  the  thatch  of  the  big,  rambling 
house  .  .  .  the  \eranda  eaves  dripping 
.  .  .  then  the  rain  stopping,  and  a  mirac- 
ulous silence  after  the  tumult  ...  no 
light  anywhere  except  long,  low  continual 
flashes  on  the  horizon  at  the  edge  of  the 
veldt — and  then  she  came  out,  dressed  in 
something  of  the  poor  old  vrouw's  that 
hung  about  her  lovely,  slim  figure  like  a 
carnival  joke.  I  was  wondering  thickly 
where  I  should  spend  the  night.  I  had 
introduced  her  as  my  wife,  of  course  .  .  . 
and  they  had  muttered  something  about 
the  other  room's  being  in  use.  The  good 
old  souls  had  gone  off  to  bed  with  the 
ceasing  of  the  storm,  after  our  little  cara- 
van was  housed  down  in  the  farm  nig- 
gers' quarters.  But  naturally  I  couldn't 
have  explained  to  them,  anyhow.  .  .  .  The 
lightning  was  about  as  regular  as  a  gut- 
tering candle  set  in  a  draught — but  about 
a  thousand  candle-power  when  it  did  come. 
And  by  one  apocalyptic  flash,  I  saw  her 
face.  She  didn't  say  anything;  she  merely 
laid  her  hand  on  my  shoulder.  And  I, 
who  had  been  bursting  with  the  wish  to 
talk,  to  tell  her,  to  lay  my  head  on  her 
knees  and  weej),  out  of  i)ure  self-j)ity 
and  desire — all  those  cublike  emotions — 
rlidn't  say  anything,  either.  I  only  saw — 
in  that  one  flash — the  working  of  her  lij)s, 
the  proj)hetic  brilliancy  of  her  eyes.  We 
turned  and  went  into  the  house  without  a 
word.  She  wanted  me,  too:  that  was 
what  it  came  to.  Other  things  being 
equal,  the  utter  isolation  of  a  man  and  a 


woman  must  do  one  of  two  things — must 
put  a  burning  fire  or  the  polar  ice  between 
them.  I  knew  what  it  had  done  to  me; 
I  hadn't  been  able  to  guess  what  it  had 
done  to  her.  I  had  rather  been  betting  on 
the  polar  ice." 

Chalmers  rutlled  both  hands  through 
his  hair  and  leaned  back  from  the  table. 
His  mouth  took  on  a  legal  twist.  "It's 
the  only  thing  I  blame  myself  for — bar 
all  the  egotism  that  youth  has  to  slough, 
and  that  I  think  I  sloughed  fore\er  before 
I  reached  the  damned  coast.  I  ought  to 
have  known  that  half  her  impulse  was  the 
mere  clinging  of  the  frightened  child,  and 
the  other  half  the  strangeness  of  our 
journey,  which  made  us  both  feel  that 
all  laws  had  ceased  to  work  and  that  all 
signs  had  failed.  I  ought  to  have  re- 
flected, to  have  put  her  off,  to  have  made 
sure,  before  I  ever  took  her  into  my  arms. 
And  yet  I'm  glad  I  didn't — though  I'm 
ashamed  of  being  glad.  Even  then,  you 
know,  I  didn't  envisage  the  rest  of  life. 
I  still  thought,  as  for  months  I  had 
thought,  that  there  could  be  no  conven- 
tional future  for  that  adventure.  When 
my  curious  Wanderjahr  was  over,  I  ex- 
pected to  die.  And  I  wanted  to  ha\e 
some  other  face  than  the  barren  visage  of 
Romance — the  painted  hussy  I — press  it- 
self to  mine  before  I  went  out.  I  got  it; 
and  I'm  not  yet  over  being  glad,  though  it 
has  made  a  coil  that  grows  tighter  rather 
than  looser  with  the  years." 

I  made  no  answer.  There  was  nothing 
to  say.  He  had  not  got  to  the  end,  and 
until  the  end  what  was  there  for  me  to  do 
but  light  another  weary  cigarette  iind 
summon  all  the  sym[)athy  I  could  to  my 
non-committal  eyes?  On  the  face  of  it, 
it  was  merely  an  extraordinary  situation, 
in  which  if  a  man  were  once  caught  he 
could  do  little — a  new  and  singular  kind 
of  hard-luck  story.  But,  as  he  told  it, 
with  those  tones,  those  inflections,  those 
stresses,  he  certainly  did  not  seem  to  be 
painting  himself  <•;/  hcan.  1  looked  at  the 
patient  figure  oi)p(,site  me — Chalmers  al- 
ways seemed  j)re-eminently  patient — and, 
for  very  j)eri)lexity,  held  my  tongue. 

"The  next  morning  I  got  breakfast 
early,  and  went  to  see  about  my  men  and 
beasts.  T  was  a  little  afraid  of  tniding  the 
men  drunk,  but  they  weren't  -only  I'ull- 
fed   and   lazy   and   half-mutinous.     The 


5S 


Tlic  Tortoise 


guide  who  had  led  us  to  the  historic  si)ot 
had  vanishiMl— <k'sertt.Kl  in  the  ni^^ht,  with 
half  his  pay  owin«;  him.  No  one  in  that 
bhick  crew'  could  explain.  Wc  liad  had 
desertions  before,  and  I  shoukl  have  con- 
sideretl  us  well  enough  olT  simply  with  one 
coast  nigger  the  less,  if  he  hadn't  been  my 
inten^reter  as  well.  There  were  ver>^  few 
things  I  could  say  to  the  others  without 
him.  and  though  we  were  out  of  the  woods 
we  were  bv  no  means  done  with  our  retinue. 
I  stnxie  back  to  the  house  in  a  fine  rage. 
I  think  I  minded  the  inconvenience  most, 
since  it  would  be  the  inconvenience  that 
would  most  affect  her.  Frankly,  you  see, 
I  couldn't  suppose  she  felt,  any  longer,  a 
special  concern  with  that  particular  black 
sample  of  human  disloyalty. 

"When  I  entered  the  house,  I  saw  her 
at  once.  Her  back  was  turned  to  me,  and 
she  was  talking  with  a  man  I  had  not 
hitherto  seen — evidently  some  inmate  of 
the  house  whom  we  had  not  encountered 
the  previous  evening.  The  other  room 
had  been  in  use,  I  reflected  in  a  flash. 
He  was  stretched  on  a  ramshackle  sofa, 
with  some  sort  of  animal  skin  thrown  over 
him.  He — but  I  won't  describe  him.  I 
know  every  feature  of  his  face,  though  I 
saw  him,  all  told,  not  more  than  five  min- 
utes, and  have  never  seen  him  since.  I 
have  a  notion" — Chalmers's  voice  grew 
very  precise,  and  his  mouth  looked  more 
legal  than  ever — "that  when  he  wasn't 
pulled  down  with  a  long  illness  and  pro- 
tracted suffering  he  would  be  very  good- 
looking.  As  it  was,  he  was  unhealthy 
white,  like  the  wrong  kind  of  ghost.  One 
arm  was  quite  limp. 

"At  the  instant  I  didn't  place  him — • 
naturally!  But  as  soon  as  she  turned  her 
face  to  me,  I  did.  Only  one  thing  could 
have  induced  that  look  of  horror — hor- 
ror in  every  strained  feature,  like  the 
mask  of  some  one  who  had  seen  the  Me- 
dusa .  I  started  to  her,  but  stopped  almost 
before  I  started;  for  I  saw  immediately 
that  I  was  the  Gorgon.  It  was  for  me  that 
her  face  had  changed ;  God  knows  what, 
two  minutes  before,  her  face  had  been 
saying  to  that  half -lifeless  form.  It  was 
about  me  that  she  felt  like  that.  Since, 
with  all  the  years  to  work  it  out  in,  I've 
seen  why;  but  just  at  the  moment  I  was 
overwhelmed.  She  sat  down  in  a  chair 
and  covered  her  face  with  her  hands.     I 


heard  the  man  babbling  tragic  and  insig- 
nificant details.  I  can't  say  I  listened, 
but  before  I  could  pull  myself  together 
and  leave  I  caught  mention  of  fever,  ac- 
cident, loss  of  memory,  broken  limbs, 
miraculous  co-operation  of  fate  for  good 
and  evil  alike — the  whole  mad  history, 
I  suppose,  from  his  side,  of  the  past  year. 
I  have  sometimes  wished  I  had  caught  it 
more  clearly,  but  just  at  the  moment  I 
could  take  in  nothing  except  the  insulting 
fact  that  this  was  the  man  whose  grave 
we  had  not  found.  That  was  what  her 
face  had  told  me  in  that  horrid  instant. 
I  never  saw  her  face  again.  It  was  still 
bowed  on  her  hands  when  I  went  out  of 
the  door. 

"I  don't  know  how  I  got  off — I  don't 
remember.  I  suppose  I  had  the  maniac's 
speed.  If  I  hadn't  been  beside  myself,  I 
think  I  could  recall  more  of  what  I  did. 
The  patriarchal  creature  under  whose 
roof  it  had  all  happened  helped  me.  I 
think  I  gave  him  a  good  many  directions 
about  the  negroes  and  the  kit.  Or  I  may 
have  paid  them  off  myself.  I  honestly 
don't  know.  I  know  that  I  left  nearly  all 
of  my  money  with  him,  and  started  off  on 
horseback  alone.  I  had  a  dull  sense  that 
I  was  causing  her  some  practical  diffi- 
culties, but  I  also  had  a  very  vivid  sense 
that  she  would  kill  herself  if  she  had  to 
encounter  me  again.  She  had  looked  at 
me  as  if  I  were  a  monster  from  the  mud. 
And  the  night  before,  on  the  veranda, 
in  the  lightning  ..." 

Chalmers  stopped  and  looked  at  me. 
The  brilliancy  had  gone  out  of  his  eyes. 
He  said  nothing  more. 

"Well?"  I  asked  finally. 

"'Wefl?'"  There  came  a  wide  shrug 
of  the  shoulders,  a  loosening  of  the  lips. 
"I  got  back  somehow.  I  seemed  to  be 
riding,  day  and  night,  straight  to  hell. 
But  eventually  I  got  to  Salisbury  and 
took  a  train  to  Beira.  It  was  immensely 
steadying  to  take  a  train.  I  think  any 
more  of  the  veldt  would  have  driven  me 
quite  definitely  mad."  Hestopped;  then, 
in  a  moment,  jerked  out:    "That's  all." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  you've  never  heard 
anything  more?" 

"Never  a  word.  But  I  know  that, 
eventually,  she  drew  out  every  penny  of 
her  letter  of  crecUt.  She  had  hardly 
dipped  into  it  when  we  left  Europe." 


The  Tortoise 


59 


"Good  God!"  I  don't  know  why  I 
should  have  sat  stolidly  through  the  rest 
and  have  been  bowled  over  by  that  one 
detail,  but  I  was.  It  made  the  woman 
extraordinarily  real. 

"And  of  course  she  knows  several 
places  where  a  letter  would  reach  me,  if 
she  ever  had  reason  to  write,"  he  went 
on.  "  Perhaps  you  see  now  why  I  have  to 
hang  on.  By  holding  my  tongue  I've 
been  grub-staking  them  in  Arcadia,  you 
might  say — but,  damn  it,  I  know  so  little 
about  it!    The  time  might  come  .  .  ." 

"Why  haven't  you  divorced  her  long 
since?" 

His  face  hardened.  "Didn't  I  men- 
tion that  she  was  a  Catholic?  We  were 
married  by  the  most  orthodox  padre  im- 
aginable. There's  no  divorce  for  her.  She's 
the  kind  to  chuck  heaven,  perhaps,  but 
not  her  church.  And  unfortunately" — 
he  spoke  very  slowly  and  meditatively — 
"our  marriage,  you  see,  just  missed  being 
the  kind  that  can  be  annulled.  'Unfor- 
tunately,' I  say,  but,  even  now,  I'm  glad 
— damned  glad.  It's  quite  on  the  cards, 
you  know,  that  some  day  some  priest 
may  send  her  back  to  me.  I  might  di- 
vorce; she  couldn't.  So  it  seems  decent 
for  me  not  to." 

"Well,  of  all  the  ..."  I  got  no  fur- 
ther. The  whole  Laokoonesque  group 
had  now  completed  itself  before  me. 

Chalmers  leaned  back  and  whistled  a 
bar  or  two  from  Rigoletto.  Then,  "Never 
marry  a  Catholic,  old  man!"  he  said  in  his 
lightest  voice.  But  immediately  he  bent 
forward  and  laid  his  hand  on  mine.  "You 
do  see  why  I  have  to  hang  on,  don't 
you?" 

I  merely  compressed  my  lips  tightly 
that  no  word  should  come. 

"After  all,"  he  said,  turning  his  head 
away,  "I  should  like  a  chance  to  get  back 


at  Romance,  some  day.  And  the  time 
may  come— what  with  spectrum  analvsis 
and  all." 

I  shook  my  head.  "You  love  the 
woman  still,  Chalmers." 

"Not  I."  His  headshake  was  more 
vehement  than  mine.  "But  I  want  to 
be  on  deck  if  anything  should  turn  up. 
I  want  to  see  it  through.  At  least — I 
can't  quite  see  that  I've  the  right  to  go 
out." 

I  sighed.  Chalmers  had  always  gone 
his  own  way;  and  certainly  in  this  great- 
est matter  he  would  be  tenacious,  if  ever. 
He  seemed  for  the  moment  to  have  forgot- 
ten me,  and  sat  once  more,  his  arms  folded 
on' the  table,  his  shoulders  hunched,  as 
beneath  a  burden,  in  the  speckled  brown 
coat,  his  head  mcving  slightly  from  side 
to  side — again  fantastically  like  the  tor- 
toise that  bears  up  the  world.  I  didn't 
quite  know  what  to  do  with  him. 

Then  a  charitable  impulse  came  to  me. 
The  bar,  I  knew,  didn't  close  until  one. 
I  ordered  up  a  bottle  of  brandy.  When 
it  came,  I  poured  out  enough  to  set  the 
brain  of  any  abstemious  man  humming. 
Chalmers  was  still  staring  in  front  of  him 
at  the  table.  I  wanted  him  to  sleep  that 
night  at  any  cost.  Pursuing  my  impulse, 
I  pushed  the  glass  across  to  him.  "  Here: 
you'd  better  take  this,"  I  said.  He 
reached  out  his  hand  mechanically,  and 
mechanically  drank.  I  waited.  The 
stuff  had  no  \isible  effect  on  him.  Five 
minutes  later  I  repeated  the  dose.  As 
before,  he  obeyed  me  with  a  mechanical, 
an  almost  mesmerized,  implicitness.  Then 
I  took  him  home  in  a  cab,  and  put  him  to 
bed.  I  never  told,  myself,  but  it  leaked 
out — he  had  such  a  bad  hang-over — and 
I  was  much  and  en\iously  congratulated. 
You  see,  we  had  all  tried,  for  live  years, 
to  get  Chalmers  to  take  a  drink. 


yiV    IHRST    YEARS    AS    A 

1  ri:nchwoman 

15V    MARY    KINO    WADDINGTON 

I_AT    Till.    MINISTRY    OF    PUBLIC    INSTRUCTION 

1876-77 


WAS  married  in  Paris  in 
Xoveml)er,  1874,  at  the 
I'rcnch  Protestant  Chapel  of 
the  rue  Taitbout,  by  Mon- 
sieur Bersier,  one  of  the 
ablest  and  most  eloquent 
pastors  of  the  Protestant  church.  We 
had  just  established  ourselves  in  Paris, 
after  having  lived  seven  years  in  Rome. 
We  had  a  \ague  idea  of  going  back  to 
America,  and  Paris  seemed  a  first  step  in 
that  direction — was  nearer  New  York  than 
^ Rome.  I  knew  \ery  little  of  France — we 
'had  never  lived  there — merely  stayed  a 
few  weeks  in  the  spring  and  autumn,  com- 
ing and  going  from  Italy.  My  husband 
was  a  deputy,  named  to  the  National 
Assembly  in  Bordeaux  in  1871,  by  his  De- 
])artment — the  Aisne.  He  had  some  dif- 
ticulty  in  getting  to  Bordeaux.  Com- 
munications and  transports  were  not  easy, 
as  the  Germans  were  still  in  the  country, 
and,  what  was  more  important,  he  hadn't 
any  money — couldn't  correspond  with  his 


banker,  in  Paris — (he  was  living  in  the 
country).  However,  a  sufficient  amount 
was  found  in  the  country,  and  he  was  able 
to  make  his  journey.  When  I  married, 
the  Assembly  was  sitting  at  Versailles. 
Monsieur  Thiers,  the  first  President  of 
the  Republic,  had  been  overthrown  in 
May,  1873 — the  Marechal  de  MacMahon 
named  in  his  place.  W.*  had  had  a  short 
ministry  (public  instruction)  under  Mon- 
sieur Thiers,  but  he  was  so  convinced  that 
it  would  not  last  that  he  never  even  went 
to  the  ministry — saw  his  directors  in  his 
own  rooms.  I  was  plunged  at  once  into 
absolutely  new  surroundings.  W.'s  per- 
sonal friends  were  principally  Orleanists 
and  the  literary  element  of  Paris — his  col- 
leagues at  the  Institute.  The  first  houses 
I  was  taken  to  in  Paris  were  the  Segurs, 
Remusats,  Lasteyries,  Casimir  Periers, 
Gallieras,  d'Haussonville,  Leon  Say,  and 
some  of  the  Protestant  families — Pour- 

*"W.,"    here    and    throughout   these   articles,  refers   to 
Madame  Waddington's  husband,  M.  William  Waddington. 


***  ^lary  AIsop  King  Waddington  is  a  daughter  of  the  late  Chades  King,  president  of  Columbia 
College  in  the  city  of  New  York  from  1849  to  1864,  and  a  granddaughter  of  Rufus  King,  the  second 
minister  sent  to  England  by  the  United  States  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution. 

^liss  King  was  educated  in  this  country.  In  1864  she  went  abroad  v/ith  her  father  and  his  family, 
residing  in  Italy  several  years.  In  187 1,  after  the  death  of  her  father,  she  went,  with  her  mother  ancl 
sisters,  to  live  in  France,  and  in  1874  became  the  wife  of  M.  William  Waddington. 

M.  William  Henry  Waddington  was  born  in  Normandy,  France,  in  1826.  His  grandfather  was 
an  Englishman  who  had  established  cotton  manufactories  in  France,  and  had  become  a  naturalized 
French  citizen.  The  grandson,  however,  was  educated  in  England,  first  at  Rugby  and  later  at 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  where  he  took  first  classic  honors,  entitling  him  to  the  chancellor's 
medal.  _  He  rowed  in  the  Cambridge  boat  in  the  university  race  of  1849.  Soon  after  leaving  the 
university  M.  Waddington  returned  to  France  and  entered  public  life.  In  187 1  he  was  elected  a 
representative  for  the  Department  of  the  Aisne  to  the  National  Assembly,  and  two  years  after- 
ward was  appointed  :Minister  of  Public  Instruction  in  place  of  M.  Jules  Simon.  In  January,  1876, 
he  was  elected  a  senator  for  the  Department  of  the  Aisne,  and  two  months  later  again  became 
mmister  of  public  instruction,  which  office  he  resigned  in  May,  1877.  In  December  of  that  year 
he  accepted  the  portfolio  of  minister  of  foreign  affairs. 

M.  Waddington  was  the  first  plenipotentiary  of  France  to  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  1878.  In 
the  winter  of  1879-80  he  refused  the  offer  of  the  London  embassy  and  paid  a  visit  to  Italy,  where  he 
was  received  by  the  Pope  and  the  King.  In  1883  he  accepted  the  London  embassy  and  remained 
ten  years  m  England.     M.  Waddington  died  in  1894. 

Madame  Waddington  is  the  author  of  "Letters  of  a  Diplomat's  Wife,"  "Italian  Letters  of  a 
Diplomat  s  \\  ife,"  and  "  Chateau  and  Country  Life  in  France,"  published  in  Scribner's  Magazine. 

60 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


61 


tales,  Andre  Bartholdi,  Mallet,  etc.   It  was 
such  an  entirely  different  world  from  any 
I  had  been  accustomed  to  that  it  took 
me  some  time   to  feel  at  home  in  my 
new '' milieu."     Political  feeling  was  very 
strong — all  sorts  of  fresh,  young  elements 
coming  to  the  front.     The  Franco-Ger- 
man war  was  just  o\er — the  French  very 
sore  and  bitter  after  their  defeat.     There 
was  a  strong  underlying  feeling  of  violent 
animosity  to  the 
Emperor,  who  had 
lost  them  two  of 
their  fairest  prov-  , 

inces,  and  a  pas- 
sionate desire  for 
the  "revanche." 
The  feeling  was  ver)' 
bitter  between  the 
two  branches  of  the 
Royalist  party,  Le- 
gitimists and  Or- 
leanists.  One  night 
at  a  party  in  the 
Faubourg  St.  Ger- 
main, I  saw  a  well- 
known  fashionable 
woman  of  the  ex- 
treme Legitimist 
party  turn  her  back 
on  the  Comtesse  de 
Paris.  The  recep- 
tions and  visits  were 
not  always  easy  nor 
pleasant,  even 
though  I  was  a 
stranger  and  had  no 

ties  with  any  former  government.  I  re- 
member one  of  my  first  visits  to  a  well- 
known  Legitimist  countess  in  the  Fau- 
bourg St.  Germain ;  I  wxnt  on  her  reception 
day,  a  thing  all  young  women  are  most 
particular  about  in  Paris.  I  found  her 
with  a  circle  of  ladies  sitting  around  her, 
none  of  whom  I  knew.  They  were  all  very 
civil,  only  I  was  astonished  at  the  way  the 
mistress  of  the  house  mentioned  my  name 
every  time  she  spoke  to  me:  "Madame 
Waddington,  etes-vous  allee  a  rOi)era  hier 
soir,"  "Madame  Waddington,  vous  mon- 
tez  a  cheval  tous  les  matins,  je  crois," 
"Monsieur  Waddington  va  tous  les  ven- 
dredis  a  ITnstitut,  il  me  semble,"  etc.  I 
was  rather  suq)rised  and  said  to  W.  when 
I  got  home,  "How  curious  it  is,  that  way 
of  saying  one's  name  all  the  time;  I  su[)- 
VoL.  LV— 6 


K^^^z::^^ 


Monsieur  Thiers. 


pose  it  is  an  old-fashioned  French  custom. 
Madame  de  B.  must  ha\  e  said  '  Wadding- 
ton' twenty  times  during  my  rather  short 
visit."  He  was  much  amused.  "Don't 
you  know  why?  So  that  all  the  people 
might  know  who  you  were  and  not  say 
awful  things  about  the  'infecte  gouverne- 
ment '  and  the  Republic, '  which  no  gentle- 
man could  serve.' " 

The  position  of  the  German  embassy  in 
Paris  was  \ery  dif- 
ficult, and  unfortu- 
nately their  first 
ambassador  after 
the  war,  Count  Ar- 
nim,  didn't  un- 
derstand (perhaps 
didn't  care  to)  how 
difficult  it  was  for 
a  high-spirited  na- 
tion, which  until 
then  had  always 
ranked  as  a  great 
military  power,  to 
accei)t  her  humilia- 
>_  tion  and  be  just  to 

the  victorious  ad- 
versary. Arnim 
was  an  unfortunate 
appointment — not 
at  all  the  man  for 
such  a  delicate  sit- 
uation. We  had 
known  him  in  Rome 
in  the  old  days  of 
Pio  Nono's  reign, 
where  he  had  a  great 
position  as  Prussian  minister  to  the  \'ati- 
can.  He  and  the  Countess  Arnim  received 
a  great  deal,  and  their  beautiful  rooms  in 
the  Palazzo  Caffarelli,  on  the  top  of  the 
Capitol  Hill  (the  two  great  statues  of 
Castor  and  Pollux  standing  by  their  horses 
looking  as  if  they  were  guarding  the  en- 
trance) were  a  l^rilliant  centre  for  all  the 
Roman  and  diplomatic  world.  He  was  a 
thorough  man  of  the  world,  could  make 
himself  charming  when  he  chose,  but  he 
never  had  a  i)leasant  manner,  was  curt, 
arrogant,  with  a  very  strong  sense  of  his 
own  superiority.  From  the  first  moment 
he  came  to  Paris  as  ambassador,  he  put 
people's  backs  up.  They  never  liked  him, 
ne\er  trusted  him;  whenever  he  had  an 
unpleasant  communication  to  make,  he 
exaggerated  the  unpleasantness,  never  at- 


'< 


---,  li 


02 


Mv    I'irst   Years  as  a 


r'^rcnchwoman 


tenuattMi,  and  there  is  so  much  in  the  way 
things  are  said.  Tlie  French  were  very 
hard  uihmi  him  when  he  j^ot  into  trouble, 
and  certainly  his  own  goNernment  was 
merciless  to  him. 

One  of  my  first  small  ditTiculties  after 
becoming  a  Frenchwoman  was 
to  eliminate  some  of  my  Genr.an 
friends  fn>m  my  salon.     I  couk 
not  run  the  risk  of  their  being 
treated  rudely.    I  remember  so 
well  one  night  at  home,  before  I 
was  married,  seeing  two  French 
officers  not  in  uniform   slip 
quietly  out  of  the  room  when 
one  of  the  Germany  embassy 
came  in,  yet  ours  was  a  neutral 
house.     \\'hen  my  engagement 
was  announced  one  of  my  great 
friends  at  the  German  embassy 
(Count  Arco) 
said  to  me: 
''This  is  the 
end,  I  sup- 
I^ose,  of  our 
friendship;    I 
can  never  go 
to   see   you 
when  you  are 
the  wife  of  a 
French  dep- 
uty."    "Oh, 
yes,  you  can 
still    come; 
not  quite  so 
often  perhaps, 
but  I  can't 
give    up    my 
friends." 
However,  we 
drifted  apart 


triotism.  The  Bonapartist  leaders  tried 
to  ])ersuiule  themselves  and  their  friends 
that  they  still  had  a  hold  on  the  country 
and  that  a  ''plebiscite"  would  bring  back 
in  triumph  their  prince.  The  Legiti- 
mists, hoping  against  hope  that  the  Com- 

te  de  C  h  a  m  - 
bord  would 
still  be  the 
savior  of  the 
country,  made 
passionate  ap- 
peals to  the 
old  feeling  of 
loyalty  in  the 
nation,  and 
the  "centre 
droit,"  rep- 
resenting the 
Orleanists, 
nervous,  hesi- 
tating, know- 
ing the  position 
perfectly,  ar- 
dently desiring 
a  constitution- 
al monarchy, 
but  feeling  that 
it  was  not  pos- 
sible at  that 


Grand  staircase. 


Palace  of  the  German  embassy 


moment,  yet  unwilling  to  com- 
mit themselves  to  a  final  decla- 
ration of  the  Republic,  which 
would  make  a  royalist  resto- 
ration impossible.  All  the 
Left  confident,  determined. 

The  Republic  was  voted  on 
the  30th  of  January,  1875,  by 
a  majority  of  one  vote,  if  ma- 
jority it  could  be  called,  but  the 
great  step  had  been  taken,  and 
the  struggle  began  instantly  between  the 
moderate  conservative  Republicans  and 
the  more  advanced  Left.  W.  came  home 
late  that  day.  Some  of  his  friends  came  in 
after  dinner  and  the  talk  was  most  interest- 
ing. I  was  so  new  to  it  all  that  most  of  the 
names  of  the  rank  and  file  were  unknown  to 
me,  and  the  appreciations  of  the  votes  and 
the  anecdotes  and  side-lights  on  the  voters 
said  nothing  to  me.  Looking  back  after 
all  these  years,  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
and  speeches  and  very  violent  language  in  moderate  royalists  ("  centre  droit ")  threw 
the  chambers.  Gambetta  made  some  away  a  splendid  chance.  They  could  not 
bitter  attacks  on  the  Royalists,  accusing  stop  the  Republican  wave  (nothing  could) 
them  of  "mauvaise  foi"  and  want  of  pa-    but  they  might  have  controlled  it  and  di- 


without  knowing  why  exactly.  It  is  curi- 
ous how  long  that  hostile  feeling  toward 
Germany  has  lasted  in  France. 

The  sittings  of  the  assembly  were  very 
interesting  in  that  wonderful  year  when 
ever>'thing  was  being  discussed.  All  pub- 
lic interest  of  course  was  centred  in  Ver- 
sailles, where  the  National  Assembly  was 
trying  to  establish  some  sort  of  stable  gov- 
ernment.    There  w^ere  endless  discussions 


-^ 


■*r  '• 


^J,U 


:^y^gf^-|y 


II 


"^^  1 


>a.?.i 


Marie  Antuinette's  cottage  at  the  Little  'I'rianon,  Versailles. 


rected  it  instead  of  standing  aloof  and 
throwing  the  power  into  the  hands  of  the 
Left.  We  heard  the  well-known  sayings 
very  often  those  days:  "La  Republique 
sera  conservatrice  ou  elle  ne  sera  pas"  and 
*'La  Republique  sans  Republicains,"  at- 
tributed to  M.  Thiers  and  Marshal  Mac- 
^lahon.  The  National  Assembly  strug- 
gled on  to  the  end  of  the  year,  making  a 
constitution,  a  parliament  with  two  houses, 
senate  and  chamber  of  deputies,  with  many 
discussions  and  contradictions,  and  hopes 
and  illusions. 

I  went  often  to  Versailles,  driving  out 
when  the  weather  was  fine.  I  liked  the 
stormy  sittings  best.  Some  orator  would 
say  something  that  displeased  the  public, 
and  in  a  moment  there  would  be  the  great- 
est uproar,  protestations  and  accusations 
from  all  sides,  some  of  the  extreme  Left 
getting  up,  gesticulating  wildly,  and  shak- 
ing their  fists  at  the  speaker — the  Right 
generally  calm  and  sarcastic,  requesting 
the  speaker  to  repeat  his  monstrous  state- 
ments— the  "  huissiers  "  dressed  in  black 
with  silver  chains,  walking  up  and  down 
in  front  of  the  tribune,  calling  out  at  inter- 
vals: ''Silence,  messieurs,  s'il  vous  plait," 
— the  President  ringing  his  bell  violently 
to  call  the  house  to  order,  and  nobody 
paying  the  slightest  attention, — the  ora- 


tor sometimes  standing  quite  still  with 
folded  arms  waiting  until  the  storm  should 
abate,  sometimes  dominating  the  hall  and 
hurling  abuse  at  his  adversaries.  \V.  was 
always  perfectly  quiet;  his  \-oice  was  low, 
not  very  strong,  and  he  could  not  speak  if 
there  were  an  uproar.  When  he  was  in- 
terrupted in  a  speech  he  used  to  stand 
perfectly  still  with  folded  arms,  waiting 
for  a  few  minutes'  silence.  The  deputies 
would  call  out:  ''Allez!  allez!"  inter- 
spersed with  a  few  lively  criticisms  on 
what  he  was  saying  to  them;  he  was  per- 
fectly unmoved,  merely  replied:  "I  will 
go  on  with  ])leasure  as  soon  as  you  will  be 
quiet  enough  for  me  to  be  heard."  French- 
men generally  have  such  a  wonderful  fa- 
cility of  speech,  and  such  a  ])itiless  logic 
in  discussing  a  question,  that  the  debates 
were  often  very  interesting.  The  ])ublic 
was  interesting  too.  A  great  many  wom- 
en of  all  classes  followed  the  sittings — sev- 
eral Kgerias  (not  generally  in  their  first 
youth)  of  well-known  political  men  sitting 
])r()minently  in  the  President's  Ik)x,  or  in 
the  front  row  of  the  journalists'  box,  fol- 
lowing the  discussions  with  great  interest 
and  sending  down  little  slips  of  paper  to 
their  friends  below — members'  wives  and 
friends  who  enjoyed  spending  an  hour  or 
two  listening  to  the  speeches — news|)apcr 

63 


CA 


Mv    l-ir>t   \'car>  as  :\   iMviicliwonian 


corrcsiwndenls.  literary  ladies,  diploma- 
lists.  It  was  very  diflknilt  to  .^ct  i)laces, 
|Kirlicularlv  when  some  well-known  ora- 
tors were  announced  to  speak  upon  an 
imiHirtant  tjuestion.  We  didn't  always 
know  beforehand,  and  1  renu>ml)er  some 
tlull  afternoons  with  one  or  two  members 
making  lonjz 
s|H*eches  about 
purely  local 
matters,  which 
didn't  interest 
any  one.  \\*e 
looked  down 
upon  an  almost 
empty  hall  on 
those  occasions.. 
A. threat  many  of 
the  members 
had  gone  out 
and  were  talk- 
ing in  the  lob- 
bies; those 
who  remained 
were  talking  in 
groups,  writing 
letters,  walking 
about  the  hall, 
quite  uncon- 
scious apparent- 
ly of  the  speaker 
at  the  tribune. 
I  couldn't  un- 
derstand how 
the  man  could 
go  on  talking  to 

empty  benches,  but  W.  told  me  he  was 
quite  indiflerent  to  the  attention  of  his 
colleagues, — his  speech  was  for  his  electors 
and  would  appear  the  next  day  in  the  Jour- 
nal Officiel.  I  remember  one  man  talked 
for  hours  about  "allumettes  chimiques." 


Marshal  MacWahon. 


boule\ard   theatre   or   to   read   a   rather 
li\ely  yellow-backed  novel. 

In  IMarch,  1876,  W.  was  made,  for  the 
second  time,  "Ministre  de  I'lnstruction 
Publique  et  des  Beaux  Arts,"  with  M.  Du- 
faure  President  du  Conseil,  Due  Decazes 

at  the  foreign 
office,  and  Leon 
Say  at  the  fi- 
nances. His 
nomination  was 
a  surprise  to  us. 
We  didn't  ex- 
pect it  at  all. 
There  had  been 
so  many  discus- 
sions, so  many 
names  put  for- 
ward. It  seemed 
impossible  to 
come  to  an  un- 
derstanding and 
form  a  cabinet 
which  would  be 
equally  accept- 
able to  the  mar- 
shal and  to  the 
chambers.  I 
came  in  rather 
late  one  after- 
noon while  the 
negotiations 
were  going  on, 
and  was  told  by 
the  servants 
that  M.  Leon  Say  was  waiting  in  W.'s 
library  to  see  him.  W.  came  a  few  min- 
utes afterward,  and  the  two  gentlemen  re- 
mained a  long  time  talking.  They  stopped 
in  the  drawing-room  on  their  way  to  the 
door,  and  Say  said  to  me:   ''Eh  bien,  ma- 


Leon  Say  was  a  delightful  speaker,  so    dame,  je  vous  apporte  une  portefeuille  et 


easy,  always  finding  exactly  the  word  he 
wanted.  It  hardly  seemed  a  speech  when 
he  was  at  the  tribune,  more  hke  a  ''cau- 
serie,"  though  he  told  very  plain  truths 
sometimes  to  the  "peuple  souverain." 
He  was  essentially  French,  or  rather  Pa- 
risian, knew  everybody,  and  was  ''  au  cou- 
rant"  of  all  that  went  on  poUtically  and 
socially,  and  had  a  certain  "blague,"  that 
eminently  French  quality  which  is  very 
difficult  to  explain.  He  was  a  hard  worker, 
and  told  me  once  that  what  rested  him 
most  after  a  long  day  was  to  go  to  a  small 


des  felicitations."  ''Before  I  accept  the 
felicitations,  I  would  like  to  know  which 
portfolio."  Of  course  when  he  said, "  Pub- 
lic instruction,"  I  was  pleased,  as  I  knew 
it  was  the  only  one  W.  cared  for.  My 
brother-in-law,  Richard  Waddington,  now 
senator  of  the  Seine  Inferieure,  and  one  or 
two  friends  came  to  see  us  in  the  evening, 
and  the  gentlemen  talked  late  into  the 
night  discussing  programmes,  possibilities, 
etc.  All  the  next  day  the  conferences  went 
on,  and  when  the  new  cabinet  was  pre- 
sented to  the  marshal,  he  received  them 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


65 


graciously  if  not  warmly.  W.  said  both 
Uufaure  and  Decazes  were  quite  wonder- 
ful, realizinoj  the  state  of  affairs  exactly, 
and  knowing  the  temper  of  the  house,  which 


most  Frenchwomen  are.  I  was  \'ery  much 
struck  with  her  writing-table,  which  hxjked 
most  businesslike.  It  was  covered  with 
quantities  of  letters,  papers,cards,  circulars 


Itmih  I: lini.stiati 


Meeting  of  officers  of  the  National  Assembly,  and  of  delegates  of  the  new  Chambers,  in 
the  salon  of  Hercules,  palace  of  Versailles. 


was  getting  more  advanced  every  day  and 
more  difficult  to  manage.  W.  at  once  con- 
voked all  the  ofl&cials  and  staff  of  the  min- 
istry. He  made  very  few  changes,  merely 
taking  the  young  Count  de  Lasteyrie,  now 
Marquis  de  Lasteyrie,  grandnephew  of  the 
Marquis  de  Lafayette,  son  of  M.  Jules  de 
Lasteyrie,  a  senator  and  devoted  friend  of 
the  Orleans  family,  as  his  chef  de  cabinet. 
Two  or  three  days  after  the  new  cabinet 
was  announced,  W.  took  me  to  the  Elysee 
to  pay  my  official  visit  to  the  Marechale 
de  MacMahon.  She  received  us  up-stairs 
in  a  pretty  salon  looking  out  on  the  garden. 
She  was  very  civil,  not  a  ])articularly  gra- 
cious manner — gave  me  the  impression  of 
a  very  energetic,  practical  woman — what 


of  all  kinds — she  attended  to  all  household 
matters  herself.  I  always  heard  (though 
she  did  not  tell  me)  that  she  read  every  let- 
ter that  was  addressed  to  her, and  she  must 
have  had  hundreds  of  begging  letters.  She 
w^as  very  charitable,  much  interested  in  all 
good  works,  and  very  kind  to  all  artists. 
Whenever  a  letter  came  asking  iox  money, 
she  had  the  case  investigated,  and  if  the 
story  were  true,  gave  practical  helj)  at 
once.  I  was  dismayed  at  first  with  tl;e 
number  of  letters  received  from  all  over 
France  asking  my  intercession  with  the 
minister  on  every  possible  subject  from  a 
"monument  historicjue"  to  be  restored,  to 
a  pension  gi\  en  to  an  old  schoolmaster  no 
longer  able  to  work,  with  a  large  family  to 


66 


M\     l"ir«,t    N'c\\rs 


vsible  iov 


support.     It  was  perfectly  impos.^ 
me  to  answer  them.     liein^  a  forei^nier 
and  never  having  H\  ed  in  France.  I  didn't 
rcallv  know  anything  about  the  various 
questions.     W.  'was  too  busy  to  attend  to 
such  small  matters,  so  I  consulted  M.  de 
L.,  chef  de  cabinet,  and  we  agreed  that  I 
should  sent!  all  the  correspondence  which 
was  not  strictly  per- 
sonal, to  him,  and 
he  would  have  it 
examined  in  the 
*' bureau."     The 
first  few  weeks  of 
W.'s  ministry  were 
ver}'  trying  to  me 
— I  went   to   see 
so  many  people, — 
so  many  people 
came  to  see  me, — 
all   strangers  with 
whom  I  had  noth- 
ing in   common. 
Such  dreary  con- 
versations, never 
getting  beyond  the 
most  ordinar}'  com- 
monplace phrases, 
— such  an  absolute- 
ly different  world 
from  any  I  had  ever 
lived  in.    It  is  very 
difficult  at  first  for 
any  woman  who 

marries  a  foreigner  to  make  her  life  in  her 
new  country.  There  must  be  so  many 
things  that  are  different — better  perhaps 
sometimes — but  not  what  one  has  been  ac- 
customed to,  —  and  I  think  more  diffi- 
cult in  France  than  in  any  other  country. 
French  people  are  set  in  their  ways,  and 
there  is  so  little  sympathy  with  anything 
that  is  not  French.  I  was  struck  with  that 
absence  of  sympathy  at  some  of  the  first 
dinners  I  went  to.  The  talk  was  exclu- 
sively French,  almost  Parisian,  very  per- 
sonal, with  stories  and  allusions  to  people 
and  things  I  knew^  nothing  about.  No  one 
dreamed  of  talking  to  me  about  my  past 
life — or  America,  or  any  of  my  early  associ- 
ations— yet  I  was  a  stranger — one  would 
have  thought  they  might  have  taken  a 
Httle  more  trouble  to  find  some  topics  of 
general  interest.  Even  now,  after  all  these 
years,  the  difference  of  nationality  counts. 
Sometimes  when  I  am  discussing  with  very 


as  a  l^^-enchwoman  ^ 

intimate  friends  some  question  and  I  find 
that  1  cannot  understand  their  views  and 
they  cannot  understand  mine,  they  always 
come  back  to  the  real  difficulty:  "  Ecoutez, 
chere  amie,  vous  etes  d'une  autre  race.". 
I  rather  complained  to  W.  after  the  first 
three  or  four  dinners — it  seemed  tome  bad 
manners,  but  he  said  no,  I  was  the  wife  of 

a  French  political 
man,  and  every  one 
took  for  granted  I 
was  interested  in 
the  conversation — 
certainly  no  one  inr 
tended  any  rude- 
ness.   The  first  big 
dinner  I  went  to 
that  year  was  at  the 
Elysee  —  the  regu- 
lar official  dinner 
for  the  Diplomat- 
ic Corps  and  the 
government.   I  had 
Bajon  von  Zuylen, 
the  Dutch  minister, 
one  of  our  great 
friends,  on  one  side 
of    me,   Leon   Re- 
nault, prefet  de  po- 
lice, on  the  other. 
Leon  Renault  was 
very    interesting, 
very  clever — an  ex- 
cellent prefet  de 
police.     Some  of  his  stories  were  most 
amusing.     The  dinner  was  very  good  (al- 
ways were  in  the  marshal's  time),  not  long 
and  mercifully  not  too  hot.     Sometimes 
the  heat  was  terrible  in  those  crowded 
rooms .    There  were  quite  a  number  of  peo- 
ple in  the  evening — the  music  of  the  garde 
republicaine  playing,  and  a  buffet  in  the 
dining-room  which  was  always  crowded. 
We  never  stayed  very  late,  as  W.  always 
had  papers  to  sign  when  we  got  home. 
Sometimes  when  there  was  a  great  press 
of  work  his  '' signatures"  kept  him  two 
hours.    I  don't  think  the  marshal  enjoyed 
the  receptions  very  much.     Like  most  sol- 
diers he  was  an  early  riser,  and  the  late 
hours  and  constant  talking  tired  him. 

I  liked  our  dinners  and  receptions  at  the 
ministry.  All  the  intelligence  of  France 
passed  through  our  rooms.  People  gen- 
erally came  early — by  ten  o'clock  the 
rooms  were  quite  full.     Every  one  was  an- 


/' 


Count  Harry  von  Arnim 


From  L' lUnstrcition,  Marcli  ii,  1876. 

Sitting  of  the  National  Assembly  at  the  palace  of  Versailles. 


nounced,  and  it  was  most  interesting  to 
hear  the  names  of  all  the  celebrities  in 
every  branch  of  art  and  science.  It  was 
only  a  fleeting  impression,  as  the  guests 
merely  spoke  to  me  at  the  door  and  passed 
on.  In  those  days,  hardly  any  one  shook 
hands  unless  they  were  fairly  intimate — 
the  men  never.  They  made  me  low  bows 
some  distance  off  and  rarely  stopped  to 
exchange  a  few  words  with  me.  Some 
of  the  women,  not  many,  shook  hands.  It 
was  a  fatiguing  evening,  as  I  stood  so 
long,  and  a  procession  of  strangers  passed 
before  me.  The  receptions  finished  early 
— every  one  had  gone  by  eleven  o'clock  ex- 
cept a  few  loiterers  at  the  buffet.  There 
are  always  a  certain  number  of  people  at 
the  big  official  receptions  whose  principal 
object  in  coming  seems  to  be  to  make  a 
comfortable  meal.  The  servants  always 
told  me  there  was  nothing  left  after  a  big 
party.  There  were  no  invitations — the 
reception  was  announced  in  the  ]mpers, 
so  any  one  who  felt  they  had  the  slightest 
claim  upon  the  minister  ai)peared  at  the 
party.  Some  of  the  dresses  were  fun- 
ny, but  there  was  nothing  eccentric — no 
women  in  hats,  carrying  babies  in  their 
arms,  such  as  one  used  to  see  in  the  old 


days  in  America  at  the  President's  recep- 
tion at  the  White  House,  Washington — 
some  very  simple  black  silk  dresses  hardly 
low — and  of  course  a  great  many  pretty 
women  very  well  dressed.  Some  of  my 
American  friends  often  came  with  true 
American  curiosity,  wanting  to  see  a 
phase  of  French  life  which  was  quite  nov- 
el to  them. 

W.  remained  two  years  at  the  instruc- 
tion publique,  and  my  life  became  at  once 
very  interesting,  ver\'  full.  We  didn't  live 
at  the  ministry — it  was  not  really  neces- 
sary. All  the  work  was  over  before  din- 
ner, except  the  "signatures,"  which  W. 
could  do  just  as  well  in  his  librar}-  at 
home.  We  went  over  and  inspected  the 
''Hotel  du  Ministere"  in  the  rue  de  Cre- 
nelle before  we  made  our  final  decision, 
but  it  was  not  really  tempting.  There 
were  fine  reception-rooms  and  a  pretty 
garden,  but  the  li\ing-rooms  were  small, 
not  numerous,  and  decidedly  gloomy.  ( )f 
course  I  saw  much  less  of  W.  He  ne\  er 
came  home  to  breakfast,  except  on  Sun- 
day, as  it  was  too  far  from  the  rue  de 
Grenelle  to  the  Ktoile.  It  was  before  the 
days  of  telephones,  so  whenever  an  im- 
portant C(Wunuuiication  was  to  be  made 

67 


cs 


y\.'  ri''-t  Yr.irs  as  a  Frenchwoman 


y 


J  Ernest  Re  nan. 

to  him  when  he  was  at  home  in  the  eve- 
ning];, a  dragoon  galloped  up  with  his  little 
black  bag  from  which  he  extracted  his 
pa})ers.  It  made  quite  an  excitement  in 
our  quiet  street  the  first  time  he  arrived 
after  ten  o'clock.  We  just  managed  our 
morning  ride,  and  then  there  were  often 
people  waiting  to  speak  to  W.  before  we 
started,  and  always  w^hen  he  came  back. 
There  was  a  great  amount  of  patronage  at- 
tached to  his  ministry,  nominations  to  all 
the  universities,  lycees,  schools,  etc.,  and, 
what  was  most  agreeable  to  me,  boxes  at 
all  the  government  theatres, — the  Grand 
Opera,  Opera  Comique,  Frangais,  Odeon, 
and  Conservatoire.  Every  Monday  morn- 
ing we  received  the  list  for  the  week,  and, 
after  making  our  own  selection,  distrib- 
uted them  to  the  official  world  generally, 
— sometimes  to  our  own  personal  friends. 
The  boxes  of  the  Frangais,  Opera,  and 
Conservatoire  were  much  appreciated. 

r  went  very  regularly  to  the  Sunday 
afternoon  concerts  at  the  Conservatoire, 
where  all  classical  music  was  splendidly 
given.  They  confined  themselves  gener- 
ally to  the  strictly  classic,  but  were  begin- 
ning to  play  a  little  Schumann  that  year. 
Some  of  the  faces  of  the  regular  habitues 
became  most  familiar  to  me.  There  were 
three  or  four  old  men  with  gray  hair,  sitting 
on  the  front  row  of  the  balcony  (most  un- 


comfortable seats)  who  followed  every 
note  of  the  music,  turning  around  and 
frowning  at  any  unfortunate  person  in  a 
box  who  dropped  a  fan  or  an  opera-glass. 
It  was  funny  to  hear  the  hum  of  satisfac- 
tion when  any  well-known  movement  of 
Beethoven  or  Mozart  was  attacked.  The 
orchestra  was  perfect,  at  its  best  I  think 
in  the  ''scherzos"  which  they  took  in 
beautiful  style — so  light  and  sure.  I  liked 
the  instrumental  part  much  better  than 
the  singing.  French  voices,  the  women's 
particularly,  are  thin,  as  a  rule.     I  think 


J.  L.  Gerome. 

they  sacrifice  too  much  to  the  "diction," 
— don't  bring  out  the  voices  enough — but 
the  style  and  training  are  perfect  of  their 
kind. 

The  Conservatoire  is  quite  as  much  a 
social  feature  as  a  school  of  music.  It 
was  the  thing  to  do  on  Sunday  afternoon. 
No  invitation  was  more  appreciated,  as  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  have  places  un- 
less one  were  invited  by  a  friend.  All  the 
boxes  and  seats  (the  hall  is  small)  belong 
to  subscribers  and  have  done  so  for  one 
or  two  generations.  Many  marriages  are 
made  there.  There  are  very  few  theatres 
in  Paris  to  which  girls  can  be  taken,  but 
the  Opera  Comique  and  the  Conserva- 
toire are  very  favorite  resorts.  When  a 
marriage  is  pending  the  young  lady,  very 


My  First  Years  as  a  F re ncli woman 


00 


well  dressed  (always  in  the  simplest  "te-  They  are  generally  made  by  people  of  the 

nue  de  jeune  fiUe")  is  taken  to  the  Con-  same  "  monde,"  accustomed  to  the  same 

servatoire  or  the  Opera  Comifiue  by  her  way  of  H\ing,  and  the  fortunes  as  nearly 

father  and  mother,  and  very  often  her  alike  as  possible.     Everything  is  calcu- 


The  Paris  opera-house. 


grandmother.  She  sits  in  front  of  the  box 
and  the  young  man  in  the  stalls,  where 
he  can  study  his  future  wife  without 
committing  himself.  The  difference  of 
dress  between  the  ''jeune  fiUe"  and  the 
''jeune  femme"  is  very  strongly  marked 
in  France.  The  French  girl  never  wears 
lace  or  jewels  or  feathers  or  heavy  mate- 
rial of  any  kind,  quite  unlike  her  English 
or  American  contemporaries,  who  wear 
what  they  like.  The  wedding-dress  is 
classic,  a  simple,  very  long  dress  of  white 
satin,  and  generally  a  tulle  veil  over  the 
face.  When  there  is  a  handsome  lace  veil 
in  the  family,  the  bride  sometimes  wears 
it,  l)ut  no  lace  on  her  dress.  The  first  thing 
the  young  married  woman  does  is  to  wear 
a  very  long  velvet  dress  with  feathers  in 
her  hair. 

I  think  on  the  whole  the  arranged  mar- 
riages turn  out  as  well   as   any   others. 


lated.  Theyoung  coupleusually  spend  the 
summer  with  parents  or  parents-in-law,  in 
the  chateau,  and  I  know  some  cases  where 
there  are  curious  details  about  the  num- 
ber of  lamps  that  can  be  lighted  in  the 
rooms  of  the  young  coui)le,  and  the  use  of 
the  carriage  on  certain  days.  I  am  speak- 
ing of  course  of  purely  French  marriages. 
To  my  American  idea  it  seemed  \ery 
strange  to  me  when  I  first  came  to  Eu- 
rope, but  a  long  residence  in  a  foreign 
country  certainly  modifies  one's  impres- 
sions. Years  ago,  when  we  were  living  in 
Rome,  four  sisters,  before  any  of  us  were 
married,  a  charming  I'Yench woman,  Du- 
cliesse  de  B.,  wlio  came  often  to  the 
house,  was  very  worried  about  this  family 
of  girls,  all  very  hapj)y  at  home  and  con- 
tented witii  their  lives.  It  was  (juite  true 
we  danced  and  hunted  and  made  a  great 
deal  of  music,  without  e\er  troubling  our- 


70 


Mv    First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


=!^ 


'^^»r    1^ 


Leon  Say. 

selves  about  the  future.  The  duchesse 
couldn't  understand  it,  used  often  to  talk 
to  mother  very  seriously.  She  came  one 
day  \nth  a  proposal  of  marriage — a  charm- 
ing man,  a  Frenchman,  not  too  young, 
-with  a  good  fortune,  a  title,  and  a  chateau 
had  seen  Madame  King's  daughters  in  the 
ballroom  and  hunting-field,  and  would 
ver}'  much  like  to  be  presented  and  make 
his  "  cour."  "  Which  one  ?"  we  naturally 
asked,  but  the  answer  was  vague.  It 
sounded  so  curiously  impersonal  that  we 
could  hardly  take  it  seriously.  However, 
we  suggested  that  the  young  man  should 
come  and  each  one  of  the  four  would 
show  off  her  particular  talent.  One  would 
play  and  one  would  sing  (rather  like  the 
song  in  the  children's  book,  "one  could 
dance  and  one  could  sing,  and  one  could 
play  the  \dolin"),  and  the  third,  the  poly- 
glot of  the  family,  could  speak  several  lan- 
guages. We  were  rather  puzzled  as  to 
what  my  eldest  sister  could  do,  as  she 
was  not  very  sociable  and  never  spoke  to 
strangers  if  she  could  help  it,  so  we  de- 
cided she  must  be  very  well  dressed  and 
preside  at  the  tea-table  behind  an  old- 
fashioned  silver  urn  that  we  always  used 
—looking  Hke  a  stately  ''maitresse  de 
maison"  recei\dng  her  guests.  We  con- 
fided all  these  plans  to  the  duchesse,  but 


she  was  quite  put  out  with  us,  wouldn't 
bring  the  young  man  nor  tell  us  his  name. 
We  never  knew  who  he  was.  Since  I 
ha\-e  been  a  Frenchwoman  ("devant  la 
loi")  —  I  think  all  Americans  remain 
American  no  matter  where  they  marry, 
— I  ha\-c  interested  myself  three  or  four 
times  in  made  marriages,  which  have  gen- 
erally turned  out  well.  There  were  very 
few  Americans  married  in  France  all  those 
years,  now  there  are  legions  of  all  kinds. 
I  don't  remember  any  in  the  official  parlia- 
mentary world  I  lived  in  the  first  years 


Jules  Simon. 

of  my  marriage — nor  English  either.  It 
was  absolutely  French,  and  rather ' '  borne ' ' 
French.  Very  few  of  the  people,  the  wom- 
en especially,  had  any  knowledge  or  ex- 
perience of  foreign  countries,  and  didn't 
care  to  have, — France  was  enough  for 
them. 

W.  was  very  happy  at  the  "Ministere 
de  rinstruction  Publique," — all  the  edu- 
cational questions  interested  him  so  much 
and  the  "tournees  en  province"  and  vis- 
its to  the  big  schools  and  universities, — 
some  of  them,  in  the  south  of  France  par- 
ticularly, singularly  wanting  in  the  most 
elementary  details  of  hygiene  and  cleanli- 
ness, and  it  was  very  difficult  to  make  the 
necessary  changes,  giving  more  light,  air, 
and  space.     Routine  is  a  powerful  factor 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


71 


in  this  very  conservati\'e  country,  where  the   days   were   fatiguin*;.     He   said   he 

so  many  things  exist  simply  because  they  hadn't  worked  so  hard   for  years.     He 

have  always  existed.     Some  of  his  letters  started  at  nine  in  the  morning,  visiting 

from  Bordeaux,  Toulouse,  and  Alontpel-  schools  and  universities,  came  home  to 


The  foyer  of  the  opera. 


lier  were  most  interesting.  As  a  rule  he 
was  very  well  received  and  got  on  very 
well,  strangely  enough,  with  the  clergy, 
particularly  the  ''haut  clergc,"  bisho[)s 
and  cardinals.  His  being  a  Protestant 
was  rather  a  help  to  him;  he  could  take 
an  impartial  view  of  things. 

At  Bordeaux  he  stayed  at  the  Prefec- 
ture, where  he  was  very  comfortable,  but 


breakfast  at  twelve,  and  immediately  after 
had  a  small  reception,  rectors,  professors, 
and  })eoi)le  ct)nnected  with  the  schools  he 
wanted  to  talk  to,  at  three  started  again 
seeing  more  schools  and  going  conscien- 
tiously over  I  he  buildings  from  basement 
to  garret,— then  visits  to  the  cardinal, 
archbishop,  general  commanding,  etc. — a 
big  dinner  and  reception  in  the  evening, 


Ah'  Fir-t  Yoars  as  a  Frenchwoman 


the  cardinal  present  in  his  red  robes,  liis  i>le  were  always  coming  to  ask  for  some- 

the  cardinal  present    ^^^  ^^^^^^^^^^^  .^^  ^^^^._  ^^^.^^^^  ^.^^^  themselves  or  some  members  of 

Zr  .  iK.tM>U'0>nnccledinanv  their  family,  always  candidates  for  the 

^y  with  the  universilv.  who  were  pleased  Institute,  anxiously  inquirmg  what  their 


^m^ 


"'•^'**s---^- 


Theodor  Mommsen. 
From  a  painting  by  Franz  von  Uenbach. 


to  see  their  chief.  There  was  a  total  ab- 
sence of  Bonapartist  senators  and  depu- 
ties (which  was  not  surprising,  as  W.  had 
always  been  in  violent  opposition  to  the 
Empire),  who  were  rather  numerous  in 
these  parts.  \V.  was  really  quite  exhausted 
when  he  got  back  to  Paris — said  it  was 
absolute  luxury  to  sit  quietly  and  read  in 
his  library-,  and  not  talk.  It  wasn't  a  lux- 
ury that  he  enjoyed  very  much,  for  when- 
ever he  was  in  the  house  there  was  always 
some  one  talking  to  him  in  his  study  and 
others  waiting  in  the  drawing-room.  Every 
minute  of  the  day  he  was  occupied.    Peo- 


chances  were,  and  if  he  had  recommended 
them  to  his  friends.  It  is  striking  even  in 
this  country  of  functionaries  (I  think  there 
are  more  small  public  employees  in  France 
than  in  any  other  country)  how  many  ap- 
plicants there  were  alw^ays  for  the  most  in- 
significant places — a  Frenchman  loves  a 
cap  with  gold  braid  and  gilt  buttons  on  his 
coat. 

All  the  winter  of  '76,  which  saw  the  end 
of  the  National  Assembly  and  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  regime,  was  an  eventful  one 
in  parliamentary  circles.  I  don't  know  if 
the  country  generally  was  very  much  ex- 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


cited    about   a  new  constitution   and   a 
change  of  government.     I  don't  think  the 
country  in  France  (the  small  farmers  and 
peasants)  are  ever  much  excited  about  the 
form  of  government.    As  long  as  the  cro[)s 
are  good  and  there  is  no  war  to  take  away 
their  sons  and  able-bodied  men,  they  don't 
care,  often  don't  know,  whether  a  king  or 
an  emperor  is  reigning  over  them.     They 
say  there  are  some  far-off  villages  half-hid- 
den in  the  forests  and  mountains  who  still 
believe  that  a  king  and  a  Bourbon  is  reign- 
ing in  France.     Something  had  to  be  de- 
cided; the  ''provisoire"  could  no  longer 
continue;  the  country  could  not  go  on 
without  a  settled  government.     All  the 
arguments  and  negotiations  of  that  period 
have  been  so  often  told,  that  I  will  not  go 
into  any  details.  The  two  centres, "  Centre 
Droit"  and  ''  Centre  Gauche,"  had  every- 
thing in  their  hands  as  the  great  moderating 
elements  of  the  assembly,  but  the  conflict- 
ing claims  of  the  various  parties.  Legiti- 
mist, Orleanist,  Bonapartist,  and  advanced 
Left,  made  the  question  a  very  difficult  one. 
W.  as  a  member  of  the  ''Comite  des 
Trente  "  was  very  much  occupied  and  pre- 
occupied.    He  came  back  generally  very 
late  from  Versailles,  and,  when  he  did  dine 
at  home,  either  went  out  again  after  din- 
ner to  some  of  the  numerous  meetings  at 
different  houses  or  had  people  at  home. 
I  think  the  great  majority  of  deputies 
were  honestly  trying  to  do  what  they 
thought  best  for  the  country,  and  when 
one  remembers  the  names  and  personali- 
ties on  both  sides — MacMahon,  Broglie, 
d'Auddifret-Pasquier,     Buffet,     Dufaure 
and  Thiers,   Casimir  Perier,  Leon   Say, 
Jules  Simon,  Jules  Ferry,  Freycinet,  and 
many  others,  it  is  impossible  to  think  that 
any  of  those  men  were  animated  by  any 
spirit  other  than  love  of  the  country  and  an 
ardent  desire  to  see  some  stable  govern- 
ment restored  which  would  enable  France 
to  take  her  place  again  among  the  great 
powers.     Unfortunately  the  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  the  form  of  government  made 
things  very  difficult.     Some  of  the  young 
deputies,  just  fresh  from  the  war  and  smart- 
ing under  a  sense  of  humiliation,  were  very 
violent  in  their  abuse  of  any  Royalist  and 
particularly  Bonapartist  restoration. 

My  first  big  dinner  at  the  ministry  of 
l)ublic  instruction  rather  intimidated  me. 
Vol.  LV.~7 


We  were  fifty  people— I  the  only  lady. 
I  went  over  to  the  ministr)-  in  the  after- 
noon to  see  the  table,  which  was  very  well 
arranged  with  quantities  of  flowers,  beau- 
tiful Sevres  china,  not  much  silver — there 
is  very  little  left  in  France,  it  having  all 
been  melted  at  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. The  official  dinners  are  always  well 
done  in  Paris.  I  suppose  the  traditions 
of  the  Empire  have  been  handed  down. 
We  arrived  a  few  minutes  before  eight,  all 
the  staff  and  directors  already  there,  and 
by  ten  minutes  after  eight  every  one 
had  arrived.  I  sat  between  Gerome,  the 
painter,  and  Renan,  two  very  different 
men  but  each  quite  charming, — Gerome 
tall,  slight,  animated,  talking  very  easily 
about  everything.  He  told  me' who  a 
great  many  of  the  people  were,  with  a  little 
commentary'  on  their  profession  and  career 
w^hich  was  very  useful  to  me,  as  I  knew  so 
few  of  them.  Renan  was  short,  stout, 
with  a  very  large  head,  almost  unprepos- 
sessing-looking, but  with  a  great  charm  of 
manner  and  the  most  delightful  smile  and 
voice  imaginable.  He  often  dined  with 
us  in  our  own  house,  ''en  petit  comite," 
and  was  always  charming.  He  was  one  of 
those  happy  mortals  (there  are  not  many) 
w^ho  made  every  subject  they  discuss  in- 
teresting. 

After  that  first  experience,  I  liked  the 
big  men's  dinners  very  much.  There  was 
no  general  conversation;  I  talked  exclu- 
sively to  my  two  neighbors,  but  as  t hex- 
were  always  distinguished  in  some  branch 
of  art,  science,  or  literature,  the  talk  was 
brilliant,  and  I  found  the  hour  our  dinner 
lasted  a  very  short  one.  W.  was  \ery 
particular  about  not  having  long  dinners. 
Later,  at  the  ministry  of  foreign  aft'airs, 
where  we  sometimes  had  eighty  guests,  the 
dinner  wa.s  never  over  an  hour.  I  ne\er 
remained  the  whole  evening  at  the  men's 
dinners.  As  soon  as  they  dispersed  to 
talk  and  smoke,  I  came  away,  leaving  W. 
to  entertain  his  guests.  We  often  had  big 
receptions  with  music  and  "  comedie.''  At 
one  of  our  first  big  parties  we  had  several 
of  the  Orleans  family.  I  was  rather  nerv- 
ous, as  I  had  never  received  royalty, — 
in  fact  I  had  never  siK)ken  to  a  royal 
prince  or  princess.  I  had  lived  a  great  deal 
in  Rome,  as  a  girl,  during  the  last  days  of 
Pie  Neuf,  and  I  was  never  in  Paris  during 
the  Empire.  When  we  went  buck  to  Rome 


M\    I'irst   Years  as  a   iM-cnchwoman 


one  winter,  after  the  accession  of  king 
Victor  Kmnianuel.  1  found  myself  for  the 
first  time  in  a  room  willi  royalties,  the 
Prince  and  Princesse  de  Piemont.  I  re- 
member quite  well  being  so  surprised  by 
seeing  two  of  the  Roman  men  we  knew 
very  well  come  backward  into  the  ball- 
riKMii  where  we  \\ere  silling.  I  thought 
they  must  be  anticipaling  the^Iardi  Gras 
and'  were  mascjuerading  a  little,  didn't 
realize  that  every  one  was  standing.  I  re- 
mained sitting  for  a  moment  (much  to  the 
horror  of  one  of  the  English  secretaries 
who  was  with  us  and  who  thought  we  were 
going  to  make  a  spread-eagle  American 
demonstration  and  remain  sitting  when 
royalty  appeared).  However,  by  some 
sort  of  instinct,  we  rose  too  (perhaps  to 
see  what  was  going  on),  just  as  the  princes 
passed.  Princess  Marguerite  looked 
charming,  dressed  in  white,  with  _  her 
splendid  pearls  and  beautiful  fair  hair. 

When  it  was  decided  that  we  should 
ask  the  Orleans  princes  to  our  party,  I 
thought  I  would  go  to  see  the  Due  De- 
cazes,  the  foreign  minister,  a  charming 
man  and  charming  colleague,  to  get  some 
precise  information  about  my  part  of  the 
entertainment.  He  couldn't  think  what 
I  wanted  when  I  invaded  his  cabinet,  and 
was  much  amused  when  I  stated  my  case. 

''There  is  nothing  unusual  in  receiving 
the  princes  at  a  ministry.  You  must  do 
as  you  have  always  done." 

''But  that  is  just  the  question,  I  have 
never  done.  I  have  never  in  my  life  ex- 
changed a  word  with  a  royal  personage." 

''It  is  not  possible!" 

''It  is  absolutely  true;  I  have  never 
lived  anywhere  where  there  was  a  court." 

When  he  saw  that  I  w^as  in  earnest  he 
was  as  nice  as  possible,  told  me  exactly 
what  I  wanted  to  know^, — that  I  need  not 
say  "Altesse  royale"  every  time  I  spoke, 
merely  occasionally,  as  they  all  like  it, — 
that  I  must  speak  in  the  third  person, 
"  Madame  veut-elle,"  "  Monseigneur  veut- 
il  me  permettre,"  etc.,  also  that  I  must 
always  be  at  the  door  when  a  princess  ar- 
rived and  conduct  her  myself  to  her  seat. 

"But  if  I  am  at  one  end  of  the  long 
enfilade  of  rooms  taking  the  Comtesse  de 
Paris  to  her  seat  and  another  Princess 
(Joinville  or  Chartres)  should  arrive;  what 
has  to  be  done?" 

"Your  husband  must  alw^ays  be  at  the 


door  with  his  chef  de  cabinet,  who  will  re- 
place him  while  he  takes  the  Princess  to 
her  place." 

The  Marquise  de  L.,  a  charming  old 
lady  with  white  hair,  beautiful  blue  eyes, 
and  pink  cheeks,  a  great  friend  of  the  Or- 
leans family,  went  with  me  when  I  made 
my  round  of  visits  to  thank  the  royal 
ladies  for  accepting  our  invitation.  We 
found  no  one  but  the  Princesse  Margue- 
rite, daughter  of  the  Due  de  Nemours, 
who  was  living  at  Neuilly.  I  had  all  my 
instructions  from  the  marquise,  how  many 
courtesies  to  make,  how  to  address  her, 
and  above  all  not  to  speak  until  the  Prin- 
cess spoke  to  me.  We  were  shown  into 
a  pretty  drawing-room,  opening  on  a  gar- 
den, where  the  Princess  was  waiting, 
standing  at  one  end  of  the  room.  Ma- 
dame de  L.  named  me,  I  made  my  courte- 
sies, the  Princess  shook  hands,  and  then 
we  remained  standing,  facing  each  other. 
She  didn't  say  anything.  I  stood  per- 
fectly straight  and  quiet,  waiting.  She 
changed  color,  moved  her  hands  nerv- 
ously, was  evidently  overcome  with  shy- 
ness, but  didn't  utter  a  sound.  It  seemed 
very  long,  was  really  a  few  seconds  only, 
but  I  was  getting  rather  nervous  when 
suddenly  a  child  ran  across  the  garden. 
That  broke  the  ice  and  she  asked  me 
the  classic  royal  question,  "  Avez-vous  des 
enfants,  madame?  "  I  had  only  one,  and 
he  was  rather  small,  but  still  his  nurse,  his 
teeth,  and  his  food  carried  me  on  for  a  little 
while  and  after  that  we  had  some  general 
conversation,  but  I  can't  say  the  visit  was 
really  interesting.  As  long  as  I  was  in 
public  life  I  regretted  that  I  had  but 
the  one  child, — children  and  nurseries  and 
schoolrooms  were  always  an  unfailing 
topic  of  conversation.  Frenchwomen  of 
all  classes  take  much  more  interest  in  the 
details  of  their  nurseries  and  the  educa- 
tion and  bringing-up  of  their  children 
than  we  Anglo-Saxons  do.  I  know  sev- 
eral mammas  who  follow^ed  all  the  course 
of  their  sons'  studies  when  they  were  pre- 
paring their  baccalaureat,  even  to  writing 
the  compositions.  The  head  nurse  (Eng- 
lish) who  takes  entire  charge  of  her  nurs- 
ery, who  doesn't  like  any  interference, 
and  brings  the  children  to  their  mother  at 
stated  hours,  doesn't  exist  in  France. 

Our  party  was  very  brilliant,  all  sorts  of 
notabilities  of  all  kinds,  and  the  leading 


My   First  Years  as  a   Frenchwoman 


75 


Paris  artists  from  the  Grand  Opera,  Opera 
Comique,  and  the  Fran^ais.  As  soon  as 
the  performance  was  over  W.  told  me  I 
must  ^o  and  thank  the  artists;  he  could 
not  leave  his  princes.  I  started  off  to  the 
last  of  the  long  suite  of  salons  where  they 
were  all  assembled.  Comte  de  L.,  W.'s 
chef  de  cabinet,  went  with  me,  and  we 
were  preceded  by  a  huissier  with  sword 
and  chain,  who  piloted  us  through  the 
crowd.  I  felt  very  shy  when  I  arrived  in 
the  green  room.  All  the  artists  were 
drawn  up  in  two  rows,  the  women  on  one 
side,  the  men  on  the  other,  all  eyes  of 
course  fixed  upon  madame  la  ministresse. 
Madame  Carvalho,  Sarah  Bernhardt,  and 
Croizette  were  standing  at  the  head  of  the 
long  line  of  women;  Faure,  Talazac,  De- 
launay,  Coquelin,  on  the  other  side.  I 
went  first  all  along  the  line  of  women,  then 
came  back  by  the  men.  I  realized  in- 
stantly after  the  first  w^ord  of  thanks  and 
interest  how  easy  it  is  for  princes,  or  any 
one  in  high  places,  to  give  pleasure.  They 
all  responded  so  smilingly  and  naturally 
to  everything  I  said.  After  the  first  two 
or  three  words  I  didn't  mind  at  all,  and 
found  myself  discussing  acoustics,  the 
difficulty  of  playing  any  well-known  part 
without  costumes,  scener}^,  etc.,  the  in- 
convenience of  having  the  public  so  near, 
quite  easily.  We  often  had  music  and  rec- 
itations at  our  parties,  and  that  was  al- 
ways a  great  pleasure  to  me.  I  remem- 
ber so  well  one  evening  when  we  had 
the  chorus  of  the  Conservatoire  and  they 
sang  quite  beautifully  the  old  "Plaisirs 
d'Amour"  of  our  childhood.  It  had  a 
great  success  and  they  were  obliged  to  re- 
peat it.  W.  made  one  great  innovation 
in  the  dress  of  the  ladies  of  the  Conserva- 
toire chorus.  They  were  always  dressed 
in  white,  which  was  very  well  for  the 
young,  slight  figures,  but  was  less  happy 
for  a  stout  middle-aged  lady.  So  after 
much  discussion  it  was  decided  to  adopt 
black  as  the  official  dress  and  I  must  say 
it  was  an  enormous  improvement. 

All  sorts  of  interesting  people  came 
to  see  us  at  the  instruction  publique, — 
among  others  the  late  Emperor  of  Brazil, 
Don  Pedro  de  Bragance,  who  s{)ent  some 
months  in  Paris  that  year  with  his 
daughter,  the  young  Comtesse  d'Eu.  He 
was  a  tall,  good-looking  man,  with  a 
charming  easy  manner,  very  cultivated 


and  very  keen  about  everjthing — art.  lit- 
erature, politics.  His  gentlemen  said  he 
had  the  energy  of  a  man  of  twenty-five, 
and  he  was  well  over  middle  age  when  he 
was  in  Paris.  They  were  (|uite  exhausted 
sometimes  after  a  long  day  of  visits  and 
sightseeing  with  him.  He  was  an  early 
riser.  One  of  the  first  rendezvous  he 
gave  W.  was  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, which  greatly  disturbed  that  gentle- 
man's habits.  He  was  never  an  early 
riser,  worked  always  very  late  (said  his 
best  despatches  were  written  after  mid- 
night) ,  and  didn't  care  about  beginning  his 
day  too  early.  Another  interesting  j)er- 
sonality  was  Mommsen,  the  German  his- 
torian and  savant.  He  was  a  picturcsf|ue- 
lookingold  man  with  keen  blue  eyes  and 
a  quantity  of  white  hair.  I  don't  think 
anything  modern  interested  him  \ery 
much.  He  was  an  old  man  when  I  first 
saw  him,  and  looked  even  older  than  his 
age.  He  and  W.  used  to  plunge  into  very 
long,  learned  discussions  over  antiquities 
and  medals.  W.  said  the  hours  with 
Mommsen  rested  him,  such  a  change  from 
the  "shop"  talk  always  mixed  with  poli- 
tics in  France. 

We  often  had  political  breakfasts  at 
home  (more  breakfasts  than  dinners). 
Our  Aisne  deputies  and  senators  were  not 
very  "mondains,"  didn't  care  much  to 
dine  out.  They  were  pleasant  enough 
when  they  talked  about  subjects  that  in- 
terested them.  Henri  ]\Iartin,  senator  of 
the  Aisne,  was  an  old-fashioned  Republi- 
can, absolutely  convinced  that  no  other 
government  would  ever  succeed  in  France, 
but  he  was  moderate.  St.  X^allier,  also 
a  senator  from  the  Aisne,  was  nervous 
and  easily  discouraged  when  things  didn't 
go  smoothly,  but  he  too  thought  the 
Republic  was  the  only  possible  govern- 
ment now,  whatever  his  preferences  might 
have  been  formerly. 

W.'s  ministry  came  to  an  end  on  the 
famous  i6th  of  May,  1877,  when  Marshal 
MacMahon  suddenly  took  matters  in  his 
own  hands  and  dismissed  his  cabinet  i)re- 
sided  over  by  M.  Jules  Simon.  Things  had 
not  been  going  smoothly  for  some  time, 
could  not  between  two  men  of  such  al)so- 
lute  difference  of  origin,  habits,  and  ideas. 
Still  the  famous  letter  written  by  the 
marshal  to  Jules  Simon  was  a  thunder- 
chq).     I  was  walking  about  the  Champs- 


re 


Live  Thy   Life 


KlysiVs  ami  FaulHUiri;  St.  Tlonorc  on  the 
mominj;  of  the  lOth  ol  May,  and  saw  all 
the  carria^t*s,  our  own  included,  waiting 
at  the  minislr>'  of  the  interior,  where  the 
"conseil"  was  sitting.     I  went  home  to 
breakfast ,  thought  W.  was  later  than  usual, 
but  never  dreamed  of  what  was  haj^i^en- 
ing.     When    he   tinally   appeared,  quite 
comi)osed   and   smiling,   with   his   news: 
"We  are  out  of  office;  the  marshal  has 
sent  us  all  about  our  business,"  I  could 
hardly  beliexe  it,  even  when  he  told  me  all 
the  details.     I  had  known  for  a  long  time 
that  things  were  not  going  well,  but  there 
were  always  so  much  friction  and  such  op- 
posing elements  in  the  cabinet  that  I  had 
not  attached  much  importance  to  the  ac- 
counts of  stormy  sittings  and  thought 
things  would  settle  down.     W.  said  the 
marshal  was  \ery  civil  to  him,  but  it  was 
evident  that  he  could  not  stand  Jules 
Simon  any  longer  and  the  various  meas- 
ures that  he  felt  were  impending.    We  had 
many  visitors  after  breakfast,  all  much  ex- 
cited, wondering  what  the  next  step  would 
be, — if  the  "chambres"  would   be  dis- 
solved, the  marshal  trying  to  impose  a 
cabinet  of  the  Right  or  perhaps  form  an- 
other moderate  liberal  cabinet  without 
Jules  Simon,  but  retaining  some  of  his 
ministers.     It  was  my  reception  after- 
noon, and  while  I  was  sitting  quietly  in 
my  drawing-room  talking  to  some  of  my 
friends,  making  plans  for  the  summer, 
quite  pleased  to  have  W.  to  myself  again, 
the  butler  hurried  into  the  room  telling  me 
that  la  ^Nlarechale  de  MacMahon  was  on 


the  stairs,  coming  to  make  me  a  visit.  I 
was  very  much  surprised,  as  she  never 
came  to  see  me.  We  met  very  rarely, 
except  on  official  occasions,  and  she  made 
no  secret  of  her  dislike  to  the  official 
republican  ladies  (but  she  was  always 
absolutely  correct  if  not  enthusiastic).  I 
had  just  time  to  get  to  the  head  of  the 
stairs  to  receive  her.  She  was  very  ami- 
able, a  little  embarrassed,  took  a  cup  of 
tea, — said  the  marshal  was  very  sorry  to 
part  with  W.,  he  had  never  had  any 
trouble  or  disagreement  with  him  of  any 
kind,  but  that  it  was  impossible  to  go  on 
with  a  cabinet  when  neither  party  had 
any  confidence  in  the  other.  - 1  quite 
agreed,  said  it  was  the  fortunes  of  war;  I 
hoped  the  marshal  would  find  another 
premier  who  would  be  more  sympathetic 
with  him,  and  then  we  talked  of  other 
things.  My  friends  were  quite  amused. 
One  of  them.  Marquise  de  T.,  knew  the 
Marechale  quite  well,  and  said  she  was 
going  to  ask  her  if  she  was  obliged  to  make 
''visites  de  condoleance"  to  the  wives  of 
all  the  fallen  ministers.  W.  was  rather 
astonished  when  I  told  him  who  had  come 
to  tea  with  me,  and  thought  the  conver- 
sation must  have  been  difficult.  I  told  him , 
not  at  all,  once  the  necessary  phrases  about 
the  departing  ministers  were  over.  The 
piano  was  open,  music  littered  about;  she 
was  fond  of  music  and  she  admired  very 
much  a  portrait  of  father  as  a  boy  in  the 
Harrow  dress,  asked  who  it  was  and  what 
the  dress  was.  She  was  a  perfect  woman  of 
the  world,  and  no  one  was  uncomfortable. 


LIVE    THY    LIFE 

By  Florence  Earle  Coates 

Live  thy  hfe  gallantly  and  undismayed: 
Whatever  harms  may  hide  within  the  shade, 
Be  thou  of  Jear,  my  spirit!  more  afraid. 

In  earthly  pathways  evil  springeth  rife; 

But  dread  not  thou,  too  much,  or  pain  or  strife 

That  plunge  thee  to  the  greater  depths  of  life! 

What  though  the  storm-cloud  holds  the  bolt  that  sears? 
The  eagle  of  the  crag,  that  nothing  fears, 
Still,  still  is  young  after  a  hundred  years! 


POLITICIANS   AND    THE    SENSE    OF    HUMOR 


By   Henry   S.   Pritchett 


UR  age  is  that  of  the  expert. 
The  politician — if  that  term 
is  used  in  the  true  sense — 
is  the  most  important  ex- 
pert whose  services  a  free 
people  can  make  use  of,  for 
the  politician  is  selected  to  organize  and 
conduct  the  government  of  a  State  or  a 
nation  in  such  way  as  to  conserve  its  safe- 
ty, its  peace,  and  its  progress.  Have  we 
inVAmerica  any  politicians  who  are  en- 
titled to  be  considered  real  experts?  What 
are  the  qualities  which  are  essential  to  the 
expert  practice  of  this  profession,  for  pol- 
itics is,  or  at  least  it  ought  to  be  in  a  de- 
mocracy, the  noblest  and  most  honored  of 
all  professions? 

As  a  people  we  stand  face  to  face  to-day 
with  these  questions.  And  when  these 
are  answered,  when  the  essential  qualities 
which  the  expert  must  possess  are  agreed 
upon,  there  still  remains  the  hardest  ques- 
tion of  all :  Where  can  the  American  find 
politicians  so  qualified? 

There  have  been  many  attempts  in  the 
political  journals  to  answer  these  ques- 
tions during  these  late  months,  and  in 
these  piping  times  nearly  all  journals  are 
political  in  the  party  sense.  The  week- 
lies, with  few  exceptions,  have  been  swept 
bodily  into  the  sea  of  personal  politics, 
and  many  of  the  monthlies  are  dragging 
their  anchors. 

The  trouble  about  the  answers  to  these 
questions  that  one  finds  in  these  excel- 
lent publications  lies  in  the  personal  form 
in  which  they  are  given.  They  are  like 
the  patent-medicine  advice  to  the  man 
who  thinks  he  has  many  diseases.  All  is 
comprehended  in  the  simple  formula  — 
take  me! 

There  has  been  only  one  thing  in  which 
all  these  authorities  have  agreed,  and  that 
is  that,  whatever  the  qualities  of  the  great 
politician  are,  Lincoln  had  them.  There 
are  more  different  kinds  of  politicians  to- 
day who  describe  themselves  as  the  simon- 
pure  followers  of  Abraham  Lincoln  than 
have  ever  appeared  at  one  time  in  all  our 


previous  history.  And  the  interesting  part 
about  all  this  is  that  they  are  generally 
quite  honest  and  serious  in  their  belief. 
It  is  altogether  wrong  to  conclude  that  all 
these  excellent  gentlemen  are  insincere. 
On  the  contrary,  when  a  gentleman  with 
political  aspirations  gets  fairly  started  on 
a  warm  campaign,  it  is  the  easiest  thing 
in  the  world  to  make  himself  believe  that 
he  is  not  only  treading  Lincoln's  path, 
but  that  he  is  on  a  hot  trail.  This  is,  of 
course,  made  easier  for  the  politician  when 
sympathetic  and  admiring  friends  burn 
the  right  incense  under  his  nose.  It  is  a 
rare  man  that  could  resist  the  suggestion 
that  he  alone  can  save  the  country  after 
a  few  hundred  patriots  have  assured  him 
of  the  fact. 

And  all  this  brings  us  back  to  the  orig- 
inal question:  Are  there  any  fundamental 
qualities  which  a  politician  must  have  and 
without  which  he  cannot  serve  the  public 
in  a  high  place?  What  are  the  indis[)en- 
sables?  Or,  to  accept  the  verdict  of  the 
campaigners,  what  prime  qualities  did 
Lincoln  have  which  have  made  him  pre- 
eminent among  politicians? 

Expressed  in  its  lowest  terms,  a  man 
must  have  two  qualities  if  the  people  are 
to  trust  him  as  a  political  leader — he  must 
have  moral  purpose  and  he  must  be  able 
to  think  straight. 

There  is  a  simple  law  in  mechanics 
which  expresses  the  momentum  of  a  mov- 
ing body  as  equivalent  to  the  mass  mul- 
tiplied into  the  velocity.  The  efficiency 
of  a  man  in  political  leadership  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  some  such  way — it  is  pretty 
nearly  equal  to  his  moral  purpose  mul- 
tiplied into  his  ability  to  think  straight. 
It  would  be  difikult  to  say  whether  na- 
tions have  suffered  more  at  the  hands  of 
politicians  who  were  morally  weak,  but 
had  clear  heads,  or  from  those  who  meant 
well  morally,  but  failed  to  think  straight. 
A  dishonest  mind  will  do  as  much  harm  in 
politics  as  a  dishonest  heart.  There  was 
never  a  time  when  straight  thinking  was 
more  necessary  to  our  political  life.  There 

77 


•s 


Politirians  and  the  Slmisc  of   Humor 


wasnevera  time  when  hi.^h  mural  pun^ose 
was  more  essential.  No  man  tnii];ht  to  be 
taken  lor  high  public  leadership  who  has 
not  both.  EtTiciency  in  politics  cannot  be 
expressed  in  lower  terms. 

Now,  the  dilViculty  does  not  come  in 
fmdinj?  men  who  have  this  combination  of 
character  and  intellect.  The  world  is  fair- 
ly supi^lieil  with  such  men,  and  (contrary 
to  a  certain  popular  fallacy)  there  is  a  fair 
proi-Kirtion  of  such  men  in  public  life  in 
America.  I  have  been  at  one  time  or 
another  thrown  into  close  contact  with 
a  university  faculty,  a  denominational 
association  of  Christian  ministers,  and 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  From 
my  exjuTience  I  would  say  that  the  last- 
named  body  was  morally  and  intellectu- 
ally about  on  the  same  plane  as  the  other 
two.  The  difficulty  does  not  come  in  get- 
ting moral  men  or  intelligent  men  into 
public  life,  or  even  men  who  are  both 
moral  and  intelligent,  although  it  would 
be  far  from  my  thought  to  intimate  for  a 
moment  that  all  the  men  who  become 
prominent  in  public  life  have  either  the 
one  or  the  other  of  these  fundamen- 
tal qualities.  The  difficulty  is  that  even 
these  fundamental  qualities  are  not  alone 
sufficient  to  guide  a  politician  in  the  high- 
est places  of  authority.  Even  w^hen  yoked 
together  in  one  human  soul  they  may  be 
led  into  strange  paths  unless  quickened  by 
another  great  humanizing  quality,  a  whole- 
some sense  of  humor. 

It  is  not  entirely  simple  to  define  what 
is  implied  in  a  true  sense  of  humor.  Very 
naturally  we  have  come  to  think  of  it  as  a 
certain  facility  in  joking,  because  the  abil- 
ity to  joke  nearly  ahvays  accompanies  the 
possession  of  a  true  sense  of  humor.  Then, 
too,  we  all  possess  that  rudimentary  qual- 
ity of  humor  which  enables  us  to  enjoy  a 
joke,  at  least  on  our  companion.  A  much 
smaller  proportion  are  able  to  appreciate, 
even  though  we  do  not  enjoy,  the  joke  on 
ourselves.  All  this  is  one  of  the  common 
characteristics  w^hich  go  with  a  sense  of 
hurnor.  Not  always.  Some  of  the  great- 
est jokers  have  been  the  least  humorous  of 
men,  and  some  men  who  do  not  joke  at 
all  have  the  sense  of  humor  in  its  finest 
form.  Perha,ps  it  can  be  best  described 
as  that  faculty  of  imagination  so  humane 
and  sympathetic  in  its  nature  that  it  can 
perceive  at  the  same  time  serious  and 


jocose  things.  It  can  feel  the  pathos  of  a 
scene  on  life's  stage  and  yet  have  an  eye 
at  the  same  time  for  the  incongruities  of 
the  actors.  It  is  imagination — but  imag- 
ination endowed  by  a  friendly  human 
sjoirit.  It  is  the  feel  of  kinship  with  the 
universal  human  soul. 

Now,  the  reason  why  this  sort  of  humane 
imagination  is  so  necessary  to  the  success- 
ful practice  of  politics  lies  in  two  facts. 
First  of  all,  the  politician  more  than  any 
other  man  has  to  do  with  all  sorts  and  con- 
ditions of  men.  The  sense  of  humor  will 
take  off  the  friction  of  his  many-sided 
human  contact.  It  will  temper  sternness 
with  mercy,  ridicule  with  godd  nature, 
abuse  with  the  soft  answer.  It  answers 
the  bitter  question  of  the  pharisee  with  a 
parable  and  the  yellow-journal  lie  with  a 
good  story.  It  is  the  best  lubricator  for 
the  machinery  of  civilized  society.  It  is 
the  touch  of  nature  which  makes  the  whole 
world  kin  by  lighting  up  the  good  motives 
as  well  as  the  bad.  Yet,  after  all,  these 
are  external  relations.  Moral  purpose 
and  clear  thinking — and  we  are  assuming 
always  that  our  politician  has  both — can 
be  trusted  in  the  long  run  to  find  the  right 
path  in  these  relations,  even  if  they  lead 
through  some  unnecessary  stony  places. 
But  the  point  at  which  these  two  indis- 
pensables  fail  to  serve  the  politician  is  in 
the  preservation  of  a  true  perspective  of 
himself.  When  once  a  man  has  risen  to 
high  political  station,  when  his  hands  have 
felt  the  thrill  which  comes  with  the  han- 
dling of  the  reins  of  power,  his  real  test 
comes,  for  then  the  subtle  voice  of  praise 
comes  day  by  day  to  his  ear.  As  his  pow- 
er and  influence  grow^,  those  about  him 
reflect  back  to  him  more  and  more  the 
things  he  likes  to  hear.  More  and  more 
the  circle  of  those  who  talk  to  him  is  made 
up  of  such  reflectors.  The  process  min- 
isters to  the  growth  of  that  universal 
human  egotism  which  springs  up  only  too 
easily  in  the  noblest  human  soul.  It  dis- 
turbs the  whole  perspective  of  human  re- 
lations. In  all  ages  it  has  been  the  undo- 
ing of  the  wisest  politicians.  Good  and 
true  men  rise  to  eminence  and  are  steril- 
ized by  its  poison.  Neither  good  morals 
nor  high  intelligence  is  proof  against  it. 
For  the  salvation  of  the  political  leader  in 
high  place  from  the  blight  of  the  all-de- 
vouring human  egotism  a  wholesome  sense 


Politicians  and  the  Sense  of   Humor 


70 


of  humor  is  the  saving  grace.  It  is  the 
only  antitoxin  which  can  deal  with  the 
microbe  of  egotism. 

No  man  can  appreciate,  unless  he  has 
watched  the  process  day  by  day,  the  con- 
stant stream  of  influence  brought  to  bear 
on  a  President,  a  governor,  a  man  high  in 
party  control,  by  the  steady  ministry  of 
praise,  for  it  is  praise,  not  criticism,  which 
sterilizes  character  and  intellect.  No  other 
influence  which  a  ruler  has  to  face  is  so 
subtle  and  so  difficult  to  resist.  It  is  the 
strong  man's  greatest  danger. 

And  the  politicians  are  right  about  Lin- 
coln. He  is  pre-eminently  the  greatest 
of  our  political  leaders.  But  we  accord 
him  this  praise  not  on  the  ground  of  a 
larger  moral  purpose  and  a  clearer  intel- 
lect than  the  other  leaders  of  his  day. 
Other  men  there  were  in  the  great  polit- 
ical drama  in  which  his  part  lay  w^hose 
devotion  was  as  great  as  his.  There  were 
those  who  stated  the  case  for  freedom  as 
clearly.  But  the  difference  is  this:  All 
these  leaders — honored  as  they  are  and  as 
they  deserve  to  be — lost  their  perspective 
at  one  time  or  another.  Lincoln  never 
did.  He  never  took  himself  too  seriously. 
He  never  harbored  the  notion  that  he  was 
indispensable  to  the  country's  progress. 
He  never  deceived  himself  into  thinking 
that  the  whole  American  people  were  pass- 
ing by  when  only  a  brass  band  was  com- 
ing up  the  street.  Above  every  other 
political  leader  of  his  time  he  had  the 
saving  grace  of  a  humane  imagination,  a 
true  sense  of  humor.  It  w^as  out  of  the 
true  sense  of  perspective  which  this  com- 
bination of  qualities  brought  that  he  was 
able  to  realize  clearly  two  truths  which 
were  vital  to  the  politics  of  his  own  day 
and  which  are  equally  important  to  our 
own:  first,  that  waiting  is  sometimes  the 
highest  form  of  action;  and,  second,  that 
patience  is  oftentimes  the  finest  expres- 
sion of  courage.  It  requires  something 
more  than  good  morals  and  high  think- 
ing to  wait  and  to  be  patient.  It  is 
possible  only  to  him  who  has  a  human 
perspective,  to  him  whose  morals  and  in- 
tellect are  vitalized  l^y  a  humane  imagi- 
nation. And  this  endowment  comes  rare- 
ly except  to  him  who  rises  directly  out 
of  the  common  people.  Humanity  renews 
itself  by  its  own  children.  It  is  rarely 
saved  from  without.     One  cannot  imag- 


ine Shakespeare  or  Lincoln  born  to  the 
purple. 

In  the  tradition  now  fast  gathering 
about  the  name  of  Lincoln  we  are  prone 
to  think  of  his  story-telling  as  a  minor  ele- 
ment in  his  character,  useful  indeed,  but, 
after  all,  trivial  as  compared  with  his 
moral  and  intellectual  qualities.  To  do 
this  is  to  confuse  the  external  mark  of 
humor  with  the  deeper  underlying  si)irit. 
Lincoln's  stories  had  the  same  relation  to 
his  political  arguments  which  the  para- 
bles of  Christ  had  to  his  preaching.  Both 
arose  out  of  that  imagination  which  vis- 
ualized in  a  true  perspective  humanity 
and  human  relations.  As  we  recede  far- 
ther from  Lincoln's  day,  it  will  be  no  small 
loss  to  the  lesson  of  his  life  to  future  gen- 
erations if  we  strip  him  of  the  quality 
which  made  his  other  great  qualities  elTect- 
ive,  the  quality  which  makes  him  intense- 
ly human. 

Two  good  stories  have  recently  come  to 
me — the  one  about  Lincoln,  the  other  re- 
lated by  him — which  illustrate  the  moral 
quality  of  the  man,  in  the  one  case,  and 
his  keen  appreciation  of  human  reactions, 
in  the  other. 

The  first  was  told  me  by  one  of  the  few 
men  now  living  who  knew  Lincoln  well, 
and  relates  to  that  period  in  his  life  when 
he  was  practising  law  in  Springt'ield,  but 
thinking  day  by  day  over  the  ])roblems  of 
the  country's  future.  For  some  years  be- 
fore the  Lincoln-Douglas  debates  it  was 
the  custom  of  Senator  Douglas  to  come  to 
Springfield  from  time  to  time  and  s{)eak 
on  political  questions.  Even  at  that  date 
it  was  Lincoln's  habit  to  reply  to  these 
speeches. 

On  the  occasion  to  which  I  refer  Sena- 
tor Douglas  had  made  one  of  his  most 
brilliant  efforts.  His  audience  was  carried 
away  with  enthusiasm.  Ne\ertheless,  at 
the  end  of  the  meeting  a  friend  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  announced  that  one  week  later, 
from  the  same  platform,  he  would  under- 
take to  rei)ly  to  the  arguments  of  Senator 
Douglas. 

The  next  morning,  at  an  early  hour,  the 
man  who  told  me  the  story  (he  was  then 
a  boy  of  eighteen)  was  sweeping  out  the 
store  in  which  he  was  employed  when  Mr. 
Lincoln  came  along  on  the  way  to  his 
otlice.  In  his  usual  kindly  way  he  stopped 
to  have  a  word  with  the  boy,  whom  he 


so 


Toliticians  and  the  Sense  of   Humor 


knew  well,  and  the  talk  turned  naturally 
on  the  speix-h  of  the  ni«:ht  before.  "Mr. 
Lincoln,"  said  the  boy,  in  his  enthusiasm, 
"do  you  think  you  can  reply  to  Senator 
Douirlas's  speech?  Wliy,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
Senator  Douglas  is  the  greatest  man  in 
the  United  States,  and  that  si)ecch  was 
the  tinest  speech  that  was  ever  made." 
"My  boy,"  said  Lincoln,  "that  wasn't  a 
grea't  speech  and  Senator  Douglas  isn't 
a  great  man,  and  the  reasons  are  these: 
three  times  in  that  speech  Senator  Douglas 
made  a  false  statement,  and  he  knew  in 
each  case  that  the  statement  was  false. 
Some  time  or  other,  even  in  politics,  false- 
hoods catch  up  with  the  men  who  start 
them." 

One  can  well  imagine  that  it  was  under 
the  stress  of  those  days  that  Lincoln  ham- 
mered out  the  phrase  which  has  become 
part  of  the  currency  of  poHtical  discus- 
sions: "You  can  fool  part  of  the  people  all 
the  time,  you  can  fool  all  the  people  part 
of  the  time,  but  you  can't  fool  all  the  peo- 
ple all  the  time." 

The  other  story  belongs  to  the  darkest 
period  of  the  Civil  War.  It  was  at  the 
time  when  the  emancipation  of  the  negroes 
was  under  heated  discussion.  Lincoln  was 
being  pressed  by  the  radicals  on  the  one 
hand,  demanding  immediate  emancipa- 
tion, and  by  the  border  statesmen  on  the 
other,  who  insisted  that  such  action  would 
throw  their  States  into  the  arms  of  the 
Confederacy.  Not  every  American,  even 
at  this  day,  appreciates  the  service  of  the 
border  States  to  the  Union.  Missouri 
sent  nearly  as  many  men  to  the  Union 
army  as  Massachusetts! 

During  this  period  the  President  re- 
ceived one  day  a  visit  from  a  delegation  of 
border-State  representatives,  who  urged 
their  case  with  passionate  earnestness. 
They  had  entered  this  war,  they  said,  to 
save  the  Union,  not  to  free  the  negro,  and 
they  insisted  that  an  emancipation  of  the 
slaves  would  ahenate  their  States  from  the 
Union  cause. 

Lincoln,  grave  and  troubled,  listened  to 
their  story,  the  deep  lines  in  his  face  tes- 
tifying to  the  anxiety  under  which  he  la- 
bored. He  replied  to  their  statements  and 
in  calm  and  sympathetic  tone  assured 
them  that  as  a  border-State  man  he  could 
understand  their  point  of  view.  But  he 
insisted  it  was  the  duty  of  the  border 


States  to  help  save  the  Union  either  with 
or  without  slavery,  and  that  his  own  duty 
compelled  him  to  look  at  the  matter  from 
other  points  of  view.  He  argued  that 
large  weight  must  be  given  to  the  opin- 
ions of  the  men  in  the  great  States  of  New 
England  and  New  York.  "  I  have  just  had 
a  visit  this  morning,"  he  added,  "from 
Senator  Sumner,  Senator  Wade,  and  Mr. 
Stephens,  the  leaders  of  the  Senate  and 
the  House,  who  assure  me  that  unless  the 
abolition  of  slavery  is  made  clear  these 
great  States  will  refuse  further  troops  and 
money  for  the  war.  And,  what  is  more, 
they  are  coming  back  at  one  o'clock  to  get 
my  answer."  And  then,  as  a  smile  broke 
over  his  care-worn  face,  he  continued: 
"My  situation  reminds  me  of  an  incident 
in  my  own  short  experience  in  school." 
And  here  followed  a  delightful  description 
of  a  primitive  Indiana  or  Kentucky  field 
school,  with  its  one  room,  its  split  pun- 
cheons for  seats,  and  its  modest  equipment 
for  teaching.  "There  were  few  books 
among  the  pioneer  families  of  those  days," 
continued  the  President;  "the  one  book 
which  every  family  possessed  was  the 
Bible,  and  it  was  commonly  used  as  a 
school  reader.  The  class  stood  up  in  line 
before  the  teacher  and,  beginning  with 
some  chapter,  each  scholar  in  turn  read  a 
verse.  The  boys  very  soon  learned  to 
count  the  number  standing  in  line,  and 
then  from  the  numbered  verses  to  prepare 
themselves  on  the  verses  coming  to  them 
on  the  second  reading,  and  by  this  means 
to  make  a  better  showing.  On  one  occa- 
sion we  read  that  chapter  which  tells  the 
story  of  the  Hebrew  children  and  their  ad- 
ventures in  the  fiery  furnace.  It  so  hap- 
pened that  the  verse  containing  the  three 
hard  names — Shadrach,  Meshach,  and 
Abednego — came  to  a  boy  larger  than  the 
others,  but  backward  and  shy.  He  made 
sorry  work  of  the  names  of  the  three 
Hebrew  children,  but  finally  floundered 
through,  to  the  relief  of  everybody,  and 
the  reading  continued.  His  turn  to  read 
had  almost  come  round  again  when,  to 
the  astonishment  of  teacher  and  pupils,  he 
burst  out  into  sobs.  'Why,  Sammy,'  in- 
quired the  teacher,  '  what  is  the  matter? ' 
'Well,'  sobbed  Sammy,  digging  his  fists 
into  his  eyes  and  glancing  sidelong  at  his 
book,  '  them  three  blamed  fools  is  coming 
round  to  me  again.'  "   And  with  this  the 


The  Geniuses  of  Lutton's  Hill 


81 


conference  ended,  leaving  the  matter  /;/ 
statu  quo,  which  was  exactly  what  the 
story  was  intended  to  accomplish.  The 
emancipation  proclamation  was  at  that 
moment  lying  in  the  President's  desk  wait- 
ing a  victory  of  the  Union  arms  to  furnish 
a  fit  occasion  for  its  announcement.  An- 
tietam  set  it  free. 

If  Charles  Sumner  could  have  told  a 
story  like  that,  he  never  would  have 
inflicted  upon  his  country  the  frightful 
wrong  of  an  immediate  enfranchisement 
of  a  whole  race  of  slaves — a  wrong  which 
has  worked  misery  and  injustice  to  both 


races.  And  yet  no  politician  of  his  day 
had  a  fmer  moral  i)ur|x)se,  a  keener  intel- 
lect, or  a  better  knowledge  of  histor}-. 

The  American  who  has  to  choose  to-day 
the  men  who  are  to  govern  in  State  and 
nation  may  well  be  hopeful  if  he  can  lind 
politicians  who  |)ossess  the  indispensable 
Cjualities  of  morals  and  brains.  These  pro- 
tect a  man  against  all  foes  except  him- 
self. For  the  highest  leadership  there 
must  still  be  sought  one  who  has  also  the 
gift  of  imagination  in  its  kindliest  human 
form.  Where  shall  we  turn  for  such  a 
leader? 


THE    GENIUSES    OF   LUTTONS    HILL 

By   Philip  Curtiss 

Illustrations  by  Angus  MacDonall 


^^^^^jHE  city  of  Lutton's  Hill  was 
normal  in  most  regards,  but 
sadly  deficient  in  one.  It 
had  some  hundred  thousand 
inhabitants,  four  depart- 
ment stores,  ten  banks, 
twelve  churches,  a  country  club,  and  a 
packing-house;  occasionally  it  had  an  in- 
vestigation— in  all  of  which  institutions  it 
could  fairly  hold  up  its  head  with  Reading 
Village  and  Parsons  Hollow,  the  former  of 
which  could  boast  but  eight  banks  and 
the  latter  of  which  had  not  even  one  single 
club.  But  Lutton's  Hill  had  only  two 
men  of  genius,  in  which  particular  it  fell 
wofully  short  of  the  average — or  health- 
fully above  it,  according  to  the  point  of 
view;  for,  in  the  opinion  of  the  ten  bank 
presidents,  the  twelve  clergymen,  and  the 
owner  of  the  packing-house,  with  ninety- 
nine  thousand  nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
eight  people  left  to  work  for  a  living,  the 
commercial  future  of  Lutton's  Hill  was 
exceedingly  rosy.  So  Lutton's  Hill  waxed 
fat  and  grew  prosperous  and,  for  the  most 
I)art,  completely  forgot  its  geniuses,  with 
which  the  latter  were  indeed  entirely  con- 
tent. 

To  spend,  then,  no  more  on  the  banks 
and  churches,  the  geniuses  of  Lutton's 
Hill  were  Anson  MacFarland  and  George 
Vol.  LV.— 8 


F.  Connor,  both  of  whom  were  geniuses 
because  each  had  been  born  with  a  single 
soul.  There  is  no  other  test  of  the  gen- 
ius than  this.  The  head  of  the  National 
Bank  of  Lutton  was  by  very  good  way  of 
being  a  genius,  as  he  had  a  talent  for  in- 
vestments which  was  little  short  of  un- 
canny. But  yet  he  was  not  a  genius,  for 
he  also  played  a  good  game  of  golf.  The 
strenuous  young  rector  of  Saint  George 
and  The  Dragon's  might  also  have  been  a 
genius,  for  his  sermons  were  almost  in- 
spired and  his  work  in  the  settlements 
marvellous.  And  yet  he  was  not,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  he  also  could  sing. 

But  Anson  MacFarland  and  George  F. 
Connor  were  not  of  such  mould.  The 
former  could  do  not  one  single  thing  in 
this  world  but  wring  strange  melodies  out 
of  the  English  language  and  the  latter 
could  simply  balance  himself  on  a  ladder. 

The  city  of  Lutton's  Hill  was,  in  a  way, 
proud  of  its  geniuses,  but  the  world  was 
delighted  and  the  seeming  deficiency  in 
enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  the  city  was  not 
due  to  obtuseness  but  rather  to  long  fa- 
miliarity with  the  geniuses'  cjuieter  selves. 
I'\)r  whereas  Anson  Macl'arland  was 
known  to  the  world  at  large  as  "Byram 
Smith"  and  George  F.  Connor  as  "Wil- 
mot  the  Wizard,"  the  city  of  Lutton's  Hill 


The  ('..'niiwos  oi  Lutton's  Hill 


knew  them  chiefly  by  their  <ii\  en  luunes, 
ami  failed,  without  other  reminders,  to 
connect  them  with  "Smith"  and  the 
"Wizard. 

Anson  Maelarland  did  not  wear  his 
hair  lonj:  or  atleet  a  soft  tie,  while  George 
F.  Connor  did  not  run  to  diamonds.  They 
were  each  about  medium  height,  each  had 
red  hair,  and  each  was  a  little  bit  shy. 
Anson  MacFarland  owned  one  hundred 
and  twenty-live  shares  in  the  packing- 
house, and'  George  F.  Connor  owned  a 
saloon.  They  were,  moreover,  the  best  of 
friends. 

Gold  runs  in  veins,  and  orchids  no 
doubt  grow  in  bunches.  So  it  was  with 
Lutton's  Hill  and  its  geniuses.  They  were 
both  born  at  No.  126  Grove  Street  on  a 
plot  about  thirty  feet  front,  and  with  that 
the  lode  was  exhausted.  You  could  have 
dug  to  unimaginable  depths  at  Nos.  124 
and  12S — even  at  127,  directly  across  the 
street — and  discovered  not  one  single  gen- 
ius, not  even  a  talent.  MacFarland  was 
born  on  the  lot  because  his  father  owned 
it;  Connor  was  born  there  because  his 
father  was  MacFarland  Senior's  utility 
man. 

The  rise  of  Anson  ]\IacFarland  was 
normal.  As  a  boy  he  refused  to  spell. 
He  would  not  and  could  not  dance.  Fie 
loathed  mathematics,  and  he  broke  the 
piano.  He  was  the  butt  of  the  town  in 
baseball  and  tag,  and  he  made  himself  sick 
in  weeding  the  garden.  But  every  min- 
ute he  read.  He  read  before  breakfast,  he 
read  during  playtime,  and  he  read  half  the 
night  by  filling  the  cracks  in  the  door.  He 
stood  in  the  exact  equator  of  his  class  in 
college  and  worked  for  three  years  on  the 
Record  newspaper.  He  was  a  good  re- 
porter and  a  hard-working  one.  Fie 
could  make  a  city  item  melodious  and  he 
learned  to  be  careful  of  dates.  He  saved 
a  half  of  his  income  because  he  had  no 
wish  to  spend  it.  And  then,  one  summer, 
he  deliberately  took  a  vacation  and  wrote 
*'The  Rose  and  the  Lily." 

He  did  it  in  exactly  thirty-one  days,  and 
in  eight  months  more  it  was  being  read  in 
four  languages.  It  was  one  of  those  sto- 
ries that  succeeded  simply  because  it  sang. 
It  spoke  the  language  of  the  universe. 
The  scene  was  laid  in  New  Orleans  and 
Anson  had  never  been  south  of  Richmond, 
but  yet  it  was  true  because  he  assumed 


that  the  soul  of  New  Orleans  was  the  same 
as  the  soul  of  New  York.  There  was  not 
one  bit  of  realism  in  it,  and  not  one  scrap 
of  the  "local  color"  which  he  was  sup- 
posed to  absorb  at  reporting,  but  yet  it 
was  greater  than  realism  because  it  con- 
tained the  emotions  which  are  truer  than 
facts.  It  w^as  immensely  popular  because 
it  was  also  immensely  great. 

Then  Anson  MacFarland,  under  the 
name  of  ''  Byram  Smith,"  wrote  other 
books  and  others  and  others.  He  made 
a  fortune  and  put  a  part  in  the  packing- 
house, because  it  might  just  as  well  be 
there  as  anywhere  else  and  his  main  desire 
was  to  write. 

His  method  of  working  was  simple.  At 
seven  o'clock  each  evening  he  took  his  hat 
and  stick  and  ate  at  Lutton's  best  restau- 
rant, wisely  and  according  to  season.  He 
ended  with  three  cigars  and  a  glass  of 
chartreuse  and  sat  for  an  hour  in  the  sound 
of  the  orchestra.  He  then  walked  up  the 
darkened  and  echoing  streets  to  the  Atro- 
pos  Club  and  sat  until  twelve  reading 
the  weeklies  and  looking  at  pictures.  He 
never  played  cards  because  the  ace  of 
spades  did  not  interest  him.  He  then 
went  over  to  the  back  room  of  the  ''Wil- 
mot  the  Wizard"  cafe,  had  one  glass  of 
beer  and  one  cheese  sandwich,  and  then 
went  silently  home. 

He  had  a  room  in  the  top  of  the  house 
which  contained  a  bed,  a  typewriter,  and 
the  toys  of  his  childhood  which  still  re- 
mained because  no  one  had  ever  taken  the 
trouble  to  move  them.  They  meant  to 
him  nothing,  however,  nor  did  the  bed, 
for  that  matter.  His  principal  joy  in  the 
room  was  a  huge  easy  chair  over  which  a 
light  hung  suspended — but  which  had  not 
been  so  fixed  until  he  had  ruined  his  eyes 
by  not  moving  the  chair — and  which  he 
still  regarded  as  a  miracle  of  mechanical 
convenience. 

Home,  then,  he  would  return  and  into 
his  chair  he  would  sink  with  a  volume  of 
Dickens  or  Thackeray  or  Stevenson,  and 
opening  the  volume  at  random  would 
read  till  its  rhythm  had  caught  him. 
Then  he  would  take  off  his  collar,  pull  at 
his  pipe,  and  gaze  off  into  shadows,  the 
music  still  throbbing  within  him.  His 
shirt  would  go  next  and  then  his  trousers 
and  shoes;  and  when  he  was  clad  in  a 
crumpled  bathrobe  he  would  relight  his 


The   Geniuses  of  Lutton's   Hill 


83 


pipe,^  open^  the  writin;^^-machinc,  and  be-  couldn't  swim.     His  sinj^lc  jKission  in  iilV. 

gin  like  this:  from  the  cradle,  ^vas  balance.     Ik-  would 

''  Up  from  the  gate  rose  a  tall  row  of  lin-  stand  for  hours  with  a  stick  on  his  nose, 

dens,  ending,  in  importance,  at  the  foot  of  and  if  he  lifted  a  chair  he  would  carry  one 


In  eight  months  more  it  was  being  read  ia  four  languages. — Page  82. 


the  lawn,  but  stretching  on,  in  a  few  slen- 
der trunks,  clear  to  the  steps  of  the  house." 

At  two  o'clock  he  would  refill  his  pipe, 
and  at  four  he  would  go  to  bed. 

The  rise  of  George  F.  Connor  had  been 
as  direct.  He  had  stayed  in  school  for  ex- 
actly three  years  and  had  spent  the  rest  of 
his  boyhood  in  loafing.  He  was  useless 
with  horses,   he  forgot  his  errands,   he 


leg  in  the  llat  of  his  palm.  To  walk  on  the 
rail  of  a  trestle  was  for  him  an  absolute 
heaven  and  he  frightened  the  city  for  days 
by  striding  the  edge  of  the  cu|)ola.  .At  the 
age  of  sixteen  he  became  a  painter,  simj)ly 
for  the  fascination  of  the  heights,  and  lost 
e\'ery  job  in  the  city  because  he  spent 
C()mi)lete  hours  in  walking  ui>  ladders  suj)- 
portedonly  at  the  bottom.     He  then  went 


S4 


Tlir   rieiTlnst\s  of   Lutton's   Hill 


to  work  in  the  theatre,  largely  because  ol 
ihf  ■  "  u'.  and  made  his  own  start  at  a 
pici..  ,  .-:  -  in  an  act  containinj^  a  ladder, 
a  chair,  and  a  table. 

He  made  enoii.u'h  nn)ney  that  summer 
to  allow  him  to  loaf  in  the  winter  and  dur- 
ing; this  season  at  home  he  made  a  terrilic 
discovery.  I  le  had  ft)rmerly  made  his  as- 
cents bv  holding  the  ladder  away  from  his 
body  until  its  angle  balanced  his  weight, 
but 'during  this  winter  he  found  that  by 
swaying  the  ladder  from  side  to  side  until 
each  leg  was  rising  and  falling  in  cadence, 
he  couid  acquire  a  lateral  motion  which 
would  overcome  the  natural  one  and  al- 
low him  to  stay  aloft  indetinitely.  After 
that  he  used  no  other  trick  and  during  an 
act  lasting  twenty  whole  minutes  there 
were  not  ten  consecutive  seconds  when 
the  expectant  house  did  not  ring  with  the 
tap,  taj),  tap  of  the  wooden  stilts.  It  was 
really  the  Iliad  of  ladders. 

From  there  his  rise  had  been  steady. 
He  went  from  one  circuit  to  another  and 
improved  his  act  because  his  heart  and 
his  soul  and  his  mind  were  bent  on  noth- 
ing but  balance.  He  abandoned  all  other 
juggling  and  specialized  simply  on  this. 
The  curtain  would  rise  on  a  scene  con- 
taining a  picturesque  drop,  and  not  less 
than  a  dozen  ladders  of  every  description. 
Then  out  would  come  George  in  a  sailor 
suit,  and  bow  with  a  set,  unchangeable 
smile.  Then  seizing  rapidly  the  smallest 
ladder  he  would  run  swdftly  to  the  top, 
stretch  out  his  hands,  stand  erect,  and  at 
once  would  begin  the  tap,  tap,  tap  of  his 
lateral  motion.  He  w^ould  then  make  a  few 
set  jokes,  would  make  a  few  feints  of  fall- 
ing, and  then  go  stamping  away.  Next  he 
would  run  up  a  larger  ladder,  then  final- 
ly the  largest  of  all.  On  this  he  would 
stand  for  a  moment  and  then  begin  to  un- 
dress, becoming  first  a  fireman,  then  an 
aviator,  and  finally  a  silk-clad  acrobat. 
He  would  eat  a  meal  at  the  top  of  his  lad- 
der, swallowing  cotton  beer  with  great 
comic  gusto.  He  w^ould  then  go  up  a  lad- 
der two  steps  at  a  time  and  finally,  with 
proper  effect,  make  ready  his  regular  cli- 
max. 

In  preparation  for  this  two  stage-hands 
brought  out  a  ladder  pompously  strength- 
ened with  steel.  All  three  would  examine 
it  carefully  and  then  the  Wizard,  with  a 
tiny  hammer,  would  tap  it  for  flaws.     A 


stage-hand  would  next  place  the  ladder  on 
a  kUchen  table,  the  Wizard  would  wipe  his 
hands  on  a  handkerchief,  toss  the  cloth  to 
the  other  assistant,  run  up  the  ladder, 
and  immediately  begin  his  tap-tapping. 
Slowly,  carefully,  he  would  work  to  the 
edge  of  the  table  and  then  the  music  would 
suddenly  stop.  For  an  instant  the  Wiz- 
ard would  stand  looking  down,  then  the 
ladder  would  sway  in  ominous  fashion,  and 
only  by  heroic  efforts  would  he  be  able  to 
recover  himself.  A  nervous  woman  in  the 
audience  would  gasp  and  George  would 
again  wipe  his  hands.  One  more  false 
start  would  he  make  and  then,  ladder  and 
all,  would  he  jump  from  the  table,  the  or- 
chestra sound  with  a  crash,  and  tap,  tap, 
tap  would  he  go,  now  smiling  and  still  on 
his  ladder,  to  hop  to  the  stage,  and  go  bound- 
ing away,  kissing  his  hand  to  the  house. 

This  act  he  did  in  every  State  in  the 
Union,  and  he  was  the  only  man  who  ever 
did  it  at  all.  He  did  it  in  London  and 
Rome  and  Berlin  and  Vienna.  He  did  it 
in  Flongkong  and  the  Philippines.  He 
did  it  in  strange,  unheard-of  cities  in  Rus- 
sia, and  the  more  uncouth  were  his  houses 
the  more,  it  would  seem,  did  they  like  him. 
He  could  pack  a  hall  every  night  where 
men  would  not  listen  to  Melba.  And 
every  minute  he  walked  and  every  minute 
he  ate  he  was  thinking  of  ladders  and  lad- 
ders. 

Between  Byram  Smith  and  Wilmot  the 
Wizard  existed  a  friendship  as  strong  as 
that  which  in  boyish  days  had  existed 
between  Anson  MacFarland  and  George 
F.  Connor,  for,  aside  from  the  fact  that 
their  lives  were  astoundingly  similar,  each 
was  a  lonely  figure  in  the  busy  circles 
of  Lutton's  Hill.  Neither  had  any  real 
friends  and  they  both  knew  the  pleasures 
and  pains  of  publicity.  Both  had  seen 
the  whole  world;  both  had  thought  much 
and  said  little.  Neither  worked  in  the 
daytime,  and  neither  became  himself  till 
the  lamps  were  lit.  Both  were  away  a 
great  deal,  but  during  two  months  in  the 
summer  both  were  at  home  and  they 
spent  every  evening  together. 

During  the  winter  Anson  MacFarland 
was  usually  touring  in  Europe,  where  he 
wandered  over  strange  cities  in  much  the 
pathetic  way  that  he  wandered  the  streets 
of  his  home.  George  F.  Connor  was  on  the 
road  from  tlie  first  of  September  to  the  last 


The  Geniuses  of  Lutton's  Hill 


S5 


of  June,  but  by  the  first  of  July  he  was  al-  seum  of  a  place,  walls  coxcrud  with  an- 
ways  in  Lutton  to  rest  and  refurbish  his  ti(|ue  posters  of  earlier  days,  shelves  filled 
act,  and  look  after  the  interests  of  the    with  trunks  of  abandoned  costumes,  cor- 


During  this  season  at  home  he  made  a  terrific  discovery. — Page  84. 


Wizard  cafe.     Behind  the  cafe  itself  he  ncrs  crowded  with  l)rokcn  paraphernalia, 

had  a  storehouse  with  a  miniature  stage,  whitewash  smeared  with  memoranda  of 

where  he  practised  his  tricks  and  invented  for<i;otten  calculations,  mantels  decorated 

new  ones  for  acts  to  come — a  queer  mu-  with  yellowed  photographs  signed  by  jug- 


80 


Tlu'  (^.cniuscs  of   Lutton's   Hill 


glcrs  and  dancers  and  sin«,aTS  and  lat 
women,  and  a  ^reat  loll  liHed  al  one  end 
with  the  painted  sets  that  lie  used  lor  ro- 
mantic l)ack^ri)und. 

This  was  known  as  his  studio,  and  here 
in  midsummer  Anson  would  occasionally 
hnd  him  tai)pinij 
away  and  perfect- 
ing with  infinite 
pains  a  feat  which  al- 
ready seemed  quite 
perfection.  More 
often,  howe\er,  he 
would  be  seated 
alone  in  the  little 
back  room  of  the  bar, 
a  gins^er-ale  bottle 
before  him  and  look- 
ing, like  Anson  him- 
self, off  into  the  shad- 
ows. Here  they  met 
at  the  first  of  July 
and  here  they  parted 
the  first  of  Septem- 
ber— both  without 
ceremony. 

They  never  wTote 
to  each  other,  and 
had  they  met  in 
another  place  it  is 
doubtful  whether 
they  would  even 
have  eaten  together. 
Neither  show^ed 
more  than  a  scant 
polite  interest  in  the 

other  one's  art,  and  had  one  of  them  died 
the  other  might  not  have  gone  to  the  fu- 
neral. It  was,  in  a  way,  the  singleness  of 
the  soul  of  each  that  drove  these  two  exiles 
together,  but  more  than  that  was  the  deso- 
lation of  Lutton's  Hill. 

It  was  on  a  late  June  night  one  year 
that  the  hea\y  shade  of  the  trees  reminded 
Anson  that  summer  had  come  and,  the 
memories  of  the  season  aroused,  he  made 
his  way  instinctively  toward  the  Wizard 
cafe.  He  had  not  been  there  in  eight 
months,  for,  that  winter,  he  had  broken 
his  rule  and  had  written  "The  Outcast" 
in  Europe.  The  place  seemed  unusually 
bright  and  he  noticed  another  new  waiter. 

In  the  little  back  room,  however,  all  was    stayed  in  the  city,  and  I  switched  my  con- 
the  same,  and  there  at  his  table  sat  George,    tracts  to  get  a  long  run  in  New  York.     I 

''Hello,  George,"  said  Byram  Smith.        think  she  loved  me.     She  said  she  did, 

"Hello,  Anse,"  said  Wilmot  the  Wiz-    and  we  planned  to  be  married  this  month. 


Her  face — I  saw  it  once  and  she  owned  me 


ard,  and  both   went  back  to  the  shad- 

t)WS. 

"Where  you  been?"  asked  the  Wizard, 
after  a  silence  during  which  his  own  mind 
went  tap- tapping. 

"Europe,"  said  Byram  Smith,  and  his 
thoughts  went  at 
once  to  Granada. 

"Good  winter?" 
asked  the  author  of 
"The  Outcast." 

"It  took  in  the 
West,"  said  Connor; 
"but  I've  got  to  get 
some  new  stunts." 

And  then,  the  beer 
having  cotne,  they 
both  leaned  back 
and  stopped  talking. 
It  might  have 
been  twelve  o'clock 
when  Anson  aroused 
himself  slowly. 

"George,"  he 
said,  relighting  his 
pipe,  "it's  funny 
you've  never  been 
married." 

The  Wizard 
stirred  and  began 
to  look  moody. 

"I  expected  to 
be — this  winter." 

And  then  he  told 
his  tale  quietly. 
There  was  no  intro- 
duction, no  simpering  effusiveness ;  he  was 
simply  stating  the  facts  of  life.  Once  or 
twice  he  tapped  the  table  in  a  little  rhythm 
with  his  thin,  pale  hands. 

"  We  were  playing  down  in  New  Jersey," 
he  said,  "and  she  was  a  girl  in  a  musical 
act.  She  had  a  fine  voice,  and  as  for  her 
face — I  saw  it  once  and  she  owned  me. 
She  made  a  hit  with  a  topical  song,  and 
before  I  had  known  her  a  month  she  went 
on  to  Broadway.  Her  name  was  Helen 
DeLeske." 

He  said  it  with  the  open  frankness  of 
limelight  and  MacFarland  nodded.  He 
knew  of  iier  well. 

"She  soon  made  good  in   her   show, 


The   Geniuses  of  Lutton's   Hill 


87 


I  bought  a  house  on  Long  Island,  and  I  Connor  ceased  his  tap-tapping 

gave  her  a  motor-car."  -She  was  chosen,"  he  said,  "to  play  the 

The  Wizard  paused  for  a  moment  and  lead  in  'The  Starling,'  and  after  she  sang 

his  mind  may  have  been  in  that  run  in  her  first  song,  the  lirst  night,  there  was 


I  jumped  as  if  I'd  been  shot.     It  was  absolutely  uncanny." — Page 


New  York  or  it  may  have  been  back  in  nothing  to  it.     I  had  the  rooms  and  I  had 

those  early  days  in  New  Jersey,  for  his  the  wine  for  a  sui)per  that  I  was  to  give 

fmgers  were  beating  their  reminiscent  tat-  her  that  night.     I  meant  -1  meant  when 

too.  we  were  going  home — to  settle  it  lor  once 

MacFarland  pulled  at  his  i)ipe.     He  too  and  for  all.     1  was  going  to  ask  her  to 

was  no  waster  of  words.  marry  me  that  very  night— and  I  think 

''And  then  it  was  broken?"  he  asked.  that   she   might   have   done   it — "     His 


88 


The   (icniuscs  of   Lutton's   Hill 


voice  ran  out  and  MacFarland  looked  up 
exjH'ctantly. 

"She  didn't  come?" 

••She didn't  come,"  said  George F.  Con- 
nor; "she  had  mar- 
ried the  man  who 
was  backing  the 
show." 

The  bartender 
came  around  with 
the  keys  and  stood 
waiting  for  Con- 
nor to  speak. 

'•I'll  close  it,'' 
said  Wihnot  the 
Wizard.  "Any- 
thing more?" 

''Nothing,  thank 
you,"  said  Anson 
^lacFarland,  and 
the  white  coat  went 
quietly  out. 

'•If  it  hadn't 
been  for  a  wom- 
an," said  the  other 
man,  very  slowly, 
"I  wouldn't  have 
been  here  to-night 
— orperhaps  that's 
the  reason  I  am." 

He  arranged  his 
sentences  as  in- 
stinctively as  Con- 
nor had  beat  his 
tattoo,  and  he 
found  himself  ham- 
pered in  getting 
justly  the  sound 
of  his  words. 

"Have  you  ev- 
er been  in  Grana- 
da?" 

The  Wizard 
nodded.  He  had 
played  there  a  week 
in  the  open  air  of  the 
Alameda.  Mac- 
Farland  went  on. 

"I  landed  there  in  October,  and  the  air 
w^as  as  soft  and  as  balmy  as  June.  I  used 
to  sit  in  the  promenade  when  the  band 
was  playing  and  watch  the  people  stroll- 
ing listlessly  back  and  forth.  And  then  I 
would  go  to  one  of  the  marble-topped, 
open-air  tables  and  watch  the  absurd  little 
scenery-like  buildings,  with  their  totter- 


"  She  was  not  draar.ged 
sank  back.' 


ing  walls,  and  the  leaves  of  the  palms,  and 
see  overhead  the  sky,  that  heavy,  unreal, 
velvety  purple  that  seemed  as  if  you  could 
touch  it  and  as  if  it  were  soft,  while  the 

night  was  so  still 
you  could  light  a 
match  out  of  doors 
and  it  would  burn 
straight  up  in  the 
air." 

Wilmot  the  Wiz- 
ard nodded.  That 
at  least  he  had 
seen. 

"And  one  night 
I  saw  my  perfect 
ideal  of  a  girl.  She 
was  sitting  on  a 
bench  in  the  prom- 
enade with  a  man 
and  a  woman,  and 
she  had  a  mantilla 
over  her  head.  She 
looked — well,  nev- 
er mind  what  she 
looked  like.  I  saw 
her  once  and  I 
knew.  I  was  think- 
ing that  she  must 
be  some  Spanish 
beauty,  when  sud- 
denly she  threw 
back  her  head  and 
said: 

"at's  all  very 
wonderful,  but  just 
the  same  I'd  give 
it  twice  to  see  an 
American  man.' 

"I  jumped  as  if 
I'd  been  shot.     It 
was  absolutely  un- 
canny.   I  had  pic- 
tured her  as  a  clois- 
tered Granadine 
beauty,  and  when 
she  spoke  in  that 
clear  American 
voice  it  was  exactly  as  if  the  words  had 
come  from  a  babe  in  its  cradle — or  from  a 
dog. 

"As  for  me,  I  don't  know  what  hap- 
pened. I  don't  know  how  long  I  sat 
there,  but  the  next  thing  I  knew  I  was 
standing  before  her  and  saying,  'I'm  glad, 
for  I'm  one.' 


into  the  room  ;   she  just 
' — Page  91. 


.m|,ii:.  rsJO'h.\;)^-' 


Connor  still  looked  at  the  shadows,  beating  his  endless  tattoo. — Page  91. 


''And  then  I  woke  up,  for  the  girl  began 
laughing — laughing  just  as  she  talked,  but 
the  older  woman  looked  as  if  she'd  been 
struck.  As  for  the  man,  he  stared  me 
over  from  head  to  foot  and  then  he  began 
to  laugh  too.  As  soon  as  he  spoke  I  saw 
that  he  was  a  Yankee,  but  his  wife,  the 
older  woman,  was  Spanish.  All  the  time 
she  said  nothing  but  looked  with  a  steady 
glare,  and  all  the  time  I  knew  that  she 
knew  what  we  were  saying." 

MacFarland  had  finished  smoking  and 
Connor  seemed  almost  asleep. 

''But  as  for  that,"  mused  the  former, 
"  all  that  we  said  was  quite  harmless.  The 
man  asked  how  long  I  had  been  in  the 
country  and  the  girl  asked  me  about  New 
York.  The  Spanish  mother  was  not  going 
to  let  it  last  long,  however,  and  after  sev- 
eral attempts  she  hurried  them  all  away. 

"Nevertheless,  the  man  gave  mc  his 
card,  and  two  days  after  1  met  him.  in 
the  mean  time  the  consul  told  me  some- 
thing about  him.     He  was  an  American, 


it  seems,  who  went  to  Cul)a  during  the 
ten  years'  war,  his  wife  belonging  lo  a 
Granadine  family  which  had  made  a  big 
fortune  in  Cuba,  and  after  the  American 
trouble  they  all  went  back  to  Granada  to 
live — except  one  year  that  they  spent  over 
here.  But  the  mother  was  the  head  of 
the  house  and  she  hated  everything  Yan- 
kee. I  got  some  letters  from  the  consul 
telling  them  more  or  less  who  I  was,  and 
after  that  I  called  every  day,  with  the 
daughter  and  the  father  gi\ing  me  a  wel- 
come, and  the  mother  doing  all  but  driv- 
ing me  out  of  the  house. 

"So  time  went  on  and  I  learned  more 
thoroughly  what  I  had  known  that  very 
first  night.  1  stayed  through  Nox'ember 
and  December  until  it  became  as  crisp  as  it 
does  in  the  States  in  the  early  fall.  And 
then  one  night  when  I  went,  the  mother 
alone  was  waiting  to  see  me.  She  told 
me  that  her  daughter  had  gone  with  her 
husband  to  France  and  she  told  me,  more, 
that    Amalia   was    going   to   marry  her 

S9 


,„)  Tlic   r.ciiiuscs  c.f    l.uUon's   Hill 

(r™,  ,.f  th..  ITiK^ir^  of  Fax  ia        •'  ^^>ll  l<now  «li"t  tliose  Spanish  houses 
cousin,  an  ofl>">-  '     l^^  ""^^''^^  .,,,  like-built  close  up  to  the  walk  and 

'''•  I'thoult   .        t  vaslyinR,but  t:-.cn    pUun  as  a  prison  on.the  outside  with  even 
I  found itwus    ue-all  truecxcept  Umt  the    gratings  over  the  windows.     I  got  there. 


Set  it  up  like  his  drop,  stood  off,  surveyed  it,  then  arraijged  it  again. — Page^i. 


daughter  had  not  gone  to  France.  The  next 
day  a  mozo  came  from  the  consul's  ofiice 
and  brought  me  a  letter,  unsigned,  telling 
me  to  be  under  the  windows  of  her  room  that 
night,  between  the  hours  of  one  and  two. 


however,  at  one,  but  there  was  a  light  in 
the  house  and  I  went  into  the  shadow  of  a 
wall.  It  was  nearly  half  past  before  the 
light  went  out,  and  almost  two  before  I 
heard  a  shutter  open. 


The  Geniuses  of   Lutton's   Hill 


01 


"And  then  I  saw  her  standinf^  there  in 
the  upper  window,  dressed  in  white,  her 
hair  in  a  braid  down  her  Ijack.  She  Ijeck- 
oned  to  me  and  held  out  her  arms,  and  I 
crowded  close  to  the  wall,  but  even  at 
that  I  could  not  hear  what  she  said. 
And  then,  without  any  warning,  the  win- 
dow closed.  She  was  not  dragged  into 
the  room;  she  just  sank  back,  and  the 
shutters  swung  half-together.  I  thought 
for  a  moment  that  I  heard  her  crying,  but 
I  listened  harder  and  I  could  hear  nothing 
at  all.     She  married  her  cousin  next  day." 

MacFarland  sat  for  a  moment  biting 
the  end  of  his  pipe,  while  Connor  still 
looked  at  the  shadows,  beating  his  endless 
tattoo.     A  moment  later  they  rose. 

"Good  night,  George." 

"Good  night,  Anse,"  and  they  went. 

But  Connor  found  himself  restless. 
The  buzz  of  the  evening  ran  in  his  mind 
and  he  wanted  to  think.  He  wandered 
into  his  studio  and  turned  up  the  lights 
encased  in  their  cages  like  those  of  a  stage. 
He  turned  to  a  table  and  slowly  dragged 
it  around.  Kis  eyes  wandered  over  the 
faded  posters  hung  on  the  walls  and  then 
his  thoughts  began  coming.  He  drew  out 
an  old  piece  of  scenery  and  set  it  up  like 
his  drop,  stood  off,  surveyed  it,  then  ar- 
ranged it  again.  Then  he  picked  up  his 
oldest  and  trustiest  ladder,  poised  it  a 
moment,  ran  up  the  rungs,  and  again 
began  his  tap-tap. 

And  jNJacFarland  wandered  up  through 
the  streets  and  sat  in  his  easy  chair.  He 
turned  up  the  light  and  filled  his  pipe  and 
opened  the  pages  of  "  Bleak  House."  And 
he  too  dropped  into  his  thoughts,  and 
there  came  his  usual  rhythm.  His  collar 
went  off  and  his  shirt.  He  gathered  the 
folds  of  his  robe  and  opened  the  writing- 
machine.  He  stopped  just  once  to  refill 
his  pipe  and  then  he  began. 

And  now,  if  ever  by  chance  you  go  to 
the  music-halls  of  London  or  Berlin  or 
Paris,  you  may  see  a  clever  American  who 
goes  by  the  name  of  Wilmot  the  Wizard. 
You  will  see  a  stage  with  a  pictures(|ue 
drop  and  many  ladders.  A  man  clad  as  a 
sailor  will  come  runningoutand  bow  with  a 
little  set  smile.  'I'hen  for  an  instant  he  will 
poise  a  ladder,  will  run  lightly  uj)  it  and 
begin    a  steady   tap-taj).     Tlu-ii    he   will 


run  UJ)  a  larger  ladder  and  then  up  the 
largest  of  all,  and  then,  as  the  climax  of 
the  whole  affair,  the  stage  will  grow  sud- 
denly dark.  You  will  hear  a  curtain  roll- 
ing mysteriously,  the  lights  will  go  on,  and 
before  you  will  stand  the  walls  of  a  medi- 
aeval castle — a  scene  in  the  streets  of  Italy 
or  possibly  Spain.  There  will  come  a  toll 
of  cathedral  bells,  solemn  and  sweet,  and 
then  a  song  in  a  woman's  voice.  Clearer 
and  clearer  wiU  come  the  tones  until  the 
woman  herself  appears,  all  clad  in  white, 
her  hair  hanging  o\er  her  shoulders.  And 
then  from  the  wings  will  come  a  strolling 
troubadour  fmgering  a  light  guitar  while 
the  orchestra  serenades  softly.  The 
player  will  see  the  woman  and  lift  up 
his  head  while  she  will  reach  out  her  arms 
to  greet  him.  But  the  door  and  the  lower 
windows  will  all  be  grated  and  so  he  will 
not  be  able  to  reach  her. 

But,  quite  conveniently,  in  the  streets 
of  Cadiz,  he  will  find  a  ladder,  sturdily 
strengthened  with  steel.  Will  the  solid 
walls  of  the  castle  hold  it?  Never  fear, 
for  this  troubadour  scorns  the  use  of  a  wall. 
Square  in  the  middle  of  the  street  he 
raises  it,  the  higher  end  resting  on  nothing 
but  air.  Then  up  it  he  goes  and  begins  a 
little  tap-tap.  Across  the  streets  walks 
the  ladder  mysteriously,  the  troubadour 
still  thrumming  gayly  the  guitar.  Close 
to  the  window  he  goes,  then  closer,  but 
still  never  touching  the  stones.  There  is 
a  moment  of  anxious  silence  and  the  or- 
chestra stops,  while  the  troubadour  drops 
the  guitar,  which  is  caught  very  neatly  by 
a  stage-hand  who,  most  fortunately,  haj)- 
])ens  to  be  walking  the  streets  of  Cadiz  at 
that  hour.  The  ladder  begins  to  sway, 
the  woman  reaches  her  arms.  He  grasj)s 
her,  he  holds  her,  she  swings,  then  slowly 
down  the  balancing  ladder  he  creeps,  the 
woman  still  in  his  arms.  They  leap  to- 
gether down  to  the  stage,  the  lights  go  uj), 
the  orchestra  blares  and  off  they  go,  kiss- 
ing their  hands  to  the  house. 

And  again,  if  you  should  chance  to  be 
in  \  ienna  or  Paris  or  Rome,  and  are  not 
abo\'e  pirated  editions,  you  may  hai)pen 
to  pick  up  the  latest  vt)lume  of  Hyram 
Smith's,  which  every  one  is  sure  to  be  read- 
ing. It  is  called  "'The  Fall  of  the  Star," 
and  begins:  "She  was  a  prima  doinia  and 
he  was  a  tumbling  gymnast." 


CHARITY 


By  Mabel  Wood  Martin 

Illustration  i?y  Lucirs  Wolcott  Hitchcock 


33  \  TK,  in  the  sliape  of  an  old 
acciuaintance,  tempted 
I'arminiJiham  off  his  island. 
On  Llieione.  apple-green  bit 
of  land  starting  up  aghast 
out  of  an  empty  sea,  he  had 
kept  waldi,  for  the  benefit  of  a  scientific 
society,  upon  the  tides. 

One  forgets  in  time-keeping  like  this,  with 
one's  tinger  upon  the  pulse  of  the  earth,  that 
Lliere  are  days.  It  was  out  of  this  existence, 
impersonal  and  unaffected  by  human  events 
as  the  years  that  pass  unnoticed  over  the 
Almighty's  head,  that  he  emerged  quite  ac- 
cidentally to  the  remembrance  that  he  was 
a  man. 

Klamer,  of  the  Marine  Corps,  enticed 
him  north  for  a  taste  of  life,  and  it  seems 
to  be  generally  agreed  that  he  got  it  before 
he  was  through. 

He  had  not,  however,  been  long  gone  be- 
fore he  acknowledged  to  a  disappointment, 
of  much  the  same  nature  as  that  which 
overtakes  the  long-absent  member  of  a  fam- 
ily when,  the  glamour  of  his  return  vanished, 
he  beholds  his  kin  going  indifferently  upon 
their  way.  Like  all  exiles,  Farmingham 
expected  of  a  busy  and  forgetful  world  too 
much.  Very  secretly  he  had  pictured  his 
return  as  a  renaissance,  and  himself  as 
transformed  by  some  inextinguishable  ex- 
perience, some  breathless  excerpt  from  life. 

To  while  away  a  vacation  that  must,  how- 
ever his  interest  had  departed  out  of  man 
and  things,  be  endured,  he  took  his  instru- 
ments to  the  beach.  There  Farmingham, 
whose  cosmos  was  rather  of  the  water  than 
of  the  land,  became  interested  in  the  ma- 
noeuvres of  a  really  magical  swimmer  out  in 
the  surf. 

The  creature  fairly  danced  among  the 
waves,  disporting  itself  like  a  lonely  mid- 
sea  fish. 

Farmingham  waited  curiously  one  day 

for  the  water  wizard  to  come  ashore.     In  a 

lyric  of  movement,  on  the  glittering  shield 

of  the  water,  the  body  rose  and  fell.    Not 

92 


till  it  was  upon  its  feet  in  the  sand  did 
Farmingham  astoundedly  perceive  that  the 
swimmer  was  not  a  man.  He  gasped  and, 
stammering  an  apology,  took  to  his  heels. 

A  laugh  back  of  him  caught  him  short 
He  turned  to  behold  the  wet  pixy-like  face 
of  the  swimmer  sparkling  at  him.  No 
doubt  Farmingham's  classics  bore  upon  him 
at  that  moment,  recalling  a  certain  fabled 
incident  of  the  island  of  Cyprus.  Certainly 
he  had  never  seen  any  living  creature  come 
out  of  the  sea  so  superbly  as  this. 

As  he  stood  gaping,  she  flung  a  cap  from 
her  head  and  let  loose  before  his  astonished 
gaze  a  glittering  shower  of  hair.  He  elabo- 
rated his  foolish  explanation  while  the  girl, 
showing  the  small  close-set  teeth  of  a  child, 
continued  to  laugh. 

She  agreed  with  him  nonchalantly  as  to 
the  remarkable  character  of  her  swimming 
and  took  occasion  irrelevantly  to  remark 
that  she  meant  to  go  down  sometime  in  a 
diver's  costume  to  discover  what  was  at  the 
bottom  of  the  sea — "For  you,"  looking  at 
him  penetratingly,  "of  course,  know." 

Farmingham  showed  himself  at  this  divi- 
nation plainly  surprised,  but  the  lady,  com- 
mencing to  wring  out  her  short  skirts,  there- 
by arousing  in  Farmingham  the  unhallowed 
sensation  of  intruding  upon  the  laundering 
of  a  sprite,  uncannily  explained:  "You're 
Mr.  Farmingham  of  that  English  geograph- 
ical society,  visiting  Mr.  Klamer  on  our 
street.  I  know  every  one  hereabout,  na- 
tive or  white.  I  am  Chat  Pierce.  Do  you 
mind,"  sweeping  the  horizon  with  an  anx- 
ious glance,  "looking  to  see  if  my  carriage 
is  anywhere  about?" 

Farmingham  made  a  reconnoissance 
whose  reported  unsuccess  elicited  an  im- 
patient exclamation  from  Miss  Pierce. 

Her  clothes,  so  she  informed  him,  were 
in  the  missing  carriage,  and  the  driver,  a 
bibulous  person  it  appeared,  had  been  given 
explicit  instructions  to  return  within  an 
hour.  A  much  longer  time  had  elapsed 
and  Miss  Pierce,  expressing  an  utter  dis- 


Ox 


94 


Charity 


l>clicf  that  the  rccrCvint  Jehu  would  l)e  seen 
wiihin  twenty-four  hours,  fell  into  tJiought, 
as  a  result  of  which  slie  announced:  "I'll 
go  home  in  your  carriage  wilJi  you." 

Famiingham  blinkeil  very  hard  and  cast 
at  her  costume  so  oi)enly  a  deprecating 
glance  that  she  was  moved  reassuringly  to 
declare:  "It's  all  right.  I'll  sit  well  back; 
we  can  put  up  the  top  and,"  witli  a  happy 
insouciance,  "you  can  lend  me  your  coat." 

It  was  in  vain  that  Famiingham,  wrought 
up  to  an  uncommon  pitch  of  eloquence, 
volunteered  a  number  of  inspired  counter 
suggestions.  Miss  Pierce  showed  herself 
very  clearly  out  of  sympathy  with  them  all. 

VViUi  a  reluctance,  therefore,  with  which 
he  might  have  torn  himself  from  his  skin, 
he  removed  the  coat;  and  Miss  Pierce, 
tossing  it  on,  beat  toward  the  carriage  an 
elated  black-stockinged  retreat.  Farming- 
ham,  had  he  been  in  any  less  dour  a  mood, 
must  have  appreciated  the  entertaining 
stream  of  conversation  which  she  kept  up 
to  the  moment  when,  with  discomfiture,  he 
delivered  her  at  her  own  gate. 

''  WTio  is  the  person  called  Chat  Pierce  ?  " 
he  demanded,  coming  in  upon  Klamer 
dozing  comfortably  upon  the  front  porch. 

The  marine  officer,  upon  the  inquiry, 
came  immediately  bolt  upright.  "  Captain 
Pierce's  daughter,  Charity,  so  named  in  ap- 
peal against  the  judgment  of  the  world  by  a 
dying  mother,  w^ho  had  incurred  it,  I  am 
told." 

"The  world  has  a  quarrel  with  her  then 
—what  is  it?" 

"It's  hard  to  define.  I  should  put  it 
that  Charity — we  call  her  Chat — goes 
through  life  simply  ignoring  all  known 
laws.  Current  report  has  it  that  her  mother 
was  the  same." 

"Does  she  happen  often  to  break  them  ?  " 
Farmingham  asked. 

"Sometimes — sometimes  not.  It  de- 
pends upon  your  definition  of  the  laws — 
there  are  others  besides  the  decalogue — and 
how  close  they  come  to  her  course.  An 
errant  planet,  untethered  by  gravitation, 
hurling  itself  blindly  through  an  ordered 
universe,  bodes  ill  to  all  it  shall  meet. 

"  I  have,  in  this  sense,  encountered  the  lady 
only  indirectly — a  few  weeks  ago,  when  she 
was  about  to  be  married  to  Westlake,  of  the 
corps,  a  knight  of  a  man  who  had  con- 
trived to  care  for  her  inordinately.  He  and 
I,  as  best  man,  waited  nearly  an  hour  in  the 


vestry  of  a  church,  crowded  with  people, 
for  a  bride  who  never  appeared,  and  who, 
in  her  wedding  garments,  is  said  to  have 
declared  to  six  thwarted  and  interceding 
bridesmaids  that  she  had  experienced  all 
tlie  anticipation  and  excitement  of  the 
Supreme  Romance  without  entailing  any  of 
its  bonds. 

"  Westlake  took  it  desperately,  of  course; 
he's  that  kind.  We  had  to  rush  him  away 
on  leave  as  fast  as  we  could.  The  lady — • 
how  did  it  affect  her  ?  Not  at  all ;  nothing 
that  I  have  yet  heard  of  ever  does." 

Farmingham  saw  the  girl  pass  the  house 
often  thereafter,  swinging  off  alone  with  a 
song  toward  the  sea.  Occasionally  he  en- 
countered her  on  the  beach.  While  she 
studied  his  instruments,  he  studied  her, 
with  no  marked  success.  Indeed,  she  eluded 
analysis  always,  up  to  the  last,  the  day  of 
days,  when  she  dropped  so  irrevocably  out 
of  her  world. 

Her  relations  with  that  world,  Farming- 
ham learned,  were  unique.  For  her  of- 
fences, she  passed  regularly  through  periods 
of  general  disfavor,  light-heartedly  termed, 
by  herself,  quarantine,  when  the  light  of 
the  public  countenance  was  withdrawn  and 
she  went,  with  the  best  of  spirits,  it  must  be 
admitted,  her  vagrant  way  alone. 

Chat  had  about  her,  however,  too  much 
of  irresistible  human  cheer  to  suffer  per- 
manently her  deserts.  She  might  be  dan- 
gerous, as  had  been  only  too  truly  proven, 
but  she  was  healthy  and  happy;  and  her 
career  after  all,  so  it  was  reasoned,  was 
nobody's  concern  but  her  own. 

Certainly  her  father  had  never  made  it 
his.  Desirous  of  marrying  again,  and  de- 
terred by  a  notorious  responsibility  which 
all  sane  women  feared,  he  waited  for  the 
moment  when  the  problem  should  pass  into 
another's  hands. 

But  it  was  to  those  who  had  known  the 
girl  always  that  Farmingham  listened  most 
intently.  Out  of  their  knowledge  they 
prophesied  direly.  Chat,  they  averred, 
trailed  disaster  in  her  wake.  Sometime  or 
other  she,  being  she,  must  encounter  catas- 
trophe. How  else  could  it  end,  when,  in  a 
world  where  we  have  all,  for  fear  of  over- 
lapping one  another's  lives,  to  keep  to  our 
own  little  plots,  Chat  rode  cross-country, 
joyously  leaping  life  barriers  like  hurdles? 

Only  once  of  herself  did  the  girl  choose 
to  speak.    It  was  after  their  companionship 


Cliaritv 


95 


had  endured  for  some  time.     They  were  on 

the  beach  with  the  ocean  rolling  before  them 
in  monotonous  sont;. 

"I  know  I'm  bad!"  she  exclaimed  rue- 
fully; *'not  the  plain  kind  of  bad  that  you 
can  spot  with  one  eye,  but  an  intricate  evil 
of  my  own.  I  used  to  try  to  choose,  truly 
I  did,  which  way  to  go;  but  I  seemed  to 
come  out  always  at  the  wrong  end.  just  the 
same.  Now  " — she  punctuated  the  air  with 
an  oscillating  forefmger — "I  just  say — • 
'my — mother — says — to — take — this — one.' 

"I'm  a  trivial  thing,  everybody  says" — 
she  picked  up  a  withered  sand  flower  and 
laid  it  before  her — "like  this.  Sometime 
I'll  shrivel  up  just  so,  waste  weed  on  the 
shore;  while  you" — she  glanced  up  at  him 
with  an  eerie  thoughtfulness — "all  the 
oceans  of  the  earth  could  roll  over  you  and 
you'd  stand.  Something  or  other  must 
have  arranged  it  all  that  way." 

Farmingham  turned  his  face  quickly 
away  to  hide  what  was  in  it. 

A  light  touch  fell  on  his  arm.  "Tell  me 
about  the  island!"  the  girl  urged.  While 
he  described  his  existence  there,  she  sat 
very  still,  looking  out  at  sea.  Two  or 
three  times  she  exclaimed:  "What  a  won- 
derful life!" 

"But  no  people,"  he  said,  "to  play  Punch 
and  Judy  with — through  whose  lives  you 
can  run  helter-skelter." 

Farmingham  no  longer  pretended  to  deny, 
even  to  himself,  how  deeply  he  was  involved. 
Fven  the  deadly  parallel  of  Westlake's  fate, 
as  conscientiously  pointed  out  by  Klamer, 
failed  longer  to  arouse  him.  In  sleepless 
hours  at  night  he  recalled  the  warnings, 
the  fatality  so  universally  attached  to  Chat; 
and  in  his  dreams  he  had  always  the  vision 
of  a  single  sand  flower  withered  and  blown 
to  the  winds. 

Stupidly,  confusedly,  he  confronted  the 
most  tremendous  of  human  problems,  grop- 
ing for  the  reason  of  it  all,  questioning  sav- 
agely the  secrets  of  God.  That  it  should 
all  have  been  so  hopeless,  so  removed  from 
the  first  from  human  intervention,  mad- 
dened him.  For  nothing,  he  understood — 
he  cherished  no  illusions  of  Chat — could  al- 
ter her,  not  all  the  powers  and  prayers  of 
man.  Had  she  been  merely  bad  instead 
of  blind ! 

Yet  it  was  for  her  and  not  for  himself 
he  most  rebelled.  Never  once  to  her  did  he 
attach  a  shadow  of  blame,  thus  reasoning 


sublimely  alx)ve  the  rest.  In  these  black- 
est moments  of  his  life  he  cursed  those  who, 
coming  before  her,  had  by  their  viciously 
careless  lives  destroyed  before  ever  she  was 
born  her  moral  sight — robbed  her  of  her 
human  herita/^e  of  choice. 

At  the  end  of  all  this  struggle,  he  decidetl 
upon  the  one  thing  po.ssible  to  him — to  go. 
Through  it  all  Chat,  almost  c(jnslantly  at 
his  side,  had  passed,  untouched,  unseeiuL'. 
For  her  there  was  no  to-morrow  with  its 
forthcoming — there  never  would  be. 

He  announced  his  departure  fjuite  sim- 
ply to  Chat,  whom  he  found  digging  for 
clams  on  the  beach.  With  KlamC-r's  brutal 
prediction  in  mind— that  live  minutes  after 
he  was  gone  he  would  have  vanished  for- 
ever out  of  her  thought— he  perhaps  scarce- 
ly expected  her  to  consider  his  few  broken 
words,  so  little — so  horribly  little— could  it 
matter  to  her.  But  she  did.  Dropping  her 
spade  suddenly,  she  gazed  up  at  him  widi 
the  most  singular  look  and  exclaimed: 
"Oh,  why  do  you  do  that?" 

But  when,  overmastered,  he  was  about 
to  reply,  the  impulse  died  out  of  her  face 
like  a  light  in  the  dark.  "Your  work  needs 
you,  I  suppose.  How  glad  I  am  I  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do!  But  I  shall  miss 
you,  truly  I  shall — they're  still  quarantin- 
ing me,  you  know." 

Farmingham  stood  a  moment  as  if  turned 
to  stone.  Then  a  devilish  desire  came  over 
him  to  laugh,  to  throw  back  his  head  and 
shout  at  the  visible  workings  of  a  universe 
in  which  things  like  this  could  happen. 

It  was  another  diabolical  impulse  that 
prompted  him  to  turn,  after  he  had  left,  to 
behold  Chat,  a  golden  flgure  of  a  sprite  on 
the  still  stretches  of  the  sand,  bent  inter- 
estedly to  her  task.  Had  Klamer  been 
anywhere  about,  Farmingham  would,  for 
his  monstrous  prescience,  have  broken  his 
head. 

His  boat  did  not  sail  until  nearly  miil- 
night.  The  beach  had  always  been  their 
common  meeting-ground.  There  is  no 
other  way  to  account  for  his  final  visit  te) 
the  scene  of  his  torment. 

And  it  was  only  chance,  of  course,  that 
Chat  was  in  the  surf.  The  thing  .she  under- 
took that  night  had  long  been  simmering 
in  her  brain.  That  she  .shouKI  have  chosen 
that  time  to  fulfil  it —  But  here  again,  as  at 
all  points  of  this  human  narrative,  it  is  idle 
to  speculate. 


Of) 


Charity 


Farmingham  knew  instantly  l)y  divina- 
tion that  it  was  sJie.  lie  crouched  down 
on  the  siind  to  watch  her— a  last  picture  to 
earn-  away— Chat  siife  and  happy  in  die 
sea  she  lovetl. 

He  dill  not  notice  on  hi-  face  an  occa- 
sional wet  drop,  nor  the  ^i^ing  wind.  He 
perceived  nothing  but  a  single  dark  form 
l)orne  hy  the  waves. 

It  was  only  when  tlie  roughening  sea  pre- 
cluded his  view  that  he  awoke  to  the  reali- 
zation of  how  far  slie  had  gone.  WTiy,  he 
wondered  dully,  still  not  fully  awake  to 
w]iat  was  happening,  did  tJiey  let  her  go  out 
tliis  way  alone?  But  who  in  all  this  mad 
workl  could  be  inveighed  against  as  they  ? 
Whose  concern  in  heaven  or  earth  had  she 
ever  been? 

He  could  see  her  no  longer.  The  water 
was  rising  swiftly.  She  could  never  get 
back.  He  knew  that  now.  She  had  gone, 
as  she  had  been  always  so  plainly  destined 
to  go,  beyond  her  depth. 

He  started  to  run  furiously  down  the 
l^each  toward  the  boat-house,  a  prey  to  the 
most  terrible  thoughts.  This,  then,  was 
the  answer  to  the  problem.  This  neglected 
and  irresponsible  life,  which  the  world  had 
shifted  from  its  shoulders,  was  being  dis- 
posed of  out  there  at  last. 

The  inexorable  law  was  exacting  fulfil- 
ment. Annihilation  was  the  fate  of  all 
futile  life. 

He  launched  a  boat  in  the  rain-splashed 
sea.  Rowing  desperately,  he  scanned  the 
water  for  a  sign  of  Chat.  Only  upon  her 
extraordinary  powers  as  a  swimmer  could 
there  now  rest  a  chance.  He  saw  himself 
through  the  fearful  years  ploughing  endless 
oceans  till  he  should  come — to  her. 

In  the  midst  of  the  writhing  waves  there 
appeared  once  or  twice  what  seemed  to  be 
the  shifting  outline  of  a  form.  Straining 
the  boat  after  it,  he  saw  that  it  was  Chat. 

It  is  at  this  point  in  the  fate  of  the  two 
that  speculative  after-opinion  rises  to  its 
height.  Klamer  says  Farmingham  did  the 
thing  foolishly  sublime:  that  if  it  had  been 
he,  he  would  have  taken  the  only  safe  way 
— that  there  never  could  be  any  question 
as  to  Chat's  destiny;  it  was  written  in  the 
stars  from  the  first— while  the  others  quote 
the  certain  disaster  of  interfering  in  the 
manifest  arrangements  of  the  high  gods. 

No  one  will  ever  know,  of  course,  just 
what  in  those  naked  moments  were  Farm- 


ingham's  thoughts.  Facing  his  problem — 
as  complex  and  cruel  a  one  perhaps  as 
man  has  ever  been  set  to  solve — Klamer's 
elucidation  no  doubt  came  to  him  as  an 
overpowering  temptation.  The  years  must 
have  rolled  before  him  in  that  instant  with 
every  variation  of  the  hell  they  could  pro- 
duce, and  he  must  have  abandoned  himself 
forever  and  chosen  his  course. 

Chat  was  all  but  gone  when  he  reached 
her.  Getting  her  into  the  boat  was  a  ter- 
rific task.  As  she  dropped  exhausted  into 
the  bottom  of  it,  her  lips  closed  over  a 
few  disjointed  words:  ''  I — never — would — 
have — reached  it." 

In  a  flash  of  memory,  Farmingham  under- 
stood what  she  had  meant — a  wild  wager 
that  she  could  swim  to  the  transport  lying 
in  the  rough  waters  some  distance  beyond. 
It  was  for  this,  an  idle  bet,  that  she  had 
risked  her  life.  And  it  was  always  to  be  so 
— in  this  existence:  high  stakes  played  for 
trifles,  and  trifles  magnified  to  deadly  im- 
port. 

It  was  hours  before  Chat  awoke  to  a  lucid 
conception  of  life.  When  she  did  so,  it  was 
to  one  so  startling  as  to  cause  her  to  wonder 
for  a  moment  if  she  had  not  after  all  been 
drowned  and  projected  into  another  world. 

Terror  rising  within  her,  she  struggled 
to  her  feet.  All  around  her  was  a  black  ex- 
panse of  sea.  Thunder-clouds  lay  against 
the  horizon,  with  here  and  there  a  single  un- 
earthly gleam  of  light.  The  wind  almost 
beat  her  down  to  the  deck  of  this  strange 
steamer  that  was  going — where?  Like  a 
child,  she  let  forth  a  frightened  cry,  when 
over  the  storm  a  voice  spoke: 

"You  are  with  me." 

Farmingham  stood  before  her,  and  for  a 
speechless  moment  Chat  stared  at  the  black 
shadow  of  his  form.  Then  in  a  burst  of 
comprehension  she  cried:  "You've  stolen 
me!" 

The  wind,  tearing  about  them,  flung  their 
garments  into  strange  shapes.  The  light- 
ning revealed  their  faces  to  each  other — 
tense  and  white. 

"Listen,"  Farmingham  exhorted,  "with 
all  there  is  in  you,  and  try — this  once — to 
understand. 

"  Back  there  in  the  bay  to-night  I  saved 
your  life.  In  a  few  minutes,  had  I  not 
come,  you  would  have  sunk;  neither  to 
yourself  nor  to  any  other  would  you  again 
have  brought  harm — and  it  came  to  me, 


Tlie   Tramc   Ten   Days  of  Madero 


9: 


when  I  saw  you  down  there  in  the  water, 
to  make  it  the  end  for  us  both. 

"But  there  was  all  your  life  unlived  be- 
fore you.  In  saving  you  I  have  become 
responsible  for  it  as  long  as  I  shall  live. 
For  all  that  you  shall  do  or  be  I,  and  I  only, 
am  answerable  to  the  last. 

*'At  Malambat  where  the  boat  stops  a 
priest  will  marry  us. 

*'I  may  have  seized  on  your  life  to  my 


destruction.  There  is  no  one  who  can  sav 
this  will  not  be  so.  You  may  scatter  in 
your  path  the  broken  potsherds  of  my  exist- 
ence, but  yourself — you  shall  not  destroy.'" 
The  girl  clung  to  him,  trembling.  **I 
understand!"  she  sobbed  wildly.  "You 
are  taking  me  to  the  island,  where  we  will 
be  safe  and  alone — safe  where  I  can't  hurt 
anybody — not  myself,  and  not — O  God — • 
not  you!" 


THE  TRAGIC  TEN  DAYS  OF  MADERO* 

AN  AMERICAN  WOMAN'S  LETTERS  FROM   MEXICO 
By  Alice   Day  McLaren 


Mexico  City,  March  30,  1910. 
Yesterday  on  the  train  we  met  Fran- 
cisco I.  Madero  and  his  wife  returning 
from  a  political  tour  in  the  State  of 
Sonora.  A  political  tour  in  Mexico!  It 
sounds  like  a  farce,  does  it  not?  And  yet 
he  has  been  lecturing  in  various  parts  of 
the  Republic,  and  Don  Porfirio  has  not 
yet  put  a  stop  to  it.  Mr.  Madero  has 
also  wTitten  a  book  setting  forth  political 
conditions  in  this  country,  the  publica- 
tion of  which  has  not  been  suppressed, 
and  he  is  now  in  the  city  for  the  purpose 
of  organizing  a  party  Avhich  intends  to 
hold  a  convention  to  nominate  an  opposi- 
tion candidate  to  run  against  the  present 
President.  What  I  cannot  make  out  is 
why  the  latter  is  letting  the  matter  go  on 
so  far.  He  must  know  about  it,  and  he  is 
either  "lying  low"  to  make  the  blow 
more  crushing  when  it  falls,  or  he  con- 
siders the  matter  too  unimportant  to 
notice,  or,  which  does  not  seem  likely,  he 
feels  that  public  opinion  has  grown  too 
strong  for  him  to  take  any  radical  action. 
I  had  never  met  Mr.  Madero  before,  but 
Will  has  known  him  for  years.  He  is  a 
small,  almost  timid-looking  man,  and  un- 
til you  hear  him  speak  you  would  not  be- 
lieve that  he  had  the  courage  to  attempt 
such  a  foolhardy  undertaking.     He  is  full 

*The  Mexicans  call  the  ten  days  of  the  conflict  in  Mexico 
City  (February  q  to  18,  igi,3)  La  Deccna  Trd,i;i(a.  The 
extracts  here  given  include  such  passa>^es  from  letters  of  the 
preceding  three  years  as  help  to  the  understanding  of  the 
crisis. 

Vol.  LV.— 9 


of  his  subject  and  assures  us  that  the 
movement  is  far  more  general  than-  we 
realize.  Doria  Sara  seemed  to  me  to  be 
fearful  of  results  and  very  much  worried. 
She  looked  at  her  husband  with  anxious 
eyes,  shook  her  head,  and  said:  "Que 
Panchito  tan  entusiasmado!  "  (What  an 
enthusiast  Panchito  is!)  She,  perha})s, 
does  not  share  his  extreme  enthusiasm, 
but  she  sympathizes  with  his  ideas  and  ac- 
companies him  on  all  his  tours.  She  seems 
to  have  a  vague  notion  that  she  affords 
him  some  protection.  He  knows  he  may 
be  shot  some  day,  for  during  our  talk  he 
said  to  Will:  ''I  have  put  all  my  property 
into  money;  I  am  prepared  to  sacrifice 
that  money  and  my  life  if  necessary;  I 
have  no  children,  and,  if  the  worst  haj)- 
pens,  Sara  will  ha\-e  my  life  insurance.'' 
He  may  be  pursuing  a  will  o'  the  wisp, 
but  he  is  doing  it  in  deadly  earnest. 

April  2S,  1910. 
W^e  have  had  a  most  interesting  week. 
Last  Tuesday  Lucy  came  to  spend  a  few 
days  with  me,  as  her  husband  was  called 
to  the  Isthmus  on  business.  Tuesday 
evening  we  were  in  the  library  before 
dinner  when  R.  L.,  a  business  associate 
of  Will's,  was  announced,  and  asked  to 
speak  to  him  alone.  I  supposed  it  was  a 
matter  of  business  and  was  very  much 
sur[)rised  a  few  minutes  later  when  Jose 
came  and  told  me  that  the  Senores  wished 
to  speak  to  me.     They  told  me  that  the 


OS 


The  Tragic    Tlmi   Days  of  Madero 


Convcntit)!!  of  tho  now  iH)litical  party  was 
about  to  l)c  hold  and  that  Don  l\)nirio 
had  ordered  the  arrest  of  the  leader,  Fran- 
cisco I.  Madero  (of  whom  T  wrote  you  last 
month)  on  a  lictitious  chart^je  of  cutting 
rul)i)er-plants  on  a  strip  of  land  in  litiga- 
tion; that  if  he  could  evade  arrest  until 
after  the  Convention  he  would  give  him- 
self uj).  Neither  Will  nor  R.  L.  have  any 
special  interest  in  politics,  but  Mr.  Ma- 
dero is  a  relative  of  the  latter,  and  they 
wanted  to  know  if  I  had  any  objection  to 
hiding  him  in  our  house  until  the  storm 
blew  over. 

Object!  Why  I  was  thrilled  all  over. 
Do  you  remember  our  old  black  ''Stories 
of  the  Civil  War"?  There  was  a  tale  in 
that  of  a  girl  who  was  bleaching  linen  on 
the  grass  when  a  rebel  spy  came  by  and 
begged  her  help.  When,  a  few  minutes 
later,  the  Federals  came  up  and  asked  if 
a  man  had  just  passed  there,  she  answered 
''No,"  and  calmly  continued  to  sprinkle 
linen,  under  which,  I  need  hardly  add, 
the  fugitive  was  hidden.  I  felt  just  like 
that  heroine,  though  I  may  as  well  say  at 
once  that  I  did  not  have  an  opportunity 
to  sprinkle  linen  on  top  of  Mr.  Madero. 
Lucy  was  the  only  difficulty,  so  it  was  ar- 
ranged that  I  was  to  tell  her  that  a  busi- 
ness friend  of  Will's,  a  Mr.  "Gonzalez," 
had  arrived  unexpectedly,  and  was  to  be 
our  guest  for  a  few  days,  and  Will  came 
in  shortly  after  with  the  stranger.  We 
did  not  see  a  great  deal  of  Mr.  "Gon- 
zalez" except  at  meals,  as  he  worked  most 
of  the  time  in  his  room.  He  is  an  inter- 
esting talker  and  has  travelled  almost 
everywhere,  and  has  made  a  very  deep 
study  of  history  and  politics,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  political  and  economic  status 
of  the  Mexican  Indian.  We  really  en- 
joyed his  visit  and,  while  nothing  thrilling 
occurred,  there  were  one  or  two  amusing 
incidents.  As  it  happened,  we  had  asked 
some  people  to  dinner  on  Saturday  night, 
and  under  the  circumstances  it  seemed 
wise  for  Mr.  "Gonzalez"  not  to  appear. 
We  explained  this  to  Lucy  by  saying  that 
he  had  some  letters  and  telegrams  that  he 
felt  he  must  get  off  that  evening.  Un- 
luckily, just  as  we  were  all  assembled  in  the 
little  reception-room  opposite  the  stairs, 
the  President  sent  for  Mr.  Madero  for  a 
conference,  and  R.  L.,  who  had  arranged 
the  meeting  and  who  was  the  only  person 


who  knew  w^here  the  fugitive  was,  came 
for  him.  It  was  a  hard  moment,  but  Will 
went  out,  closing  the  doors  behind  him; 
Mr.  Madero  passed  quickly  down  the 
stairs,  and  Will  came  back  looking  dis- 
tinctly guilty.  I  had  talked  as  much  as 
possible  during  his  absence,  but  Edith  B., 
who  is  very  observant,  asked:  "Why  so 
mysterious,  Don  Guillermo?  "  Will  mut- 
tered something  about  a  household  hitch 
and  I  breathed  again.  After  dinner  we 
went  into  the  library,  which  is  on  the 
corner,  and  I  chanced  to  look  out  of  the 
window.  There,  under  the  arc  light,  were 
four  mounted  policemen  in  addition  to 
our  regular  foot  gendarme.  My  inward 
comment  was,  "Oh,  waiting  to  arrest  him 
when  he  comes  back!"  but,  feeling  still 
more  like  the  aforementioned  heroine,  I 
opened  the  French  window  wide  and 
called  to  the  girls  to  come  and  look  at  the 
glorious  night.  Perhaps  the  gathering  of 
those  policemen  was  a  mere  coincidence, 
for  Mr.  Madero  was  in  his  room  when  we 
went  up-stairs.  The  next  morning  Lucy 
said  to  me:  "What  a  strange  man  your 
friend  Mr.  Gonzalez  is!  I  saw  him  go 
out  at  six  o'clock  this  morning  in  a  high 
hat  and  frock  coat."  It  was  true.  Some- 
thing took  place  at  that  conference,  and 
the  charge  against  him  was  withdrawn; 
and  he  went  first  to  see  his  mother  and 
then  to  the  Convention  to  make  a  speech 
of  acceptance  of  the  nomination  which 
was  offered  him.  Thus  closes  our  little 
part  in  the  political  life  of  Mexico.  Please 
don't  mention  this  to  any  one,  as  it  might 
cause  gossip.  I  write  to  you  because  I 
know  how  interested  you  are  in  all  that 
affects  our  life  here. 

New  York,  June,  1910. 
We  saw  Don  Francisco  Madero  the 
other  day,  the  father  of  "  Panchito."  He 
tells  us  that  the  latter  has  been  put  in  jail 
in  San  Luis  Potosi  on  the  charge  of  sedi- 
tion. Our  help  last  Spring  did  not  do 
any  good  after  all,  but  of  course  this 
was  to  be  expected.  The  President  will 
probably  keep  him  in  prison  until  after 
election  and  then  release  him.  Don 
Francisco  tells  us  that  Doiia  Sara  is  in 
San  Luis  Potosi  and  takes  all  his  food 
to  the  cell  herself  to  avoid  any  chance 
of  foul  play.  Poor  little  woman,  what  a 
life! 


The 


Tragic 


Ten   Days  of  Madero 


99 


Mexico  City.  August  26,  igio. 

I  wish  you  were  going  to  be  here  for 
the  Centennial  Celebration,  which  is  to 
last  during  the  entire  month  of  Septem- 
ber. I  have  never  seen  such  preparations 
in  my  life.  Statues  and  buildings  in  proc- 
ess of  construction  are  being  hurried  to 
completion,  arches  are  being  erected,  all 
public  and  many  private  buildings  are 
being  illuminated  and  decorated,  and  the 
main  streets  are  simply  a  mass  of  flags 
and  lights.  Houses  have  been  rented 
and  sumptuously  furnished  as  residences 
for  the  special  embassies  and  each  has  its 
carriages  with  men  in  livery.  They  say 
that  the  big  patio  of  the  National  Palace 
has  been  floored  and  roofed  for  the  Presi- 
dent's Ball  and  several  other  entertain- 
ments. All  sorts  of  fiestas  have  been 
planned  for  both  rich  and  poor,  something 
for  every  day.  They  are  spending  money 
like  water  to  glorify  the  present  regime, 
and  if  I  were  a  Socialist  I  should  be  en- 
raged. I  am  not,  however,  and  intend  to 
enjoy  it  all  thoroughly.  One  thing  struck 
me  especially.  Most  of  the  scaffolding 
around  the  new  National  Theatre  has 
been  taken  down  and  a  temporary  lawn 
planted  around  it.  It  is  a  magnificent 
structure,  but  at  the  same  time  it  is  such  a 
monument  of  the  ostentation  of  the  con- 
trolling group.  Pour  money  in  as  they 
will,  they  have  been  unable  to  finish  it, 
but  they  have  shammed  it  over  for  this 
event.  Besides,  why  do  they  need  a  Na- 
tional Theatre  with  their  poor  unhoused 
and  uneducated — but  I  am  talking  like  a 
Socialist  again.  .  .  . 

P.S. — Francisco  I.  Madero  was  let  out 
on  bail,  which  he  forfeited  by  hurrying  into 
the  United  States.  Nothing  is  being  said 
about  it  and  probably  it  is  not  important. 
Besides  it  would  not  do  to  cast  a  gloom 
over  Don  Porfirio's  Celebration. 

October  8,  1 910. 
E.  S.  I.  arrived  a  few  days  ago  on  his 
first  visit  to  Mexico.  It  is  too  bad  that 
he  did  not  get  here  in  time  to  see  some  of 
the  Centennial,  for  the  Capital  has  never 
been  so  gay.  The  only  thing  he  saw  was 
the  Apotheosis  to  the  dead  heroes  night 
before  last.  In  a  way  it  was  quite  im- 
pressive. It  was  held  in  the  same  patio 
as  the  President's  Ball  excei)t  that  they 
had  erected  a  great  tomb  in  the  centre  of 


it  reaching  nearly  to  the  top  of  the  build- 
ing. Steps  led  up  to  the  pillar  itself  and 
on  each  corner  of  the  base  was  burnintj  a 
great  urn  of  incense.  This,  combined 
with  several  thousand  peo[)le,  made  the 
air  almost  unbearable. and  the  i)r()gramme 
itself  was  deadly.  Orations  and  poems 
and  patriotic  anthems.  The  audience, 
diplomatic  and  unofficial  alike,  tidgelcfl 
and  yawned  behind  their  hands  until  the 
final  number,  which  was  worth  going  for. 
The  President  himself,  in  spite  of  his 
eighty-odd  years,  erect  as  any  of  his 
guard,  walked  briskly  up  the  steps  of  the 
tomb,  made  a  short  address  in  a  clear, 
strong  voice,  hung  a  wreath  on  the  great 
pillar,  and  descended  amid  thunderous 
clapping  and  wild  playing  of  the  National 
Hymn.  He  seemed  anything  but  old  and 
broken,  and  this  Centennial  seems  to  be 
the  climax  of  his  wonderful  material 
achievements.  I  cannot  believe  that 
there  is  much  intriguing  that  he  had  not 
got  his  ''iron  finger"  on.  That  brings 
me  to  what  I  started  to  write.  Yesterday 
Will  gave  a  lunch  for  E.  S.  I.  at  the  Jock- 
ey Club.  Among  the  guests  were  Don 
Francisco  Madero,  Sr.,  and  his  second  son 
Gustavo,  Mr.  Creel,  the  Minister  of  For- 
eign Relations,  and  a  prominent  foreign 
diplomat.  To-day  what  do  you  think 
happened?  Gustavo  Madero  was  ar- 
rested on  the  charge  of  suborning  an 
officer  of  the  Mexican  Army  and  Don 
Francisco,  Sr.,  fearing  arrest  on  some 
charge  or  other,  is  here  at  our  house  under 
the  name  of  Mr.  Lopez.  For  the  second 
time  I  have  a  refugee.  It  is  becoming  a 
habit.  I  had  no  idea  last  S{)ring  that  the 
situation  would  become  so  comi)licated. 
I  wonder  what  E.  S.  I.  thinks  of  Mexican 
political  methods  in  comi)arison  with  our 
own,  in  which  he  has  had  so  much  exi)eri- 
ence.  The  luncheon  of  yesterday  is  ren- 
dered rather  grotesque  in  view  of  to-day's 
happenings,  and  Will  told  his  guest,  the 
foreign  diplomat,  this  afternoon  that  he 
hoped  the  matter  would  not  cause  him 
any  embarrassment.  The  latter  an- 
swered, "  It  is  all  right  for  me.  The  Min- 
ister of  Foreign  Relations  was  there  too  " — 
which  was  a  point  we  had  not  considered. 

November  8.  u)io. 
I  hope  you  have  not   been   bothered 
about  the  so-called  anti-.\meric;in   riots, 


|IN) 


The 


Tragic 


Ten   Days  of  Madero 


tluc.  it  is  said,  to  the  lynching  in  Texas. 
They  reallv  have  not  amounted  to  much 
anil  consisted  chiefly  of  half-j:;r()\vn  l)oys, 
students  perhaps,  who  have  ma  relied  the 
streets  shouting,  "Death  to  the  Gringo," 
and  breaking  a  few  windows  of  American 
shops.  The  whole  thing  is  a  farce.  The 
rioters  do  not  seem  to  deny  that  the  j\Iex- 
ican  murdered  the  woman  or  to  resent  the 
Ivnchmg  to  any  extent.  They  emphasize 
the  manner  of'  lynching,  which  is  said  to 
be  burning  at  the  stake.  If  true,  it  is 
shocking,  of  course,  but  American  mobs 
are  kno\Mi  to  have  done  the  same  to  their 
own  people.  In  fact,  it  is  not  clear  that 
the  man  was  not  an  American  citizen, 
after  all,  although  Mexican  born.  Every 
one  seems  to  think  that  the  outbreak  is 
due  to  political  conditions  here,  rather 
than  to  any  real  anti-American  feelings. 
There  is  undoubtedly  an  undercurrent  of 
unrest  throughout  the  Republic. 

Februar}'  12,  191 1. 
E.  S.  I.  is  here  again  and  the  first  thing 
he  did  was  to  ask  about  all  that  had  hap- 
pened since  his  last  visit,  and  especially 
about  Mr.  Lopez.  We  told  him  about 
helping  the  Madero  family  out  of  town 
and  how  they  are  practically  exiles  in  San 
Antonio.  He  is  leaving  to-morrow^  for  El 
Paso  homeward-bound,  and  in  view  of  the 
rumors  of  trouble  in  the  North  he  asked 
Secretary  D.  of  the  Embassy,  as  a  joke, 
'Tf  I  am  caught  by  rebels  will  you  send 
out  a  rescuing  party?"  and  Mr.  D.  laugh- 
ingly assured  him  he  would. 

February  25,  191 1. 
The  joke  about  being  caught  turned  out 
to  be  true.  E.  S.  I.  was  in  the  first  train 
held  up  by  Orozco  and  his  men.  A  track 
has  been  run  here  through  the  city  streets 
from  the  Arsenal  to  the  National  Station, 
and  soldiers  and  munitions  are  being  sent 
north.  Hostilities  are  really  begun.  It 
seems  impossible,  with  the  taste  of  the 
Centennial  still  in  our  mouths.  Don 
Poriirio  went  a  step  too  far  when  he  put 
Madero  in  jail,  or,  perhaps  I  would  better 
say,  when  he  let  him  out  again.  Public 
opinion  evidently  w^as  smouldering,  and 
recent  events  have  fanned  it  into  flames. 
We  received  a  very  interesting  letter  from 
E.  S.  I.  telling  of  his  slow  trip  north  with 
the  troop  train,  and  how  he  and  a  nurse 


from  the  railroad  hospital  took  care  of  the 
sick  and  wounded  as  best  they  could  with 
the  facilities  at  hand.  He  seems  to  have 
had  ample  opportunity  to  study  the  men 
and  to  have  taken  pleasure  in  doing  so. 
He  writes:  ''  I  feel  that  the  Mexican  Gov- 
ernment has  no  idea  of  the  seriousness  of 
this  uprising.  These  men  are  calm,  sane, 
but  determined,  and  should  be  met 
squarely." 

April  15,  1911. 
Things  have  become  so  serious,  and 
every  one  feels  that  the  country  would 
suffer  so  terribly  by  a  long  civil  war,  that 
R.  L.  has  been  "orally"  authorized  by 
the  President  to  go,  in  company  with 

Sr. ,  confidential  adviser  of  the  latter, 

to  Corpus  Christi,  Texas,  to  treat  with 
his  refractory  relative. 

May  4,  1911. 
Will  has  received  a  discouraged  letter 
from  R.  L.  from  Monterey.  His  peace 
mission  has  failed.  Mr.  Madero  would 
not  hear  of  any  condition  whatsoever 
other  than  the  resignation  of  General 
Diaz,  and  that,  evidently,  was  not  in- 
cluded in  the  instructions  given  the  emis- 
saries. He  writes  that  persecutions  are 
being  practised  against  the  non-belliger- 
ent members  of  the  Madero  family  as  a 
lever  to  force  Francisco  I.  to  drop  the 
fight.  Bills  of  the  Banco  de  Nuevo  Leon, 
a  Madero-controlled  bank,  have  been  re- 
pudiated in  Federal  offices,  loans  have 
been  called,  extensions  refused,  and  count- 
less other  acts  committed,  which,  if  con- 
tinued, will  prove  disastrous  to  men  doing 
business  on  as  large  a  scale  as  the  Madero 
brothers.  R.  L.  ends  his  letter  thus  trag- 
ically: "The  w^hole  family  faces  ruin,  my- 
self along  with  it.  The  best  thing  you 
can  do  is  to  save  yourself  by  severing  all 
connection  with  me." 

May  8,  191 1. 
We  went  to  dine  with  a  diplomatic 
friend  and  his  wife  the  other  night,  and  at 
about  half-past  nine,  while  we  were  calmly 
playing  bridge,  the  maitre  d'hotel  came 
hurriedly  in  and  said  rapidly  in  French, 
"They  are  fighting  in  Piedad."  "How 
do  you  know^?"  "The  peasants  passing 
have  told  me."  Without  a  word,  with- 
out as  much  as  going  to  the  veranda  where 


The 


Tragic 


Ten   r3avs  of  Madero 


101 


a  battle  in  Piedad  could  not  only  be  heard 
but  almost  seen,  our  host  walked  to  the 
telephone,  called  up  a  certain  newspaper 
correspondent  who  is  a  warm  friend  of  his, 
and  said,  ''There  is  a  battle  being  fought 
in  Piedad."  Meanwhile  we  had  gone  to 
the  veranda  and  strained  eyes  and  ears  in 
the  direction  of  the  supposed  disturbance. 
Absolute  quiet  prevailed.  In  about 
twenty "  minutes  the  newspaper  corre- 
spondent arrived,  stating  that  he  had  been 
to  Piedad  in  an  automobile  and  that  the 
little  village  was  fast  asleep.  I  write  you 
this  because  the  question  arises  at  once, 
''Are  the  man's  despatches  to  his  home 
Government  as  frenzied  as  this?"  This 
is  a  small  matter  but  it  might  happen 
equally  well  in  a  large  one. 


Don 


May  i6,  191 1. 
Madero,  one  of  the  most 


active  business  members  of  the  family, 
came  to  Will  to-day  to  ask  him  to  go  to 
the  President  of  the  National  Railways  to 
see  about  securing  a  special  train  for  him 
to  go,  in  company  with  Don  Francisco 
Madero,  Senior,  and  R.  L.,  to  treat  once 
more  with  the  rebel  "  Jefe."  The  matter 
was  easily  arranged  and  they  are  to  start 
at  once  for  the  north. 

June  I,  1911. 
It  does  not  seem  possible,  but  the  peace 
mission  was  successful,  not  only  bringing 
about  a  settlement,  but  bringing  it  about 
on  the  rebel's  terms.  Don  Porfirio  has 
given  up  the  fight  and  last  Thursday  went 
out  of  the  back  door  of  his  down-town 
house,  and  with  his  family  boarded  a  train 
for  \^era  Cruz,  taking  the  first  steamer  for 
Euro{)e.  Mr.  de  la  Barra,  who  was  for- 
merly Mexican  Ambassador  in  Washing- 
ton, is  to  be  Provisional  President,  and 
elections  are  to  be  held  in  the  fall.  Our 
little  Mr.  "Gonzalez"  of  a  year  ago  has 
pulled  Don  Porfirio  off  the  throne.  There 
has  been  a  good  deal  in  the  papers  about 
riots  in  the  City  on  the  day  he  left,  but, 
knowing  the  unreliability  of  many  of  the 
reports,  I  hope  you  did  not  let  them  alarm 
you.  We  were  not  in  the  centre  of  town 
at  all,  as  it  was  a  religious  holiday  and  all 
the  ohices  and  shops  were  closed,  but  we 
lunched  at  the  French  Legation,  which  is 
much  nearer  the  Centre  than  our  own 
house.     After    lunch    we    were    playing 


bridge  when  one  of  the  so-called  mobs 
came  by,  and  we  dropped  our  cards  to 
watch  it.  It  consisted,  for  the  most  part, 
of  ragged  boys,  big  and  little,  carrj-ing 
banners  and  sticks,  and  beating  on  tin 
cans,  much  like  a  boys'  i)arade  in  our  own 
country.  Just  in  front  of  the  Legation 
they  met  a  milk-cart,  legitimate  prey,  of 
course.  They  stopped  it,  jeered  the 
driver,  took  out  a  few  empty  tins  which 
they  placed  on  the  curb,  and  went  on 
amid  the  expletives  of  the  outraged  milk- 
man. How  the  most  hectic  of  reporters 
could  write  that  up  as  "mobs  of  angry 
men  with  death  in  their  eyes"  is  hard  to 
understand. 

July  10,  iQii. 
Last  Sunday  Will  gave  a  stag  lunch 
here  at  the  house,  and  I  ate  in  the  pantry 
with  the  cat  and  listened  as  well  as  I 
could  to  the  talk  in  the  dining-room.  It 
was  difficult  amid  the  clatter.  The  reason 
for  the  lunch  was  that  a  number  of  Will's 
"official"  friends  wished  to  meet  Mr. 
Francisco  I.  Madero  "unofficially, "  to  get 
to  know  him  before  he  really  becomes 
ofiScial,  as  he  undoubtedly  will  at  the  next 
election.  Later  in  the  afternoon  I  went 
in  to  greet  him,  and  it  was  the  first  time 
I  had  seen  him  since  he  was  our  hidden 
guest.  I  have  never  seen  such  a  modest 
man  in  my  life.  He  flushed  all  over  when 
I  congratulated  him,  and  insisted  that  it 
was  not  due  to  him  at  all  but  to  an  abso- 
lute cry  from  the  Mexican  people.  Per- 
hai)s  he  is  right  in  a  way,  but  it  is  i)er- 
fectly  clear  that  very  few  of  them  have 
acted  with  the  good  faith  and  selflessness 
of  their  leader  and  s]K)kesman.  It  is  al- 
most more  than  human,  and  sooner  or 
later  his  ideals  are  going  to  receive  a 
shock,  I  fear.  In  fact,  the  failure  to  hold 
Zai)ata  has  been  one.  The  day  after  the 
luncheon  one  of  the  Mexican  papers  came 
out  with  a  notice  of  it,  ending  u|).  '*  In  this 
same  house  Mr.  Madero  was  hidtlen  o\er 
a  year  ago  when  he  was  evading  arrest  in 
order  to  hold  the  Con\-ention  of  the  new 
party."  Will  was  very  much  annoyed 
and  si)oke  to  him  aj)ologi/ing  for  the  no- 
tice, saying  that  he  had  no  idea  how  it 
got  into  the  j)aper  and  that  he  liad  ne\er 
mentioned  his  \isit  to  us  in  i()io  to  any 
one  and  was  at  a  loss  to  know  how  the 
secret  iiot   out.      Mr.   Madero  looked  at 


102 


The    Trai^ic  Ten   Days  of  Madero 


him  as  naive  as  a  child  and  said.  "Why.  T 
told  tht-m;  I  did  not  know  that  you  would 
object." 

Si'ptcnibcr  i,  191 1. 
We  have  spent  most  of  the  week  attend- 
ing the  Convention  that  has  nominated 
I'*r;incisco  I.  Madero  for  President,  and  it 
lias  been  most  interesting.  We  were  for- 
tunate enough  to  have  a  box,  which  we 
occuj^ied  during  nearly  every  session. 
There  must  have  been  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  lifteen  hmidred  delegates  from 
all  parts  of  the  Republic,  and  it  was  per- 
fectly remarkable  to  see  the  intelligence 
and  sanity  with  which  those  men,  with- 
out any  previous  political  experience, 
carried  through  that  Convention.  We 
have  heard  so  much  about  the  country 
"not  being  ready  for  democracy."  Per- 
haps not,  but  a  much  larger  percentage  of 
it  is  ready  than  many  people  believe. 
E.  S.  I.  is  here  again,  strangely  enough. 
He  seems  to  be  here  for  all  our  political 
excitements.  He  says  that  this  Conven- 
tion was  held  with  as  much  despatch  and 
probably  more  order  than  similar  events 
in  our  own  country.  The  only  point  that 
has  come  up  for  discussion  in  this  cam- 
paign has  been  the  nomination  for  vice- 
president.  It  seems  Mr.  Madero  indi- 
cated that  a  man  named  Pino  Suarez, 
who  is  comparatively  unknown  around 
the  Capital,  would  be  more  desirable  to 
him  for  vice-president  than  Dr.  Vasquez 
Gomez,  who  seemed  the  logical  candidate 
for  the  position,  or  than  either  of  the 
other  two  aspirants.  Dr.  Vasquez  Gomez 
was  very  prominent  during  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  many  of  Mr.  Madero's  sup- 
porters think  he  has  made  a  political 
biunaer  in  disregarding  this  fact.  Judg- 
ing by  his  stand  on  i:he  peace  conditions 
I  do  not  believe  he  is  given  to  compromise 
of  any  sort. 

November  15,  191 1. 
Inauguration  Day  has  come  and  gone, 
and  our  obscure  little  refugee  of  a  year 
and  a  half  ago  is  President  of  the  Republic 
of  Mexico.  There  was  a  parade  and  a  re- 
ception at  the  National  Palace  to  cele- 
brate the  Inauguration.  There  were 
thousands  of  people  on  the  streets  and 
the  greatest  order  prevailed,  although  I 
am  told  that  the  crowd  did  not  compare 


either  in  numbers  or  enthusiasm  with  the 
one  on  the  day  of  Mr.  Madero's  arrival 
in  the  city  from  the  North  in  June.  I 
still  regret  having  missed  that.  Two 
things  I  noticed  which  I  never  saw  or 
heard  during  Don  Porfirio's  time.  One 
was  that  a  great  percentage  of  the  popu- 
lace removed  their  hats  when  the  flag 
passed;  the  other  that  groups  of  people 
sang  the  National  Hymn  in  the  street. 
Rumor  has  it  that  General  Diaz  forbade 
both  these  demonstrations,  as  it  stirred 
up  enthusiasm  for  the  ''patria"  rather 
than  loyalty  to  himself.  This  is  merely  a 
story,  of  course,  but  perhaps  now  that  re- 
straint is  removed  patriotism  will  flourish 
better.  The  difficulty  will  be  to  direct  it 
properly,  and  to  do  that  the  lower  classes 
must  be  taught  a  few  first  principles.  They 
are  so  wofully  ignorant  and  so  hopelessly 
apathetic.  Some  amusing  things  hap- 
pened in  connection  with  the  reception. 
We  did  not  go,  but  I  heard  about  them 
afterward.  It  appears  that  through  some 
mismanagement  of  the  arrangements  the 
diplomatic  guests  were  badly  squeezed 
by  the  pressing  forward  of  the  crowd  in 
their  eagerness  to  get  a  look  at  the  new 
President.  Now  I  come  to  think  of  it, 
that  is  not  a  trait  peculiar  to  the  Mexican. 
At  any  rate,  it  caused  a  great  deal  of  un- 
pleasant comment  among  the  Diplomats, 
who  perhaps  felt  that  their  dignity  had 
not  been  properly  respected.  Our  friends 
have  taken  to  calling  us  ''Maderistas"  on 
account  of  the  interest  we  have  shown  in 
this  whole  affair,  and  also  on  account  of 
both  business  and  friendly  relations  with 
the  family,  which  date  back  some  fifteen 
years.  A  day  or  two  after  the  jostling 
episode  one  of  the  Ministers  asked  me 
with  the  most  scornful  upcurling  of  mus- 
taches: "And  now  what  does  your  huss- 
band  sink  of  hiss  fren'  Madero?"  I  was 
playing  cards  and  did  not  look  up,  but 
answered  pleasantly  enough:  ''Oh!  he 
does  not  seem  to  think  that  pinching  the 
Diplomats  a  little  affects  the  fundamental 
welfare  of  the  country."  I  could  not  see 
his  face,  but  I  know  he  was  furious,  for  he 
left  abruptly.  The  same  day  at  tea-time 
I  saw  Eleanor  A.,  whose  husband,  you  re- 
member, is  Minister.     I  asked  her 

what  he  thought  of  it  and  she  said  in  her 
harum-scarum  way:  "Oh!  Hans  is  so  fat 
he  did  not  mind  the  jostling,  and  he  took 


The 


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103 


some  cakes  in  his  pocket  to  eat  during  the 
ceremony,  so  he  did  not  suffer  at  all. 
But,"  she  said  laughing,  ''some  Alexicans 
saw  him  and  remarked  in  Spanish:  'Look! 
the  foreign  pig  eats!'  "  I  thought — "So, 
there  was  injured  dignity  on  both  sides." 

April  5,  1912. 
President  Taft's  message  for  "Amer- 
icans who  fmd  conditions  intolerable  in 
Mexico"  to  leave  the  country  has  caused 
a  panic.  In  San  Antonio  the  baggageman 
who  checked  my  trunk  to  Mexico  was 
surprised  when  he  heard  where  I  was  go- 
ing, and  remarked:  "Pretty  nervy,  ain't 
it?"  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  tide  was  all 
the  other  way,  and  I  passed  train-load 
after  train-load  of  women  and  children 
going  to  Texas  and  various  other  places 
to  wait  until  conditions  grow  better.  In- 
deed, they  do  not  seem  to  have  improved 
much,  especially  in  the  interior  points 
from  which  the  greater  part  of  the  refu- 
gees come.  Brigandage  apparently  has 
spread,  although  the  bands  do  not  make 
much  pretence  of  being  organized  or  of  a 
political  nature.  The  Government  Offi- 
cials whom  I  have  seen  are  possessed  of  a 
happy  optimism  and  reiterate  that  "in 
thirty  days  everything  will  be  settled." 
Perhaps  their  measures  are  more  active 
than  they  appear  to  a  lay  eye.  Almost 
all  foreigners  are  dismal,  heaving  sighs 
and  predicting  the  exact  date  on  which 
Orozco,  Zapata,  or  "cualquier  otro  jefe" 
(some  chief  or  other)  will  enter  the  city 
to  give  his  men  a  half-day's  loot.  Many 
of  the  colonies  have  talked  of  arming  them- 
selves and  some  measures  have  been  taken. 
Our  own  colony  has  had  a  shipment  of  sec- 
ond-hand army  rifles  sent  in  and  goodness 
knows  how  many  thousand  rounds  of  am- 
munition, which  they  offer  for  sale  to  Ameri- 
cans for  a  moderate  sum.  We  have  not 
invested  in  one  and  our  sole  arm  is  a  thir- 
ty-thirty Winchester  rifle  and  seven  car- 
tridges, the  latter  a  gift  from  Paul  V.,  who 
thinks  we  ought  not  to  be  entirely  without 
protection  in  case  of  riot.  Some  of  the  colo- 
nies have  appointed  concentration  houses, 
armed  and  provisioned,  and  each  colonist 
has  been  told  where  to  go  and  what  to 
take,  a  blanket,  two  candles,  and  a  bag  of 
beans  being  part  of  the  e(juii)ment,  if  I  re- 
member rightly.  So  much  has  Ijeen  said 
about  the  Cai)ital  being  entered  that  Will 


and  I  have  begun  to  mock,  and  c\ery 
time  a  few  firecrackers  are  discharged  we 
look  at  each  other  and  say:  ''They  are 
taking  the  City."  The  chances  of  such  an 
event  are  \ery  remote,  to  say  the  least. 

September  16,  1912. 
Last  night  we  went  to  the  National 
Palace  to  hear  and  see  the  "grito"  which 
I  think  I  have  already  described  to  you, 
but  I  do  not  remember.  Risking  repeti- 
tion, it  is  the  commemoration  of  the  cry 
of  Independence  led  by  the  Priest  Hidalgo 
m  1810.  He  rang  a  bell  at  midnight  on 
September  15th  of  that  year  calling  to  the 
pe()[)le  to  strike  a  blow  for  Independence. 
The  cry  was  taken  up  by  them  and  the 
result  was  freedom  from  Spanish  rule. 
The  same  little  bell  now  hangs  in  the  Na- 
tional Palace,  and  it  is  the  custom  to  re- 
peat the  ceremony  on  the  same  date  and  at 
the  same  hour  ever  since.  I  heard  the 
story  that  two  years  ago,  when  the  Cen- 
tennial was  being  celebrated,  some  rebel- 
lious person  muffled  the  bell.  Nothing 
was  said  at  the  time  and  the  story  has 
probably  just  sprung  up  of  itself.  To  go 
on  about  last  night,  first  there  was  a  recep- 
tion with  a  concert,  Bonci,  who  is  here 
with  an  o])era  company,  being  among  the 
artists.  At  midnight  every  one  went  out 
on  the  balconies,  the  bell  was  rung  by  the 
President,  and  cannon  were  fired  in  front 
of  the  Cathedral,  which  by  the  way  was 
illuminated  and  was  a  beautiful  sight 
with  its  great  old  towers  and  dome.  The 
wiring  on  the  Cathedral,  and  on  the  Palace 
as  well,  is  a  relic  of  the  Centennial,  and  the 
plaza  was  as  light  as  day.  And  there  was 
the  sight  we  really  came  to  see,  the  mass 
of  people  in  the  plaza.  There  they  were, 
thousands  of  them  packed  together  with 
their  faces  turned  upward  toward  the  bell; 
all  you  could  see  were  faces,  faces,  faces, 
with  the  light  shining  on  them,  those  of 
the  men  framed  by  the  brims  of  their  big 
sombreros  and  those  of  the  women  by 
their  rcbozos.  I'hey  were  so  solemn  that 
I  was  oppressed  by  them.  'Inhere  was  a 
feeble  cheer  at  the  moment  of  the  "grito," 
but  the  light  was  on,  not  in,  those  gloomy 
ui)turned  countenances.  .\  few  minutes 
later  I  said  to  Will  that  it  looked  as  if  the 
President  had  failed  to  conxince  them, 
but  he  is  more  oi)tiiiiistic  than  I  and  n- 
niiiuhd   nie  that  an   Indian  iri)wd  is  al- 


KM 


r 


lie 


Tragic 


lew   Days  of  Madero 


ways  apathetic.  I  had  the  fcclin.^  that 
the  Prt'sidcnt  should  liave  harangued 
them.  It  was  such  an  iipiH)rtune  moment, 
just  after  rinj^in*?  the  lnde!)endence  bell, 
to  tell  them  what  he  was  doing  and  hoi)ed 
to  do  for  them,  and  to  ask  for  their  sujv 
port,  and  for  patience  a  little  bit  longer. 
It  appears  that  my  idea  was  too  fantas- 
tical, yet  it  did  not  seem  right  to  go  off 
and  drink  champagne  with  that  lump  of 
hojH'lessness  outside.  Handbills,  calcu- 
lated to  stir  up  enthusiasm,  were  passed 
around  among  the  crowd  stating  that 
Orozco  had  been  routed,  I  do  not  know 
how  many  guns  captured,  and  Orozco, 
Sr.,  taken  prisoner.  There  was  no  ap- 
parent rejoicing,  and  no  doubt  the  aver- 
age laborer  is  tired  of  hearing  about  mili- 
tary triumphs. 

November  30,  191 2. 
Thanksgiving  has  come  and  gone  and 
we  celebrated  with  the  proverbial  turkey 
with  all  its  accoutrements.  Speaking  of 
this,  the  ^Mexican  Government  has  cause 
for  Thanksgiving,  for  they  have  success- 
fully put  down  a  revolt  in  Vera  Cruz  led 
by  Felix  Diaz,  an  ex-general  in  the  Mexi- 
can Army  and  a  nephew  of  Don  Porfirio. 
He  is  a  graduate  of  the  Chapultepec  Mili- 
tary Academy,  and  has  a  good  deal  of  in- 
fluence in  the  Army.  He  caused  a  defec- 
tion among  the  troops  and  there  was  quite 
a  row  in  Vera  Cruz,  but  it  has  been  put 
down  and  Felix  Diaz  is  in  prison  dow^n 
there.  I  don't  know  what  they  intend  to 
do  with  him.  The  putting  dow^n  of  this 
rather  formidable  uprising  will  help  the 
present  Government  very  much  and  is  a 
distinct  show  of  strength.  After  the 
quelling  of  this  disturbance  others  are  less 
likely  to  break  out.  One  thing  must  be 
said  for  Felix  Diaz,  and  that  is  that  he  re- 
signed from  the  Army  before  attempting 
to  cause  trouble  for  the  Government,  and 
there  is  an  element  of  decency  in  that. 

February  10,  1913,  9  p.  m.  Monday. 
Our  joke  about  "taking  the  City"  be- 
gins to  assume  rather  a  grim  aspect,  as 
you  know  before  this  in  our  home  news- 
papers. The  first  rumor  we  had  of  any 
trouble  was  on  Saturday  evening  when 
Will  came  home  from  the  ofBce.  Some 
one  had  told  him  that  there  was  a  whisper 


around  town  of  a  proposed  defection  of 
troops  in  San  Angel,  one  of  our  little  sub- 
urbs, but  that  the  Government  was  fore- 
warned and  had  taken  the  necessary  pre- 
cautions. We  thought  little  about  the 
matter  and  I  was  full  of  the  tennis  tour- 
nament which  I  had  been  attending  that 
afternoon.  As  I  wrote  you.  there  are  four 
players  down  from  the  United  States, 
Miss  Mary  Brown,  last  year's  woman 
champion,  being  the  bright  and  particular 
star  of  the  tournament.  The  Reforma 
Club  was  gay  with  spectators  and  nothing 
could  have  looked  less  like  impending 
trouble.  In  fact,  I  made  an  engagement 
with  Mr.  and  Miss  S.  to  play  a'match  on 
Sunday  morning.  We  had  a  dinner  on 
Saturday  evening  and  the  subject  of  pol- 
itics was  scarcely  touched  upon,  which  is 
rare  in  these  days.  Yesterday  morning 
about  eight  o'clock  I  heard  the  servants 
talking  in  excited  tones  and  slamming 
doors  and  windows,  and  I  got  up  to  ex- 
postulate with  them  for  disturbing  our 
Sunday-morning  snooze,  and  Gabriela, 
with  a  nervous  giggle,  said:  "Seiiorita, 
there  is  shooting  in  the  Centre.  Who 
knows  what  it  may  be?"  We  had  heard 
a  few  explosions  but  we  took  them  to  be 
fireworks,  of  w^hich  the  Indian  is  very  fond. 
We  decided  not  to  try  to  sleep  any  more 
and  got  up  and  dressed  in  our  tennis 
clothes,  supposing  that  the  trouble  would 
be  settled  by  the  time  we  were  ready  to  go 
out.  While  we  were  dressing,  a  bullet 
thumped  against  the  concrete  side  of  the 
house,  and  I  went  down  to  hunt  for  it  as 
soon  as  I  was  dressed.  You  know  Will's 
father  and  mother  went  through  a  revolu- 
tion in  Colombia  way  back  in  the  early 
sixties  and  some  of  the  flattened  bullets 
that  hit  their  house  are  still  treasured  in 
the  family.  I  thought  it  would  be  so  inter- 
esting for  us  to  repeat  the  experience  more 
than  fifty  years  later,  but  hunt  as  I  would 
I  could  not  find  the  bullet,  although  I 
could  see  where  it  had  struck.  The 
shooting  continued  in  a  desultbry  manner 
during  breakfast  and  at  nine-fifteen  Mr. 
S.  telephoned  that  he  supposed  the  tennis 
game  was  ofT.  I  replied  that  we  were 
ready  to  go  and  I  am  sure  he  thought  me 
mad,  because  their  house  is  down  near  the 
Centre  and  he  knew  the  situation  was  bad 
and  we  did  not.  He  told  me  that  he  con- 
sidered it  very  unsafe  to  be  on  the  streets, 


The   Tra^i^ic  Ten   Days  of  IMadero 


10.1 


but  Will  and  I  disregarded  this  and  started 
for  the  Reforma  Club  on  foot.  Of  course 
there  were  no  trams,  as  they  all  start  from 
just  in  front  of  the  National  Palace,  which 
appeared  to  be  the  seat  of  the  disturbance. 
We  walked  from  here  directly  to  the  Paseo 
and  on  our  way  met  a  mounted  soldier 
leading  two  riderless  horses.  We  stopped 
him  and  asked  the  state  of  things  in  the 
Centre  and  he  answered  with  the  single 
word  ''Grave."  When  we  cjuestioned 
him  further  his  answers  were  so  evasi\e 
that  we  could  not  tell  to  which  party  he 
belonged  or  whether  he  was  a  deserter, 
so  we  walked  on.  On  the  Paseo  we 
passed  the  mounted  Park  Guard  on  their 
way  to  the  National  Palace.  There  were, 
})erhaps,  forty  of  them  and  their  horses 
broke  into  a  gallop  just  as  we  reached 
them.  They  looked  very  martial  indeed. 
A  number  of  riderless  horses,  still  saddled 
and  fully  accoutred,  came  running  by, 
terrified.  It  made  me  shudder  to  think 
where  their  riders  must  be.  There  was 
no  one  at  the  Club  when  we  got  there,  but 
a  couple  of  members  drifted  in  later. 
Meanwhile  the  firing  continued,  mostly 
with  small  arms,  although  some  cannon 
were  discharged  in  the  course  of  the  morn- 
ing. W^e  remained  at  the  Club  until  five 
o'clock,  with  the  exception  of  one  "ex- 
cursion" to  the  Cafe  Chapultepec,  which 
we  found  closed,  and  to  the  guard-house 
at  the  foot  of  the  entrance  to  the  Castle 
where  we  asked  the  cadet  on  patrol  for 
news.  He  was  very  careful  in  his  state- 
ments, but  admitted  that  the  President 
had  ridden  out  early  with  his  guard  and 
some  of  the  Chapultepec  cadets,  and  said 
that  they  had  had  no  more  reports.  Doiia 
Sara,  he  said,  was  still  at  the  Castle.  At 
half  past  one  we  telephoned  to  a  Mexican 
friend  who  was  in  a  position  to  know 
some  of  the  facts  and  learned  the  follow- 
ing: the  cadets  from  the  Military  Col- 
lege at  Tlalpam,  who  are  called  the  Aspi- 
rantes,  with  certain  other  trooj)s,  marched 
into  the  City  on  Saturday  night  and  took 
the  National  Palace,  and  early  yesterday 
morning  they  liberated  General  Reyes 
and  ex-Brigadier  General  Felix  Diaz,  who 
were  both  in  i)rison  for  armed  rebellion. 
'I'his  was  all  in  accordance  with  a  plot 
which  must  have  been  brewing  for  some 
time.  Meanwhile  Minister  of  War  (iar- 
cia  Peiia  and  Gustavo  Madero,  hearing  of 


a  disturbance,  hurried  to  the  Xatitjnal 
Palace  and  were  at  once  taken  prisoners 
by  those  left  in  charge.  The  news,  how- 
e\er,  had  sj)read  and  a  Federal  General 
recaptured  the  I'alace  before  the  main 
body  of  revolutionists  returned  with  Gen- 
erals Reyes  and  Diaz.  When  the  former, 
at  the  head  of  his  troops,  arrived  at  the 
Palace  expecting  his  i)eople  to  be  in  pos- 
session, he  was  greeted  with  a  volley  from 
the  Federals  and  was  killed,  as  well  as 
hundreds  of  on-lookers  who  went  to  see 
the  excitement.  The  President,  by  this 
time,  had  been  notified  of  the  trouble  and 
rode  down  the  main  street  accompanied 
by  his  guard  and  some  of  the  Chapultepec 
cadets;  forced  his  way  into  the  Palace 
where  his  Cabinet  joined  him  soon  after. 
General  Diaz,  seeing  that  the  plot  was 
forestalled,  in  company  with  General 
Mondragon,  who,  they  say,  is  a  very  able 
soldier,  took  possession  of  the  Citadel, 
where  practically  all  the  arms  and  am- 
munition are  kept.  We  did  not  hear  de- 
tails of  how  it  happened  that  this  place, 
the  most  important  of  all,  fell  so  easily 
into  the  hands  of  the  insurgents. 

As  I  have  said,  we  started  for  home 
about  five  o'clock  and  for  some  hours  pre- 
vious to  this  the  firing  had  been  strag- 
gling. The  streets  were  deserted  out 
where  we  were,  presenting  a  contrast  to 
the  usual  Sunday  crowd.  We  had  just 
reached  the  Paseo  when  the  sharpest  bat- 
tle of  the  day  began  and  I  wanted  to 
crouch  in  a  swampy  ditch  near  by  or  else 
run  back  to  the  Club.  I  knew  the  battle 
was  some  distance  away,  but  I  remem- 
bered the  time  B.  discharged  that  German 
Army  rifle  by  mistake  and  how  easily  it 
went  through  two  walls,  making  a  groo\e 
through  a  window-seat  cushion  on  its 
way  and,  after  all  that,  knocked  a  white 
sj)ot  on  the  stone  terrace  outside.  Will 
thought  it  would  be  worse  ti)  l)e  caught 
away  from  home  when  night  came  than 
to  take  the  risk  of  a  spent  bullet,  so  we 
plodded  on.  As  we  got  in  toward  our 
colony  we  met  several  neighbors  who  had 
heard  \arious  rumors,  all  more  or  less 
confirming  what  I  have  written.  Will 
was  awfully  bothered  by  a  rej^ort  that 
R.  L.  had  been  shot,  but  he  telei)honed  his 
father's  house  and  found  it  to  be  untrue. 
The  firing  ceased  as  night  fell,  so  we  had 
a  good  sleep. 


]{M\ 


The   Tra'^ic   Ten   Days  of  Madero 


We  had  been  asked  to  lunch  at  the  Aus- 
trian Legation  lo-day,  but  this  morning, 
when  we  still  heanl  a'littlc  firing,  we  were 
not  sure  that  we  were  wanted.  We  de- 
cidetl  to  walk  over  there,  a  block  only,  and 
finil  out,  but  just  as  we  started  a  note 
came  from  Mr.  P.  saying  he  still  expected 
us.  Simultaneously  my  French  teacher 
came,  and,  while  1  was  not  in  the  humor 
to  struggle  through  an  hour's  French,  I 
was  very  much  interested  in  what  he  had 
to  tell  me.  He  is  a  strange  man  and  es- 
pecially interested  in  military  tactics,  and 
had  spent  the  night  looking  around  the 
Citadel  and  estimating  its  strength  and 
the  possibility  of  taking  it.  His  idea  is 
that  it  is  a  very  good  position,  hard  to  get 
at  on  account  of  the  houses  huddled  about 
it  and  the  lack  of  straight  avenues  toward 
it.  He  does  not  know^  how  many  men 
Diaz  has,  or  how  well  they  are  provisioned. 
When  he  left,  he  gave  me  another  thirty- 
thirty  cartridge  that  he  happened  to  have 
in  his  pocket.  That  makes  eight  that  we 
ha\-e  now.  Will  was  chafing  to  go  to  the 
office,  but  one  of  his  partners  telephoned 
him  that  it  would  not  be  safe.  At  lunch 
there  was  gossip  of  all  sorts,  but  as  there 
was  no  firing  we  hoped  that  some  kind  of 
settlement  was  being  negotiated.  Some 
said  that  Diaz  had  only  a  handful  of  men 
and  almost  no  provisions,  and  could  not 
possibly  hold  out.  A  Secretary  of  one  of 
the  Legations,  however,  said  that  he  had 
been  personally  into  the  Citadel  for  an  in- 
terview with  General  Diaz,  and  that  he 
had  twenty-five  hundred  men  and  ample 
provisions  for  a  long  siege.  Will  asked 
him  how  the  President  was  fixed  and  he 
answered,  "Oh,  I  don't  know  anything 
about  that !"  It  struck  us  as  very  strange 
that  a  Secretary  to  a  Diplomat  would 
know  all  about  the  Insurgent  forces  and 
nothing  about  the  Government  position, 
but  perhaps  it  is  not  significant.  Among 
other  things  we  heard  that  the  parents 
and  sisters  of  the  President  have  taken 
refuge  in  the  Japanese  Legation,  just 
across  the  open  square  from  the  Austrian 
Legation ;  also  that  the  Federal  forces  are 
to  storm  the  Citadel  to-morrow  morning. 
Paul  V.  and  two  other  friends  came  home 
with  us  after  lunch  and  w^e  have  been 
playing  cards.  The  firing  began  again 
this  afternoon,  and  they  left  between  five 
and  six  in  order  to  get  home  before  dark. 


E\ery  one  seems  more  apprehensive  of 
mobs  than  of  bullets. 

Tuesday  evening. 

This  letter  is  assuming  the  aspect  of  a 
journal,  but  I  want  to  write  down  things 
as  they  happen.  This  morning  at  day- 
break the  fighting  began  in  earnest  and 
continued  for  nine  solid  hours,  cannon 
booming,  Mausers  popping,  and,  worst  of 
all,  that  dreadful  tap-tap-tap  of  the  rapid- 
fire  guns,  like  the  explosions  from  a  big 
motor-cycle.  Our  house  is  less  than  a 
mile  from  the  Citadel,  and  yet  we  seem 
to  be  out  of  the  line  of  fire.  Other  houses 
all  around  us  have  been  hit  with  small 
bullets,  although  no  shells  have  come  so 
far.  To-day  things  began  to  look  serious 
for  a  long  siege,  so  I  held  a  consultation 
with  my  cook,  and  we  have  laid  in  what- 
ever supplies  we  could  find:  two  sacks  of 
charcoal,  wood,  lard,  beans,  rice,  flour, 
condensed  milk,  meat,  and,  in  fact,  any- 
thing available.  My  servants  are  splen- 
did, and  have  gone  foraging  around  in  the 
lee  of  adobe  walls,  pale  as  it  is  possible 
for  them  to  be,  bent  on  getting  food  for  us. 
The  Sefiores  must  be  fed,  no  matter  what 
happens  to  them.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
genuine  devotion  in  the  Mexican  Indian 
and  it  is  getting  full  sway  now. 

This  afternoon,  during  a  lull  in  the  fir- 
ing, we  went  to  the  Japanese  Legation  to 
offer  to  do  anything  we  could  for  the 
President's  family.  We  found  them  in 
good  spirits  and  they  told  us  that  advices 
from  the  Palace  reported  the  battle  going 
distinctly  in  favor  of  the  Government, 
that  they  had  left  their  house  at  the  re- 
c{uest  of  the  President,  w^ho  was  worried 
for  their  safety,  and  not  because  they  an- 
ticipated any  danger,  and  that  Generals 
Blanquet  and  Angeles  were  expected  soon 
with  reinforcements  for  the  Government. 
Being  still  restless,  we  went  around  the 
square,  keeping  close  to  the  walls,  and  went 
to  see  the  von  H. 's.  They  were  well  closed 
up,  as  a  number  of  houses  had  been  hit  on 
their  street.  We  have  asked  them  to 
lunch  to-morrow. 

Wednesday  evening. 

There  was  no  fighting  last  night,  but  it 

began  early  this  morning,  and  the  cannon 

sounded  much  closer,  and  w^e  soon  found 

out  the  reason.     The  artillery  of  General 


The 


Tragic 


Ten  Days  of  Madero 


lo; 


Angeles  had  arrived  and  had  taken  a  stand 
in  front  of  the  National  Station  in  Cuauh- 
temoc Circle.  The  von  H.'s  did  not  come 
to  lunch,  as  the  shooting  was  much  more 
general  and  walking  on  the  streets  was 
quite  unsafe.  In  fact,  we  heard  over  the 
telephone  that  several  Americans  had 
been  accidentally  shot  on  the  streets,  a 
number  wounded  in  their  own  houses,  and 
one  woman  killed  while  cooking  dinner. 
Most  of  the  time  we  have  remained  in  a 
little  back  room  I  call  my  ''study,"  where 
I  am  writing  now,  and  where  three  brick 
walls  intervene  between  us  and  the  street, 
but  when  the  firing  lessens  we  cannot 
seem  to  keep  from  sallying  forth.  I  know 
this  would  call  down  a  scolding  from  you, 
but  you  will  not  get  this  letter  until  after 
the  thing  is  all  settled.  We  heard  on  one 
of  our  excursions  to  the  street  that  there 
had  been  a  meeting  of  all  the  Diplomats, 
and  that  they  had  decided  to  give  the  con- 
flicting parties  until  Friday  morning  to 
come  to  an  agreement,  and,  if  they  failed 
to  do  so,  two  thousand  American  Marines 
would  be  landed  in  Vera  Cruz  and  come  at 
once  to  the  City.  We  did  not  give  much 
credence  to  that,  because  it  was  too  awful 
to  think  about,  and  toward  five  o'clock  we 
went  to  the  Austrian  Legation  to  ask  Mr. 
P.  what  reports  he  had.  He  said  that 
there  was  no  change  whatever  in  the  situ- 
ation, but  what  he  was  most  concerned 
about  at  the  moment  was  that  the  battery 
of  General  Angeles  was  firing  shells  into 
the  houses  on  Cuauhtemoc  Circle,  and 
that  some  of  them  had  been  badly  shat- 
tered; that  the  Belgian  Legation  had 
been  hit  by  flying  bullets  from  exploding 
shells  and  that  the  Minister  and  his  fam- 
ily had  left,  and  that  he,  Mr.  P.,  was 
going  at  once  to  bring  away  the  J.'s  (who 
also  live  on  that  Circle)  in  an  automobile. 
The  J.'s  are  friends  of  ours  as  well,  and  as  I 
knew  Mr.  P.  had  his  house  full  of  Aus- 
trians  I  told  him  to  bring  them  to  us.  At 
about  seven  they  arrived,  with  a  couple  of 
suit-cases — Madam  J.  almost  hysterical 
from  the  strain,  poor  woman;  Mr.  J.  look- 
ing haggard  from  worry;  little  Jean,  aged 
four,  crying  with  fright;  and  the  eyes  of  his 
nurse,  Mathilde,  almost  popping  from  her 
head.  Jean  was  soon  cjuieted  with  a  bath 
and  a  glass  of  milk  and  bed,  poor  little 
chap.  We  all  had  dinner,  and  the  com- 
parative quiet  out  here,  after  what  she  had 


been  through  to-dav,had  a  soothing  effect 
on  Madam  J.  and  she  also  has  gone  to 
bed.  The  two  men  are  discussing  the  sit- 
uation, but  it  is  really  bedtime  for  every 
one.  There  are  no  street  lights  to-night, 
but  fortunately  there  is  a  glorious  moon, 
which  will  make  it  harder  for  the  omni- 
present sneak  thief.  We  still  have  lights 
in  the  house  and,  curiously  enough,  tele- 
phone connection  as  well.  I  have  three 
oil  lamps  and  a  can  of  kerosene  in  the 
store-room,  and  a  supply  of  candles,  so  we 
will  not  be  left  in  utter  darkness  if  our 
electric  lights  should  go. 

Thursday  evening. 

The  fighting  has  gone  on  pretty  steadily, 
with  no  new  developments  as  far  as  we 
know.  At  ten  o'clock  a  Greek  friend  of 
ours,  who  spent  last  night  with  Paul  \.  in 
the  J.'s'  house,  came  to  see  us,  with  the 
news  that  a  Shrapnel  shell  had  come 
through  the  front  wall  at  eight  o'clock  this 
morning,  exploded  in  the  drawing-room, 
and  practically  wrecked  it.  He  and  Paul 
V.  had  been  at  the  telephone  not  five 
metres  away,  but  fortunately  the  bullets 
wTre  stopped  by  the  thick  walls.  He  had 
the  empty  three-inch  Shrapnel  in  his 
pocket.  The  day  has  passed  much  like 
the  others,  with  all  sorts  of  rumors  going 
about.  One  was  to  the  effect  that  IVIr.  de 
la  Barra  was  going,  after  a  conference 
with  the  Diplomatic  Corps,  to  arrange 
the  matter  with  the  President  and  Felix 
Diaz,  it  being  understood  that  the  former 
was  to  resign,  hostilities  were  to  cease,  and 
a  compromise  provisional  president  (pre- 
sumably Mr.  de  la  Barra  himself)  would 
step  in  until  order  was  completely  re- 
stored, when  elections  would  be  held,  etc. 

This  afternoon  Will  ^'-nned  a  patrol 
corps  of  the  colony.  A  number  of  for- 
eigners have  organized  to  patrol  the  streets 
during  the  night  in  case  there  should  be 
rioting  or  thieving.  There  is  one  of  the 
concentration  houses  that  I  scorned  last 
year  on  the  corner.  Will's  hours  are  kom 
ten  to  twelve  and  he  is  out  now,  walking 
up  and  down  the  block,  armed  only  with 
his  stick.  1  have  on  my  blanket  ci)at 
and  hang  out  of  the  window  for  five  min- 
utes and  then  come  back  and  write  for 
i\\c  minutes,  and  try  not  to  be  ner\-ous, 
although  my  hands  are  wet  and  like  lumj)S 
of  ice.    I  don't  think  there  is  much  danger, 


KkS 


Tlie   TraL;ic   Ten    Days  of   Maclero 


but  there  are  shots  now  and  llu-n  from 
shar|>-shiX)tcrs.  At  ninc-lliirty,  before 
Will  went  out,  George  L.  telephoned,  ask- 
ing me  to  take  some  refugees.  1  told  him 
I  had  live  grown-ups  and  one  child,  four 
servants,  and  the  niece  of  one  of  them,  a 
child  of  nine,  and  was  saving  my  one 
spare  bed  for  another  friend  (Paul  V., 
whose  neighborhood  was  becoming  less 
and  less  safe)  but  that  I  would  take  two. 
He  was  terriblv  severe  with  me  then. 
'•Look  a'  here,  .Sirs.  Mac/"  he  said,  ''this 
is  no  time  to  think  of  your  own  conve- 
nience. There  arc  people  over  here  without 
a  roof  to  shelter  them  or  a  bite  to  eat  and 
you  ought  to  be  willing  to  put  yourself  out 
a  little."  I  was  humbled  sufficiently  and 
asked  how  many  he  wanted  me  to  take,  so 
we  compromised  on  three.  I  got  out  the 
tired  maids  and  we  made  up  two  cots,  put 
out  towels  and  bath  wrappers  and  slip- 
pers and  all  we  could  think  of  to  make 
them  comfortable,  looked  in  the  ice-box  to 
see  what  there  was  for  them  to  eat,  and 
after  all  they  did  not  come.  It  kept  my 
mind  off  of  Will's  patrol  for  the  first  hour. 
It  is  just  midnight  and  he  should  be  com- 
ing in.    I  shall  be  thankful  when  he  is  safe 


indoors  again. 


Friday  evening. 
Paul  V.  came  to  lunch  to-day,  bearing  a 
great  piece  of  beef  which  he  rescued  from 
the  J.'s'  larder.  It  was  a  welcome  gift, 
for  provisions  were  getting  a  little  low 
and  ice  gave  out  to-day.  The  milkmen 
still  venture  out,  w^hich  is  a  blessing.  Paul 
said  that  the  firing  was  so  general  and  so 
close  around  this  colony  that  when  he 
crossed  Chapultepec  Avenue,  three  blocks 
away,  he  had  to  run,  which  he  found  diffi- 
cult carrying  about  twenty  pounds  of  raw 
beef.  We  joked  him  about  being  a  can- 
didate for  the  Marathon.  We  have  to 
joke  in  order  not  to  be  dismal.  While  we 
were  at  lunch  Mr.  P.  came  in  with  the 
news  that  the  Madero  residence  in  Berlin 
Street  was  in  flames.  Will  hurried  to  the 
telephone  to  advise  the  family,  but  they 
already  knew  it.  It  burned  to  the  ground 
and  only  brick  walls  are  standing.  We 
went  to  see  the  family  this  afternoon  and 
we  found  them  calm  and  brave.  "  We  are 
all  alive  and  safe,"  they  said,  "and  that  is 
much  to  be  thankful  for."  They  refused 
to  believe  that  the  burning  of  the  house 


was  si)ite  work  and  not  one  of  them  be- 
moaned the  loss  of  anything,  except  the 
youngest  daughter,  who  has  a  wonderful 
voice;  'T  am  sorry  to  lose  all  my  music," 
she  said,  and  the  older  daughter  was 
worried  about  her  dogs. 

To-night  two  friends  are  patrolling  with 
Will  and  I  am  far  less  anxious. 

Saturday  evening. 
The  firing  began  very  early  this  morn- 
ing and  there  was  shooting  at  intervals  all 
last  night.  It  seemed  much  nearer  this 
time,  and  it  turned  out  to  be  due  to  the 
fact  that  one  side  or  the  other  had  taken 
possession  of  the  German  School  not  more 
than  five  blocks  east  of  our  house.  Dur- 
ing the  morning  one  of  the  office  clerks 
telephoned  to  say  that  there  was  a  report 
in  his  neighborhood  that  Felix  Diaz  had 
been  killed  at  three  o'clock  this  morning,  so 
we  went  over  to  the  Japanese  Legation 
again  to  see  if  they  had  heard  anything 
there.  They  had  no  news,  but  another 
sister  of  the  President  had  arrived  with 
her  four  little  children,  having  been  com- 
pelled to  leave  her  ow^n  home  first,  and 
afterward  the  home  of  friends  where  she 
had  taken  refuge,  as  both  houses  had  been 
in  the  line  of  fire.  Madame  Houro- 
goutchi,  the  wife  of  the  Japanese  Charge 
d 'Affaires,  has  been  perfectly  splendid  in 
this  whole  thing  and  I  have  not  words 
enough  to  tell  you  what  they,  both  of 
them,  have  done  during  this  awful  WTek. 
It  is  not  merely  the  fact  that  they  took  in 
four  members  of  the  Madero  family,  giv- 
ing them  protection  at  the  risk  of  expos- 
ing their  Legation  to  outrage  and  them- 
selves to  diplomatic  criticism  (although 
other  Legations,  it  is  said,  are  giving  asy- 
lum to  persons  sympathizing  with  the  re- 
volt), but  they  have,  besides  their  three 
children,  sixteen  persons  of  their  ow^n  na- 
tionality under  their  protection.  Aside 
from  the  mere  domestic  aspect,  there  has 
been  continued  telephoning,  receiving  of 
visitors,  sending  out  of  messages,  this, 
that,  and  the  other,  and  those  two  peo- 
ple have  just  helped  and  sympathized  to 
the  very  utmost.  To-day  when  the  new 
family  arrived  they  were  welcomed  with 
open  arms.  I  asked  Madame  Houro- 
goutchi  if  I  could  send  over  anything,  as  I 
thought  she  might  need  linen  or  dishes  or 
other  household  necessities,  but  she  said 


The 


lYagic   Ten  Days  of  Madero 


lOf) 


the  only  thin^];  she  was  short  of  was  soap, 
so  we  left,  promising;  to  bring  some  over 
later.  There  was  still  some  tiring,  but  we 
had  become  so  hardened  that  we  paid 
little  attention  to  it,  and  as  we  came  out  on 
the  little  parked  square  we  thought  we 
would  walk  across  it  to  the  Austrian  Le- 
gation and  bring  Mr.  P.  home  to  lunch 
with  us.  He  was  just  finishing  lunch  when 
we  reached  his  house,  but  he  told  us  that 
he  believed  the  President  would  surely  re- 
sign to-morrow,  that  the  Senate  convened 
this  morning,  and  that  it,  with  the  Dip- 
lomats, were  bringing  all  possible  pres- 
sure to  bear  to  secure  a  settlement  one 
way  or  another;  he  also  said  that  General 
Angeles  had  moved  his  battery  from  the 
National  Station  to  the  corner  by  the 
American  Embassy,  ahd  that  the  Am- 
bassador had  protested  most  emphatic- 
ally to  the  President,  as  the  Embassy 
w^ould  surely  receive  the  answering  fire; 
that  General  Angeles  had  accordingly 
moved  up  a  block  and  is  at  the  foot  of 
Orizaba  Street  (our  street)  not  more  than 
three  blocks  away.  The  shooting  is  par- 
allel to  us  and  this  morning  I  noticed  the 
line  of  smoke  from  the  shells,  but  did  not 
realize  how  close  they  were. 

We  left  the  Legation  with  this  infor- 
mation, and  started  home  directly  across 
the  park  instead  of  keeping  to  the  walls 
as  we  had  done  before  we  got  so  used  to 
w^ar,  and  just  as  we  got  to  the  centre  of 
the  square,  where  the  two  streets  cross, 
zing  went  a  bullet  not  two  yards  above  our 
heads;  then  zing,  zing,  zing,  and  the  air 
was  full  of  them.  We  ran  to  the  north- 
east garden  and  threw  ourselves  fiat  on 
the  ground,  pulHng  ourselves  along  on  our 
stomachs  until  we  had  our  heads  behind  a 
tree,  like  the  proverbial  ostrich.  Com- 
paring notes  afterward,  we  found  we  had 
the  same  feeling — that  a  bullet  entering 
softly  into  the  flesh  of  the  body  would  be 
far  less  objectionable  than  one  shatter- 
ing the  skull,  but  we  did  not  analyze  at 
the  time.  The  number  of  shots  increased, 
and  some  passed  us  so  low  and  close  that 
they  seemed  to  snap  in  the  air  instead  of 
singing.  They  rang  on  the  iron  lamp- 
posts in  the  park  and  whizzed  through 
the  branches  of  the  very  trees  under  which 
we  lay,  and  fmally,  when  one  came  esi)e- 
cially  close,  hitting  the  ground  a  short  dis- 
tance from  us,  we  decided  it  would  be 


better  to  run  for  the  Austrian  Legation 
than  to  lie  there  in  the  direct  line  of  tire. 
Accordingly  we  crawled  through  the  trees 
as  far  as  they  went  and  then,  when  clear, 
rose  and  ran.  I  recalled  Will's  joke  to 
Paul  V.  about  the  Marathon  yesterday. 
When  we  reached  the  Legation  there  was 
such  a  rain  of  bullets  against  the  walls  and 
posts  that  I  dro[)ped  again  in  terror  in 
front  of  the  low  brick  C()i)ing  of  the  iron 
fence.  The  policeman  unlocked  the  gate 
and  we  hurried  in,  to  get  properly  scolded 
by  Mr.  P.  After  a  few  minutes  the  firing 
lessened,  and  we  ran  for  home;  this  time, 
needless  to  say,  hugging  the  wall  all  the 
way  around. 

After  lunch  Paul  V.  telephoned  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  him  to  get  back 
to  us;  that  the  fighting  was  waxing  hot 
on  his  street  and  that  he  had  seen  six  non- 
combatants,  probably  servants  searching 
for  food,  killed  on  the  block  where  he 
lives.  A  little  later  another  friend  tele- 
phoned that  he  had  heard  that  there  was 
fighting  in  Jalisco  Street,  two  short  blocks 
behind  us,  and,  sure  enough, a  few  minutes 
later  there  was  a  short,  rapid  battle  ap- 
parently within  a  stone's  throw  of  the 
house.  Only  one  bullet  struck  us,  that 
entering  the  wood-work  of  my  dressing- 
room  window. 

This  has  really  been  our  most  exciting 
day.  Will  is  not  patrolling  to-night,  as 
the  firing  is  too  general,  but  he  has  joined 
a  watch  of  six  Americans  who,  thank 
Heaven,  are  lurking  in  an  entry  from 
which  they  can  watch  the  i^treet  for 
blocks.  Some  one  is  patrolling  around 
and  around  on  a  motor-cycle,  which  gives 
a  weird  effect,  with  nothing  else  moving  in 
the  moonlight.  I  wish  this  awful  time 
would  end. 

Vera  Cruz,  Monday,  February  17,  1913. 
You  will  be  relieved  to  get  our  telegram 
of  this  morning  telling  you  that  we  arc 
safely  out  of  Mexico  City.  T  had  in- 
tended to  write  you  each  day  of  the  bom- 
bardment, but  yesterday  there  was  no 
time  for  writing.  Early  in  the  morning 
we  heard  that  there  was  to  be  a  twenty- 
four-hour  armistice  in  order  that  non-bel- 
ligerents who  were  in  the  line  of  tire  might 
get  to  |)laces  of  safety.  As  I  wrote  you, 
we  had  not  sulTered  for  lack  of  anything 
during  the  week,  ha\ing  had  light   and 


110 


The  Tv:\ii\c  'Vcn   Days  of  Madero 


water  and  even  luxuries,  such  as  milk  and 
butter.  Hroaci  had  been  scarce  and  very 
dear,  and  tliere  had  been  no  ice  since  Fri- 
day, but  we  had  fuel  and  enoupjh  staple 
griHTeries  for  some  time,  and  one  of  the  serv- 
ants hail  succeeded  in  getting  us  two  live 
turkeys;  there  were  a  few  tins  of  sardines 
and  salmon,  and  the  J.'s  had  brought  one 
large  tin  of  pair  dc  j'oie  gras  and  two  small 
ones  of  Camembert  cheese,  which,  while 
not  ver>-  j^raclical,  would  keep  ofT  starva- 
tion for  a  while.  We  were  very  short  of 
money,  Mr.  J.  having  but  fifteen  pesos, 
and  I'had  only  started  with  forty-five  in 
the  beginning  and  this  was  gone.  Yester- 
day morm'ng  the  water  gave  out,  so  we  all 
discussed  the  question  of  going  to  Tam- 
pico  until  after  the  trouble  was  over. 
Mr.  J.  felt  that  his  responsibility  in  con- 
nection with  the  bank  would  not  let  him 
leave,  but  we  said,  if  we  could  get  the 
money  we  would  go,  as  it  would  leave 
more  pro\'isions  for  them,  and  that  it 
would  be  two  less  to  carry  water  for.  Mr. 
T.  started  for  the  bank  with  some  friends 
in  an  automobile  and  we  asked  him  to  get 
us  some  money.  Meanwhile  we  started 
on  foot  for  the  Buena  Vista  Station  to  see 
about  trains  and  tickets.  The  streets  pre- 
sented a  curious  appearance,  crowded 
with  people  in  automobiles,  in  carts,  and 
on  foot,  taking  necessaries  to  places  of 
safety.  Automobiles  and  carts  were  piled 
^ith  mattresses,  blankets,  and  children, 
and  the  people  on  foot  were  carrying  huge 
bundles  on  their  heads  and  backs  and  in 
their  hands.  The  more  fortunate  had 
push-carts  or  baby-carriages  and  many 
were  leading  domestic  animals.  There 
were  many  pigs  being  dragged  and  pushed 
along,  and  their  squeals  of  protest  were 
appalling.  Venders  had  swarmed  out  by 
the  dozens  to  take  advantage  of  the  few 
hours  to  do  business,  and  buyers  were 
eagerly  laying  in  what  supplies  they  could. 
There  was  one  vender  with  flowers — think 
of  it— in  the  middle  of  a  bombardment ! 
Among  other  acquaintances  we  met  on 
the  streets  were  the  four  American  tennis- 
players  who  were  marooned  on  the  eve  of 
their  departure.  Taken  altogether,  it 
must  have  been  one  of  the  most  exciting 
tournaments  they  have  ever  attended. 

As  we  approached  the  centre  of  town 
the  streets  were  shocking,  full  of  debris 
and  a  mass  of  broken  wires.    There  were 


dead  horses  and  dead  men  lying  about, 
and  there  was  a  hard  dry  wind  blowing 
dust  and  disease  in  all  directions.  The 
buildings  and  houses  did  not  look  so  much 
damaged  as  we  had  expected— a  window 
broken  here  and  there,  cornices  knocked 
ofT,  a  hole  now  and  then  made  by  a  Shrap- 
nel, and  numberless  nicks  in  plaster  and 
concrete  made  by  bullets.  That  walk  de- 
cided us  to  go  if  we  could  possibly  arrange 
it,  so  we  went  to  the  Buena  Vista  Station 
by  a  roundabout  route,  which  was  the  only 
one  the  soldiers  would  permit  us  to  take. 
The  soldiers  themselves  looked  tired  and 
dirty.  At  the  Station  we  tried  to  get 
tickets  for  Tampico,  but  Mr.  Clark,  the 
General  Manager  of  the  National  Lines 
advised  us  not  to  try  to  go  as  there  had 
been  trouble  near  San  Luis  Potosi.  We 
then  went  to  the  Vera  Cruz  Station  close 
by,  intending  to  go  to  Tampico  from  Vera 
Cruz  by  boat,  and  we  found  the  whole 
building  packed  with  frenzied  refugees. 
Many  were  going  to  Puebla  on  the  after- 
noon train,  and  many  more  were  going  by 
the  night  train  to  Vera  Cruz,  and  were 
waiting  with  their  baggage  to  be  sure  to 
get  a  place.  Will  asked  about  accommo- 
dations and  was  told  that  everything  in 
the  six  Pullmans  was  sold.  He  asked  me 
if  I  would  rather  sit  up  all  night  or  stay 
at  home  in  my  good  bed,  and  I  said  I  pre- 
ferred to  go.  We  started  on  our  long 
walk  home  to  get  money  to  buy  our  tick- 
ets, intending,  in  case  Mr.  J.  had  not 
reached  his  bank,  to  get  a  check  cashed  at 
the  American  Embassy,  where  we  had 
heard  a  bank  had  been  temporarily 
opened.  About  half-way  home  we  were 
overtaken  by  an  American  in  an  automo- 
bile, who  picked  us  up  to  give  us  a  lift. 
We  had  seen  the  man  before,  but  did  not 
know  his  name.  His  house  had  been 
pierced  by  several  bullets,  and  he  was 
fearfully  nervous  and  could  hardly  wait 
to  get  out  of  the  City.  He  had  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  tickets  for  the  night 
train,  but  no  sleeping  accommodations  for 
himself  and  his  wife.  We  told  him  we 
were  going  if  we  could  get  some  money, 
and  he  told  us  excitedly  that  he  thought 
we  could  all  go  together  in  his  automobile 
to  the  Station,  and  that  he  would  send 
for  us  at  half  past  three  or  four.  We  re- 
peated that  we  did  not  have  tickets  yet, 
and  he  whipped  out  his  wallet.    ^'Here," 


The  Tragic   Tlmi    Days  of  Madcro 


111 


he  said,  ''my  name's  Williams.  You 
don't  know  me,  but  now  is  no  time  to 
stand  on  ceremony.  Take  this,"  and  he 
handed  out  a  fifty-dollar  bill  and  sent  us 
back  to  the  Station  in  his  motor.  It  was 
a  Godsend,  for  we  not  only  got  our  tickets, 
but  just  as  Will  reached  the  window  an 
extra  Pullman  was  put  on  and  we  pur- 
chased a  section  and  a  drawing-room  for 
ourselves  and  our  benefactors.  It  was 
half  past  one  by  this  time,  and  on  our  way 
home  we  heard  that  dreadful  tap-tap-tap 
of  the  rapid-fire  guns;  the  armistice  was 
broken. 

We  lunched  and  packed  our  bags.  Mr. 
J.  had  money  for  us  and  moreover  had 
managed  to  get  an  automobile  to  take  us 
to  the  Station  at  half  past  five.  That 
was  an  exciting  ride.  There  was  firing 
on  every  side — shells  as  well  as  bullets — 
and  there  was  an  additional  menace  of 
tangled  wires  underfoot  and  overhead. 
The  chauffeur  was  a  plucky  American 
boy  of  about  twenty,  and  he  made  a  won- 
derful run.  There  were  soldiers  in  every 
doorway  and  lying  behind  every  wall,  and 
the  patrol  rose  as  we  passed,  prepared  to 
stop  us.  Our  driver  waved  his  passport 
and  we  hurried  on.  He  took  the  car  care- 
fully along  in  the  lee  of  the  houses  and 
when  we  crossed  open  streets  threw  the 
throttle  wide.  A  curious  and  interesting 
sight  greeted  us  in  the  Station.  Fright- 
ened women  and  children  and  servants 
huddled  together,  piles  of  baggage,  peo- 
ple eating  and  drinking  beer  from  bottles, 
some  silent,  some  haggard,  some  repeat- 
ing stories  and  making  prognostications, 
and  many  (like  myself)  relating  their  nar- 
row escapes.  The  cannon  boomed,  trains 
pufTed,  and  bells  rang,  people  chattered 
and  moved  restlessly,  and  there  was  the 
dusty,  lurid  half-light  that  is  peculiar  to 
covered  railway  platforms.  At  last,  after 
an  almost  interminable  wait,  our  train 
pulled  out  in  two  sections,  and  we  gradu- 
ally got  away  from  the  din  of  battle.  It 
was  heaven. 

Mexico  City,  February  24,  1913. 
There  remains  little  for  me  to  tell  you 
about  the  ''tragic  ten  days,"  as  the  main 


events  will  be  published  the  world  over. 
\'era  Cruz  was  full  of  people  and  we 
found  it  impossible  to  get  steamer  ac- 
commodations to  Tami)ico,  so  we  stayed 
where  we  were  until  yesterday.  On  Tues- 
day night  the  word  came  that  the  Govern- 
ment had  fallen,  on  Thursday  came  the 
shocking  details  of  the  assassination  and 
mutilation  of  Gustavo  Madero,  and  the 
news  of  the  accidental  shooting  of  an  in- 
timate friend  of  Will's.  On  Friday  and 
Saturday  rumors  began  to  circulate  that 
the  deposed  President  and  Vice-President 
had  also  been  shot.  That  they  did  not 
pass  through  Vera  Cruz  on  their  way  out 
of  the  country  was  clear,  and  we  began  to 
be  apprehensive.  Yesterday  on  the  truin 
we  saw  the  confirmation  of  the  shooting 
published  in  all  the  papers.  Not  three 
years  ago  Francisco  I.  IMadero  told  us  he 
was  prepared  to  give  up  his  life  for  his 
cause,  and  the  sacrifice  has  been  made. 

We  walked  to  town  this  morning,  going 
through  the  precinct  around  the  citadel, 
and  were  surprised  to  see  how  clean  and 
comparatively  unchanged  the  City  is.  All 
the  dirt  and  debris  and  tangled  wires  and 
fallen  posts  have  been  removed,  and  there 
are  no  evidences  of  carnage.  The  trams 
are  running  and  lights  going,  and  work- 
men are  already  busy  in  all  departments 
repairing  damage.  Many  buildings  are 
badly  shelled,  some  wrecked,  a  very  few 
burned.  The  upper  story  of  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  building  is  shattered,  the  beautiful 
residence  of  Madame  S.  is  riddled  with 
shells,  and  a  clock  tower  near  the  Citadel 
is  a  mere  handful  of  iron  and  cement. 
Masons  are  at  work,  however,  and  in  some 
cases  rents  and  holes  are  already  filled 
W'ith  cement  and  plaster.  In  six  days  the 
outward  evidences  of  a  mortal  combat  are 
almost  removed.  The  real  story  that  lies 
beneath  what  we  have  seen,  the  story  of 
intrigue,  of  plots,  of  grudges  and  griev- 
ances, in  short,  the  political  story  in  all 
its  complexity,  may  never  be  made  public, 
but  it  is  there  like  some  invisible,  vital 
thing.  All  that  we  sec  is  that  a  Govern- 
ment has  fallen  at  the  exjiense  of  hun- 
dreds of  li\'es  and  a  new  one  has  risen  on 
its  bloody  remains. 


nil:    POETRY    OF    THE    FUTURE 

By  Austin   Dobson 

(SuiSBTsteil  by  a  lecture  on  "The  Future  of  English  Poetry."  delivered  by  Edmund  Gosse,  in  June.  1913) 

Bards  of  the  Future!  you  that  come 
With  striding  march,  and  roll  of  drum, 
What  will  your  newest  challenge  be 
To  our  prose-bound  community? 

What  magic  will  you  find  to  stir 
The  limp  and  languid  listener? 
Will  it  be  daring  and  dramatic? 
Will  it  be  frankly  democratic? 

Will  Pegasus  return  again, 
In  guise  of  modern  aeroplane, 
Descending  from  a  cloudless  blue, 
To  drop  on  us  a  bomb  or  two? 

I  know  not.     Far  be  it  from  me 
To  darken  dark  futurity, 
Still  less  to  render  more  perplexed 
The  last  vagary,  or  the  next. 

Leave  Pindus  Hill  to  those  who  list, 
Iconoclast  or  anarchist — 
So  be  it.     ''They  that  break  shall  pay." 
I  stand  upon  the  ancient  way. 

I  hold  it  for  a  certain  thing, 
That,  blank  or  rhyming,  song  must  sing; 
And  more,  that  what  is  good  for  verse 
Need  not,  *by  dint  of  rhyme,  grow  worse. 

I  hold  that  they  who  deal  in  rhyme 
Must  take  the  standpoint  of  the  time, 
But  not  to  catch  the  public  ear, 
As  mountebank  or  pulpiteer; 

That  the  old  notes  are  still  the  new, 
If  the  musician's  touch  be  true. 
Nor  can  the  hand  that  knows  its  trade, 
Achieve  the  trite  and  ready-made; 

That  your  first  theme  is  Human  Life, 
Its  hopes  and  fears,  its  love  and  strife, 
A  theme  no  custom  can  efface, 
Common,  but  never  commonplace; 

For  this,  beyond  all  doubt,  is  plain: 

The  Truth  that  pleased,  will  please  again. 

And  move  men  as  in  bygone  years 

When  Hector's  wdfe  smiled  through  her  tears. 


112 


Nasmyth  portrait  of  Robert  Burns,  painted  in  1787. 


Beugo's  engraving,  after  the  Nasmyth  painting. 


THE    PORTRAITS    OF   BURNS 

Bv  J.  Cuthbert  Haddfeir- 


"  Was  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand 
ships, 
And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium?  " 

Asks  Marlowe,  writing  of  the  vision  of 
golden  Helen.  A  similar  question  has  been 
asked  in  regard  to  the  diverging  portraits 
of  Mary  Stuart.  Was  this  the  face  that 
turned  so  many  heads  some  three  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago?  The  Queen  of  Scots 
was  assuredly  bewitching.  Knox  admits 
it,  KnoUys  asserts  it,  Ruthven  lost  his 
heart  to  her  in  Lochleven  Castle;  who- 
ever saw  her  desired  her.  Yet  not  one  of 
Mary's  portraits  represents  her  as  beauti- 
ful. Romney  has  sufficiently  ex])lained 
the  fascination  of  Lady  Hamilton  for  Nel- 
son. But  Mary  Stuart's  charm  remains 
unexplained  by  her  portraits.  So  with 
her  descendant,  the  romantic,  the  "bon- 
nie  Prince  Charlie."  None  of  his  ])()rtraits 
accounts  for  the  extraordinary  glamour 
that  his  personality  cast  over  the  ladies 
who  interested  themselves  in  the  '45. 
Even  the  prince's  "bonnie  young  Flora" 
is  represented  in  one  portrait  as  a  simper- 
VoL.  LV.— 10 


ing  person  after  the  style  of  the  old  "  books 
of  beauty,"  while  in  another  she  appears 
nearer  like  the  typical  Highland  lassie  she 
presumably  was. 

And  what  about  Burns?  The  point  I 
wish  to  make  is  that  the  old  portrait-paint- 
ers are  not  to  be  depended  on  for  strict 
fidelity  to  their  originals.  The  mere  fact 
that  they  differ  so  much  in  their  repre- 
sentations of  the  same  subject  is  enough 
to  prove  it.  In  regard  to  Burns,  the  ques- 
tion bears  a  twofold  aspect.  Not  only  do 
the  portraits  of  the  poet  disagree  with 
one  another,  but  even  that  which,  by  its 
frequent  reproduction,  has  tacitly  been 
accepted  as  the  truest  rei)resentation  can- 
not have  been  exactly  like  him  when  it 
was  done.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  fa- 
miliar Nasmyth  head  and  bust,  painted  in 
1787,  when  lUirns  was  carrying  all  l)efore 
him  on  his  hrst  visit  to  I^dinburgh. 

Consider  what  his  life  had  been  up  to 
this  (late.  "  It  is  hard  to  be  born  in  Scot- 
land," says  the  brilliant  Parisian.  Burns 
himself  would  not,  in  his  i)ride,  have  ad- 

J«3 


ni 


The   Portraits  of  Burns 


r.aiuii  I  In-  hanlshij^;  yi't 
il  hard  ciu)imh  lor  him.  in 


Fulc  had  made 
conscience. 
The  son  of  |)Oor,  strup.JzlinK  parents.  ])eal- 
en  clown  and  defeated  a.^aiii  and  again  m 
their  l'ii,du  with  untoward  circumstances, 
Robert  Burns 
was  toilini; 
Hke  a  grow  n 
man  on  his 
father's  mis- 
erable littL- 
upland  fami. 
with  its  nig- 
gard, cold, 
hungr)^  soil, 
while  he  was 
still  in  his 
early  teens. 
The  manu- 
al drudgery 
was  of  the  se- 
verest kind 
—  turning 
the  furrow 
with  the  old 
heavy  four- 
o.x  plough, 
exacting  and 
unsavory  at- 
tentions  to 
cattle  and 
horses,  sow- 
ing and  reap- 
ing (both  by 
hand),  cut- 
ting of  peats, 
threshing  by 
flail,  and  all 
the  other  oj)- 
erations  inci- 
dental to  the  agriculturist.  Burns  spoke 
of  the  life  of  his  teens  as  combining  ''the 
cheerless  gloom  of  a  hermit  with  the  un- 
ceasing moil  of  a  galley-slave."    The  un- 


Portrait  of  Burns,  by  Nasmyth. 


liim  "strong  and  robust,"  with  a  counte- 
nance "more  massive  than  it  looks  in  any 
of  his  portraits";  adding  that  if  he  had 
not  known  w'ho  he  was  he  would  have 
taken  him  for  "a  very  sagacious  country 

farmer  of  the 
old  Scotch 
school — the 
douce  gude- 
man  who 
held  his  own 
plough."  Al- 
lan Cunning- 
ham said  he 
appeared 
"more  swar- 
thy than  he 
does  in  Na- 
smyth's  pic- 
ture." Jo- 
siah  Walker, 
who  break- 
fasted with 
him  at  Dr. 
Blacklock's, 
wrote  that 
his  person 
was  "rather 
coarse  in  its 
outline,"  and 
his  features 
"not  of  that 
elegant  cast 
which  is  most 
frequent  a- 
mong  the  up- 
per ranks." 
IfWalkerhad 
met  him  near 
a  seaport  he 
would  have  put  him  down  as  the  master  of 
a  merchant  vessel!  The  poet's  youngest 
sister,  Isabella,  said :  "He  was  a  far  bigger 
and  rougher  man  than  his  portraits.    In 


Made  for  Lockhart's  ''  Life  of  Burns' 
(1828). 


ceasing  moil  continued  right  up  to  the  time  fact,  they  tried  to  make  him  look  like  a 
when,  in  his  twenty-seventh  year,  he  rode  gentleman,  and  he  was  not  one."  Mary 
off  to  Edinburgh  to  be  Uonized  there,  and    Cosby  Wallace,  who  was  intimate  enough 


— painted  by  Nasmyth — the  ploughman 
direct  from  the  plough.  Could  he,  by  any 
possibility,  have  looked  so  refined  as  Na- 
smyth has  made  him? 

Not  so  long  before  he  had  been  de- 
scribed as  "rude  and  clownish,"  with  a 
stoop  in  the  shoulders,  the  result  of  excess- 
ive labor  in  the  fields.  Scott,  who  met 
him  during  his  Edinburgh  triumphs,  found 


with  Burns  to  receive  from  him  a  china  tea- 
service  on  her  marriage,  asserted  that  his 
portraits  make  him  "too  fine-looking  a 
man,  for  he  was  coarser  to  look  at,  and  had 
terrible  eyes." 

All  this  may  be  taken  as  bearing  more 
particularly  on  the  accepted  Nasmyth 
portrait,  which  seems  to  be  strained  for  a 
poetic  effect;   ideal  rather  than  real;  like 


The   Portraits  of  Burns 


IIT) 


Longfellow's  vision,  "a  form  of  mingled 
mist  and  light."  It  refines  the  face  away, 
till  liurns  appears  like  some  lisping  Cory- 
don  instead  of  the  large-eyed,  amorous- 
mouthed  minstrel  of  Caledonia.  Scott 
thought  the  painting  represented  him  as 
seen  in  perspective;  and  Beugo,  the  en- 
graver, in  retouching  the  plate,  after  sev- 
eral meetings  with 
Burns,  tried  to  cor- 
rect this  over-re- 
finement by  short- 
ening the  face  and 
rounding  the  chin. 
Gilbert  Burns  de- 
clared that  the  en- 
graving showed 
more  character  and 
expression  than  the 
picture  itself,  but 
Beugo  really  vul- 
garized the  face, 
the  scale  on  which 
he  worked  being, 
moreover,  too  small 
to  enable  him  to 
grasp  the  details  of 
the  features. 

As  regards  Na- 
smyth,  it  should  be 
remembered  that  he 
was  chiefly  a  paint- 
er of  landscapes,  and 
that  he  undertook 
this  portrait  reluc- 
tantly, upon  the 

urgent  request  of  Creech,  the  publisher  of 
the  Edinburgh  (1787)  edition  of  the  poems. 
His  full-length  portrait  in  top-boots  and 
buckskins,  standing  in  rapt  thought,  was 
done  forLockhart's  "Life  ofBurns"  (1828), 
from  a  pencil  sketch  made  when  he  and 
the  poet  visited  Roslin  together.  Lock- 
hart  says  that  Burns's  then  surviving 
friends  were  unanimous  in  pronouncing  it 
to  be  a  very  lively  representation  of  him 
as  he  first  attracted  notice  on  the  Edin- 
burgh streets.  The  attitude  is  certainly 
very  happily  caught.  The  original  pencil 
sketch  of  this  i)()rtrait  is  now  in  posses- 
sion of  Lord  Rosebery. 

Though  not  the  best  known,  the  por- 
trait by  Archiljald  Skirving  accords  more 
nearly  with  one's  idea  of  what  Burns  was 
probably  like.  It  suggests  altogether  a 
more  striking  personality.    There  is  a  po- 


Burns,  by  Archibald  Skirving. 


etic  dignity  and  classic  elegancy  in  the 
sentiment  and  handling,  a  nobility  luid  a 
grave  thoughtfulness  about  the  lace  that 
are  absent  from  the  other  portraits.  Here 
is  no  idealized  face,  like  the  Nasmyth; 
here  is  the  rustic  and  the  poet  limned  with 
such  living  reality  that,  seeing  it,  one 
si'ems  to  have  seen  Burns  himself.     As 

compared  with  the 
Nasmyth,  the  head 
is  more  compactly 
l)uilt,  the  hair 
thicker,  and  the  jaw 
squarer.  There  is 
more  detail,  and 
firmer  drawing  in 
the  line  of  the  eye- 
brow, while  the  eye 
(smaller  and  with 
more  gravity  than 
the  Nasmyth) 
beams  rather  than 
flashes,  yet  looks  as 
if  it  could  blaze. 

It  has  been  ob- 
jected that  ''the 
eyes  are  deficient  in 
fire."  We  know 
from  many  descrip- 
tions about  the 
power  and  fascina- 
tion of  Burns's  eyes 
— when  he  was  in- 
terested or  excited. 
Scott  said  he  never 
saw  such  eyes  in  a 
human  head :  they  "  literally  glowed  when 
he  spoke  with  feeling  and  animation." 
But  genius  is  not  usually  animated  when 
sitting  for  its  portrait  (Burns,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  was  in  torture  on  such  occasions), 
and  no  good  artist  would  dream  of  trying 
to  ])ut  into  a  portrait  what  some  peoj)le 
might  expect — "the  fierce  vivacity  that 
fires  the  eye  of  genius  fancy-crazed."  It 
is  really  a  merit  of  the  Skirving  })icture 
that  one  sees,  not  the  eyes  as  they  ap- 
peared in  their  occasional  "  tuie  fren/y," 
but  rather  the  possibilities  of  expression 
that  lie  latent  in  them. 

It  is  a  matter  of  debate  whether  Burns 
sat  to  Skir\ing  for  this  portrait  or  whether 
Skirxing  worked  it  uj)  from  the  iieugo  en- 
graving of  the  Nasmyth,  with  hints  from 
the  Miers  silhouette  and  from  nu-mbers  of 
the  poet's  family  and  others  who  knew 


iir. 


him.     Tlu-  inti-rna 


V\\c   Portraits  of  Burns 


i'\i(kMut'  suggests  ti) 


e.\|)erts  that  there-  must  have  l)een  sittings. 
If  there  were  not,  Siiys  one,  "where  did 
the  artist  gel  the  tnie  expression  his  draw- 
ing undoul)tedly  possesses?"  The  late 
Sir  Theinlore  Martin,  who  bought  the 
original  (it  is  in  red  chalk  on  yellowish 
pajxT)  in  1881.  wrote:  "It  is  clear  to  any 
one  familiar  with  art  that  no  such  por- 
trait as  Skirving's  could  ha\e  been  made 
by  a  man  who  had  not  studied  Burns's 
face  from  the  life. 
Many  of  the  best 
artists  of  the  day 
have  seen  the  ])or- 
trait  on  my  wall, 
and  they  were  all  of 
this  mind."  On 
the  other  hand,  we 
have  Allan  Cun- 
ningham's state- 
ment to  the  effect 
that  Skirving  told 
him  he  had  never 
even  seen  Burns. 
"But  I  wrought 
from  authentic  ma- 
terials," he  said. 

The  Miers  silhou- 
ette, done  in  1787, 
"in  two  minutes," 
as  Burns  tells,  is  in- 
teresting in  many 
ways.  The  nose  is 
longer  than  that  of 
the  Nasmyth  and 
slightly  tip-tilted, 

the  under  lip  heavier  and  not  so  fine. 
The  line  of  the  mouth  is  simpler  and 
so  far  better,  though  it  is  not  drawn  in 
true  perspective  to  the  rest  of  the  face. 
The  line  of  the  head  is  unfortunately  lost 
to  some  extent  by  the  queue  worn  by 
Burns  at  this  time.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, with  the  exception  of  the  nose,  which 
materially  alters  the  character  and  aspect 
of  the  face,  the  silhouette  is  in  fair  har- 
mony w^ith  the  Nasmyth  portrait. 

Of  practically  the  same  date  as  the 
Nasmyth  and  the  Miers  is  the  puzzling 
portrait  by  Peter  Taylor.  This  is  so  un- 
like the  Nasmyth  and  all  the  other  por- 
traits that  one  is  inclined  to  reject  it  as 
an  impossible  "Burns."  The  poet  wears 
a  broad-brimmed,  Quaker-looking  hat, 
somewhat  slouched.    His  right  hand  is  in 


Silhouette  made  by  Miers  iji  1787 


his  bosom,  and  he  is  seated  among  rocks 
and  trees  in  a  posture  of  meditation.  The 
left  cheek  shows  a  whisker,  which  neither 
the  Nasmyth  nor  the  Skirving  does,  and 
no  straggling  locks  appear  as  in  the  better- 
known  portraits,  with  which,  again,  the 
lower  portion  of  the  face  does  not  corre- 
spond. The  figure,  besides,  is  that  of  a 
much  stouter  person  than  we  know  Burns 
to  have  been,  and  looks  more  like  fifty  than 
twenty-seven.     Is  it  possible  to  identify 

this  staid,  stolid- 
featured  man  with 
the  flashing-eyed 
poet  who  'charmed 
the  belles  of  Edin- 
burgh and  carried 
even  the  Duchess 
of  Gordon  "off  her 
feet"?  Hardly! 
Yet  it  was  positive- 
ly asserted  by  Tay- 
lor's widow  that 
her  husband  had 
painted  the  portrait 
from  life. 

Peter  Taylor  is 
described  by  Lock- 
hart  as  "an  artist 
of  considerable  ce- 
lebrity." He  was, 
in  fact,  a  coach- 
painter  who  occa- 
sionally executed 
likenesses.  Mrs. 
Taylor,  who  re- 
tained and  jealously 
guarded  this  portrait  till  her  death  in  1828, 
said  that  Burns  gave  Taylor  three  sittings, 
but  it  is  significant  that  Burns  nowhere 
mentions  either  Taylor  or  the  fact  of 
having  sat  to  any  artist  but  Nasmyth  and 
Reid. 

However  that  may  be,  we  have  to 
reckon  with  the  curious  circumstance  that 
several  who  knew  Burns  accepted  this  as 
an  authentic  portrait.  His  brother  Gil- 
bert pronounced  it  "particularly  like 
Robert  in  the  form  and  air."  Mrs.  Burns 
said:  "The  likeness  to  the  upper  part  of 
the  face  is  very  striking."  Mrs.  McLe- 
hose,  the  poet's  "Clarinda,"  wrote:  "In 
my  opinion  it  is  the  most  striking  likeness 
of  Burns  I  have  ever  seen."  A  Dumfries 
schoolmaster  exclaimed:  "Burns,  every 
inch!   every  feature!"    Sir  Walter  Scott 


r^ 

^^^^Wp^-'!; 

mp^ 

j^^^^^^^Kv^  * '^^ 

^Ht 

■^^^^^^^^^^K^ 

H^^^HKlH^ 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^L:  '      ^  4^1 

^H^^P^ 

^^gT^T-^j^^^^^^^ 

The  supposed  miniature  by  Reid. 


Oil  sketch,  by  an  unknown  artist,  in  possession  of 
Burns's  mother  at  the  time  ol  her  death. 


wrote  in  1829: 
''Burns  was  so 
remarkable  a 
man  that  his  fea- 
tures remain  im- 
pressed on  my 
mind  as  if  I  had 
seen  him  only 
yesterday,  and  I 
could  not  hesi- 
tate to  recognize 
this  portrait  as 
a  striking  resem- 
blance of  the  po- 
et, though  it  had 
been  presented  to 
me  amid  a  whole 
exhibition." 
Charles  Kirkpat- 
rick  Sharpe,  who 
had  known  Burns 
well,  wrote  that 
the  portrait  was 
''extremely  like 
him,"  and  that 

there  could  be  no  doubt  about  its  authen- 
ticity. 

All  this  seems  positive  enough — convic- 
tions of  relatives  and  friends  cannot  be 
lightly  ignored.    On  the  other  hand,  Mr. 


Portrait  by  Peter  Taylor,  about  1787. 


William  Hall,  of 
Liverpool,  who 
had  met  the  poet 
several  times, 
could  "find  no 
resemblance  to 
Burns  in  this  sup- 
posed likeness  of 
him, and  laughed 
at  the  idea  of  any 
one  thinking  so." 
He  left  it  on  rec- 
ord that  he  was 
confirmed  in  his 
scepticism  by 
three  or  four  dis- 
tinguished inti- 
mates of  Burns. 
The  poet's  sister, 
Isabella,  said 
it  was  at  first 
thought  to  be  a 
portrait  of  Rob- 
ert, but  that  the 
family  aftenvards 
agreed  it  was  meant  for  Gilbert.  Hut  then 
we  have  Gilbert's  explicit  statement  that 
he  considered  it  like  Robert  1  The  ques- 
tion need  not  be  labored.  The  'I'aylor 
portrait,  whether  painted  from  lilV  or  not, 

117 


lis 


The   Portraits  of   Hums 


dvK's  not  carry  iis  own  cn  iilcncc  along  with 
it.  sti  to  spt-ak,  and  the  ]Hiblic  have  rc- 
iuscd  to  accept  it  iis  a  faithful  and  satis- 
facton-  "Hums."  Indeed,  when  it  was 
lirst  engraved,  in  1S30.  so  far  from  secur- 
ing confidence,  it  became  the  subject  of 
protest  and  heated  discussion. 

We  come  now  to  the  sui)i)osed  Reid 
miniature.  In  a 
letter  of  January, 
I  7q6,  addressed  to 
his  friend  Mrs. 
Walter  Riddell, 
Ikirns  wrote  from 
Dumfries: 

"Apropos  of  pic- 
tures, I  am  just 
sitting  to  Reid  in 
this  town  for  a 
miniature,  and  I 
think  he  has  hit  by 
far  the  best  like- 
ness of  me  ever 
taken.  When  you 
are  at  any  time  so 
idle  in  town  as  to 
call  at  Reid's  paint- 
ing-room, and  men- 
tion to  him  that 
I  spoke  of  such  a 
thing  to  you,  he  will 
show  it  to  you,  else 
he  will  not;  for  both 
the  miniature's  ex- 
istence and  its  destiny  are  an  inviolable 
secret,  and  therefore  very  properly  trusted, 
in  part,  to  you." 

The  miniature  thus  referred  to  is  iden- 
tified by  experts  with  that  now  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery,  Edinburgh, 
and  here  reproduced.  It  bears  no  signa- 
ture or  mark  of  any  kind  nor  can  its  his- 
tory be  traced.  It  was,  like  the  Miers 
silhouette,  long  in  the  collection  of  the  late 
^Ir.  W.  F.  Watson,  who  believed  it  to  be 
by  Reid.  He  attached  such  value  and  im- 
portance to  it  that  he  would  not  allow  it 
out  of  his  keeping;  but  he  lent  it  for  some 
time  to  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevenson,  R.S.A., 
while  the  latter  was  modelling  a  head  of 
Burns.  Mr.  Stevenson's  professional  opin- 
ion of  the  portrait  may  therefore  fittingly 
be  quoted.    He  says: 

"Fortunately  this  miniature  gives  the 
left  side  of  the  face  in  profile.  To  me  it 
bears  all  the  internal  evidence  of  having 


The  "Kerry"  miniatu 


been  taken  from  life.     There  is  a  spirit 
about  it,  an  amount  and  accuracy  of  de- 
tail, extending  to  the  ear,  which  is  well- 
drawn,  incompatible  with  the  supposition 
of  its  being  a  concoction.    The  small  por- 
tion of  the  ear  seen  in  Nasmyth's  paint- 
ing is  badly  suggested,  and  the  defective 
drawing  of  the  original  has  been  aggra- 
vated, more  or  less, 
in  nearly  all  the 
copies  and  engrav- 
ings. This  minia- 
ture harmonizes 
with  the  Nasmyth 
and  the  silhouette, 
but  with  a  differ- 
ence —  the   differ- 
ence of  time.     I 
perceive  in  it,  small 
as  the  features  are, 
a  trace  of  tear  and 
wear  in  the  firmer 
and  rather  harder 
look  of  the  mouth. 
Altogether,  I  can- 
not help  imagin- 
ing that  the  artist 
only  too  faithfully 
caught  and  pre- 
served  a   marked 
falling  off,  com- 
pared with  the  face 
of  the  young  poet, 
who  looks  with  eyes 
beaming  with  hope  and  enthusiasm  from 
the  canvas  of  Nasmyth." 

The  miniature  was  painted  when  Burns 
was  broken  in  health,  and  it  certainly 
bears  the  mark  of  the  years — on  the  brow, 
in  the  harder  features,  and  in  the  sunken 
eyes.  A  small  black  whisker,  it  will  be 
noted,  comes  down  to  the  lobe  of  the  ear. 
Compare  this  with  the  Taylor  portrait. 
Burns,  we  have  seen,  expressed  a  dis- 
tinct preference  for  the  Reid  miniature, 
but  he  was  an  unreliable  judge  in  the  mat- 
ter of  his  portraits.  He  eulogized  them 
all,  and  the  latest  was  always  the  best. 

We  arrive,  finally,  at  what  is  known  as 
the  "Kerry"  miniature,  an  almost  tragic 
portrait  of  the  poet,  done  shortly  be- 
fore his  death.  It  is  a  morbid,  inartistic 
thing,  poor  in  color,  badly  drawn,  and 
badly  painted.  The  hair — black,  mixed 
with  gray — is  thin  and  flat,  without  part- 
ing, and  clumsily  wisped  into  a  ball  at  the 


The   Portraits  of  Burns 


119 


back  of  the  neck.  The  eyes  are  dark- 
brown,  with  a  bloodshot  apj)earance,  the 
right  larger  than  the  left;  the  right  cheek 
is  hollow,  while  the  left  is  plump  and  chub- 
by. Nor  are  the  eyebrows,  any  more  than 
the  cheeks,  a  pair.  The  superciliary  ridge 
over  the  left  eye  is  far  too  high,  and  the 
upper  lid  of  the  right  is  '' wavy  "  or  zigzag, 
through  (we  may  be  sure)  the  incapacity 
and  not  the  intention  of  the  draughts- 
man. The  ear  is  slovenly,  without  form, 
or  even  the  suggestion  of  character;  the 
nose  strong,  long,  and  hooked. 

The  artist  must  have  been  wTong  about 
the  hair,  for  when  the  poet's  remains  w^re 
disinterred  in  1815  ''the  dark  curling  locks 
were  as  glossy  and  seemed  as  fresh  as  on  the 
day  of  his  death."  He  must  have  been 
equally  wrong  about  the  nose.  Thin  and 
worn  as  doubtless  Burns  had  become,  the 
nose  could  not  have  been  so  transformed  as 
thus  to  contradict  all  the  descriptions  of 
his  personal  appearance  with  which  we  are 
acquainted.  "  His  nose,"  we  are  told, "  was 
short  rather  than  long. ' '  Compare  the  nose 
here  with  the  Nasmyth  and  the  Miers. 
Physiognomists  would  assuredly  pronounce 
it  an  impossible  nose  for  a  poet. 

It  is  indeed  not  easy  to  state  a  verdict 
for  this  last  portrait  of  Burns.  It  shows 
a  remarkable '  correspondence  with  the 
cast  of  his  skull,  here  reproduced,  as  in  the 
lean  of  the  head  (the  position  and  projec- 
tion of  the  eyebrows  cause  an  apparent 
recession  of  the  forehead)  and  the  heavy 
back  portion  of  the  head.  That  it  is  poor 
as  a  work  of  art  is  only  too  apparent ;  that  it 


is  out  of  keeping  with  the  other  portraits 
seems  at  first  sight  ec|ually  apparent.  But 
it  is  the  left  eye  and  cheek  that  give  the 
peculiarly  severe  and  harsh  and  unfamiliar 
look.  If  one  covers  the  left  side  with  a 
piece  of  dark  paper  down  close  to  the  right 
eye  the  rest  will  be  found  not  so  inaccord- 
ant  with  the  other  portraits  after  all. 

Of  course  we  do  not  know  precisely  what 
Burns  looked  like  when,  his  constitution 
undermined  by  dissijxition  and  neglect,  he 
was  about  to  go  to  the  grave  at  the  early 
age  of  thirty-seven.  As  the  present  owner 
of  the  portrait.  Dr.  Hately  Waddell  (who 
has  kindly  allowed  me  to  copy  it),  writes: 

"I  recall  the  saying  of  a  man  who 
saw  the  portrait:  'If  that  is  Burns,  then 
I  don't  want  to  remember  him  like  that.' 
I  quite  agree.  But  there  is  no  need.  It 
represents  only  a  phase,  the  last  of  his 
life.  Nasmyth  is  popular,  this  is  jmthetic ; 
Nasmyth  is  in  the  sunshine,  this  is  in  the 
shadow.  But  the  two  aspects  of  the  life 
are  needed  to  make  it  complete.  The  jolly 
ploughman  of  the  tap-room  is  all  very 
well,  but  that  was  only  one  side;  this, 
alas !  is  the  other."  Perhaps  we  had  better 
leave  it  at  that.  The  history  of  the  por- 
trait is  perfectly  valid,  though  nothing  is 
known  as  to  the  name  of  the  painter. 

For  the  sake  of  completeness,  it  may  be 
well  to  reproduce  [p.  117]  the  portrait 
W'hich  was  in  possession  of  the  poet's 
mother  when  she  died  in  1820.  It  is  from 
an  oil  sketch  done  by  an  unknown  artist, 
w^ho  probably  worked  from  the  Nasmyth 
head  and  bust. 


/j^;;;;^ 


Cast  uf  skull. 


<{  ^.>.>'*''"^- 


WITH    THE   WINTER    MAIL 

By  George   T.  Marsh 

Illustrations  by  Frank  E.  Schoonover 


FOR  three  days  the  Fort  Hope  Christ- 
mas mail  had  fought  its  way  through 
the  bUzzard  that  beat  down  from 
the  Kapiskau  barrens  upon  the  frozen  Al- 
bany. For  three  days  old  Pierre,  break- 
ing trail  through  the  drifting  snow  to  give 
footing  to  his  panting  dog-team,  or  swing- 
ing his  goad  of  plaited  caribou  hide  from 
behind  the  sled  while  his  nephew,  Esau, 
took  the  lead,  had  plunged  head  down 
into  the  gale.  Stinging  like  the  lash  of 
myriad  whips,  the  pitiless  northwester 
had  seamed  the  frost-blackened  faces  of 
the  men  with  cracks,  cutting  the  noses  of 


the  laboring  huskies  until  they  whined 
with  pain.  At  times,  when  the  fury  of  the 
snow-swirls  which  enveloped  them  in  a 
blur  of  white  had  sucked  their  very  breath, 
the  men  threw  themselves  gasping  beside 
the  ice-coated  dogs  whose  red  lips  and 
tongues,  to  which  clung  the  frozen  froth  of 
their  hot  mouths,  alone  marked  them  as 
living  things.  Still,  hour  after  hour,  they 
had  hurled  themselves  headlong  into  the 
storm.  And  ever  as  they  had  conquered 
each  hard-won  mile  of  the  frozen  river, 
the  parting  words  of  the  factor  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  at  Fort  Albany 


1 20 


With  the  Winter  Mail 


121 


lived  again  in  the  ears  of  the  old  half- 
breed — words  which  had  etched  them- 
selves into  his  memory  as  he  left  the  post, 
asleep  under  the  stars  in  the  gray  dusk  of 
the  December  morning,  to  take  the  long 
Fort  Hope  trail. 

Whenever,  at  daylight,  the  boy  had 
urged  that  they  remain  in  camp,  deep  in 
the  shelter  of  the  spruce,  until  the  storm 
blew  itself  out,  the  sting  of  those  last 
words  of  the  factor  had  spurred  him  on  as 
a  rowel  drives  a  spent  steed.  Always  his 
reply  had  been  a  hoarse  "Marchel"  as  he 
struck  the  lead-dog  with  an  unwonted 
fierceness  that  Esau  could  not  compre- 
hend. But  old  Pierre  had  not  deigned  to 
voice  the  thoughts  that  consumed  him, 
and  the  boy,  Indian-like,  did  not  ques- 
tion. So,  forcing  the  huskies  to  the  limit 
of  their  endurance  and  encouraging  the 
lad,  who  already  showed  signs  of  the  phys- 
ical strain  of  the  battle  with  wind  and 
snow,  the  old  Cree  had  pushed  on  and  on. 

''In  canoe  or  on  snow-shoes  no  better 
man  has  served  the  Company.  But  you're 
stiffening  up  and  growing  too  old  to  take 
the  winter  mail  to  Fort  Hope.  It's  the 
toughest  trail  in  the  north  country,  and 
next  year  a  younger  man  will  go,  for  the 
mail  must  get  through  on  time." 

These  were  the  words  that  for  four  days 
had  tortured  the  pride  of  the  old  Com- 
pany servant,  repeating  and  repeating 
themselves  through  every  white  mile  of 
the  shifting,  drift-barred  trail.  He  re- 
called, too,  how  the  factor  had  rested  his 
hand  kindly  on  his  shoulder  and  gripped 
his  fingers  at  parting  as  if  to  lighten  the 
blow — the  blow  that  had  been  the  death- 
knell  of  his  manhood. 

And  so  at  last,  he  mused,  the  end  had 
come — the  end  foretold  of  late  years  by 
recurring  twinges  of  "mal  raquette,"  and 
stiffened  back  on  portage  and  river.  He 
had  hoped  that  he  had  concealed  it  from 
the  younger  men,  but  now  even  the  factor 
knew.  Fiercely  the  pride  of  the  French 
blood  of  his  father  and  the  stoicism  of  the 
Cree  had  fought  for  mastery  within  him 
through  the  miles  of  white  silence  on  the 
first  day  out.  But  in  vain  he  battled  with 
the  demons  that  mocked.  The  sentence 
that  he  knew  some  day  must  come  to  all 
men  had  come  now  to  him.  So  this  was 
his  last  long  trail.  At  length,  age  had 
struck  him  down  as  the  timber-wolves  in 


winter  strike  down  an  old  caribou  de- 
serted by  the  herd.  A  few  years  of  light 
river  work  and  easy  trips  with  the  dogs, 
and  then  a  seat  at  the  fire  with  the  squaws 
and  old  men,  remained  to  him,  Pierre 
Grassette,  who,  among  the  swift  dog-run- 
ners of  all  the  wide  North,  had  met  none, 
half-breed,  red  man,  or  white,  who  coulcl 
take  the  trail  from  him  in  the  days  of  his 
youth. 

This  which  he  had  dreaded  above  all 
things;  this  ignominy  which  in  the  last  few 
years  he  had  prayed  he  might  be  spared; 
this  rusting  out  at  a  post — would  be  his  lot. 
He  had  longed  to  die  on  the  trail,  in  har- 
ness. But  his  dearest  wish  was  to  be  de- 
nied him,  this  death  of  a  man,  which  had 
overtaken  so  many  of  his  comrades. 

Years  before,  one  still  in  the  flush  of 
early  manhood  had  drowned  with  the 
crew  of  a  Company's  boat  in  the  great 
gorge  of  the  Abitibi.  Another,  strong  as 
a  young  moose,  had  been  frozen  with 
his  dogs  on  the  Nepigon  trail;  a  third, 
stabbed  in  a  brawl  at  Henley  House;  but 
he,  the  last  of  them,  would  rot  with  gar- 
rulous squaws  and  toothless  old  men  at 
Fort  Albany,  a  pensioner  of  the  Company. 

Time  and  again,  as  he  urged  on  young 
Esau  and  the  dogs,  had  his  thoughts  trav- 
ersed the  forty  years  as  man  and  boy 
that  he  had  served  so  faithfully  the  mas- 
ters he  had  never  seen,  who  dwelt  far  to- 
ward the  rising  sun  across  the  Big  Water. 
Instinctively  he  had  quickened  his  ])ace  as 
he  remembered  how  once,  on  a  bet,  he  had 
brought  the  winter  mail  from  Moose  to 
Rupert  House,  up  the  east  coast,  ninety 
miles  as  the  goose  flies,  in  twenty  hours, 
finishing  fresher  than  his  dogs  and  dan- 
cing that  night  at  the  Christmas  carousal. 
Not  without  reason  had  the  Crees  of  the 
James  Bay  country  called  him  "The  Man 
Who  Does  Not  Sleep."  Once  his  fame 
as  a  voyageur  had  tra\elled  from  Whale 
River,  in  lonely  Unga\a,  down  to  Norway 
House,  far  in  the  Ojibway  country.  Into 
the  dark  eyes  of  the  old  Cree  there  had 
flashed  momentarily  the  fire  of  his  lost 
youth,  as  he  tossed  his  head  with  pride  at 
the  memories  of  his  prowess  in  days  long 
(lead.  Then  the  words  of  the  factor 
had  banished  his  dream.  "Next  year  a 
younger  man  will  go,  for  the  mails  must 
get  through  on  time." 

Never  had  I^sau  seen  such  a  pace  set  on 


122 


With  the  Winter  Mail 


.>no\v-shoes  as  Pierre  had  made  that  hrst 
clear  day  out  of  Albany.  Inured  to  the 
winter  trails  thou.uh  he  was.  it  had  taxed 
his  youthful  stren«,nh  to  follow  the  seem- 
ingly tireless  stride  of  the  old  courier. 
When  the  ni.udit  closed  in  ujH)n  them,  they 
hatl  turneil  the  weary  huskies  to  the  shore, 
and  with  their  shoes  scooped  out  a  camp- 
ing-place in  the  deep  snow  of  the  sj^ruce 
timber,  where  they  pitched  their  shed- 
tent  as  a  wind-break  and  boiled  their  tea 
and  pemican.  As  Pierre  threw  the  ra- 
tions of  frozen  whitetish  to  the  hungry 
dogs,  he  had  accosted  the  tired  lad  with  a 
strange  glitter  in  his  deep-set  eyes: 

"  Next  long  snow  I  tink  young  man  not 
feed  de  dog  at  dees  place  on  first  sleep 
from  Albaneel"  Then  he  had  added  al- 
most fiercely:  "What  you  tink?" 

*'Xama,  no,"  the  lad  had  quickly  an- 
swered in  Cree,  and  then  asked:  ''Why 
vou  travel  so  quick?  You  run  lak  de 
Windigo  was  on  your  track."  But  the 
spirit-broken  Pierre  had  turned  away  that 
the  boy  might  not  know  his  grief. 

The  next  morning,  at  daybreak,  they 
had  crawled  out  of  their  robes  of  rabbit- 
skin  to  plunge  into  the  driving  north- 
wester which  had  swept  down,  over  night, 
from  the  wild  wastes  of  Keewatin  into  the 
valley  of  the  Albany.  But  the  veteran 
who  bore  the  scars  of  forty  years  of  bat- 
tling with  the  fury  of  the  subarctic  win- 
ter did  not  wait  in  camp  for  the  storm  to 
blow  itself  out.  It  was  his  last  trip  to 
Fort  Hope  and  the  mail  should  go  through. 
The  next  long  snow  one  of  the  young  men 
might  crack  his  whip  over  the  Christmas 
mail-team,  but  he  would  need  the  heart 
and  sinews  of  a  king  caribou  to  match  the 
records  that  Pierre  Grassette — known 
among  the  Fort  Hope  Ojibways  as  "Fly- 
ing Feet" — had  left  for  the  long  Albany 
trail.  So,  obsessed  with  but  one  thought, 
for  three  days  he  had  forced  the  whining 
and  reluctant  huskies  into  the  drive  of  the 
gale. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day  the 
storm  ceased.  Through  new  drifts  and 
over  ice  beaten  bare  by  the  hammering  of 
the  wind,  the  old  Spartan  ran  like  a  white 
wraith  in  his  snow-crusted  capote.  In 
the  rear  Esau,  flicking  the  ear  of  a  lag- 
ging husky  with  his  long  whip,  or  calling 
to  the  lead-dog,  already  dreamed  of  the 
good  cheer  that  awaited  them  three  hun- 


dred miles  away  at  Fort  Hope.  In  fancy 
he  tasted  the  boiled  salt  goose  and  the 
juicy  caribou  steak  of  their  Christmas 
dinner,  and  a  smile  lit  his  swarthy  fea- 
tures as  he  pictured  himself  swinging  the 
dusky  Ojibway  girls  at  the  New  Year's 
revelry.  Suddenly  the  yelp  of  the  lead- 
dog  and  the  stopping  of  the  sled  roused 
him.  Looking  up  he  saw  the  huskies  nos- 
ing the  prostrate  figure  of  his  companion. 

As  Esau  bent  over  him  Pierre  attempt- 
ed to  rise,  but  fell  back,  choking,  upon  the 
snow.  The  terrified  boy  knelt,  turned 
back  the  fur-lined  hood  of  the  capote  and 
gazed  into  the  blood-shot  eyes  of  his  com- 
panion, who  struggled  painfully  for  breath. 
Supporting  him  in  his  arms,  Esau  held  the 
old  man,  whose  lean  frame  shook  with  a 
paroxysm  of  coughing.  The  attack  ceased , 
but  on  the  quivering  lips  of  the  stricken 
voyageur  it  left  a  deep  crimson  stain. 
Then  Esau  understood.  Tenderly  he  lifted 
the  limp  body,  placed  it  on  the  sled,  and 
drove  to  the  shore,  where  in  the  thick 
spruce  he  found  a  hollow  sheltered  from 
the  wind.  There,  clearing  a  camp-ground 
with  his  snow-shoes,  he  pitched  their  shed- 
tent,  and  close  in  front,  so  that  the  heat 
would  reflect  into  it,  built  a  fire.  Soon 
revived  by  hot  tea,  Pierre  whispered 
wearily : 

"It  ees  better  dees  way  dan  at  Al- 
banee." 

"How  you  feel  now?"  asked  the  lad 
anxiously. 

"Ver' bad,  "was  the  faint  answer.  "My 
wind — ees  broke."  The  old  man  was 
seized  with  a  repetition  of  the  attack, 
while  his  lean  hands  convulsively  clutched 
his  chest.  Again  the  hot  tea  relieved  him, 
and  he  continued: 

"  I  camp  here — wid  de  wolf.  You  go — 
on — to  Hope."  As  he  spoke,  from  a  dis- 
tant ridge  the  lonely  howl  of  a  timber-wolf 
broke  the  silence.  The  boy  started  as  if 
the  cry  were  an  omen  of  evil,  but  Pierre 
had  but  one  thought.  "De  mail — she 
mus'  go  tru,"  he  whispered  painfully. 

The  boy  did  not  protest.  An  Indian 
never  does  at  orders  he  does  not  intend  to 
obey.  There  had  been  a  rupture  of  blood- 
vessels in  the  lungs,  a  not  uncommon  oc- 
currence in  the  North  among  the  red  run- 
ners of  the  Company.  If  it  proved  to  be  a 
bad  hemorrhage,  Pierre  would  die;  if  not, 
he  would  be  able  later  to  travel  back  to 


Prmvn   hy  l-'rank  li.  Schoonover. 

"  Up  dere,"  he  said,  pointing  witli  a  lean,  sliakin-  fiiiyer  at  his  tracings,  "ilc  Cihust  Riviere  meet  dc  Albancc."' — Fatje  124. 


123 


Day  after  day  they  knew  no  respite 


Albany  on  the  sled.  There  was  nothing 
to  do  but  wait.  So  he  fed  the  dogs  and 
made  soup  of  the  pemican  for  the  sick 
man. 

In  the  morning  Pierre  was  better. 
Stimulated  by  the  hot  tea  and  soup,  he 
asked  the  boy  to  prop  him  up  in  his  blan- 
kets, where  he  could  trace  a  map  of  the  Al- 
bany trail  on  the  snow\ 

''Up  dere,"  he  said,  pointing  with  a 
lean,  shaking  finger  at  his  tracings,  ''de 
Ghost  Riviere  meet  de  Albanee.  One  sleep 
up  de  Ghost  you  fin'  petit  lac.  On  dees 
lac  de  Cree  hunt  fur.  Go  an'  bring  two 
man.     De  mail  she  go  tru  for  sure." 

An  attack  of  coughing  checked  him;  in 
a  moment.he  continued:  "De  old  man  at 
Albanee,  he  feel  ver'  bad  de  mail  she  not  go 
tru." 

Exhausted  by  the  effort,  Pierre  lay  back 
in  his  blankets. 

"How  you  keep  de  fire?"  objected  the 
boy.  "  You  seek.  You  freeze  wid  no  fire 
wen  I  go,  and  den  de  wolf  he  get  you." 

But  the  sick  man  was  not  to  be  denied. 
So  Esau  cut  a  great  pile  of  birch  logs  each 
of  which  would  burn  for  hours,  and  heaped 
them  in  front  of  the  tent,  that  they  might 
be  pushed  easily  on  the  fire.  Harnessing 
the  dogs,  he  lashed  his  blankets  and  pro- 
\isions  to  the  sled  and,  gripping  the  old 
man's  hand,  said:  "I  not  lak  to  leave  you 
124 


alone  seek.  But  I  bring  de  Cree  back  by 
next  sun,  or  I  sleep  in  de  muskeg  wid  de 
wolf." 

The  lad  hastened  to  the  waiting  dogs, 
waved  his  whip  at  the  prostrate  figure 
muffled  in  rabbit-skins  by  the  fire,  and 
shouted : 

"Bo-jo!  Bo-jo!  Pierre!  I  come  back 
before  two  sleeps  wid  de  Cree."  But  as 
he  swung  down  to  the  river  trail  behind 
the  dog- team,  the  boy  shook  his  head 
sadly,  for  in  his  heart  he  felt  that  he  had 
said  good-by  to  Pierre  Grassette  forever. 

All  that  day  the  doomed  man  lay  by  the 
fire  with  his  grief.  After  forty  years  of 
faithful,  unquestioning  service,  he  had 
failed  the  great  Company.  The  factor 
was  right;  he  was  too  old  for  the  long 
trails.  His  place  was  with  the  squawks. 
But  the  one  thought  that  never  left  him, 
which  kept  him  company  through  the  long 
hours  as  he  lay  alone  among  the  silent, 
snow-enveloped  spruces  under  the  bitter 
sky,  was  that  the  mail  should  go  through 
by  Christmas  day.  There  was  yet  time  if 
Esau  should  find  the  Crees  who  w^intered 
on  the  head  waters  of  the  Ghost.  To  his 
own  condition  the  old  Stoic  gave  little 
thought.  He  had  seen  men  travel  on 
snow-shoes  before  until  blood-vessels  in 
the  overtaxed  lungs  were  ruptured.  He 
might  get  well — there  was  not  so  much 


from  the  toil  of  trace  and  trail.  —  Paare  128. 


pain  and  he  coughed  less — or  he  might  die 
there  on  the  shores  of  the  Albany,  and  in 
April,  when  the  snow  melted,  the  ravens 
would  finish  what  the  wolves  and  foxes 
had  left  of  Pierre  Grassette,  voyageur  of 
the  great  Company.  Well,  a  man  must 
die  sometime,  he  mused,  and  how  better 
than  on  the  trail,  as  he  had  lived? 

Before  Esau  left,  Pierre  had  wrung  from 
the  boy  the  promise  that,  if  he  returned 
with  the  Crees  to  find  him  dead,  he  w^ould 
bury  him  in  the  snow  on  the  shore,  and 
push  on  to  Fort  Hope  with  the  mails. 
This  was  his  one  consolation. 

Again,  as  the  early  dusk  descended  upon 
the  valley  of  the  great  river  and  the  first 
cold  stars  glittered  above  the  camp  in  the 
spruce,  the  mournful  cry  of  the  gray 
wolf  waked  the  solitude.  But  the  figure 
prostrate  by  the  fire  gave  no  sign.  Later, 
when  the  crescent  moon  dipped  behind 
the  far  Keewatin  hills,  dark  shapes  glided 
stealthily  to  and  fro  in  the  shadows  of  the 
timber,  while  from  out  the  gloom  near  the 
silent  camp  here  and  there  twin  balls  of 
fire  gleamed,  to  disap])ear  and  then  to 
gleam  again,  until  a  shift  in  the  wind  or 
the  crackling  of  the  burning  logs  left  the 
blackness  of  the  enfolding  forest  un- 
broken. But  the  fear  that  kei)t  the  long 
watches  jjeneath  the  frozen  stars  with 
Pierre  Grassette  was  not   a  fear  of  the 


skulking  cowards  that  patrolled  the  dusk- 
filled  places  of  the  night. 

On  the  following  day  there  floated 
through  the  twilight  to  the  eager  ears  of 
the  sick  man  the  faint  tinkle  of  bells. 
Painfully  he  raised  himself,  where  he  lay, 
to  a  sitting  position  to  hear  more  dis- 
tinctly. Again  on  the  biting  air  drifted 
the  welcome  sound. 

"De  Creel"  he  exclaimed.  "Esau  fin' 
de  Creel     De  mail  go  tru  for  sure! " 

Nearer  came  the  bells;  now  they  were 
turning  in  from  the  river.  He  tried  to 
shout  the  salutation  of  the  Crees,  Queyl 
Quey!  but  his  voice  broke  in  a  hoarse 
whisper.  He  wondered  why  they  were  st) 
silent.  It  was  not  that  way  that  men 
came  into  camp.  Then  the  tired  dogs  aj)- 
peared,  followed  by  a  lone  figure.  It  was 
Esau. 

"DeCree?  de  Cree?"  whimj^ered  the 
sick  man  piteously,  as  the  boy  with  bowed 
head  stood  before  him  in  silence.  Hut 
Pierre  knew  well  that  the  mission  had  been 
m  vam. 

''I  follow  de  petit  riviere  till  de  husky 
can  tra\xi  no  more,"  said  the  l)oy.  *'  Dere 
is  no  lac.     I  follow  it  clear  into  de  mus- 

The  old  man  groaned  in  (lesjKTation. 
"  Hv   Gar!    Ha\e   I   not   camp  on  dat 
lac?     It   ees  dere,  it  ees  dere,  t)ne  sleep 

125 


12G 


Willi   the  Winter  Mail 


tt)\vard  dc  risin'  sun  from  de  Albancc. 
You  have  turn  todenor'upde  petit  creek. 
Dat  is  were  you  lose  dc  trail,  for  dc  Ghost 
cum  tru  by  de  islan'." 

"I  not  see  islan'  for  deep  snow  on  de 
ice."  protested  the  heart-broken  lad.  ''  De 
snow  is  dreft  \  er"  high.  But  I  shoot  two 
deer,  and  de  stew  will  mak  you  strong. 
Hi)W  you  feel  now?" 

"Wen  you  have  sleep,  you  go  back  for 
de  Cree,  "commanded  Pierre,  ignoring  the 
question. 

That  night  Esau  and  the  huskies  feasted 
on  caribou  steak,  and  the  strong  broth 
strengthened  the  old  man,  who  had  eaten 
little  since  the  boy  left  him. 

At  daybreak  Esau,  after  cutting  a  huge 
pile  of  firewood,  again  set  out  for  the 
camps  of  the  Crees.  Then  followed  days 
and  nights  of  hope  and  fear  for  the  one 
who  waited.  Throughout  the  evening  of 
the  second  day  Pierre  lay  with  ears  strain- 
ing to  catch  the  tinkle  of  bells  or  the 
voices  of  the  drivers.  Once  a  faint,  far 
call  from  the  direction  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Ghost  brought  him  with  bounding  pulses 
to  his  elbows,  only  to  fall  back  in  his 
blankets  when  his  trained  ears  recognized 
the  hunting-cry  of  the  snowy  owl.  An- 
other day  dragged  by,  and,  with  the  com- 
ing of  the  dusk,  crept  the  shadow  of  de- 
spair into  the  heart  of  the  old  man,  for  he 
knew  that  if  Esau  had  found  the  Cree 
camps  he  would  have  returned  on  the  sec- 
ond night.  Either  the  lad  had  met  with 
an  accident  or  the  Indians  were  not  win- 
tering on  the  head  waters  of  the  Ghost. 
They  had  camped  there  the  winter  before, 
but  this  was  the  year  of  the  rabbit  plague 
and  they  might  have  gone  to  another 
country,  for  lynxes  and  foxes  range  far  at 
such  a  time.  But  if  Esau  had  lost  his 
way  or  had  fallen  and  broken  a  leg? 
Even  in  such  a  case  there  was  a  chance 
that  the  boy  might  get  back  on  the  sled. 
The  dogs  were  not  wild  huskies;  he, 
Pierre,  had  trained  them;  and  yet — who 
knew? 

He  recalled  the  winter,  years  ago,  when 
the  boy's  father  had  perished  with  his  dog- 
team  in  the  Elkwan  country  in  just  such  a 
storm  as  they  had  met  on  the  Albany.  In 
fevered  fancy  he  beheld  the  dusky  face, 
furrowed  wdth  lines  of  sorrow,  and  the 
reproachful  eyes,  of  the  lad's  widowed 
mother  back  at  the  post.  He  had  prom- 
ised her  to  take  care  of  the  boy,  and  now 


lie  had  sent  him  to  a  lingering  death  by 
freezing  or  starvation,  in  the  barrens. 

''It  ees  better,"  he  sighed,  "dat  Pierre 
Grassette  return  not  to  Albanee." 

The  sun  lifted  above  the  low  Ontario 
hills  on  the  morning  of  the  fourth  day 
of  Esau's  absence  to  glisten  on  white- 
shrouded  spruce  and  balsam  surrounding 
a  shed-tent,  half  buried  in  the  deep  snow, 
in  which  lay  a  sick  man  waiting  for  the 
death  from  freezing  which  the  night  would 
bring.  The  wood  which  Esau  had  cut 
would  last  but  the  day,  and  Pierre  had  not 
the  strength  to  swing  an  axe,  or  to  gather 
more.  Once  he  managed  to  drag  himself 
to  the  nearest  trees  and  lop  off  a  few 
branches,  but  he  paid  for  the  exertion  with 
a  protracted  fit  of  coughing  which  so 
weakened  him  that  he  lay  motionless  for 
hours.  As  the  night  neared,  he  pushed 
the  last  logs  on  the  fire  and  boiled  his  tea 
and  pemican;  then,  whispering  a  short 
prayer  to  the  Master  whom  the  Oblat 
Fathers  at  Albany  had  taught  him  to  rev- 
erence, he  rolled  himself  in  his  blankets, 
and  lay  down  by  the  fire  to  await  the  com- 
ing of  the  white  death — the  most  merciful 
of  the  many  that  haunt  the  tepees  of  the 
children  of  the  snows. 

Swiftly  the  advancing  gloom  cloaked 
the  camp  in  the  spruce.  Soon  the  freez- 
ing sky  was  ablaze  with  myriad  stars.  At 
intervals  the  icy  shell  of  the  great  river 
boomed  like  a  cannon-shot  as  it  split  un- 
der the  contraction  of  the  increasing  cold. 
To  the  north,  over  the  brooding  bay,  the 
first  glow  of  the  aurora  pulsed  and  waned, 
then  the  ribboned  lights,  loosed  from  the 
horizon,  writhed  and  coiled  like  snakes 
across  the  heavens.  But  the  muffled  fig- 
ure in  the  tent  by  the  dying  fire  lay  mo- 
tionless. For  him  the  winter  trails  were 
ended.  No  more  the  river  roads  of  sum- 
mer would  beckon  his  canoe. 

Suddenly  out  of  the  hush  there  broke  a 
faint,  far  call.  The  man  by  the  dying  fire 
stirred  as  though  in  a  dream  and  again 
lay  motionless.  Once  more  through  the 
soundless  spaces  of  the  night  drifted  the 
cry.  The  sleeper  moaned  as  if  in  pain. 
Then  clear  upon  the  bitter  air  rang  men's 
voices.  Quickly  the  form  was  alert  with 
life.  Trembling  with  excitement,  the 
half-frozen  man  cast  off  his  blankets  and 
rose  swiftly  to  his  feet. 

''Esau  fin'  de  Cree!"  he  cried.  "De 
mail  go  tru!    De  mail  go  tru  for  sure!" 


"Tell — old  man  at  Albanee  — Pierre  bring — mail — tru  — !  "  and,  with  a  deep  sigh,  sank  into  Esau's  arms. — Page  130. 


In  his  joy  at  the  sound  of  the  voices  of 
the  approaching  men,  he  started  to  meet 
them,  but,  as  the  first  jingUng  dog-team 
appeared,  led  by  Esau  and  a  Cree,  the 
trembUng  legs  of  the  sick  man  gave  way 
beneath  him,  and  with  a  feeble  ''Quey! 
Quey ! "  of  welcome  he  sank  to  the  snow  at 
their  feet. 

Sinewy  arms  carried  the  limp  form  to 
the  smouldering  fire,  where  vigorous  rub- 
bing gradually  restored  the  circulation 
to  the  stifi"ened  limbs.  Then  through 
the  sleeping  forest  sang  the  axes  of  the 
Crees,  biting  deep  into  two  huge  birches, 
and  soon  where,  but  a  short  space  before, 
a  man  lay  freezing  by  a  dying  fire,  kettles 
of  tea  and  caribou  haunch  bubbled  and 
steamed  in  the  roaring  flames  that  licked 
the  great  logs.  By  such  slight  tenure  are 
held  the  lives  of  the  dwellers  in  the  North. 

When  they  had  eaten,  Esau  told  his 
story  to  Pierre,  who  lay  swathed  in  blan- 
kets by  the  fire. 

^'Wen  I  leave  you,"  said  the  lad,  cut- 
ting with  his  hunting-knife  a  pipeful  of 


Company  niggerhead  and  lighting  it  with 
an  ember,  ''I  keep  dees  tam  to  de  beeg 
riviere  at  de  islan'  and  sleep  at  de  Cree 
camp  on  de  petit  lac.  But  I  fin'  de  chiT 
and  squaws  alone.  De  men  hunt  deer  in 
de  muskeg  country.  Two  boy  I  send  to 
fin'  dem  and  say  I  wait  one  sleep  and  den 
go  back  to  de  Albanee.  But  de  squaw 
tell  me  de  men  not  go  if  I  do  not  wait. 
Widout  dem  I  not  lak  to  cum,  and  I  ha\c 
fear  to  wait  wid  you  seek  at  de  Albanee. 
I  have  hard  job  what  to  do,  eh,  Pierre?" 

''You  did  well  to  wait,"  whis})ered  the 
sick  man. 

''Yes,"  continued  the  boy;  "two  sleep 
I  wait  for  dem.  De  ncx'  sun  I  hitch  de 
dog  to  take  de  back  trail,  wen  de  Cree  cum 
in  wid  sled  hea\y  wid  meat.  But  dey  not 
lea\e  camp  until  T  promeese de  ComjKinee 
fill  dere  tepee  wid  tea  and  flour  so  de 
squaw  and  chil'  grow  fat  and  laugh  tru 
de  long  snow.     For  dees  dey  come." 

"  K-nh,  yes! "  broke  in  the  older  Cree  in 
his  native  tongue;  "for  this  flour  and  tea 
we  go  with  you  to  that  fort  above  the 

127 


12^ 


Witli  the  Winter  Mail 


great    white-waters   toward    the   setting 

sun." 

"It  was  good  ling  we  camp  here  dees 
sleep,  Pierre,  for  you  freeze  soon  widout 
fire,"  added  Esau. 

"  Ves,  it  was  good  for  sure,"  sighed  the 
sick  man,  "for  now  de  mail  she  go  tru." 

Already  he  had  forgotten  the  doubt  and 
agony  of  the  last  two  days  while  he 
awaited  Esau's  return. 

"Next  sun  we, start  for  Hope,"  he  said, 
as  the  men  fresKened  the  fire  with  great 
logs,  and  lay  down  in  their  robes  on  the 
bed  of  spruce  boughs  between  tKe  wind- 
break and  the  heat. 

On  the  following  day  the  rising  sun 
overtook  two  dog-teams  hurrvlng  west- 
ward on  the  Fort  Hope  trail.  Miles  be- 
hind them  still  smouldered  the  camp-fire 
in  the  spruce.  Ahead  of  the  teams  swung 
a  tall  Cree,  breaking  trail,  while  at  the 
gee-pole  of  each  sled  a  caribou-skin-clad 
driver  with  long  dog-whip  urged  on  the 
huskies.  But  lashed  to  the  second  sled 
lay  the  blanketed  form  of  one  whose  voy- 
aging days  over  white  ^^'inte^  trails  and 
wind-whipped  lakes  of  summer  were  for- 
ever ended. 

On  up  the  great  ice-bound  river  hur- 
ried the  belated  -^^nter  mail.  Travelling 
from  starlight  to  starlight — for  the  De- 
cember days  were  passing — men  and  dogs, 
half-breed,  Cree,  and  husky,  held  to  a 
heart-breaking  pace,  that  the  rising  sun  of 
Christmas  day  might  find  them  at  the 
journey's  end. 

Day  after  day  they  knew  no  respite 
from  the  toil  of  trace  and  trail.  Now, 
with  snow-shoes  for  shovels,  breaking 
through  great  drifts  left  by  the  heels  of 
the  blizzard,  now  speeding  over  wind- 
packed  snow  or  glare  ice,  they  travelled 
into  the  sunset.  And  each  day  when  the 
shadows  of  the  northern  night  crept  out 
over  the  white  river  from  the  timbered 
shores  and  the  killing  pace  began  to  lag, 
the  weak  voice  of  the  benumbed  sick  man 
on  the  sled  would  urge  them  on  into  the 
twilight.  The  Crees'  protests  that  their 
dogs  were  raw  T\ith  harness-sores  and  that 
they  themselves  needed  rest  were  of  no 
avail  with  one  in  whose  ears  still  echoed 
the  words  of  the  factor  at  Albany.  So 
leg-weary  men  and  dogs  slaved  on  under 
the  stars.  But  at  last,  in  camp,  the  tor- 
ture of  ''mal  raquette"  in  the  stiffened 
legs  of  Esau  and  the  Crees  ceased,  when 


the  drugged  sleep  of  exhaustion  claimed 
them,  while  Pierre  of  the  broken  heart 
lav  with  his  grief  far  into  the  silent  night. 

Through  the  desolate  cliff  country, 
where  the  river  winds  like  a  hugh  reptile 
between  towering,  timberless  shores  be- 
hind which  the  sun  sets  almost  at  noon ;  on 
past  the  thousand  islands  where,  in  sum- 
mer, the  trout  and  dore  lie  below  a  hun- 
dred silver  cascades ;  up  the  great  lake  that 
the  O  jib  ways  call ''  The  Charmed  Water," 
where  the  river  sturgeon  breed ;  over  three 
hundred  miles  of  subarctic  winter  trail 
they  toiled,  that  the  factor  at  Hope  might 
open  his  mail  from  Scotland  on  Christmas 
day,  and  a  half-breed  keep  his  w^ord. 

At  last,  on  Christmas  eve,  as  the  cold 
moon  lifted  above  the  silhouetted  spruce 
fringing  the  hills  to  the  east  of  the  Lake  of 
the  Elbow^  and  flooded  the  white  w^ilder- 
ness  with  light,  tW'O  trail-worn  dog-teams 
turned  into  the  shore.  Soon  the  blows  of 
axes  on  frozen  birch  echoed  from  the  ad- 
jacent cliffs  and  the  Fort  Hope  winter 
packet  from  Albany  made  camp  twenty 
miles  from  its  goal. 

When,  two  days  before,  they  had  left 
the  path  of  the  blizzard  and  found  the 
trail  beyond  free  from  drifts,  Pierre,  at 
last,  knew  that  they  w^ould  win.  And, 
with  the  knowledge  that  they  had  con- 
quered in  their  long  battle  with  the  snow 
and  cold,  new  strength  crept  into  his 
limbs  and  joy  transformed  the  dauntless 
warrior  of  the  wilderness  trails. 

As  Esau  helped  him  from  the  sled  at 
their  last  camp  tears  blinded  the  deep-set 
eyes  in  the  lean,  wind-blackened  face. 
With  an  exclamation  of  delight  the  old 
man  pushed  back  the  hood  of  the  lad's  ca- 
pote and  kissed  him  on  both  cheeks. 

''De  mail,  she  go  tru  for  sure.  De  old 
man  at  Albanee  know  de  mail  ees  safe  wdd 
de  familee  Grassette?"  he  cried,  his  arms 
around  his  nephew's  neck. 

Then  he  turned  and  gripped  the  hands 
of  the  smiling  red  men  who  had  given  so 
loyally  of  their  best  that  his  honor  might 
remain  untarnished. 

"  De  Companee  will  not  forget,"  he  said 
as  he  thanked  them. 

Long  before  daylight  of  Christmas  morn- 
ing the  eager  Pierre  roused  the  sleeping 
dogs  and  men.  The  harnesses  were  made 
gay  with  colored  worsted  and  new  bell- 
straps  adjusted,  that  they  might  jingle 
bravely  into  the  post  as  befitted  the  dignity 


With   the  Winter  Mail 


129 


of  the  company's  Christmas  mail-team. 
In  honor  of  the  event  Esau  adorned 
himself  "with  a  pair  of  blue-cloth  legf^ings, 
gaudy  w'ith  red-and-yellow  embroidery, 
and  wound  his  slim  waist  with  a  many- 
colored  Company  sash. 

With  difficulty  they  prevailed  upon 
Pierre  to  resume  his  place  on  the  sled. 
Thrilled  with  his  \-ictor\%  the  false  strength 
of  excitement  speeded  the  blood  in  his 
veins.  But  twenty  miles  away  lay  Fort 
Hope.  He  begged  for  his  snow-shoes  that 
the  people  there  should  not  know  his 
shame.  Even  the  lean,  harness-raw  husk- 
ies— shadows  of  the  great  dogs  that  had 
left  Albany  and  the  Ghost — felt  the  ex- 
citement of  the  drivers  and  leaped  whining 
into  their  collars  at  the  signal  for  the  start. 

Up  the  lake  trail,  packed  hard  by  the 
teams  of  Ojibways  bound  to  the  post  for 
the  Christmas  revelr\',  hurried  Esau,  fol- 
lowed by  the  Crees.  To  the  helpless  sick 
man,  lashed  to  the  sled  like  a  bag  of  pem- 
ican,  never  had  winter  morning  seemed 
so  beautiful.  The  Great  Father  to  whom 
he  had  prayed  through  the  dark  days  be- 
hind them  had  turned,  indeed,  a  listening 
ear.  Crippled  and  a  derelict  though  he 
was,  forever  doomed  to  sit  and  dream  of 
days  that  were  done,  he  yet  had  been  al- 
lowed to  keep  faith  with  the  great  Com- 
pany. He  had  brought  the  mail  through 
by  the  day  appointed  and  it  was  well. 
Those  unknown  masters  who  lived  beyond 
the  Big  Water  would  be  pleased  that 
Pierre  Grassette  had  not  failed  them  in 
his  old  age — Pierre  Grassette  who  had 
served  them  so  gallantly  in  the  days  of  his 
masterful  youth. 

But  the  mind  of  young  Esau,  running 
behind  the  sled,  was  busied  with  the  an- 
ticipation of  the  hot  bread  and  steaming 
goose  of  the  Christmas  dinner,  and  the 
unbroken  slumber  that  awaited  him  in  the 
sleep-house  at  the  post.  There  would  be 
a  merr>^  week  of  feasting  and  dancing. 
Ever)"  Ojibway  family  within  reach  of 
Fort  Hope  would  come  in.  Already  the 
boy  had  forgotten  the  privations  and  suf- 
ferings of  the  Albany  trail.  He  had  won 
his  spurs  in  the  fiercest  blizzard  of  a  gener- 
ation, over  what  was  known  among  the 
old  French  courcurs  as  ''la  longue  tra- 
verse," the  bitterest  'vsnnter  trail  from 
Labrador  to  the  Barren  Grounds.  He 
straightened  his  shoulders  with  pride,  but 
Vol.  LV.— II 


the  instincts  of  the  boy  in  him  soon  turned 
his  thoughts  to  the  Christmas  dinner  and 
the  dusky  Ojibway  belles  at  the  iK>st. 

On  they  travelled  through  the  morning 
hours  until  they  neared  the  jxjint  of  spruce 
which  conceals  Fort  Hope  from  the  east. 
There  Pierre  called  a  halt. 

''It  ees  not  good  dat  Pierre  Grassette 
ride  lak  a  dead  moose  into  Fort  Hope. 
He  will  run  in  lak  a  man,  on  de  raquette," 
he  said. 

In  vain  Esau  objected.  Pierre  was  too 
weak.  He  would  bring  on  another  hem- 
orrhage by  the  exertion.  It  was  madness. 
But  the  sick  man  would  not  be  denied. 
It  was  his  only  wish,  that  he  might  bring 
the  mail  in  for  the  last  time  as  befitted  a 
man  and  a  dog-runner  of  the  Company. 

The  buildings  of  the  settlement  lay  but 
a  few  hundred  yards  beyond  the  point 
ahead.  Perhaps,  thought  Esau,  it  would 
be  as  well  to  allow  Pierre  his  own  way. 
He  might  walk  that  far,  and  the  boy  knew 
well  how  deep  would  be  the  veteran's 
shame  to  be  carried  helpless  into  Fort 
Hope  on  a  sled.  So  they  gave  him  his 
snow-shoes. 

Supported  by  Esau's  arm,  Pierre  shuf- 
fled slowly  up  the  trail  ahead  of  the  impa- 
tient dogs  which  the  Crees  with  difficulty 
kept  from  running  their  master  down. 
Painfully  he  moved  his  stiff  legs,  uncer- 
tain from  long  disuse.  Under  the  exertion 
and  excitement  his  breath  came  in  hoarse 
gasps.  But  as  they  neared  the  headland 
the  trained  muscles  began  to  answer  the 
iron  will  that  drove  them,  and  he  flung  off 
the  friendly  arm  of  Esau. 

They  rounded  the  point  and  a  chorus  of 
howls  from  the  post  huskies  announced 
their  coming.  The  Crees  flung  themselves 
upon  the  yelping  dogs  of  the  tenuis,  who 
strained  at  their  collars  to  bolt  up  the 
trail.  At  the  sound  of  the  tumult,  from 
the  trade-store,  sleep-house,  and  tepees  of 
the  post  rushed  white  men  and  Ojibways 
to  greet  the  overdue  Albany  mail.  Cheers 
of  welcome  mingled  with  the  howls  oi  the 
huskies.  At  last  the  Christmas  mail — 
given  up  as  lost  in  the  blizzard — was  in 
from  the  Big  Water.  Men,  women,  and 
dogs  rushed  to  the  shore  to  greet  those 
already  mourned  as  victims  of  the  long 
trail.  To  the  eager  ears  of  the  excited 
Esau  and  IMerre  floated  the  Ojibway  wel- 
come: "Bo-jo I  Bo-jo!" 


130 


The    T'oint  of  View 


Pierre  waved  his  hand,  as  Esau  sliouted 
in  answer.  "Qucyl  Quey!"  the  saluta- 
tion of  the  Crees.  The  heart  of  the  old 
man  |H>unded  in  his  breast,  while  the  old 
t'lre  intlanied  his  blood.  The  huskies,  de- 
spite tlie  blows  of  the  Cree  drivers,  sprang 
fi)rward  \i\x)n  the  heels  of  the  now  delir- 
ious half-breed.  Carried  away  with  the 
moment,  he  pushed  the  boy  aside  and, 
wavinj;  his  hand  at  McKenzie  the  factor, 
whose  stalwart  hijure  he  recognized  in  the 
crowd  on  the  shore,  broke  into  the  old 
swing  ahead  of  the  dogs,  as  he  had  run 
into  Fort  Hope  for  thirty  years. 

The  fear-stricken  Esau  begged  the  mad- 
man to  remember  his  condition,  but  he 
could  have  checked  a  Keewatin  north- 
wester as  readily  as  the  fevered  Pierre 
Grassette,  who  labored  on,  with  his  blood- 
shot eyes  fixed  on  the  factor,  every  breath 
torturing  his  lungs.  Once,  as  his  strength 
for  a  moment  ebbed,  he  faltered;  then, 
straightening  up,  he  continued.  Close  be- 
hind a  Cree  clung  to  the  leader  of  the  mail- 
team,  holding  the  yelping  huskies  by  sheer 
strength.  As  they  approached,  the  peo- 
ple of  the  post  crowded  down  to  the  river 
trail.  Only  too  well  they  sensed  the  mean- 
ing of  the  pace  of  the  old  voyageur.  Often 
before  strong  men  had  been  loosed  from  the 
death-grip  of  the  sullen  winter  trails,  to 
creep  into  Fort  Hope  spent  and  broken. 


When  but  a  few  strides  separated  him 
from  the  outstretched  hand  of  the  ad- 
vancing factor,  Pierre  suddenly  reeled  in 
his  tracks.  Collecting  himself,  he  again 
lurched  forward,  but  before  Esau  could 
reach  him,  fell  headlong  to  the  trail. 

Esau  and  the  factor  knelt  beside  the 
crumpled  figure,  shaken  by  a  convul- 
sion of  coughing.  Tenderly  they  raised 
the  head  of  the  choking  man  from  the 
crimsoned  snow  beneath.  A  lean  hand 
clutched  that  of  the  factor  as  Esau  wiped 
the  blood  from  the  quivering  lips.  Pres- 
ently the  eyes  of  the  stricken  voyageur 
sought  McKenzie's  with  a  look  of  appeal. 
The  factor  bent  his  head  close  to  the 
ashen  face  distorted  with  suffering.  Once, 
twice,  the  moving  lips  tried  to  convey 
w^hat  the  old  man  struggled  to  articulate, 
when  an  attack  of  coughing  checked  him. 
Then  he  grew  stronger  and,  raising  him- 
self, whispered: 

''Tell — old  man  at  Albanee — Pierre 
bring — mail — tru — !"  and,  with  a  deep 
sigh,  sank  into  Esau's  arms. 

The  shaggy  leader  of  his  mail-team 
threw  back  his  great  head  with  a  long, 
mournful  howl.  And  the  dauntless  spirit 
of  Pierre  Grassette,  faithful  servant  of  the 
great  Company,  even  unto  death,  sped 
far  on  the  mystic  trail  to  the  Valley  of 
Rest. 


THE   POINT  OF  VIEW 


I 


Child  Should 
Know 


T  is  time  that  the  Pure  Food  Laws  should 
be   applied   to   the   literary  fare   offered 
to  American  school-children.     A  certain 
amount  of  quack  Hterature  is  being  circulated 
in  our  schools,  with  laudable  intentions  but 
with  inevitably  disastrous  results  to  the  literary 
Platitudes  Every  ^aste  of  the  younger  generation.   Not 
many  months  pass  without  the  pub- 
Hcation,  in  words  of  one  or  two  sylla- 
bles, of  a  new  version  of  some  famous  master- 
piece, or  some  form  of  "simplification"  of  a 
large  topic.    Only  yesterday  I  saw  an  announce- 
ment of  a  book  which  "includes  all  that  a 
well-hred  child  should  know  about  mythology." 
Not  all  these  books  are  injurious;  some  re- 
ally nourish  the  intellectual  powers;  but  others, 
speciously  simple  in  appearance,  have  in  real- 
ity a  subtle  poison  that  eventually  undermines 


the  cesthetic  health  of  a  child,  and  induces  a 
fatal  sluggishness  and  intellectual  torpor. 

Of  the  pedagogical  reasons  which  make  us 
hesitate  to  give  our  young  a  surfeit  of  great 
plots,  as  we  hesitate  to  give  them  a  surfeit  of 
sweets  or  of  sours,  I  will  not  speak,  nor  will  I 
venture  to  allude  to  the  hideous  priggishness 
engendered  in  children  who  are  given  the 
treasury  of  literature  while  they  still  lisp.  The 
"well-bred"  child  of  to-day  recognizes  any 
allusion  to  history,  painting,  literature,  and 
mythology.  He  can  set  his  elders  right  on 
many  details. 

Writers  show  a  misdirected  zeal  for  over- 
loading a  child's  memory  by  acquaintance  with 
the  mere  names  of  the  great  characters  in  his- 
tory and  in  fiction.  What  advantage  is  there 
in  knowing  the  fact  that  Siegfried  is  a  character 


The   Point  of  View 


131 


in  an  opera  by  Wagner,  that  Sidney  Carton 
appears  in  "The  Tale  of  Two  Cities,"  by  one 
Charles  Dickens,  and  that  Apollo  is  the  Greek 
god  of  the  sun  ?  The  miserable  child  of  to-day 
has  to  swallow  so  many  drops  of  tincture  of  art, 
so  many  of  syrup  of  fiction  and  so  many  of  aqua 
mythologicalis.  What  wonder  that  he  disdains 
the  printed  page  ?  There  are  facts  that  cultured 
people  should  know,  but  why  should  they  be 
learned  mechanically,  as  people  add  accounts? 
Why  should  living  organisms  be  torn  from 
their  environment,  to  lose  all  their  significance, 
and  become  mere  isolated  data,  like  the  ob- 
jects in  a  boy's  pocket? 

But  these  considerations  are  immaterial  in 
comparison  with  the  harm  done  to  the  imagina- 
tion by  the  nostrums  of  our  literar}^  philan- 
thropists. These  well-intentioned  beings  re- 
tell, in  their  own  cultured  way,  various  of  the 
great  world-stories,  taking  out  all  the  blood 
and  bones  and  substituting  a  fine  grade  of  saw- 
dust. They  believe  that  all  obstacles  to  imme- 
diate understanding  should  be  removed  from 
a  story.  Mysteries,  fascinating  unknown  fig- 
ures, the  shadowy  world  of  romance,  full  of  ar- 
chaic words  and  but  dimly  understood  images, 
are  all  swept  aside  and  straightforward  com- 
mon sense  is  brought  to  the  fore.  The  imag- 
inative challenge  of  a  new  word,  or  of  an  odd 
personality,  is  reduced  to  "simple  language." 

Now,  must  a  child  understand  all  that  he 
reads?  Is  there  nothing  to  be  said  for  the 
values  of  the  obstacle?  By  explaining  every- 
thing, the  reteller  of  stories  robs  a  child  of  his 
right  to  brood  and  ponder  over  the  mysterious. 
Who  has  not,  in  childhood,  meditated  pro- 
foundly upon  the  meaning  of  some  difficult 
word  or  of  some  passage  which  piqued  his 
curiosity  and  forced  him  to  all  sorts  of  fantastic 
explanations?  This  is  what  develops  a  boy's 
imagination — to  have  something  puzzling  to 
solve.  Is  it  good  for  man  to  feel  that  he  under- 
stands all  that  he  sees?  There  are  a  number 
of  things  in  Life  that  arc  not  written  down  in 
words  of  one  or  even  of  two  syllables.  The 
world  contains  mysteries  which  can  never  be 
reduced  to  "simple  language."  Why  should 
not  the  child  be  allowed  to  realize  that  there  are 
concealed  meanings  in  many  things,  meanings 
which  he  must  discover  for  himself? 

IT  has  been  a  comfort  to  me  to  learn  that 
Amiel  once  said  somewhere:  "In  hell  it  will 
always  be  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon." 
I  had  somewhat  shamefacedly  supjx)sed  that 
I  was  the  only  person  who  felt  the  burden  of 
the  day's  wee  small  hours;  and  I  had  not  con- 


fessed the  weakness  to  any  one.     For  years  I 
had  dealt  with  the  problem  alone,  trying  to 
solve  it  this  wav  and  that,  never  succeeding 
but  not  understanding  that  it  was  a  general  hu- 
man problem  and  therefore  incapable  of  solu- 
tion by  one  individual.     Amiel  was  more  intel- 
ligent as  well  as  more  candid  than  I. 
He  knew  human  nature  well  enough     the  Aa^'"^°"  °^ 
to  place  the  post-meridian  woe  in 
that  awful  category  of  common  ills  which  we  all 
sum  up  and  subscribe  to  together. 

He  dignified  it  immensely  thereby.  I 
plucked  up  a  sudden  self-respect  when  I  heard 
his  prophecy,  and  set  about  retrieving  my  lack 
of  candor  by  a  series  of  investigations.  It  is 
quite  safe  to  be  candid  when  one  knows  that 
one's  confession  is  pretty  sure  to  meet  with 
an  echo;  but  I  soon  found  that  only  certain 
temperaments  responded  to  me,  and  that  the 
rest  were  quite  as  impatient  of  my  complaint 
as  I  had  supposed  the  whole  world  would  be 
in  the  days  when  I  hid  it  from  them. 

"What!  not  like  the  afternoon?  I  can't  imag- 
ine what  you  mean.  Tired?  At  a  loss?  Bored? 
Oh,  dear  me,  no!  The  days  are  always  too 
short  anyway  for  all  the  things  I  want  to  do," 

When  people  reply  to  you  in  this  way,  there 
is  only  one  course  for  you  to  pursue — that  of 
immediate  silence,  repentance,  and  a  resolution 
never  to  invite  scorn  again.  But,  neverthe- 
less, the  risk  is  worth  taking;  for  now  and 
then  your  inquiries  lead  to  the  discovery  of  a 
comrade  in  misery,  and  that  reward  is  rich. 

Such  a  comrade  revealed  herself  to  me  some 
months  ago;  and  she  and  I  have  spent  the  sum- 
mer together,  making  a  careful  study  of  the 
afternoon  problem  and  experimenting  with  so- 
lutions. I  cannot  say  that  we  have  arrived  at 
any  wholly  satisfactory  conclusions  as  yet;  but 
it  is  to  our  credit  and  to  our  excuse  (in  so  far 
as  we  have  come  short  in  our  task)  that  we  have 
tackled  the  trouble  at  its  height.  The  after- 
noon is  at  its  worst  in  the  summer.  This  is 
partly  because  of  the  heat,  diffusing  lassitude 
more  or  less  over  the  whole  day.  It  is  also  be- 
cause of  the  looser  scheme  or  the  wider  margin 
of  life — whichever  metaphor  one  prefers.  The 
pressing  engagements  and  duties  of  winter  often 
serve  as  a  real  refuge  from  the  afternoon  demon 
to  which  one  is  so  heljilessly  left  a  prey  in  the  un- 
concerned summer.  Then  there  is  that  mys- 
terious but  inevitable  transposition  of  meals 
which  we  all  subserve  as  a  kind  of  mandate 
of  nature  when  we  move  into  the  country.  A 
midday  dinner  is  one  of  the  most  ingenious 
and  ciTeclive  tools  of  a  bad  afternoon. 

My   friend  and   I   are   both   of   us   scrib- 


\:v2 


The    Point  of  View 


bicrs:  ven'  well,  we  meet  at  the  breakfast  table. 
dale  wilh  suppressed  eavrerness  for  cuir  pens 
and  our  typewriters.  We  are  refreslieil  by  luir 
wuntn-  sleep,  brimmin.u  wilh  encrj^'y  and  with 
a  flood  of  ideas  which  we  can  liarclly  wait 
to  pour  out  on  an  unsuspecting  public.  We 
drink  our  colTce,  take  one  look  out  over  the 
valley  at  the  radiant  morning  world,  which 
we  find  very  good;  then  we  vanish  into  our 
resixMTlive  studies,  there  to  spend  three  or 
four  hours  of  that  peculiar  wrestling  bliss 
which  all  other  scribblers  all  over  the  world 
will  iK*rfectly  understand. 

I  am  more  fortunate  than  my  friend  in  that 
my  furv  commonly  abates  a  little  before  dinner- 
time. Sometimes  I  have  a  whole  half-hour  in 
which  to  lie  in  the  orchard  and  feel  my  way 
back  to  a  mental  level.  So  that  I  am  not  so 
prone  to  take  a  header  into  sublevel  depths 
as  my  poor  friend,  haled  from  the  immediate 
presence  of  her  typewriter  to  that  of  her  plate 
of  soup.  It  is,  however,  for  both  of  us  a 
suftkiently  solemn  moment  when  we  fold  our 
napkins  and  rise  from  our  dessert  to  face  the 
afternoon.  We  can  neither  of  us  write  in  the 
afternoon,  nor  would  we  if  we  could.  We  have 
a  theory  that  there  are  other  things  in  life  be- 
sides typewriters. 

Yes;  but  what  are  they?  That  is  the  ques- 
tion that  fretfully  assails  us  as  we  drift  out  into 
the  world  which  we  found  so  good  a  few  hours 
ago,  but  which  now  repels  us  with  such  an  un- 
sympathetic glare.  What  is  there  to  which  we 
can  turn  our  attention  with  any  hope  of  pleas- 
ure or  profit?  We  cannot  read,  we  are  too 
tired;  neither  can  we  write  letters.  It  is  too 
hot  to  walk.  Sewing  is  nervous  work  and  re- 
quires a  steady  hand  and  a  balanced  mind. 
Housework?  Perish  the  thought!  the  very  sug- 
gestion is  prostrating.  It  would  seem,  then, 
that  the  obvious  course  was  to  repair  to  the  or- 
chard again  and  lie  in  the  grass  and  rest.  "All 
things  have  rest:  why  should  we  toil  alone?" 
Ahl  but  lotus-eating  is  the  most  dangerous  kind 
of  occupation  there  is.  It  lays  one  more  help- 
lessly open  to  demons  than  any  other  pursuit. 
Gazing  up  at  the  blue  sky  through  the  gnarled 
boughs  of  the  old  apple-trees,  my  friend  and 
I  doubtless  look  peaceful  enough.  Are  not 
our  thoughts  winging  the  sunlight  with  the 
gnats  and  the  swallows?  Indeed,  they  are 
not!  They  are  saying  to  us:  "Vanity!  vanity! 
that  paper  has  all  been  said  before— anyway, 
no  one  wants  to  hear  me  say  it — no  one  wants 
anything."  It  is  curious  w^hat  a  difference 
there  is  between  lying  in  the  orchard  before 
and  after  dinner. 


I,  for  my  part,  have  taken  my  stand  on  in- 
cessant activity,  and  have  learned  to  refuse  the 
least  concession  to  the  deceitful  post-prandial 
desire  for  repose.  I  must  confess  I  have  often 
been  hard  put  to  it  to  hold  my  ground;  for  it  is 
the  afternoon's  worst  offence  that  it  takes  from 
you  all  desire  except  that  which  works  your  un- 
doing. Whereas  at  nine  o'clock  there  were 
twenty  things  which  you  might  have  done  with 
pleasure  if  the  twenty-first  had  not  been  so  en- 
grossing, at  two  o'clock  there  is  nothing,  noth- 
ing that  you  want  to  do. 

Delay  is  fatal;  the  demon  lurks  just  around 
the  corner — nay,  he  is  behind  your  chair.  Don't 
sit  down  in  it,  then,  but  go  out  into  the  gar- 
den and  cut  flowers.  That  is  a  gende  occupa- 
tion. Moreover,  when  it  is  finished,  it  does 
not  leave  you  in  the  lurch,  but  leads  you  on  to 
return  to  the  house  and  arrange  them.  The 
parlor  needs  dusting;  and  though,  a  few  para- 
graphs back,  I  deplored  the  idea  of  house- 
work, I  would  modify  my  loathing  in  favor  of 
the  dust-cloth.  I  would  go  farther:  I  would 
advise  all  housekeepers  who  are  afternoon 
victims  to  leave  their  dusting  every  day  till 
half  past  two.  There  is  something  about  the 
gentle  ofiice  which  yields  the  fruits  of  peace. 
The  great  thing  is  to  keep  busy,  to  occupy 
yourself  with  something,  anything,  until  the 
danger-zone  is  passed  and  the  tinkle  of  after- 
noon teacups  proclaims  and  celebrates  the  de- 
feat of  the  enemy. 

Afternoon  tea  is  so  often  my  salvation  that 
I  w^onder  I  do  not  have  it  at  three  o'clock. 
But,  no,  that  would  not  do;  it  depends  for 
much  of  its  charm  on  the  mellow  lights  and 
the  slanting  shadows  of  late  afternoon,  on 
the  presence  of  visitors,  too,  dropping  in  with 
informal  friendliness.  It  has  a  constrained 
and  awkward  air  before  half  past  four.  But 
when  it  is  due  and  arrives,  I  draw  a  long 
breath,  cease  my  feverish  i>reoccupation,  and 
settle  down  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  day,  which  is  as  good,  in  its  entire- 
ly different  fashion,  as  the  transcendent  morn- 
ing. 

A  curious  state  of  affairs  altogether — this  un- 
ceasing revolution  of  change  to  which  we  are 
committed!  Is  it  not  enough  that  each  day 
should  differ  from  all  the  rest,  but  that  it  must 
also  itself  be  divided  into  four  separate  entities? 
The  morning  for  work — glorious;  the  late  after- 
noon for  companionship  and  relaxation — gra- 
cious, benign;  the  evening  for  reading  and  med- 
itation beside  the  lamp  and  before  the  lire — • 
cosey  and  secure.  But  the  early  afternoon  for 
the  devil — utterly  forlorn. 


THE    FIELD    OF    ART 


"ElColeo." 


MARIANO  BENLLIU RE— SCULPTOR 

IT  is  impossible  to  live  in  Spain  without 
feeling  the  intense  character  of  the  na- 
tional art.  Past  or  present,  mediaeval 
or  Renaissance,  the  art  of  Spain  has  been 
the  expression  of  a  strong  imagination.  As 
a  friendly  critic  has  said— "the  imagination 
of  a  Spanish  artist  runs  amuck  with  his  ma- 
terials." Occasionally  he  has  run  into  the 
sublime,  and  the  wondering  world  is  left 
wondering.  This  national  trait  is  as  true 
of  the  cathedral-builders  as  of  the  painters. 
The  designers  of  Seville  Cathedral  had  no 
other  wish  than  "to  be  thought  mad  by  pos- 
terity," but  they  accomplished  one  of  the 
greatest  of  Gothic  churches.  Velasquez 
painting  "Las  Mcninas" — a  picture  in 
which  subjects,  painter,  and  onlooker  are 
rellected  within  one  plane  surface — seemed 
to  court  disaster,  but  he  accomplished  "the 
theology  of  painting." 

Of  the  modern  artists  in  S[)ain  none  is 
more  Spanish,  none  is  more  daring,  or  fear- 
less of  hovering  betwixt  the  ridiculous  and 
the  sublime,  than  Mariano  Benlliure. 

Daring  is  as  pleasing  to  the  Spanish  ex- 
hibited in  art  as  when  shown  in  the  bull-ring 
Vol.  LV.— 12 


or  the  chase.  It  covers  a  multitude  of  sins 
or  defects  in  their  heroes.  Whenever  dar- 
ing has  come  among  them  in  the  guise  of  a 
painter  or  a  carver  or  a  sculptor,  they  have 
always  recognized  and  applauded  it  as  the 
soul  of  their  race. 

Pheidias  had  his  way  in  fifth-century 
Athens  as  much  as  Christopher  Wren  in 
Caroline  London,  but  neither  had  such  free- 
dom to  mark  a  city  with  the  hall-mark  of 
their  genius  as  Benlliure  has  been  allowed 
within  the  limits  of  modern  IMadrid.  There 
are  some  who  have  not  scrupled  to  call  the 
city  "Benlliure's  studio"! 

It  is  certainly  hard  to  keep  out  of  sight  of 
his  works.  They  command  avenues,  they 
stand  at  the  cross-roads,  they  populate  the 
parks,  and  they  silhouette  the  rising  and  the 
setting  sun.  His  soaring  monument  to  Al- 
fonso XII,  rising  out  of  the  trees  of  the  Buen 
Retiro,  is,  perhaps,  the  first  outpost  of  the 
city  to  touch  the  Hght  of  dawn,  and  tiie  dar- 
ing group  in-l)ronze  which  surmounts  the 
I'nion  and  I'hdnix  Insurance  olTice,  in  the 
business  quarters  of  tiie  town,  is  the  last  ob- 
ject discernible  against  the  rose  of  evening. 

Nobody  who  has  ever  walked  up  the  Calle 


t:m 


The  iMckl  of  Art 


Mayoral  sunscl  can  forget  iho  woman  ^sym- 
bol of  life)  balanced  on  ilic  ^ziKaiilic-winped 
phanix  as  she  rises  clear-cut  above  t  he  ashes 
of  a  sun-broiled  ciiy. 

Mariano  lienlliure  may  he  accounted  one 
of  ihe  heretlilaryartificersof  Spain.  He  is  the 
successor  of  the  medianal  realists  who  filled 
her  calheilrals  with  dramatic  wood-carving 
and  breath-taking  sculptures.  The  pow- 
er of  expres- 
sion and  the 
use  of  con- 
traposition, 
which  Berru- 
giiele  employed 
to  make  mar- 
ble live,  have 
been  born  again 
in  him.  Al- 
ready his  name 
stands  as  far 
apart  in  Spain 
from  the  emas- 
culate tribe  who 
tritle  with  art 
as  that  of 
Rodin  from 
the  schools  of 
France.  Strange- 
ly enough  the 
only  North 
Americans  who 
have  appreci- 
ated his  talent 
have  been  the 
committee  ap- 
pointed  to 
erect  a  monu- 
ment at  Ma- 
nila to  the  late 
Mr.  Ferguson, 
secretary  of 

the  Philippine  Commission.  Benlliure  has 
thrown  himself  into  the  work  with  a  full 
realization  of  the  dehcate  compHment  in- 
volved in  choosing  a  Spanish  artist.  His 
idea  is  to  represent  in  marble  the  two  types 
of  native  and  American  womanhood  in  the 
joint  act  of  lifting  an  olive  wreath  to  a 
bronze  bust  above.  And  here  we  may  at- 
tempt to  describe  the  most  striking  charac- 
teristic of  his  greater  works— ^the  power  of 
combining  tw^o  such  different  materials  as 
bronze  and  marble  in  the  same  group  to 
express  artistic  differences  that  would  be 
lost  in  an  identity  of  material. 


Monument  to  the  Meroder  family,  Valencia. 


The  (Ireek  critics  have  recorded  the  lost 
"chryselephantine"  statues  in  which  inert 
and  living  matter  were  contrasted  by  the 
use  of  gilded  metal  or  gold  for  the  drapery 
and  ivory  for  the  face  and  hands.  Benlliure 
has  often  succeeded  in  combining  dull-col- 
ored bronze  with  snowy  marble  to  even 
greater  imaginative  effect.  To  him  bronze 
and  marble  are  as  different  as  poetry  and 

prose,  mascu- 
line and  femi- 
nine. Briefly, 
he  has  applied 
psychology  to 
materials! 

Whatsoever 
things  are  mun- 
dane, human, 
mortal,  of  the 
earth  earthy, 
seem  to  him 
instinctively  to 
call  for  bronze, 
while  things 
spiritual,  im- 
mortal, and  di- 
vine he  can 
only  conceive 
of  in  terms  of 
ethereal  mar- 
ble. This  lies 
at  the  root  of 
the  imagina- 
tive power  of 
his  completed 
work. 

Take  one  sim- 
ple instance — 
his  daring  at- 
tempt to  fore- 
stall the  day  of 
resurrection  in 
the  monument  at  Valencia  to  the  Meroder 
family.  The  bronze  sepulchral  door  is  held 
ajar  by  an  angel  of  marble  whiter  than  full- 
er's earth.  It  is  the  artist's  halting  yet 
convincing  attempt  to  contrast  the  forces  of 
death  and  life,  of  spirit  and  matter.  Again, 
in  his  monument  to  Castelar  the  living  fig- 
ures are  of  bronze — the  ghosts  of  the  dead 
are  of  marble. 

In  his  group  of  "The  King  and  Queen  of 
Spain  "  he  obtained  an  indescribable  effect 
by  chiselling  the  Queen  in  the  softest  of 
white  marble  and  casting  the  King  in  virile 
bronze. 


The   Field  of  Art 


].r> 


The  tombs  which  he  is  just  finishing  to 
the  memory  of  the  last  Duke  and  Duchess 
of  Medina  Ccli  contain  a  Hke  effort  to  bring 
the  mortal  and  the  immortal  into  contrast. 
The  shrouded  bodies  are  of  marble  and  their 
cofhns  of  bronze.  It  gives  a  hint  of  eter- 
nity that  no  tomb  or  elligy  made  of  a  single 
material  could  provide. 

In  spite  of  the  outward  perfection  and  fin- 
ish of  Benlliure's 
work,  the  restless 
spirit  of  contrast  sup- 
plies the  ideas  which 
sculptors  are  given 
only  the  outlines  of 
material  to  express. 
Poets  and  painters 
have  always  had  a 
thousand  subtleties 
and  shades  to  make 
clear  the  contrasts 
of  real  and  ideal.  To 
the  sheer  impression 
which  line  and  mould- 
ing can  produce  on 
the  spectator  of 
themselves  Benlliure 
has  added  that  of 
varied  material  and 
out  of  two  themes 
drawn  one  harmony. 
His  plastic  philoso- 
phy, if  one  may  use 
such  a  term,  is  simple. 

As  the  white  marble  was  forged  by  the  hand 
of  God,  so  was  the  bronze  molten  by  the 
work  of  man.  The  marble  is  symbolic  of 
the  spiritual  and  the  eternal,  as  the  bronze 
is  of  the  human  which  shall  perish. 

If  Benlliure  may  be  mentioned  with  Ro- 
din among  living  sculptors,  it  is  because  the 
art  in  which  he  has  triumphed  is  not  the  art 
of  Rodin.  Nothing  could  be  more  remote 
than  the  godlike  naturalness  of  Rodin's  un- 
finished masterpieces  from  the  finely  wrought 
delicacy,  detailed  magnificence,  of  Benlli- 
ure's imaginings. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  their  different 
ideas  as  to  how  a  great  creative  artist  in  an- 
other sphere  should  be  commemorated  in 
sculpture.  Rodin  represented  Balzac  by  an 
amorphous  vestured  block  crowned  by  a 
stu{)cndously  vital  head. 

Benlliure  is  responsible  for  the  entirely 
antithetical  monument  erected  to  the  paint- 
er Goya  in  the  streets  of  Madrid.      Goya  is 


"The  King  and  Queen  of  Spain." 


represented  standing  lifelike  and  realistic  in 
bronze  upon  a  marble  pedestal  into  which 
his  most  immortal  picture  is  worked  in 
marble  relief  I  Around  it  is  inscribed  Goya's 
motto:  "Out  of  the  slumber  of  genius  are 
monsters  begot." 

His  monument  to  the  tenor  Gayarre  can 
only  be  described  as  a  nightmare  of  genius. 
To  do  justice  to  the  singer's  memory,  the 

sculptor  was  content 
with  nothing  less 
than  that  the  spirits 
of  music  should  be 
displayed  wrenching 
the  singer's  cofiin  out 
of  the  tomb  and 
carrying  it  body  and 
all  into  the  soaring 
empyrean!  And  this, 
the  conception  not  of 
a  poet,  but  of  an  artist 
who  had  to  translate 
it  into  those  cum- 
brous and  unyield- 
ing materials  which 
crush  the  imaginings 
of  every  sculptor  born 
into  the  world! 

Benlliure  has  been 
one  of  those  who  have 
never  allowed  the  ar- 
dor or  inspiration  of 
their  work  to  ilag 
under  the  soft  winds 
of  success.  He  refuses  to  repeat  himself  or 
allow  his  standard  to  diminish.  At  one 
time  Spain  went  into  ecstasies  over  "La 
Bailadora,"  or  "The  Dancing  Ciirl."  Apart 
from  the  wonderful  achievement  of  poise  and 
motion,  he  proved  that  he  could  knit  the 
same  transparent  lace  out  of  marble  that 
Goya  used  to  charm  out  of  while  paint .  .\t 
present  all  Spain  is  demanding  that  his 
bull-tighting  group  called  "  Kl  Coleo"  be 
set  up  in  the  sight  of  the  Spanish  people 
forever. 

"El  Coleo"  is  a  life-size  medley  of  torea- 
dor, picador,  bull,  and  horse,  cast  in  bronze, 
that  brings  that  minglement  of  fear,  terror, 
and  pity  to  the  spectator  which  is  the  func- 
tion of  suj^reme  dramatic  art. 

The  name  "  El  Coleo  "  is  the  technical  term 
in  bull-lighting  for  theact  of  twistinga  bull's 
tail  to  divert  attention  from  a  fallen  man. 

Benlliure  has  told  the  story  of  l)ull-fighting 
in  one  daring  group.     :\  mounted  picador 


1.% 


The   V'\M  oi  Art 


has  lanccil  ihe  bull,  but  broken  his  hincc  in  so 
-nl  fallen  from  the  goreil  horse  on  the 
rns  of  the  bull.  The  toreador  has 
come  gallantly  to  the  rescue,  but  he  is  only 
risking  his  life  for  a  life  that  has  been  bulch- 
iri*l  to  make  a  Spanish  holiday. 

The  verdict  of  Spain  was  enthusiastic, 
but   that  of  Rome,  where  it  was  first   ex- 
hibited, was  even  more  complimentary,  for 
as  a  result  of  this  hor- 
ror in  bronze  the  whole 
project  for  introtlucing 
the  bull-tight  into  Italy 
fell  to  the  ground. 

There  is  a  general  de- 
sire to  erect  it  to-day  at 
the  entrance  of  the 
great  Arena  in  Madrid, 
a  desire  which  is  shared 
by  the  aficionados,  or 
amateurs  of  the  sport, 
as  well  as  by  the  hu- 
manitarians who  wish 
to  see  it  entirely  abol- 
ished. 

Whether  Benlliure 
will  ever  surpass  "El 
Coleo"  is  doubtful.  He 
himself  seems  to  regard 
it  as  his  ne  plus  ultra, 
for  he  has  refused  every 
price  and  treasures  it 
in  his  back  garden  out- 
side Madrid. 

Thither  we  made  our 
way  under  a  pitiless 
Spanish  sky  to  make  ac- 
quaintance with  mas- 
ter and  masterpiece. 
Our  unconcealed  praise 
and  admiration  brought 
out  the  story  of  his  life 
— the  pathetic  tale  of  early  woe  which  every 
successful  artist  can  tell. 

Born  in  Valencia  in  1869,  his  career  has 
been  that  of  a  self-made  man.  Strange  to 
relate,  he  remained  dumb  until  the  age  of 
eight,  but  in  compensation  Nature  taught 
him  to  express  his  thoughts  in  clay  and 
plaster.  At  ten  he  was  installed  in  a  stu- 
dio and  supporting  his  parents.  A  chance 
model  which  he  made  of  a  wounded  pica- 
dor in  the  bull-ring  brought  local  fame  and 
he  felt  it  time  to  strike  out  for  himself.     He 


*La  Bailadora." 


claims  to  have  followed  no  particular  school 
anil  obeyed  no  master  except  his  own  in- 
tuition. Until  he  was  sixteen  he  worked  at 
the  conventional  types  supplied  by  the  sanc- 
tuary and  the  arena,  for  all  the  national  he- 
roes of  Spain  are  saints  or  bull-fighters. 
Even  then  his  ambition  called  out  for 
[grandeur  and  he  boldly  carved  one  of  those 
life-size  pasos,  or  religious  tableaux,  which 
are  carried  through  the 
streets  upon  the  necks 
of  men  during  Holy 
Week.  This,  a  Descent 
from  the  Cross,  is  still 
treasured  by  one  of  the 
religious  guilds  of  Za- 
morra. 

With  his  first  hand- 
ful of  earnings  he  made 
his  way  to  Rome — the 
Golden  West  of  the  artis- 
tic emigrant.  Friend- 
less and  unknown,  he 
soon  exhausted  his  store 
and  was  forced  to  throw 
himself  for  a  living  on 
painting  water-colors, 
all  the  while  that  his 
head  throbbed  with  the 
magnificences  in  mar- 
ble and  bronze.  Not 
in  vain  did  he  cast  his 
bread  upon  "the  wa- 
ters," for  at  last  the 
means  and  materials 
came  under  his  hand 
and  he  created  his  first 
piece  of  statuary,  called 
"Accidente."  Upon 
this  he  staked  his  life 
and  won.  At  Madrid 
in  1889  it  brought  him 
the  first  prize.  As  a  result  he  was  given  the 
order  to  make  the  monument  of  Ribera  the 
painter  in  his  native  Valencia,  and  ever  since 
his  work  has  become  familiar  in  the  capital 
and  spread  into  Greater  Spain.  As  far  abroad 
as  Chile,  Peru,  and  Buenos  Ayres  there  are 
public  specimens  of  his  art- — a  success  which 
he  has  ixierited  by  remembering  what  the 
Spanish  love  more  than  all  things — 

"De  I'audace  et  toujours  de  I'audace!" 

Shane  Leslie. 


■IkHaaK- 


Pahiit 


AN   INTERNATIONAL  DIFFICULTY. 


ScRiBNER's  Magazine 


VOL.   LV 


FEBRUARY,   1914 


NO.  2 


THE   ALPINE    ROAD    OF    FRANCE 

THE  BEST  MOTOR-WAY  ACROSS  FRANCE,  FROM  NORMANDY  TO  THE 
MEDITERRANEAN  BY  THE  NEW  **  ROUTE  DES  ALPES  " 

BY  SIR  HENRY  NORMAN,  M.  P. 

Author  of  "The  Real  Japan,"  "  People  and  Politics  of  the  Far  East,"  "All  the  Russias," 
"The  Flowing  Road,"  "An  Automobile  in  Africa,"  etc. 

Illustrations   from   photographs   by   the   Author   and   others 


E  cross  France  from  north  to 
south  four  times  a  year. 
We  are  weary  of  the  ordi- 
nary routes.  To  reach  the 
Mediterranean  through 
Germany,  and  Switzerland 
or  Italy,  is  a  long  way  round,  while  time 
is  precious  and  tires  are  costly.  So  we 
spread  out  a  map  of  France  to  think  of 
a  new  way,  and  the  famous  example  of 
the  Czar  at  once  occurred  to  us.  When 
his  engineers  presented  him  with  their 
route  from  Petersburg  to  Moscow,  the  line 
curved  like  a  snake,  for  the  engineering 
difficulties  of  that  marshy  land  were  great. 
''Not  at  all,"  said  the  Emperor;  "this  is 
the  way  to  connect  two  cities,"  and  he 
took  a  ruler  and  drew  a  straight  line.  So 
the  railway  exists,  and  he  probably  never 
knew  how  many  millions  of  rubles  that 
ruled  line  cost.  We  were  bound  for  the 
southeast.  Why  not  start  from  the  north- 
west? and  we  laid  the  ruler  from  Cher- 
bourg to  Antibes.  The  more  we  consid- 
ered this,  the  better  we  liked  it,  until  at 
last  it  clearly  offered  so  many  advantages 
as  to  show  itself  an  ideal  route  across 
France.  Especially,  of  course,  for  Ameri- 
can travellers,  for  they  land  at  Cherbourg, 
or  reach  that  i)lace  easily  from  Southamj)- 
ton.  It  combines  more  aspects  of  French 
life  and  history,  and  a  greater  variety 
of  scenery,  than  any  trans-France  route 
we  know.     The  watering-places   of   the 


west  coast;  a  glimpse  of  Normandy  and 
Britanny;  the  world-famous,  if  tourist- 
haunted,  Mont  St.  Michel;  Anjou,  the 
melting-pot  of  Anglo-French  history;  the 
Loire  valley,  with  the  most  wonderful 
chain  of  castles  in  the  world;  a  pleasant 
bit  of  Auvergne;  the  great  city  of  Lyons, 
splendidly  prosperous  and  picturesque;  a 
dozen  delightful  river-valleys,  from  the 
gentle  Cher  to  the  dashing  Durance  and 
the  lordly  Rhone;  and,  finally  and  best, 
the  new  route  des  Alpes,  the  series  of  thrill- 
ing mountain  roads  over  a  dozen  passes 
of  the  Savoy,  Dauphine,  and  Maritime 
Alps,  up  eight  thousand  five  hundred  feet 
high,  now  beginning  to  be  available  to 
automobilists,  in  most  ways  equalling,  and 
in  some  surpassing,  any  roads  that  Switzer- 
land can  show.  The  decision  was  there- 
fore easy  this  time,  and  early  one  morn- 
ing last  September  we  disembarked  on  the 
c^uay  at  Cherbourg,  every  pre]:)aration 
made,  the  car  tuned  up  afresh  for  fast  runs 
and  high  climbs,  a  bag  filled  with  books 
and  maps,  and  in  our  hearts  the  exhilara- 
tion that  comes  from  days  ahead  of  un- 
known content — in  the  spirit  of  the 
Frenchman  who  said  that  a  key  is  the 
most  beautiful  object  on  earth,  since  you 
never  know  what  it  may  open. 

The  superiority  of  travel  in  an  automo- 
bile to  every  other  kind  of  journeying  en- 
ables a  mass  of  heterogeneous  scenic  and 


Copyright,  1914,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.     All  rights  reserved. 


Vol.  LV.— 13 


137 


138 


The   Alpine  Road  of   France 


human  detail  to  be  j^'raspcil  as  a  unit.  In 
other  forms  of  travel  the  parts  obscure  the 
whole.  The  saying  that  one  cannot  see 
the  wood  for  the  trees  is  not  merely  a  tig- 
ure  of  sjMjech:  it  is  a  statement  of  fact. 
The  automobilist  knows  the  Black  Poorest, 
or  the  New  Forest,  or  Fontainebleau,  as 
forests,  not  as  groups  of  trees  intersected 
by  roads.  The  traveller  by  train  must 
go  to  a  place,  observe  the  details  of  that 
place,  then  move  on  to  another  place,  with 
other  details.  The  best  traveller  on  foot 
—Borrow  or  Stevenson— can  enjoy  him- 
self, or  interest  others,  only  by  his  im- 
pressions of  the  insistent  details  of  each 
trudged  mile.  The  motorist  alone  can 
perform  the  great  deduction  of  travel. 
His  privilege  is  to  see  the  surface  of  his 
planet  and  the  activities  of  his  fellow 
men  unroll  in  impressive  continuity.  He 
moves  along  the  vital  lines  of  cause  and 
effect.  He  sees  how  the  earth  has  im- 
posed character  and  habits  upon  her  in- 
habitants. The  movements  of  popula- 
tions are  complete  phenomena  to  him,  as 
are  the  migrations  of  ants  to  the  observant 
scientist.  He  realizes  why  the  Welsh  have 
necessarily  remained  the  separate  race 
they  are.  He  knows  w^hy  the  people  of 
Yorkshire  are  different  from  the  people  of 
Kent.  He  understands  why  and  how  the 
Moors  came  and  went.  It  becomes  clear 
to  him  why  there  w^as  first  decentraliza- 
tion in  France,  then  centralization,  and 
now  why  the  future  must  happily  bring 
about  regionalisme  again.  The  philoso- 
phy of  history,  which  Hegel  viewed  trans- 
cendentally,  the  automobilist  visualizes. 
Of  course  he  enjoys  unequalled  oppor- 
tunities for  studying  details,  but  if  he  is 
wise  he  will  pass  these  by,  for  they  only 
serve  to  detract  from  the  special  and 
unique  advantages  he  may  otherwise  se- 
cure. "Leave  wars  to  others;  thou,  hap- 
py Austria,  marry!"  Let  the  travelling 
microscopist  pore  over  the  infinitely  small ; 
thou,  happy  motorist,  see  life  steadily  and 
see  it  whole. 

France,  more  than  any  European  coun- 
try, informs  this  kind  of  observer.  If  you 
say  'Trance"  to  the  common  traveller, 
what  does  the  word  connote?  The  Paris 
boulevards,  the  Grand  Hotel  or  the  Ritz, 
the  Bon  Marche  or  the  Printemps,  Notre 
Dame  or  Napoleon's  tomb,  the  stained 


glass  of  Chartres,  the  facade  of  Amiens, 
the  beach  at  Biarritz,  the  Promenade 
des  Anglaise,  at  Nice.  When  you  say 
''France"  to  us,  what  do  w^e  see?  The 
great  central  wheat  plain;  the  broad  vine- 
belt;  the  western  landes;  the  eastern  pine 
slopes;  the  welter  of  history  in  Touraine 
and  Anjou;  dear,  yellow,  dusty,  wind- 
swept, singing,  dancing  Provence;  the 
southward  climatic  procession  of  buck- 
wheat, wheat,  vine,  olive,  palm,  and 
orange  tree.  "The  moon  was  a  ribbon 
of  silver  across  the  purple  moor."  So 
France,  to  us,  means  a  moving  panorama 
of  man  and  nature,  vitally  interwoven, 
from  Roman  legionary  to  the  champagne- 
grower  of  to-day  burning  the  vineyards 
from  which  he  lives,  with  the  resultant 
nation  at  once  the  delight,  the  puzzle — in 
faint-hearted  moments  almost  the  despair 
— of  the  rest  of  mankind,  the  enthralling 
spectacle  of  the  gravest  problems  and  the 
most  gallant  courage  to  grapple  with 
them  that  the  modern  world  affords. 

Come  with  us,  therefore,  and  you  will 
not  be  bothered  much  with  details.  If 
you  mxust  have  these,  go  to  Baedeker — he 
will  give  you  nothing  else.  We  land  at 
Cherbourg.  Is  it  not  the  third  naval  port 
and  arsenal  of  France?  It  is.  See  Bae- 
deker. But  look  at  Normandy.  It  is  like 
the  England  that  it  once  was.  The  un- 
dulating country  is  gay  with  heather  and 
gorse  and  broom ;  festoons  of  blackberries 
hang  over  the  hedges  into  the  lanes;  the 
stone-built  houses  have  yellow-ochre  mud- 
plastered  tops,  and  the  saxifrage  which 
has  covered  their  thatched  roofs  has  with- 
ered away  into  a  gray-brown  fluff.  Apple 
orchards  everywhere,  and  the  ground  un- 
der the  trees  covered  with  little  scarlet 
cider  apples.  The  roadside  trees  have 
thousands  of  big  bunches  of  mistletoe — 
tons  of  this  were  exported  to  England,  but 
an  edict  has  now  gone  forth  that  it  is  a 
baneful  parasite,  and  the  farmer — for  this, 
unlike  other  parts  of  France,  is  a  land  of 
tenant-farmers — must  cut  it  down,  or  the 
state  will  come  and  cut  it  down  for  him. 
There  are  three  crops — or  four  if  you  in- 
clude bees — apples,  flax,  and  stretches 
everywhere  of  wine-red  fields.  "Sarra- 
sin,"  was  the  answer  to  our  question.  It 
is  buckwheat — the  famous  ble  noir.  It  is 
not  for  stock,  and  certainly  not  for  the 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


139 


nefarious  purpose  sometimes  planned  by 
unscrupulous  people  in  England — to  at- 
tract a  neighbor's  pheasants!  It  is  "pour 
faire  la  galette" — to  make  into  the  flat 
bread-cakes  which  are  staple  food  of  the 
people  hereabouts.  But  it  is  also  ex- 
ported for  poultry-feeding,  and  to  Holland 
for  the  Dutch  distillers.  For  there  is  an 
awful — that  is  the  word — consumption  in 
France  of  hundreds  of  kinds  of  pernicious 
spirituetix,  horrible,  poisonous  "bitters" 
and  "tonics"  and  ^^ aperitif s.'^  You  see 
rows  of  bottles  of  them  in  every  cafe  and 
estafninet  and  buvette,  the  despair  of  re- 
formers, for  they  are  undermining  the 
health  of  the  whole  community.  Millions 
of  litres  of  raw  potato-spirit  are  imported 
from  Germany  to  Bordeaux,  of  all  places, 
the  very  home  and  centre  of  the  wine- 
country  of  the  world!  And  these  Nor- 
mandy peasants  may  poison  themselves 
with  the  stuff  distilled  in  Rotterdam  from 
their  own  ruddy  fields. 

A  puncture  brings  us  to  a  halt  in  a  lane 
ojBf  the  highroad — a  short  cut  we  were 
taking,  and  my  lady  walks  on  and  smiles 
at  the  door  of  each  cottage  in  turn,  and 
every  housewife  invites  her  in  and  dis- 
plays the  little  home  and  its  treasures. 
The  people  are  distinguished  in  manner, 
and  speak  French  without  accent.  Each 
house  below  is  one  large  room,  picturesque 
and  exquisitely  kept;  a  hearth-fire  be- 
neath a  vast  hooded  open  chimney,  with 
no  grate  of  any  kind;  double-curtained 
wooden  beds  on  either  side  of  the  fire,  old 
swell-bodied  wooden  clocks,  lumpy  carved- 
oak  cupboards,  with  brass  hinges  and 
finger-plates  two  or  three  feet  long,  the 
walls  covered  with  china,  a  highly  pol- 
ished brown  clothless  table,  spread  for  a 
meal  for  many  persons,  and  long,  thin 
benches  on  each  side.  The  men  have  no 
peculiarities  of  costume,  but  the  women 
seem  to  have  stepped  out  of  Millet's  pic- 
tures, with  their  full,  neatly  brushed,  very 
short  black  skirts,  sabots,  cross-over  black 
bodices,  and  starched  caps,  the  latter 
varying  with  every  village,  from  plain 
linen  Vjands  to  elaborate  frilled  caps  with 
strings.  But,  though  the  homes  are  so 
pleasant,  the  farm-buildings  are  filthy,  and 
the  cows  and  oxen  are  tied  up  to  pegs  in 
the  walls,  and  lie  in  a  foot  of  rotten  ma- 
nure, as  do  the  sheep,  with  no  sign  of  trough 
or  food-rack. 


Those  who  enjoy,  as  I  do,  standing  upon 
the  exact  spot  of  some  great  historic  hap- 
pening, where  the  significance  of  it  per- 
meates them  like  an  emanation,  should 
not  pass  through  Normandy  without  halt- 
ing for  a  few  minutes  at  Avranches. 
Leave  your  car  for  a  few  minutes  by  the 
Sous-prefecture,  and  make  your  way  to  a 
shady  secluded  square  on  the  edge  of  the 
ramparts,  where  few  tourists  penetrate. 
In  a  corner,  surrounded  by  a  chain,  stands 
a  broken  column — the  only  fragment  re- 
maining of  the  cathedral  destroyed  by  the 
revolutionists  of  1790.  It  has  a  bronze 
plate  with  this  striking  inscription: 

SUR  CETTE   PIERRE 
ICI,  A  LA  PORTE  DE  LA  CATHEDRALE  d'A\RAXCHES, 

Apres  le  meurtre  de  Thomas  Becket 

Archeveque  de  Caxtorberv. 

Henry  II, 

Roi  d'Angleterre  et  Dug  de  Xormaxdie 

Re^ut  a  genoux 

.       DES    LEGATS    DU    PaPE 

l' absolution  apostolique, 

LE  DIMANCHE   XXI   M\l, 

MCLXXII 

What  a  picture  of  the  time — the  coarse- 
built,  passionate  Plantagenet,  never  hum- 
bled before,  on  his  knees  on  the  stone  at 
the  door  of  the  cathedral,  remembering 
his  friendship  with  the  chancellor,  his 
quarrel  with  him  when  archbishop,  the 
reconciliation,  the  murder  three  years  ago, 
and  now  prostrate  before  the  emissaries 
of  Rome,  to  escape  from  the  curse  flung  at 
him  at  Chinon  by  a  monk  of  Canterbury ! 

Of  course  the  sight  of  Normandy  is  the 
abbey-fortress  of  Mont  St.  Michel,  and 
long  tradition  has  linked  to  it  the  ome- 
let of  Madame  Poulard.  For  two  hours 
before  you  reach  the  embankment,  which 
since  1879  has  destroyed  its  island  char- 
acter, the  pyramidal  group  of  fortifica- 
tions, houses,  battlements,  and  spire  rise 
wonderfully  in  the  vast  stretch  of  sand. 
We  had  never  visited  it,  and  two  im- 
f)rcssions  of  unexj^ected  strength  remain. 
First,  this  architectural  summary  of  the 
centuries  from  the  eleventh  to  the  fif- 
teenth, whose  monks  in  1066  were  already 
so  rich  that  they  sent  six  ships  to  help 
William  conquer  England,  is  vastly  more 
interesting  and  impressive  than  wo  had 


140 


The  Alpine   Kc^ad  of   France 


thought.  Second,  it  is  the  most  tourist- 
( lest  roved  place  we  have  ever  known. 
Madame  Poulard  is  dead  and  gone,  ome- 
lets made  by  the  hundred  are  apt  to  be 
leathery  and  cold,  the  strange,  steej^ 
streets  are  dreadful  with  souvenir-harpies 
stopping  you  at  every  yard,  and  you  must 
see  it  as  one  of  fifty  visitors  taken  round  at 
a  time  by  a  bored  state  official  at  a  franc  a 
head.  Have  lunch  early  elsewhere,  and 
arrive  there  when  others  are  lunching — 
that  is  the  only  palliative,  and  even  then 
you  will  be  glad  to  leave  and  drive  on  to 
the  fortifications  of  St.  Malo,  linger  per- 
haps at  the  gay  bathing  plage  of  Dinard, 
run  down  the  soft  valley  of  the  Ranee, 
stroll  round  the  quaint  Breton  town  of 
Dinan,  till  you  halt  at  the  Ostellerie  du 
Cheval  Blanc  at  Angers,  a  type  of  the 
pleasant  old-fashioned  French  provincial 
hotel.     You  are  in  Anjou. 

France,  as  I  have  said,  is  made  up  of  a 
number  of  great  geographical  and  his- 
torical units,  and  the  most  interesting  of 
these  is  formed  by  the  two  old  provinces 
or  counties  of  Touraine  and  Anjou,  now 
practically  the  departments  of  Maine  et 
Loire  and  Indre  et  Loire.  "Perhaps  no 
stream,"  says  T.  A.  Cook*  of  the  Loire, 
"in  so  short  a  portion  of  its  course  has  so 
much  history  to  tell."  Every  historian 
and  poet,  ancient  and  modern,  from  Ron- 
sard  to  Hugo,  has  rhapsodized  over  Tou- 
raine, this  ''pays  enchanteur"  where 
from  Roman  and  Saracen  and  Charles 
M artel  to  Plantagenet  and  Revolution- 
ist, history  has  been  made  of  each  turn  of 
the  stream,  and  has  left  such  monuments 
in  its  castles  as  no  district  of  its  size 
in  the  world  can  equal.  Loudest  of  all, 
the  "gros  rire  tourangeau"  of  Rabelais 
has  echoed  for  four  hundred  years  along 
this  happy  valley.  And  the  centuries  of 
fighting  between  Tourangeau  and  An- 
gevin Hnk  Touraine  and  Anjou  insepa- 
rably together,  and  bring  us  of  English 
descent  into  the  story  of  their  charm  and 
bloodshed.  For  Anjou  has  been  well 
called  "England  over  the  water."  Vital 
issues  of  English  history  were  decided 
here.  Great  feudal  lords  fought  here  for 
the  English  crown,  and  hence  came  our 
Plantagenet  line.     Here  was  the  home- 

*  His  scholarly  and  brilliant  book,  "Old  Touraine,  "should 
be  read  beforehand  by  every  one  who  visits  this  part  of 
France.  Like  all  travellers  in  Touraine  I  am  much  indebted 
to  It. 


land  of  the  Frenchmen  who  were  kings  of 
England,  "my  illustrious  predecessors  of 
the  house  of  Anjou,"  as  Queen  Victoria 
once  called  them.  The  links  wdth  England 
arc  two:  first,  William  the  Conqueror's 
son,  Henry  I,  had  a  daughter,  Matilda, 
who  married  Geoffrey  Plantagenet,  the 
son  of  Fulk  V,  of  Anjou;  and  Henry  II, 
King  of  England  and  Count  of  Anjou  and 
Touraine,  was  their  son,  on  whose  acces- 
sion Anjou  became  English ;  and  Richard 
Cocur  de  Lion  their  grandson:  and,  sec- 
ond, after  the  chain  ^vas  broken  during 
three  centuries  and  the  reigns  of  five  kings 
of  England,  it  was  linked  again  by  the 
marriage  of  Margaret,  daughter  of  Rene 
of  Anjou,  to  Henry  VI,  but  severed  finally 
through  their  lack  of  issue,  although  An- 
jou did  not  become  definitely  French  until 
Louis  XI  annexed  it  in  1480. 

The  route  we  are  taking,  diagonally 
across  France  from  northwest  to  south- 
east, cuts  across  Anjou  and  Touraine, 
and  here  the  traveller  must  linger.  If  he 
loves  to  dw^ell  on  "old,  forgotten,  far-off 
things,  and  battles  long  ago,"  he  may 
spend  a  happy  fortnight  here.  If  his  time 
is  limited,  and  he  must  let  the  panorama 
of  France  unroll  fast,  he  may  see  enough 
in  three — or  even  two — days  to  pro\'ide 
him  with  lifelong  memories.  For  the 
glorious  castles  of  the  Loire  valley  all  lie 
between  Saumur  and  Blois,  a  distance  of 
only  seventy  miles,  and  this  route  brings 
him  to  them  by  Angers,  the  capital  of 
Anjou,  thirty  miles  from  Saumur,  where 
he  will  find,  as  he  enters,  one  of  the  most 
imposing  feudal  strongholds  of  the  ^vorld, 
a  vast  pentagon  of  massive  towers  and 
walls  dominating  the  Maine  from  a  rocky 
plateau. 

This  he  need  only  see  from  the  outside, 
but  in  the  town  of  Angers  he  will  find  good 
reason  to  rejoice  at  one  curious  result  of 
the  recent  secularization  of  church 'prop- 
erty in  France.  In  1375  Louis  I,  Duke  of 
Anjou,  desiring  to  decorate  his  apartments 
in  the  castle  of  Angers,  borrowed  from  his 
brother,  Charles  V,  an  illuminated  manu- 
script of  the  Apocalypse,  and  commis- 
sioned Nicolas  Bataille,  a  celebrated  tap- 
estry-maker of  Paris,  to  copy  it.  The 
resulting  work  had  strange  fortunes.  Louis 
bequeathed  it  to  King  Rene,  w^ho  trans- 
ferred it  from  castle  to  castle  and  finally 
presented  it,  in  1474,  to  the  cathedral  at 


The  Alpine   Road  of  France 


141 


Angers,  where  it  was  hung  from  that 
time  until  1782,  when  it  fell  upon  evil 
days.  All  notion  of  its  beauty  and  value 
was  apparently  lost;  it  was  used  to  pro- 
tect orangeries  from  cold,  to  wrap  up 
wounded  soldiers,  as  packing-sheets,  bed- 
quilts,  to  cover  floors  while  ceilings  were 
being  redecorated,  hung  in  stables  to 
prevent  horses  rubbing  themselves,  and 
finally,  in  1843,  stowed  away  as  useless. 
An  enlightened  person  bought  the  lot  for 
three  hundred  francs,  the  scattered  and 
torn  pieces  were  gathered  together  bit  by 
bit,  and  in  course  of  time  cleaned  and 
most  carefully  repaired.  Then  it  remained 
hidden  in  closets  in  the  bishop's  palace, 
until  the  other  day  the  state  took  the 
palace,  tapestry  and  all,  and  now  it  hangs 
there  and  in  the  cathedral.  It  is,  though 
sadly  incomplete,  probably  the  finest  tap- 
estry in  the  world,  unless  that  at  Reims 
equals  it,  and  certainly  one  of  the  most 
precious  artistic  possessions  of  mankind. 
It  consisted  originally  of  seven  pieces, 
each  about  six  metres  high  and  twenty- 
four  metres  long,  the  whole  containing 
ninety  pictures,  of  which  seventy  and 
eight  scraps  are  left.  It  is  w^onderfully 
beautiful,  and  must  on  no  account  be 
missed,  or  the  other  tapestries  of  the  fif- 
teenth and  sixteenth  centuries,  also  disin- 
terred by  the  state  from  the  bishops'  cup- 
boards. 

The  route  I  have  planned  leads  past  one 
world-famous  place  little  visited  by  the 
tourist,  and,  before  entering  the  Loire  val- 
ley, you  must  drive  to  a  village  ten  miles 
southwest  from  Saumur  and  linger  awhile 
in — what?  La  Maison  Central  de  Deten- 
tion, the  great  French  convict  prison. 
For  more  than  a  hundred  years  it  has  been 
a  prison,  but  it  is,  in  origin  and  history, 
nothing  less  than  the  great  Abbey  of  Fon- 
tevrault,  truly  described  by  Cook  as  "per- 
haps the  most  remarkable  institution  of 
its  kind  in  Christendom."  In  the  eleventh 
century  an  eloquent  monk  named  Robert 
d'Arbrissel  was  asked  by  Pope  Urban  II 
to  preach  the  Crusades.  So  persuasive 
was  he  that  in  a  short  time  he  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  motley  crowd  of  four  thousand 
men  and  women,  of  all  ranks  and  all  vir- 
tues or  none.  The  too  successful  apostle 
could  not  take  his  mob  of  disciples  to 
Palestine,  so  he  planted  them  here  by  a 
si)ring  near  the  former  stronghold  of  a 


robber  chief  named  Evrault.  He  divided 
his  pilgrims  into  four  houses,  for  learned 
ladies,  penitent  women,  lepers,  and  monks, 
and  by  a  stroke  of  genius  put  the  place 
under  the  authority  of  a  lady  abbess,  and 
drew  up  such  rules,  including  abstinence 
from  wine,  as  had  never  been  known  be- 
fore, summarized  in  the  motto:  "Mother, 
behold  your  son;  son,  behold  your  moth- 
er." And  under  abbesses  it  remained, 
thriving  or  decaying  as  their  character 
and  authority  waxed  or  waned — a  fact 
not  without  significance  in  connection 
with  a  certain  problem  of  our  own  day. 
For  three  centuries  it  prospered  amaz- 
ingly, then  its  wealth  and  fame  fell  away; 
it  was  restored  to  its  former  glory,  but  be- 
came at  last  so  gay  and  luxurious  a  re- 
sort that  the  destructive  hands  of  the 
Revolution  fell  heavy  upon  it,  wiped  the 
community  out,  and  left  the  last  abbess  to 
die  miserably  in  Paris.  But  in  its  brave 
days  it  was  closely  bound  up  with  English 
history.  Our  queens,  our  princesses  whom 
nobody  wanted,  our  women  failures  of 
high  degree,  no  less  than  many  of  the 
great  and  glorious  of  their  time,  visited  it, 
or  took  the  veil  in  it,  or  died  there,  and,  in- 
deed, as  some  historian  has  remarked,  our 
royal  history  which  ended  at  Windsor  be- 
gan at  Fontevrault. 

As  the  abbey  now  contains  six  hundred 
long-sentence  convicts,  not  all  of  it  can  be 
seen,  and  the  visitor  is  escorted  by  a  ward- 
er, clanking  with  keys,  through  many 
iron  prison-gates.  It  is  still  a  vast  place, 
with  quiet  cloisters  round  a  grassy  square, 
with  exquisite  carved  doorways,  a  Ro- 
manesque chapel,  and  a  quaint  circular 
building  of  the  twelfth  century,  regarding 
which  archaeologists  still  debate  whether 
it  was  a  mortuary  chapel  or  a  kitchen. 
But  for  us  English  all  other  interest  at 
Fontevrault  pales  before  the  heroic  re- 
cumbent statues  of  the  Plantagenets. 
The  tombs  were  rifled  at  the  Revolution 
and  afterward  built  up  in  the  chapel  wall, 
and  have  only  just  been  found  again  dur- 
ing the  admirable  work  of  restoration  now 
proceeding.  Two  statues  were  destroyed, 
but  four  remain,  in  almost  perfect  j^reser- 
vation,  in  a  window-bay  of  the  small  bare 
chapel  where  the  prisoners  hear  daily 
mass.  As  a  si)ecial  favor  I  was  permitted 
to  photograph  them — a  rather  ditlicult 
task,  as  there  is  little  light  and  one  can 


112 


The  Ali)inc   Road  of  France 


place  a  camera  only  a  iVw  feet  irom  them. 
My  pictures  are  better,  tlierefore,  than  I 
hat!  ventured  to  hope.    Three  statues  are 
of  tufa  stone  and  one  of  wood,  all  })auUed 
in  pastel-like  shades  of  pale  cobalt,  lav- 
ender, and  pink.    There  they  lie,  Henry 
II  and  his  son  Richard  the  Lion-hearted, 
whose  conduct   to  his  father  was   such 
that   the  latter's  wounds  are  fabled   to 
have  bled  afresh  when  his  son  approached 
the  corpse;  Eleanor  of  Aquitaine,  wife  of 
Henry  II,  who  died  here  in  1204;    and 
smaller,  in  wood,  the  beautiful  and  pas- 
sionate Isabel  of  Angouleme,  carried  away 
on  her  betrothal  day  by  King  John  of  Eng- 
land, to  bear  him  Henry  HI,  whose  heart 
was  also  buried  here,  and  at  his  death  to 
come  back  faithfully  and  marry  her  old 
lover.     I  hardly  know  the  reason  why 
these  monuments  pleased  and  impressed 
me  more  than  any  I  know  elsew^here.    Per- 
haps their  unspoiled  perfection  has  some- 
thing to  do  with  it — every  finger-tip  is 
perfect.    Perhaps  their  almost  Etruscan 
simplicity.     Perhaps  a  certain  propriety 
— qiicedam  proprietas — in  their  demeanor 
for  eternity.     Probably  the  aroma  of  the 
story  of  the  broom-bearers  contributed 
much.    But,  whatever  it  w^as,  I  would  go 
far  at  any  time  to  stand  again  by  these 
Plantagenets    on    their   biers,   with   the 
lovely    drapery   of   their   couch   around 
them,  in  the  gloom  of  evening  and  of 
history. 

On  leaving  Angers,  spectacle  after  spec- 
tacle, in  rapid  succession,  on  alternate 
sides  of  the  Loire,  comes  a  great  chain  of 
fortresses,  fortress-residences,  and  sheer 
pleasure-houses.  Chinon,  begun  by  Ro- 
mans and  Visigoths,  the  home  of  king 
after  king,  where  Henry  II  and  perhaps 
Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  died,  the  "Windsor 
of  France,"  in  whose  great  hall  Joan  of 
Arc  came  pleading  to  Charles  VII,  and  to 
w^hose  gay  company  Rabelais  poured  out 
his  immortal  jests,  w^as  last  inhabited  by 
Cardinal  Richelieu  and  his  descendants, 
and  was  left  by  the  Revolution  the  mag- 
nificent mass  of  ruins  it  is  to-day.  Lan- 
geais,  with  its  two  great  towers  and  port- 
cullis, in  the  very  midst  of  the  little  town, 
show^s,  notwithstanding  the  guards' ''  che- 
min  de  ronde"  from  which  melted  lead 
could  be  poured  upon  invaders,  how  Ital- 
ian art  and  luxury  were  already  modi- 


fying the  mere  stronghold.     Here,   the 
year  before  Columbus  discovered  America, 
Anne  of  Britanny  w^as  married  to  Charles 
VIII. —  and  do  not  fail  to  see  the  exquisite 
and  pathetic  tomb  of  their  two  babies  in 
Tours  Cathedral.    It  is  of  peculiar  inter- 
est to-day  because  it  was  bought  by  M. 
Siegfried,  the  wealthy  ship-owner,  and  by 
him  restored  and  filled  with  furniture  and 
objects  of  art  of  the  period  collected  from 
far  and  wide..   His  will  bequeathed  it  to 
his  wife,  and  at  her  death  to  the  Institute 
of  France,  with  a  yearly  revenue  of  thirty 
thousand  francs  for  its  up-keep.    Then,  a 
little  farther  on  to  your  left,  look  out  for 
Luynes  on  its  hill — no  reason  to  climb  up 
to  it — precisely  the  delightful  pepper-pot 
castle  of  the  fairy-book.    Tours,  half  an 
hour  on,  very  interesting  historically,  has 
little  to  show  except  the  cathedral,  but 
Amboise,  twenty  miles  farther,  detains 
you.    Looking  from  its  decorated  heights, 
by  its  exquisite  chapel,  from  its  two  huge 
towers,  up  one  of  which  a  carriage  and 
pair  may  be  driven,  upon  the  roofs  of  the 
little  town  huddled  below,  you  realize  how 
the  feudal  lord  looked  down  upon  the 
serf-like  population.     And  while  its  Ital- 
ianized architecture  gives  you  one  idea 
of  the  taste  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth 
centuries,  quite  another  is  conveyed  by 
the  recollection  that  upon  these  battle- 
ments, in  1560,  stood  a  gay  company  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  among  whom  was 
Frangois  II  and  his  bride,  Mary  Queen  of 
Scots,  to  watch  the  butchering  of  twelve 
hundred   Huguenots,  on    the  failure  of 
their  plot  to  remove  Francois  from  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Guises,  the  family  of  the 
great  duke  who  had  inspired  the  massacre 
of  St.  Bartholomew.    It  was  a  long  job, 
of  course,  to  kill  so  many,  and  the  com- 
pany could  hardly  be  expected  to  watch 
it  all,  but  the  noble  victims  were  reserved 
for  their  especial  entertainment  after  din- 
ner.    And  wdth  this  edifying  spectacle  in 
your  memory  you  may  drive  thirty  miles  to 
the  south  to  visit  Loches,  whose  keep  has 
probably  the  most  impressive  collection 
of  dungeons  in  the  world.    Here  Philippe 
de  Comines,  the  historian,  w^as  shut  up 
for  years  in  a  barred  window  recess;  here 
Sforza,  Duke  of  Milan,  spent  nine  years 
in  semidarkness;  here  the  stone  walls  are 
worn  into  steps  by  the  prisoners  who  strug- 
gled up  them  to  get  a  glimpse  through 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


143 


the  narrow  slit  in  the  wall ;  down  this  nar- 
row stair  came  Louis  XI  to  look  at  Car- 
dinal de  la  Balue  hanging  in  his  iron 
cage.  But  here,  too,  dwelt  and  died  Agnes 
Sorel,  ''most  beautiful  of  the  beautiful," 
the  saintly  mistress  of  Charles  VII,  and 


of  pearls.  At  Chaumont  you  come  ui)on 
Catherine  de  Medici  and  her  astrologer; 
the  great  Chateau  of  Blois  will  occupy  a 
couple  of  hours  with  its  wonderful  Ren- 
aissance fac;ades  and  salons  and  staircase, 
its  sculptures  and  paintings  and  tapestries, 


Map  of  France  showing  route  taken  by  the  author. 


here  is  her  tomb,  but  not  her  body, 
with  the  unforgetable  inscription,  ''plus 
blanche  que  les  cygnes,  plus  vermeille  que 
la  flamme,"  and  her  effigy  watched,  appro- 
priately enough,  by  two  lambs. 

The  road  back  to  the  Loire  takes  you 
past  Chenonceau,  a  castle-gem  astride 
the  Cher,  with  each  of  its  feet  in  a  vine- 
yard. A  copy  of  its  eastern  facade  forms 
the  beautiful  decoration  of  the  second  act 
of  "Les  Huguenots"  at  the  Paris  Opera. 
Blois  is  stained  with  the  blood  of  Guise, 
says  a  local  historian;  Chaumont  was 
a  nest  of  vultures;  Amboise  was  the  scene 
of  massacre;  Loches  stands  upon  unnum- 
bered dungeons;  Chenonceau  alone  has 
no  blood-stain  on  its  stones  and  no  groan 
has  ever  risen  from  its  vaults.  Eight 
generations  of  kings  took  their  i)leasure 
there,  and  a  long  line  of  brilliant  and  beau- 
tiful women  makes  its  history  like  a  rope 


but  your  chief  memory  will  be  of  the  Duke 
of  Guise  backing,  sword  in  hand,  from 
stair  to  stair  and  from  room  to  room  be- 
fore his  assassins.  Finally,  at  Chambord 
you  will  see  a  stupendous  chateau  of  the 
Renaissance,  a  very  ebullition  of  archi- 
tecture. No  more  machicoulis  for  molten 
lead,  no  more  slits  for  archers,  no  more 
keep  and  dungeon  and  portcullis,  but  thir- 
teen great  and  fifty  smaller  staircases,  bal- 
ustraded  galleries,  great  windows,  fauns, 
salamanders,  cupids,  innumerable  friezes 
and  bas-reliefs  and  turrets  and  ])innacles 
and  mouldings,  and  a  wonderful  concen- 
tric double-spiral  staircase  up  and  down 
which  two  parties  can  go  at  the  same  time 
without  even  seeing  each  other.  It  has 
four  hundred  and  forty  apartments,  its 
stables  held  twelve  hundred  horses,  its 
walls  are  twenty  miles  round,  it  has  twen- 
ty square  miles  of  hunting-land  within 


in 


The   Alpine   Road  of  France 


them.  The  place  is  a  prodigiously  extrav- 
agant roval  i)lcasurc-hoiiso,  and  at  the 
Revolution  it  was  treated  as  such.  When 
we  were  there  a  Bourbon  hunting-party — 
it  belongs  to  the  Bour])ons— in  coats  of 
green,  with  horn  and  hound,  were  setting 
out  as  in  the  old  days,  and  we  lunched  at 
the  little  inn  of  the  Grand  St.  Michel  off 
the  superlluities  of  their  dejeuner  de  chasse. 

After  Touraine  our  car  points  due  east 
for  a  hundred  miles,  through  pleasant, 
uneventful  country,  and  draws  up  out- 
side the  strangely  irregular  cathedral  of 
Bourges.  Here  is  the  finest  stained  glass 
in  France — after  that  of  Chartres  perhaps 
in  the  world — one  hundred  and  sixty-five 
windows  and  forty-five  roses,  all  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  The  ''art  du  vi- 
trail"  was  a  French  art,  and  Berry,  the 
old  name  of  Bourges,  w^as  famous  for  its 
"verriers."  But  at  the  end  of  the  six- 
teenth century  there  came  wandering 
craftsmen  called  "coureurs  de  losanges," 
S^^^ss  glass-makers,  who  camped  out  in 
towns  and  made  on  the  spot  white  glass, 
lozenge-shaped,  to  replace  stained  glass 
broken,  or  out  of  fashion,  or  thought  to 
obscure  the  light.  Then  the  Jacobins 
broke  most  of  the  panes  containing  ar- 
morial bearings,  and  tried  to  melt  the 
richest  colors,  for  the  gold  they  believed 
to  be  in  them.  But  enough  remains  to 
fill  the  eye  with  glory  and  the  mind 
with  wonder.  The  elaborately  decorated 
Gothic  house  of  Jacques  Coeur,  a  wealthy 
tradesman  who  lent  much  money  to  the 
King  of  France,  and  barely  escaped  with 
his  life  from  an  accusation,  doubtless  in 
the  interest  of  his  creditor,  of  trying  to 
poison  Agnes  Sorel,  is  also  one  of  the 
sights  of  Bourges. 

I  must  pass  quickly  over  our  run  south- 
ward by  St.  Amand  and  Montlugon, 
through  a  manufacturing  "black  coun- 
try," over  a  wooded  pass  and  down 
through  the  picturesque  gorges  of  the 
river  Sioule.  But  do  not  fail  to  notice,  as 
you  follow  my  route,  the  ruins  of  the 
Chateau  Rocher,  on  the  right,  splendid  in 
its  decay  on  a  lonely  hill  among  many 
hills.  Then  past  the  twin  towns  of  Cler- 
mont-Ferrand, with  the  sugar-loaf  Puy 
de  Dome  towering  above  an  air  which 
reeks  of  vulcanized  india-rubber,  from  the 
great  motor-tire  factories,  to  Royat,  fa- 


mous for  its  mineral  waters,  and  here  we 
spent  a  dull  evening,  dining  alone  in  a 
vast  room,  for  it  was  the  end  of  the  sea- 
son and  the  hotel  about  to  close.  A  week 
or  two  earlier,  and  the  tired  motorist 
could  halt  here  or  at  Vichy  or  at  Aix  and 
find  baths  and  music  and  casinos  and  all 
the  luxuries  and  diversions  of  a  cosmo- 
politan world  of  fashion.  In  the  morning, 
due  east  again,  and  of  this  day  I  have 
space  to  speak  of  one  place  only — Thiers. 
The  town  resembles  an  Indian  hill-sta- 
tion, for  it  stands  high  above  a  ravine 
formed  by  the  river  Durolle,  and  there  is 
a  difference  of  six  hundred  feet  .between 
the  top  and  the  bottom  of  the  broad 
street  which  serpents  through  it,  flanked 
with  rows  of  houses,  the  doors  of  each  row 
nearly  on  a  level  with  the  neighbor's 
chimneys.  It  is  a  place  of  character,  too, 
with  its  large  old-fashioned  inn,  its  tavern 
called  ''La  Maison  des  Sept  Peches  Ca- 
pitaux,"  quaintly  illustrated  by  seven 
carved  figures  forming  corbels  of  the  up- 
per story,  and  its  many  shops  bright  with 
every  kind  of  cutlery.  It  is  this  cutlery 
which  makes  us  halt  here. 

Every  visitor  to  one  of  the  great  Paris 
stores  will  have  noticed  counters  covered 
with  table  cutlery  of  the  characteristic 
French  pattern  —  broad,  curved  blades 
and  horn  or  black-bone  handles,  excellent 
steel  and  very  cheap.  Almost  all  this  is 
made  at  Thiers,  and  by  hand.  But  there 
is  no  external  sign  of  manufacture,  and  a 
traveller  might  pass  through  the  town 
without  suspecting  a  great  industry.  The 
swift-flowing  Durolle  supplies  power,  at 
the  bottom  of  a  deep  and  narrow  gorge,  on 
the  steep  side  of  which,  as  I  have  said,  the 
town  is  built.  At  one  story  below^  street 
level  we  came  to  the  forges  of  the  chief 
firm.  Here,  with  extraordinary  quick- 
ness and  skill,  the  knives  are  hand-forged, 
blade,  hilt,  and  tang  from  steel  bar,  then 
tempered  one  by  one,  and  two  stories 
lower  down,  at  river  level,  in  a  long,  dark, 
damp  cellar,  they  are  ground,  and  it  is  the 
method  of  this  process,  unique  so  far  as 
I  know,  that  makes  the  industry  of  Thiers 
worth  a  moment's  description.  The  river 
turns  a  score  of  emery-wheels,  about  a 
yard  in  diameter,  and  above  each  of  these 
is  a  narrow,  sloping  platform,  six  feet  long 
and  two  wide.  Along  each  of  these,  flat 
and  face  downward,  lay  a  grinder,  man  or 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


145 


woman,  grasping  a  blade  by  the  two  ends 
and  pressing  it  by  the  whole  weight  of  the 
body  against  the  revolving  wheel  just  be- 


The  road  along  the  Isere. 

low.  The  long  row  of  stretched-out  bod- 
ies gave  a  grim  impression  of  something 
between  a  field  hospital 
and  a  mortuary.  The 
foreman  assured  us  that 
it  was  much  easier  work 
thus  to  press  against  the 
wheel  by  one's  weight 
than  to  sit  and  press  by 
the  force  of  one's  arms. 
But  to  He  thus  almost 
motionless  all  day  long 
in  a  dank  cellar,  far  be- 
low ground  level ,  is  about 
as  dreary  and  unhealthy 
a  way  for  a  human  being 
to  pass  his  life  as  can  be 
imagined.  The  place 
itself  cannot  be  warmed, 
but,  to  keep  at  least  a 
little  heat  in  their  bodies 
and  stave  off  rheuma- 


had  lingered  behind  when  the  grinders  re- 
turned from  dinner.  He  came  running 
along,  sniffed  hastily  at  each  pair  of  ex- 
tended legs  till  he  recog- 
nized his  master,  then 
leapt  lightly  up  and 
curled  round  in  the  place 
where  he,  too,  passed  a 
dreary,  chilly,  monoto- 
nous existence.  I  shall 
never  handle  knife  and 
fork  at  a  French  dinner- 
table,  with  its  delicate 
fare  and  sparkling  talk, 
without  thinking  of  the 
needy  knife-grinders  of 
Thiers. 

From  Thiers  we  drive 
straight  to  Lyons,  one  of 
the  finest  and  most  mag- 
nificently situated  of 
great  modern  cities. 
The  guide-books  tell  you 
everything  about  it,  in- 
cluding its  twelve  miles 
of  quays  and  its  export 
of  one  hundred  miUion 
dollars'  worth  of  manufactured  silk,  ex- 
cept that  it  was  the  scene  of  perhaps  the 


tism   as  long  as  possi- 
ble, the  grinders  have 
adopted  the  extraordinary  expedient  of 
training  dogs  to  lie  all  day  upon  them — 
dogs  of  all  sorts  and  sizes.     There  they 
lay,  curled  up  on  the  backs  of  their  own- 


Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  and  Eleanor  of  Aqnitaine. 


ers'  thighs,  living  hot-bottles. 
Vol.  LV.— 14 


greatest  cruelty  of  the  Revolution,  when 
women  who  had  begged  for  mercy  to  their 
dear  ones  were  tied  to  the  foot  of  the  guil- 
lotine and  compelled  to  witness  hours  of 


One  dog    butchery.     And  thence  on  to  Chambery, 


liG 


The  Alpine   Road  of   France 


the  old  capital  of  Savoy,  verdant,  llower- 
bedecked,  e\er-varyin.i^ and  ever-beautiful 
Savov,  w  here  at  last  \vc  are  at  the  foot  of 
the  Alps,  over  w  hich  our  adventure  lies. 

If  you  ask  any  one  where  the  Alps  are, 
it  is  a  hundred  to  one  that  he  will  reply, 


next  two  highest  are  in  France,  the  Col  du 
rari)aillon,  8,671  feet,  which  is  hardly  a 
road  at  all,  and  the  Col  du  Galibier,  8,530 
feet,  w^hither  we  are  now  bound.  And  the 
motorist  who  traverses  the  so-called 
"  Route  des  Alpes"  will  have  more  adven- 
ture than  on  any  of  the  great  Swiss  passes, 


I  -  - 

i 

1-    ^m^M 

The  houses  of  Amboise,  from  the  castle  ramparts. 


"In  Switzerland."  This  is  a  popular  er- 
ror which  my  reader  must  eschew.  Some 
of  the  Alps  are  in  Switzerland,  some  in 
Italy,  some  in  Austria,  and  some,  and  by 
no  means  the  least  high  or  the  least  beau- 
tiful, in  France.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
great  chain  of  the  Alps  runs  from  Nice  to 
Vienna,  630  miles,  and  is  as  much  as  185 
miles  wide,  whereas  the  whole  of  Switzer- 
land measures  only  217  miles  by  138.* 
There  are  some  fifty  French  Alpine  passes, 
ranging  in  height  from  8,700  to  1,300  feet, 
of  which  ten  are  5,000  feet  high.  The 
highest  carriage  road  in  Europe,  as  read- 
ers of  my  "Flowing  Road"  may  remem- 
ber, is  the  Stelvio  Pass,  9,041  feet,  but  the 

*J  take  these  6gures,  and  others  later,  from  Freeston's 
"Highroads  of  the  Alps,"  an  invaluable  handbook,  for  all 
auiomobilists  in  the  Alps. 


and  will  find  views  as  varied  and  as  superb 
as  any  Switzerland  can  show. 

The  Route  des  Alpes,  like  so  many  good 
things  for  the  motorist  in  France,  includ- 
ing a  revolution  in  the  sanitary  arrange- 
ments of  provincial  hotels,  is  due  to  the 
imagination  and  initiation  of  that  great 
organization,  the  Touring  Club  de  France. 
Its  idea  is  a  mountain  highway  from  Tho- 
non  or  Evian,  on  Lake  Geneva,  to  Nice, 
on  the  Mediterranean,  without  touching 
either  Switzerland  or  Italy.  The  different 
departments  concerned  contribute  equally 
to  the  total  cost  of  four  million  francs,  but 
as  the  Hautes  Alpes  could  not  afford  its 
share,  the  Touring  Club  de  France  under- 
took to  find  half  of  this,  namely  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-eight  thousand  francs. 


Winding  up  the  Galibier. 


lo  the  Col  du  Glandoo- 


»47 


148 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


At  the  i^roscnt  moment,  ho\ve\er,  the  au- 
thorities of  this  department  have  reinuli- 
atcd  their  ol)lif:ation,  and  work  on  their 
|H)rtion  is  therefore  at  a  standstill.  The 
scheme  has  consisted  in  improving  old 
roads,  and  connecting  existing  good  roads 
hy  new  ones.  It  will  not  be  completed 
for  some  time,  but  even  to-day  it  affords 
a  through  route  which  is  certainly  the 
most  magnificent  mountain  journey  pos- 
sible to  the  motorist  anywhere.  Indeed, 
it  is  largely  available  to  everybody,  for 
the  Paris,  Lyons  and  Mediterranean  Rail- 
way has  established  a  ''Grand  Service 
d'Auto-cars"  which  takes  passengers  by 
ti\-e  motor-stages  from  Lake  Geneva  to 
Nice,  at  a  total  cost,  including  a  break  by 
railway,  of  less  than  two  hundred  francs. 
This  service  is  conducted  for  only  eleven 
weeks  of  the  year,  from  July  i  to  Septem- 
ber 15,  before  and  after  which  dates  the 
higher  passes  are  likely  to  be  blocked  by 
snow. 

Our  plan  was  to  strike  into  the  Route 
des  Alpes,  which  runs  due  north  and  south, 
about  a  quarter  of  the  way  down.  The 
three  more  northerly  passes,  the  Gets, 
Chatillon,  and  Megeve,  though  charming 
runs,  and  the  last  affording  splendid 
views  of  the  Mont  Blanc  range  (a  short 
excursion  from  here  leads  to  Chamonix, 
also  of  course  in  France,  at  the  foot  of 
]\Iont  Blanc),  are  not  nearly  so  high  or 
so  interesting  as  those  farther  south,  and 
there  is,  after  all,  a  limit  to  the  num- 
ber of  passes  one  can  enjoy  on  a  single 
journey. 

So  w^e  left  the  old-world  town  of  Cham- 
bery,  with  its  curious  monument  on  four 
bronze  elephants  to  the  Comte  de  Boigne, 
who  settled  here  after  his  romantic  life  of 
soldiering  in  India  and  bestowed  much  of 
the  fruit  of  the  pagoda-tree  upon  the 
town,  on  a  radiant,  cloudless  September 
morning.  We  drove  up  to  Aix  les  Bains 
by  the  beautiful  Lake  Bourget,  bought  a 
white  coat  of  Angora  rabbit-fur  from  the 
old  lady  at  the  street-corner,  the  only  per- 
son w^ho  knits  these  downy  and  feather- 
light  garments,  and  then  turned  off  to- 
ward Le  Chatelard,  by  a  suspension 
bridge  called  the  Bridge  of  the  Abyss, 
three  hundred  feet  above  the  Cheran,  and 
ran  for  an  hour  past  meadows  rich  with 
gentians  and  campanulas  and  woods 
charming  with  wild  cyclamen,  the  great 


7)iassif  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse  on  our 
horizon. 

Suddenly,  after  so  steady  an  ascent 
that  we  do  not  at  all  realize  we  have 
mounted  over  three  thousand  feet,  a 
sharj)  turn  and  we  are  at  the  summit  of 
the  Col  du  Frene.  Below  us  is  spread  a 
vast  panorama  of  the  valley  of  the  Isere, 
w^hich  runs  straight  away  like  a  canal. 
Directly  below  us  are  the  roofs  of  St. 
Pierre  d'Albigny.  Across  the  valley  is  the 
chain  of  the  Belledonne  hills,  and  over  and 
behind  them  the  long  white,  serrated  edge 
of  the  border  mountains  between  France 
and  Italy.  It  is  a  wonderful  chess-board 
of  vineyard  and  pasture  and  river,  road 
and  roof  and  hill,  and  we  feel  like  airmen 
looking  down  upon  the  world.  This  pass 
does  not  come  into  the  Route  des  Alpes, 
but  it  is  well  worth  the  detour.  While  we 
are  admiring  and  photographing  it,  one  of 
the  huge  ''auto-cars"  of  the  P.  L.  M. 
comes  sweeping  round  the  corner  and 
bangs  the  side  of  our  car,  which  causes  me 
to  forget  for  a  moment  the  beauties  of 
nature  and  draw  lavishly  for  the  driver's 
benefit  upon  the  vocabulary  collected  in 
French  student  days.  It  has  not  been 
much  used  for  twenty  years  or  more,  but 
it  proves  equal  to  the  occasion,  and  the 
British  and  German  tourists  listen  to  the 
colloquial  duel  in  silent  horror.  The 
truth  is  that,  though  these  vehicles  give 
great  pleasure  to  large  numbers  of  peo- 
ple, they  are  rather  trying  to  the  private 
motorist  from  their  great  breadth;  and, 
indeed,  on  many  of  the  roads  it  is  impos- 
sible to  pass  them,  and  you  must  not 
enter  upon  these  roads  till  you  are  sure 
the  daily  P.  L.  M.  char  a  banc  has  passed. 

We  run  down  the  zigzag  descent  to  the 
Isere  and  on  by  the  straight  road  fringed 
with  Lombardy  poplars — the  character- 
istic French  road  shown  in  my  photo- 
graph [p.  145].  Then  in  the  late  afternoon 
we  roll  silently  along  the  Arc  valley,  past 
golden  poplars  and  between  purple  white- 
crested  hills.  The  woods  and  river-bed 
are  covered  with  buckthorn  laden  with 
yellow  berries,  and  the  wild  berberis  with 
its  masses  of  crimson  fruit.  This  is  the 
first  touch  of  autumn  in  our  green  run 
across  France.  Enormous  iron  pipes, 
trailing  snakelike  down  the  hills,  show 
how  the  water-power  is  commercially 
used.     We  had  intended  to  spend  the 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


149 


night  at  Valloire,  half-way  up  the  Gali-    them  descend.    But  this  might  take  sev- 
bier  Pass,  the  highest  and  most  difficult    eral  days,  and  meanwhile  here  were  we. 


partofourroute, 
but  evening  had 
come  on  and  we 
could  get  no  fur- 
ther than  St. 
Michel  de  Mau- 
rienne,  two  thou- 
sand three  hun- 
dred and  thirty 
feet  up.  It  was 
just  as  well,  for 
here  a  great  dis- 
appointment 
awaited  us.  Be- 
fore we  had  been 
two  minutes  in 
the  little  hotel 
we  learned  that 
the  Galibier  was 
blocked  with 
snow — a  fort- 
night earlier  than 
usual.  The  peo- 
ple in  the  little 


5;  --  f 


The  northern  side  of  the  Galibier  Pass,  showing  entrance 
of  tunnel. 


shut  ofT  by  an  im- 
])assable  moun- 
tain range  from 
all  the  rest  of  our 
route  I 

It  was  a  hard 
blow,  but  after 
dinner  and  a 
council  of  war  it 
looked  less  seri- 
ous, as  blows 
have  a  habit  of 
doing.  The  Gali- 
bier was  blocked 
on  the  north 
side,  where  we 
were.  Obvious- 
ly, therefore, 
since  we  were 
bound  to  get  to 
the  top  some- 
how, the  only 
way  was  to  dri\'e 
round  the  moun- 


blockhouse  at  the  top  were  caught,  and    tains  and  ascend  it  from  the  south  side, 
the  road  would  have  to  be  cleared  to  let    No  sooner  decided  than  done  —  ^Wth  the 


The  road  down  from  the  Col  du  ("Ilatidon. 
(Mont  Blanc  just  visit)lc  sixty  miles  away.) 


150 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


result  that  our  cloud  pri)\  cd  to  liave  a  sil- 
ver lininj;  in  the  shape  of  a  little-known 
but  most  beautiful  pass,  the  Col  de  la 
Croix  de  Fer,  only  ojkmi  in  1908,  unmen- 
tioned  even  by  the  cyclopccdic  Freeston. 
So,  early  next  morning,  we  run 
cjuickly  back  uj)  the  Arc  valley 
to  St.  Jean  de  jMaurienne,  due 
northwest,  and  a  ver>^  steep 
ascent  from  the  middle  of  the 
town  turns  us  due  southwest, 
to  reach,  across  the  two  passes, 
which  we  have  assured  our- 
selves are  still  open,  the  main 
road  from  Grenoble  to  Italy, 
by  the  Lautaret  Pass,  the  sum- 
mit of  which  is  the  foot  of  the 
southern  ascent  to  the  Gabbier. 
It  is  at  first  a  steep  climb, 
though  by  vineyards  and  graz- 
ing land,  with  silver  firs  cover- 
ing the  mountainsides,  and 
then  through  three  tunnels 
where  the  rocks  could  not  be 
circumna\igated.  But,  above 
all,  the  memorable  beauty  of 
this  pass  was  the  persistent 
spectacle  of  the  three  dazzling- 
ly  white  peaks  of  the  Aiguilles 
d'Arves  piercing  the  cloudless 
sky.  The  road  used  to  end  at 
the  village  of  St.  Sorlin,  but 
the  mule-path  has  been  en- 
gineered into  a  good  though 
narrow  road.  It  is  a  quaint 
old  village,  with  storm-beaten 
wooden  houses,  and  a  queer 
little  church  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  The  women  here- 
abouts wear  a  red  headband 
from  which  bulges  a  curious 
pouch-like  muslin  cap.  Their 
black  skirts,  supported  by 
square  braces  over  the  shoul- 
ders, are  very  full  and  gored  out  pagoda- 
shape,  finished  by  a  score  of  narrow  tucks 
at  the  hem,  and  we  met  one  woman  lead- 
ing a  child  by  one  hand  and  a  pig  on  a 
string  by  the  other.  Flocks  of  sheep, 
too,  met  us  as  we  walked,  so  tame  that 
they  ran  to  us  like  friends,  and  we  were 
hard  put  to  it  to  extricate  ourselves  from 
the  solid  woolly  mass.  The  summit,  six 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty  feet 
high,  bears  an  iron  cross  on  a  stone  column 
and  from  this  the  pass  takes  its  name.    Of 


its  interest  I  can  only  say  that  we  stopped 
constantly  all  the  way  up  to  take  photo- 
gra]:)hs,  in  a  vain  attempt  to  carry  some  of 
its  beauty  away  with  us,  and  to  dig  up 
plants  for  our  own  garden  far  away.      A 


The  village  of  La  Grave  and 

descent  of  a  few  hundred  feet  brings  us  at 
right  angles  to  the  top  of  the  Col  du  Glan- 
don,  six  thousand  four  hundred  feet, 
where  a  little  chalet-hotel  was  built  in 
1904,  and  there  we  lunch.  It  is  a  lovely 
spot  in  the  midst  of  mountains,  at  the 
junction  of  three  roads.  We  have  come 
up  one,  we  are  going  down  another,  and 
we  climb  to  a  hilltop  near  by  to  take 
photographs  of  the  other — a  superb  view 
straight  down  a  long  mountain  valley, 
with  Mont  Blanc,  white  and  rounded. 


The  Alpine   Road  of  France 


151 


above  all,  sixty  miles  away.  The  road 
we  thus  took  by  accident  I  strongly  recom- 
mend others  to  include  in  their  journey. 

The  descent  is  an  attractive,  narrow, 
smooth,  winding  road,  following  the  course 


the  Meije  range  and  glaciers. 

of  the  Odole,  between  bare  mountains, 
crossing  the  river  at  Oz,  till  after  a  six- 
teen miles'  run,  at  a  place  called  Grandes 
Sables,  we  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  long 
descent,  and  we  strike  the  highroad  at 
last  and  turn  sharp  to  the  left — due  south, 
to  bring  us  finally  eastward  to  the  Lautaret 
and  the  other  side  of  the  Galibier.  It  is  a 
perfect  road  both  in  gradient  and  surface, 
through  several  tunnels  and  amid  magnif- 
icent scenery,  following  the  valley  of  the 
Romanche,  and  we  reach  the  wonderfully 


situated  village  of  La  Grave  at  sundown,  and 
are  five  thousand  feet  high  again.  We  have 
almost  circumnavigated  the  Galibier. 

La  Grave  is  most  romantically  situated. 
On  one  side  of  the  street  are  the 
hotel  and  a  few  houses  and 
shops,  and  on  the  other  is  the 
Chaine  de  la  Meije — a  perfect 
row  of  magnificent  snow  pin- 
nacles and  ice-masses.     The 
Glacier  du  Tabuchet  looks  al- 
most impertinently  into  one's 
bedroom  window.     My  illus- 
tration shows  this  better  than 
pages  of  description.     The  Ht- 
tle  place  is  greatly  visited  by 
Alpine  climbers,  and  it  has  a 
heavy  record  of  mortality. 
The  Meije,  indeed,  is  said  to 
have  been  the  last  Alpine 
height  to  be  climbed.  "Meije," 
by  the  way,  is  a  moderni- 
zation of  a  local  word,  difficult 
to  say  or  to  spell,  meaning 
''midday,"  and  the  two  next 
highest  peaks,  now  the  Pic  Cen- 
tral and  the  Pic  Occidental  de 
la  Meije,  were  formerly  known 
as  ''nine  o'clock"  and  "eleven 
o'clock,"  these  names  being 
connected  in  some  way  ^\'ith 
their  illumination  by  the  sun. 
The  run  up  the  Lautaret 
from  La  Grave  is  chiefly  beau- 
tiful for  the  view  back  to  it. 
After  stopping  and  looking 
back  a  dozen  times,  and  pass- 
ing through  one  long  tunnel, 
we  find  ourselves  at  the  sum- 
mit, six  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  ninety  feet,  the  ascent 
being  so  gradual  that  one  hard- 
ly notices  it.     At  the  top  there 
is  the  usual  hospice,  and  a  little  hotel,  and 
an  Alpine  garden  established  by  the  Fa- 
culte  des  Sciences  of  the  University  of  Gre- 
noble, with  an  interesting  collection  of 
Alpine  flora  carefully  labelled.     A  few 
hundred  yards  farther  a  road  turns  back 
at  an  acute  angle,  and  winds  and  zigzags  up 
until  it  is  lost  to  sight  on  the  mountain. 
It  is  the  way  up  the  Galibier  from  the 
south,  and  it  begins  where  the  Lautaret 
climl3  ends. 

This  is  the  point  we  aimed  at  when  we 


152 


The  .Alpine   Road  of  France 


found  the  northern  ascent  blocked,  so  we 
swing  round  and  ^o  roaring  up,  the  gradi- 
ents being  steej)  enough  to  bring  us  down 
to  second  and  e\en  lirst  speed,  for  this  is 
real  mountain-climbing,  far  steeper  than 
on  the  great  Swiss  highway  passes,  with 
their  perfectly  graduated  gradients.     We 
go  up  and  up,  round  sharp  bends  with 
{precipitous  edges,  till  the  hospice  at  the 
Lautaret  summit  looks  a  mere  hut  below, 
then  the  snow  begins,  and  as  we  come 
round  one  haiq>in  bend  we  find  a  hundred 
yards  of  frozen  snow  a  couple  of  feet  deep. 
No  car  could  pass  this,  but,  as  we  are 
bound  to  reach  the  top,  we  do  the  rest  of 
the  way  on  foot,  a  rather  tiring  climb  for 
people  out  of  condition  after  a  London 
season,  and  at  this  high  altitude.     At  the 
top  there  is  a  so-called  ''blockhouse,"  ten- 
anted by  a  couple  of  road-men,  who  are 
going  to  clear  a  way  through  this  snow 
and  then  close  the  doors  of  the  tunnel  and 
abandon  the  pass  for  the  year,  and  descend 
into  the  valley.     The  highest  point  of  the 
road  itself  is  in  a  tunnel  one  hundred  and 
ninety  feet  below  the  summit  of  the  Col, 
and  here  we  are  on  the  highest  carriage- 
road  in  Europe,  save  only  the  Stelvio.    It 


is  icy-cold  and  wet,  but  at  the  other  end 
a  superb  view  breaks  into  sight,  down  the 
Vallon  de  Valloire.  To  appreciate  the 
double  view  north  and  south,  however, 
one  must  climb  by  a  short  but  stiff  path, 
to  the  actual  summit  above  the  tunnel,  a 
couple  of  hundred  feet  higher.  Here,  at 
last,  one  feels  really  very  high  up.  We 
look  down  on  glaciers  all  around,  and  of 
all  the  eighty-three  peaks  round  about 
only  a  few  are  higher  than  ourselves.  We 
are  alone  in  the  perfect  quiet  of  great 
height,  and  in  all  our  view  right  over  to 
Mont  Blanc  on  the  horizon  not  a  thing 
moves.  There  can  be  but  few  views  from 
an  Alpine  road  equally  impressive.  I 
always  wonder  why  it  is  that  such  a  sight 
imposes  silence.  We  hardly  speak  to  each 
other  till  we  have  joined  our  car  again. 
After  some  difficulty  in  reversing  on  such 
a  narrow  road,  we  swing  down  again,  with 
great  care  at  the  corners,  until  we  meet 
once  more  the  Lautaret  road  we  left,  and 
then,  with  fourth  speed  in,  seem  to  fly 
through  the  valley  to  Brianfon,  the  pros- 
perous countryside  looking  almost  un- 
pleasantly civilized  after  the  desolate 
grandeur  we  have  left  behind.     But  we 


The  northern  approach  to  the  Izoard  Pass. 


The   Al})ine   Road  of   France 


153 


have  been  on  the  top  of  the  GaHbier  in    a  drawbridge.  The  streets  are  narrow  and 
spite  of  the  snow.  tortuous,  the  houses  ancient  and  fjuaint, 

built  in  amphitheatres,  and  down  the  mid- 
After  the  highest  road  in   France  the    die  of  the  chief  street,  indeed  practically 
highest  town — Brian^on,  four  thousand    the  only  one,  is  a  gutter  cut  in  the  red  por- 


Our  car  on  the  rocky  ledge  of  the  Alios  Pass. 


three  hundred  and  thirty-three  feet,  seem- 
ing to  cling  to  a  chalky  eminence,  the  Du- 
rance running  fast  by  its  foot.  There  is  a 
great  fort  above  it,  and  as  you  observe  the 
heights  closely  you  discover  fort  after  fort 
among  them,  looking  inaccessible,  and 
everywhere  bastions,  embrasures,  and  the 
entire  apparatus  of  military  architecture. 
The  forts  are,  in  fact,  so  difficult  to  reach 
that  provisions  are  sent  up  to  them  on 
cables.  The  place  is  the  chief  fortress  of 
the  Alpine  frontier,  and  has  a  large  gar- 
rison and  a  school  of  ski-ing  to  train  the 
Chasseurs  Alpins  for  winter  campaigning. 
On  the  Italian  frontier,  seven  miles  away, 
there  is,  of  course,  a  similar  outfit  of  for- 
tifications, and  one  naturally  reflects  that 
if  the  two  countries  had  spared  themselves 
this  vast  cost,  they  would  be  in  a  })recisely 
similar  relative  position.  The  town  is  two- 
fold, newandold,  the  latter  still  entered  by 


phyry,  down  which  a  little  torrent  splashes 
noisily,  carrying  away  all  the  household 
refuse  and  the  snow  in  winter.  This 
curious  feature  is  called  the  Gargouille. 
Above  all  towers  the  cathedral,  with  twin 
Byzantine  belfries,  ''seeming,"  as  a  local 
author  says,  "to  be  placed  in  the  centre 
of  the  chief  bastion  as  if  to  beseech  upon 
a  city  of  arms  the  protection  of  the  god 
of  war." 

But  we  have  no  time  to  linger  in  Brian- 
gon,  so  after  a  hasty  and  late  lunch  of  cold 
meat  and  Alpine  honey,  at  three  o'clock, 
we  start  again  for  the  Col  dTzoard,  the  pass 
we  must  cross  before  dark.  A  pretty  road 
begins  to  rise  steeply  at  once,  and  curves 
upward  round  a  rocky  ledge,  in  front  of 
us  a  steep  hillside  dotted  with  larches, 
and  lovely  snow  i)eaks  beyond.  We  j^ass 
Cervieres,  a  village  with  ramshackle  old 
houses,   almost  I'ibctan  in  their  quaint- 


The  "Casse  Deserte  "  in  the  Izoard  Pass. 


ness  and  decay,  covered  with  wooden  tiles 
channelled  to  let  the  water  run  off.  Then 
up  a  most  interesting  black-and-white  val- 
ley— the  white  being  the  peaks  and  the 
black  the  pinus  uncinata,  an  uncommon 
fir,  fine  and  rugged  and  bushy.  The  road 
has  no  fence  or  parapet,  and  there  is  a 
sheer  drop  from  its  edge.  Coming  at  a 
fair  speed  round  one  corner  near  the  top, 
I  suddenly  find  the  road  for  a  hundred 
yards  ahead  covered  with  smooth  frozen 
snow.  I  dare  only  apply  the  brake  very 
slightly  indeed,  and  at  once  the  car  begins 
that  horrid  slithering  movement  which  be- 
tokens imminent  side-slip — and,  from  the 
lack  of  resistance  in  the  steering-wheel,  a 
front  side-slip,  the  worst  of  all.  I  cannot 
stop  without  grave  risk,  and  it  is  almost 
equally  risky  to  go  on.  At  best  we  are 
only  three  or  four  feet  from  the  edge,  and 
as  we  slither  nearer  to  it,  and  then  away 
again,  I  see  my  lady's  arms  waving  in  the 
air,  like  a  tight-rope  walker  with  his  bal- 
ancing-pole, and  I  hear  the  chauffeur  be- 
hind quietly  opening  the  door  to  get  out. 
This  was  the  one  trying  experience  of  our 
Alpine  cUmbing;  and  it  was  really  nerv- 
ous, for  a  moderate  side-slip  would  have 
IS4 


taken  us  clean  over  the  edge.  It  lasted 
only  a  couple  of  minutes,  but  that  was 
more  than  enough.  Moral:  When  you 
are  up  to  the  snow-line,  always  go  round 
the  corners  very  slowly  till  you  can  see  the 
road  ahead. 

The  summit  was  reached  soon  after- 
ward, seven  thousand  nine  hundred  and 
three  feet,  and  its  one  building,  erected 
with  a  grant  of  money  from  Napoleon  III, 
with  this  inscription :  ''  Refuge  Napoleon. 
Vote  du  Conseil  General  des  Hautes  Alpes, 
28  Aout,  1856."  I  turn  to  my  faithful 
diarist  and  find:  '^It  is  my  favorite  pass, 
wilder,  newer,  more  strange  than  others 
I  have  seen,  and  quite  distinct.  The  view 
forward  is  marvellous — all  bare  rock  and 
snow  points.  No  cloud  visible,  no  sound 
save  distant  jackdaws — still  as  death.  I  sit 
on  a  stone,  and  think,  and  love  the  pass, 
and  collect  a  cotton-forming  euphorbia." 

The  Izoard,  in  fact,  is  of  a  different  style 
of  landscape  art  from  other  passes.  The 
surrounding  hills  slope  only  just  enough 
to  prevent  a  general  rock-slide.  Upright 
rock-spikes  project  in  hundreds  from  the 
surface — we  called  this  part  "needles  and 
pins."    It  is  a  kind  of  Sindbad  the  Sailor's 


The  sun-baked  side  of  the  Alios  Pass. 


land — with  something  bewitched  or  en- 
chanted about  it.  It  seems  almost  un- 
canny, and  one  listens  for  the  winding  of 
some  weird  horn  of  Elfland.  I  know  no 
other  mountain  way  like  it. 

A  short  distance  down  the  southern  side, 
by  a  new  road  built  for  the  automobilist, 
with  no  sharp  corners,  but  still  with  un- 
protected edges,  is  an  extraordinary  and 
I  should  think  unique  spectacle,  though 
it  recalls  the  surroundings  of  Aigues 
Mortes  in  the  Gard.  The  road  passes 
through  a  perfect  waste  of  rock  and  scree, 
with  not  a  blade  of  green  in  sight.  Great 
jagged  pinnacles  of  yellow  pumice-stone 
stick  up  from  the  bare  stony  hillside.  It 
is  called  the  ''Casse  Deserte,"  and  is,  in 
fact,  a  great  stone  bowl,  surrounded  by 
precipices,  with  a  serrated  row  of  peaks 
across  the  outlet.  Its  name  means,  I  sup- 
pose, the  desert  crucible  —  appropriate 
from  its  obviously  igneous  origin.  Our  il- 
lustration hardly  does  justice  to  this  curi- 
ously impressive  mountain  wilderness. 

After  photographing  this  in  the  fading 
light  we  roll  down  till  dark  and  our  lamps 
are  lit.  The  scene  here  must  be  \cry  pic- 
turesque, but  we  hear  only  the  rushing 


water  and  the  echoing  of  our  engine 
against  rocks  and  in  tunnels,  and  see  very 
little  except  that  wherever  the  lamps 
shine  the  road  is  not.  At  eight  o'clock 
we  pull  up  at  the  Hotel  Imbert,  at  Guil- 
lestre,  the  most  primitive  inn  we  have 
met  with  on  this  journey,  full  of  char- 
acter, also  of  people  and  flies,  but  with 
good,  savory  cooking  and  clean  beds. 

Next  morning  we  made  an  early  start, 
not  from  virtue,  but  from  a  combination 
of  necessity  and  self-interest.  In  the 
first  place,  there  was  such  an  appalling 
noise  that  nobody  could  possibly  sleep — 
cocks,  road-menders,  hawkers,  carting, 
shouting,  and  domestic  differences;  in 
the  second,  by  a  long  day's  run  we  could 
sleep  in  our  own  beds  by  our  own  corner 
of  the  Mediterranean.  So  we  took  a 
hasty  look  round  Guillestre.  It  is  an  an- 
cient little  walled  town,  showing  Italy  at 
every  step.  The  sixteenth-century  church 
has  a  Florentine  porch,  guarded  by  the 
two  red  Verona-marble  lions  seen  in  so 
many  towns  in  northern  Italy.  The  foun- 
tain in  the  square  is  Italian,  as  arc  the 
crooked  and  dirty  streets  and  the  narrow 
gateway  to  the  town. 


15C 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


There  is  a  choice  of  routes  onward. 
Either  you  may  go  by  the  Col  dc  la  Vistc, 
five  thousand  two  hundred  and  sixty- 
six  feet,  and  the  Col  de  \'ars,  six  thou- 
sand nine  hundred  and  thirty-nine  feet, 
passes  harder  to  drive  but  not  so  beau- 
tiful as  tliose  we  have  seen;  or  you 
may  run  along  the  valley  of  the  Ubbaye, 


snow  lies  for  six  months  of  the  year,  has 
led  the  inhabitants  to  emigrate  to  milder 
climes,  and  they  have  chosen  almost  ex- 
clusively Mexico  and  Central  America, 
where  they  have  established  important 
firms  and  industries  and  are  locally  known 
as  "the  Barcelonnettes."  The  Depart- 
ment of  the  Basses  Alpes,  which  between 


The  new  motor-road  on  the  Col  de  Vars. 


a  rather  bad  and  dusty  road  until  it  is 
buttressed  up  above  the  river,  where  the 
view^s  are  fine.  In  either  case  you  reach 
Barcelonnette  in  a  couple  of  hours,  and 
notice  w4th  amusement  at  the  entrance 
to  this  sleepy  little  town  a  notice-board 
w^arning  you  to  drive  slowly,  because  of 
the  "circulation  intense."  There  re- 
mains one  more  pass  between  you  and  the 
southern  sea,  but  by  next  summer  you 
wall  be  able  to  take  a  shorter  and  even 
finer  mountain  route  to  Nice  by  the  Col 
de  la  Cayolle,  seven  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  sixteen  feet.  It  will  be,  in 
intention,  a  military  highway,  but  also  a 
stage  in  the  Route  des  Alpes.  This  time 
we  must  cross  the  Col  d'Allos  and  the  al- 
most unnoticeable  Col  de  St.  Michel. 

A  fact  of  interest  about  Barcelonnette 
is  that  the  rigor  of  the  climate,  where  the 


1800  and  1866  gained  nine  thousand  in- 
habitants, lost  no  fewer  than  twenty-eight 
thousand  between  1866  and  1901. 

A  sharp  turn  and  short,  stiff  climb  out 
of  the  town  bring  us  quickly  to  a  con- 
siderable height  and  we  run  round  a 
rocky  ledge  on  very  steep  mountainsides. 
This  pass  will  always  be  remembered  by 
us  as  the  red  pass,  just  as  the  Galibier  is 
in  memory  the  white  pass,  the  Croix  de 
Fer  the  green-and-purple  pass,  and  the 
Izoard  the  black  pass.  For  here  we  are 
for  the  first  time  in  the  midst  of  exquisite 
rich  autumn  colors.  The  hills  are  covered 
with  golden  maple  and  the  scarlet  small- 
leaved  poplar,  and  the  berberis  berries 
and  sumach  are  very  beautiful.  As  we 
look  down  into  the  precipice  the  scarlet 
bushes  blaze  amid  the  dark  firs,  and  above 
us  are  the  yellow  mirabelle  and  wild  rasp- 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


157 


berries  and  strawberries,  but  both  above 
and  below  all  are  out  of  reach  on  the  steep 
slopes.  At  the  top,  seven  thousand  three 
hundred  and  eighty-two  feet,  we  see  the 
Col  de  Fours,  an  impracticable  road,  wind- 
ing to  and  fro  in  the  distance.  The  govern- 
ment is  reforesting  here,  and  the  grass 
slopes   below    are    dotted    with    minute 


ders  how  human  beings  can  inhabit  them 
at  all.  There  is  a  remarkable  rock  for- 
mation as  we  approach  Alios,  the  hills 
being  split  in  regular  narrow  layers  and 
these  broken  again  regularly  into  oblong 
blocks,  exactly  as  though  the  hillsides 
had  been  built  up  by  the  Romans  with 
their  familiar  flat  bricks. 


The  Col  St.  Michel  —  the  new  road. 


black  fir-trees  in  regular  rows.  The  view 
south  is  desolate — vegetation  is  always  on 
the  north  sides  of  these  passes,  as  the  sun 
makes  the  south  side  arid — and  to  our 
surprise  cloudy,  for  we  have  not  seen  a 
cloud  in  the  sky  since  leaving  Chambery. 
The  road  serpentines  down,  and  the  view 
is  not  so  Olympian  in  its  solitary  gran- 
deur as  from  the  other  passes,  for  here  the 
hand  of  man  is  visible  in  the  fields  of  oats 
and  barley,  and  the  cows  and  sheep  and 
goats.  There  is  little  snow,  even  on  the 
highest  mountains,  and  we  realize  that 
we  are  getting  south  now.  The  moun- 
tains, too,  are  not  distant  and  high,  but 
curiously  close,  jagged  in  shape,  not 
serrated  or  peaked.  The  indescribable 
squalor  and  dilapidation  of  the  houses 
we  pass  as  we  run  down  the  valley  also 
detract   from   our  pleasure.     One  won- 


Five  miles  beyond  Alios  the  little  and 
little-known  town  of  Colmars  calls  for  a 
few  minutes'  halt.  It  is  an  ancient  forti- 
fied town,  which  has  kept  its  mediaeval 
outline  unimpaired.  A  wall  surrounds  it 
and  entry  is  by  a  gateway  with  port- 
cullis. ''I  suppose  this  is  the  citadel?"  I 
asked  an  inhabitant.  "It  is  the  town,"  he 
replied.  Almost  all  old  towns  have  out- 
grown their  walls.  This  one  has  never 
extended  beyond  the  limits  of  its  original 
defence.  On  each  side  of  it,  on  rising 
ground,  is  a  })rotecting  fort,  with  tiny 
lantern  turrets  at  its  angles — the  Fort  de 
Savoie  and  Fort  de  France,  their  names 
being  geographically  significant  of  the 
time  when  France  and  Sa\'oy  were  ditTer- 
ent  kingdoms.  The  little  place  is  a  pic- 
tures(|ue,  and  I  should  think  an  almost 
unique,  survival. 


158 


The  Alpine  Road  of  France 


\s  wc  drove  on  now  throimli  birch  and  family  get  out  several  times,  and  pass  one 

firwoods    and  now  on  a  hillside  road  by  one— so  that  if  a  fall  occurs  he  may  at 

above  the  river,  an  incident  showed  us  least  not  lose  all  his  domestic  circle  at  one 

the   primitive   character   of   the   people  fell  swoop.     And   the  fact  is  that  the 

hcre'ibout<     A  man  driving  a  closed  cart  stone  parapet  has  been  broken  in  many 

got  out   and  held  up  his  hand  to  stop  us.  places  by  falls  of  stones,  and  actually  as 


An  unfinished  road  m  the  Route  des  Alpes. 


''Would  you  most  kindly  render  me  a  serv- 
ice?" "With pleasure."  "Well,  I  am  the 
carrier,  and  I  ought  to  have  left  this  sack 
of  bread  three  miles  back.  You  will  see  a 
crooked  path  descending  to  a  wooden  bridge 
across  the  river.  Would  you  be  so  good  as  to 
leave  this  sack  on  the  parapet  by  the  crook- 
ed path?  That's  all.  I  forgot  it,  and  I 
should  be  left  in  the  hills  at  night  if  I  drove 
back,  and  if  they  don't  get  it  they  will  have 
no  bread  for  three  days. "  So  the  sack  was 
hoisted  on  board  and  we  duly  deposited 
it  on  the  parapet  by  the  crooked  path. 

Then  the  road  became  broad  and 
smooth.  It  is  brand-new;  in  fact,  it  was 
not  made  by  the  Romans,  nor  by  Napoleon, 
nor  for  mules  nor  carriages  nor  armies, 
but  actually  for  automobiles !  We  passed 
the  summit  of  the  Col  St.  Michel,  four 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  thirty-eight 
feet,  almost  without  noticing  it,  and  ran 
fast  down  the  long  descent  by  a  splendidly 
engineered  road,  with  countless  turns, 
but  never-varying  gradients,  through 
the  broom  and  scented  brush  of  the 
South.  It  is  just  growing  dark  as  we 
reach  the  magnificent  rocky  gorges  of  the 
Var.  The  rock  masses  overhang  the  road 
so  steeply  here  that  a  friend  of  ours  when 
motoring  over  this  road  always  makes  his 


we  were  driving  along — this  is  a  fact,  and 
not  at  all  a  traveller's  yarn — we  saw  ten 
feet  of  the  parapet,  in  the  full  light  of  our 
lamps,  slide  down  into  the  valley,  and 
all  three  of  us  exclaimed  simultaneously 
at  the  sight.  It  is  a  magnificent  drive, 
within  easy  reach  of  any  point  on  the  Ri- 
viera. Finally  (beware  of  the  level  rail- 
way crossings),  at  St.  Laurent  du  Var, 
having  descended  eight  thousand  feet  in 
this  day's  run,  we  strike  the  main  road 
skirting  the  Mediterranean  from  Cannes 
to  Genoa.  Here  you  turn  to  the  left  for 
Nice,  the  end  of  the  Route  des  Alpes,  but 
we  to  the  right,  to  our  home  at  Antibes, 
the  earthly  paradise  of  many  happy  days. 
Your  long  journey  has  brought  you  to  the 
Riviera,  the  most  beautiful  shore  in  the 
world,  by  the  bluest  sea,  where  nature  is 
at  her  loveliest  and  man  at  his  most 
luxurious,  and  there,  in  the  dearest  res- 
taurants, the  most  elaborate  hotels,  and 
the  most  sumptuous  casinos,  or  in  the 
shade  of  palm-trees  and  olive  groves, 
amid  a  multitude  of  flowers  and  bushes 
scented  as  nowhere  else,  you  may  reflect 
upon  the  rigors  you  have  passed. 

In  reviewing  in  my  mind  this  Route  des 
Alpes,  it  seems  to  me  that,  just  as  Anjou 
and  Touraine  owed  their  inspiration  and 


Tlie  Alpine   Road  of  France 


159 


development  to  the  personal  character  of 
their  inhabitants,  so  this  whole  district 
owes  its  development  and  temperament 
to  the  character  of  its  habitations.  In 
Roman  times  these  Alps  were  occupied  by 
forty-four  peoples,  whose  names  were  in- 
scribed on  an  ancient  trophy  at  La  Turbie. 
This  has  long  since  vanished,  but  Pliny 
kindly  copied  it,  and  many  of  its  names 
persist  to-day  in  districts  or  towns  or 
rivers.  Only  the  valleys  were  habitable, 
and  yet,  as  they  were  near  the  sea,  their 
inhabitants  became  the  easy  prey  of  pi- 
rates and  coast  marauders.  They  were 
also  the  highway  from  Italy,  and  many 
armies,  from  Hannibal  to  Napoleon, 
marched  through  them.  War,  earth- 
quakes, famine,  and  pestilence  alike  har- 
assed this  unfortunate  corner  of  Europe. 
The  Romans  found  the  inhabitants  hard 
to  conquer,  hidden  away  among  the 
mountains;  the  Revolution  left  them 
untouched.  The  cutting  down  of  trees 
spoiled  the  country  and  ruined  industry, 
and  reafforestation  would  do  much  to 
save  the  district  from  dwindling  further. 
Just  as  nature  in  her  fantastic  shapes 
saved  the  people  from  annihilation  by 


war,  so  now  the  tourists'  desire  to  gaze 
upon  these  same  fantastic  shapes  may 
save  them  from  annihilation  by  poverty. 
Old  roads  are  being  improved,  new  ones 
built,  hotels  are  springing  up  or  being 
modernized,  whole  districts  are  being 
opened  up.  And  all  this  new  life  is  com- 
ing to  the  French  Alps  by  the  motor-car! 
These  vast  snow  fastnesses,  in  old  times 
frontiers  and  saviors  of  races,  are  now  about 
to  be  revealed  in  all  their  wondrous  and 
once  solitary  beauty  to  thousands  of  vis- 
itors from  every  land,  and  the  great,  silent 
glaciers,  which  for  untold  ages  have  looked 
down  unmoved  upon  the  petty  march  of 
men,  are  now  in  their  turn  to  be  looked 
down  upon  by  invaders,  not  in  serried 
ranks,  but  from  the  softly  cushioned  seats 
of  motor-cars,  rolling  along  the  lofty  high- 
ways so  skilfully  built  for  their  conven- 
ience and  delight.  In  time  these  mountains 
may  become  as  commonplace  as  the  Jung- 
frau.  The  more  reason,  therefore,  to  trav- 
el them  soon,  and  w^e  cannot  recommend 
a  better  journey  in  Europe  than  the  way 
we  have  led  you  across  France,  from  the 
ruddy  fields  of  Normandy  to  the  snowy 
summits  of  the  Route  des  Alpes. 


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Tlie  taiiiDUS  Riviera  Ci)riiiclie  road — La  Koquelte. 


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Guide-post  near  Kearney,  Nebraska. 


TRANSCONTINENTAL    TRAILS 


THEIR  DEVELOPMENT  AND  WHAT  THEY  MEAN 
TO  THIS  COUNTRY 

BY    HENRY    B.   JOY 

President  of  the  Lincoln  Highway  Association 


OOD  roads  are  our  greatest 
civilizing  force,  and  trans- 
continental highways  are 
merely  the  development  of 
a  movement  that  in  late 
-^  years,  and  particularly 
within  the  last  twelve  months,  has  grown 
with  increasing  rapidity  all  over  the  coun- 
try. 

Good  roads,  however,  should  not  be 
considered  as  a  new  subject,  though  ap- 
parently many  are  treating  it  as  such. 
The  good-roads  movement  goes  back  to 
the  earliest  times.  If  you  thumb  an  old 
history  and  study  the  life  of  the  Romans, 
or  go  back  to  the  Carthaginians,  or  con- 
duct an  inquiry  into  the  government  of 
the  Incas  of  Peru,  or  any  other  ancient  na- 
tion, you  will  find  one  dominant  impulse, 
one  topic  that  they  considered  paramount, 
and  that  is  a  demand  for  improved  high- 
ways. The  Romans  desired  smooth  roads, 
for  miUtary  purposes  principally.  The 
Chinese  have  roads  that  have  been  in  ex- 
istence for  thousands  of  years,  and  over 
which  hundreds  of  armies  have  tramped. 
i6o 


In  Europe,  where  the  roads  have  been  ex- 
cellent for  many  years,  and  where  they  are 
carefully  maintained  by  the  government, 
it  has  been  found  that  their  use  for  war 
was  not  their  only  purpose.  They  have 
been  of  far  more  value  because  of  their 
marked  effect  on  the  cost  of  living,  mak- 
ing access  easy  to  the  populous  centres  for 
the  farmer. 

Roads  in  the  United  States  are  said  to 
be  the  worst  of  any  civilized  country  in 
the  world,  and  I  think  they  deserve  the 
reputation.  The  man  who  tours  by  au- 
tomobile will  tell  you  so.  What  he  calls 
a  "good"  road  here  would,  as  a  rule,  be  a 
disgrace  in  a  foreign  country.  If  the  car 
can  negotiate  it  the  road  is  "good";  if  it  is 
impassable  it  is  "bad." 

There  is  a  well-known  New  York  banker 
who  goes  to  Europe  nearly  every  year  for 
the  sole  joy  of  touring  by  motor-car.  He 
likes  to  get  out  in  the  open.  He  has 
found  it  impossible  to  do  it  in  this  coun- 
try, though,  patriotically,  he  tried.  On 
his  return  to  New  York  last  fall  he  told 
me  that  in  two  years  he  had  made  about 


Transcontinental   Trails 


161 


fourteen  thousand  miles  by  automobile 
there.  There  was  no  great  up-keep  ex- 
pense; even  his  tires  came  back  in  good 
condition.  In  the  United  States,  on  the 
worst  country  roads  running  through  our 
rural  districts,  he  couldn't  go  two  thou- 
sand miles  without  purchasing  new  tires, 
and  if  he  took  the  roads  from  ocean  to 
ocean  his  tire  expense  might  reach  an  un- 
duly large  amount. 

The  good-roads  movement  in  the  United 
States  is  believed  by  many  to  be  solely 
for  automobile  owners.  Nothing  could  be 
more  untrue.  Not  that  the  automobile 
has  not  had  its  influence.  The  motor- 
car has  probably  accelerated  the  demand. 
It  has  crystallized  sentiment.  We  are  to- 
day probably  twenty  years  ahead  of  where 
we  would  have  been  had  it  not  been  for 
the  motor-car  and  themotor-truck,  the  de- 
velopment of  farm  and  traction  machinery, 
and  the  necessity  of  the  farmer  to  reach  his 
nearest  marketing-point  more  easily  and 
quickly.  Progress  in  civilization  is  just 
as  certain  to  bring  better  roads  as  the 
railroads  did  in  first  opening  up  our  coun- 
try. When  in  the  early  days  of  the  na- 
tion we  were  dependent  on  the  individ- 
ual initiative  of  our  pioneer  and  settlers, 
we  went  forward  slowly.  Congress  and 
the  State  legislatures  of  the  day  realized 
that,  to  advance,  communication  was  nec- 
essary. It  is  just  beginning  to  pene- 
trate the  consciousness  of  our  lawmakers 
that  through  good  roads  we  can  advance 
even  more  quickly,  more  thoroughly,  more 
truly.  Better  communication  between 
the  rural  districts  and  the  cities  means 
more  civilization.  The  railroads  carried 
us  quite  a  way  but  they  didn't  take  us  far 
enough. 

Agitation  for  good  roads  in  the  United 
States  has,  as  I  have  said,  probably  been 
advanced  twenty  years  by  the  automo- 
bile. Years  ago  the  farmer  felt  that  a 
dirt  road  was  sufficient.  He  and  his 
neighbors  went  once  or  twice  a  year  to 
work  the  roads  in  their  district.  Some- 
times the  township  bought  special  ma- 
chinery. It  was  called  "working  out  the 
road  tax."  It  was  a  fine  thing  to  do,  but 
the  improvement  was  only  temporary. 

When  the  automobile  first  aj^peared,  the 

owners  of  these  machines  were  blamed  for 

the   miserable   conditions   of   the  roads. 

The  farmers  said  "the  city  man"  should 

Vol.  LV.— 15 


pay  for  all  the  good-roads  improvements, 
because  "he"  was  the  fellow  who  injured 
the  roads.  When  the  farmers  began  to 
own  cars  of  their  own,  they  blamed  the 
weather  or  the  political  powers  or  some- 
thing else — always  the  other  fellow. 

The  automobile  brought  new  traffic 
conditions.  The  farmers  found  that  their 
dirt  roads  would  not  do.  They  placed 
sand  and  later  gravel  over  the  surface. 
They  tried  crushed  stone.  Gradually  the 
macadam  highway  developed.  But  the 
automobile  and  the  traction  machinery 
and  other  heavy  vehicles  and  implements 
used  on  the  farm  journeyed  over  these 
roads  and  soon  destroyed  them.  They 
would  not  last.  Slow  or  fast,  these  mov- 
ing vehicles  tore  up  the  surface.  The  re- 
sult is  that  good  roads  to-day  occupy  the 
attention  of  nearly  all.  Public  senti- 
ment is  aroused,  together  with  a  national 
interest  in  highway  development.  The 
problem  is  being  studied  by  engineers 
and  by  every  one,  because  all  people,  city 
or  country  dwellers,  have  a  financial  in- 
terest in  good  roads. 

As  is  always  the  case.  Congress  and  the 
State  legislatures  have  been  far  behind 
the  people  in  appreciating  the  need  for 
highway  development.  In  the  States  no 
good-roads  project  could  go  forward  in 
one  section,  because  the  other  section, 
naturally  jealous,  would  not  permit  it,  A 
little  individual  work — and  I  use  the 
word  "little"  as  compared  to  the  country 
at  large — has  been  done  by  some  commu- 
nities. In  this  instance  the  roads  have 
started  from  some  centre,  but  have  led 
nowhere.  Michigan  has  just  passed  a 
new  State  law  which  will  de\elop  the 
highways  leading  from  one  section  to  an- 
other section.  I  might  illustrate  this 
best  by  stating  that  Wayne  comity, 
Michigan,  has  a  number  of  principal  ar- 
teries that  lead  to  the  county  line.  Alount 
Clemens  is  a  city  about  twenty-five  miles 
distant  in  Macomb  county.  The  road 
in  Wayne  county  goes  to  the  Macomb 
county  line.  The  Macoml)  county  in- 
terests will  not  ])ermit  their  supervisors  to 
build  a  connecting  road  to  link  up  with 
the  one  in  Wayne  county,  for  fear  that 
some  business  they  are  now  recei\ing  will 
go  to  Detroit.  As  a  result  of  this  short- 
sighted policy,  thousands  of  automol)i!e 
owners  and  tourists  wht>  ride  out  of  De- 


lt)2 


Transcontinental   Trails 


troit  on  Saturdays  and  Sundays  are  com- 
l)clled  to  keep  out  of  ]\lount  Clemens  or 
else  sutler  great  personal  inconvenience 
if  they  wisli  to  visit  there.  If  a  six-mile 
stretch  of  road  were  built  and  built  prop- 
erly, ]\Iacomb  county  merchants  and  ho- 
tels would  benefit  materially. 

Until  the  route  of  the  Lincoln  Highway 
was  estal)Hshed,  there  had  been  no  trans- 
continental projects  outhned  except  on 
paper.  Different  routes  have  been  sur- 
veyed. The  American  Automobile  As- 
sociation and  some  kindred  organizations 
have  spent  considerable  money  in  going 
o\er  these  different  routes,  but  they  have 
encountered  the  petty  prejudices  of  the 
various  communities  through  which  they 
passed,  which  have  prevented  concen- 
trated action  on  the  part  of  State  legisla- 
tors or  Congress.  There  have  been  hun- 
dreds of  bills  introduced  in  Congress  in 
the  last  few^  years  for  good  roads,  and 
few,  if  any,  of  them  have  emerged  from  a 
committee-room. 

There  is  a  Santa  Fe  Trail ;  the  Oregon 
Trail,  from  Granger,  Wyoming,  to  Idaho, 
Walla  Walla,  Washington,  through  Seat- 
tle, and  north  to  Vancouver;  there  is  the 
Seminole  Trail,  from  Washington  to  At- 
lanta and  then  west  to  Birmingham;  the 
National  Road,  starting  at  Washington 
and  Baltimore,  through  Hagerstown,  Cum- 
berland, Wheeling,  Zanesville,  Dayton, 
Indianapolis,  and  Springfield,  connect- 
ing the  Boone  Lick  Trail  in  Missouri  with 
the  Santa  Fe  Trail;  the  old  Overland 
Trail,  w^hich  w^as  used  by  the  United 
States  Government  west  of  Chicago  in 
carrying  mail  and  passengers  to  the  coast. 
And  there  are  a  dozen  other  trails  running 
north  and  south,  such  as  the  Chisholm, 
from  Newton,  Kansas,  to  Fort  Worth, 
Texas;  the  Winnipeg-Gulf  Highway;  the 
Capitol  Highway,  from  Washington  south 
to  Jacksonville;  the  Dixie  Trail,  from 
Gettysburg  to  Roanoke,  Virginia;  and  the 
Pacific  Highway,  north  and  south  in  Cali- 
fornia, Oregon,  and  Washington.  South 
Dakota  has  its  Emigrant  Trail,  Nebraska 
its  Platte  River  Road,  Iowa  its  Blue 
Grass  Road  and  Bedford  Trail  and  the 
Transcontinental  Trail,  Kansas  its  Balti- 
more Trail.  There  is  a  Tri-State  Road 
from  Chicago  to  Davenport,  which  is 
from  this  point  called  the  River  to  River 
Road,  through  Des  Moines  to  Omaha. 


Nevada  and  California  are  linked  by  the 
Kl  Camino-Sierra  Route  from  Ely,  Ne- 
vada, through  Tonopah  and  Goldfield  and 
Bishop,  California,  south  to  Los  Angeles; 
and  these  are  only  a  few  of  the  many. 
Some  of  these  trails  are  quite  direct. 
Others  wind  in  and  out,  guided  wholly  by 
local  sentiment  in  each  community,  re- 
tarded by  the  lack  of  progressiveness  of 
others;  and  there  is  one  in  which  I  am 
greatly  interested,  the  Lincoln  Highway, 
which  goes  as  direct  as  possible,  reaches  or 
is  contiguous  to  sixty  per  cent  of  our  pop- 
ulation in  the  United  States,  and  which 
by  natural  tributary  roads  is  in  easy  ac- 
cess of  all  sections  of  our  country. 

The  reason  that  these  various  liighways 
have  not  been  a  success  from  a  national 
view-point  is  because  they  have  not  been 
properly  linked  together.  Nearly  all  of 
them  have  asked  for  aid  from  the  govern- 
ment. Congressional  influence  and  fights 
between  State  delegations  as  to  which 
section  should  first  feel  the  beneficial  in- 
fluence of  good  roads  have  always  hereto- 
fore prevented  any  section  from  obtain- 
ing these  benefits.  Selfishness  has  been 
the  one  predominant  trait  of  practically 
every  district,  with  the  result  that  the  in- 
fluence of  all  other  sections  banded  against 
the  one  to  be  immediately  helped  has 
effectually  prevented  any  great  amount 
of  road-improvement.  Political  pull  and 
influence  have  been  of  more  power  and 
strength  than  right.  Road-building  work 
has  always  been  delayed  because  the  poli- 
ticians couldn't  agree. 

There  has  been  a  great  growth  of  auto- 
mobile travel  in  the  past  six  years.  It  is 
the  return  to  individual  transportation. 
Our  early  settlers,  those  who  made  these 
first  trails,  moved  with  their  families  and 
all  their  belongings  in  a  canvas-covered 
wagon  from  point  to  point.  To-day  a 
man  takes  his  family  by  automobile,  and 
goes  where  he  wishes  and  when  he  wishes, 
without  regard  to  railroad  time-tables  or 
railroad  regulations. 

Some  years  ago  a  bright  and  enterpris- 
ing advertising  man  for  one  of  the  Western 
railroads  printed  and  talked  ''See  Amer- 
ica First"  in  all  his  advertising.  It  is  a 
slogan  that  has  grown  tremendously.  In 
the  New  England  States  last  summer  it  is 
claimed  that  thirty  million  dollars  was 
spent  by  automobile  tourists.     How^  many 


X 


NO 


164 


Transcontinental  Trails 


millions  were  spent  in  Western  railroad 
travel  I  do  not  know.  The  scenic  wonders 
of  the  West  attract  thousands.  But  hordes 
of  rich  Americans,  increasing  yearly  in 
numbers,  still  go  to  Europe.  Yet  I  be- 
lieve "See  America  First"  has  been  a  tre- 
mendous influence  in  keeping  American 
dollars  at  home,  because  our  scenic  won- 
ders are  quite  as  massive,  as  great,  as  en- 
trancing, and  as  interesting  as  those  sights 
of  the  Old  World  that  have  been  adver- 
tised so  successfully  for  many  hundred 
years. 

I  have  made  a  dozen  transcontinental 
trips  myself.  I  know  of  nothing  more  de- 
lightful ;  nothing  that  affords  a  better  out- 
ing. I  believe  in  that  slogan  "  See  Amer- 
ica First"  and  I  have  tried  to  live  up  to 
it.  But  America  to-day  offers  almost  in- 
surmountable obstacles  to  following  this 
precept. 

It  was  to  remedy  this  condition,  so  far 
as  coast-to-coast  transportation  goes,  that 
the  Lincoln  Highway  Association  was 
formed.  All  have  realized  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  has  no  memorial  to-day  worthy 
of  him.  In  Washington  there  is  to  be  a 
Greek  temple,  a  magnificent  building,  I 
am  sure,  where  the  Lincoln  furniture,  pic- 
tures, statuary,  and  records  can  be  placed 
on  exhibition.  It  is  a  fine  project  and  it 
deserves  consideration.  But  not  a  tenth 
of  our  population  will  ever  see  it.  Lin- 
coln was  of  the  people;  he  came  from  and 
w'as  a  man  among  the  people.  Why  not 
this  memorial  to  his  name,  a  memorial 
that  can  be  used  by  a  majority  of  our  cit- 
izens and  through  which  all  the  people 
will  benefit  ? 

I  am  interested  in  the  Lincoln  Highway 
because  we  have  investigated  and  planned 
and  mapped  out  what  we  believe  to  be  the 
best  road  possible  from  New  York  to  San 
Francisco.  There  must  be  a  first  road 
and  w^e  think  the  Lincoln  Highway  is  to 
be  the  first  transcontinental  thoroughfare, 
one  connected  highway,  that  is  to  be  op- 
erated without  toll  charges  and  is  to  be 
improved  in  the  best  manner.  To  say 
that  the  Lincoln  Highway  is  for  the  rich 
motorist  is  to  miss  the  keynote.  The 
Lincoln  Way  is  not  a  proposed  plan.  It 
is  on  the  map.  It  is  to-day  the  most  used 
series  of  highways  carefully  selected,  end 
to  end,  reaching  across  the  country  by 
the   most   practical   route,    serving    the 


greatest  population.  It  is  not  run  through 
the  large  cities  to  serve  the  large  city  class 
of  motorists.  It  is,  in  the  main,  a  country 
highway.  It  might  be  called  at  a  glance 
the  Vertebra  Route  of  America,  the  back- 
bone of  travel  connecting  countless  thriv- 
ing cities  and  villages  and  agricultural 
communities  tributary  thereto.  The  in- 
side traffic  is  monstrous.  The  horse-ve- 
hicle traffic  on  it  is  now  estimated  at  fifty 
per  cent  of  its  use.  The  other  fifty  per 
cent  is  motor  traffic.  Of  this  fifty  per 
cent  it  is  estimated  that  approximately 
ninety  per  cent  is  business  use  of  motor- 
vehicles.  The  doctor,  the  salesman,  the 
business  man  establishing  personal  con- 
tact with  his  trade — all  will  find  better 
highways  beneficial ;  and,  most  important 
of  all,  an  improved  opportunity  will  be 
afforded  for  intercommunication  in  social 
life  for  the  heretofore  marooned  farmer  or 
country  resident  and  his  family.  Every 
element  in  our  social  fabric  will  gain  and 
rural  travel  wdll  be  tremendously  acceler- 
ated by  good  roads  such  as  the  Lincoln 
Highway.  The  farmer's  wife  to-day,  let 
us  say,  wishes  to  take  her  car  and  go  over 
to  visit  a  friend  fifty  or  one  hundred  miles 
away.  The  thrifty  farmer  may  say  that 
the  road  is  so  rough  and  poor  that  it 
damages  the  car  and  its  tires  too  much. 
Or  perhaps  the  farmer  urges  his  wife  to 
have  her  boy  drive  her  on  the  trip,  and  the 
wife  replies,  "No;  it  is  too  uncomfortable 
on  such  a  rough  road."  Thus  you  see 
that  countless  numbers  of  farmers  and 
rural  residents  have  the  cars  but  not  the 
roads.  More  than  a  million  motor-vehi- 
cles are  in  use  in  this  country  to-day,  and 
the  number  is  rapidly  increasing.  In  this 
number  the  high-priced  car  is  scarcely  a 
factor.  The  greatest  benefactor  of  coun- 
try life  in  these  days  is  the  cheaper  cars, 
those  that  cost  one  thousand  dollars  or  less, 
and  the  motor-cycle  or  cycle-cars.  Crops 
rot  in  the  fields  because  of  the  roads.  The 
farmers  are  marooned.  The  means  of 
travel  they  have,  but  not  the  roads.  They 
cannot  get  to  their  markets,  and  this  has 
a  great  effect  on  the  cost  of  living  to  the 
men  in  the  cities. 

The  Lincoln  Highway  will  be  an  evolu- 
tion— a  slow  or  fast  evolution.  It  will 
never  be  finished.  It  will  still  be  straight- 
ened, broadened,  beautified  fifty  or  one 
hundred  years  from  now — yes,  even  dur- 


Transcontinental  Trails 


165 


ing  all  the  time  that  America  endures. 
Yet  upon  the  Lincoln  Highway  to-day 
more  is  being  done — more  good-roads  work 
— than  upon  any  other  route  across  the 
country  which  could  be  selected.  For  ex- 
ample, in  distant  sections  of  Nevada  it  is 


personal  inspection,  it  became  obvious 
that  the  route  was  the  natural  one  as  to 
topography,  population,  and  climatic  con- 
ditions. 

It  became  clearly  apparent  that  ''Lin- 
coln Way"  were  the  magic  words,  appro- 


^ 

%     '^i 

Prometheus  Peak,  east  of  Austin,  Nevada. 


being  straightened  and  graded.  In  Utah, 
under  the  wise  guidance  of  Governor  Spry, 
portions  are  being  permanently  improved 
by  a  concrete  road  like  the  Wayne  county 
roads  in  Michigan.  Wyoming,  under  Gov- 
ernor Carey's  careful  judgment,  is  fixing  up 
and  grading  long,  troublesome  stretches. 
In  these  three  States  this  work  was  planned 
and  in  progress  before  the  Lincoln  High- 
way Association  was  organized. 

The  Lincoln  Highway  Directors  sim- 
ply studied  these  lines  by  personal  inspec- 
tion, arranged  that  the  ends  of  these 
valued  public  works  should  connect  with 
each  other,  from  California  east  to  the 
natural  overland  trail,  through  Nebraska, 
Illinois,  and  on  to  the  Eastern  seaboard 
of  New  York,  passing  near  Washington, 
the  nation's  capital — the  best  road  serv- 
ing the  greatest  population.  It  is  not 
merely  the  best  route  that  can  at  the  pres- 
ent time  be  selected.  It  is  the  right 
route.  No  better  road  can  be  selected 
in  the  next  generation  or  the  next  or  the 
next.  The  conditions  fit  the  route,  and 
vice  versa.  As  careful  study  revealed  these 
facts  from  the  mass  of  information,  and  by 
Vol.  LV.— i6 


priate  to  the  great  project,  and  those 
which  will  be  the  most  enduring  memorial 
to  the  greatest  name  in  history.  The  Lin- 
coln Way  w^ill  always  live  usefully,  freshly, 
and  vividly. 

On  this  highway,  to  be  built  in  your 
and,  I  hope,  my  time,  the  route  follows 
the  path  of  directness  with  least  grades. 
The  New  England  motorist,  let  us  say, 
goes  to  New  York,  crosses  the  ferry  and 
enters  New  Jersey  at  Jersey  City,  riding 
south  through  Trenton  into  Pennsylvania, 
and  beyond  Philadelphia  picks  the  south- 
ern way,  being  routed  by  Lancaster, 
York,  Gettysburg,  Chambcrsburg,  Bed- 
ford, Ligonier,  and  Greensburg  to  Pitts- 
burgh. Across  Ohio  the  road  is  almost  a 
straight  line,  as  we  enter  the  State  near 
Canton  and  leave  at  Van  Wert.  In  In- 
diana, Fort  Wayne,  Elkhart,  and  South 
Bend  are  the  ])rincipal  ]K)ints;  in  Illinois, 
Chicago  Heights,  Joliet,  and  De  Kalb. 
Here  we  have  reached  the  C)\erland  Trail, 
through  Clinton,  Cedar  Rapids,  Mar- 
shalltown,  and  Boone,  Iowa,  into  Omaha, 
then  along  the  Platte  Ri\cr  valley  west- 
ward to  Julesburg,  where  the  tourist  may 


There  are  many  miles  like  this  in  Utah. 


dip  down  to  Denver  or  go  straight  to  Chey- 
enne. Salt  Lake  City  is  beyond  RawHns 
andLaramie,  as  areReno  and  San  Francisco. 
There  is  a  compelling  logic  in  this  route. 
It  is  close  to  many  centres  of  population, 


Putting  a  contraction-joint  in  place  and  striking  off  the  concrete  to  give  crown 

to  the  road. 


avoiding  the  cities,  yet  being  available 
thereto.  Gettysburg;  Canton,  where 
McKinley  lies  buried;  the  Lincoln  birth- 
place in  Kentucky,  and  Mammoth  Cave; 
the  Lincoln  home  in  Springfield,  111. ;  the 
city  of  Lincoln  in  Nebraska;  Colorado 
and  its  scenic  grandeur;  Wyoming's  un- 
equalled curiosities  of  nature,  and  Yellow- 
stone Park;  Glacier  Park  in  Montana; 
Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado;  the  des- 
i66 


erts  of  Utah  and  Nevada  with  their  won- 
derfully beautiful  irrigated  sections;  Lake 
Tahoe;  Yosemite  National  Park;  and 
other  forest  reserves  and  the  boulevards 
of  California  are  all  a  part  of  the  high- 
way's attractions 
because  they  can  be 
seen  and  enjoyed 
by  those  who  pass 
over  it. 

Support  given 
the  undertaking  has 
been  noteworthy. 
Our  leading  citizen, 
the  President,  has 
sent  us  a  check.  So 
have  many  senators, 
congressmen,  gov- 
ernors, and  leaders 
in  the  world's  bank- 
ing, railroad,  manu- 
facturing, and  other 
industrial  affairs. 
From  Alaska  the 
other  day  there  ar- 
rived fourteen  pen- 
nies sent  by  the  children  of  Anvik,  through 
Mrs.  Evans,  their  missionary  teacher,  and 
forwarded  by  the  Christian  Herald  to  us. 
At  this  writing  the  contributions  and 
pledges  are  a  trifle  more  than  five  million 
dollars.  It  is  hoped  to  complete  the  fund 
before  January  i,  1915.  A  great  number 
of  our  leading  industries  in  the  automo- 
bile and  its  alHed  fields  have  pledged 
sums  ranging  from  $10,000  to  $300,000. 


Centre  road,  Cuyahoga  County,  Ohio. 

Which  is  one  of  the  cross-country  roads  which  intersects  a  large  number  of  main  highways  and  is  subject  to  heavy  trallic.     It  was  laid 
in  1909,  and  there  have  been  no  repairs  on  this  road  due  to  wear  and  tear. 


Many  more  are  expected  to  do  likewise. 
True,  there  is  selfishness  in  this.  Better 
roads  mean  more  touring  and  the  more 
general  use  of  the  automobile.  But  the 
farmer  and  mer- 
chant of  the  small- 
er cities  will  gain 
eighty  per  cent  or 
more  of  the  benefit. 
Should  the  expen- 
diture of  money  in 
America  by  Amer- 
icans be  encour- 
aged? Or  should 
they  continue  to 
travel  attractively 
and  comfortably  as 
to  roads  and  hotels, 
and  spend  their 
money  abroad? 
They  will  continue 
to  go  abroad,  and 
small  blame  to  them, 
as  long  as  existent 
conditions  prevail. 
Why?  Places  of  in- 
terest. Good  roads, 
and  restaurants. 


mattresses  one  would  gladly  exchange  for 
a  grassy  plot  in  the  park.  The  less  said 
of  carpets  the  better.  Rooms  with  baths 
are  the  exception,  and  many  of  those  are 


Finishing  a  new  concrete  road  near  Detroit. 

The  surface  is  wet  down  and  covered  with  dirt  for  about  ten  days  to  jjive  the  concrete  time  to 
set  tlioroughly  betore  traHic  is  permitted. 


Excellent  taverns 
And,  after  all,  the  inner 
man  demands  attentive  consideration. 

In  the  smaller  cities  in  America  the 
good  tavern  is  the  exception.     Does  it  ex- 


dark  and  dirty  I  But  what  shall  we  say  for 
the  sanitary  p>rovisions  in  the  a\crage  small- 
town hotel?  Leave  your  squeamishncss 
behind  when  you  tour  in  America,  or  stick 
to  the  big-city  hotel  (which  is  not  sj)otless) ; 


ist  at  all  on  the  European  standard  of  go  to  Europe  or  stay  at  home, 
good  food  and  cleanliness?  The  general  Now,  this  is  a  grossly  unfair  picture  of 
experience  is  that  rooms  are  dirty  and  un-  some  well-kei)t  iims.  They  are  as  nice 
attractive.     The  beds,  linen,  pillows,  and    and  neat  and  clean  as  a  pin.     Vou  are  at 

167 


The  gradual  grade  of  the  Sierras. 


home  at  once.  It  is  better  than  Europe 
because  it  is  American,  There  is  Ameri- 
can home  cooking  neatly  and  promptly 
served.  You  are  inclined  to  stay  a  day 
or  two  or  a  week  or  two  to  get  away  from 
the  clamor  of  modern  city  life. 

But,  practically,  such  places  are  not 
general.  In  fact,  they  are  discreditably 
scarce.  Unfortunately,  reports  of  unat- 
tractiveness  are  being  circulated  every- 
where by  travellers  and  tourists.  What 
a  magic  change  would  be  worked  if  the 
reverse  were  true!  Suppose  travellers 
reported  that  such  and  such  inns  were 
good.  Conceive  for  a  moment  that  at 
frequent  intervals  along  the  Lincoln  Way 
or  adjacent  thereto  were  taverns  of  note, 
to  visit  which  would  mean  pleasure,  and 
to  leave  which  would  mean  regret !  It  is 
all  coming  with  the  Lincoln  Way  and  its 
steady  stream  of  transcontinental  travel. 

The  Lincoln  Highway  Association  does 
not  intend  to  and  cannot  be  expected  to 
build  all  of  this  roadway.  It  is  intent 
only  on  raising  ten  million  dollars.  Prob- 
ably the  entire  pathway  will  cost  twenty- 
five  miUion.  There  is  good  reason  to  think 
that  a  number  of  the  States  will  take  care 
of  their  own  sections.  For  instance,  the 
New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and 
Indiana,  highway  commissions  will  prob- 
i68 


ably  improve  the  highway  through  their 
States.  Governor  Dunne  last  summer 
assured  Carl  G.  Fisher,  originator  of  the 
Lincoln  Highway,  that  Illinois  would  do 
likewise.  In  the  sparsely  settled  western 
States  other  conditions  prevail.  There  is 
great  mileage  without  the  necessary  popu- 
lation to  insure  a  good  road.  The  Lincoln 
Highway  Association  must  help.  But  in 
Iowa  and  in  Nebraska  the  State  or  local 
authorities  may  prepare  the  road-bed  and 
the  Highway  Association  will  place  the 
hard  surface  thereon.  This  fund  goes  to 
fill  in  the  chinks,  as  it  were,  of  the  route, 
to  connect  States  that  have  not  been  prop- 
erly connected  heretofore,  to  place  a  hard 
surface  on  stretches  hundreds  of  miles 
long,  to  make  the  highway  shorter  at  many 
points,  eliminating  curves  and  dangerous 
grades,  and  to,  in  effect,  insure  one  contin- 
uous, connecting  highway  operated  with- 
out toll  charges — a  smooth,  dustless  road 
that  will  require  the  smallest  percentage 
of  yearly  charges  to  maintain. 

The  benefit  to  the  nation  from  the  Lin- 
coln Highway,  to  my  mind,  is  greater  than 
that  to  come  from  the  Panama  Canal. 
The  canal  is  a  wonderful  work  and  from  a 
world  view  is  necessary  to  our  commerce. 
But  we  will  move  over  the  Lincoln  High- 
way, once  it  is  completed,  many,  many 


A  bit  of  rough  riding  in  Wyoming. 


times  the  tonnage  that  will  pass  through 
the  canal.  The  canal  will  lower  freight 
rates  from  local  points  along  the  Atlantic 
coast  to  cities  on  the  Pacific  slope.  The 
Lincoln  Highway  will  lower  the  cost  of 
haulage  for  the  farmer  in  Indiana,  Ohio, 
Illinois,  Iowa,  Nebraska,  Pennsylvania. 
Their  benefits  from  good  roads  will  be  a 
thousand  to  one  as  compared  to  the  big 
ditch.  These  roads  would  pay  yearly 
dividends  to  our  people  far  greater  than 
any  we  may  ever  expect  from  Panama. 

In  this  exposition  of  good  roads,  some 
comment  should  be  made  on  the  rise  in 
farm  values,  due  to  good  roads.  The 
benefit  to  the  farmer  is  incalculable.  It 
places  him  in  closer  touch  with  the  city 
and  with  all  urban  life  and  communica- 
tion. In  Wayne  county,  Michigan,  where 
the  hard-surface  concrete  roads  are  in  ex- 
istence, over  a  hundred  miles  being  al- 
ready built  in  this  county  alone,  extend- 
ing from  the  limits  of  the  city  of  Detroit 
to  the  county  line  in  each  direction,  radi- 
ating like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel,  farm  val- 
ues have  doubled.  In  some  cases  the 
rise  has  been  greater.  There  are  farmers 
in  Wayne  county  who  could  not  have 
commanded  two  hundred  dollars  per  acre 
for  their  farms,  including  their  buildings. 
To  get  to  the  city  market  with  their  prod- 


uce, particularly  vegetables,  they  were  com- 
pelled to  start  the  afternoon  previous,  to 
ride  all  night,  to  reach  a  market  stand  at 
four  A,  M. ,  and  be  assigned  space.  Then  at 
seven  or  eight  o'clock  they  would  com]:)lete 
their  business  and  start  back.  They  thus 
lost  their  sleep,  their  teams  were  worn  out, 
and  it  practically  required  two  days  to  do 
the  work.  Now  these  farmers,  for  many 
are  progressive,  have  motor-trucks.  They 
sleep  until  two  o'clock  or  even  three,  take 
their  load  to  market,  sell  it,  and  are  back 
on  the  farm  by  ten  o'clock  ready  for  the 
day's  labors.  This  is  not  a  dream  or  a  \i- 
sion.  It  is  one  of  the  absolute  certainties 
that  good  highways  insure  the  farmer. 

I  could  go  on  with  similar  illustrations 
almost  indefinitely.  One  that  must  be 
told  is  about  the  farmer  in  Wayne  county 
who  lives  just  two  miles  from  a  concrete 
road.  He  has  a  large  number  of  cattle 
and  he  sells  milk  to  a  Detroit  creamery, 
delivering  it  himself.  To  get  this  milk  to 
the  main  highway  is  his  principal  task. 
In  the  rainy  weather,  when  the  road  is 
nothing  but  a  bog  of  mud,  water,  and 
sand,  and  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get 
through,  this  farmer,  with  but  a  half-load 
of  milk,  needs  four  horses  to  pull  his  wag- 
on and  himself  to  the  main  highway.  He 
starts.      Once  at  the  highway  the  load 

169 


170 


Transcontinental  Trails 


is  deposited  beside  the  road  and  he  re- 
turns to  the  farm.  It  doesn't  take  long 
to  load  up  the  wagon  again,  and  with  the 
hired  man  the  two  travel  to  the  improved 
concrete  highway.  Here  the  entire  load 
is  placed  on  the  one  wagon,  one  team  is 
unhitched,  and  the  farmer  starts  for  town 
cheerfully. 
The  hired 
mantakesthe 
team  back  to 
the  farm  to 
use  them  dur- 
ing the  day. 
So  the  good 
road  brings 
to  that  farm- 
er a  real  ad- 
vantage— a 
financial 
help.  It  gives 
him  the  work 
of  two  horses 
for  a  full  day. 
He  has  more 
time  for  his 
family.  His 
up -keep  ex- 
pense is  less 
with  a  motor- 
truck  and 
good  roads. 
He  can  make 
more  than  he 
ever  did  be- 
fore. 

One  doubts 
if  the  aver- 
age person 
knows  much 
about  the 
costs  of  trans- 
porting farm 
pro  du  c ts 

over  our  country  roads.  The  goods  sent  out 
by  the  mills  and  factories  from  the  great 
centres  of  industry  and  the  farmer's  foods 


How  the  lowans  care  for  their  roads. 


President  Joy,  of  the  Lincoln  Highway  Association,  on  the  road 
through  Iowa. 


measure  a  share  of  the  increase  in  the  cost 
of  living.  Competent  engineers  declare 
the  total  runs  into  hundreds  of  millions 
each  year.  Compare  this  with  Europe. 
Our  cost  per  ton-mile  over  average  high- 
ways here  is  from  twenty-five  to  forty 
cents.     In  France  the  cost  of  highway 

commerce  is 
two  and  one- 
half  to  five 
cents  per  ton- 
mile,  this  be- 
ing the  low- 
est figure  in 
the  whole 
world.  In 
Gerrnany  it 
is  from  five 
to  ten  cents; 
in  England 
from  three 
to  ten  cents; 
in  Italy  from 
six  to  twelve 
cents. 

This  is  what 
improved 
roads  will  do 
for  us.  Let 
us  assume 
that  we  can 
reduce  our 
costs  from 
thirty-five 
cents  to  sev- 
enteen cents. 
The  saving 
in  one  year 
would  be 
sufficient  to 
build  three 
or  four  great 
national  high- 
ways.  Mr. 
Herbert  N.  Casson,  a  well-known  indus- 
trial economist,  estimates  the  loss  to  the 
farmers  of  the  United  States,  due  to  their 


which  go  in  return  represent  eighty-five    inability  to  get  farm  products  to  market,  at 


per  cent  of  the  tonnage  of  the  United 
States.  The  railways  handle  but  fifteen 
per  cent  and  their  carrying  charges  aver- 
age from  seven  tenths  of  a  cent  to  two  and 
one-half  cents  per  mile.    Vast  as  is  their 


between  nine  hundred  thousand  and  a  bil- 
lion doll  ars  each  year.  What  a  change  and 
transformation  there  would  be  if  we  had  a 
system  of  State  and  intra-State  permanent 
highways,  and  farmers  using  motor-trucks 


tonnage  of  more  than  nine  billion  long  tons  to  convey  their  produce  direct  to  market 

each  year,  it  is  but  a  fractional  part  of  and  to  sell  direct  to  the  consumer! 

that  moved  over  our  highways.  These   motor- trucks   could   transport 

This  economic  waste  represents  in  great  farm  products  one  hundred  to  two  hun- 


->■  i 


.^  •  ^ 


A  mountain  road  in  the  Sierra  Nevadas. 


dred  miles  to  the  most  profitable  market- 
ing-point at  a  cost  of  from  five  to  fifteen 
cents  per  ton-mile  as  against  an  average 
of  the  present  of  thirty-five  cents  per  ton- 
mile.  If  twenty-five  or  fifty  billions  of 
tons  of  farm  products  are  handled  by 
horse-vehicles  over  poor  roads  in  the 
Middle  West,  as  the  government  figures  in- 


dicate, the  saving  would  be  from  fi\'e  to  ten 
million  dollars.  This  amount  would  build 
great  sections  of  the  Lincoln  Highway. 

The  annual  horse-maintenance  bill  of 
the  United  States  in  19 13  was  two  bil- 
lions of  dollars.  This  amount  equalled  the 
maintenance  cost  of  the  entire  railway 
mileage  of  the  United  States.     Civiliza- 


A  Colorado  mountain  ruad. 


171 


172 


Transcontinental  Trails 


tion  has  achanccd  bc>-oiKl  tlic  "horse 
age,"  but  we  must  still  continue  to  use 
horses  in  our  highway  commerce  because 
we  have  no  roads  good  enough  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  billion-dollar  saving  which 
transportation  experts  tell  us  could  be  ef- 
fected if  we  had  mechanically  driven  wag- 
ons. A  saving  of  only  a  billion  dollars 
per  year  which  this  motorized  commerce 
would  effect  would  enable  us  in  ten  or 
fifteen  years  to  have  arteries  of  permanent 
roads  in  all  the  principal  States  of  the 
Union. 

One  of  the  chief  hindrances  in  good- 
roads  work  has  been  inefficiency — mis- 
application of  appropriated  moneys — in 
relation  to  the  building  of  these  highways. 
The  public  is  ready  for  good  roads  and  it 
is  beginning  to  take  a  determined  stand  to 
see  that  funds  appropriated  are  invested 
in  building  permanent  roads.  I,  of  course, 
can  only  tell  of  experiences  near  home. 
That  they  are  multiplied  many-fold  in 
many  sections  is  certain.  But  Royal  Oak 
township,  in  Oakland  county,  just  outside 
of  Detroit,  built  a  macadam  road  a  year 
or  two  ago  to  connect  with  a  concrete  road 
in  Wayne  county.  The  macadam  road 
w^as  almost  impassable  within  six  months. 
The  first  mile  was  built  by  a  contractor, 
and  there  is  a  lawsuit  now  on  over  the 
payment.  The  township  built  the  second 
mile  itself.  It  is  better  but  not  good 
enough.  A  Detroiter  built  a  mile  of  con- 
crete through  the  township  with  the  aid 
of  other  property-owners.     It  is  a  model 


thoroughfare.  Not  a  penny  has  since 
been  needed  for  its  up-keep.  But  the 
township  authorities,  still  afraid  of  the 
initial  cost  of  more  durable  roads,  are  wed- 
ded to  the  obsolete  macadam  construction, 
with  a  maintenance  expense  that  grows 
larger  yearly. 

There  is  proof  of  this,  plenty  of  it.  In 
New  York  State  the  macadam  road  has 
been  found  to  be  a  heavy  annual  tax  and 
it  does  not  meet  the  traffic  conditions 
of  to-day.  They  have  paid  as  high  as 
$i,ooo  a  mile  per  year  for  maintenance; 
this  expense  has  been  tremendous.  Start- 
ing with  an  initial  cost  of  $8,000  or  $9,000 
per  mile,  the  up-keep  expense  the  follow- 
ing year  would  be  around  $400  or  $500 
per  mile.  The  next  year  it  would  run 
to  $600,  the  following  twelve  months  to 
$800,  and  after  paying  $1,000  per  mile 
for  a  few  years  more  the  road  would  then 
need  to  be  completely  rebuilt. 

In  constructing  highways  one  of  the  car- 
dinal points  is  that  they  should  be  built 
and  paid  for  by  the  present  generation  and 
not  by  future  generations.  I  have  in  mind 
a  road  in  Grosse  Pointe  and  one  I  travel 
over  every  day  when  at  home.  This  road 
was  of  macadam  and  the  township  was 
bonded  for  it,  bonds  for  ten  years  being 
issued.  In  four  years  this  road  was  com- 
pletely lost.  It  and  its  improvements  had 
disappeared.  There  is  a  concrete  road 
there  now,  but  we  taxpayers  have  four 
more  years  to  pay  those  bond  instal- 
ments. 


A  meeting  on  the  plains. 


SCENES  ON   OLD  TRAILS 

THE  TRANSCONTINENTAL  MOTOR-ROADS  OF  TOMORROW 

AUTOCHROME    PHOTOGRAPHS    liV    EaRLE   HaRRISON 


Section  of  the  old  road  running  from  Knoxville,  Tenn.,  to  the  North  Carolina  line. 

It  was  over  this  road  lliat  John  Sevier,  the  first  K'nvernor  of  Tcmicssec,  rode  when  lie  left  iiib  hmiie  t.>  take  up  his 

resilience  in  Knuxvillc. 

Vol.  LV— 17 


173 


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176 


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Characteristic  East  Tennessee  road. 
This  style  of  macadamized  turnpike  is  fou]id  throug-h  western  North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  north  Georgia,  and  Kentucky, 


I  So 


The  load-carrying  capacity  of  the  modern  motor-truck  is  enormous. 
This  shows  a  three-ton  motor-tnack  loaded  to  capacity. 


MOTORIZED    HIGHWAY 
COMMERCE 

BY  ROLLIN  W.  HUTCHINSON,  JR. 


J^^^^^^^HE  mechanical  wagon,  au- 
tomobile truck  or  motor- 
truck, as  it  is  commonly 
called,  had  its  inception  in 
1810  in  the  steam-propeUed 
omnibus  of  Trevithick,   a 


brilliant  mechanical  genius  who  applied 
James  Watt's  discoveries  of  steam  to  the 
driving  of  a  stage-coach  which  operated 
between  London  and  its  environs  at  a 
speed  of  ten  miles  per  hour.  The  actual 
commercial  history  of  the  business  mo- 
tor, however,  dates  from  1894,  in  which 
year  De  Dion  in  France  and  Saurer  in 
Switzerland  developed  the  progenitors  of 
the  gasolene-driven  motor-truck  as  it  now 
exists.  In  the  United  States  no  attempts 
to  build  automobile  trucks  were  made 
until  1896,  when  several  electric-driven 
motor-wagons  were  exhibited  in  Madison 
Square  Garden.  Tn  the  next  year  or  two 
several  gasolene-driven  motor-truck  man- 
VoL.  LV.— 18 


ufacturers  came  into  the  field  with  "one- 
lunged"  and  "two-lunged"  motored  ma- 
chines which  were  chiefly  celebrated  not 
for  their  running  but  for  their  standing 
ability.  Such  motor-trucks  of  1899  and 
1900,  and  as  late  as  1904,  rarely  went  more 
than  three  blocks  without  expiring  sud- 
denly. In  those  days  the  electric-driven 
motor-truck  was  greatly  in  the  majority 
and  its  greater  reliability  at  that  time 
caused  it  to  dominate  the  field. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  year  igii  ajv 
proximately  13,000  motor-trucks  had  hccn 
manufactured  in  the  I'nited  States.  In 
191 1  13,319  trucks  were  built — a  slightly 
greater  number  than  the  total  production 
of  those  made  from  the  beginning  of  the 
industry  to  the  opening  of  that  history- 
making  year.  In  1913  about  36,000  mo- 
tor-trucks were  made  in  this  country,  or 
6,000  more  than  the  entire  history  of  the 
industry  had  up  to  then  recorded.     This 

x8z 


From  a  photograph  by  H.  F.  DuUher,  Nyack,  S\'.   Y. 

An  automatic-power  dump-truck. 
In  municipal  service  such  trucks  play  an  important  part  in  spreading-  asphalt  and  other  street  work. 


history  indicates  that  the  number  of 
trucks  going  into  service  may  be  doubled 
each  year  until  highway  commerce  be- 
comes completely  motorized.  We  must 
by  1925  have  discovered  an  economically 
sound  answer  to  the  question,  ''What  shall 
we  do  with  our  horses?  "  for  by  that  time, 
assuming  conservatively  that  the  increase 
of  motor-trucks  each  year  is  but  50  per 
cent  of  the  total  number  in  service,  we 
shall  have  about  a  million  and  a  quarter 
mechanical  wagons  operating,  which  will 
have  displaced  about  five  million  of  the 
present  twenty-five  million  odd  draught 
animals  in  this  country. 

The  mo  tor- truck  of  19 14  bears  little  re- 
semblance to  its  early  ancestors  except  in 
general  form.  As  late  as  1908  the  average 
gasolene-truck  abstracted  barely  50  per 
cent  of  the  heat  units  of  its  fuel,  and  of 
the  mechanical  power  developed  by  its 
motor  nearly  40  per  cent  was  lost  in  fric- 
tion of  its  shafts,  gears,  etc.,  before  it 
could  be  applied  to  the  driving-wheels. 
To-day  the  gasolene  motor-truck  absorbs 
60  per  cent  of  the  heat  units  of  its  fuel 
and  delivers  nearly  80  per  cent  of  its  gen- 
erated power  at  the  rear  wheels.  Won- 
derful has  been  its  mechanical  evolution 
in  a  space  of  ten  years.  The  improve- 
ments that  have  contributed  to  its  greater 
efficiency  and  economy  pertain  more  to 
individual  refinements  of  separate  mem- 
bers of  its  mechanism,  the  use  of  the  won- 
182 


derful  new  ferro-steels  to  give  it  greater 
strength  with  less  weight,  and  more  ac- 
curacy in  workmanship,  rather  than  to 
radical  changes  in  design  and  appearance. 
The  greatest  mechanical  progress  that  has 
come  about  in  the  development  of  the  in- 
ternal-combustion type  of  motor-truck 
has  been  its  adaptation  to  the  heavier 
hydrocarbons,  kerosene  and  so-called 
"distillate."  Through  the  invention  of 
kerosene-burning  carburetors  the  "gas- 
burning"  power- wagon  has  been  brought 
to  the  same  status  of  economy  that  existed 
ten  years  ago,  when  gasolene  was  seven 
cents  per  gallon  instead  of  twenty  cents  as 
now,  but  with  this  difference:  the  econ- 
omy of  the  machine  with  the  perfection  of 
its  motor  is  1 5  to  20  per  cent  greater  using 
kerosene  as  a  fuel  than  it  was  in  the  early 
days  when  burning  gasolene  of  equivalent 
price. 

The  fuel  problem  of  the  power-wagon 
until  1 91 3  was  really  serious,  for  in  large 
units  three  miles  per  gallon  of  gasolene 
is  the  average  fuel  consumption  of  pow- 
er-trucks. With  gasolene  increasing  in 
price  at  the  rate  of  one  cent  per  gallon  per 
month  its  use  is  becoming  prohibitive. 
The  kerosene  carburetor  buries  this  men- 
ace to  motor-trucks  for  years  to  come. 

In  1 9 14  false  pride  is  the  only  excuse 
for  not  using  kerosene  at  eight  cents 
instead  of  gasolene  at  twenty  cents  per 
gallon.    The  motor-truck  whose  "dead 


An  interesting  example  of  tractor  utilization  by  a  contracting  company. 


weight"  as  a  machine  is  from  one  to  two 
tons  in  large  units  less  than  its  '4ive  load" 
is  also  becoming  current,  meaning  that 
less  fuel  is  needed  to  propel  it. 

The  electric-driven  truck  is  distin- 
guished from  its  progenitors  of  1896  but 
little  in  appearance,  but  markedly  in  ef- 
ficiency. When  it  first  became  a  com- 
mercial vehicle  it  could  barely  do  twenty 
miles  on  a  charge  of  battery.  To-day 
fifty  to  sixty  miles  without  recharging  is 
common,  and  the  one-hundred-mile  elec- 
tric is  a  thing  of  the  near  future.  Were 
battery-charging  facilities  commonly  avail- 
able it  is  probable  that  the  electric  truck 
would  numerically  be  stronger  than  the 
internal-combustion  type.  As  a  purely 
urban  vehicle  it  is  more  adaptable.  It 
can  be  driven  by  unskilled  labor  and 
gives  greater  efficiency  on  a  given  expendi- 
ture for  power;  and  for  frequent  stop 
service  it  is  more  flexible  and  economical 
than  the  "gas-burning  truck."  Reserve 
batteries,  now  easily  procurable,  obviate 
its  apparent  disadvantage — the  necessity 
of  ''laying  it  up"  for  eight  hours  out 
of  the  twenty-four  to  recharge  its  bat- 
teries, making  it  uncertain  tha;t  it  will  be 
ready  for  service  when  needed.  In  large 
business  organizations  such  as  breweries, 
textile  mills,  department  stores,  and  man- 
ufactories where  the  power-plant  is  oper- 
ated all  night  the  electric  truck  has  be- 
come standardized  for  city  and  rehitively 
short-haul  service.     As  the  [wwer-plant 


must  be  operated  all  night  at  any  rate, 
that  percentage  of  its  electric  power  direct- 
ed to  the  charging  of  the  motor-vehicle 
is  figured  as  negligible  in  cost. 

The  motor-truck  is  not  a  mere  substi- 
tute for  one,  two,  three,  or  more  teams  of 
horses.  It  is  a  revoliitionizer  of  internal 
methods  of  handling  and  moving  mer- 
chandise, w^hether  it  be  pins  or  pianos, 
brushes  or  bricks,  lumber  or  lace,  and  the 
sudden  motorizing  of  highway  commerce 
would  upset  the  time-honored  "take-as- 
long-as-you-please  "  customs  and  methods 
of  the  horse-vehicle  delivery  system.  The 
business  public  at  large  does  not  yet  know 
how  to  use  the  new  transportation  tool. 
The  power-wagon  has  literally  had  to 
fight  for  its  present  ground  inch  by  inch 
because  it  has  had  to  teach  its  users 
through  costly  experience  that  to  get 
from  it  its  ^/ast  inherent  working  capacity 
horse  methods  must  become  bygones  with 
the  horse.  It  is  therefore  fortunate  for 
both  business  and  the  motor-truck  indus- 
try that  the  world  is  motorizing  its  high- 
way commerce  comparati\'ely  slowly. 
This  educational  i)erio(l  is  cjuite  young, 
but  already  its  influence  is  marked  in 
bringing  about  infcnidl  cfhcicucy  in  mer- 
chandise-moving practices  of  l)usiness  es- 
tablishments, so  that  they  may  approxi- 
mate the  efliciency  of  the  new  outside 
moving  agency. 

The  auto-truck  is  teaching  the  lesson 
that  real  efliciency  in  merchandise  trans- 

183 


184 


Motorized  Highway  Commerce 


port  at  ion  l)e.i2:ins  not  at  the  door  of  the  experts  in  the  United  States,  aptly  says: 
business  establishment  but  at  the  door  of  "No  matter  how  perfect  mechanically  the 
the  chief  executive's  office,  and 
ends  neither  at  the  door  of  the 
shipping-room  nor  at  the  door  of 
the  truck  but  at  the  door  of  the 
customer.  Did  you  ever  pur- 
chase a  paper  of  pins,  a  collar, 
and  a  handkerchief,  aggregating, 
say,  lifty  cents  in  amount,  from 
a  department  store  and  observe 
three  separate  and  stately  wag- 
ons stop  at  your  home  in  the 
suburbs,  twenty  miles  away,  to 
deli\'er  these  articles  the  follow- 
ing day?  Such  expensive  meth- 
ods of  merchandise  delivery  are 
still  common  enough  in  New 
York,  Chicago,  Boston,  and  the 
large  cities,  but  the  motor-truck 


An  emergency  truck. 


Another  example  of  a  motor-truck  in  municipal  service. 


truck  is,  it  will  prove  a  signal 
failure  if  it  is  not  manned  by  a 
qualified  driver,  if  not  inspected 
daily  by  a  qualified  repair  man, 
and  if  not  operated  by  a  qualified 
transportation  expert  who  keeps 
its  idle  time  down,  who  arranges 
operating  schedules  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage, and  who  has  gray  mat- 
ter enough  to  look  upon  the  truck 
not  as  an  experimental  burden  but 
as  a  legitimate  investment  that 
calls  for  direction  the  same  as  any 
other  department  of  his  business. 
The  merchant,  the  manufacturer, 
or  transportation  company  must 


is  pointing  the  way  for  business 
doctors  to  discard  the  anachro- 
nistic inside  methods  of  merchan- 
dise-handling. The  motor-truck 
is  but  a  detail — a  mere  auxiliary 
of  the  really  modern  motorized 
transportation  system  in  which 
methods  rather  than  motors 
achieve  the  success  or  failure  of 
mechanical  outside  deliveries. 
Truck-manufacturers  are  coming 
to  learn  that  schools  of  trans- 
portation are  greater  promoters 
of  their  business  than  mechan- 
ical features  in  truck-construc- 
tion. As  Mr.  David  Beecroft, 
one  of  the  foremost  motor-truck 


A  five-ton  electric  truck. 
Speed  seven  miles  per  hour,  mileage  35-40. 


Motorized   Highway  Commerce 


185 


keep  this  in  mind:  making  motor-trucks    of  the  retail  price  of  many  articles  and 
pay  is  a  man's  job  and  not  the  occupa-    commodities  can  be  saved. 


tion  of  a  boy  or  driver.  Outside  trans- 
portation demands  greater  intelligence 
and  executive  ability  than  ever  before." 


From  a  photoj^rtxph  by  //.  F.  Diitcher. 

An  example  of  high  efficiency  in  loading  a  dump-truck 

Including  time  for  backing  in  and  starting-,  the  truck  is  on  its  way  three  and  one-half  minutes 
after  its  arrival  at  the  hopper. 


Business  principles  must  be  ap- 
plied to  business  vehicles  as  they 
have  been  applied  to  every  other 
phase  of  commercial  investment. 
In  one  department — the  wrap- 
ping of  goods — all  is  despatch;  in 
the  shipping  department  speed 
and  real  system  are  unknown 
quantities.  The  horse  system  of 
delivery  had  a  small  limit  of  ac- 
tivity. The  horse  himself  fixed  it. 
Man  has  worked  to  that  limit 
from  the  time  business  was  born. 
The  motor-truck  has  taught  to 
big  business  the  lesson  that  there 
is  no  essential  difference  (in 
achieving  profits)  between  the  op- 
eration of  a  rail  transportation 
system  and  a  road  transportation 
system.  For  example,  if  a  railroad  han- 
dled a  })ackage  twenty-three  times  in  de- 
livering it  from  Chicago  to  Forest  Park, 
Illinois,  fifteen  miles  distant  (an  average 


In  the  new  system  of  internal  efficiency 
lost  motion  and  waste  of  time  commence 

at  the  loading-plat- 
form of  the  common 
carrier.  The  rail- 
roads are  begin- 
ning to  equip  their 
terminals  and 
warehouses  with 
mechanically  or 
electrically  operated 
loading-appliances, 
which  put  goods  on 
or  off,  from  steamer 
or  car  to  vehicle, 
with  a  celerity  and 
economy  unknown 
even  five  years  ago. 
Motor-truck  users 
are  unloading  the 
incoming  freight  di- 
rectly onto  an  ele- 
vator at  body  level 
instead  of  at  a  plat- 


An  example  of  great  carrying  capacity. 
A  motor-tractor  which  hauls  eighteen  tons  of  ashes  in  a  special  steel  body. 


form  five  feet  higher.  Delivery  platforms 
that  open  into  steel-floored  slides  save 
strength,  time,  and  money,  as  all  the  driver 
and  helper  need  to  do  is  to  shove  the 
practice  with  horse  systems  of  delivery),  packages  to  the  edge  and  start  them  down 
it  would  soon  go  into  bankruptcy.  By  to  the  bottom  where  men  receive  and 
reducing  the  number  of  lost  motions  to  a  check  them  otT.  Even  the  sinij)le  expcdi- 
minimum  the  motor-truck,  indirectly,  is  entof  bridging  the  gap  between  the  truck's 
showing  that  between  40  and  60  per  cent    tail-gate  and  the  freight  i)latform  with  a 


186 


Motorized  Highway  Commerce 


cheap  steel  i)late  was  estimated  by  a  Chi- 
cago motor-truck  user  to  add  forty  min- 
utes })er  day  to  each  of  his  machines. 

Inside  the  mercantile  institution  a 
still  greater  casting  aside  of  time-honored 
goods-moving  methods  is  occurring.  The 
hand-truck  wheeled  between  aisles  to  col- 
lect packages  on  each  floor  is  passing  in 
all  business  establishments  where  motor 
transportation  is  used.  The  spiral  grav- 
ity chute  and   the  travelling   belt  have 


Such  methods  conduce  to  give  the  motor- 
truck the  maximum  of  active  work. 

Twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago,  when 
teaming  and  carting  in  cities  and  free  de- 
liveries to  customers  began  to  bring  the 
horse  in  large  numbers  to  centres  of  pop- 
ulation, a  two-horse  wagon  cost  perhaps 
three  or  four  dollars  per  day,  all  told,  to 
operate.  To-day  the  same  vehicle  costs 
from  six  to  nine  dollars  per  day  to  operate 
(varying  somewhat  in   different  cities), 


Getting  milk  from  a  dairyman  at  stations  and  delivering  it  to  a  creamery  thirty-five  miles  distant. 

As  a  transportation  agency  for  bringing  agricultural  products  to  market  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred  miles  distant,  the 

motor-truck  has  a  great  future. 


taken  its  place.  Distribution  is  made  into 
bins  in  the  basement  corresponding  in 
number  to  each  motor-truck  and  subdi- 
vided into  goods-bins  for  freight,  express, 
parcel-post,  and  city  and  suburban  de- 
liveries. 

Drivers  (instead  of,  as  in  horse-delivery 
practice,  making  up  their  own  loads  from 
the  chaos  of  packages)  are  not  permitted 
to  enter  the  shipping  department  of  es- 
tablishments where  efficiency  principles 
are  being  applied  to  transportation.  They 
enter  bins  which  open  on  the  shipping- 
platforms,  take  out  their  loads  either  by 
hand  or  on  a  wheeled  truck,  receive  a 
routing-schedule  for  that  particular  load, 
and  depart.  In  some  establishments  the 
travelling  belt  performs  the  same  internal 
package-moving  work  as  the  spiral  slide. 
In  some  cases  removable  cage  or  "nest" 
bodies  fitting  into  permanent  bodies  on 
the  truck ,  or  complete  demountable  bodies, 
are  employed,  the  loads  being  prepared 
while  the  machine  is  away  delivering. 


but  considerably  less  service  and  efficiency 
are  derived  from  it  now  than  was  the 
case  three  decades  back,  due  either  to 
shorter  hours  or  the  number  of  restrictions 
which  teamsters'  unions  have  introduced 
— as  w^ell  as  increasing  congestion  of 
traffic  on  streets.  The  motor-truck  is 
teaching  merchants  that  scientific  meth- 
ods of  cost-accounting  on  transportation 
have  as  vital  bearing  on  their  success  as 
has  a  knowledge  of  the  selling-expense  and 
the  percentages  of  profit  or  loss  which 
each  individual  department  bears  to  the 
aggregate  profits  of  the  business.  It  has 
demonstrated  to  them  that  instead  of  a 
cost  of  three  or  four  dollars  per  day  per 
team,  as  they  had  been  figuring  their  trans- 
portation expense  for  years,  seven  or 
eight  dollars  was  their  actual  cost.  The 
economic  waste  of  the  anachronistic  an- 
imal transportation  method  has  been  the 
big  "leak"  through  which  profits  have  es- 
caped. The  motor-truck  is  introducing 
this  regime  of  internal  efficiency  because 


A  five-ton  truck  in  the  service  of  a  building  contractor. 

Tlie  truck  is  loaded  by  means  of  an  auxiliary  wag^on  fitted  with  rollers.     This  trailer  is  loaded  while  the  truck  is  makinji  a  deliverj'. 
The  truck  shown  in  the  i>icture  has  covered  in  one  year  10,175  miles  over  dirt  roads,  avcraijinij  bi.xtccn  tons  of  lumber  per  day. 


its  users  have  discovered  that  it  costs 
them  sixty  to  ninety  cents  per  hour  to 
operate  a  horse-team  and  $1.50  per  hour 
to  operate  a  motor- 
truck which  does  the 
work  of  five  horse- 
wagons;  and  that,  if 
they  move  their  goods 
inside  and  load  and 
unload  at  the  "horse- 
pace"  standard,  the 
motor  will  accom- 
plish no  more  than 
one  two-horse  wagon, 
cost  five  times  more, 
and  be  an  expense  in- 
stead of  a  big  profit- 
making  agency. 
Keeping  a  $5,000 
motor-truck  standing 
beside  a  $500  horse- 
team,  waiting  its  turn 
to  receive  or  discharge 
its  load,  is  unjust  to 
the  owner  and  doubly 
unjust  to  the  motor  because  it  isnH  allowed 
to  earn  profits. 

In  transportation  by  horse-vehicles  a 
load  is  sometimes  piled  on  as  long  as  the 
animals  can  move  it.  It  is  natural  for 
the  motor-user  to  load  the  "new  freight- 
er" in  the  same  manner.  The  motor  can 
be  overloaded  in  a  far  greater  proportion 
to  its  ca])acity  than  can  the  horse- vehicle. 
Motor-manufacturers  are  trying  to  teach 
the  difiicult  lesson  that  any  load  in  excess 


The  Inisje  body  of  a  motor-truck  arrnnsred  in  si.x 
compartments  fur  varied  merchandise. 


chine  reacts  against  the  owner  in  in- 
creased repair  expenses  incident  to  abused 
mechanisms  and  enlarged  tire-bills.  Like- 
wise, that  o^•er-s]:)ccd- 
ing  the  new  tool"  kills 
it"  before  its  logical 
period  of  usefulness  is 
over,  just  as  it  does 
the  horse.  Further, 
that,  because  it  is  a 
business  investment 
that  may  be  six  or 
eight  times  greater 
than  a  horse-wagon, 
care  and  attention  to 
it  must  be  in  like  ra- 
tio to  its  cost  and  not 
six  to  eight  times  less. 
Second  and  third 
respectively  to  inter- 
nal efficiency  in  their 
value  are  the  j)roper 
adaptability  of  the 
body  of  the  \chiclc  to 
its  purpose  and  the 
use  of  auxiliary  apparatus  worked  by 
truck-power  to  supplement  its  efficiency. 
The  flexibility  of  wheel  base-length  couj)- 
led  with  built-to-fit-the-business  bodies 
which  the  motor-truck  has  introduced, 
have  made  the  motor  fit  transportation 
conditions  where  even  animal  jiower  could 
not  be  used  at  all.  "Stock"  types  of 
bodies  are  rare  in  motor  ser\ice.  Near- 
science,  instead  of  the  mere  guesswork 
current  in  wagon-body  design,  has  been 


of  the  normal  or  rated  capacity  of  the  ma-    compelled  by  the  motor  to  take  into  ac- 

187 


IS 


Motorized   Highway  Commerce 


count  such  features  as  the  volume  i)er 
unit,  weight  per  cubic  foot  of  material,  ac- 
cessibility to  the  body,  and  supplementary 
use  of  the  truck-power  to  load  and  unload 
the  goods.  One  may  pass  in  a  large  city, 
for  example,  a  score  or  more  of  five-ton 


clothing  can  be  hung  and  from  which  any 
article  can  be  easily  removed,  through 
swinging  doors  at  the  rear,  without  dis- 
turbing the  others;  bodies  with  doors  on 
both  sides,  enabling  the  driver  to  save 
much  time  in  delivering  packages  in  nar-i 


^^ 

..—-'•^'^ 

.    ..      8    l-ff   '= 

\  i 

nmi^iiT}  1 

The  fleet  of  trucks  of  a  Chicago  department  store  in  a  spacious  garage. 
The  motor-truck  is  housed  with  the  same  care  as  is  given  the  locomotive  in  a  roundhouse. 


motors  of  the  same  make,  each  carrying  a 
different  commodity,  and  the  bodies  car- 
rying them  W' ill  be  found  to  vary  in  shape, 
arrangement,  or  dimensions.  Built-for- 
the-business  bodies  are  fairly  expressive  of 
the  motor  regime. 

Distinctively  new  types  of  bodies  have 
been  introduced  by  the  motor-truck. 
There  are  dual-service  bodies  with  floors 
or  decks  like  steamers,  one  deck  for  carry- 
ing a  lighter,  bulkier  material  like  lumber, 
paper  boxes,  etc.,  the  other  for  a  denser, 
heavier  material  like  coal,  stone,  etc. ;  four 
or  five  section  open  bodies,  transversely 
divided,  each  with  a  capacity  of  one  ton  or 
less,  and  handling  four  or  five  different 
materials,  as,  for  example,  coal,  cement, 
coke,  cast  iron  and  copper  ingots,  to  be 
separately  carried  and  separately  unloaded 
on  the  same  motor- truck;  four,  six,  or 
eight  enclosed-compartment-type  bodies 
handling  different  sizes,  weights,  brands, 
prices,  etc.,  of  merchandise  to  be  trans- 
ported in  the  same  body  without  con- 
fusion and  damage  to  the  fragile  articles 
by  the  tougher  materials ;  bodies  with  ad- 
justable shelves  which  can  be  manip- 
ulated by  the  driver  from  his  seat  to 
reach  quickly  a  desired  package;  bodies 
with  sliding  racks  on  which  goods  like 


row  alleys  direct  to  curb  or  elevator;  won- 
derful demountable  bodies  which  when 
loaded  by  the  gravity  chutes  and  belt 
conveyors  increase  the  operating-time  of 
the  truck  from  40  to  60  per  cent.  Such 
bodies  slide  on  rails  or  grooves  on  the  bed 
of  the  truck  and  are  loaded  and  unloaded 
by  the  engine-powTr  of  the  truck,  con- 
trolled by  the  driver  at  his  seat.  In  three 
minutes  an  empty  body  can  be  exchanged 
for  a  loaded  body  and  the  idle  time  of  the 
machine  very  much  reduced.  With  a 
battery  of  different  shapes  and  sizes  of 
bodies  one  can  use  the  same  truck  chassis 
to  handle  an  indefinite  number  of  mate- 
rials— anything  from  pins  to  pianos. 

Engineering  and  contracting  industries 
have  needed  the  most  efficient  and  novel 
of  the  special  truck  bodies.  Contractors' 
trucks  are  fitted  with  automatic  dump 
bodies,  some  operated  mechanically  by 
chains  and  sprockets  from  the  truck's 
gear-box;  others  by  hydrauhc  means, 
such  as  a  piston  working  in  a  vertical  cylin- 
der; others  in  which  the  body  is  run  on 
tracks  to  the  rear  of  the  frame  and  there 
dumped  by  the  increasing  overhang  of 
the  body:  in  each  type  the  driver  con- 
trols the  mechanism  without  leaving  his 
seat.    Power-elevated  bodies,  by  the  mere 


Motorized   Highway  Commerce 


180 


turn  of  a  lever,  rise  to  a  height  sufficient  to 
dislodge  the  contents  by  gravity  from  a 
chute  at  the  side.  Side-dump  bodies  tilt 
from  one  side  and  disgorge  a  io,ooo-[)oun(l 
load  of  gravel,  dirt,  or  crushed  stone  in 
less  than  a  minute.     Sliding-dump  bodies, 


thereof  were  spent  in  each  loading  and 
unloading;  at  what  hour  and  minute  the 
truck  was  stoi)ped  and  how  long;  how 
much  time  the  driver  took  for  meals;  how 
many  minutes'  delay  was  caused  by  wait- 
ing at  docks  and  freight  terminals  to  re- 


Motor-tractor  with  steel  coal-body  arranged  with  three  separate  compartments. 

The  rear  coinpartmeut  holds  three  tons  and  dumps  from  a  rear  chute,  wliile  the  two  forward  compartments  each  hold  one  ton  and 

dump  irom  side  chutes.     Bags  can  be  carried  on  top,  making  a  total  capacity  of  about  six  tons.     The  towing 

unit  backs  up  to  the  carrying^  unit,  which  is  then  coupled  on. 


mounted  on  turntable,  swing  through  an 
arc  large  enough  to  dislodge  their  loads 
at  the  rear. 

Special  conditions  have  to  be  met  in 
each  business.  One  firm  has  not  the  floor 
space  to  use  the  extra  bodies  that  a  rival 
firm  finds  to  be  of  special  merit.  One 
concern  has  heavy  merchandise  in  small 
quantities;  a  firm  in  the  same  building 
has  light  goods  put  up  in  small  packages. 
The  needs  of  each  must  be  studied  and 
bodies  built  and  systems  installed  to  meet 
the  individual  requirements  of  each. 

In  the  horse  highway  commerce,  time  is 
usually  the  least  considered.  According 
to  a  recent  government  report  a  city 
horse  averages  barely  four  hours  of  work 
a  day.  To  accentuate  the  value  of  time 
in  motor  efficiency,  instruments  have  re- 
cently been  produced  which  are  operated 
by  the  auto-truck  to  prevent  the  lazy  or 
incompetent  driver  from  falsifying  records 
of  his  daily  work.  Like  the  weather-bu- 
reau instruments  which  record  each  slight 
variation  of  temperature,  humidity,  and 
barometric  pressure,  every  minute  of  the 
day  these  auto-truck  recorders  register 
every  detail  of  the  mechanism's  daily  his- 
tory: how  many  minutes  and  fractions 


ceive  or  discharge  the  load 


how  much 
time  each  specific  trip  required,  etc.  These 
"graphical  guardians"  of  the  truck-own- 
ers' interests  are  sealed  in  cases  proof 
against  meddling,  and  the  daily  ''log," 
indelibly  registered  in  simple  curves,  en- 
ables him  to  determine  where  he  can 
speed  up  the  inefficient  elements  of  his  de- 
livery, thus  compelling  the  lazy  or  incom- 
petent driver  to  change  his  habits  and 
serving  the  efficient  driver  as  a  speechless 
record  of  his  honesty  and  ability.  By 
adding  extra  trips  per  day  to  motor-trucks 
they  have  increased  the  profits  of  owners 
thousands  of  dollars  per  year.  By  forcing 
drivers  to  be  honest  they  have  made  hon- 
esty a  habit,  and  thus  have  protected 
human  beings  against  themselves.  Thus 
they  must  be  regarded  as  moral  benefac- 
tors. 

There  are  nearly  one  hundred  and  til  tr- 
active producers  of  ])ower-wagons  in  the 
United  States.  A  production  of  56,000 
motor-trucks  in  1913  gives  an  average  out- 
put of  373  machines  each.  Quantity  pro- 
duction by  any  single  producer  is  as  yet 
impossible  in  the  motor-truck  industry. 
On  a  parity  in  efficiency  with  the  locomo- 
tive, as  the  motor-truck  now  is,  it  is  me- 


l-ro»t  a  fihotoj^raph  />y  11.  F.  Diitcher. 

A  completely  motorized  engine-house  of  the  New  York  City  Fire  Department. 


chanically  in  a  state  of  transition.  Stand- 
ardization of  design  which  has  reduced 
the  price  of  the  horse- wagon  50  per  cent 
in  twenty-five  years  cannot  come  in  a  me- 
chanical industry  so  3^oung  as  the  power- 
wagon  art  in  a  few  years.  It  takes  time 
and  experience  to  adjust  a  radically  new 
vehicle  to  a  definite,  fixed  design.  Stand- 
ardization of  the  motor-truck  is  coming 
fast,  however,  and  when  the  public  ac- 
cepts it  at  its  true  worth  there  will  be 
ushered  in  an  era  of  quantity  production 
and  prices  that  will  be  analogous  to  the 
constant  decrease  in  the  prices  of  passen- 
ger automobiles. 

In  the  light-delivery  motor-wagon  in- 
dustry an  era  of  lower  prices  commenced 
in  1913,  due  to  increasing  utilization  of 
the  smaller  units.  In  one  case  the  builder 
of  a  good  light-service  motor  was  enabled 


to  reduce  its  price  30  to  50  per  cent  over 
equivalent-capacity  motors  through  a 
production  of  12,000  machines  per  year. 
Even  to-day,  considering  its  great  carry- 
ing and  earning  capacity,  the  motor-truck 
is  a  cheap  transportation  tool. 

Animadversion  against  the  motor-truck 
has  taken  the  form  of  repressive  laws  in 
several  States,  aiming  either  to  prohibit 
the  new  vehicle  of  a  definite  capacity 
(from  five  tons  upward)  on  public  high- 
ways, the  imposition  of  excessive  ''wheel 
or  tonnage  taxes,"  or  both.  The  various 
State  legislatures  have  awakened  to  the 
possibilities  of  the  power- wagon  as  a  rev- 
enue-producer, and  the  fight  to  keep  ad- 
verse laws  off  the  statute-books  is  and  will 
be  desperate.  The  saddling  of  the  com- 
mercial car  with  an  incubus  will  set  back 
for  years  the  coming  of  motorized  high- 


Sliding  a  nest  body  on  rollers  into  the  fixed  body  of  a  motor-truck. 


190 


Motorized   Higliway  Commerce 


191 


way  commerce  into  its  own,  and  will 
cause  serious  economic  results.  Upon 
efficient  and  economic  hijrhway  commerce 
depends  quite  largely  the  ultimate  solu- 
tion of  the  growing  cost  of  food  products. 
The  short-sightedness,  the  absurdity,  the 
positive  menace  to  industrial  and  collect- 
ive wealth  of  legislators  w^ho  say,  "The 
motor  is  destroying  our  roads,"  has  but 
one  answer:  We  have  outgrown  our  pres- 
ent commerce  on  highways  born  centuries 
before  the  Caesars,  and  but  little  more 
efficient  now  than  3,000 
years  ago.  We  have 
outgrown  our  present 
roads  even  as  "horse 
highways "  for  several 
decades.  Science  and 
invention  have  placed 
at  our  disposal  a  new 
transportation  tool  that 
demands  a  new  highway 
to  move  our  commerce, 
with  economies  that  will 
add  milUons  of  dollars 
per  year  in  time  to  our 
wealth,  and  add  thou- 
sands of  human  beings 
to  our  wealth — preserv- 
ing lives  every  year  that 
are  now  being  maimed 
and  destroyed  by  those 
diseases  which  the  horse  and  his  compan- 
ion the  horsefly  create  and  carry.  Shall 
we  be  content  with  mediaeval  highways 
and  the  anachronistic  horse,  or  shall  we 
welcome  motorized  highway  commerce  as 
a  great  economic  force  and  compel  our 
legislators  to  see  that  the  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions of  dollars  that  are  being  appropri- 
ated to  build  good  roads  are  actually 
directed  to  constructing  good  roads  and 
not  diverted  as  good  graft? 

No  motor-truck — even  if  it  were  prac- 
ticable to  build  it  to  carry  a  weight  of 
twenty  tons  on  each  axle — could  do  the 
slightest  damage  to  a  highway  of  cement, 
for  example,  and  such  highways  can  be 
constructed  at  but  little  greater  initial 
cost  than  the  now  common,  superficial, 
highly  expensive-to-maintain  macadam 
roads.  And  cement  roads  would  last  as 
long  as  the  famous  Appian  Way  of  Italy. 
The  contention  that  motor-trucks  dam- 
age our  present  crude  roads  cannot  be  as- 
serted by  the  most  expert  highway  engi- 


neers. The  question  of  the  destructive 
action  of  any  motor- vehicle  on  a  road  sur- 
face with  a  sufficiently  hard  foundation 
is  one  of  speed.  The  motor- truck,  al- 
though from  two  to  six  times  faster  than 
the  horse- vehicle,  is  a  relatively  low-speed 
vehicle.  Five-ton  trucks,  which  are  the 
largest  units  operated  outside  of  a  few 
large  cities,  are  generally  governed  (me- 
chanically) to  a  maximum  speed  of  ten 
miles  per  hour,  but  good  drivers  will  nut 
attempt  to  average  over  eight  miles  per 


Detachable  skip-buckets  carried  on  motor- trucks. 


hour  on  average  roads.  Common  sense 
and  observation  will  demonstrate  the  fact 
that  a  five- ton  horse- wagon  equipped  with 
two-and-one-half-inch  steel  tires  and  mov- 
ing but  three  miles  per  hour  will  do  much 
more  damage  to  a  country  road,  after  a 
rain,  for  instance,  than  wiU  a  five-ton 
power-wagon,  moving  ten  miles  per  hour, 
but  equipped  with  double  six-inch-wide 
rubber  tires  on  its  back  wheel.  The  horse- 
wagon  acts  as  a  plough,  cutting  a  narrow, 
deep  furrow,  which  after  the  passage 
of  a  dozen  or  so  such  vehicles  makes  the 
surface  of  the  highway  resemble  a  freshly 
furrowed  field.  The  motor-truck  acts  as 
a  road-roller  at  all  times,  its  wide  tires 
making  the  distribution  per  unit  of  load- 
bearing  surface  much  smaller  and  its 
greater  speed  causing  a  much  shorter 
bearing  period  against  the  surface  than  a 
horse-wagon  of  similar  cai)acity. 

In  Europe  every  great  power  has  gi\  en 
the  greatest  possible  incentive  to  the  util- 
ization of  freight-carrying  motors  by  the 


192 


Motorized  liigliway  Commerce 


construction  of  magnificent  permanent 
high\va}'s  which  ha\e  reduced  the  cost  of 
European  highway  haulage  to  a  fractional 
part  of  what  it  costs  to  move  freight  over 
our  undeveloped  roads  (in  France  but 
three  cents  per  ton-mile  as  against  twenty- 
li\'e  to  forty-five  cents  per  ton-mile  in  the 
United  States).  Large  subsidies  ranging 
from  $80  to  S600  at  time  of  purchase  to 
$50  to  $250  additional  annual  bonuses 
per  vehicle,  for  two  or  three  years  there- 
after, encourage  merchants  to  motorize 
their  transportation.  In  this  way  Ger- 
many, France,  England,  and  Austria  have 
built  up  land  transportation  squadrons  of 
many  thousands  of  privately  owned  sub- 
sidized motor- trucks  whose  manufacturers 
have  qualified  them  through  annual  tests 
of  the  war  departments  to  be  entitled  to 
subsidy.  These  vehicles  are  subject  to  gov- 
ernmental requisition  in  times  of  war  at  a 
stipulated  rental  per  day  to  their  owners. 

In  191 2  the  250,000  miles  of  railway 
in  the  United  States,  from  the  best  ob- 
tainable figures,  cal*ried  2,000,000,000 
tons;  in  the  same  year  there  were  trans- 
ported over  the  2,222,248  miles  of  high- 
way in  the  United  States  6,500,000,000 
tons.  The  railways  represent  an  approx- 
imate investment  of  $30,000,000,000;  the 
estimated  horse-power  of  their  motive 
service  aggregates  69,000,000  as  against 
the  twenty-five-odd-miJlion  animal  power. 
In  other  words,  the  enormous  tonnage  dis- 
tributed over  railroads  is  but  30  per  cent 
of  the  total  transported  tonnage  of  the 
products  of  commerce  of  this  country; 
the  other  70  per  cent  is  moved  over  public 
highways.  Transportation  experts  tell  us 
that  of  the  $2,000,000,000  annual  "horse 
cost-of-living  bill"  we  can  easily  save  50 
per  cent,  or  one  billion  per  year,  with 
motorized  highway  commerce. 

At  the  present  rate  of  growth  we  can 
expect  completely  motorized  highway  com- 
merce in  all  cities  from  25,000  and  upward 
by  the  year  1930,  as  we  actually  need  to 
displace  about  ten  millions  (which  is  the 
number  devoted  to  city  service)  of  the 
twenty-five  milUon  horses  in  the  United 
States  before  we  can  come  to  the  fullest 
enjoyment  of  motorized  urban  commerce. 
Figuring  conservatively  that  one  motor- 
truck displaces  four  horses,  this  means 


that  about  2,500,000  power-wagons  are 
needed  to  make  mechanical  transporta- 
tion general  in  urban  communities  of 
10,000  population  and  upward.  In  addi- 
tion, at  least  a  million  more  power-wagons 
are  demanded  for  efficient  transportation 
of  farm  products.  This  does  not  mean 
that  the  complete  elimination  of  the  horse 
on  the  farm  is  either  desirable  or  econom- 
ical. Future  invention  in  "mechanical 
ploughs"  of  capacity  equal  to  the  horse 
unit  may  bring  about  this  condition,  but 
to-day  the  horse  is  too  flexible  a  work 
unit  to  make  his  complete  displacement 
on  the  farm  anything  more  than  an  idle 
speculation.  And  for  several  years  yet 
we  cannot  expect  to  have  enough  differ- 
ent types  of  motors  more  economically  to 
perform  all  of  the  many  familiar  services 
of  the  horse  in  the  city. 

But  the  future  of  the  freight-carrying 
automobile  is  rich  in  economic,  social,  san- 
itary, and  humanitarian  promise.  Dis- 
tribution, which  means  transportation 
largely,  is  now  the  greatest  single  item  en- 
tering into  the  selling-price  of  food  and  of 
many  other  commodities.  The  efficiency 
regime  which  the  motor-truck  is  introduc- 
ing will  cut  down  the  twenty-three  han- 
dlings of  goods,  from  freight-station  to  con- 
sumer, to  four  or  five;  the  farm  products 
that  now  go  through  an.  endless  round  of 
rehandlings  will  be  transported  a  hundred 
or  more  miles  by  mo  tor- truck  direct  to  the 
dealer  or  the  consumer.  The  motor- 
truck wiU  conduce  to  attract  more  people 
to  agricultural  pursuits  by  reducing  the 
difficulty  of  getting  farm  products  to  mar- 
ket at  better  prices.  As  a  sanitary  agency 
to  decrease  the  terrible  ravages  of  germ 
diseases  transmitted  by  the  horse-fly, 
motorized  highway  commerce  in  cities 
will  save  many  millions  in  money  now  in- 
eflficiently  spent  each  year  to  maintain 
superficial  sanitation  on  our  streets,  and 
many  thousands  of  lives.  All  wars  to- 
gether have  not  caused  half  the  deaths 
that  may  be  traced  to  the  horse.  Hu- 
manity for  the  beast  tn  urban  service  on 
paved  surfaces,  in  storm,  snow,  and  sleet 
is  impossible.  Business,  humanity,  and 
public  health  demand  that  the  horse  be 
eliminated  from  urban  civilization.  The 
time  of  his  exit  is  not  far  hence. 


I'uinUU  by  ii.  1 .  Dunn. 


The  New  Romance. 


193 


THE   FLEET  GOES  BY 

By   Mary  Synon 


ALTA,  pale-yellow  walls  pil- 
ing on  ramparts  that  stand 
sheer  from  jade  waters  of 
the  sea  of  St.  Paul's  sailing, 
gave  to  Alida  Gushing  a 
thrilling  moment  of  glory 
on  the  November  morning  when  she  came 
back  to  Valetta, 

From  dawn  the  steamer  out  of  Tunis 
had  ploughed  the  straits  between  Africa 
and  Sicily  under  a  luminous  mist  that  shut 
out  the  world  of  sea  and  sky.  From  dawn 
the  golden  languor  of  the  Mediterranean 
had  drifted  with  the  fog  over  white  decks, 
until  only  Alida  Gushing,  standing  at  the 
bow  of  the  liner,  had  remained  victorious 
against  its  Lethean  lure= 

Poised  like  some  watcher  on  a  tower,  she 
had  challenged  the  laziness  of  her  fellow 
passengers,  those  builders  of  Babel  who 
drift  eastward  from  Marseilles,  Some  of 
them  knew  her  by  sight  as  Alida  Al vidua, 
of  the  Milan  opera,  the  Alvidua  who  had 
sung  A  tda  at  the  Verdi  festival  and  whom 
Jan  Blockx  had  declared  the  only  great 
artist  of  the  voice  in  modern  opera.  One 
of  the  passengers,  distinctively  American 
from  his  rimless  eye-glasses  to  his  russet 
shoes,  had  been  watching  the  singer  with- 
out recognition,  but  with  an  interest  m.ore 
penetrative  than  listless  curiosity.  But 
Alida  Gushing  gave  no  more  heed  to  him 
than  she  gave  to  the  Arabian  traders,  to 
the  Egyptian  pasha,  to  the  Levantine 
merchants,  to  the  Greek  banker,  or  to  the 
Italian  officers  on  the  decks  around  him. 
She  stood,  a  Ulysses  at  the  prow,  coming 
close  to  Galypso's  isle  with  restless  eager- 
ness for  the  promised  adventure.  Now,  as 
the  mists  began  to  float  into  fleecy  white 
clouds  that  lifted  with  the  rising  breeze, 
revealing  the  shore-line  of  a  group  of  rocks 
just  ahead,  her  mood  seemed  to  focus  into 
abrightjoyousness  of  anticipation.  Then, 
with  the  sun  came  Malta,  and  with  the 
sudden  picture  of  the  orange-hued  rocks 
there  flashed  on  the  watching  woman  the 
triumphant  thought  of  all  that  Malta 
meant  to  her. 

Vol.  LV.— 19 


For  the  little  island  of  England's  rule, 
guarding  England's  ships  as  they  steamed 
from  Gibraltar  to  Port  Said,  loomed  no 
more  sharply  out  of  the  still  sea  than  its 
significance  rose  above  the  level  of  Alida 
Gushing's  life.  Malta  had  been  the  scene 
of  her  first  triumph.  Nine  years  before 
she  had  won  it  she  had  left  San  Francisco, 
an  adventuring  girl  of  nineteen,  saying 
good-by  to  her  home  and  her  father  with 
the  carelessness  of  hoping  youth.  Be- 
tween the  evening  when  she  had  looked 
back  across  the  bay  from  the  Oakland  pier 
to  the  San  Francisco  hills  and  the  night 
when  she  had  been  given  an  eleventh-hour 
chance  at  Madame  Garthi's  role  of  Tosca 
in  the  Royal  Opera  House  of  Valetta, 
Alida  Gushing  had  lived  years  of  endeavor, 
of  ambition,  and  of  companionship  with 
that  handmaiden  of  ambition,  the  Senora 
Alvidua. 

The  Senora  Alvidua^  the  little,  dark  old 
Spanish  woman  who  sat  blinking  in  the 
sunlight  among  the  furs  and  laces  that 
Alida  had  piled  about  her,  had  been  for 
nearly  fifteen  years  the  dominant  force  of 
her  granddaughter's  life.  Against  Robert 
Gushing's  opposition  she  had  diverted  his 
only  child  from  a  New  England  college 
course  to  Paris  and  the  greatest  singing- 
master  of  the  world.  With  all  the  diplo- 
macy of  her  temperament  the  old  Galifor- 
nian  had  aided  in  the  building  of  the  fame 
of  Alida  Alvidua,  using  the  bricks  of  the 
girl's  great  gift.  So  closely  had  she  inter- 
woven the  tlireads  of  her  personality  with 
the  girl's  career  that  she  could  never  under- 
stand and  never  cease  regretting  that  the 
great  event  of  Alida  Gushing's  life,  her 
triumph  in  Valetta,  had  happened  with- 
out her  own  presence.  Alida  had  gone  to 
Malta  alone,  an  unknown  singer  then,  one 
of  the  hundreds  of  girls  who  hold  infin- 
itesimal places  in  famous  companies,  in  the 
hope  that  the  roving  calcium  of  chance 
may  sometime  light  them  into  glory.  In 
Malta  the  rays  had  fallen  upon  her.  She 
had  scaled  the  heights  in  the  presence  of 
the  prince  who  was  soon  to  be  King  of 

195 


196 


The   Fleet  Goes  By 


Kngland.  Now,  after  five  years  of  Con- 
tinental successes  had  established  her  posi- 
tion, Alida  Gushing  was  going  back  to 
Malta  to  receive  the  decoration  that  the 
governor  of  the  island  was  to  give  her  in 
token  of  his  Majesty's  remembrance  of  the 
night  when  Fame  had  found  a  wooer  in  the 
willow  cabin  at  her  gate  and  had  opened 
the  way  to  th^  palace  of  achievement. 

With  the  exultation  of  her  memories  the 
singer  watched  the  long  harbor  under  the 
menacing  guns  of  the  batteries,  and  beyond 
the  dragon's  mouth  of  the  St.  Elmo  light- 
house, turning  from  the  rail  at  last  to 
share  her  emotion  wdth  the  old  woman, 
whose  gaze  of  shrewd  affection  had  been 
marking  her  exuberant  delight.  "  Isn't  it 
wonderful,  grandmother?  "  she  demanded. 

The  old  woman's  smile  mingled  admira- 
tion of  her  granddaughter's  mood  with 
tolerance  of  its  inspiration.  The  Seiiora 
Al vidua 's  enthusiasms  had  been  so  often 
overlaid  wdth  the  cement  of  repression 
that  the  sur\dvors  had  concreted  into 
convictions.  "The  mountains  we  have 
climbed  are  always  the  highest,"  she 
smiled. 

Alida  Gushing  laughed.  ''That  night 
in  Valetta  was  my  high  mountain,"  she 
said;  "but  to  you  it's  only  the  lowest  foot- 
hill of  the  range  you  want  me  to  scale, 
isn't  it?  "  She  seated  herself  on  the  stool 
of  the  seiiora's  chair,  toying  with  the  old 
woman's  laces.  "What  very  high  peaks 
you  have  chosen  for  me!"  she  mused,  with 
the  satiric  tinge  of  voice  that  the  sefiora 
was  wont  to  ascribe  to  an  alien  strain 
of  blood.  "Govent  Garden — and  then? 
The  Metropolitan  in  New  York?" 

"Not  I  but  fate  has  decided,"  said  the 
sefiora  with  pious  asperity.  "  But  why  do 
you  consider  New  York,  my  child?  It 
can  give  you  nothing  more  than  London. 
And  London  stands  ready  to  give  you  very 
much." 

"I  was  thinking,"  Alida  said,  "that  I 
should  like  an  American  tour  before  I 
went  to  London."  The  seiiora's  eyes  nar- 
rowed into  sharp  scrutiny  of  her  grand- 
daughter. "One  may  not  eat  his  cake, 
and  also  have  it,"  she  said.  "If  you 
choose  to  accept  the  Govent  Garden  con- 
tracts, London  is  waiting.  If  you  go  to 
New  York — "  She  spread  out  her  ring- 
laden  fingers  in  a  gesture  of  helpless  de- 
spair.   Alida  laughed.    "  You  prompt  fate 


from  the  wings,"  she  teased  the  old  woman. 
"  Do  you  remember  the  day  you  met  me, 
the  day  when  you  came  to  the  convent  to 
see  one  of  the  Mexican  girls?" 

"I  never  called  upon  a  Mexican" — the 
seriora  evaded  the  main  issue — "and  I 
have  met  very,  very  few  Americans." 

"Including  the  Gushings." 

"I  should  never  call  you  American." 

"No."  The  girl  lingered  over  the 
word  till  it  almost  became  an  interroga- 
tion. "I  fancy  that  no  one  would  call 
me  American  now.  And  yet,  before  you 
brought  me  abroad,  I  was  the  wildest 
Yankee  jingo  in  all  Galifornia.  Father 
used  to  say  that  I  outshouted  all  Tele- 
graph Hill  on  the  day  the  news  of  Manila 
Bay  came." 

"Those  were  the  only  demonstrations 
your  father  approved,"  the  seiiora  re- 
marked dryly.  The  girl's  eyes  danced  as 
if  at  some  mischievous  recollection.  "  Do 
you  remember  the  day  that  you  asked 
father  if  you  might  bring  me  to  Paris? 
It  was  the  seventeenth  of  June.  We  were 
having  a  party,  father  and  I,  in  the  big 
dining-room  at  luncheon,  because  he  had 
to  go  up  to  the  ranch  that  afternoon. 
And  when  you  came  in  and  saw  the  can- 
dles, and  the  flowers,  and  my  white  gown, 
you  asked  what  feast  we  were  observing. 
And  father  raised  his  glass  and  said: 
'The  great  feast  of  my  commonwealth, 
the  birthday  of  my  country,  the  day  of 
the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill!'  And  you 
said:  'Indeed!  Who  fought  it?  And 
where? '  Grandmother,  didn't  you  really 
know?" 

"Why  should  I?" 

"And  yet  you  lived  in  the  United 
States  for  forty  years." 

"Unwillingly,"  said  the  seiiora.  "Do 
you  not  remember,  Alida,  that  I  consider 
all  reference  to  your  mother's  unfortu- 
nate marriage  unnecessary?"  She  drew 
her  laces  and  furs  about  her  with  a  mag- 
nificent manner  of  reserve,  but  her  grand- 
daughter laughed  so  merrily  that  the  man 
with  the  eye-glasses  leaned  forward,  the 
puzzled  look  on  his  face  flashing  to  a 
certainty  of  recognition.  "Oh,  grand- 
mother, grandmother,"  she  gasped, "  can't 
you  see  how  funny  it  is  to  say  that  to  me? 
But,  oh,  how  I  wish  that  the  Gushings 
might  hear  you  say  it!" 

"Is   it    possible,"    the    seiiora    asked 


The  Fleet  Goes  By 


197 


shrewdly,  ''that  when  you  visited  them 
in  Massachusetts — "  she  stumbled  over 
the  word —  ''they  did  not  know  that  our 
family  wasinfuiitely  older  and  nobler  than 
theirs?" 

"I  fear  they  didn't.  You  see,  father's 
people  all  have  the  idea  that  God  made 
the  world  in  1620,  and  they  know  that 
some  one  of  them  has  been  around  to  help 
Him  ever  since  then." 

"Your  grandfather's  people,"  said  the 
senora,  "had  driven  the  Moor  from  Ara- 
gon  before  Columbus  was  born." 

Alida  Gushing  flung  her  supple  arms 
high  above  her  head  as  she  rose  from  the 
deck-chair.  "If  I  took  the  responsibil- 
ities of  both  sides  of  my  family,"  she 
yawned,  "what  an  Atlas  I'd  be!" 

"It  is  a  burden  that  every  one  must 
bear,"  declared  Dofia  Alvidua.  But 
Alida  tucked  her  back  into  the  furs  and 
the  laces,  then  strolled  away.  The  gaze 
of  the  man  of  the  eye-glasses  followed  her 
thoughtfully  until  she  had  passed  from 
his  sight  at  the  turn  of  the  promenade. 
Then  he  rose  and  went  toward  the  stern, 
crossing  there  to  the  port  side  where 
Alida  Gushing  stood  with  her  elbows  on 
the  rail  as  she  looked  out  upon  the  stone 
walls  of  the  harbor  into  which  the  liner 
was  sliding.  He  came  beside  her,  set  his 
elbow  close  to  hers,  and  rested  his  chin 
in  his  palm  before  he  spoke.  "Looks  a 
little  like  our  old  San  Francisco,  doesn't 
it,  greaser?"  he  asked. 

Alida  Gushing  flashed  toward  him,  her 
eyes  blazing  rebuke  of  the  stranger's  im- 
pertinence even  before  she  realized  the 
import  of  his  words.  The  twinkling 
lights  in  his  gray  eyes  met  the  rapiers  of 
her  anger.  His  white  hat  came  off  with  a 
flourish  as  he  faced  her  in  amused  ap- 
praisal. "I  am,"  he  said,  "at  the  service 
of  Mademoiselle  Alvidua,  if  Alida  Gush- 
ing doesn't  remember  her  old  friends." 

From  the  girl's  eyes  the  hostility  died 
out  as  the  fire  of  kindling  recognition 
blazed  forth.  "Billy  Gorse!"  she  cried. 
"Where  did  you  come  from?  What  are 
you  doing  here?  How  did  you  know  me? 
Oh,  but  I  am  most  happy  to  see  you  I" 

"Not  half  as  glad  as  I  am  to  see  you," 
he  declared  fervently.  "I've  come  from 
New  York  by  way  of  Havre,"  he  num- 
bered off  her  queries.  "I  came  across 
France  to  Marseilles.     I  barely  caught 


the  steamer.  You  came  aboard  at 
Tunis?" 

"I  sing  at  Malta  to-night,"  she  ex- 
plained. "A  command  performance. 
Can  you  stay  over?  Or  are  you  on 
cruise?" 

"I  shall  stay  in  Malta,"  said  Billy 
Corse,  "if  all  the  fleets  in  the  world 
change  course  to-day.  To  hear  you  sing 
again  I  should  mutiny  from  heaven." 

"What  do  you  here?"  she  demanded, 
only  nodding  appreciation  of  the  speech. 
Billy  Gorse  laughed  at  the  little  foreign 
idiom.  "I  do  here  begin  to  labor,"  he 
told  her.  "  I  am  of  the  wicked  who  never 
cease  from  troubling.  I  am  a  day  laborer 
for  the  United  Press,  and  I've  come  to 
meet  the  fleet,  or  that  part  of  it  that 
passes  here  to-day.  You  see,  we've  a  war 
on  tap  with  Mexico,  and  I've  orders  to 
swing  in  on  the  chance  that  our  ships  will 
go  right  into  the  Gulf." 

"With  Mexico?    Is  it  so?" 

Billy  Corse  stared  at  her  frowningly. 
"You're  the  first  American  I've  met  since 
I  left  New  York  who  wasn't  half-mad 
with  excitement  over  the  mere  idea." 

"They  haven't  lived  over  here  long," 
she  said.  "Will  you  meet  grandmother? 
She  will  be  interested  in  a  Mexican  war." 

"  I  suppose  she  has  property  in  Huerta's 
country,"  the  correspondent  muttered  as 
he  went  after  Alida  to  the  old  woman. 
The  sefiora,  greeting  him  with  courtesy 
that  only  illuminated  hostility,  justified 
his  surmise.  "  What  will  be  done  to  guard 
property  if  war  comes?"  she  inquired. 

"The  American  Government  will  see 
that  there's  a  square  deal,"  he  assured 
her. 

"If  you  knew  as  much  of  the  history 
of  California  as  I  do,"  said  the  senora 
crisply,  "you  would  not  speak  with  such 
certainty,  Meester  Gorse." 

"Don't  you  know  that  you'll  be  looked 
after?"  he  asked  Alida. 

"I  know  very  little  of  America  any 
more,"  she  said.  "I  haven't  been  there 
in  years." 

"Aren't  you  ever  going  home  again?" 

"Our  home  is  in  Paris." 

"Honestly?  "  Billy  Gorse  shoved  his 
hands  into  his  j^ockets  and  stood  looking 
down  at  her.  "1  sui>p()se,"  he  said, 
"that  it's  all  right,  but.  you  see,  1  remem- 
ber the  Alida  Gushing  who  used  to  carry 


19S 


The  Fleet  Goes  By 


the  flag  up  Nob  Hill  in  front  of  a  crowd  of 
us  young  ruffians.  She  was  a  girl  who 
wanted  to  lead  a  raid  on  Chinatown  be- 
cause it  was  a  foreign  menace." 

*'  How  very  funny  she  must  have  been ! " 

''Is  she  really  an  expatriate,  Dona  Al- 
vidua?" 

"My  granddaughter  has  come  back  to 
the  older  traditions  of  an  older  family," 
said  the  senora.  She  watched  Billy  Corse 
with  more  than  personal  disapproval  till 
he  grew  restive.  "  Don't  you  want  to  see 
the  landing?"  he  asked  Alida.  As  the 
younger  woman  turned  to  go  with  him  the 
senora  admonished  her:  "Do  not  forget, 
my  dear,  that  Sir  William  meets  us  at  the 
dock." 

"Who  is  Sir  William?"  Corse  asked 
directly. 

"  Sir  William  Price- Cherrill,"  Alida  told 
him.  "  He's  a  special  commissioner  of  the 
British  Government  to  Malta,  and  he  has 
brought  the  decoration  that  the  girl  who 
used  to  carry  the  flag  up  Nob  Hill  will  be 
given  to-night." 

"I've  heard  of  him,"  said  Billy  Corse. 
*'He's  a  wonderful  chap,  they  say,  one  of 
the  fellows  who  look  like  Christmas  trees 
when  they  wear  their  service  medals. 
Know  him  well?" 

' '  Very  well ,"  Alida  said.  She  was  look- 
ing toward  the  landing-stage  with  the  gaze 
of  one  who  sees  beyond  the  scene  into 
great  vistas,  the  look  that  Billy  Corse  had 
glimpsed  while  she  stood  at  the  prow. 

He  sighed  suddenly.  "I  suppose,"  he 
said,  "  that  life  over  here  has  fascinations, 
especially  for  a  woman  with  a  gift  like 
yours.  And  yet  it  hurts  me  a  little  that 
a  real  American  girl  turns  her  back  on  the 
stars  and  stripes.  Out  there  on  the  coast 
we  had  to  fight  harder  to  be  Americans 
than  the  folks  back  east  did.  Sometimes 
the  mountains  made  it  seem  another  coun- 
try. But  we  proved  up,  didn't  we?  And 
now  one  of  the  girls  we  want  to  keep  ours 
chooses  to  be  an  expatriate." 

"You  don't  understand,"  she  told  him. 
"I'm  not  unpatriotic,  Billy,  but  I  have  no 
interests  in  America  any  more.  All  the 
beauty,  all  the  opportunity,  all  the  in- 
spiration of  my  life  have  come  to  me  over 
here.  And  since  father  died  I've  no  tie 
to  take  me  back." 

"It's  your  country,"  said  Billy  Corse. 

"You  do  not  grow  up,  do  you?"     She 


smiled  in  deprecation  of  her  words  as  she 
felt  his  rising  irritation.  Billy  Corse  had 
been  one  of  her  most  joyous  playmates  in 
the  days  before  Dona  Alvidua  had  found 
her  granddaughter's  gift.  She  had  been 
a  girl  with  few  friendships,  and  all  of  them 
strong.  She  had  fewer  ties  in  her  woman- 
hood, and  the  old  ones  held  her  tighter 
than  she  had  known.  She  was  very  glad 
to  find  Billy  Corse  so  little  changed. 
"You  will  come  to  the  opera  to-night?" 
she  asked  him. 

"If  I  have  to  kill  a  king  to  get  there," 
he  promised. 

Their  handclasp  made  the  promise  bind- 
ing, and  Billy  Corse,  old  enough  to  know 
better,  thrilled  under  it  boyishly  after  he 
had  given  over  Alida  to  the  glowering  old 
woman.  But  when  he  saw  them  meeting 
the  big  Englishman,  whose  visible  im- 
portance had  brought  him  first  over  the 
gang-plank,  Billy  Corse  clenched  his  fist. 
"If  I'd  had  money  enough  to  come  to 
Europe  ten  years  ago,  there  wouldn't  be 
any  Sir  William  on  the  landscape,"  he 
told  the  bare-legged  Arab  boy  who  hap- 
pened to  be  nearest  to  him. 

But  to  Alida  Cushing,  not  less  than  to 
Dofia  Alvidua,  the  big  Englishman  was 
filling  a  large  portion  of  the  background  of 
the  landing-stage.  Sir  William  Price- 
Cherrill  was  good  to  look  at,  a  cleanly, 
wide-visioned  Englishman,  whose  Eng- 
land came  more  closely  to  him  in  Africa 
and  in  Asia  than  it  did  in  Europe.  He 
had  welcomed  Alida  with  a  genuineness  of 
pleasure  that  gave  her  the  sense  of  disem- 
barking upon  a  foundation  of  unshakable 
solidity.  He  was  as  firm  of  purpose  and 
of  affection  as  the  great  walls  behind  him 
were  strong.  As  he  went  up  the  stairs  of 
the  landing-stage,  aiding  the  senora's  fal- 
tering ascent,  Alida  found  herself  com- 
paring his  back  with  Billy  Corse's.  When 
he  turned  to  look  at  her,  he  found  Alida 
smiling  at  him  with  the  joyous  friendliness 
that  had  brought  him  across  a  crowded 
reception-room  to  her  one  night  in  Paris, 
and  that  had  brought  him  back  from  In- 
dia that  he  might  bear  to  her  the  mark  of 
his  King's  favor.  He  smiled  back  at  her 
fondly,  but  to  the  woman  there  came  the 
sudden  thought  that  he  was  smiling  down 
at  her.  Her  glance  found  Billy  Corse, 
luggage-laden,  on  the  same  step  with  her, 
separated  by  a   half-dozen    Arabs    and 


The   Fleet  Goes   By 


l!i!) 


Greeks  and  Italians.  And  it  came  to  her 
with  a  curious  thrill  that  Billy  Corse  was 
smiling  not  downward,  but  straight  across 
into  her  eyes.  The  old  memory  of  march- 
ing up  Nob  Hill  close  to  him,  a  Hag  in 
her  hand  as  she  walked,  returned  with 
a  vividness  his  words  had  not  evoked. 
She  shrugged  her  shoulders  impatiently. 
When  she  came  to  the  highest  step  of  the 
long  stone  flight,  she  found  Sir  William 
waiting  for  her.  Billy  Corse  had  gone 
with  the  crowd. 

As  the  one-horse  vehicle  stumbled  up 
the  Strada  Reale,  red-coated  soldiers  sa- 
luted Sir  William  and  his  guests.  At  the 
big  hotel  servants  seemed  to  have  been 
established  for  the  express  purpose  of 
obeying  his  commands.  The  Englishman 
ignored  them  all  with  the  simplicity  of  a 
man  not  concerned  with  the  manner  of 
service  but  with  the  fruits  of  its  results. 
But  the  scnora  marked  the  deference  paid 
him  with  the  appreciation  of  a  woman  who 
measures  power  by  its  emoluments.  To 
her  the  luncheon  at  the  hotel,  with  Sir 
William  briefly  outlining  the  manner  of 
Alida's  coming  honor,  was  the  forerunner 
of  other  and  more  intimate  meetings  of 
the  three.  She  had  a  wholesome  respect 
for  the  stability  of  the  British  aristocracy. 
Just  now  she  had  a  satisfied  foresight  that 
her  granddaughter  was  to  become  part  of 
its  system.  She  flung  a  line  from  shore 
with  the  remark  that  Covent  Garden  al- 
ready clamored  for  the  Alvidua.  The 
sefiora,  regarding  her  granddaughter's 
voice  as  a  gift  from  God,  lacked  no  mod- 
esty about  praising  the  Creator  for  His 
works. 

''When  will  you  be  there?"  Sir  William 
asked. 

''I  am  not  quite  certain  that  I  shall 
sing  in  London,"  said  Alida.  "I  have 
an  offer  to  sing  in  New  York  at  the  same 
time.  If  I  take  one,  I  shall  not  be  able 
to  take  the  other."  The  sefiora's  eyes 
sparkled.  Alida  was  playing  the  game  ac- 
cording to  the  rules. 

"Oh,  there's  no  question  at  all,"  said 
Sir  William,  ''for  of  course  you'll  come  to 
London." 

They  did  not  return  to  the  subject,  since 
Sir  William  seemed  to  regard  it  as  unwor- 
thy of  continuation.  The  luncheon  ended 
amid  interruptions  of  the  coming  of  many 
"l)ersons  of  importance,"  eager  to  greet 


the  singer  and  the  soldier.  All  about  the 
hotel  was  an  atmosi)here  of  excitement 
that  the  senora  attributed  to  her  grand- 
daughter's arrival,  but  that  Alida  was 
artist  enough  to  appreciate  came  from 
some  outside  exi)ectation.  So  vividly 
alert  were  the  officers  whose  brilliant  uni- 
forms blazed  through  the  dining-hall  that 
the  singer  demanded  of  Sir  William: 
''What's  happening  here?  Or  what  is 
about  to  happen?" 

^^  "Oh,  didn't  you  know?"  he  asked. 
"Your  fleet  comes  here  to-day." 

"  The  American  fleet?  "  interposed  Doria 
Alvidua. 

"And  isn't  that  yours?"  he  inquired. 

"Oh,  we  are  not  American,"  said  the 
sefiora. 

"Miss  Gushing  is,"  said  Sir  William. 

"I  haven't  been  in  America  for  nearly 
fourteen  years,"  she  said. 

"That's  of  no  consequence,"  he  said 
lightly.  "I  was  away  from  home  for 
eleven  years  once.  But  England's  Eng- 
land, no  matter  where  I  am.  Your  coun- 
try's born  into  you,  you  know,  like  your 
eyes,  or  your  hair,  or  your  voice." 

Then  he  fell  into  talk  of  other  things, 
but  two  hours  later,  after  she  had  been 
able  to  retreat  in  preparation  for  her  ap- 
pearance at  the  opera,  Alida  Gushing  re- 
membered Sir  William's  words. 

The  beauty  of  Malta,  the  softened, 
dream-making  loveliness  of  the  island, 
drew  her  from  her  room  to  the  balcony 
from  which  she  might  see  afar  across  the 
city  of  Valetta  to  the  open  sea.  To  her 
keen  perception  of  vision,  her  artist's 
trick  of  finding  the  surface  an  insi)irati()n 
with  which  to  conjure  deeper  thought,  the 
place  revealed  itself  to  her  as  the  great 
jewel  of  the  crown  of  Euroi)e.  All  the 
best  of  Europe,  the  beauty,  the  pictur- 
esqueness,  the  romance,  the  history,  the 
traditions  of  nobility,  the  memories  of 
great  wars,  shone  gleamingly  in  the  facets 
of  this  diamond.  Paul  and  Ulysses,  John 
de  la  Valette  and  Na|X)le()n  Honaparte, 
had  followed  its  flashing.  It  had  Ir-cu,  it 
was  even  now,  the  pawn  of  emi)ires;  but 
its  owners  had  always  cherished  it,  pol- 
ished it,  worn  it  with  pride.  Looking 
upon  it,  Alida  Gushing  drew  a  shar|) 
breath  of  triumphant  aj)preciation  that 
she,  too,  was  a  conqueror  of  .\Ldta. 
Then,  as  the  tide  turns  back,  her  triumph 


200 


The  Fleet  Goes  By 


went  out  in  the  thought  that,  like  every 
other  conqueror,  she  was  alien  to  the 
land  she  had  won.  To  the  men  and  wom- 
en of  the  official  world  of  the  island,  those 
who  would  come  to  the  opera  to-night  to 
add  to  her  honors,  Malta  was  but  a  place 
of  service,  of  exile.  "  England  was  Eng- 
land" to  them.  The  sefiora  had  carried 
Spain  in  her  heart  through  forty  years  of 
life  in  another  land.  Billy  Corse,  scout- 
ing the  world,  held  his  country  as  sword 
and  shield.  Only  she,  Alida  Gushing, 
born  in  San  Francisco  and  "one  of  the 
Massachusetts  Cushings,"  was  an  ex- 
patriate. 

Recollections  of  her  father's  scorn  of 
the  word  came  to  her  with  other  recol- 
lections of  his  rock-ribbed  ideals.  Old 
thoughts  of  evenings  when  he  had  read 
to  her  stories  of  the  brave  deeds  of  the 
men  of  his  race  crowded  into  her  brain. 
All  forgotten  went  the  years  between  as 
she  looked  out  past  the  city  into  the  long, 
locked  harbor. 

Below  her,  past  the  ivory-yellow  houses 
of  the  Strada  Reale,  beyond  the  roofs 
where  flaming  poinsettias  and  fragrant 
mignonette  were  blooming,  past  the  grim 
walls  of  fortifications,  beyond  the  gay 
sails  of  polyglot  craft  near  the  shore,  four 
battle-ships  lay  at  anchor.  Long,  low, 
gray,  they  seemed  moveless  to  the  watcher 
on  the  balcony.  Something  in  their  line, 
their  color,  brought  to  Alida  Gushing  the 
certainty  that  these  were  the  ships  that 
Billy  Gorse  had  come  to  meet,  that  these 
were  the  war-ships  of  the  American  fleet. 
She  strained  her  eyes  to  make  out  the 
flags,  while  the  sun  dropped  down  to  the 
rim  of  the  western  horizon.  Just  as  its 
blaze  tipped  the  water  the  flags  on  the 
ships  quivered.  Dark  figures,  no  larger 
than  pin-pricks  on  a  map,  moved  beneath 
the  wavering  battle-flags.  Then,  as  the 
flags  dipped,  there  came  across  the  water, 
and  above  the  roofs,  a  silver  thread  of 
sound  so  tenuous  that  only  a  musician 
with  ear  attuned  and  expectant  would 
have  heard  it. 

"Oh,  say,  can  you  see  by  the  dawn's 
early  light — "  rose  the  salute.  Un- 
waveringly it  floated,  a  banner  of  sound 
challenging  England's  fortresses  with 
American  courage  and  American  humor. 
To  its  end  Alida  Gushing  followed  the 
thin  line  of  melody,  her  head  thrown  back, 


her  shoulders  high,  her  eyes  fixed  upon 
the  picture  of  the  ships  in  the  harbor. 

Into  the  picture  there  shifted  poignant 
memories  of  her  old  home.  The  horse- 
shoe of  the  harbor  widened  to  the  sweep 
of  San  Francisco  Bay.  The  Mediterra- 
nean lashed  itself  into  the  green  Pacific. 
The  great  gray  ships  at  anchor  outside 
the  ramparts  merged  their  outlines  until 
only  one  gray  ship  stood  in  the  watcher's 
sight;  and  that  ship  was  the  Iowa,  old 
Bob  Evans's  old  Iowa,  the  battle-ship 
that  had  lain  in  San  Francisco  harbor  on 
the  day  when  the  boys  of  the  First  Gali- 
fornia  had  come  home  from  the  Philip- 
pines. Beside  her  rode  the  transport 
Sherman — with  her  flag  at  half-mast. 

On  the  balcony  of  the  Valetta  Hotel 
Alida  Gushing  watched  seaward  as  she 
had  watched  on  the  afternoon  when  San 
Francisco,  silenced  by  dread,  had  waited 
for  the  boats  to  come  from  the  transport- 
ship.  With  the  eyes  of  memory  she  looked 
through  the  years  to  that  most  vivid 
scene  of  her  last  days  in  her  father's  house. 
She  was  standing  on  its  balcony,  strain- 
ing her  eyes  toward  the  foot  of  Van  Ness 
Avenue  as  she  listened  to  the  far-off  notes 
of  the  approaching  band.  It  was  no 
splendid  music  of  conflict  that  came 
ahead  of  the  regiment,  only  the  chorus  of 
the  song  that  the  men  of  the  west  coast 
had  sung  in  the  islands  of  the  East  while 
they  had  planted  the  flag  of  their  country 
in  lands  of  death  and  dread: 

"  One  held  a  ringlet  of  thin  gray  hair, 
One  held  a  lock  of  brown, 
Bidding  each  other  a  last  farewell, 
Just  as  the  sun  went  down." 

Up  Van  Ness  Avenue  came  the  regi- 
ment, marching  slowly  behind  the  long 
line  of  ambulances.  Over  and  over  the 
band  played  the  refrain  as  the  men  of  the 
First  Gahfornia  passed  between  the  lines 
of  wet-eyed  watchers.  No  cheer  greeted 
them.  The  silence  of  tens  of  thousands 
of  men  and  w^omen  and  children  who 
stood  back  from  the  curbing  paid  tribute 
to  their  "boys"  as  the  gaping  ranks  went 
by.  For  the  watchers  remembered  how 
the  boys  of  the  First  had  gone  out  to  the 
East,  triumphantly  hopeful,  splendidly 
brave,  boyishly  blithe,  one  thousand  and 
six  of  them.    And  not  five  hundred  had 


The  Fleet  Goes  By 


201 


come  back.  The  trenches  of  Luzon,  the 
swamps  of  Mindanao,  had  taken  toll  of 
the  fighting  First. 

The  gloom  of  that  procession,  wending 
its  way  toward  the  Presidio,  had  clutched 
at  the  heart  of  the  watching  girl  till  she 
felt  that  she  must  cry  out  a  tocsin  of  cour- 
age, of  gratitude,  to  the  men  who  had  come 
back  from  the  war.  They  had  fought. 
They  had  suffered.  They  had  been  ready 
to  die  as  their  comrades  had  died.  Would 
no  one  tell  them  that  they  had  not  fought 
in  vain?  Grief  had  its  place,  but  youth 
holds  the  laurels  for  triumph.  Alida 
Gushing  had  reached  above  her,  snatching 
down  the  flag  that  her  father  had  raised 
that  morning,  the  flag  that  his  mother  had 
given  to  his  father  to  bear  through  the 
streets  of  Baltimore.  Then,  waving  it  on 
high,  the  girl  had  cried  out  in  that  glorious 
voice  that  was  to  thrill  kings  and  em- 
perors in  after  years:  ''Well,  anyhow, 
boys,  you  won ! "  One  white-faced  boy  in 
the  ranks  had  shouted  back  to  her:  "  You 
bet  we  did  win,  kid! "  And  her  father  had 
caught  her  to  him  wdth  such  a  look  of  pride 
and  glory  on  his  face  as  she  never  saw 
before  and  never  saw  again.  ''Thank 
God,"  he  had  said,  "you're  an  Ameri- 
can!" 

Darkness  came  over  the  sea  before  Alida 
Gushing  moved  from  the  place  of  her  vi- 
sion. Below  her  the  lights  glimmered  in 
houses  that  had  shone  golden  a  little  time 
before.  The  myriad  fragrances  of  the 
southern  night  arose,  but  the  air  that  the 
woman  on  the  balcony  breathed  came 
over  seas  from  the  pine-forested  slopes  of 
Tamalpais,  with  the  tang  of  sage  in  its 
wake.  Down  in  the  harbor,  beyond  the 
bobbing  lights  on  the  little  boats,  glowed 
the  lights  of  the  fleet.  A  long  time  Alida 
Gushing  watched  them.  Then  she  took 
her  way  to  the  Royal  Opera  House. 

When  the  curtain  had  gone  down  on  the 
last  act  of  "Louise,"  the  governor  of  Mal- 
ta, between  the  cheers  of  an  audience  that 
filled  the  building,  gave  to  Alida  Gushing, 
of  the  Milan  opera,  the  decoration  sent  to 
her  by  his  Most  Gracious  Majesty,  George 
the  Fifth,  King  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land, and  Fmperor  of  India.  Billy  Gorse, 
standing  in  the  wings,  saw  the  tears  that 
filled  the  singer's  eyes  as  the  tumultuous 
shouting  climaxed  the  governor's  praise 


of  the  woman  whose  greatest  glor}-  of 
achievement  had  come  to  her.  He  saw, 
too,  that  Sir  William  Price-Gherrill  was 
leaving  the  box  where  he  had  been  with 
the  Senora  Alvidua,  and  he  stei)ped  back 
that  he  might  not  watch  their  meeting 
when  Alida  Gushing  should  come  from  the 
stage  where  she  now  stood,  bowing  her 
acknowledgments  of  the  honors  that  were 
piling  higher  than  the  walls  of  Malta. 
The  orchestra  leader  waited  her  final  obei- 
sance before  he  struck  up  the  notes  of 
"  God  Save  the  King."  But  Alida  Gush- 
ing did  not  bow  herself  toward  the  wings, 
but  pushed  her  way  through  the  masses 
of  flowers  till  she  stood  at  the  foot- 
lights. 

Her  gaze,  intent  and  eager,  the  look  of 
the  seeker  and  not  of  the  satisfied,  went 
past  the  royal  box  and  over  the  heads  of 
the  splendidly  gowned  women  and  the 
gorgeously  red-coated  men  who  had  come 
to  give  her  tribute.  It  glanced  in  its  way 
upon  the  white-uniformed  officers  of  the 
American  ships  whom  the  English  of 
Malta  had  brought  as  their  guests  to  this 
triumph  of  their  countrywoman.  It  rose 
higher  and  "higher  till  it  found  the  blue- 
clad  sailors,  the  jackies  of  the  fleet,  sitting 
in  the  high  tiers  of  the  gallery.  And  it 
w^as  to  them  she  spoke. 

"Every  one  has  always  been  good  to 
me  over  here,"  she  said,  "  and  I  can  never 
say  how  wonderful  to-night  has  been. 
I'm  grateful,  oh,  so  grateful,  and  I  hope 
that  all  those  who  have  been  so  good  to 
me  will  understand  why  I  must  ask  their 
patience  for  just  one  favor  more.  I'm  an 
American,  one  of  you.  And  I  know  that 
our  friends  here  would  wish  me  to  sing  you 
an  American  song." 

The  orchestra  leader  raised  his  baton, 
looking  upward  inquiringly  to  catch  her 
signal.     But  without  orchestra  she  began: 


"Oh,  say,  can  you  see " 

A  shuffling  surge,  as  when  the  sea  strikes 
clift's,  swei)t  through  the  opera-house. 
White-uniformed  otTicers,  blue-uniformed 
men  rose  to  their  feet,  standing  at  atten- 
tion, every  man's  face  alight,  every  man's 
right  hand  ui)raised  till  his  index  finger 
touched  his  temple.  Breathless,  red- 
coated  men  and  the  bejewelled  women 
beside    them    watched    the   governor   of 


2(L>  Child,  Child 

Malta.     A  moment  he  frowned,  as  if  piiz-  stood  beside  liilly  Corse.     The  English- 

zlod  1)}'  the  meaning  of  the  song.     Then  man  spoke  lo  her  first. 
he  arose.     And  every  red-coated  man  at        ''We  all  hear  the  call,"  he  said,  "when 

the  opera  that  night  arose  with  him.  our  fleets  go  by,  do  we  not?" 

It  was  the  jackies  who  joined  in  the  last        ''Yes,"  she  said,  "we  hear  it."     Then 

chorus.     It  was  the  jackies  who  led  the  she  turned  to  Billy  Corse.     "I'm  going 

maddest  cheers  that  had  ever  shaken  Va-  home,  Billy,"  she  said.     "If  you  happen 

letta's  opera-house.    They  were  still  cheer-  to  be  in  New  York,  and  there  shouldn't 

ing  when  Alida  Cushing  came  back  to  the  be  a  war  in  Mexico,  will  you  come  to  hear 

wings  where  Sir  William  Price-Cherrill  me  again?" 


CHILD,    CHILD 

By  Grace  Fallow  Norton 

Child,  child, 

The  city-alleys  reek; 
By  nighttime  and  by  daytime 

The  passing  engines  shriek, 
And  murky  is  the  Maytime 

Where  carriers  hoot  and  cry, 
Yet  here  thou  hast  thy  playtime 

And  hast  thy  lullaby. 

Child,  child. 

Men  say  and  poets  sing, 
"Thy  hope  of  joy,  O  Woman, 

Lies  in  this  single  thing. 
Of  life  or  love,  let  no  man 

Tell  thee  aught  else  were  best: 
Thy  joy  of  joys,  O  Woman, 

Thy  child  upon  thy  breast." 

Child,  child, 

Alas,  and  if  it  be? 
Why  sing  the  joy  of  mothers 

And  sing  no  song  of  thee? 
Who  clamors  now  for  others, 

Rose-happed  though  they  should  lie. 
He  has  not  seen  thy  brothers 

Nor  heard  thy  lullaby. 

Child,  child, 

Some  say  thou'rt  doomed  to  fail. 
They  cry  we  do  not  need  thee, 

So  puny,  piteous,  pale! 
And  staying  not  to  feed  thee, 

They  wait  their  darling's  kiss. 
O  lest  they  hear  or  heed  thee 

Let  them  not  boast  their  bliss! 


MY    FIRST    YEARS    AS    A 
FRENCHWOMAN 

BY  MARY  KING  WADDINGTON 


11— AT  THE   MINISTRY  OF  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS    AND    THE 

BERLIN  CONGRESS 

1877-78 


9c;S5vW//?JSN^ 


|HE  elections  took  place  in 
October-November,  1877, 
and  gave  at  once  a  great  Re- 
publican majority.  W.* 
and  his  two  colleagues, 
Count  de  St.  Vallier  and 
Henri  Martin,  had  an  easy  victory,  but  a 
great  many  of  their  personal  friends,  mod- 
erates, were  bea ten.  The ' '  centres ' '  were 
decidedly  weaker  in  the  new  Chambers. 
There  was  not  much  hope  left  of  uniting 
the  two  centres,  Droite  et  Gauche,  in  the 
famous  ''fusion"  which  had  been  a  dream 
of  the  moderate  men. 

The  new  Chambers  assembled  at  Ver- 
sailles in  November.  The  Broglie  cabi- 
net was  out,  but  a  new  ministry  of  the 
Right  faced  the  new  Parliament.  Their 
life  was  very  short  and  stormy;  they  were 
really  dead  before  they  began  to  exist  and 
in  December  the  marshal  sent  for  M. 
Dufaure  and  charged  him  to  form  a 
Ministere  de  Gauche.  None  of  his  per- 
sonal friends,  except  General  Borel  at  the 
War  Office,  were  in  the  new  comVjination. 
W.  was  named  to  the  Foreign  Office.  I 
was  rather  disappointed  when  he  came 
home  and  told  me  he  had  accepted  that 
portfolio.  I  thought  his  old  ministry, 
''Public  Instruction,"  suited  him  so  well, 
the  work  interested  him,  was  entirely  in 
his  taste.  He  knew  all  the  literary  and 
educational  world,  not  only  in  France 
but  everywhere  else — England  of  course, 
where  he  had  kept  up  with  many  of 
his  Cambridge  comrades,  and  Germany, 
where  he  also  had  literary  connections. 
However,  that  wide  acquaintance  and  his 
perfect  knowledge  of  Engh"sh  and  English 
people  heli)ed  him  \ery  much  at  once,  not 

•W.,  here  and  throuRliout  these  articles,  refers  to  Mmc. 
WiuldiiiKlon's  husljand,  M.  \Villi;im  WuddinKton. 


only  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  but  in  all  the 
years  he  was  in  England  as  ambassador. 

The  new  ministry,  with  Dufaure  as 
President  of  the  Council,  Leon  Say  at  the 
Finances,  M.  de  Freycinet  at  Public 
Works,  and  W.  at  the  Foreign  Office  was 
announced  the  14th  of  December,  1877. 
The  preliminaries  had  been  long  and  diffi- 
cult— the  marshal  and  his  friends  on  one 
side — the  Republicans  and  Gambetta  on 
the  other, — the  moderates  trying  to  keep 
things  together.  Personally,  I  was  rather 
sorry  W.  had  agreed  to  be  a  member  of  the 
cabinet;  I  was  not  very  keen  about  official 
life  and  foresaw  a  great  deal  that  would 
be  disagreeable.  Politics  played  such  a 
part  in  social  life.  All  the  "society,"  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain  (which  rei)resents 
the  old  names  and  titles  of  France)  was 
violently  opposed  to  the  Republic.  I  was 
astonished  the  first  years  of  my  married 
life  in  France,  to  see  people  of  certain  po- 
sition and  standing  give  the  cold  shoulder 
to  men  they  had  known  all  their  lives  be- 
cause they  were  Republicans,  knowing 
them  quite  well  to  be  honorable,  independ- 
ent gentlemen,  wanting  nothing  from  the 
Republic, — merely  trying  to  do  their  best 
for  the  country.  I  only  realized  by  de- 
grees that  people  held  off  a  little  from  me 
sometimes,  as  the  wife  of  a  Republican 
deputy.  I  didn't  care  particularly,  as  1 
had  never  lived  in  France,  and  knew  very 
few  ])eople,  but  it  didn't  make  social  rela- 
tions very  pleasant,  and  I  should  have 
been  better  pleased  if  W.  had  taken  no 
active  part.  However,  that  feeling  was 
only  tcmi)()rary.  I  soon  became  keenly 
intcreslccl  in  politics  (I  suppose  it  is  in  the 
blood — all  tlK'  men  in  my  family  in  Amer- 
ica were  politicians)  and  in  the  discussion 
of  the  various  (juestions  which  were  raji- 


-■•o; 


204 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


idly  changin.s:  France  into  something  quite 
ditterent.  Whether  the  change  has  been 
for  the  better  it  would  be  hard  to  say  even 
now,  after  more  than  thirty-five  years  of 
the  Republic. 

Freycinet  was  a  great  strength.  He 
was  absolutely  Republican,  but  moderate, 
— very  clever  and  energetic,  a  great  friend 
of  Ga'mbetta's — and  a  beautiful  speaker. 
I  have  heard  men  say  who  didn't  care 
about  him  particularly,  and  who  were  not 
at  all  of  his  way  of  thinking,  that  they 
would  rather  not  discuss  with  him.  He 
was  sure  to  win  them  over  to  his  cause 
with  his  wonderful,  clear  persuasive  argu- 
ments. 

The  first  days  were  very  busy  ones.  W. 
had  to  see  all  his  staff  (a  very  large  one)  of 
the  Foreign  Office,  and  organize  his  own 
cabinet.  He  was  out  all  day,  until  late  in 
the  evening,  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  used  to 
go  over  there  about  ten  or  ten-thirty, 
breakfast  there,  and  get  back  for  a  very 
late  dinner,  and  always  had  a  director  or 
secretary  working  with  him  at  our  house 
after  dinner.  I  went  over  three  or  four 
times  to  inspect  the  ministry,  as  I  had  a 
presentiment  we  should  end  by  living 
there.  The  house  is  large  and  handsome, 
with  a  fine  staircase  and  large  high  rooms. 
The  furniture  of  course  was  ''ministerial" 
— stiff  and  heavy — gold-backed  chairs  and 
sofas  standing  in  rows  against  the  walls. 
There  were  some  good  pictures,  the  "  Con- 
gres  de  Paris,"  which  occupies  a  promi- 
nent place  in  one  of  the  salons,  and  splen- 
did tapestries.  The  most  attractive  thing 
was  a  fine  large  garden  at  the  back,  but,  as 
the  living-rooms  were  up-stairs,  we  didn't 
use  it  very  much.  The  lower  rooms, 
which  opened  on  the  gardens,  were  only 
used  as  reception-rooms.  The  minister's 
cabinet  was  also  down-stairs,  communi- 
cating by  a  small  staircase  with  his  bed- 
room, just  overhead.  The  front  of  the 
house  looks  on  the  Seine,  we  had  always  a 
charming  view  from  the  windows,  at  night 
particularly,  when  all  the  little  steam- 
ers ("mouches")  were  passing  with  their 
lights.  I  had  of  course  to  make  acquaint- 
ance with  all  the  Diplomatic  Corps.  I 
knew  all  the  ambassadors  and  most  of  the 
ministers,  but  there  were  some  represen- 
tatives of  the  smaller  powers  and  South 
American  Republics  with  whom  I  had 
never  come  in  contact.     Again  I  paid  a 


formal  official  visit  to  the  Marechale  de 
MacMahon  as  soon  as  the  ministry  was 
announced.  She  was  perfectly  polite  and 
correct,  but  one  felt  at  once  she  hadn't 
the  slightest  sympathy  for  anything  Re- 
publican, and  we  never  got  to  know  each 
otKer  any  better  all  the  months  we  were 
thrown  together.  We  remained  for  sev- 
eral weeks  at  our  own  house,  and  then 
most  reluctantly  determined  to  install 
ourselves  at  the  ministry.  W.  worked  al- 
ways very  late  after  dinner,  and  he  felt 
it  was  not  possible  to  ask  his  directors, 
all  important  men  of  a  certain  age,  to 
come  up  to  the  ''quartier  de  I'Etoile" 
at  ten  o'clock  and  keep  them  busy  un- 
til midnight.  W.'s  new  chef  de  cabinet, 
Comte  de  Pontecoulant,  was  very  anx- 
ious that  we  should  move,  thought  every- 
thing would  be  simplified  if  W.  were 
living  over  there.  I  had  never  know^n 
Pontecoulant  until  W.  chose  him  as  his 
chef  de  cabinet.  He  was  a  diplomatist 
with  some  years  of  service  behind  him, 
and  was  perfectly  *'  au  courant "  of  all  the 
routine  and  habits  of  the  Foreign  Office. 
He  paid  me  a  short  formal  visit  soon  after 
he  had  accepted  the  post,  we  exchanged  a 
few  remarks  about  the  situation,  I  hoped 
we  would  "faire  bon  menage,"  and  had  no 
particular  impression  of  him  except  that 
he  was  very  French  and  stiff;  I  didn't  sup- 
pose I  should  see  much  of  him.  It  seems 
curious  now  to  look  back  upon  that  first 
interview.  We  all  became  so  fond  of  him, 
he  was  a  loyal,  faithful  friend,  was  always 
ready  to  help  me  in  any  small  difficulties, 
and  I  went  to  him  for  everything, — vis- 
its, servants,  horses,  etc.  W.  had  no  time 
for  any  details  or  amenities  of  life.  We 
moved  over  just  before  New  Year's  day. 
As  the  ''gros  mobilier"  was  already  there, 
we  only  took  over  personal  things,  grand 
piano,  screens,  tables,  easy  chairs,  and 
small  ornaments  and  bibelots.  These 
were  all  sent  off  in  a  van  early  one  morn- 
ing, and  after  luncheon  I  went  over,  hav- 
ing given  rendezvous  to  Pontecoulant 
and  M.  Kruft,  ''chef  du  materiel,"  an  ex- 
cellent, intelligent  man,  who  was  most 
useful  and  devoted  to  me  the  two  years  I 
lived  at  the  ministry.  I  was  very  de- 
pressed when  we  drove  into  the  court- 
yard, I  had  never  lived  on  that  side  of  the 
river,  and  felt  cut  off  from  all  my  belong- 
ings,—the  bridge  a  terror,  so  cold  in  win- 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


205 


ter,  so  hot  in  summer, — I  never  got  accus- 
tomed to  it,  never  crossed  it  on  foot.  The 
sight  of  the  great  empty  rooms  didn't 
reassure  me.  The  reception-rooms  of 
course  were  very  handsome.  There  were 
a  great  many  servants,  ''huissiers,"  and 
footmen  standing  about,  and  people  wait- 
ing in  the  big  drawing-room  to  speak 
to  W.  The  living-rooms  up-stairs  were 
ghastly — looked  bare  and  uncomfortable 
in  the  highest  degree.  They  were  large 
and  high  and  looked  down  upon  the  gar- 
den, though  that  on  a  bleak  December  day 
was  not  very  cheerful, — but  there  were 
possibilities.  Kruft  was  very  sympathet- 
ic, understood  quite  well  how  I  felt,  and 
was  ready  to  do  anything  in  the  way  of 
stoves,  baths,  wardrobes  in  the  lingerie, 
new  carpets,  and  curtains,  that  I  wanted. 
Pontecoulant  too  was  eminently  practical, 
and  I  was  quite  amused  to  find  myself  dis- 
cussing lingeries  and  bathrooms  with  a 
total  stranger  whom  I  had  only  seen  twice 
in  my  life.  It  took  me  about  a  wxek  to 
get  really  settled.  I  went  over  every  day, 
returning  to  my  own  house  to  eat  and 
sleep.  Kruft  did  wonders;  the  place  was 
quite  transformed  when  I  finally  moved 
over.  The  rooms  looked  very  bright  and 
comfortable  when  we  arrived  in  the  after- 
noon of  the  31st  of  December  (New  Year's 
eve).  The  little  end  salon,  which  I  made 
my  boudoir,  was  hung  with  blue  satin ;  my 
piano,  screens,  and  little  things  were  very 
well  placed — plenty  of  palms  and  flowers, 
bright  fires  everywhere — the  bedrooms, 
nursery,  and  lingeries  clean  and  bright. 
My  bedroom  opened  on  a  large  salon, 
where  I  received  usually,  keeping  my  bou- 
doir for  ourselves  and  our  intimate  friends. 
My  special  '^huissier,"  Gerard,  who  sat  all 
day  outside  of  the  salon  door,  was  pre- 
sented to  me,  and  instantly  became  a 
most  useful  and  important  member  of 
the  household, — never  forgot  a  name  or 
a  face,  remembered  what  cards  and  notes 
I  had  received,  whether  the  notes  were 
answered,  or  the  bills  paid,  knew  almost 
all  my  wardrobe,  would  bring  me  down  a 
coat  or  a  wrap  if  I  wanted  one  suddenly 
down-stairs.  I  had  frequent  consultations 
with  Pontecoulant  and  Kruft  to  regulate 
all  the  details  of  the  various  services  be- 
fore we  were  quite  settled.  We  took  o\'er 
all  our  own  servants  and  found  many 
others  who  were  on  the  permanent  staff  of 


the  ministry,  footmen,  huissiers,  and  odd 
men  who  attended  to  all  the  fires,  opened 
and  shut  all  the  doors,  windows,  and  shut- 
ters. It  was  rather  difficult  to  organize 
the  regular  working  service,  there  was  such 
rivalry  between  our  own  personal  serv- 
ants and  the  men  who  belonged  t<j  the 
house,  but  after  a  little  while  things  went 
pretty  smoothly.  \V.  dined  out  the  first 
night  we  slept  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  and 
about  an  hour  after  we  had  arrived,  while 
I  was  still  walking  about  in  my  hat  and 
coat,  feeling  very  strange  in  the  big  hi^h 
rooms,  I  was  told  that  the  ''lami)iste" 
was  waiting  my  orders  (a  few  lamj)s  had 
been  lit  in  some  of  the  rooms).  I  didn't 
quite  know  what  orders  to  give,  hadn't 
mastered  yet  the  number  that  would  he 
required,  bVit  I  sent  for  him,  said  I  should 
be  alone  for  dinner,  perhaps  one  or  two 
lamps  in  the  dining-room  and  small  salon 
would  be  enough.  He  evidently  thought 
that  was  not  at  all  sufficient,  wanted 
something  more  precise,  so  I  said  to  light 
as  he  had  been  accustomed  to  when  the 
Due  Decazes  and  his  family  were  dining 
alone  (which  I  don't  suppose  they  ever 
did,  nor  we  either  when  we  once  took 
up  our  life).  Such  a  blaze  of  light  met 
my  eyes  when  I  went  to  dinner  that  I 
was  quite  bewildered.  Boudoir,  billiard- 
room,  dining-room  (very  large,  the  small 
round  table  for  one  person  hardly  per- 
ceptible) and  corridors  all  lighted  "a 
giorno."  However,  it  looked  ver^'  cheer- 
ful and  kept  me  from  feeling  too  dread- 
fully homesick  for  my  own  house  and 
familiar  surroundings.  The  rooms  were 
so  high  up  that  we  didn't  hear  the  noise 
of  the  street,  but  the  river  looked  alive 
and  friendly  with  the  lights  on  the 
bridges,  and  a  few  boats  still  running. 

We  had  much  more  receiving  and  en- 
tertaining to  do  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay  than 
at  any  other  ministry,  and  were  obliged  tt) 
go  out  much  more  ourselves.  The  season 
in  the  official  world  begins  with  a  recep- 
tion at  the  President's  on  New  Year's 
day.  The  Diplomatic  Coq^s  and  IVesi- 
dents  of  the  Senate  and  Chamber  go  in 
state  to  the  Elysee  to  pay  their  respects 
to  the  chief  of  state, — the  ambassadors 
with  all  their  staff  in  uniform  in  gala  car- 
riages. It  is  a  i)retly  sight,  and  there  are 
always  a  good  many  i)cople  waiting  in  the 
Faubourg  St.  Honore  to  see  the  carriages. 


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Palace  of  che  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  Paris. 


to  see  that  complex  character,  made  up  of 
enthusiasms  of  all  kinds,  patriotic,  relig- 
ious, musical.  He  was  dressed  in  the  or- 
dinary- black  priestly  garb,  looked  like  an 
ascetic  with  pale,  tMn  face,  which  lighted 
up  ver\-  much  when  discussing  any  sub- 
ject that  interested  him.  He  didn't  say 
a  word  about  music,  either  then  or  on  a 
subsequent  occasion  when  I  lunched  with 
hTm  at  the  house  of  a  great  friend  and  ad- 
mirer, who  was  a  beautiful  musician.  I 
hoped  he  would  play  after  luncheon.  He 
was  a  ver\-  old  man,  and  played  rarely  in 
those  days,  but  one  would  have  liked  to 
^  "  -  ^"m.     Mme.  M.  thought  he  would 

^  -  for  her,  if  the  party  were  not  too 
large,  and  the  guests  "  s\Tiipathetic "  to 
him.  I  have  heard  so  many  artists  say  it 
made  all  the  difference  to  them  when  they 
felt  the  public  was  with  them — if  there 
were  oae  uns\-mpathetic  or  criticising  face 
in  the  mass  of  -----  ^  [i  was  the  only  face 
they  could  di~  .  ih.  and  it  affected 
them  ver\'  much.  The  piano  was  engag- 
'  '    littered  about,  but 

.    ^     see  it.     He  talked 

politics,  and  a  good  deal  about  pictures 
with  Si.->me  artists  who  were  present. 
I  did  hear  him  play  many  years  later 

Vol.  LV. — lo 


in  London.  We  were  again  lunching  to- 
gether, at  the  house  of  a  mutual  friend, 
who  was  not  at  all  musical.  There  wasn't 
even  a  piano  in  the  house,  but  she  had  one 
brought  in  for  the  occasion.  When  I  ar- 
rived rather  early,  the  day  of  the  party,  I 
found  the  mistress  of  the  house,  aided  by 
Count  Hatzfeldt,  then  German  ambassa- 
dor to  England,  busily  engaged  in  trans- 
forming her  drawing-room.  The  grand 
piano,  which  had  been  standing  well  out 
toward  the  middle  of  the  room,  open,  with 
music  on  it  (J  dare  say  some  of  Liszt's  own 
— but  I  didn't  have  time  to  examine),  was 
being  pushed  back  into  a  comer,  all  the 
music  hidden  away,  and  the  instrument 
covered  with  photographs,  vases  of  flow- 
ers, statuettes,  hea\y  books,  all  the  things 
one  doesn't  habitually  put  on  pianos.  I 
was  quite  puzzled,  but  Hatzfeldt,  who 
was  a  great  friend  of  Liszt's  and  knew  all 
his  peculiarities,  when  consulted  by  Mme. 
A.  as  to  what  she  could  do  to  induce  Liszt 
to  play,  had  answered:  "  Begin  by  putting 
the  piano  in  the  furthest,  '  -'  *  cor- 
ner of  the  room,  and  put  all  s-  leavy 
things  on  it.  Then  he  won't  think  you 
have  a-'     '  '  '           '     '              '  '    ^n 

play,  a:...  ,  ....-,        ,  ---       -         :." 

207 


The  Elysee  Palace,  Paris. 


The  arrangements  were  just  finished  as  the 
rest  of  the  company  arrived.  We  were 
not  a  large  party,  and  the  talk  was  pleas- 
ant enough.  Liszt  looked  much  older,  so 
colorless,  his  skin  like  ivory,  but  he  seemed 
just  as  animated  and  interested  in  every- 
thing. After  luncheon,  when  they  were 
smoking  (all  of  us  together,  no  one  went 
into  the  smoking-room) ,  he  and  Hatzf eldt 
began  talking  about  the  Empire  and  the 
beautiful  fetes  at  Compiegne,  where  any- 
body of  any  distinction  in  any  branch  of 
art  or  literature  was  invited.  Hatzfeldt 
led  the  conversation  to  some  evenings 
where  Strauss  played  his  waltzes  with  an 
entrain,  a  sentiment  that  no  one  else  has 
ever  attained,  and  to  Offenbach  and  his 
melodies — one  evening  particularly  when 
he  had  improvised  a  song  for  the  Empress 
— he  couldn't  quite  remember  it.  If  there 
were  a  piano — he  looked  about.  There 
was  none  apparently.  "Oh,  yes,  in  a  cor- 
ner, but  so  many  things  upon  it,  it  was 
evidently  never  meant  to  be  opened."  He 
moved  toward  it,  Liszt  following,  asking 
Comtesse  A.  if  it  could  be  opened.  The 
things  were  quickly  removed.  Hatzfeldt 
sat  down  and  played  a  few  bars  in  rather 
a  halting  fashion.  After  a  moment  Liszt 
said:  ''No,  no,  it  is  not  quite  that." 
Hatzfeldt  got  up.  Liszt  seated  himself  at 
208 


the  piano,  played  two  or  three  bits  of  songs, 
or  waltzes,  then,  always  talking  to  Hatz- 
feldt, let  his  fingers  wander  over  the  keys 
and  by  degrees  broke  into  a  nocturne  and 
a  wild  Hungarian  march.  It  was  very 
curious;  his  fingers  looked  as  if  they  were 
made  of  yellow  ivory,  so  thin  and  long, 
and  of  course  there  wasn't  any  strength  or 
execution  in  his  playing — it  was  the  touch 
of  an  old  man,  but  a  master — quite  un- 
like anything  I  have  ever  heard.  When  he 
got  up,  he  said:  ''Oh,  well,  I  didn't  think 
the  old  fingers  had  any  music  left  in  them. ' ' 
We  tried  to  thank  him,  but  he  wouldn't 
listen  to  us,  immediately  talked  about 
something  else.  When  he  had  gone  we 
complimented  the  ambassador  on  the  way 
in  which  he  had  managed  the  thing.  Hatz- 
feldt was  a  charming  colleague,  very  clev- 
er, very  musical,  a  thorough  man  of  the 
world.  I  was  always  pleased  when  he 
was  next  to  me  at  dinner — I  was  sure 
of  a  pleasant  hour.  He  had  been  many 
years  in  Paris  during  the  brilliant  days  of 
the  Empire,  knew  everybody  there  worth 
knowing.  He  had  the  reputation,  not- 
withstanding his  long  stay  in  Paris,  of 
being  very  anti-French.  I  could  hardly 
judge  of  that,  as  he  naturally  never  talked 
politics  to  me.  It  may  very  likely  have 
been  true,  but  not  more  marked  with  him 


y  Vi. .',  i,'>i;//i  I  ■.  i'liotographische  Gesellschaft,  Berlin. 

The  Berlin  Congress. 
From  a  painting  by  Anton  von  Werner,  1881. 


than  with  the  generahty  of  Anglo-Saxons 
and  Northern  races,  who  rather  look  down 
upon  the  Latins,  hardly  giving  them  cred- 
it for  their  splendid  dash  and  pluck — to 
say  nothing  of  their  brains.  I  have  lived 
in  a  great  many  countries,  and  always 
think  that  as  a  people,  I  mean  the  unedu- 
cated mass,  the  French  are  the  most  intel- 
ligent nation  in  the  world.  I  have  never 
been  thrown  with  the  Japanese — am  told 
they  are  extraordinarily  intelligent. 

We  had  a  dinner  one  night  for  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, his  wife,  and  a  daughter.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone made  himself  quite  charming,  spoke 
French  fairly  well,  and  knew  more  about 
every  subject  discussed  than  any  one  else 
in  the  room.  He  was  certainly  a  w^onder- 
ful  man,  such  extraordinary  versatility 
and  such  a  memory.  It  was  rather  pretty 
to  see  Mrs.  Gladstone  when  her  husband 
was  talking.  She  was  quite  absorbed  by 
him,  couldn't  talk  to  her  neighbors.  They 
wanted  very  much  to  go  to  the  Concierge- 
rie  to  see  the  prison  where  the  unfortu- 
nate Marie  Antoinette  passed  the  last 
days  of  her  unhappy  life,  and  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, inspired  by  the  subject,  made  us  a 
sort  of  ''conference"  on  the  French  Rev- 
olution and  the  causes  which  led  uj)  to 
it,  culminating  in  the  Terror  and  the  ex- 
ecution of  the  King  and  Queen.    He  spoke 


in  English  (we  were  a  little  group  stand- 
ing at  the  door — they  were  just  going), 
in  beautiful  academic  language,  and  it 
was  most  interesting,  graphic,  and  exact. 
Even  W.,  who  knew  him  well  and  ad- 
mired him  immensely,  was  struck  by  his 
brilliant  improvisation. 

Seventy-eight  was  the  most  important 
year  for  us  in  many  ways.  Besides  the 
interest  and  fatigues  of  the  Exposition  and 
the  constant  receiving  and  official  festivi- 
ties of  all  kinds,  a  great  event  was  looming 
before  us — the  ''Berlin  Congress."  One 
had  felt  it  coming  for  some  time.  There 
were  all  sorts  of  new  delimitations  and 
questions  to  be  settled  since  the  war  in  the 
Balkans,  and  Europe  was  getting  visibly 
nervous.  Almost  immediately  after  the 
oi)ening  of  the  Exposition,  thc])roject  took 
shape,  and  it  was  decided  that  France 
should  participate  in  the  Congress  and 
send  three  representatives.  It  was  the 
first  time  that  France  had  asserted  herself 
since  the  Franco-Prussian  war  in  1870, 
but  it  was  time  for  her  now  to  emerge  from 
her  self-imposed  elTacement,  and  take  her 
place  in  the  Congress  of  nations.  There 
were  many  discussions,  both  public  and 
private,  before  the  "plenii)otentiaires" 
were  named,  and  a  great  unwillingness  on 


210 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


the  part  of  many  very  intelligent  and  patri- 
otic Frenchmen  to  see  the  country  launch- 
ing itself  u})on  dangerous  ground  and  a 
possible  conflict  with  Bismarck.     How- 


From  a  J>hotograph  by  Samuel  A.  Walker,  London, 
William  E.  Gladstone. 

ever,  the  thing  was  decided,  and  the  three 
plenipotentiaries  named, — M.  Wadding- 
ton,  Foreign  Minister,  first;  Comte  de  St. 
Vallier,  a  very  clever  and  distinguished 
diplomatist,  actual  ambassador  at  Berlin, 
second;  and  Monsieur  Desprey,  Directeur 
de  la  Politique  au  Ministere  des  Affaires 
Etrangeres,'  third.  He  was  also  a  very 
able  man,  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  minis- 
try, ''aucourant"  of  every  treaty  and 
negotiation  for  the  last  twenty  years,  very 
prudent  and  clear-headed.  All  W.'s  col- 
leagues were  most  cordial  and  charming 
on  his  appointment.  He  made  a  state- 
ment in  the  house  of  the  line  of  policy  he 
intended  to  adopt — and  was  absolutely  ap- 
proved and  encouraged.     Not  a  dispara- 


ging word  of  any  kind  was  said,  not  even 
the  usual  remark  of  ''cet  anglais  qui  nous 
represente."    He  started  the  loth  of  June 
in  the  best  conditions  possible  —  not  an 
instruction  of  any  kind  from 
his  chief,  M.  Dufaure,  Presi- 
dent du  Conseil, — very  com- 
plimentary to  him  certainly, 
but  the  ministers  taking  no 
responsibility  themselves  — 
leaving  the  door  open  in  case 
he  made  any  mistakes.    It 
was  evident  that  the  Parlia- 
ment and  Government  were 
nervous.     It  was  rather 
amusing,  when  all  the  prepa- 
rations for  the  departure  were 
going  on.     W.  took  a  large 
suite  with  him,  secretaries, 
huissiers,   etc.,  and   I   told 
them  they  were  as  much 
taken  up  with  their  coats  and 
embroideries  and  cocked 
hats  as  any  pretty  woman 
with  her  dresses.     I  wanted 
very  much  to  go,  but  W. 
thought  he  would  be  freer 
and  have  more  time  to  think 
things  over  if  I  were  not 
there.     He  didn't  know  Ber- 
lin at  all,  had  never  seen  Bis- 
marck nor  any  of  the  lead- 
ing German  statesmen,  and 
was  fully  conscious  how  his 
every  word  and  act  would  be 
criticised.     However,  if  a 
public  man  is  not  criticised, 
it  usually  means  that  he  is  of 
no  consequence — so  attacks 
and  criticisms  are  rather  welcome — act  as  a 
stimulant.     I  could  have  gone  and  stayed 
unofhcially  with  a  cousin,  but  he  thought 
that  wouldn't  do.     St.  Vallier  was  a  bach- 
elor, it  would  have  been  rather  an  affair 
for  him  to  organize  at  the  Embassy  an 
apartment   for  a  lady   and  her  maids, 
though  he  was  most  civil  and  asked  me 
to  come. 

I  felt  rather  lonely  in  the  big  ministry 
when  they  had  all  gone,  and  I  was  left 
with  Baby.  W.  stayed  away  just  five 
weeks,  and  I  performed  various  official 
things  in  his  absence, — among  others  the 
Review  of  the  14th  of  July.  The  distin- 
guished guest  on  that  occasion  was  the 
Shah  of  Persia,   who  arrived  with  the 


My  First  Years  as  a   Frenchwoman 


211 


marechale  in  a  handsome  open  carriage, 
with  outriders  and  postillions.  The  mar- 
shal of  course  was  riding.  The  Shah  was 
not  at  all  a  striking  figure,  short,  stout, 
with  a  dark  skin,  and  hard  black  eyes. 
He  had  handsome  jewels,  a  large  diamond 
fastening  the  white  aigrette  of  his 
high  black  cap,  and  his  sword- 
hilt  incrusted  with  diamonds. 
He  gave  a  stiff  little  nod  in  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  bows  and 
courtesies  e\"ery  one  made  when 
he  appeared  in  the  marshal's  box. 
He  immediately  took  his  seat  on 
one  side  of  the  marechale  in  front 
of  the  box,  one  of  the  ambassa- 
dresses, Princess  Hohenlohe  I 
think,  next  to  him.  The  military 
display  seemed  to  interest  him. 
Every  now  and  then  he  made 
some  remark  to  the  marechale, 
but  he  was  certainly  not  talk- 
ative. While  the  interminable 
line  of  the  infantry  regiments 
were  passing,  there  was  a  mo\'e 
to  the  back  of  the  box,  where 
there  was  a  table  with  ices,  cham- 
pagne, etc.  Madame  de  Mac- 
Mahon  came  up  to  me,  saying: 
"Madame  Waddington,  Sa  Ma- 
jeste  demande  les  nouvelles  de 
M.  Waddington,"  upon  which 
His  Majeste  planted  himself  di- 
rectly in  front  of  me,  so  close 
that  he  almost  touched  me,  and 
asked  in  a  quick,  abrupt  manner, 
as  if  he  were  firing  off  a  shot: 
*'0u  est  votre  mari?"  (neither  Madame, 
nor  M.  Waddington,  nor  any  of  the  terms 
that  are  usually  adopted  in  polite  society). 
"A  Berlin,  Sire."  "Pourquoi  a  Berlin?" 
"Comme  plenipotentiaire  Fran^ais  au 
Congres  de  Berlin."  ''Oui,  oui,  je  sais, 
jt  sais.  Cela  Tinteresse?"  ''Beaucoup; 
il  voit  tant  de  personnes  interessantes." 
"Oui,  je  sais.  II  va  bien?"  always  com- 
ing closer  to  me,  so  that  I  was  edging  back 
against  the  wall,  with  his  hard,  bright  lit- 
tle eyes  fixed  on  mine,  and  always  the 
same  sharp,  jerky  tone.  "II  va  parfaite- 
ment  bien,  je  vous  remercie."  Then  there 
was  a  ])ause  and  he  made  one  or  two  other 
remarks  which  I  didn't  quite  understand 
— I  don't  think  his  French  went  very  far 
— ])ut  I  made  out  something  about  "  jolies 
femmes"  and  pointed  out  one  or  two  to 


him,  but  he  still  remained  staring  into  my 
face  and  I  was  delighted  when  his  minister 
came  up  to  him  (timidly — all  his  people 
were  afraid  of  him)  and  said  some  "per- 
sonnage"  wanted  to  be  presented  to  him. 
He  shook  hands  with  me,  said  something 


Franz  Liszt. 

about  "votre  mari  revient  bientot,"  and 
moved  off.  The  marechale  asked  me  if  I 
were  not  touched  by  His  Majesty's  solici- 
tude for  my  husband's  health,  and  wouldn't 
I  like  to  come  to  the  front  of  the  box  and 
sit  next  to  him,  but  I  told  her  I  couldn't 
think  of  engrossing  His  Majesty's  atten- 
tion, as  there  were  various  important  ])eo- 
ple  who  wished  to  be  })resented  to  him. 
I  watched  him  a  little  (from  a  distance), 
trying  to  see  if  anything  made  any  im- 
pression on  him, — the  crowd,  the  })retly, 
well-dressed  women,  the  march  past,  the 
long  lines  of  infantry,  rather  fatiguing  to 
see,  as  one  line  regiment  looks  \erv  like 
another, — the  chasseurs  with  their  small 
chestnut  horses,  the  dragoons  more  heav- 
ily mounted,  and  the  guns  but  his  face 
remained  absolutely  impassive,  though  1 


o^o 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frencliwoman 


think  he  saw  c\crythintr.  They  told  a 
funny  story  of  him  in  London  at  one  of 
the  Court  balls.    When  he  had  looked  on 


Nasr-ed-Din,  Shah  of  Persia. 

at  the  dancing  for  some  time,  he  said  to 
the  Prince  of  Wales:  "Tell  those  people 
to  stop  now,  I  have  seen  enough," — evi- 
dently thought  it  was  a  ballet  performing 
for  his  amusement.  Another  one,  at  one 
of  the  European  Courts  was  funny.  The 
monarch  was  very  old,  his  consort  also. 
When  the  Shah  was  presented  to  the  royal 
lady,  he  looked  hard  at  her  without  say- 
ing a  word,  then  remarked  to  her  husband : 
*'Laide,  vieille,  pourquoi  garder?"  (Ugly, 
old;  why  keep  her?) 

I  wxnt  to  a  big  dinner  and  reception  at 
the  British  Embassy,  given  for  all  the  di- 
rectors and  commissioners  of  the  Exposi- 
tion. It  was  a  lovely  warm  night,  the 
garden  was  lighted,  everybody  walking 
about,  and  an  orchestra  playing.  Many 
of  the  officials  had  their  wives  and  daugh- 


ters with  them,  and  some  of  the  toilettes 
were  wonderful.  There  were  a  good  many 
pretty  women,  Swedes  and  Danes,  the 
Northern  type,  very  fair  hair 
and  blue  eyes,  attracting 
much  attention,  and  a  group 
of  Chinese  (all  in  costume) 
standing  proudly  aloof — not 
the  least  interested  appar- 
ently in  the  gay  scene  before 
them.  I  wonder  what  they 
thought  of  European  man- 
ners and  customs!  There 
was  no  dancing,  which  I  sup- 
pose would  have  shocked 
their  Eastern  morals.  Lord 
Lyons  asked  me  why  I  wasn't 
in  Berlin.  I  said.  For  the 
best  of  reasons,  my  husband 
preferred  going  w^ithout  me 
— but  I  hoped  he  would  send 
for  me  perhaps  at  the  end  of 
the  Congress.  He  told  me 
Lady  Salisbury  was  there 
with  her  husband.  He 
seemed  rather  sceptical  as  to 
the  peaceful  issue  of  the  ne- 
gotiations— thought  so  many 
unforeseen  questions  would 
come  up  and  complicate 
matters. 

I  went  to  a  ball  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  also  given  for 
all  the  foreigners  and  French 
people  connected  with  the 
Exposition.  The  getting 
there  w^as  very  long  and  tir- 
ing. The  "coupe-file"  did  no  good,  as 
every  one  had  one.  Comte  de  Pontecou- 
lant  went  with  me  and  he  protested  vigor- 
ously, but  one  of  the  head  men  of  the  police, 
whom  he  knew  w^ell,  came  up  to  the  car- 
riage to  explain  that  nothing  could  be 
done.  There  was  a  long  line  of  diplo- 
matic and  official  carriages,  and  we  must 
take  our  chance  with  the  rest.  Some  of 
our  cousins  (Americans)  never  got  there 
at  all,  sat  for  hours  in  their  carriage  in  the 
Rue  du  Rivoli,  moving  an  inch  at  a  time. 
Happily  it  was  a  lovely  warm  night;  and 
as  w^e  got  near  we  saw  lots  of  people  walk- 
ing who  had  left  their  carriages  some  lit- 
tle distance  off,  hopelessly  wedged  in  a 
crowd  of  vehicles, — the  women  in  light 
dresses,  with  flowers  and  jewels  in  their 
hair.     The  rooms  looked  very  handsome 


My  Fir«;t  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


213 


when  at  last  we  did  get  in,  particularly  orij^inal,  and  even  amusing  in  his  conver- 
the  staircase,  with  a  Garde  Municipal  on  sation,  but  with  a  hard  look  about  the 
e\ery  stej),  and  banks  of  i)alms  and  flow-  eyes  which  bodes  no  good  to  those  who 
ers  on  the  landing  in  the  hall, 
wherever  flowers  could  be 
put.  The  ''\'ille  de  Paris" 
furnishes  all  the  flowers  and 
plants  for  the  official  recep- 
tions, and  they  always  are 
very  well  arranged.  Some 
trophies  of  flags  too  of  all  na- 
tions made  a  great  effect.  I 
didn't  see  many  people  I 
knew — it  was  impossible  to 
get  through  the  crowd,  but 
some  one  got  me  a  chair  at 
the  open  window  giving  on 
the  balcony,  and  I  was  quite 
happy  sitting  there  looking 
at  the  people  pass.  The 
whole  world  was  represented, 
and  it  was  interesting  to  see 
the  different  types — South- 
erners, small,  slight,  dark,  im- 
patient, wriggling  through 
the  crowd  —  the  Anglo-Sax- 
ons, big,  broad,  calm,  squar- 
ing their  shoulders  when 
there  came  a  sudden  rush, 
and  waiting  quite  patiently  a 
chance  to  get  a  little  ahead. 
Some  of  the  women  too 
pushed  well — evidently  de- 
termined to  see  all  they  could. 
I  don't  think  any  royalties, 

even   minor   ones,  were  there.  t-rom  a  photograph  by  Aifred  lleuiener,  BoIui. 


W.  wrote  pretty  regularly 
from  Berlin,  particularly  the 
first  days,  before  the  real  work  of  the 
Congress  began.  He  started  rather  soon- 
er than  he  had  at  first  intended,  so  as  to 
have  a  little  time  to  talk  matters  over  with 
St.  Vallier  and  make  acquaintance  with 
some  of  his  colleagues.  St.  Vallier,  with 
all  the  staff  of  the  Embassy,  met  him  at 
the  station  when  he  arrived  in  Berlin, 
also  Holstein  (our  old  friend  who  was 
at  the  German  Embassy  in  Paris  with 
Arnim)  to  compliment  him  from  Prince 
Bismarck,  and  he  had  hardly  been  fifteen 
minutes  at  the  Embassy  when  Count  Her- 
bert von  Bismarck  arrived  with  greetings 
and  compliments  from  his  father.  He 
went  to  see  Bismarck  the  next  day,  found 
him  at  home,  and  very  civil;  he  was  c|uilc 
friendly,  very  courteous  and  "  bonhonmie. 


Empress  Frederick. 

cross  his  path."  He  had  just  time  to  get 
back  to  the  Embassy  and  get  into  his  uni- 
form for  his  audience  with  the  Crown 
Prince  (late  Emperor  Frederick).  The 
''Vice  Grand-iMaitre  des  Ceremonies" 
came  for  him  in  a  court  carriage  and  they 
drove  off  to  the  palace, — \\\  sitting  alone 
on  the  back  seat,  the  grand-maitre  facing 
him  on  the  front.  *'I  was  ushered  into  a 
room  where  the  Prince  was  standing.  He 
was  very  friendly  and  talked  for  twenty 
minutes  about  all  sorts  of  things,  in  excel- 
lent French,  with  a  few  words  of  English 
now  and  then  to  show  he  knew  of  my  Eng- 
lish connection.  He  spoke  of  my  travels 
in  the  East,  of  the  de  Bunsens,  of  the  Em- 
])eror's  health  (the  old  man  is  much  bet- 
ter and  decidedlv  recovering) — and  of  his 


214 


Mv   First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


"rcat  wish  for  peace."     All  ilic  plenipo-  laries.     French  was  the  language  spoken, 

tenliaries   had    not    yet    arri\eci.      They  the  only  exception  being  made  by  Lord 

appeared  only  on  the  afternoon  of  the  Beaconsfield,  who  alw^ays  spoke  in  Eng- 

ijth,  the  day  before  the  Congress  opened,  hsh,  although  it  was  most  evident,  W. 


Frotn  a  photograph  ly  Rcichurd  &■  Lindner,  Bej-lin. 
Emperor  Frederick. 


Prince  Bismarck  sent  out  the  invitation 
for  the  first  sitting: 

''Le  Prince  de  Bismarck 
a  I'honneur  de  prevenir  Son  Excellence, 
Monsieur  Waddington,  que  la  premiere 
reunion  du  Congres  aura  lieu  le  13  juin  a 
deux  heures,  au  Palais  du  Chancelier  de 
I'Empire,  77,  Wilhelmstrasse. 

''Berlin,  le  12  juin  1878." 

It  was  a  brilliant  assemblage  of  great 
names  and  intelligences  that  responded 
to  his  invitation — Gortschakoff,  Schou- 
baloff,  Andrassi,  Beaconsfield,  Salisbury, 
Karolyi,  Hohenlohe,  Corti,  and  many 
others,  younger  men,  who  acted  as  secre- 


said,  that  he  understood  French  perfectly 
well.  The  first  day  was  merely  an  official 
opening  of  the  Congress — every  one  in 
uniform — but  only  for  that  occasion. 
After  that  they  all  went  in  ordinary  morn- 
ing dress,  putting  on  their  uniforms  again 
on  the  last  day  only,  when  they  signed  the 
treaty,  W.  writes:  ''Bismarck  presides 
and  did  his  part  well  to-day;  he  speaks 
French  fairly  but  very  slowly,  finding  his 
words  with  difficulty,  but  he  knows  what 
he  means  to  say  and  lets  every  one  see 
that  he  does."  No  one  else  said  much 
that  first  day;  each  man  was  rather  re- 
served, waiting  for  his  neighbor  to  begin. 
Beaconsfield  made  a  short  speech,  which 
was  trying  for  some  of  his  colleagues. 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


215 


particularly  the  Turks,  who  had  evident- 
ly much  difficulty  in  understanding  Eng- 
lish.     They   were  counting    u])on   Kng- 


at  all  stiff  and  shy  like  so  many  royalties. 
He  saw  her  very  often  during  his  stay  in 
Ik'rlin,  and  she  was  unfailingly  kind  to 


jj  I; 

'^IuSbB^      '7  7                               ^ 

MH^^^hT^V^ 

^^m^^K.      "^ 

idESHf     '^ 

^ 

^^^%    ^ 

^ 

■ 

^^^^^^H^^             '     -^ 

Hi 

1 

^^^^^^^^■^^^^^^^^^H^bis.     ^B'' 

H 

■Hj^B^^^^^^^^^l^^^^^^^^^^^^r 

1 

m  Mr  ■ 

'•  ■'    ? 

^'' 

--^-  ^j&y 

4" 

From  a  sketch  by  Anion  von  II  enter,  iSisO. 

Prince  Bismarck. 


land's  sympathy,  but  a  little  nervous  as 
to  a  supposed  agreement  between  Eng- 
land and  Russia.  The  Russians  listened 
most  attentively.  There  seemed  to  be 
a  distrust  of  England  on  their  part  and 
a  decided  rivalry  between  Gortschakoff 
and  Beaconsfield.  The  Congress  dined 
that  first  night  with  the  Crown  Prince 
at  the  Schloss  in  the  famous  white  hall, — 
all  in  uniform  and  orders.  W.  said  the 
heat  was  awful,  but  the  evening  inter- 
esting. There  were  one  hundred  and 
forty  guests,  no  ladies  except  the  royal 
Princesses,  not  even  the  ambassadresses. 
W,  sat  on  Bismarck's  left,  who  talked  a 
great  deal,  intending  to  make  himself 
agreeable.  He  had  a  long  talk  after  din- 
ner with  the  Crown  Princess  (Princess 
Royal  of  England)  who  spoke  English 
with  him.  He  found  her  charming — in- 
telligent and  cultivated  and  so  easy — not 


him — and  to  me  also  when  I  knew  her 
later  in  Rome  and  London.  She  always 
lives  in  my  memory  as  one  of  the  most 
charming  women  I  have  ever  met.  Her 
face  often  comes  back  to  mewith  her  beau- 
tiful bright  smile  and  the  saddest  eyes  I 
have  ever  seen.  I  have  known  very  few 
like  her.  W.  also  had  a  talk  with  Prince 
Frederick-Charles,  father  of  the  Duchess 
of  Connaught,  whom  he  found  rather 
a  rough-looking  soldier  with  a  short,  ab- 
rupt manner.  He  left  bitter  memories  in 
France  during  the  Franco-German  war, 
was  called  the  "Red  Prince,"  he  was  so 
hard  and  cruel,  ahva}'s  ready  to  sht)ot 
somebody  and  burn  down  villages  on  the 
slightest  provocation — so  different  from 
the  Prince  TmjXTial,  the  "unser  Fritz"  of 
the  Germans,  who  always  had  a  kintl  word 
for  the  fallen  foe. 

W.'s  days  were  very  full,  and  when  the 


210 


Mv   First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


important   sittings   began   it   was   some-  country   without  going   through   a   long 

limes  hard   work.     The   Congress  room  stretch  of  suburbs  and  sandy  roads  which 

was  very  hot  (all  the  colleagues  seemed  to  were  not  very  tempting.     A  great  many 

have  a  holy  horror  of  open  windows) —  officers  rode  in  the  park,  and  one  morning 


From  a  photograph  by  Latnbert  ii'eston  &■  Son,  Dover. 

Lord  Salisbury. 


and  some  of  the  men  very  long  and  te- 
dious in  stating  their  cases.  Of  course 
they  were  at  a  disadvantage  not  speaking 
their  own  language  (very  few  of  them 
knew  French  well,  except  the  Russians) 
and  they  had  to  go  very  carefully,  and  be 
quite  sure  of  the  exact  significance  of  the 
words  they  used.  W.  got  a  ride  every 
morning,  as  the  Congress  only  met  in  the 
afternoon.  They  rode  usually  in  the 
Thiergarten,  which  is  not  very  large,  but 
the  bridle  paths  were  good.  It  was  very 
difficult  to  get  out  of  Berlin  into  the  open 


when  he  was  riding  with  the  military  at- 
tache of  the  Embassy,  two  officers  rode  up 
and  claimed  acquaintance,  having  known 
him  in  France  in  '70,  the  year  of  the  war. 
They  rode  a  short  time  together,  and  the 
next  day  he  received  an  invitation  from 
the  officers  of  a  smart  Uhlan  regiment  to 
dine  at  their  mess  "  in  remembrance  of  the 
kind  hospitality  shown  to  some  of  their 
officers  who  had  been  quartered  at  his 
place  in  France  during  the  war."  As  the 
hospitality  was  decidedly  forced,  and  the 
presence  of  the  German  ofl&cers  not  very 


My   First  Years  as  a   Frenchwoman 


217 


agreeable  to  the  family,   the  invitation  was  preoccupied  first  with  her  dinner,  then 

was  not  very  happy.     It  was  well  meant,  with  her  husband,  for  fear  he  should  eat 

but  was  one  of  those  curious  instances  too  much,  or  take  cold  i^oinj^  out  of  the 

of  German  want  of  tact  which  one  notices  warm  dining-room  into  the  e\enin<'  air. 


Lady  Salisbury. 


so  much  if  one  lives  much  with  Ger- 
mans. The  hours  of  the  various  enter- 
tainments were  funny.  At  a  big  dinner 
at  Prince  Bismarck's  the  guests  were  in- 
vited at  six,  and  at  eight-thirty  every 
one  had  gone.  W.  sat  next  to  Countess 
Marie,  the  daughter  of  the  house,  found 
her  simple  and  inclined  to  talk,  speaking 
both  French  and  English  well.  Imme- 
diately after  dinner  the  men  all  smoked 
everywhere,  in  the  drawing-room,  on  the 
terrace,  some  taking  a  turn  in  the  })ark 
with  Bismarck.  W.  found  Princess  Bis- 
marck not  very  "femme  du  monde";  she 


There  were  no  ladies  at  the  dinner  except 
the  family.  (The  German  lady  doesn't 
seem  to  occupy  the  same  place  in  society 
as  the  French  and  English  women  do. 
In  Paris  the  wives  of  ambassadors  and 
ministers  are  always  invited  to  all  ollicial 
banquets.) 

Amusements  of  all  kinds  were  providctl 
for  the  plenipotentiaries.  Early  in  July 
W.  writes  of  a  ''Land-i)arthie," — the 
whole  Congress  (wives  too  this  time)  in- 
vited to  Potsdam  for  the  day.  He  was 
rather  dreading  a  long  day — excursions 
were  not  much  in  his  line.     However,  this 


218 


Mv   First  Years  as  a  Frencliwoman 


one  seems  to  ha\c  been  successful.  He 
writes:  "Our  excursion  went  off  better 
than  could  be  expected.  The  party  con- 
sisted of  the  plenipotentiaries  and  a  cer- 
tain number  of  Court  otliccrsand  generals. 
We  started  by  rail,  stopped  at  a  station 


which  is  a  pretty  Gothic  country-seat,  not 
a  palace,  and  belongs  to  the  present  Em- 
peror. After  that  we  had  a  longish  drive, 
through  different  parks  and  villages,  and 
finally  arrived  at  Sans  Souci,  where  we 
dined.     After  dinner  we  strolled  through 


M.  de  Blowitz. 


called  Wansee,  and  embarked  on  board  a 
small  steamer,  the  Princess  Royal  receiv- 
ing the  guests  as  they  arrived  on  board. 
We  then  started  for  a  trip  on  the  lakes, 
but  before  long  there  came  a  violent  squall 
which  obliged  the  sailors  to  take  down  the 
awnings  in  double-quick  time,  and  drove 
every  one  down  into  the  cabins.  It  lasted 
about  half  an  hour,  after  which  it  cleared 
up  and  every  one  reappeared  on  deck.  In 
course  of  time  we  landed  near  Babelsberg, 
where  a  quantity  of  carriages  were  wait- 
ing. I  was  told  off  to  go  in  the  first 
with  the  Princess  Royal,  Countess  Karolyi 
(wife  of  the  Austrian  ambassador,  a  beau- 
tiful young  woman),  and  Andrassi.  We 
went  over  the  chateau  of  Babelsberg, 


the  rooms  and  were  shown  the  different 
souvenirs  of  Frederick  the  Great,  and  got 
home  at  ten- thirty."  W.  saw  a  good  deal 
of  his  cousin,  George  de  Bunsen,  a  charm- 
ing man,  very  cultivated  and  cosmopoli- 
tan. He  had  a  pretty  house  in  the  new 
quarter  of  Berlin,  and  was  most  hospi- 
table. He  had  an  interesting  dinner  there 
with  some  of  the  literary  men  and  ''sa- 
vants,"— Mommsen,  Lepsius,  Helmholtz, 
Curtius,  etc.,  most  of  them  his  colleagues, 
as  he  was  a  member  of  the  Berlin  Acad- 
emy. He  found  those  evenings  a  delight- 
ful change  after  the  long  hot  afternoons  in 
the  Wilhelmstrasse,  where  necessarily 
there  was  so  much  that  was  long  and  te- 
dious.    I  think  even  he  got  tired  of  Greek 


My   First  Years  as  a   Frencliwoma 


n 


210 


frontiers,  notwithstanding  his  sympathy 
for  the  country.  He  did  what  he  could 
for  the  Greeks,  who  were  very  grateful  to 
him  and  gave  him,  in  memory  of  the  ef- 
forts he  made  on  their  behalf,  a  fine  group 
in  bronze  of  a  female  figure — "Greece" 
throwing  off  the  bonds  of  Turkey.  Some 
of  the  speakers  were  very  interesting.  He 
found  Schoubaloff  always  a  brilliant  de- 
bater,— he  spoke  French  perfectly,  was 
always  good-humored  and  courteous,  and 
defended  his  cause  well.  One  felt  there 
was  a  latent  animosity  between  the  Eng- 
lish and  the  Russians.  Lord  Beacons- 
field  made  one  or  two  strong  speeches — 
very  much  to  the  point,  and  slightly  arro- 
gant, but  as  they  were  always  made  in 
English,  they  were  not  understood  by  all 
the  assembly.  W.  was  always  pleased  to 
meet  Prince  Hohenlohe,  actual  German 
ambassador  to  Paris  (who  had  been 
named  the  third  German  plenipotentiary). 
He  was  perfectly  "  au  courant "  of  all  that 
went  on  at  Court  and  in  the  oflftcial  world, 
knew  everybody  and  introduced  W.  to 
various  ladies  who  received  informally, 
where  he  could  spend  an  hour  or  two 
quietly,  without  meeting  all  his  colleagues. 
Blowitz,  of  course,  appeared  on  the  scene — 
the  most  important  person  in  Berlin  (in 
his  own  opinion).  I  am  not  quite  con- 
vinced chat  he  saw  all  the  people  he  said 
he  did,  or  whether  all  the  extraordinary 
confidences  were  made  to  him  which  he 
related  to  the  public,  but  he  certainly  im- 
pressed people  very  much,  and  I  suppose 
his  letters  as  newspaper  correspondent 
were  quite  wonderful.  He  was  remark- 
ably intelligent  and  absolutely  unscrupu- 
lous, didn't  hesitate  to  put  into  the  mouths 
of  people  what  he  wished  them  to  say,  so 
he  naturally  had  a  great  puii  over  the 
ordinary  simple-minded  journalist  who 
wrote  simply  what  he  saw  and  heard. 
As  he  was  the  Paris  correspondent  of 
The  London  Times,  he  was  often  at  the 
French  Embassy.  W.  never  trusted  him 
very  much,  and  his  "flair"  was  right,  as 
he  was  anything  but  true  to  him.  The 
last  days  of  the  Congress  were  very  busy 
ones.  The  negotiations  were  ke[)t  secret 
enough,  but  things  always  leak  out  and 
the  papers  had  to  say  something.  I  was 
rather  "cmue"  at  the  tone  of  the  French 
press,  but  W.  wrote  me  not  to  mind — 
they  didn't  really  know  anything,  and 
Vol.  LV. 


when  the  treaty  was  signed  France  would 
certainly  come  out  very  honorably.  All 
this  has  long  passed  into  the  domain  of 
history,  and  has  been  told  so  many  times 
by  so  many  different  people  that  I  will  not 
go  into  details  except  to  say  that  the 
French  protectorate  of  Tunis  (now  one  of 
our  most  flourishing  colonies)  was  entirely 
arranged  by  W.  in  a  long  confidential  con- 
versation with  Lord  Salisbury.  The  ces- 
sion of  the  Island  of  Cyprus  by  Turkey  to 
the  English  was  a  most  unexpected  and 
disagreeable  surprise  to  W.  Howe\er,  he 
went  instantly  to  Lord  Salisbury',  who  was 
a  little  embarrassed,  as  that  negotiation 
had  been  kept  secret,  which  didn't  seem 
quite  fair — everything  else  ha\ing  been 
openly  discussed  around  the  council  table. 
He  quite  understood  W.'s  feelings  in  the 
matter,  and  was  perfectly  willing  to  make 
an  arrangement  about  Tunis.  The  thing 
was  neither  understood  nor  approved  at 
first  by  the  French  Government.  W.  re- 
turned to  Paris,  "les  mains  vides;  seule- 
ment  a  chercher  dans  sa  poche  on  y  eut 
trouve  les  cles  de  la  Tunisie" — as  one  of 
his  friends  defined  the  situation  some 
years  ago.  He  was  almost  disavowed  by 
his  Government.  The  ministers  were 
timid  and  unwilling  that  France  should 
take  any  initiative — even  his  friend,  Leon 
Say,  then  minister  of  finances,  a  very 
clever  man  and  brilliant  politician,  said: 
"Notre  collegue  Waddington,  contre  son 
habitude,  s'est  emballe  cette  fois  pour  la 
question  de  la  Tunisie"  ("Our  colleague 
Waddington,  contrary  to  his  nature,  has 
quite  lost  his  head  this  time  over  the  Tu- 
nis question'').  I  think  the  course  of 
events  has  fully  justified  his  action,  and, 
now  that  it  has  proved  such  a  success, 
every  one  claims  to  have  taken  the  initia- 
tive of  the  French  Protectorate  of  Tunis. 
All  honors  have  been  paid  to  those  who 
carried  out  the  project,  and  very  little  is 
said  of  the  man  who  originated  the  scheme 
in  s[)ite  of  great  difficulties  at  home  and 
abroad.  Some  of  W.'s  friends  know  the 
truth. 

There  was  a  great  exchange  of  \isits, 
photographs,  and  autographs  the  last  days 
of  the  Congress.  Among  other  things 
which  W.  brought  back  from  Berlin,  and 
which  will  be  treasured  by  his  grandsons, 
as  a  historical  souvenir,  was  a  fan,  quite  a 
plain  wooden  fan,  with  the  signatures  of 


-21 


220 


Mv  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


all  the  plcnii>otentiarics — some  of  them 
very  characteristic.  The  French  signa- 
tures are  curiously  small  and  distinct,  a 
contrast  to  Bismarck's  smudge.  W.  was 
quite  sorry  to  say  good-by  to  some  of  his 
colleagues'.  Andrassi,  with  his  quick  sym- 
pathies and  instant  comprehension  of  all 
sides  of  a  question,  attracted  him  very 
much.  He  was  a  striking  personality, 
quite  the  Slav  type.  W.  had  little  private 
intercourse  with  Prince  GortschakofT — 
who  was  already  an  old  man  and  the  type 
of  the  old-fashioned  diplomatist — making 
very  long  and  well-turned  phrases  which 
made  people  rather  impatient.  For  the 
whole  W.  was  satisfied.  He  writes  two  or 
three  days  before  the  signing  of  the  treaty: 
*' As  far  as  I  can  see  at  present,  no  one  will 
be  satisfied  with  the  result  of  the  Con- 
gress; it  is  perhaps  the  best  proof  that  it  is 
dealing  fairly  and  equitably  with  the  very 
exaggerated  claims  and  pretensions  of  all 
parties.  Anyhow,  France  will  come  out 
of  the  whole  affair  honorably  and  having 
done  all  that  a  strictly  neutral  power  can 
do."  The  treaty  was  signed  on  July  13 
by  all  the  plenipotentiaries  in  full  uniform. 
W.  said  there  was  a  decided  feeling  of  sat- 
isfaction and  relief  that  it  was  finished. 
Even  Bismarck  looked  less  preoccupied, 
as  if  a  weight  had  been  lifted  from  his 
shoulders.  Of  course  he  was  supposed 
to  have  had  his  own  way  in  everything. 
Everybody  (not  only  French)  was  afraid 
of  him.  With  his  iron  will,  and  unscrupu- 
lous brushing  aside,  or  even  annihilating, 
everything  that  came  in  his  way,  he  was  a 
formidable  adversary.  There  was  a  gala 
dinner  at  the  Schloss,  to  celebrate  the  sign- 
ing of  the  treaty.  ''It  was  the  exact  rep- 
etition of  the  first,  at  the  opening  of  the 
Congress.  I  sat  on  the  left  of  Bismarck, 
and  had  a  good  deal  of  conversation  with 
him.  The  Crown  Prince  and  Princess 
were  just  opposite,  and  the  Princess  talked 
a  great  deal  with  me  across  the  table, 
always  in  English."  The  Crown  Princess 
could  never  forget  that  she  was  born  Prin- 
cess Royal  of  England.  Her  household 
was  managed  on  English  principles,  her 
children  brought  up  by  English  nurses, 


she  herself  always  spoke  English  with 
them.  Of  course  there  must  have  been 
many  things  in  Germany  which  were  dis- 
tasteful to  her, — so  many  of  the  small 
refinements  of  life  which  are  absolute 
necessaries  in  England  were  almost  un- 
known luxuries  in  Germany, — particu- 
larly when  she  married.  Now  there  has 
been  a  great  advance  in  comfort  and  even 
elegance  in  German  houses  and  habits. 
Her  English  proclivities  made  her  a  great 
many  enemies,  and  I  don't  believe  the 
''Iron  Chancellor"  made  things  easy  for 
her.  The  dinner  at  the  Schloss  was  as 
usual  at  six  o'clock,  and  at  nine  W.  had 
to  go  to  take  leave  of  the  Empress,  who 
was  very  French  in  her  sympathies,  and 
had  always  been  very  kind  to  him.  Her 
daughter,  the  Grand  Duchess  of  Baden, 
was  there,  and  W.  had  a  very  pleasant 
hour  with  the  two  ladies.  The  Empress 
asked  him  a  great  many  questions  about 
the  Congress,  and  particularly  about  Bis- 
marck— if  he  was  in  a  fairly  good  temper 
— when  he  had  his  nerves  he  was  sim- 
ply impossible,  didn't  care  what  people 
thought  of  him,  and  didn't  hesitate  to 
show  when  he  was  bored.  The  Grand 
Duchess  added  smilingly :  "  He  is  perfectly 
intolerant,  has  no  patience  with  a  fool." 
I  suppose  most  people  are  of  his  opinion. 
I  am  not  personally.  I  have  some  nice 
foolish,  kindly,  happy  friends  of  both 
sexes  I  am  always  glad  to  see;  I  think  they 
are  rather  resting  in  these  days  of  high 
education  and  culture  and  pose.  W.  fin- 
ished his  evening  at  Lady  Salisbury's, 
who  had  a  farewell  reception  for  all  the 
plenipotentiaries.  He  took  leave  of  his 
colleagues,  all  of  whom  had  been  most 
friendly.  The  only  one  who  was  a  little 
stiff  with  him  and  expressed  no  desire  to 
meet  him  again,  was  Corti,  the  Italian 
plenipotentiary.  He  suspected  of  course 
that  something  had  been  arranged  about 
Tunis,  and  was  much  annoyed  that  he 
hadn't  been  able  to  get  Tripoli  for  Italy. 
He  was  our  colleague  afterward  in  London, 
and  there  was  always  a  little  constraint 
and  coolness  in  his  manner.  W.  left  Berlin 
on  the  17  th,  having  been  five  weeks  away. 


MAJE:    A    LOVE    STORY 

BY  ARMISTEAD  C.  GORDON 


Illustrations    by   Walter    Biggs 


II 


'M  a  trifle  sleepy,  thank 
you,"  said  Maje  to  Cousin 
John,  in  response  to  the 
latter's  early-morning  in- 
quiry as  they  emerged 
from  the  Pullman.  *'  I'm 
not  used  to  travelling  in  a  bed.  There  was 
no  room  in  the  infernal  place  to  dress  and 
undress,  and  I  couldn't  tell  which  was  the 
head  and  which  was  the  foot.  I  put  the 
pillow  in  the  direction  we  were  going,  to 
keep  from  feeling  that  I  was  travelling 
feet  foremost  to  my  own  funeral." 

John  chuckled. 

"There  was  a  young  woman  just  across 
the  way  from  the  place  you  were  in,  John. 
Did  you  see  her?  Yes,  sir!  A  young 
woman  there  in  that  car!  By  heavens, 
sir!     It's  not  decent!" 

Cousin  John's  chuckle  waned  into  a 
sombre  smile.     Then  he  looked  serious. 

''New  style  o'  uniform  at  de  Soldiers' 
Home,  an'  new  kind  o'  brass  buttons  on 
'em ! "  commented  the  Pullman  porter,  as 
he  watched  the  major  moving  down  the 
station  platform,  bearing  over  his  shoul- 
der the  saddle-bags  that  he  had  refused  to 
permit  John  to  carry. 

''  Whar  he  come  f 'om?  "  asked  the  other 
Pullman  porter.    ''An'  what  dat  he  got? " 

They  were  running  on  this  trip  in  ad- 
jacent cars. 

"Soldiers'  Home,  I  reck'n;  but  I  ain't 
never  seed  none  like  him.  Dem's  his 
clothes-bag,  I  'spec'." 

"De  gent'mun  dat's  wid  him  give  me 
half-a-dollar  for  dustin'  him  ofT.  I  ast 
dat  ole  feller,  after  he  got  on  dem  uni- 
form clo'es: 

'"Dust  ye  off,  sir?' 

"'Do  what?'  he  says,  lookin'  at  me  as 
fierce  as  a  lizard. 

'"Dust  ye  off?'  says  I. 

'"No,  damn  you,'   he 
dusty!' 


says,   'I   ain't 


"Den  I  hear  him  tell  the  t'other  one: 

'"I  didn'  want  him  to  put  his  han's  on 
dis  uniform.'" 

A  double-barrelled  shout  of  laughter 
arose  from  two  jocund  pairs  of  Ethiopian 
lungs,  and  each  black  Pullman  porter 
climbed  back  into  his  car. 

Maje  and  his  companion  passed  down 
the  long  platform,  thronged  with  peoi)le 
coming  and  going,  and  crowded  with  over- 
laden baggage  and  express  trucks  that 
were  pushed  by  men,  also  in  uniform. 

But  the  major  noted  that  there  was  no 
uniform  there  like  his. 

They  entered  the  great  waiting-room, 
where  innumerable  travellers  sat  about 
the  benches,  some  with  bundles  and  bags 
and  others  with  valises  and  suit-cases 
piled  about  them.  Maje  looked  around, 
but  failed  to  see  a  pair  of  saddle-bags 
anywhere. 

Yet  he  made  no  sign. 

They  went  into  the  passenger  elevator 
that  was  to  take  them  to  the  lower  floor 
on  the  street  level.  Cousin  John  had 
watched,  at  intervals,  the  old  man's  face 
as  they  came  down  the  platform  through 
the  jostling  crowd,  past  snorting  engines 
and  through  the  din  of  travel.  There  had 
been  no  lifting  of  an  eyebrow  of  wonder 
or  surprise.  In  the  major's  serene  ex- 
pression was  the  perfect  breeding  of  the 
old  regime. 

When  the  elevator  began  its  raj)id  de- 
scent, Maje  was  struck  with  a  sudden 
physical  pang.  He  felt  as  if  something 
had  given  way  inside  him. 

"John,"  he  gasi)ed.  "By  heavens,  I 
don't  like  this  business!  Where  are  they 
carrying  us?" 

But  there  was  no  hint  of  ap})rchen- 
sion  in  the  query.  It  was  a  question 
that  souglit  inforniatioii.  The  courage 
that  had  esteemed  it  worth  a  million  dol- 
lars to  be  first  in  tlie  Blcxxly  Angle  did 
not  wane  in  the  imminence  of  any  untried 
danger. 

221 


ooo 


Maje:    A   Love  Story 


''It's  all  right,  major,"  said  Cousin 
John.  *'\Vc  are  just  getting  down  to  the 
street." 

''I  hadn't  observed  before  that  we 
were  up  in  the  air,"  said  Maje  sarcastic- 
ally, as  they  emerged  from  the  elevator 
car.  "I  didn't  know  we  were  so  high  up 
we  had  to  alight  like  birds  on  the  limb  of  a 
tree." 

The  hurr>-ing  and  self-centred  public 
glanced  at  him  curiously,  generally  with 
a  smile,  and  almost  always  \nth  immedi- 
ate forgetfulness. 

An  elderly  lady,  with  gray  hair  and 
with  sorrow  written  in  the  wrinkles  of  her 
kindly  countenance,  gazed  at  Maje  as 
they  stood  near  together  on  the  curb, 
awaiting  the  approaching  street-car. 
There  was  something  about  her  that  re- 
minded him  of  his  mother;  but  he  did  not 
understand  why  she  should  be  crying  as 
she  looked  at  his  gray  uniform.  The 
tears  were  trickling  down  her  cheeks,  and 
she  could  not  wipe  them  away  because 
she  had  a  satchel  in  one  hand  and  the 
hand  of  a  little  girl  in  the  other. 

''She's  her  little  granddaughter," 
thought  Maje,  regarding"  the  bright  and 
eager  face  of  the  child.  "  She's  about  old 
enough  to  be  her  granddaughter." 

''Our  car,  major!"  called  Cousin  John, 
breaking  in  on  his  ^ever}^ 

Maje  looked  up  the  street,  and  saw  the 
electric  car  come  w^hizzing  dowTi  the  hill 
and  stop  opposite  to  where  they  v:ere 
standing. 

"Great  Scott,  John,  what's  pulling 
it?"  he  queried. 

It  was  the  first  time  his  kinsman  had 
seen  him  express  surprise  or  a  sense  of 
tixC  unaccustomed. 

"Electricity,  major,"  explained  Cous- 
in John. 

They  climbed  into  the  car  by  the  rear 
platform,  follow^ing  the  kindly-faced  wom- 
an and  the  little  girl. 

"Let's  get  up  in  front,  John,"  said 
Maje  eagerly.  "I  want  to  see  how^  it 
works.  WTiy,  it's  something  tremenjousi 
Yes,  sir,  tremenjous!  Let's  get  up  there 
by  the  driver.  Driver?  Why,  he's  got 
neither  reins  nor  animals!  He's  turning 
a  blamed  iron  crank!" 

The  major's  voice  could  be  heard 
abo^-e  the  roar  of  the  moving  car. 

John  led  the  way  forward  to  a  front 


seat  which  chanced  to  be  vacant;  and  the 
Major  sat  down  with  shining  eyes.  The 
street  was  gray  in  the  cold  morning  light 
and  the  long  car  was  crowded  with  men 
and  women. 

There  was  not  one  of  them,  how^ever 
faded,  or  worn  and  indifferent,  or  rebel- 
lious against  fate,  who  had  failed  to  look 
up,  with  a  swift  if  transient  interest,  at 
the  pathetic  figure  as  it  went  up  the 
aisle. 

"Shades  of  the  past,  Henry!"  said  an 
old  man  with  a  close-clipped  gray  mus- 
tache and  dark  eyes  to  his  younger  com- 
panion W'ho  sat  by  him.  "Look  at  that, 
will  you?  It's  the  ghost  of  the  Con- 
federacy!" 

The  major  waited  expectantly,  while 
John  stepped  out  on  the  platform  in 
front,  and,  in  violation  of  the  company's 
rules,  engaged  the  motorman  in  conversa- 
tion. He  had  a  five-dollar  note  crum- 
pled in  his  shut  right  hand  when  he  w^ent 
out  w^hich  was  not  there  w^hen  he  re- 
turned. 

"Yes,  he  says  it's  all  right.  But  don't 
stay  long,  major,"  said  John. 

Maje  arose  and  passed  through  the 
open  front  door  of  the  car,  and  the  near- 
est passengers  wondered.  There  was  a 
crow'd  at  the  rear,  which  had  got  on  at 
the  last  stopping-place.  The  conductor 
was  very  busy. 

"Do  you  think  you  can  make  it?" 
queried  Maje  of  the  motorman. 

"Think  what?"  asked  the  motorman, 
surprised. 

"Make  this  hill?  Do  you  think  you 
can  make  it?" 

The  grade  was  a  very  heavy  one. 
The  motorman  smiled,  and  looked  at  his 
questioner  derisively. 

"I  been  makin'  it  for  twelve  months," 
he  said.  "I  don't  reckon  it's  goin'  to 
break  dow^n  this  morning  because  you're 
aboard." 

"By  heavens,  it's  marvellous!"  ex- 
claimed the  major.  "Up-hill  all  the  way 
and  not  an  animal  or  a  steam-engine  in 
sight!" 

The  man  at  the  wheel  smiled  again, 
but  the  derision  w^as  gone. 

He  looked  at  the  gilt  stars  on  the  collar 
of  the  gray  coat,  and  at  the  broken  ostrich 
plume.  He  did  not  know  what  to  think. 
He  had  had  scant  experience  heretofore 
with  five-dollar  fools. 


Drawn  by  Walter  Biggs. 

Ihe  inaj'T  took  hib  place,  with  his  foot  against  the  brake  and  his  hand  on  the  lever. — Page  224, 


Vol.  LV.— 22 


!23 


:i  Mare:    A  Lore  Sterv 

"3-  -  .'     _r«:e:  IL.  c.        J^^^^    "x.j±^  is  ije   :j-r^iiij  5:u5;ff  "lie-  ETi-^t»rrr 

"■  T7^t~r-^'T^.      FFc^  Till.-  -TiaSf^ 

-    'ic::  IZif  Ztfw  Hjiciif^  .irraf 

-3'_    ^>u5r  <mf  lie^  ics- 


T&ecsri  oiactwiii 


avr 


J^IIMIllli  Jllfcl        ^II  r 


1^ 


n:L.      "  I  t. 


siooden         1  Ar 


totLi 


Tcs^-  sad  yr 


Maje:    A   L.e  Story 

: — '    Ycs-be'sfcere^ow-.    Yes, 

i  sxy.  SiiZy —    Vcs.    He  waais  to 

lo^noB.   Haikpatstsa?  Yol  It'sal 

1%^    Yt^    Yes- 

-K-as  ar  s.  H:  lUqgto^ 

'xV  idtkapmiedloak, 

:scBt  had  dBippared,  stepped 
•cid  the  TBoavtr  to  Us  cv. 


i:Sft 


sont  ->  9>  ^  P'tttJ  Yes.  jrs. 


i^ 


Jles,  t-.  - 

for  a.  cjaiUflT  <m  <■■*  He  dvc*                                amd 

-'smthcT9matfs,€HA  back  f '                                          e 

-  the  di^,  OB  the  kvpi.                                            --k  re- 

.  ftr  to  taft:  to  ^weL 

berr  •'Hi 

*  L                      .  _'rj  -     Why,  <tf  CDHQC^  cvido:                                                         t«r 

I  .                         iier.    I  lonne  to  ta&  to  «^  xl                                                     ^ 

be:.     Tii^i  s  -^rzj  I  adaed  yam  vhea  ^k  ahi^r^ 

^^fe  B  an  g^iiMMMK-  *^Wiill:                                              -^  ^  v 

______             ^:r Mjr to taft: tOL^  ward  €d  iT" 

"  I  meLzi-  T                   ^e  to  talk  to  her  ik!    Al 

;\tso  iii 

ha.     __  •:     :.__.. 

T  expres-  I  fcrkrsM-  -.                                                c  wtt  to 

jiriilj  tir. 
Ye 


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> 


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it  is  I' 
h-    I*  ^  sit. 


rfld      to 


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Ml  Yes.    Y  -r' 

'  «fu2.    Bie  ^  s  xaoe  was  a  ty  ir- 

yetsst-  

itkeb  _ 


22() 


Maje :    A   Love  Story 


grow  deeper,  and  tlie  scar  on  his  forehead 
was  \ery  while. 

"I'd  like  to  go  home,  to-morrow, 
John,"  he  said  gently. 

"Oh,  no!"  said  John.  ''We  haven't 
seen  anything  of  you  yet." 

iMaje  continued  wrapped  in  thought. 
This  latest  experience  eclipsed  the  street- 
car and  the  light.  It  was  beyond  his 
comprehension;  yet,  in  some  subtle,  in- 
definable way,  full  of  a  vague  and  beau- 
tiful promise. 

''I  wonder  if  Mary  knows  about  it?" 
he  said  at  length,  abstractedly. 

''Knows  about  what?"  queried  Cousin 
John,  with  unflagging  interest  in  the  ma- 
jor. 

"About  this — about  this — about — 
about — all  this  electricity,"  he  faltered. 
"This,  what  do  you  call  it?" 

"Telephone?"  asked  John. 

"Yes,  telephone,"  repeated  the  major. 

"Oh,  I  guess  so.  'Most  every  one 
does,"  said  John. 

Then  he  added  confidingly:  "Tell  me 
about  her." 

"Her?"  queried  the  major,  with  wan- 
dering thought. 

"Yes,  her.  Your  Mary,  as  you  call 
her.  You  know  you  said  in  your  letter 
to  Sally,  which  invited  me  to  go  down  for 
you  and  bring  you  up  here,  that  it  was 
because  you  had  heard  from  Miss — she's 
Miss  Mary,  isn't  she,  major?  " 

"Miss?  Miss?"  repeated  Maje,  ex- 
citedly. "Why,  of  course  she's  miss! 
How  could  she  be  anything  else?  Didn't 
she  say  that  she  had  never  loved  any 
other  man  but  me?" 

His  voice  was  in  a  quavering  key,  and 
the  point  of  his  Van  Dyke  beard  was 
thrust  forward  aggressively. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  major,"  said 
John.  "Certainly  I  knew,  if  I  had 
stopped  to  think.  Tell  me  about  Miss 
Mary  while  we  wait  for  Sally.  We'll 
have  dinner  when  Sally  comes." 

He  drew  his  chair  confidentially  nearer 
to  Maje's. 

"Well,  you  see,"  the  old  man  began, 
and  his  restored  serenity  indicated  that 
his  ill  humor  had  been  only  momentary, 
"I  told  Sally  in  my  letter  that  I  had 
heard  from  Mary  after  a  long  silence  be- 
tween us,  and  that  it  was  my  purpose  to 
go  to  see  her,  because  she  had  said  it 


would  be  a  great  pleasure  to  her  to  see 
me  again.  As  it  would  be  to  me,  of 
course,  to  see  her,"  he  added  meditatively, 
stroking  the  now  mollified  beard. 

John  listened,  and  Maje  continued: 

"I  wrote  Sally  that  I  wanted  to  come 
up  here,  and  have  you  and  her  get  me 
back  into  the  world  again  before  I  went. 
I  knew  I  was  behind  the  times,  John." 

John  gave  no  sign  of  assent  to  Maje's 
transparently  correct  proposition. 

"So  I  wrote  Mary  a  letter,  in  which  I 
told  her  that  I  should  call  on  her  in  the 
early  spring.  Yes,  in  the  early  spring,  I 
said.  It  seemed  to  me  an  unusually  ap- 
propriate season  to  see  her, again,  after 
so  long  a  while;  you  understand,  John 
— in  the  spring,  when  the  flowers  are  be- 
ginning to  bloom,  and  the  greenness 
comes  back  to  things.  She  always  re- 
minded me  of  the  spring,  with  her  sweet, 
fresh  young  face  and  her  joyousness." 

The  old  man  paused  in  his  reminiscence, 
and  continued  to  finger  his  beard  thought- 
fully. 

John  did  not  speak  or  move. 

"She  had  said  in  her  letter  to  me  that 
she  had  always  loved  me,"  continued 
Maje,  "and  she  signed — yes,  I  have  no 
difhculty  in  telling  you — she  signed  her 
name  at  the  bottom  of  the  page, 
'Your '" 

He  turned  his  face  from  the  glow  of  the 
electric  light  that  shone  reflected  in  the 
polished  surface  of  the  library  table;  and 
the  fingers  of  the  slim  left  hand,  that 
had  played  with  the  gray  Van  Dyke 
beard,  moved  irresolutely  in  the  direction 
of  his  eyes  as  if  to  shade  them. 

"'Your  own  Mary,'"  Maje  concluded, 
turning  to  John  with  an  air  of  defiance. 
"Yes,  sir.     'Your  own  Mary.'" 

"And  when  you  see  her  in  the  spring? " 
queried  John,  seeking  the  climax  of  the 
romance. 

"Why,  I  shall  ask  her  to  marry  me, 
of  course,"  said  Maje.  "And  I'm  sure 
she  will.  She  said  in  her  letter  that  she 
was  an  invalid,  and  had  been  confined  to 
her  couch  for  many  years.  She'll  need 
me  to  care  for  her." 

Maje  was  standing  up  now,  in  the 
pride  of  his  imagined  prospects. 

"Did  she  speak  of  her  financial  cir- 
cumstances?" asked  John. 

"Financial  circumstances?  She  speak 
of  her  financial   circumstances?    Why, 


\ 


i 


Drawn  by  Waller  Bii^i^i,. 

He  was  fond  of  walking  out  in  the  bright,  crisp  winter  afternoons,  with  Sally  on  one  side  of  him  and  John  oo 

the  other. — Page  230. 


337 


228 


Maje:    A  Love  Story 


of  course  she  didn't!  Ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen don't  discuss  linancial  circum- 
stances, sir.  Why,  sir,  I  never  in  my 
life  remember  to  ha\-e  heard  either  my 
father  or  my  mother  mention  the  subject 

of  money." 

Maje  was  genuinely  astonished  at  John's 

question.     It  betrayed  a  lack  of  taste. 

"But  times  have  changed,  major," 
protested  John;  "I  have  heard  that  her 
people,  like  many  others,  became  very 
much  impo\-erished  after  the  war." 

''I  don't  know,  sir,  and  I  don't  care, 
sir,"  responded  Maje  decisively.  ''Not 
a  damn,  sir;  no,  sir,  not  a  damn,  sir. 
That  does  not  occur  to  me,  sir.  I  do 
not  think  of  it.  No,  sir,  I  do  not  think 
of  it." 

John  regarded  the  old  man  with  misty 
eyes  of  affection  and  anxiety. 

"Now,  major,"  he  said  gently,  "I'm 
awfully  glad  Miss  Mary  loves  you  after 
all  these  years.  Awfully  glad.  It  is  a 
beautiful  thing  to  have  won  and  kept 
such  an  affection  as  your  Mary's.  It  is  a 
noble  tribute  to  both  of  you,  that  your 
affections  continue." 

Maje,  Avho  had  resumed  his  seat, 
swelled  with  gratified  consequence. 

"But,  major " 

John's  voice  faltered,  and  he  hesi- 
tated as  he  looked  at  the  old  man  sitting 
there  with  the  grayness  of  age  upon  him, 
and  with  only  one  hope  left  in  life. 

"What?"  queried  the  major,  regarding 
him  benignly  from  his  easy  chair. 

"Don't  you  think,  now — ?  Take  it 
kindly  from  me,  major.  Don't  you  think 
you  will  make  a  mistake  to  visit  Miss 
Mary  in  the  spring?" 

"I  can't  well  go  sooner,  John.  There 
are  a  number  of  things— — ^" 

"But  you  don't  understand  me,"  said 
John,  laying  his  hand  upon  the  major's 
knee  that  was  nearest  to  him.  "You 
are  an  old  man  now." 

"What  the  devil  has  that  got  to  do 
with  it,  sir?  What  do  you  mean,  sir?" 
asked  Maje,  jumping  up  and  glaring  at 
him  with  eyes  of  aroused  suspicion. 

"None  of  us  can  cherish  illusions  and 
find  them  realities  in  the  end,  major," 
pleaded  John.     "It  is  a  vain  effort." 

"But  didn't  she  say  that  she  had  al- 
ways loved  me?  "  Maje  demanded  fiercely. 

"Sit  down,  major,  sit  down,"  said 
John.     "The    lady,    like    yourself,    has 


grown  old.  Of  course  she  has.  Even 
the  early  springs,  with  their  flowers  and 
their  green  grasses,  that  you  and  she  knew 
together  so  beautifully  in  your  youth, 
were  very  different  springs  from  these 
that  come  now.  There  will  never  be  any 
other  springs  like  them,  major.  She  is 
decrepit  and  bed-ridden.  She  has  no 
property.     She  is  helpless " 

"All  the  more  reason — "  exclaimed 
Maje. 

His  voice  was  pitched  on  the  key  of  ex- 
citement. 

"Major,  she  would  seem  very  different 
to  you  now  from  what  she  seemed  as  a 
girl.  Stop  and  think  of  it.  The  years 
bring  crow's-feet  and  wrinkles  and — 
and — the  lady  has  grown  old." 

Maje  jumped  up  again  in  a  frenzy  of 
agitation.  He  waved  his  hands  in  the 
air  in  protest. 

"By — ,  sir!"  he  shouted,  "a  beauti- 
ful woman  never  grows  old!" 

"What's  all  this  about  a  beautiful 
woman?"  called  a  laughing  voice  from 
the  library  threshold;  and  the  major, 
turning,  saw  John's  wife,  Sally,  standing 
there.  Her  cheeks  were  rosy  with  the 
winter's  cold  and  her  eyes  sparkled.  To 
John  she  had  never  seemed  more  bewitch- 
ing than  as  she  appeared,  radiant  in  her 
silks  and  furs,  and  charmed  with  the 
novelty  of  having  the  dear  old  man  a 
guest  under  the  roof-tree. 

She  ran  up  to  Maje,  and  putting  her 
arms  about  his  neck,  drew  his  wrinkled 
face  down  to  her  fresh  one  and  kissed  him. 

"Talk  of  angels — "  he  began,  gallantly. 

"You  dear,  dear!"  she  said,  releasing 
him,  and  patting  him  on  the  arm.  "And 
so  you  really  and  truly  thought  I  was  in 
the  room  all  the  time!" 

"Get  your  traps  off,  Sally,"  said  John, 
looking  at  her  with  glistening,  idiotic 
eyes;  and  as  she  left  the  room  he  said  to 
Maje: 

"You're  right,  major.  By  jings,  you 
're  right!  Our  beautiful  women  never 
grow  old!" 

It  had  been  a  pleasant  week  for  John 
and  Sally;  and  they  missed  the  gentle  old 
man  very  much  when  he  was  gone.  He 
had  stayed  in  the  house  so  constantly, — 
for  he  declined  to  move  out  of  it  with- 
out Sally, — and  he  required  so  much 
looking  after,  and  seemed  to  thrive  so  on 


o 


230 


Maje:    A   Love  Story 


what  she  called  "coddling,"  that  Sally 
was  even  more  conscious  and  regretful  of 
his  departure  than  was  John.  John  had 
wished  to  invite  some  of  his  friends  to 
meet  him  at  dinner,  but  he  had  declined. 
Even  the  suggestion  that  there  were  two 
or  three  old  army  comrades  of  his  one- 
time acquaintance  in  the  city,  who  would 
be  glad  to  see  him  again,  was  dismissed 
by  him  with  indifference. 

"Thirty-five  years  will  separate  most 
men  like  eternity,"  he  said.  "It  is  only 
woman's  love  for  man  on  which  time 
makes  no  impression.  Moreover,  Sally, 
my  dear,  I  have  put  the  past  behind  me. 
I  am  looking  only  to  the  future  now.  My 
face  is  turned  to  the  sunrise." 

On  the  evening  after  his  arrival  she 
had  told  him  that  John  would  take  him 
that  night  to  the  club;  and  this  proffered 
invitation  he  had  declined  also.  Yet 
there  had  been  nothing  churlish  or  ill- 
mannered  in  his  refusal  to  mingle  again 
with  the  world.  It  seemed  so  natural 
both  to  John  and  Sally  to  hear  his  serene 
and  quiet  declinations — so  much  a  very 
part  of  himself  that  none  of  their  pro- 
posed entertainments  of  him  should  ap- 
peal to  him — that  they  found  them- 
selves at  last  unconsciously  wondering 
that  they  had  ever  suggested  them. 

He  was  fond  of  walking  out  in  the 
bright,  crisp  winter  afternoons,  with  Sally 
on  one  side  of  him  and  John  on  the  other, 
along  the  city's  most  fashionable  avenue; 
and  it  was  then  that,  with  genuine  de- 
light, his  companions  observed  most  his 
high-bred  bearing,  and  the  elegant  cour- 
tesy in  his  recognition  of  the  passing  salu- 
tations of  their  friends. 

"I  wonder  where  on  earth  Sally  got 
him,"  more  than  one  of  her  young-woman 
associates  had  asked  each  other.  "He's 
arky-looking,  but  he  really  has  beautiful 
manners.  It  was  worth  a  walk  for  three 
blocks  to  get  that  bow.  The  young 
ones  can't  do  it  that  way." 

Once  John  brought  two  of  his  men 
friends  in  to  dinner.  When  Maje  learned 
that  they  were  in  the  house  he  told  Sally 
that  he  was  feeling  tired,  and  that  he 
would  go  to  his  room.  He  was  un- 
dressed and  fast  asleep  under  the  snowy 
bedclothes  of  the  brass  bed  when  the 
dining-room  servant  came  an  hour  later 
to  fetch  his  dinner,  that  "Miss  Sally" 
had  sent  him  on  a  waiter. 


"I  don't  want  to  see  anybody  but  you 
and  John,  Sally,"  he  said  to  her  next 
morning  after  breakfast,  while  she  sat  by 
him  and  held  his  hand,  when  John  had 
gone  down-town  to  the  bank.  Then  she 
asked  him  about  Mary  and  the  old  love 
story  of  his  youth;  and  he  told  it  to  her 
again  and  again,  with  the  fond  iteration 
of  love's  young  dream  and  with  the  gen- 
tle smile  on  his  withered  face  that  the 
story  never  failed  to  awaken. 

"Her  eyes  are  blue,  and  she  looks  not 
unlike  you,  Sally,"  Maje  said,  with  his 
more  than  thirty-years-old  memory  of  his 
Mary.  "Only  I  think  she  is  not  quite  so 
tall  as  you  are,  my  dear,  but  equally 
erect.  She  comes  considerably  above  my 
shoulder.  I  would  say,  to  here,"  he 
concluded,  measuring. 

Thus  day  after  day  he  had  described 
her  in  the  infinite  and  unforgotten  detail 
of  youth  and  loveliness  to  the  young  and 
lovely  woman  who  listened  and  sympa- 
thized with  every  word. 

"She  lives  more  than  two  hundred 
miles  from  my  house,"  he  said.  "It  is  a 
long  distance,  Sally,  and  her  home  is  al- 
most as  far  from  the  railroad  as  mine  is. 
It  takes  a  letter  a  long  time  togoandcome." 

He  was  thinking  of  the  telephone. 

"It  will  be  very  beautiful  for  you  and 
Mary  to  be  together  again,"  Sally  said, 
still  holding  the  old  man's  hand  in  hers. 

"Yes,"  he  answered  dreamily,  "very 
beautiful  and  very  sweet,  my  dear,  after 
so  long  a  time.  Itwill  be  pretty  soon, now." 

Then  she  dropped  the  nervous  hand 
and  hurried  from  the  room. 

Two  weeks  went  by,  and  no  news  came 
to  John  and  Sally  from  Maje,  although  he 
had  promised  them  that  he  would  write 
as  soon  as  he  had  sent  a  letter  to  Mary. 

On  a  bright  morning  in  early  April 
Sally  said  to  John : 

"I  wonder  if  the  major  has  started  on 
his  journey  yet?  The  spring  that  he  was 
waiting  for  is  here." 

The  morning's  mail  lay  on  the  break- 
fast table;  and,  turning  it  over,  she  found 
a  letter  postmarked  "  Kay ,"  which  proved, 
when  opened,  to  have  been  written  to 
John  in  Mr.  Martin's  crude  chirography 
at  Hercules's  dictation.     It  ran  thus: 

"Honored  Sir: 

"Major  has  not  been  well  since  he  got 


Maje:    A   Love  Story 


231 


home  from  yours.  1  think  he  caught 
cold  of  cutting  of  his  hair.  He  has  been 
working  too  hard  for  him  since  he  got 
back,  having  never  before  had  to  work  a 
lick  in  his  Hfe.  I  think  he  has  strained 
his  mind  somewhat  and  likewise  his 
body.  I  think  he  is  sick.  I  am  pestered 
about  him.  I  think  I  would  feel  better  if 
you  would  come  down  and  take  a  look  at 
him.  He  don't  know  anything  about  it. 
Honored  sir,  your  respectful,  obedient 

'^Hercules. 
"P.  S. — That  is  the  way  the  colored 
man  instructed  me  to  write  it, 

''Resp'y, 

"Kay  Martin." 

So  John  and  Sally  went,  taking  with 
them  somewhat  anxious  hearts,  and  a 
hamper  of  things  for  the  major's  comfort. 
Hercules  came  through  the  scrub-pines 
and  broom-sedge,  and  met  the  carry-all 
by  the  old  pine-tree,  where  the  barn  used 
to  stand.  He  professed  to  pilot  the 
driver  by  the  easiest  route  to  the  house; 
but  in  reality  he  only  walked  at  the  wheel 
of  the  vehicle,  and  talked  to  John  all  the 
way  to  the  front  steps. 

**Yes,  sir.  He  has  been  carryin'  on 
mighty  foolish  an'  strange  sence  he  got 
back,"  he  said;  *'I  ain't  nuver  seed  him 
so  res'less,  sence  he  was  in  de  war.  D'ye 
see  all  dem  yonder  strings  an'  tomaters- 
cans  an'  things  nailed  up  ag'in'  dem  trees, 
an'  tied  together  f'om  one  tree  to  an- 
uther?     Duz  ye  see  'em?" 

John  looked  and  saw  them. 

"Well,  I  gwi'  tell  ye  'bout  'em.  Dat's 
what's  de  matter  w^id  him, — dem  very 
things  dar  in  dem  bushes.  I  ain't  been 
able  to  do  nothin'  at  all  wid  him.  He 
done  got  plum'  beyond  me.  He  been  had 
me  clim'in'  trees,  an'  nailin'  up  tomaters- 
cans,  an'  stretchin'  twine-strings,  'twell 
I'm  mighty  nigh  broke  down.  An'  dat 
ain't  all.  Me  an'  him  is  done  cut  mo' 
railroad  ties  dan  'ud  make  a  codderoy 
road  endurin'  o'  de  times  o'  de  Bloody 
Wrangle.  I  done  got  all  sorts  o'  warts  an' 
whelks  an'  calluses  an'  bunions  in  de 
parms  o'  my  han's,  foolin'  long  o'  all  o' 
dese  here  things. 

"Faus',  she  say  I  ain't  nuv.jr  gwi'  git 
shet  o'  'em." 

The  two  visitors  in  the  carry-all  peer- 
ing to  where  the  old  negro  pointed,  saw  a 
Vol.  LV.— 23 


long  line  of  battered  tin  cans  nailed  one 
after  the  other  against  the  upper  trunks 
of  many  of  the  scrub-pines;  while  stretch- 
ing between  them,  from  tree  to  tree,  was 
dimly  visible  on  nearer  approach  a  line  of 
stout  twine  cord  connecting  them. 

"I  bought  a  ball  o'  dat  string  at  Kay 
Martin's,  wid  hunnerds  an'  hunnerds  o' 
yards  ter  it;  an'  don't  you  know,  sir, 
Maje  done  use  up  de  whole  ball?  p:f  I 
was  ter  go  out  de  house  at  night  an'  walk 
aroun'  dis  here  yard  in  de  dark,  I'd  run 
de  risk  o'  bein'  hung  up  wid  dat  'ar  string, 
like  King  David's  son,  Absolute,  in  de 
Scriptchurs. 

"An'  what  you  reck'n  he  call  it?  He 
say  he  got  a  telephome.  D'ye  see  yon- 
der whar  it  run  inter  de  winder  thoo  dat 
broke'  pane  o'  glass?  Maje,  he  in  dat 
very  room  now,  whar  dat  string  runs  in, 
in  his  bed,  wid  a  tomaters-can  on  de 
piller  by  him,  an'  dat  string  stuck  thoo  a 
hole  in  de  bottom  o'  it. 

"  'Fo'  Gord,  sir,  I  dunno  what  de  mat- 
ter ^\'id  de  man.  Faus'  she  say  she  think 
it's  all  along  o'  dat  bullick  in  his  head 
what  he  got  at  de  Wrangle.  She  say  de 
bullick  ain't  nuver  got  out,  an'  dat  it's 
a-workin'." 

Hercules  escorted  the  Wsitors  up  the 
creaking  steps  and  into  the  old  library, 
where  a  cheerful  log  fire  was  burning  on 
the  brass  fire-dogs,  in  front  of  which  the 
major's  well-worn  leather  chair  stood 
empty.  The  books  on  the  shelves  were 
in  their  due  places;  and  the  backs  of 
many  of  them  were  as  worn  and  battered 
as  the  frayed  furniture  of  the  apartment. 
In  the  faded  tapestry  caq^et  every  thread 
of  warp  and  woof  was  literally  bare. 
Three  jonquils  hung  on  languid  stems 
from  the  neck  of  a  black  bottle  which 
stood  on  the  corner  of  the  mantel-piece. 

But  for  all  its  poverty  the  room  was 
scrupulously  clean. 

John  surveyed  the  books  in  their  cases, 
and  took  two  or  three  of  the  newest-look- 
ing ones  from  the  shehes.  None  of  them 
bore  a  later  date  on  the  title-page  than 
1861. 

"Faus',  she  is  done  yaired  de  comp'ny 
room  fur  you-all,''  Hercules  said.  "She 
gwi'  come  pres'n'y,  an'  show  you  de  way. 
She  got  a  good  fire  up  dar.  It's  cool  dese 
here  spring  days,  ebcn  ef  de  flowers  is 
a-bloomin'." 


2:V2 


Maje:    A  Love  Story 


He  looked  significantly  at  the  jonquils 
in  the  bottle. 

"I  sho'ly  is  glad  you-all  is  done  come," 
he  said,  sincerely. 

When  Sally  had  taken  off  her  wraps, 
and  together  the  trio  had  opened  the 
hamper  which  John  and  Hercules  had 
transported  from  the  carry-all  into  the 
library,  and  after  they  had  arranged  its 
varied  contents  on  mantel-piece  and 
chairs  and  floor,  Sally  asked: 

"Can  we  see  him  now?" 

Hercules,  with  a  Chesterfieldian  bow, 
answered  her: 

"He  'sleep,  now,  young  lady.  Yes'm, 
he  'sleep.  'Spec'  we  better  not  disturb 
him  yit.  When  he  wake  up,  I  gwi'  tell 
him  you-all  is  done  come,  madam.  He 
ain't  sleep  much  lately.     No,  ma'am." 

The  green  wood  and  the  rotten  fence 
rails  on  the  blazing  hearth  combined  to 
make  an  odd  noise  of  burning  timber  and 
sputtering  sap. 

"Been  putting  up  telephones,  has  he?" 
queried  John,  turning  from  the  book- 
shelves with  a  vague  smile,  and  holding 
his  hands  out  to  the  cheerful  blaze. 

"Yes,  sir.  Yes,  sir.  Dat  he  is,"  said 
Hercules.  "An'  buildin'  electric  rail- 
roads, too.  But  he  didn'  keep  dat  up 
long.  He  cudden  git  no  kyars,  he  say. 
It's  de  telephome  what  pleases  him  de 
mos'.  He's  a-talkin'  in  dat  mos'  o'  de 
time,  sir.     Yes,  sir.     Dat  he  is." 

"Who  does  he  talk  to?"  asked  Sally 
anxiously,  with  utter  disregard  of  her 
grammar. 

She  was  troubled  to  hear  these  stories 
of  her  dear  old  friend. 

"He  talkin'  ter  Miss  Mary,  he  say, 
ma'am,"  responded  Hercules.  "I  'spec' 
dat  what  he's  doin',  too,  'ca'se  it  soun'  like 
she  was  a-talkin'  back  ter  him." 

Hercules  proceeded  to  repeat  one  of 
Maje's  conversations  with  Miss  Mary 
over  the  phone. 

"You  see,  we  can't' hear  nothin'  she 
say, — me  an'  Faus'  can't,"  he  explained. 
"But  he  can  hear  her,  beca'se  he's  an- 
swerin'  back  what  she  say  ter  him.  Dat's 
what  troubles  me  an'  Faus'.  We  kinder 
skeered  about  dis  here  business.  Dat 
how-come  we  wanted  you-all  ter  come  an' 
see  what  de  matter  wid  him." 

"Why,  what  is  there  to  scare  you?" 
asked  John,  surprised. 


He  had  not  yet  come  to  take  as  grave  a 
view  of  the  situation  as  Sally  had;  and 
he  couldn't  understand  why  the  black 
man  should  be  alarmed. 

"De  'oman,  she's  dead,  you  know,  sir," 
said  Hercules. 

"  What  woman?  "  asked  John,  and  Sally 
listened  with  blanched  face. 

"You  know,  he  been  had  a  correspon'- 
ence  wid  de  lady  what  he  was  in  love  wid 
when  he  was  young,  dat  is  ter  say,  de  one 
he  call  his  Miss  Mary.  Dey  hadn'  heerd 
f'om  one  annu'r  fur  a  long  time,  not  sence 
de  war;  an'  he  writ  her  a  letter,  an'  she 
say  would  he  come  ter  see  her.  Dat  how- 
come  he  went  ter  you-all's  house — fur 
ter  git  fixed  up,  so  he  could  go  courtin' 
ag'in." 

"Yes,  yes,  we  understand  all  that," 
interrupted  Sally;  "but  tell  us  the  rest." 

"Well,  ma'am,  whilst  he  was  gone,  a 
letter  come  ter  Kay  Martin's  ter  him 
f'om  de  place  whar  Miss  Mary  live.  Kay 
Martin  he  say  de  mark  was  on  de  outside 
o'  de  letter  fur  ter  show  whar  it  com  f'om; 
an'  he  say  it  was  in  a  diff'unt  han'write 
f'om  her'n.  I  knowed  she  was  ole  an' 
feeble,  like  he  is;  she  boun'  ter  be — an'  I 
jes  says  ter  Kay  Martin,  '  I  think  we  bet- 
ter fine  out  what's  in  dat  letter,  'fo'  Maje 
gits  back.'  He  say  so  too.  So  we  opens 
de  letter;  an'  'fo'  Gord,  sir,  it  say  she's 
dead." 

Tears  started  in  the  black  man's  eyes, 
and  trickled  down  his  dark  cheeks. 

"I  met  him  at  de  depo'  when  he  come 
home,  but  I  ain't  nuver  tole  him  yit. 
Fans',  she  say  he  ain't  gwine  ter  be  able 
ter  raise  no  ready  money  fur  .ter  buy  a 
railroad  ticket  ter  whar  Miss  Mary  used 
ter  live.     So  what  de  use  o'  tellin'  him?" 

He  paused  and  answered  his  own 
question : 

"Dey  ain't  none." 

Then  he  waited  a  moment  to  note  the 
effect  of  this  recital  of  his  diplomacy 
upon  his  listeners. 

"But  yo'  needn'  tell  me  he  don't  know 
it,"  he  continued.  "He  knows  it,  jes 
like  he  done  read  it  in  dat  latter.  I  been 
hear  him  talkin'  ter  her  over  de  'phome." 

Then  he  told  them,  while  they  listened 
eagerly,  ail  that  bad  happened  with  the 
major  after  he  came  home.  He  had 
shown  an  unwonted  mood  of  gayety — a 
mood  that  had  verged  on  hilarity  itselt. 


Maje :    A   Love  Story 


233 


He  had  been  out  in  the  world  and  he  had 
seen  the  wonders  of  a  wonderful  century. 
He  had  learned  more  in  a  week  than  Her- 
cules might  dream  of  in  a  hundred  years. 
He  intended  to  build  and  equij)  an  elec- 
tric railway,  on  which  Mary  could  ride 
with  him  in  the  pleasant  summer  nights, 
when  the  moon  stood  over  the  housetop, 
just  as  they  used  to  ride  horseback  to- 
gether in  the  summers  long  ago.  And  he 
would  put  up  a  telephone — a  wonderful 
thing  was  a  telephone,  Hercules — by 
which  you  could  hear  the  voices  of  per- 
sons very  far  away — hundreds  of  miles 
away,  his  Cousin  John  had  said.  He 
could  not  tell  the  distance,  but  he  had 
talked  over  one  for  three  miles,  and  he 
had  heard  from  the  other  end  of  it  as 
plainly  as  if  the  person  talking  there  were 
in  the  room. 

He  had  concluded  after  a  few  days  to 
defer  the  building  of  the  electric  railway 
until  later,  when  he  could  learn  about 
the  best  style  of  cars.  Besides,  the  tele- 
phone was  what  he  wanted  and  needed 
most. 

''Hello,  central!"  came  the  sound  of  a 
feeble  voice  from  across  the  hall,  and 
through  the  open  door. 

''You  hear  dat!  Lissen!  Dat's  him 
now  I  He  done  woke,"  said  Hercules. 
"  I  lef '  his  do'  cracked  open  over  dar,  so  I 
could  hear  him.  Fus'  thing  he  do  is  ter 
call  'Sentinel!'  Den  he  ax  de  sentinel 
for  Miss  Mary.  I  reck'n  he  think  he's 
back  dar  in  de  times  o'  de  Wrangle." 

The  giant  black  tiptoed  out  of  the 
room.  After  an  absence  of  a  few  min- 
utes he  returned. 

"He  in  dar  talkin'  ter  her  now,  an'  she 
talkin'  back  ter  him,  jes  like  I  tole  ye," 
he  said,  with  profound  conviction.. 

"I  done  let  him  know  dat  you-all  was 
here,  but  he  ain't  pay  no  attention  ter 
what  I  say." 

"I  think  we  ought  to  have  a  doctor  for 
him  as  soon  as  possible,  John,"  said 
Sally,  and  her  voice  trembled. 

John  asked  Hercules  to  go  back  and 
see  if  the  major  could  not  be  made  to  un- 
derstand that  his  cousins  had  arrived  and 
were  very  anxious  to  see  him. 

"He  always  is  been  mighty  curisome 
'bout  havin'  folks  in  de  house,  ever  sence 
his  ma  died,"  Hercules  said  aj^ologctically. 


"  I  dunno  whether  he  gwine  ter  see  you-all 
ur  not." 

He  closed  the  door  behind  him  softly 
as  he  went  out. 

The  visitors  waited  in  a  tense  silence 
that  was  unbroken  save  by  the  sizzling 
of  the  sap  in  the  end  of  a  green  log  on  the 
fire. 

Sally  had  taken  John's  hand  and  was 
holding  it  tightly. 

''I  don't  like  the  looks  of  things  my- 
self, Sally,"  he  said,  as  he  returned  her 
clasp. 

Then  he  got  up,  and  looked  out  of  the 
window  to  where  the  lines  of  Maje's  tele- 
phone swung  in  the  sj)ring  sunshine. 

The  door  opened,  and  Hercules  came 
back.  His  eyes  were  very  wide  now,  and 
beads  of  sweat  were  standing  on  his  fore- 
head. 

"I  wish  you-all  would  go  in  dar,"  he 
said. 

"Will  he  see  us?"  queried  Sally. 

"When  I  crope  in  dar  close  ter  de  bed, 
he  seemed  ter  be  breathin'  sort  o'  hard. 
Says  I,  'Maje,  yo'  Cousin  John  an'  yo' 
Cousin  Sally  is  done  come.  Dey  in  de 
liberry.'  He  didn'  pay  no  attention  ter 
me.  He  picked  up  de  'phome,  an'  he  say: 
'I'm  sorry  I  kep'  ye  waitin'  so  long,  Mary. 
I  thought  it  would  be  bes'  not  to  come 
'twell  spring.'  Den  he  stop  a  minute,  an' 
breathe  hard  ag'in.  Den  he  say:  'Ring 
off,  sentinel!'  Den  he  lay  back,  an'  he 
drap  de  'phome,  an'  he  ain't  say  nuthin' 
mo'." 

John  said  to  Sally: 

"Wait  here,  dear." 

He  went  into  the  major's  room,  fol- 
lowed by  Hercules.  Returning  alone  in 
a  few  minutes,  John  closed  the  door  be- 
hind him. 

Before  he  could  speak  the  shut  door 
opened  again,  and  Hercules  stood  on  the 
threshold.  The  big  black  man  made  no 
effort  to  conceal  the  tears  that  streamed 
down  his  furrowed  cheeks.  The  Adam's 
aj)ple  in  his  throat  moved  up  and  down 
convulsi\ely. 

"Maje  done  gone  ter  sec  Miss  Mary," 
he  said. 

Then  Sally  took  one  of  his  horny  black 
hands  in  her  soft  white  one,  and  John 
clasped  the  other;  and  they  .st)rrowe(l  to- 
gether in  the  touch  of  pity  which  makes 
the  whole  world  kin. 


FIGUIG 


BY  G.  E.  WOODBERRY 


3  WOKE,  in  the  train,  on  the 
high  plateaus.  Dawn — soft 
green  and  paUid  gold,  lumi- 
nous, then  dying  under  a 
heavy  cloud  while  faint  pink 
brightened  on  the  sides  of 
the  great  horizon — opened  the  lofty  plain, 
boundless  and  naked,  thinly  touched  with 
tufts  of  vegetation;  as  far  as  one  could 
see,  only  the  elements — color,  cold,  swath- 
ing wild  herbage  on  rugged  soil;  and  far 
off,  alone,  the  haze  of  an  abrupt  moun- 
tain range.  It  was  the  steppe  beyond 
Khreider.  The  vast,  salt  chott  of  El 
Chergui,  that  streaks  the  middle  of  the 
steppe  w^th  its  waste  and  quicksands,  lay 
behind;  but  its  saline  arms  still  clung  to 
and  discolored  the  surface,  and  whitened 
the  view  westward  with  dull  crystalline 
deposits.  This  wide  blanching  of  the  gray 
and  red  soil  striped  and  threw  into  relief 
the  rigid  scene — aridity,  vacancy,  solitude, 
from  which  emerged  the  still  grandeur  of 
inanimate  things.  It  was  the  character- 
istic scene  of  the  high  plains — a  vague 
monotony,  colored  with  sterile  features 
flowing  on  level  horizons.  As  the  train 
ascended  nature  seemed  still  to  unclothe 
and  uncover,  to  strip  and  peel  the  land ;  but 
not  continuously.  From  time  to  time  the 
steppe  lapsed  back  to  a  thicker  growth  of 
tough-fibred  alfa,  whose  home  is  on  these 
plains,  and  bore  other  dry,  sparse,  dark- 
ish desert  plants  upon  reddish  hummocks; 
on  this  pasturage  distant  herds  of  camels 
browsed  unattended,  as  on  a  cattle-range, 
in  the  wild  spaces  fenced  by  rolling  sands ; 
then  the  climbing  train  would  soon  pass 
again  amid  low  dunes.  Few  stations  at 
long  intervals;  isolated,  meagre,  they 
seemed  lost  in  the  spreading  areas,  mere 
points  of  supply ;  the  most  important  was 
but  a  village,  with  sickly  trees;  but  they 
took  on  an  original  character.  They  were 
fortified ;  obviously  built  for  def ence,with 
sallies  and  retreats  in  their  walls;  guarded 
casemates  obliquely  commanding  all  ave- 
nues of  approach  and  the  walls  themselves; 
234 


doors  that  were  meant  to  shut.  It  was  a 
railway  in  arms,  a  line  of  military  posts, 
or  blockhouses,  as  it  were,  on  an  unset- 
tled border.  The  sight  gave  a  tang  of  war 
to  the  silence  of  the  uninhabited  country, 
and  reminded  one  of  unseen  tribes  and 
of  the  harsh  frontier  of  Morocco  over  op- 
posite, south  and  west.  Slowly  the  moun- 
tains sprang  up;  one  had  already  drifted 
behind,  Djebel  Antar;  and  now  the  peaks 
of  the  Saharan  Atlas,  rising  sheer  from  the 
plain  a  thousand  metres,  lay  on  either 
hand,  bold  crests  and  jutting  ranges — 
Djebel  Aissa  on  the  left,  the  Sfissifa  on  the 
right  in  the  southwestern  sky,  Djebel 
Mektar  straight  ahead.  We  had  passed  the 
highest  point  of  the  line  at  an  elevation  of 
thirteen  hundred  metres,  and  were  now  on 
the  incline  and  rapidly  approaching  the 
last  barrier  of  the  Sahara.  We  were  soon 
at  the  foot  of  Mektar.  It  was  Ain  Sefra, 
an  important  military  base. 

But  I  did  not  think  of  war;  to  me  Ain 
Sefra  is  a  name  of  literature  and  has  a 
touch  of  personal  literary  devoir;  for  there 
in  the  barren  Moslem  cemetery ,  outside  the 
decaying  ksar,  is  buried  the  poor  girl  who 
taught  me  more  about  Africa  than  all  other 
writers;  she  had  the  rare  power  of  truth- 
telling,  and  lived  the  life  she  saw;  her 
books  are  but  remnants  and  relics  of  her 
genius,  but  she  distilled  her  soul  in  them — 
one  of  the  wandering  souls  of  earth,  Isa- 
bella Eberhardt.  She  was  only  twenty- 
seven,  but  years  are  nothing — she  had 
drunk  the  cup  of  life.  Here  she  died,  in 
the  oued,  the  torrent  river  whose  bottom  I 
was  now  skirting,  a  wide,  dry  w^atercourse, 
strewn  with  stones,  and  with  roughly  in- 
dented banks.  It  was  dry  now,  but  on 
these  denuded  uplands  and  surfaces,  after 
a  rainfall,  which  is  usually  torrential,  it  fills 
in  a  moment  with  a  furious  sweep  and  onset 
of  waters ;  and  thus  a  few  years  ago  it  rose 
in  the  October  night  and  tore  away  the  vil- 
lage below  the  high  ground  of  the  French 
encampment ;  and  there  she  was  drowned. 
The  echo  of  her  soul  in  mine,  long  ago  at 
Tunis,  was  the  lure  that  drew  me  here. 

There  before  my  eyes  was  the  sight  I 


Figuig 


235 


had  longed  to  see,  just  as  she  had  described 
it.  I  knew  it  as  one  recognizes  a  light- 
house on  a  foreign  coast,  so  single,  so 
unique  it  was — the  leap  of  the  red  dunes 
up  the  defile,  fierce  as  a  sword-thrust  of 
the  far  desert  through  the  mountains. 
That  was  Africa — the  untamed  wild,  the 
bastion  of  nature  in  her  barbarity,  the  sav- 
age citadel  of  her  splendid  forces  to  which 
man  is  negligible  and  human  things  un- 
known. The  dunes  are  golden-red,  tossed 
like  -a  stormy,  billowing  sea ;  they  charge, 
they  leap,  they  impend — petrified  in  air; 
an  ocean  surf  of  red  sand,  touched  with 
golden  lights,  frozen  in  the  act  of  the  wild 
wind.  They  are  magnificent  in  their  lines 
of  motion,  in  their  angers  of  color;  but  the 
spirit  of  them  is  their  elan,  their  drive, 
flung  forward  as  if  to  ram  and  overwhelm 
the  pass  with  a  wide  sandy  sea.  The  light 
on  them  is  a  menace;  they  threaten;  nor 
is  it  a  vain  threat;  they  move  with  the 
sure  fatality  of  all  lifeless  things;  they  will 
invade  and  conquer — a  foe  to  be  reckoned 
with;  and,  to  fend  the  valley  against  them, 
man  takes  a  garden,  trees,  plantations, 
advancing  a  van  of  life  against  all  that 
lifelessness.  It  is  a  superb  picture  there 
among  the  mountains,  a  symbol  of  the 
struggle — the  long  battle  of  vegetable  and 
mineral  forces,  clothing  and  desolating  the 
planet;  and  it  holds  the  rich  glow  of  the 
African  temperament,  a  spark  of  the  soul 
of  the  land. 

The  train  winds  on  in  the  bright  morn- 
ing air  by  a  shining  koubba,  dark  palm 
tufts,  and  the  high,  silent  tricolor,  and  goes 
down  theoued,  turns  the  mountain,  passes 
into  the  rocks,  a  strange  scene  of  stormy 
forms  and  sterile  colors,  and  makes  from 
valley  to  valley  by  sharp  curves,  from  oued 
to  oued  by  deep  cuts,  piercing  and  groov- 
ing its  passage  to  lower  levels  through  the 
range  of  the  Ksour.  Almost  from  the  first 
it  is  unimaginable,  that  landscape.  It  is 
all  rock  in  ruins,  denuded  and  shivered, 
shelving  down,  disintegrating;  fallen  ava- 
lanches of  rotten  strata;  every  kind  of 
fracture;  whole  hills  in  a  state  of  breaking 
\x\)  into  small  pieces, ])ebbly  masses, bitten, 
slivered.  We  traverse  broken,  burnt  fields 
of  it,  all  shingle ;  ex})anses  of  it  so,  beneath 
walls  cracked  and  scarified;  we  curve  by 
scattered  bowlders  of  all  sizes  and  posi- 
tions, down  valleys  of  stones;  new  hills 
open,    sharp-edged,    jagged — continuous 


rock.  All  outlooks  are  on  the  waste  wilder- 
ness crumbling  in  its  own  abandonment; 
all  contours  are  knife-edges;  the  perspec- 
tives are  all  of  angles.  In  the  near  open 
tracts  lie  relics  and  remains,  mounds, 
mountains,  and  hills  that  have  melted 
away;  steej)  lifts  on  all  curves;  and  on  the 
sky-horizon ,  following  and  crossing  one  an- 
other, saw-toothed  ranges,  obliquely  in- 
dented with  sharp  re-entries,  or  else  acute 
cones  and  rounded  mamelons:  the  whole 
changing  landscape  a  ruin  of  mountains 
being  crumbled  and  split  and  blown  away. 
It  is  an  elemental  battle-field,  where  the 
rock  is  the  victim — a  suicide  of  nature.  In 
this  region  of  extreme  temperatures  with 
sudden  changes — burningnoonsandfrozen 
nights,  torrid  summers  and  winter  snows, 
downpours  of  rainfall — the  fire  and  frost, 
wind  and  cloud-burst,  have  done  their  sec- 
ular work;  they  have  stripped  and  pulver- 
ized the  softer,  outer  rock  shell,  washed  it 
down,  blown  it  away,  till  the  supporting 
granite  and  schist  are  bare  to  the  bone. 
It  is  a  skeletonized,  worn  land,  all  apex  and 
debris;  near  objects  have  the  form  and 
aspect  of  ruins,  the  horizons  are  serried, 
the  surfaces  calcined.  It  is  an  upper  world 
of  the  floored  and  pinnacled  rock,  an  under- 
world shivered  and  strewn  with  its  own 
fragments,  a  "gray  annihilation" — of  the 
color  of  cinders.  I  imagine  that  the  land- 
scapes of  the  moon  look  thus. 

A  mineral  world,  bedded,  scintillant, 
flaked.  It  is  dyed  with  color.  All  life  has 
gone  from  it,  and  with  the  departure  of 
life  has  come  an  intensification,  an  origi- 
nality, an  efflorescence  of  mineral  being. 
The  earlier  stages  of  the  ridt — the  red 
mountains  striped  beneath  with  black, 
beyond  the  middle  ground  of  a  prevailing 
reddish  tint  sparsely  scattered  with  a 
vegetation  of  obscure  greens  and  dull  grays 
amid  strong  earth  colors,  once  with  the 
bluish-black  of  palm-trees  blotting  the  dis- 
tance— I  remember  now  almost  as  fertility. 
Here  there  is  not  a  leaf — nor  even  earth 
nor  sand.  It  seems  rock  devastated  by 
fire,  like  volcanic  summits.  A  sombre 
magnificence,  a  fantastic  grandeur!  Blue- 
grays,  browns,  and  ochres  of  e\'ery  shade 
gleam  on  the  slopes  of  the  hillsitles;  reds 
s|)lash  the  precipices  and  walls;  innumer- 
able, indescribable  tones,  too  gloomy  to  be 
called  iridescence,  shimmer  over  the  mid- 
distance  and  die  out  in  twilights  of  color 


230 


Figuig 


amid  the  manganese  shadows,  on  the  cold 
limestone  heights,  in  the  sandstone  gul- 
lies. Where  I  can  see  the  surfaces  of  the 
shivered  stones,  I  notice  their  extraordi- 
nary smoothness.  There  are  purples  and 
black-greens  and  violets  among  them,  but 
for  the  most  part  they  are  black,  like  soot; 
for  amid  this  fantastic  coloration,  what 
gives  its  sombreness  to  the  scene — the 
trouble  of  the  unfamiliar— and  grows  most 
menacing,  is  the  black.  The  land  is  oxi- 
dized— blackened;  its  shivered  floor  is 
strewn  with  black  stones;  black  stripes 
streak  its  sides  far  and  near;  amid  all  that 
mineral  bloom  it  is  to  black  that  the  eye 
returns,  fascinated,  enthralled.  It  in- 
vades the  spirits  with  its  prolonged  weird- 
ness;  it  awes  and  saddens.  And  all  at 
once  we  emerge  from  a  deep  ravine — oh,  la 
belle  vie! — a  sea  of  dark  verdure  makes  in 
from  below,  like  a  fiord,  among  the  naked 
mountains  round  it — silent,  mysterious, 
living,  the  green  of  the  palm  oasis;  and 
swiftly,  after  that  stop,  we  dip  into  the 
black  gorges  beyond  Moghrar,  more  som- 
bre, sinister — valleys  of  the  color  and  as- 
pect of  some  strange  death,  the  incinera- 
tion of  nature  in  her  own  secular  periods, 
the  passing  of  a  planet.  Slowly  vegeta- 
tion begins — tufts  amid  the  rock  inter- 
stices, desert  growths,  the  chaufleur  sahari- 
enne,  the  drin,  the  thyme,  plants  of  ashen- 
gray,  stiff,  sapless;  trees  now^ — betoums, 
feeble  palms;  a  beaten  track  with  a  trio 
of  Bedouin  Arabs.  It  is  the  oued  of  the 
Zousf ana ;  and  we  debouch  on  the  far  pros- 
pect— off  to  the  right  the  oases  of  Figuig, 
oblong  dark  spots  on  the  foot-hills  of  Mo- 
rocco and  before  us  to  the  left  the  great 
horizons  of  the  Sahara,  the  hamada.  Five 
hours  from  Ain  Sefra.  It  is  Beni-Ounif. 
I  descended  from  the  train  amid  groups 
of  soldiers.  I  lose  my  prejudice  against  a 
uniform,  when  it  is  French  or  Italian;  and 
in  North  Africa  the  blue  of  the  tirailleur, 
the  red  of  the  spahi,  are  a  part  of  the  mise- 
en-scene.  These  were  soldiers  of  the  For- 
eign Legion.  I  had  been  familiar  with 
their  uniform,  too,  in  the  north  at  Oran, 
and  particularly  at  Sidi-bel- Abbes,  one  of 
their  rendezvous ;  and  I  saw  it  again  with 
friendly  eyes,  for  all  that  I  had  here — har- 
borage, security,  freedom  to  come  and  go 
— did  I  not  owe  it  to  them?  The  Sud- 
Oranaise  is  their  work,  like  so  much  else  in 
Algeria.     I  trudged  through  the  sand,  a 


young  Arab  tugging  at  my  baggage  and 
guiding  me,  to  the  hotel,  which  occupied 
a  corner  of  an  extensive  flat  building  of 
Moresque  style,  rather  imposing  with  its 
towers  though  it  was  only  of  one  story, 
on  a  street  that  seemed  preternaturally 
wide  because  all  the  buildings  were  like- 
wise of  one  story.  The  whole  little  town,  a 
mere  handful  of  low,  fragile  blocks,  looked 
strangely  desolate  and  lonesome,  forsaken, 
isolated,  dull.  The  host  received  me 
pleasantly — I  was  the  only  guest  to  ar- 
rive, and  there  was  no  sign  of  another 
occupant — and  took  me  to  my  room  in  the 
single  corridor;  it  was  clean  and  sufficient 
— a  bed,  a  basin,  and  a  chair;  a  small, 
heavily  barred  window,  at  the  height  of 
my  head,  looked  on  a  large,  vacant  court. 
So  this  was  the  terre  perdue.  I  was  ''far 
away."  "  The  brutality  of  life — "  I  was 
"clean  quit"  of  it,  like  a  lark  in  the  blue, 
like  a  gull  on  the  gray  sea.  ^^  Adieu,  mes 
amis,''  1  thought.  Where  had  I  read  it — 
"The  man  who  is  not  a  misanthrope  has 
never  loved  his  fellow  men." 

There  was  a  knock  at  my  door:  "  Mon- 
sieur, some  one  to  see  you."  It  came 
with  a  shock,  for  the  solitude  had  begun  to 
seize  me.  I  went  toward  the  office.  A 
young  soldier  of  theLegionapproachedme, 
full  of  French  grace,  with  a  look  of  expect- 
ancy on  his  fine  face.  "  I  heard  there  was 
an  American  here,"  he  said  in  English;  "  I 
did  not  believe  it,"  he  added;  "  I  came  to 
see."  "  Yes,"  I  said, "  I  am  an  American." 
"There  hasn't  been  one  here  in  two  years 
— not  since  I  came,"  he  spoke  slowly — 
keen,  soft  tones.  "  South  American?  "  he 
ventured.  "No,"  I  said,  melting.  "Truly 
from  the  United  States — where?  "  His  look 
hung  on  my  face.  "  I  was  born  near  Bos- 
ton," I  replied,  interested.  "I  was  born 
in  Boston."  I  shall  never  forget  the  glad- 
ness of  his  voice,  the  light  that  swept  his 
eyes.  A  quick  soldierly  friending  seized 
us — the  warmth  that  does  not  wait,  the 
trust  that  does  not  question.  In  ten  min- 
utes he  was  caring  for  me  like  a  younger 
brother,  introducing  me  with  my  letters 
at  the  Bureau  Arab,  doing  everything  till 
he  went  to  his  service.  In  the  evening 
we  met  again,  and  so  the  lonely  journey  of 
the  day  ended  in  an  African  sunset,  as  it 
were,  of  gay  and  brilliant  spirits,  for  I 
know  of  no  greater  joy  than  the  making 
of  friends.     He  w^as  of  French  parentage, 


Figuig 


237 


and  the  only  American  in  the  Legion;  at 
least,  he  had  never  seen  nor  known  of  an- 
other. And  I  went  to  bed  thinking  of  the 
strange  irony  of  life,  and  how  the  first  thing 
that  the  terre  perdue  gave  me  was  the  last 
thing  I  exi)ected  in  the  wide  world — a 
friend. 


II 


I  WENT  by  myself  to  visit  the  old  ksar, 
the  native  village  which  had  occupied  this 
site  before  the  coming  of  the  French  and 
the  rise  of  the  new  town  about  the  railway. 
It  lay  some  little  distance  to  the  west 
of  the  track — a  collection  of  palm-trees, 
with  a  village  at  the  farther  end,  backed 
by  a  white  koubba.  My  Arab  boy,  who 
had  never  lost  sight  of  me,  had  me  in 
charge,  and  led  the  way.  We  crossed  into 
the  strip  of  barren  country  and  saw  the 
ksar  with  its  palmerai  before  us,  like  a  ris- 
ing shoal  in  the  plain.  Accustomed  as  my 
eyes  are  to  large  horizons,  this  country  had 
an  aspect  of  solitariness  that  was  extraor- 
dinary. The  sand-blown  black  rock,  the 
hamada,  lies  all  about;  the  mountains  of 
the  Ksour  that  back  the  scene  to  the  north- 
east are  reddish  in  color  and  severe  in  out- 
line, and  the  mountains  of  Morocco,  cut 
here  by  three  passes,  block  it  to  the  north 
and  west  with  their  heavy  and  wdld  masses, 
while  other  detached  heights  are  seen  far 
off  to  the  south.  From  this  broken  ring 
of  bare  mountains,  red  and  violet  and  gray, 
the  rocky  desert  floor,  blown  with  reddish 
sand,  makes  out  into  the  open  distance 
interminably  to  horizons  like  the  sea.  In 
the  midst  of  this  the  little  ksar  with  its 
trailing  palm-trees,  Beni-Ounif  with  its 
slender  rail  and  station,  its  white  redoubt 
and  low  buildings,  with  the  Bureau  Arab 
and  its  palms  a  little  removed,  seem  insig- 
nificant human  details,  mere  markings  of 
animal  life,  in  a  prospect  where  nature, 
grandiose  in  form  and  without  limit  in  dis- 
tance, exalted  Ijy  aridity,  is  visibly  infi- 
nite, all-encompassing,  supreme.  The  sun 
only,  burning  and  solitary,  seems  to  own 
the  land.  The  moment  one  steps  upon 
the  windy  plain  it  is  as  if  he  had  put  to 
sea;  he  is  alone  with  nature,  and  the  harsh- 
ness of  the  land  gives  })oignancy  to  his 
solitude. 

We  walked  over  rough  ground  awhile, 
and  then  crossed  the  dry  bed  of  a  oued, 


one  of  the  channels  that  in  time  of  flood 
lead  the  waters  down  to  the  Zousfana, 
whose  shrunken  stream  flows  in  its  wide 
rocky  bottom  some  distance  to  the  north 
of  the  ksar  toward  the  mountains;  and  we 
climbed  up  on  the  farther  side  by  crum- 
bling foot-paths  that  run  on  little  uneven 
ridges  of  dry  mud,  twisting  about  in  a 
rambling  way,  with  small  streams  to  cross, 
which  groove  the  soil;  and  so  we  came 
into  the  gardens.  The  aspect,  however, 
is  not  that  of  a  garden ;  the  background  of 
the  scene  is  all  dry  mud,  whose  moulded 
and  undulating  surface  makes  the  soil, 
while  the  little  plots  are  divided  by  mud 
walls,  high  enough  at  times  to  give  some 
shade  and  meant  to  retain  the  irrigating 
waters.  There  are  a  few  patches  of  barley, 
very  fresh  and  green;  but  for  the  most 
part  the  plots  are  filled  with  trees — fig- 
trees,  old  and  contorted,  with  their  heavy 
limbs,  the  peach  and  almond  with  frag- 
ile grace  and  new  tender  green,  the  pome- 
granate and  the  apple,  and  rising  above 
them  the  palms  whose  decorative  forms 
frame  in  and  dignify  the  little  copses  of 
the  fruit-trees,  and  unite  them;  but  the 
dry  mud  makes  an  odd  contrast  with  the 
branching  green  of  varied  tints  and  gives 
a  note  of  aridity  to  the  whole  under-scene. 
The  plots  vary  only  in  their  planting,  and 
were  entirely  deserted.  We  came  through 
them  to  the  ksar  itself  with  its  wall.  It  is 
built  of  dry  mud,  w^hich  is  the  only  mate- 
rial used  here  for  walls  and  houses  alike. 
The  rain  soon  gives  them  a  new  modelling 
at  best,  and  this  ksar  is  old  and  ruined, 
half-abandoned  now  that  the  French  town 
is  near.  The  outer  wall  is  much  bro- 
ken, with  the  meandering  shapclessness  of 
abandoned  earthworks — scallops  and  in- 
dentations, the  smooth  moulding  and  mud 
sculpture  of  time  on  the  golden  soil;  and 
off  beyond  it  stretches  the  endless  ceme- 
tery, with  the  pointed  stones  at  the  head 
and  foot  of  the  graves,  a  tract  of  miser- 
able death,  so  simple,  naked,  and  })ov- 
erty-struck,  and  yet  in  such  perfect  har- 
mony with  the  sterile  and  solitary  scene, 
that  it  does  not  seem  sad  but  only  the 
natural  and  inevitable  end.  It  belongs 
to  the  desert;  it  is  its  comment  on  the 
trivial  worthlessness  of  human  life,  wht)se 
multitude  of  bones  are  heai)ed  and  left 
here  like  the  potter's  shard.  The  sun 
beats  down  on  the  wide  silence  of  that 


238 


Figuig 


cemetery;  the  sand  blows  and  accumu- 
lates about  the  rough  stones  that  seem  to 
lie  at  random;  there  is  no  distinction  of 
persons  there,  no  sepulchral  apparelling 
of  the  mortal  fact,  no  illusion,  no  decep- 
tion; it  is  the  grave — 'Svhither  thou 
goest."  And  it  is  not  sad — no  more  than 
the  naked  mountains  of  the  Ksour,  the 
dark  Morocco  heights,  the  silent  sunlight; 
it  is  one  with  them — it  is  nature.  On  its 
edge  toward  the  ksar  rises  the  koubba  of 
the  saint,  Sidi  Sliman  Bou-Semakha,  the 
ancient  patron  of  the  country;  it  is  the 
only  spot  of  this  old  Moslem  ground  that 
no  infidel  foot  has  trod;  there  his  body 
reposes  in  its  wooden  coffin,  hung  with 
faded  silks  within  its  carved  rail  in  the 
white  chamber,  secluded  and  sacred,  and 
the  faithful  sleep  in  the  desert  outside.  It 
is  a  w^orld  that  has  passed  away. 

The  ksar  itself  was  like  all  others  in  this 
region.  They  are  walled  villages  adjoining 
the  palmerai  that  feeds  them ;  the  houses 
are  built  of  sun-baked  earth  supported  on 
small  palm-beams  and  lean  serried  one 
upon  another  in  continuous  lines  and  em- 
bankments; narrow  alleyways  and  pas- 
sages honeycomb  them,  often  with  a  roof- 
ing of  the  same  palm-beams,  so  that  one 
walks  in  underground  obscurity;  exter- 
nally, owing  to  their  old  and  weather-worn 
aspect,  they  have  a  general  ruinous  look. 
The  walls  on  the  street  are  blind;  here 
and  there  in  dark  corners  a  seat  for  loun- 
gers is  hollowed  out  in  the  side;  there  is 
somewhere  a  square  for  judgment  where 
is  the  assembly  of  the  elders,  and  by  the 
mosque  or  koubba  an  open  space.  There 
is  always  a  life  outside  the  walls,  a  place 
for  market,  for  caravans  to  stop,  encamp- 
ments of  all  sorts.  All  have  a  look  of  di- 
lapidation. But  this  old  ksar  had  more 
than  that;  it  was  obviously  in  a  state  of 
ruin  and  abandonment.  Walls  had  fallen, 
exposing  the  wretched  interiors,  cave-like, 
mere  cellarage.  There  was  no  one  there.  I 
passed  through  some  of  the  covered  ways 
— blank  obscurity,  with  holes  of  naked 
sunlight.  I  did  not  see  half  a  dozen  liv- 
ing figures:  they  were  unoccupied,  list- 
less, marooned.  It  was  still — a  stillness  of 
death.  I  found  the  sources,  the  under- 
ground streams  that  supply  the  little  oasis ; 
there  were  three  or  four  young  negro  girls 
standing  in  the  water,  in  discolored  bright 
rags;  they  pointed  out  to  me  the  blind  fish 


in  the  water.  ^^Cest  defendu,''  said  my 
Arab  boy  when  I  asked  him  to  catch  one. 
Life  seemed  defendu.  The  air  was  mori- 
bund. It  was  a  decadence  of  the  very 
earth.  I  was  glad  to  have  the  hot  sun  on 
my  back  again  by  the  tall  palms  and  green 
fruit-trees  springing  out  of  their  dry-mud 
beds,  and  I  sat  down  on  a  crumbling  wall, 
amid  the  amber  deliquescence  of  the  rich- 
toned  soil,  and  looked  back  on  that  land- 
scape of  decay,  and  sought  to  reconstruct 
in  fancy  the  desert  life  of  its  silent  years. 
It  was  an  old  human  lair.  Its  people, 
the  ksouriens,  who  lived  here  their  half- 
underground  life,  sheltered  from  the  burn- 
ing blasts  of  the  summer  sun  and  the  bitter 
winds  of  winter,  were  a  settled  town  folk, 
with  their  oasis  agriculture  and  simple 
desert  market.  The  ruling  race  were  the 
descendants  of  some  marabout;  for  the 
Moslem  saint  was  a  patriarch,  and  one 
finds  whole  villages  that  claim  to  be  orig- 
inated from  some  one  of  them ;  these  men 
were  the  proprietors  of  the  gardens,  which 
were  tilled  by  native  negroes  or  Soudanese 
slaves  and  their  progeny,  a  servile  breed; 
and  there  were  Jews,  who  were  compelled 
to  live  apart,  a  pariah  caste.  Outside 
were  the  Berber  and  Arabized  nomad 
tribes ,  scattered  and  living  in  fractions,  who 
went  from  place  to  place  for  the  pasturage 
of  their  flocks ;  their  chiefs  and  headmen 
were  desert-raiders,  who  took  toll  by  trib- 
ute or  pillage  of  the  caravans  traversing 
their  country,  and  made  forays  on  their 
neighbors;  the  people  of  the  ksar  held  a 
feudal  relation  to  these  desert  lords.  The 
most  secure  units  of  property  in  the  land 
were  the  zaouias,  or  monasteries,  bound  to 
hospitality  and  charity,  and  ruled  by  mar- 
about stocks;  their  gardens  and  flocks  had 
a  protective  character  of  sacredness,  the 
goods  of  God.  Society  was  in  a  primi- 
tive form  of  uncohering  fragments,  very 
independent,  self-centred,  uncontrolled; 
though  it  was  of  one  faith,  hostility  per- 
vaded it;  feuds  were  its  annals;  it  had 
pirate  blood.  A  pastoral,  marauding,  san- 
guinary world,  with  elements  of  property 
and  aristocracy,  but  democratic  within  it- 
self, with  slaves  and  outcast  breeds ;  a  world 
of  simple  wants  but  always  half  submerged 
in  misery;  a  world  of  the  strong  arm.  In 
such  a  world  the  ksouriejis  lived  here  by 
the  mountain  passes.  They  saw  those  old 
nomad  tribes  go  by  that  mounted  toTlem- 


Figui 


239 


cen  and  drank  the  bright  cup  of  the  Medi- 
terranean for  a  season;  but  the  ksouriens 
had  forgotten  them;  their  passage  was 
only  a  wrinkling  of  the  desert  sand.  Car- 
avans stopped  by  the  brown  walls;  raid- 
ers rode  by  to  the  desert;  the  seven  ksars 
of  Figuig  fought  petty  wars,  one  on  an- 
other, on  the  hill  opposite;  mountain 
women  pitched  their  striped  tents  by  the 
cemetery  wall;  the  Jews  worked  at  little 
ornaments  of  silver  and  coral;  there  was 
a  coming  and  going  to  the  fountain,  secret 
and  ferocious  love,  the  woe  of  poverty  and 
hate — the  Arab  life  of  violence  and  ruse 
and  silence,  in  the  palm  gardens,  the  under- 
ground passages,  the  darkened  streets;  a 
life  of  obscurity  and  somnolence;  and  the 
ksouriens  grew  pale  like  wax,  with  their 
black  beards  and  corded  turbans,  and  the 
old  Arab  vitality  melted  in  their  bones. 
The  hours  that  no  man  counts  rolled  over 
the  languid  ksar,  where  white  figures  sat 
in  the  seats  in  the  earthen  w^all  along  the 
covered  streets  in  the  silence;  the  unborn 
became  the  living  and  the  stones  multi- 
plied in  the  cemetery;  and  there  w^as  no 
change.  I  could  almost  hear  the  bugle- 
note  yonder  that  brought  a  new  world  of 
men.     And  now  the  ksar  w^as  dead. 

The  moon,  almost  at  the  full,  was  grow- 
ing bright  in  the  eastern  sky;  the  moun- 
tains of  the  Ksour,  that  still  took  the  set- 
ting sun,  glowed  with  naked  rock,  rose- 
colored;  on  the  left  the  mountains  of 
Figuig  lay  in  black  shadow,  w^th  the  violet 
defiles  between,  clear-cut  on  the  molten 
sky.  As  I  stepped  on  the  rise  of  Beni-Ounif 
it  was  already  night;  the  brilliant  white 
moon  flooded  the  hard  landscape  with 
winter  clarity;  the  unceasing  wind  blew 
cold.     It  was  a  solemn  scene. 


Ill 


"Monsieur,  le  spahi."  I  went  out  in 
the  early  morning  air  and  found  my  escort 
for  Figuig,  a  tall,  dark  Arab,  almost  black, 
his  head  capped  with  a  huge  turban  wound 
with  brown  camel's-rope  in  two  coils,  and 
his  form  robed  in  a  heavy  white  burnoose 
that  showed  his  red  trousers  beneath;  he 
held  two  horses,  one  tall  and  strong,  for 
himself,  the  other,  smaller  and  lighter,  a 
mare,  for  me.  My  friend  soon  joined  us 
with  his  mount,  and,  glancing  at  my  mare 
as  I  also  mounted,  warned  me  not  to  rein 


her  in  straight  with  that  bit,  as  it  was  thus 
that  the  Arabs  trained  their  horses  to  rear 
and  caper,  and  a  strong  pull  might  bring 
her  up  unexi)ectedly  on  her  hind  legs,  and 
that,  he  said,  was  all  I  need  be  careful 
about.  We  trotted  off  easily  enough  down 
the  street  toward  the  railway,  and  in  a  few 
moments  turned  the  last  building  and  were 
on  the  route  westward  over  the  open  plain. 
The  old  ksar  lay  far  off  to  the  left,  the 
Zousfana  to  the  north,  and  between  was 
the  unobstructed  stretch  of  the  rocky  Jia- 
mada,  herbless  and  strewn  with  small  and 
broken  stones,  to  where  we  saw  a  line 
of  stragghng  palms  beneath  the  Morocco 
hillside.  The  air  was  brisk  and  cool — just 
the  morning  for  a  gallop.  The  tempta- 
tion was  too  great  for  my  mare,  who 
showed  no  liking  for  her  neighbors,  and, 
after  a  few  partly  foiled  attempts,  struck 
boldly  off  the  trail  to  the  left.  I  minded 
my  instructions  and  had  no  desire  to  see 
w^hat  she  could  do  on  her  hind  legs.  I  had 
neither  whip  nor  spur.  I  gave  her  her 
head.  I  w^as  likely  to  have  a  touch  of  the 
hx-dh  fantasia,  and  I  did.  I  settled  myself 
hard  in  the  saddle  as  she  flew  on ;  she  was 
soon  at  the  top  of  her  speed;  it  was  the 
gallop  of  my  life.  Her  feet  were  as  sure  as 
they  were  fleet  on  the  pathless,  rocky  plain ; 
she  avoided  obstacles  by  instinct;  and  if 
she  came  to  a  dry,  ditch-Hke  channel  now 
and  then  that  cut  the  level,  with  a  slight 
retardation  for  the  spring  she  jumped 
it,  as  if  that  were  the  best  of  all.  But  it 
w^as  a  pace  that  would  end.  After  a  mile 
or  so  she  breathed  heavily,  and  I,  seeing 
some  Arab  tents  pitched  not  far  away, 
turned  her  toward  them,  thinking  she 
might  regard  it  as  a  friendly  place,  and 
so  brought  her  up  quite  blown  and  with 
heaving  sides.  Three  or  four  Arabs,  very 
friendly  and  curious,  ran  up,  and  I  dis- 
mounted. ^^ Mechante,  ^ncchante,"'  they 
kept  saying;  and  I  looked  at  the  shallow 
glitter  of  the  mare's  eyes,  as  she  turned 
them  on  me  to  seethe  rider  she  had  got  the 
better  of,  and  for  my  part  I  said '  Fiirbo  " 
— something  that  I  learned  in  Italy.  My 
friend  came  riding  u[)  after  a  little  to  know 
where  I  was  going,  and  said  he  thought  I 
was  ''having  a  little  fun";  and  the  spahi 
rode  in,  and,  dismounting,  also  with  a  "  m{- 
cliantc,'"  changed  horses  with  me.  I  said 
good-by  to  the  friendly  Arabs,  and  we 
rode  otl  straight  north  to  the  route  from 


240  Fig^ig 

which  I  had  involuntarily  wandered;  but  turn  of  the  walls;  and  there  in  the  hollow 
it  was  a  tine  morning  gallop.  my  friend  and  I  leaned  over  the  cascading 
We  came  without  further  incident  to  the  water  and  turning  saw  the  spahi,  as  he 
line  of  scattered  palms,  amid  avery  broken  tightenedthegirthsof  my  saddle  which  had 
country,  where  the  ascent  makes  up  to  loosened,  under  those  walls,  brown  in  the 
Figuig,  enclosed  in  a  double  circle  of  walls,  shadow,  and  an  orange  glow  in  the  sun, 
Figuig  is  the  name  of  the  whole  district,  with  the  spring  green  starred  with  white 
It  includes  a  lower  level,  where  is  the  ksar  blossoms  like  a  tender  hedge  above  their 
of  Zenaga  and  its  vast  palmerai,  and  a  yellow  tops,  and  the  leaning  palms  in  the 
higher  level,  on  which  are  scattered  the  blue.  It  had  a  strange  charm;  and  the 
other  six  ksars  amid  their  gardens.  All  are  w^ater  made  music,  and  it  was  solitude, 
built  of  sun-dried  mud,  as  are  also  the  two  and  everything  there  was  of  the  earth, 
walls,  the  inner  being  furnished  with  round  earthy — and  beautiful, 
towers  at  frequent  regular  intervals.  We  We  came  out  shortly  at  the  top  of  the 
went  on  amid  a  confusion  of  gardens —  ascent  in  an  open  space  before  a  round 
fruit-trees  with  vegetables  under  them,  archway  in  a  wall,  and  dismounted  in  a 
such  as  beans  and  onions,  and  plots  of  scene  of  Moors  passing  in  and  out,  whom 
bright  barley  in  the  more  open  places,  but  I  photographed;  and  then  we  walked 
mostly  palms  with  little  else,  all  spring-  on  through  the  low-browed  little  street, 
ing  out  of  the  dry  mud;  we  were  past  the  which  offered  nothing  remarkable  except 
ruinous-looking  stretches  of  the  brown,  its  strangeness,  and  found  ourselves  at 
sun-basking  wall,  and  began  to  be  lost  in  the  other  side  on  a  high  rocky  floor,  quite 
a  narrow  canyon,  as  it  were,  up  which  the  mountainous  in  look,  stretching  off  and 
rude  way  went  betw^een  the  enclosed  gar-  off  now^here,  which  is  the  neutral  ground 
dens.  There  was  hardly  width  for  our  lying  about  all  the  ksars;  it  looked  as  if 
horses,  as  we  rode  in  single  file  on  the  un-  the  sun  and  wind  had  worn  it  out,  and  it 
even,  climbing  path  that  seemed  some-  hada  rugged  grandeur;  a  distant  horseman 
thing  like  the  bed  of  a  torrent,  and  indeed  on  it  seemed  uncommonly  tall  and  as  soli- 
every  now  and  then  water  would  break  out  tary  as  a  ship  at  sea.  I  got  a  slim  palm 
from  underground  and  pour  down  like  a  wand  from  a  group  of  Arab  boys  to  use 
cascade  or  swdft  brook,  with  a  delicious  as  a  switch;  but  my  show  of  copper  coin 
sound  of  running  streams.  On  either  side  drew  some  beggars  about  me,  very  insist- 
the  garden  walls  rose  a  great  height  far  ent,  and  when  we  mounted  and  rode  off 
over  our  heads,  and  above  them  brimmed  stones  followed  us.  I  have  been  stoned 
branches  of  fruit-tree  tops  with  the  splen-  in  various  parts  of  the  world  and  did  not 
did  free  masses  of  palms  hanging  distinct  mind.  The  spahi,  however,  after  the  inci- 
and  entire  in  the  bit  of  blue.  We  seemed  dent,  took  up  his  station  behind.  We  soon 
to  be  walled  out  of  a  thick,  fertile,  and  reached  another  wall  with  a  gate,  on  one 
beautiful  grove;  but  they  had  only  the  side  the  inevitable  cemetery,  with  its  point- 
same  dry  mud  for  their  bed  that  was  un-  ed  stones,  and  on  the  other  the  Morocco 
der  our  feet  in  the  narrow,  tortuous  way.  army  in  the  shape  of  a  small  squad  of  sol- 
The  sun  had  begun  to  be  hot  before  we  diers  in  soiled  gorgeousness,  lying  about 
left  the  plain,  and  now^, in  spite  of  the  shel-  on  the  ground  near  their  guard-house, 
ter  of  the  walls,  the  heat  began  to  make  They  did  not  have  a  very  military  appear- 
itself  felt;  there  was  the  dust  of  the  coun-  ance,  and  paid  no  attention  to  us  as  we 
try,  too,  which,  slight  as  it  was  that  day,  rode  into  the  ksar  and  struck  the  narrow 
is  omnipresent;  sojbeing  both  very  thirsty,  street,  which  was  the  main  thoroughfare, 
my  friend  and  I  dismounted  at  a  place  It  was  quite  animated,  with  many  passers- 
where  the  running  water  came  fresh  from  by,  whose  Oriental  figures  were  sharply  re- 
the  yellow  ground,  and  we  drank  a  very  lieved  on  the  walls  in  the  sun  or  grew  dark 
cooling  draught  of  its  brown  stream.  It  in  the  shadow.  The  houses  were  low^,  one 
is  the  scene  that  I  remember  best.  It  was  against  another,  and  their  wall  space  was 
like  a  defile  in  a  narrow  place;  the  way  broken  only  by  rude  doors ;  here  and  there 
broadened  here  by  a  bend  in  the  steep  as-  were  higher  buildings,  often  with  little  ob- 
cent;  one  saw  the  brimming  gardens  be-  long  windows  aloft,  with  the  effect  of  a 
low,  and  the  view  was  closed  above  by  the  ruined  tower,  or  broken-arched  fagade,  or 


Figulg 


241 


square  donjon;  but  these  elements  were 
rare,  though  at  times  they  gave  an  archi- 
tectural ensemble  to  little  views  against 
the  sky  with  their  fme  shadows.  Poor  hab- 
itations they  are,  dilapidated  and  meagre 
they  look,  forlorn  and  melancholy  to  the 
mind,  rubbishy,  tumble-down,  and  ruin- 
ous to  the  eye;  yet  the  air  of  ancientry 
everywhere  dignifies  the  poor  materials, 
and  the  sun  seems  to  love  them;  human 
life,  too,  clothes  them  with  its  mysterious 
aura.  The  crude  object  partakes  of  the 
light  it  floats  in,  and  every  impression 
fluctuates  momentarily  through  a  whole 
gamut  of  sense  and  sensibility;  for  there 
is  a  touch  of  enchantment  in  all  strange- 
ness. 

We  dismounted  in  the  middle  of  the 
street,  half-blocking  the  way  with  our 
horses,  by  a  cafe  whose  proprietor,  a  hum- 
ble and  life-worn  old  man,  set  himself  to 
prepare  us  a  cup  of  the  peculiar  Morocco 
tea  that  is  flavored  w^th  mint.  There 
were  a  few  passers-by,  and  I  busied  my- 
self with  my  camera.  The  cafe  was  a 
mere  hole-in-the-wall,  of  preternatural  ob- 
scurity, considering  its  small  size  and 
shallow  depth;  the  furnace  and  the  tea- 
kettle seemed  to  leave  hardly  room  for  the 
old  Arab  to  move  about.  I  found  a  camp- 
stool  and  sat  down  opposite  the  low^  dark 
opening,  and,  the  tea  being  ready ^  was 
drinking  it  with  much  rehsh;  it  was  truly 
delicious  with  its  strong  and  fragrant 
aroma  of  mint,  and  was  also  uncommonly 
exhilarating.  I  was  thus  engaged  when 
two  particularly  ill-favored  Moors,  each 
with  a  long  gun  over  his  shoulder,  ap- 
peared, and  planted  themselves,  one  on 
either  side  behind  my  shoulders,  as  close  as 
they  could  get  without  actually  pressing 
against  me,  and  gazed  stolidly  and  fixedly 
down  at  me.  I  paid  no  attention  to  them, 
but  drank  my  tea,  and  from  time  to  time 
dusted  my  leather  leggings  with  my  little 
palm  wand.  It  was  a  picturesque  group: 
my  friend  in  his  shining  white  uniform,  un- 
armed, leaning  carelessly  against  the  wall 
in  the  sun,  the  tall  spahi  opposite  in  the 
shade  regarding  us,  the  two  Moors  hang- 
ing over  me  motionless,  and  no  one  said 
a  word.  After  a  while  they  seemed  to 
have  had  enough  of  it,  and  went  away 
with  a  sullen  look. 

We  said  good-by  to  (nir  host  and  walked 
on,  the  spahi  following  on  horseback  at 


a  distance  of  several  yards,  well  behind, 
and  two  boys  leading  our  horses.  We 
were  soon  in  the  covered  ways,  where  it 
was  often  very  dark;  we  met  hardly  anv 
one— a  negro  boy  or  a  woman;  ihe'doors 
were  shut,  and  it  was  seldom  that  one  left 
ajar  gave  a  scant  view  of  the  interior;  nar- 
row alleys  ran  off  in  all  directions,  down 
which  one  looked  into  darkness;  but  if  we 
stoj^ped  to  peer  into  them,  or  showed  cu- 
riosity, the  metallic  voice  of  the  si)ahi 
would  come  from  behind, ''  Marc/iez,"  and 
at  the  frequent  turnings  of  the,  way  he 
called,  in  the  same  hard  voice,  ''A  droite,  a 
gauche'';  and  so  we  made  our  progress 
through  those  shadowy  vaults,  silent,  de- 
serted, in  the  uncertain  light.  It  was  like 
a  dead  city,  motionless,  hypnotized,  as  if 
nothing  would  ever  change  there,  with  a 
sense  of  repose,  of  negligence  of  life,  of 
calm,  as  if  nothing  would  ever  matter;  oc- 
casionally there  were  figures  in  the  recesses 
sunk  in  the  wall,  silent,  motionless — 
dreamers;  one  white-bearded  old  man, 
seated  thus  under  an  archway  in  a  dark 
corner,  seemed  as  if  he  had  been  there 
from  the  beginning  of  time  and  would  be 
found  there  on  the  judgment-day.  It  was 
weird.  We  turned  a  corner  in  the  dark- 
ness and  came  on  a  large  group — perhaps  a 
score — of  young  children  at  play  in  the 
middle  of  the  street.  I  never  saw  such 
terror.  They  fled  screaming  in  all  direc- 
tions, swift  as  wild  animals;  it  was  a  panic 
of  such  instant  and  undiluted  fear  as  I  had 
never  imagined.  I  cannot  forget  their  aw- 
ful cry,  their  distorted  faces,  their  flight 
as  if  for  life  the  moment  they  caught  sight 
of  us;  it  was  a  revelation. 

A  few  minutes  later  we  came  out  on  a 
crowded  square,  full  of  shops,  men  working 
at  their  trades,  others  lying  full  length  on 
the  ground;  it  was  a  small  but  busy  place 
— not  that  much  was  being  done  there, 
but  there  were  people,  and  occupations, 
and  human  affairs.  It  was  the  gathering- 
seat  of  the  assembly  of  the  ciders  before 
whom  the  affairs  of  the  ksar  are  l)rc)ught 
for  judgment.  No  one  paid  us  the  slightest 
attention;  and  after  looking  at  the  little 
stocks  of  leather  and  grains  and  odds  and 
ends,  and  glancing  at  the  reclining  forms 
that  gave  color  and  gravity  to  the  ordi- 
nary scene  of  an  Arab  scjuare,  we  entered 
again  on  the  darkness  and  somnolence  of 
the  winding  streets,  where  there  was  lu) 


242 


Figuig 


sun  nor  life  nor  sound,  but  rather  a  retreat 
from  all  these  things,  from  everything 
violent  in  sensation  or  effort  or  existence; 
places  of  quiet,  of  cessation,  of  the  melan- 
choly of  things.  We  emerged  by  a  mosque, 
and  near  it  a  cemetery  on  the  edge  of  the 
ksar — such  a  cemetery  as  they  all  are, 
blind,  dishevelled  heaps  of  human  ruins 
marked  by  rough,  naked  common  stones, 
the  desert's  epitaph  on  life,  inexpressi- 
bly ignominious  there  in  the  bright,  bare 
sunlight.  We  mounted  and  rode  down 
through  gardens,  as  at  first,  on  a  ridge 
that  commanded  now  one,  now  another 
view  of  the  palm  and  orchard  interiors 
with  their  dry  beds,  a  strange  mixture  of 
barrenness  below  and  fertility  above,  a 
rough  but  pleasant  way;  and  all  at  once 
we  saw  the  great  palmerai  stretching  out 
below  us  in  the  plain,  like  a  lake  bathing 
the  clifif,  a  splendidness  of  dark  verdure; 
black-green  and  blue-black  lights  and 
darks  filled  it  like  a  sea — cool  to  the  eye, 
majestic,  immense,  magnificent  in  the 
flood  of  the  unbounded  sunlight,  a  glory 
of  nature.  It  was  a  noble  climax  to  the 
strange  scenes  of  that  morning  journey; 
and  soon  after  we  dismounted  to  make 
the  steep  descent  on  the  gray-brown  rock 
of  the  clifif.  The  two  boys,  who  had  re- 
joined us,  brought  down  our  horses,  and 
we  left  the  half-fallen  towers  and  crum- 
bling walls  in  their  yellow  ruin  behind  us, 
with  the  young  Arabs  still  looking,  and 
rode  through  the  hot  desert  to  Beni-Ounif . 
This  was  the  mysterious  Figuig  of  old 
travellers.  I  had  seen  it,  but  it  still 
seemed  to  me  unrealized,  though  not  un- 
real. A  vision  of  palm- topped  garden 
walls  on  crumbling  mountain  paths;  of  a 
wind-blown,  sunburnt  high  plateau;  of 
a  sun-drenched  gully  of  a  street  with  a 
strange-windowed,  lonely  ruin  looking 
down  on  horses  that  hang  their  heads;  a 
maze  of  darkened  passages  with  a  sense  of 
lurking  in  the  shadows,  of  decay  in  the 
silence,  of  apparition  in  the  rare  figures;  a 
closed  city  of  hidden  streams  and  muffled 
noises,  walled  orchards  and  shut  houses, 
sunless  ways,  yet  held  in  the  sun's  embrace, 
the  high  blue  sky,  the  girdling  mountains, 
the  open  desert;  and  with  its  stern  and 
rocky  gardens  of  the  dead,  too:  a  sofl  and 
a  people  made  in  the  image  of  Islam,  im- 
pregnated with  it,  decrepit  with  it,  full  of 
lassitude  and  melancholy  and  doom,  mould- 


ering away;  yet  set  amid  living  fountains, 
lighted  by  placid  reservoirs  v/here  the  tall 
palms  sun  themselves  in  the  silent  waters 
as  in  another  sky;  queen,  too,  of  that  dark 
green  sea  of  the  palmerai,  a  marvel  of 
nature;  and  last  a  vision  of  long-drawn 
walls  and  dismantled  towers  crumbling  in 
the  red  sun.  It  is  so  I  remember  it;  and 
it  seems  rather  a  mirage  of  the  desert  im- 
agination than  a  reality,  a  memory. 


IV 


Beni-Ounif  was  dull.  There  was  noth- 
ing interesting  there  except  the  mise-en- 
scene.  It  was  pleasant  to  be  dining  with 
officers,  for  they  w^ere  the  principal  patrons 
of  the  hotel,  with  whom  stars  and  crosses 
were  as  common  as  watch-guards  in  New 
York;  and  it  was  stimulating  to  see  the 
ensigns  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  where 
they  were  something  more  than  the  inter- 
national compliment  of  a  ribbon  twisted 
in  a  black  button-hole  and  had  their  he- 
roic meaning,  a  decoration  on  an  officer's 
breast.  The  crosses  I  saw  stood  for  acts 
of  bravery  on  the  field  of  battle.  There 
were  a  few  other  guests  who  came  and  went, 
a  French  hunter,  a  Belgian  professor  who 
told  me  of  the  prehistoric  cabinets  he  had 
seen  farther  south,  an  officer's  remarkable 
collection,  and  explained  to  me  the  geology 
of  the  Sahara  in  brief  and  interesting  lec- 
tures. The  town  itself  never  lost  for  me 
the  vacant  and  makeshift  frontier  look 
that  it  had  at  first  sight;  one  could  walk 
from  end  to  end  of  it  in  a  few  minutes  and 
come  out  on  the  desert,  which  was  mo- 
notony petrified.  Nothing  happened  ex- 
cept the  arrival  and  departure  of  the  daily 
train.  Once  I  met  on  the  edge  of  the 
desert  the  goum,  a  compact  small  body 
of  native  Arab  cavalry  attached  to  the 
French  arms,  a  splendid  squad  of  fight- 
ing men;  rather  heavy  and  broad-shoul- 
dered they  looked,  wrapped  in  burnoose 
and  turban,  mature  men  whose  life  was 
war,  black-bearded,  large-eyed,  grim- 
predatory  faces;  and  they  were  in  their 
proper  place,  with  the  naked  mountains 
round  and  the  desert  under  their  horses' 
feet — a  martial  scene  of  the  old  raiding 
race.  I  should  not  like  to  see  them  at 
work,  I  thought;  their  trade  is  blood,  and 
they  looked  it — strong,  hard,  fierce — piti- 
less men.     But  usually  there  was  nothing 


Figuig 


243 


uncommon  to  my  eyes.  Once  in  the  cafe, 
where  we  sat  over  our  lon^  glasses  of  the 
fortified  liquors  and  tonic  drinks  of  which 
there  is  so  great  a  variety  in  desert  towns, 
some  one  brought  in  a  beautiful  great  dead 
eagle.  It  was  as  if  he  had  been  killed  in  his 
eyrie  to  see  him  there  on  the  desert  among 
the  soldiers.  We  returned  to  our  glasses 
and  our  talk :  tales  of  Paris,  tales  of  Odessa 
in  the  Revolution,  tales  of  long  Algerian 
rides,  encounters,  anecdotes  of  the  road — 
what  tales!  And  other  men's  tales,  too — 
Anatole  France,  Pierre  Loti,  Maurice  Le 
Blanc,  Claude  Farrere,  Pierre  Louys — all 
my  favorites,  for  my  friend  knew  them 
better  than  I  did,  and  made  me  new  ac- 
quaintances'Mn  the  realm  of  gold."  that  I 
like  best  to  travel.  What  happy  talk !  and 
the  time  went  by.  I  went  out  alone  to  see 
the  full  moon  rise  over  the  solemn  desert 
by  the  reddish  hills  in  the  chill  air,  and 
fill  the  great  sky  with  that  white  flood  of 
radiance  that  seemed  every  night  more 
ethereal,  more  remote  from  mankind, 
more  an  eternal  thing;  and  at  the  hotel 
we  would  meet  again  to  dine  late,  for  my 
friend  being  a  private  soldier,  we  waited 
till  the  officers  were  gone ;  and  then  again 
the  tales  and  the  happy  talk,  and  good- 
night.    That  was  life  at  Beni-Ounif. 

"Would  I  like  to  go  to  the  theatre?"  I 
repeated,  for  it  was  an  unexpected  invita- 
tion. "  You  might  not  think  so,  but  there 
is  a  theatre  at  Beni-Ounif,"  said  my  friend. 
So  it  appeared  that  the  Legion,  among  the 
multitude  of  things  it  did,  occasionally 
gave  a  performance  of  private  theatricals 
for  its  own  amusement,  and  my  friend 
himself  was  to  play  that  night.  It  was 
a  beautiful  evening  with  a  cold  wind.  I 
made  my  way  through  the  burly  military 
group  wrapped  in  heavy  blue  cloaks,  with 
here  and  there  a  burnoosed  spahi  or  tall 
tirailleur,  and  entering  the  small  hall  was 
given  a  seat  in  the  front  row  among  a  few 
ladies  and  very  young  children,  two  or 
three  civilians,  my  Belgian  acquaintance 
being  one,  and  half  a  dozen  officers  with 
their  swords  and  crosses.  "The  tricolor 
goes  well  with  the  palm,"  I  said  to  myself, 
as  I  turned  to  look  at  the  prettily  deco- 
rated, not  over-lighted  room,  where  tro- 
phies of  the  colors  alternated  with  panels 
of  palm  leaves  on  either  side  and  at  the 
rear,  giving  to  the  scene  a  simple,  artistic 
effect  of  lightness  and  gayety  with  a  touch 


of  beauty,  especially  in  the  palms.  It  was 
characteristically  French  in  refinement, 
simple  elegance,  and  color ;  there  was  noth- 
ing elaborate,  but  it  was  a  charming  bor- 
der to  the  eye,  and  no  framework  could 
have  been  so  fit  for  that  compact  mass  of 
soldiers  as  was  this  lightly  woven  cano[)y 
of  French  flags  and  the  desert  palm  on  the 
bare  walls  of  that  rude  hall.  But  it  was 
the  men  who  held  my  eyes.  The  room  was 
packed  with  soldiers  of  the  Legion ;  a  few 
spahis  and  tirailleurs  stood  in  the  rear  or 
at  the  sides;  there  was  no  place  left  to 
stand  even;  and  I  looked  full  on  their  ser- 
ried faces.  My  first  thought  was  that  I 
had  never  seen  soldiers  before.  I  never 
saw  such  faces — mature,  grave,  settled, 
with  the  look  of  habitual  self-possession 
of  men  who  command  and  obey;  resolute 
mouths,  immobile  features;  there  was 
great  sadness  in  their  eyes  that  seemed  to 
look  from  some  point  far  back,  heavy  and 
weary;  they  had  endured  much — it  was 
in  their  pose  and  bearing  and  on  their 
countenances;  they  had  ceased  to  think 
of  life  and  death — one  felt  that;  but  no 
detail  can  give  the  human  depth  of  the 
impression  I  felt  at  the  sight — faces  into 
which  life  had  fused  all  its  iron.  And 
there  was,  too,  in  the  whole  mass  the  sense 
of  physical  life,  of  hardship  and  hardihood, 
and  of  bodily  power  to  do  and  bear  and 
withstand — the  fruit  of  the  desert  air,  long 
marches,  terrible  campaigns  in  the  sands. 
It  was  a  sight  I  shall  always  remember  as, 
humanly,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  I 
ever  looked  on. 

The  Foreign  Legion  is  commonly  be- 
lieved to  be  made  up  of  broken  men  who 
have  in  some  way  found  themselves  elim- 
inated from  society,  thrown  out  or  left  out 
or  gone  out  of  their  own  will,  whether  by 
misfortune,  error,  disappointment,  or  any 
of  the  various  chances  of  life,  and  who 
have  joined  the  Legion  to  lose  themselves, 
or  because  they  did  not  know  what  else  to 
do  with  their  lives.  They  come  from  all 
European  nations  and  are  a  cosmopoli- 
tan body;  and,  no  doubt,  here  and  there 
among  them  is  a  brilliant  talent  or  a  fine 
quality  of  daring  gone  astray;  but  I  imag- 
ine a  very  large  ]:)roportion  of  them  are  sim- 
ply friendless  men  who  at  some  moment 
of  abandonment  find  themselves  without 
resources  and  without  a  career,  and  see  in 
the  Legion  a  last  resource.    I  believe  there 


244 


Figuig 


are  great  numbers  of  such  friendless  men 
in  our  civilization.  Among  the  thousands 
of  the  Legion  there  must  be,  of  course, 
every  color  of  the  human  past;  the  losers 
in  life  fail  for  many  reasons,  and  in  their 
defeat  become,  it  may  be,  incidentally  or 
temporarily,  anti-social,  or  even  habitu- 
ally so,  as  fate  hardens  round  them  with 
years;  but  in  a  great  number  of  cases,  I 
believe,  society  has  defaulted  in  its  moral 
obligations  to  them  before  they  defaulted 
in  their  moral  obligations  to  their  neigh- 
bors; and,  holding  such  views,  it  was  per- 
haps natural  that,  so  far  from  finding  the 
Legion  a  band  of  outcast  adventurers  and 
derelicts,  I  found  them  very  human.  I 
did  not  read  romance  or  virtue  into  them. 
I  know  the  hard  conditions  of  their  lives. 
If  there  be  an  inch  of  hero  in  a  man,  he  is 
hero  enough  for  me.  The  story  of  the 
French  occupation  of  Algeria  is  largely  the 
story  of  the  Legion.  For  almost  a  cen- 
tury it  has  been  one  of  the  most  effective 
units  of  the  French  army  all  over  the 
world;  and  here  in  Algeria  it  has  been  not 
only  a  fighting  force  of  the  first  order,  but 
also  a  pioneer  force  of  civilization.  The 
legionaries  have  built  the  roads,  estab- 
lished the  military  and  civil  stations,  ac- 
complished the  first  public  works,  drained 
and  planted;  they  have  laid  the  material 
foundations  of  the  new  order;  they  have 
not  only  conquered,  but  civilized  in  the 
material  sense,  and  the  labor  in  that  land 
and  climate  has  been  an  enormous  toil. 
The  reclamation  of  Africa  is  a  great  work, 
sure  to  be  looked  on  hereafter  as  one  of  the 
glories  of  France  in  the  nineteenth  and 
twentieth  centuries,  and  I  thought,  as  I 
turned  and  the  band  began  the  overture, 
what  a  comment  it  was  on  society  that  in 
this  great  work  of  the  reclamation  of  Afri- 
ca from  barbarism  and  blood  and  sodden 
misery  so  large  a  share  was  borne  by  this 
body  of  friendless  men  for  whom  our  civi- 
lization could  find  no  use  and  cared  not 
for  their  fate.  What  a  salvage  of  human 
power  and  capacity,  turned  to  great  uses, 
was  there  here!  and  from  moment  to  mo- 
ment I  looked  back  on  that  body  of  much- 
enduring  men  with  a  keen  recurring  sense 
of  the  infinite  patience  of  mankind  under 
the  hard  fates  of  life,  of  the  infinite  honor 
and  the  infinite  pity  of  it  all. 

To-night  all  was  light  gayety  and  pleas- 
ant jollity.     The  Legion  has  one  charac- 


teristic of  a  volunteer  regiment — its  men 
can  do  everything,  so  various  are  the 
careers  from  which  it  is  recruited.  Its 
music  is  famous,  and  the  orchestra  played 
excellently;  and  as  the  first  little  play  be- 
gan, '^  Mentons  Bleus,"  theplayers  showed 
themselves  good  amateurs.  The  audience 
responded  quickly  to  the  situations  and 
the  dialogue;  there  were  brightened  spirits 
and  much  laughter,  easy,  quiet  enjoyment 
and  applause.  The  second  part  was  a 
series  of  songs,  done  by  one  performer 
after  another,  each  doing  his  stunt  with 
verve  and  the  comedy  of  the  variety  stage; 
there  was  a  full  dozen  of  these  light- 
hearted  parts.  In  the  intermissions  the 
men  stayed  in  their  seats,  though  about 
the  doorway  there  would  be  a  little  move- 
ment and  changeful  regrouping,  but  it  was 
an  audience  that  sat  in  their  places  ready 
for  more;  there  w^as  no  smoking.  The 
last  number  of  the  programme — a  small, 
pretty  double  sheet,  like  note-paper,  done 
by  some  copying  process  in  pale  blue,  with 
a  sword,  rifle,  and  cap  on  the  ground  be- 
fore two  palms  lightly  sketched  in  the 
lower  corner  of  the  title-leaf — was  another 
one-act  play,  ''Cher  Maitre,"  and  was  re- 
ceived with  a  spirit  that  seemed  only  to 
have  been  whetted  by  the  previous  amuse- 
ment; and  when  it  was  over  the  evening 
ended  in  a  round  of  generous  applause  and 
a  smiling  breaking  up  of  the  company 
after  their  three  hours'  enjoyment.  It  was 
pleasant  to  have  been  with  the  Legion  on 
such  a  night,  and  to  have  shared  in  its 
little  \i\\a.gefesta,  and  I  stood  by  the  door- 
way and  watched  the  men  go  by  as  they 
passed  out,  till  all  were  gone. 

It  was  midnight.  The  radiant  moon 
poured  down  that  marvellous  white  flood 
on  the  hollow  of  the  desert  where  the  little 
town  lay  low  and  gleaming,  very  silent. 
But  I  could  not  rid  my  mind  of  the  sol- 
diers' lives.  I  thought  of  the  torrid  sum- 
mer heats  here  in  garrison,  of  the  burning 
marches  yonder  in  the  south,  of  the  days 
in  sterile  sands  that  make  the  sight  of 
palm  and  garden  a  thing  of  paradise — in- 
credible fatigues,  mortal  exhaustion,  mo- 
notony. One  cannot  know  the  soldiers' 
desert  life  without  some  experience;  but 
some  impression  of  it  may  be  gained  from 
soldiers'  books,  such  as  one  that  is  a  fa- 
vorite companion  of  mine,  ''Une  Prome- 
nade dans  le  Sahara,"  by  Charles  La- 


F 


MgUlg 


lM. 


garde,  a  lieutenant  in  the  Chasseurs  d' 
Afrique,  a  thoughtful  book,  full  of  artistic 
feeling,  and  written  with  literary  grace, 
the  memorial  of  a  soldier  with  the  heart  of 
a  poet,  who  served  in  South  Algeria.  In 
such  books  one  gets  the  environment  but 
not  the  life;  one  touch  with  the  Legion  is 
worth  them  all.  I  fell  to  sleep  for  my  last 
sluml^er  at  Beni-Ounif,  thinking  of  sol- 
diers' lives,  friendless  men  — 

"  Somewhere  dead  far  in  the  waste  Soudan." 


It  was  a  brilliant  morning.  I  went  to 
the  edge  of  the  desert  and  looked  off  south 
with  the  wish  to  go  on  that  all  unknown 
horizons  wake,  but  which  the  desert  hori- 
zon stirs,  I  think,  with  more  longing  insist- 
ence, with  a  greater  power  of  the  \'ague, 
than  any  other;  for  there  it  lies  world- 
wide, mysterious,  unpenetrated,  and  seems 
to  open  a  pathway  through  space  itself, 
like  the  sea.  All  true  travellers  know  this 
feeling, the  nostalgia  for  the  "far  country" 
that  they  will  ne\'er  see;  it  is  an  emotion 
that  is  like  a  passion — mystical,  and  be- 
longs to  the  deep  soul.  The  desert  hori- 
zon, like  the  sea's,  at  every  moment  breeds 
this  spell.  But  as  I  turned  back,  with  the 
sense  of  the  chained  foot,  my  disappoint- 
ment was  tempered  by  the  knowledge  that 
I  was  to  companion  my  friend,  who  had 
been  ordered  to  Tonkin ;  and  I  had  timed 
my  departure  to  go  with  his  detachment  on 
its  way  north.  As  I  went  down  to  the 
train  my  Arab  boy,  with  the  infinite  hope- 
fulness of  such  attaches,  brought  me  a 
dead  wolf,  if  by  chance  I  would  like  it;  but 
I  could  not  add  it  to  my  baggage,  whereat 
he  was  sorrowful,  but  was  comforted.  The 
station  presented  a  lively  scene — many 
soldiers  in  their  white  duck  trousers  and 


redcaps;  there  was  a  band;  the  air  was 
filled  with  good-bys  and  laughing  saluta- 
tions; the  car  windows  grew  lined  with 
leaning  forms  and  intent  faces;  the  mu>ic 
struck  up,  high  and  gallant,  and  with  the 
last  cries  and  shouts  we  were  olT  on  the  line. 
It  was  too  short  a  ride,  though  the  train 
climbed  slowly  up  the  incline,  while  the 
desert  grew  a  distant  outlook  and  was 
shut  from  view  as  we  made  into  the  wind- 
ing valleys;  and  we  mounted  up  thnjugh 
the  black  defiles,  the  desolation  of  the  shiv- 
ered rock,  the  passes  of  the  toothed  ranges, 
the  blocking  cliffs  and  columnar  heights — 
all  the  petrifaction  and  fantasy  of  that 
naked  and  severe  land ;  but  T  was  less  sen- 
sible of  its  enmity  and  melancholy  than 
when  I  came  through  it  alone,  though  it 
was  harsh  and  wild,  a  tcrrc  perdue.  My 
friend  travelled  with  his  comrades,  but  we 
had  a  long  lunch  in  the  train  before  Ain 
Sefra,  and  a  longer  dinner  when  night  be- 
gan to  fall,  with  tales  and  talk.  Tales  of 
the  mutiny  of  the  bataillon  (f  Afrique — 
Othello  tales  these,  fit  for  fearful  ears; 
tales  of  night  surprises,  Arabs  crawling  by 
inches  for  hours  in  the  sands,  the  sentinels 
killed  without  a  sound,  the  first  alarm 
bayonets  through  the  tents,  and  then  the 
rouse,  the  square,  the  victory;  tales  of  the 
desert  madness,  the  cafard.  Stirring  tales. 
Talk,  too,  of  home  and  friends  left  behind 
us  in  the  world,  of  the  dead  and  the  li\ing, 
and  of  what  might  yet  be  for  both  of  us. 
He  told  me  much  of  the  Legion,  for  that 
interested  me;  but  he  never  comj)laine(l, 
and  if  he  caught  some  unspoken  thought 
on  my  face  from  time  to  time,  ^'C'cst  Ic 
metier, ^^  he  would  say,  and  smile  my  sym- 
pathy away.  He  was  a  youth  after  ni\' 
own  heart;  but  the  night  fell  darker  and 
darker,  and  there  would  be  an  end.  At 
the  last  station  where  it  was  possible,  he 
came  back  to  me.     It  was  good-by. 


AS   IX   HIS  YOUTH 


By  Ralph  D.   Paine 


Illustrations    by    H  ,    C .    Wall 


APT\IX  EDW.\RD  DOR- 
L-\XD  of  the  liner  Cen- 
:<2nts  was  not  ready  to 
believe  himself  an  old  man. 
Trimly  erect  was  the  spare 
ngure  in  the  uniform  of 
blue,  decisive  the  commands  spoken  from 
the  loixy  bridge.  His  mustache  was  white 
and  the  wrinkles  of  the  thin,  kindly  face 
were  graven  deeper  than  those  of  exposure 
to  wind  and  sun.  After  a  long  \igil  in 
bad  weather  his  bones  ached  and  his  knees 
were  wear}-,  but  this  he  laid  to  a  touch  of 
rheumatism.  His  eyes  had  begun  to  re- 
veal the  indefinable  expression,  appealing 
and  akin  to  sadness,  that  is  common  to  the 
declension  of  life  and  which  no  artifice 
can  conceal. 

Nevertheless  he  was  still  efficient,  in- 
domitable, good  for  further  senice  in  the 
Atlantic  trade.  But  he  was  about  to  be 
dismissed  because  he  had  reached  the  age 
limit  of  sixty- three  years.  The  head  "of 
the  Constellation  Line,  a  Scotch  baronet, 
regarded  pensions  as  a  foe  to  thrift.  A 
man  should  save  enough  from  his  salarv  to 
stave  oU  star\-ation  when  retired.  In  or- 
der to  encourage  thrift  the  salaries  were 
pinchingly  small.  The  company  paid  the 
shareholders  ten  per  cent  and  the  surplus 
made  one's  mouth  water. 

This  was  Captain  Borland's  last  voy- 
age, bound  out  from  New  York  to  Liver- 
pool. Standing  behind  a  canvas  weather- 
screen,  on  a  night  quiet  and  luminous,  he 
dwelt  with  thoughts  that  brought  unhap- 
piness.  Li  youth  he  had  greatly  dreamed 
of  love  and  bold  adventure,  and  a  fireside 
waiting  to  welcome  him  near  the  end  of 
life's  long  road.  The  wife,  now  dead,  had 
quenched  the  spark  of  romance  before  it 
was  fairly  alight  and  he  had  made  the  best 
of  a  bad  bargain.  A  son  lost  at  sea  as 
mate  of  an  overloaded  tramp;  a  childless 
daughter  who  had  married  no  more  wisely 
than  her  father;  sa\-ings  vanished  in  in- 
vestments made  with  a  sailor's  guileless 


trust  in  shrewder  landsmen.  Nothing 
seemed  to  survive  of  the  years  of  effort  to 
do  his  utmost  for  his  own  and  for  himself. 

Steaming  to  and  fro,  climbing  a  step  at 
a  time,  his  sea  record  had  been  singularly 
uneventful. 

To  his  passengers  he  was  courteous  but 
avoided  famiharity.  The  ship  and  her 
safety  absorbed  his  attention  and  he  ruled 
her  like  a  just  and  \-igilant  despot.  What 
happened  at  breakfast  on  the  fifth  day  of 
this  voyage  was  unusual.  A  chair  at  his 
table  was  vacant  and  he  appeared  per- 
turbed, glancing  at  it  several  times  in  ab- 
sent-minded silence  before  he  asked  the 
portly,  consequential  gentleman  at  his 
right  hand: 

"Nothing  wrong  with  Miss  T\Tidall,  I 
hope?  She  is  too  good  a  sailor  to  mind 
this  bit  of  a  roll.  I  have  seen  her  out 
bright  and  early  ever}-  morning.*^ 

"A  bit  of  a  headache,  I  beheve,*'  was 
the  rather  indifferent  reply. 

•"Cousin  Amelia  T\Tidall  is  plaiu  lazy 
to-day,  I  guess,''  piped  up  the  small 
daughter.  "Mamma  says  I  must  be  pa- 
tient with  her  'cause  she  isn't  as  spr}-  and 
vounsr  as  she  was  once." 

The  father  laughed,  but  Captaiu  Dor- 
land's  brown  cheek  flushed  with  anger. 
The  family  occupied  "the  royal  suite,'' 
and  this  ^Ir.  Sherman  L'nderwocd  was  a 
person  of  much  importance  iu  Xew  York. 
It  was  the  duty  of  the  ship's  officers  to 
make  his  voyage  agreeable.  The  captaiu 
offered  no  comment,  but  left  the  table 
sooner  than  the  others  and  sent  a  steward- 
ess to  iuquire  concerning  the  welfare  of 
Miss  Amelia  Tyndall.  And  when  she  ap- 
peared on  deck  two  hours  later  he  found  it 
necessary  to  pass  that  w^ay  on  the  daily 
tour  of  inspection. 

She  was  the  younger  by  a  ver\-  few 
years  and  her  hair  was  as  white  as  his  o'wn, 
a  woman  of  a  certaiu  fine  distinction  of  as- 
pect. Her  interest  in  life  was  zestf  ul  but  un- 
affected.   Not  wholly  lost  was  the  bright 


As  in   His  Youth 


247 


wonderment  of  youth  that  the  world  should  deal,  Miss  Tyndall.     Such  a  passenger  as 

be  so  full  of  diverting  })eople  and  things,  you  makes  a  voyage  worth  remembering, 

while  with  a  sj)irit  reconciled  and  untroub-  Would  you  care  to  come  on  the  bridge  at 

led  she  watched  the  shadows  grow  longer,  six  bells — half  an  hour  from  now?     It's  a 


"You  are  a  remarkably  young,  and  handsome  woman  for  your  years,  whatever  they  may  be." — Page  248. 


Halting  beside  her  chair,  Captain  Dor- 
land  held  his  gold-laced  cap  in  his  hand 
and  bowed  by  no  means  clumsily. 

''I  was  worried  about  that  headache  of 
yours!"  he  gravely  exclaimed. 

Miss  Tyndall  looked  up,  grateful,  ad- 
miring. 

"How  very  good  of  you,  with  this  great 
ship  to  care  for! "  she  said.  In  her  sight 
the  master  of  a  liner  was  an  immensely 
heroic  figure,  for  she  felt  the  magic  and  the 
mystery  of  the  sea.  His  candid  features 
reflected  something  more  than  admira- 
tion. He  had  the  simplicity  that  scorns 
evasions. 

'*I  have  been  thinking  of  you  a  good 
Vol.  LV.— 24 


fine  view  of  the  ship  and  the  sea  from 
there." 

The  color  delicately  suffused  her  face, 
and  the  sweet,  well-bred  intonations  were 
slightly  startled  as  she  replied: 

''Thank  you  for  the  compliment.  Cap- 
tain Borland.  May  I  ask  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Underwood  to  join  us?" 

''I  will  invite  them  some  other  time, 
if  you  don't  mind,"  he  firmly  dissented, 
"  unless  you  think  we  are  young  ami  lri\o- 
lous  enough  to  need  a  brace  of  chaperons." 

"Hardly  that,"  she  smiled,  finding  no 
offence  in  the  frankness  of  this  eklcrly 
mariner.  "  I  shall  be  delighted  to  see  your 
sacred  precinct.     Our  table-steward  told 


248 


As  ill   11  is   Youth 


us  that  you  were  on  the bridire  three da\s 
ami  nights  without  rest  on  a  vovaije  last 
winter,  and  your  shoes  had  to  be  cut  from 
your  feet." 

"A  mere  matter  of  routine  duty — not 
worth  mention — all  in  the  day's  work." 
he  stammered  like  a  self-conscious  boy. 
"Which  reminds  me  that  I  am  neglecting 
my  duty.     Shall  I  tind  you  here?" 

"Vou  will  find  me  waiting.  Captain 
Dorland." 

He  walked  fonvard,  his  gait  easy  and 
alert,  nor  in  all  the  Seven  Seas  was  there  a 
shipmaster  who  felt  less  like  an  old  man. 
Holding  himself  even  straighter  than  or- 
dinary', he  hummed  a  snatch  of  a  chantey 
recalled  from  the  brave  days  of  his  teens 
when  he  sailed  before  the  mast.  To  this 
superannuated  conunander,  about  to  be 
discarded  from  the  ser\'ice  as  human  junk, 
there  had  unfolded  the  miracle  of  love  for 
a  woman,  naught  of  passionate  infatua- 
tion, for  that  lay  far  behind  him,  but  an 
affection  deep,  serene,  immutable. 

Although  so  tragically  deferred,  it  made 
him  young  in  heart.  Hopeless  it  was  and 
utterly  futile,  yet  he  was  glad  neverthe- 
less. She  a  woman  of  wealth  and  exalted 
social  station,  he  a  man  so  soon  to  face 
idleness  and  poverty,  his  achievements  a 
finished  chapter.  Doubtless  they  would 
never  meet  again  after  this  voyage. 

When  he  escorted  JMiss  Tyndall  to  the 
steamer's  bridge,  the  soaring  isolation  of 
the  structure  thrilled  her.  It  seemed  a 
world  removed  from  the  noisy,  populous 
decks  and  cabins.  Two  navigating  otfi- 
cers  and  the  quartermaster  at  the  wheel — 
quiet,  unhurried  men — scanned  the  sea 
and  held  the  liner  to  her  eastward  course. 

"How  many  are  there  in  your  crew?" 
she  asked  the  captain. 

^'  Four  hundred,  all  told.  You  wouldn't 
think  so  up  here." 

"Four  hundred  men,  obedient  to  you," 
murmured  Miss  Tj-ndall.  ''And  a  thou- 
sand passengers  or  more  to  carry  through 
night  and  fog  and  storm  and  ice,  month 
after  month,  year  after  year.  Do  you 
feel  the  pride  of  power,  Captain  Dor- 
land?" 

"I  don't  quite  understand  what  you 
mean,"  said  he,  but  an  inner  voice  told 
him  that  he  was  poignantly  reluctant  to 
lay  this  power  down.  "  It  is  a  big  job,  in 
a  way,  and  I  Like  it.     I  have  been  at  sea 


fifty  years,  Miss  Tyndall.  I  know  noth- 
ing else." 

"As  long  as  that?  I  shouldn't  have 
dreamed  it.  But  I  suppose  you  have  not 
begun  to  think  of  retiring.  You  are  much 
more  robust  than  some  of  our  fagged  busi- 
ness men  who  call  themselves  middle- 
aged." 

This  favorable  verdict  delighted  him 
and  he  replied  in  his  straightforward  fash- 
ion : 

"  Vou  are  a  remarkably  young  and  hand- 
some woman  for  your  years,  whatever 
they  may  be.  I  should  say  that  you  had 
cheerfully  done  your  duty  as  you  found  it 
and  let  the  worries  take  care  of  themselves. 
Those  have  been  my  sailing  directions." 

He  could  not  bear  to  tell  her  that  he 
would  command  the  Ccnlanis  only  three 
more  days.  She  was  to  think  of  him,  if 
she  cared  to  recall  the  \oyage,  as  she  ncnv 
beheld  him,  sovereign  of  his  kingdom 
afloat.  In  her  own  soul  she  knew  that 
she  would  many  times  think  of  him  again, 
for  romance  can  swiftly  blossom  as  well 
for  an  elderly  spinster  as  for  a  hoary  mas- 
ter-mariner. Her  sensitive  lips  trembled 
ever  so  little  and  she  looked  rather  at  the 
sea  than  at  him  as  she  said: 

"I  have  found  life  both  bitter  and 
sweet,  Captain  Dorland.  You  are  very 
flattering  indeed,  but  if  I  am  not  really  a 
withered  old  woman  at  sixty,  perhaps  it 
is  because  I  have  tried  not  to  wither  in 
spirit." 

"And  believed  there  w^as  some  goodness 
left  in  the  world."  he  heartily  added,  ''in 
spite  of  all  the  pessimistic  drivel  of  a  lot  of 
half-baked  lubbers  ashore.  I  hear  them 
now  and  then  in  the  smoking-room,  gener- 
ally damning  the  universe." 

"You  and  I  preach  the  same  gospel,  I 
am  sure,"  laughed  Miss  Tyndall. 

"  We  think  the  same  about  a  great  many 
things,  give  us  time  to  compare  notes. 
How  long  do  you  e.xpect  to  stay  abroad?  " 

"  .\bout  three  months.  We  shall  motor 
through  France  and  Italy.  The  plan  is  to 
sail  for  home  from  Genoa  on  September 
I  St.  I  am  sorr>'  we  can't  return  with  you 
in  the  CtnUirus/' 

"  I  wish  with  all  my  heart  we  could  sail 
together  again.  Miss  Tyndall." 

"Tell  me  something  about  yourself," 
said  she.  "  Your  references  to  me  have 
been  extremely  personal,  you  know.    Turn 


As  in   His  Youth 


249 


about  is  fair  play.     You  have  no  home  in 
England?" 

*'My  home  was  in  Liverpool.  I  am  a 
Canadian  by  birth — raised  in  St.  John — 
went  to  sea 
from  there 
as  a  boy.  I 
may  go  back 
there — *'  he 
hesitated 
and  his  voice 
was  not  quite 
under  con- 
trol as  he 
slowly  re- 
peated—"go 
back  there 
—someday." 

''When  you 
are  in  port — 
in  New  York, 
I  mean — be- 
tween voy- 
ages— "  Miss 
Tyndall  was 
more  con- 
fused than 
the  words 
warranted 
—'^  I  should 
be  pleased  to 
have  you  call. 
My  cousins, 
the  Under- 
woods, usu- 
ally open 
their  town 
house  early 
in  Novem- 
ber." 

'M— I— it 
would  give 
me  a  tremen- 
dous amount  of  pleasure,"  he  faltered. 
The  trend  of  the  conversation  had  become 
painful.  To  hide  the  truth  gave  him  a 
sense  of  un  worthiness.  All  he  could  think 
of  was  that  he  was  to  be  turned  out  of  the 
Constellation  Line  because  he  was  guilty 
of  the  crime  of  sixty-three  years.  Go  to 
see  Miss  Tyndall  in  New  York?  By  an- 
other winter  he  might  be  begging  his  bread 
in  the  streets.  More  than  one  old  ship- 
master had  asked  alms  of  him.  The  im- 
pulse promi)ting  his  next  remark  was  nat- 
ural  and   unconsciously  pathetic.     This 


Back 


to  the  place  of  his  boyhood,  . 

the  roaring  tides  of  Fundy. — Page  25a 


woman  who  so  profoundly  stirred  his  emo- 
tions should  see  and  know  him  to  the  best 
possible  advantage. 

"Do  you  want  to  go  through  the  ship 

^^■  i  t  h  me, 
Miss  Tyn- 
dall? Sheisa 
big,  compli- 
cateJ  piece  of 
work  at  close 
range." 

She  ac- 
cepted with 
charmi  ng 
enthusiasm. 
They  went 
from  the  fore- 
castle to  the 
many  decks, 
down,  down 
to  the  clam- 
orous engine- 
rooms  and 
the  inferno 
of  the  fur- 
naces where 
the  sweat- 
ing stokers 
toiled  in 
gangs.  Ev- 
er }•  w  h  e  r  e 
throughout 
this  vast  and 
i  n  t  ricate 
fabric  men 
respectfully 
saluted  their 
commander, 
Norwegian 
seamen, 
pasty-faced 
stewards, 
white-clad 
scullions,  grimy  oilers,  attentive  engineers, 
all  of  them  his  servants,  ready  and  willing, 
bound  by  the  iron  laws  of  the  sea.  The 
woman  had  sjTiipathy  to  comprehend  that 
this  superb  organization  was  dominated 
by  the  one  masterful  personality.  When 
they  came  again  under  the  open  sky,  she 
said : 

''I  shall  not  forget  this  experience.  1 
have  never  known  your  kind  of  a  man." 

They  stood  forsvard,  in  the  lee  of  a  deck- 
house, apart  from  the  passengers.  As 
one  who  would  say  good-by  to  a  friend, 


the  tall  wharfs,  and 


250 


As  in   His  Youth 


he  took  her  hand  and  held  it  a  moment. 
She  let  it  rest  there  and  her  eyes  met  his 
unflinchingly.     With  a  sigh  he  told  her: 

"I  ha\e  never  known  your  kind  of  a 
woman.  I  wish  to  God  I  could  have  met 
you  years  and  years  ago." 

There  was  nothing  more  for  him  to  say. 
Even  this  was  more  than  he  had  meant  to 
say.  She  stood  as  if  waiting,  but  he  was 
silent.  Then  she  slowly  returned  to  the 
promenade-deck  while  the  captain  climbed 
the  stairway  to  the  loneliness  and  the 
wide,  empty  spaces  of  the  liner's  bridge. 

The  wind  veered  that  afternoon,  in- 
creasing to  a  strident  gale  with  an  over- 
cast sky.  By  sunset  the  weather  was 
murky  with  rain  and  spray,  and  the  com- 
mander did  not  appear  at  dinner.  During 
the  night  the  gale  subsided,  but  a  wet  fog 
blanketed  the  gray  sea  and  the  Centarus 
crept  cautiously  to  beware  of  other  steam- 
ers. Nor  did  the  sky  clear  until  she  had 
made  a  landfall  off  the  Irish  coast.  It 
was  decreed,  therefore,  that  there  should 
be  no  more  interviews  between  the  twain 
until  the  farewell,  brief  and  outwardly 
commonplace,  when  the  liner  swung  at 
anchor  in  the  Mersey  and  the  tender  was 
alongside. 

Captain  Borland  cleared  his  ship  of 
passengers  and  then  put  her  in  dock  to 
discharge  cargo.  These  final  tasks  accom- 
plished, he  laid  aside  the  smart  blue  uni- 
form, packed  it  in  a  chest  with  his  other 
belongings,  and  went  ashore  to  report  to 
the  marine  superintendent.  He  received 
cordial  commendation  for  his  long  and 
faithful  service,  including  a  formal  letter 
from  the  Scotch  baronet,  and  a  bonus  of 
a  hundred  pounds  in  token  of  the  com- 
pany's esteem.  That  same  day  the  master 
of  a  smaller  ship  was  promoted  to  the  Cen- 
tarus, and  in  as  simple  a  manner  as  this  did 
Captain  Edward  Borland  wind  up  an  hon- 
orable career  of  fifty  years  on  blue  water. 

He  visited  his  daughter,  who  had  in- 
herited the  mother's  shrewish  temper,  and 
found  that  business  misfortunes  had  again 
overwhelmed  her  luckless  husband.  Leav- 
ing with  them  a  considerable  part  of  the 
hundred  pounds  by  way  of  succor,  he  took 
passage  for  St.  John.  It  seemed  useless 
to  seek  employment  in  England.  Many 
friends  would  have  been  glad  to  offer  tact- 
ful aid,  but  the  thought  of  dependence 
was  as  bitter  as  death.  By  a  sort  of  in- 
stinct he  went  homing  back  to  the  place  of 


his  boyhood,  to  the  windy  streets,  the  tall 
wharfs,  and  the  roaring  tides  of  Fundy. 
He  had  been  a  person  of  importance  in 
maritime  Liverpool  and  it  was  abhorrent 
to  tarry  there  as  a  derelict. 

Several  weeks  later  than  this,  another 
elderly  man  trudged  into  the  dooryard 
of  a  white  cottage  overlooking  the  har- 
bor of  St.  John.  His  legs  were  short,  his 
breath  likewise,  and  his  circumference 
more  notable  than  his  height.  You  might 
have  been  slow  to  twit  him  of  the  fact,  for 
the  beam  of  his  chest  was  formidable  and 
there  was  room  for  any  number  of  chips  up- 
on his  shoulders.  Rolling  into  the  kitchen, 
he  shouted  an  affectionate  greeting  at  a 
bright-eyed  little  woman  with  -the  quick 
movements  of  a  sparrow,  whisked  her  in- 
to the  air,  and  set  her  down  on  a  table. 
This  violent  procedure  she  accepted  as  a 
matter  of  course. 

"Caroline,  something  has  got  to  be 
done  about  it,  as  sure  as  my  name  is  Joel 
Bangs." 

"I  suppose  so,  whatever  it  is,"  amiably 
chirruped  his  wife,  "but  there's  two  cakes 
in  the  oven  and  with  you  trampin'  and 
chargin'  around  this  way  they'll  fall  fiat. 
You  were  a  sea-cook  long  enough  to  know 
better." 

With  gingerly  tread  he  sought  a  chair 
and  explained: 

' '  I  saw  Captain  Borland  again  this  morn- 
ing, CaroHne.  And  I  just  can't  stand  it. 
He's  agin'  all  of  a  sudden.  The  story 
that  he's  retired  and  living  like  a  gen- 
tleman on  his  investments  sounds  flimsy 
to  me.  Trouble  is  eating  the  heart  out  of 
him.  And  I  suspect  he's  plumb  near  on  his 
beam-ends." 

"It  don't  seem  possible,  Joel,"  absently 
observed  Mrs.  Bangs  as  she  opened  the 
oven  door  and  anxiously  peered  within. 
"Master  of  big  passenger  ships  like  the 
Centarus  ?  Beary  me,  and  here  you  are, 
better  off  than  him,  with  a  home  free  and 
clear,  money  in  the  bank,  and  shares  in 
three  schooners!" 

"It  makes  me  ashamed  as  the  devil," 
rumbled  her  husband.  "When  I  sailed 
with  him  as  chief  cook  he  had  the  old 
Andromeda,  in  line  for  promotion  to  a 
better  ship.  I  thought  a  lot  of  him,  Caro- 
line, after  that  ruction  I've  told  you  about. 
My  first  day  aboard  he  sent  a  boy  down  for 
coffee.  I  burnt  it  a-purpose,  to  find  out 
what  kind  of  a  man   the  skipper  was. 


As  in   His  Youth 


251 


Readin' human  nature  was  my  long  suit.  ''Pshawl    I    dassn't,"    he  confessed. 

If  he  swallowed  the  rotten  bad  cotTee  and  "You're  not  a  seafarin'  man,  Car(jline 

had  nothin'  to  say,  I'd  know  I  could  do  and  you  don't  understand  how  the  eti- 

about  as  I  pleased  aboard  that  hooker."  quette  of  it  was  hammered  into  me.     The 


"  Caroline,  something  has  got  to  be  done  about  it,  as  sure  as  my  name  is 
Joel  Bangs." — Page  250. 


"And  what  did  he  do  to  you?"  she  de- 
manded with  as  much  gusto  as  if  the  tale 
were  new. 

"  Called  me  to  the  bridge,  grabbed  me 
by  the  neck,  made  me  drink  every  drop  of 
the  blasted  stuff,  and  broke  the  saucer 
over  my  head.  Right  there  was  where  I 
quit  readin'  human  nature  with  the  aid  of 
a  coffee-pot." 

"Why  don't  you  ask  him  up  to  sup- 
per, Joel?  I'll  be  very  particular  about 
the  coffee.  It's  dreadful  lonesome  for 
him  in  lodgings,  and  he's  been  away  from 
St.  John  so  long  that  he  can't  have  many 
friends  here." 


master  of  a  big  liner  is  a  stupendous  ])rop- 
osition,  speakin'  sailor-wise,  and  would  you 
ask  him  to  set  at  table  with  a  ship's  cook?  " 

"Nonsense,  Joel,"  was  the  crisp  com- 
ment. "You  are  just  a  pair  of  barnacles 
peaceably  growin'  old  ashore,  with  all  the 
frills  and  crinktuni-cranktums  left  at  sea, 
where  they  belong." 

"He  was  down  tt)  the  wharfs  yester- 
day," resumed  Mr.  Hangs,  "and  when 
Naulty  hapi)ened  to  say  he  needed  a  night 
watchman,  Captain  l)t)rland  hinted  he 
might  consider  the  berth.  Just  think  of 
it.     I'm  all  stewed  uj)." 

Joel  filled  his  pipe  and  sat  sorrowfully 


252 


As  in   His  Youth 


cogitating  until  the  brisk  little  woman 
observed  with  em])hasis: 

"If  etiquette  ])revcnts  your  treatin' 
Captain  Dorland  like  a  fellow  human,  sup- 
pose you  lug  me  in  some  wood.  I'm  not 
too  proud  to  be  helped  by  a  retired  sea- 
cook." 

While  they  discussed  the  lamentable 
fortunes  of  the  recent  master  of  the  Cen- 
tarus,  the  elderly  gentleman  in  question 
was  thoughtfully  considering  the  self- 
same problem.  He  was  drawing  on  his 
slender  capital  and  had  no  source  of  in- 
come. Perhaps  it  w^ould  have  been  wiser 
to  remain  in  England.  A  persistent  quest 
might  have  discovered  a  clerkship  in  a 
ship-broker's  or  underwriter's  office.  He 
had  professional  knowledge  to  sell  but 
there  seemed  to  be  no  market  for  it  in  the 
hustling  Canadian  provinces. 

It  was  difficult  for  him  to  comprehend 
that  he  was  fit  for  nothing  else  than  com- 
mand upon  the  sea.  He  was  afraid  of 
the  land.  Already  he  had  become  vacil- 
lating, brooding,  timorous,  reluctant  to 
thrust  himself  forward.    St.  John  had  wel- 


comed and  dined  him  as  a  distinguished 
native  son  and  then  taken  it  for  granted 
that  he  was  capable  of  looking  after  him- 
self. 

A  burden  of  foreboding  and  discourage- 
ment made  his  shoulders  sag  and  robbed 
his  gait  of  its  alert  swing.  The  lines  of  his 
face  deepened  and  his  eyes  were  very  tired. 
He  no  longer  courageously  warded  off  the 
conviction  that  he  was  a  worn-out  old 
man.  The  days  of  his  splendid  efficiency, 
so  recent  in  time,  began  to  appear  vaguely 
remote. 

He  was  reading  in  his  room  when  Joel 
Bangs,  having  cogitated  at  much  length 
and  renewed  the  discussion  with  Caroline, 
came  to  see  him.  The  prosperous  sea- 
cook  was  hot  and  flustered.  In  his  hon- 
est head  was  a  magnificent  idea,  but  all 
his  resolution  was  required  to  disclose  it. 
Standing  stiffly  at  attention,  just  inside 
the  door,  he  declined  the  proffered  chair 
and  hurriedly  exclaimed: 

''  I'm  fit  and  hearty,  thank  you,  sir.  Just 
a  little  call  to  wish  you  the  same,  which  I 
hope  you  won't  think  presumin'  of  me." 


Standing  stiffly  at  attention,  just  inside  the  door,  he  dechned  the  proffered  chair. 


As  in   His  Youth 


253 


"Oh,  sit  down  and  have  a  chat,  Joel," 
cried  Captain  Borland.  "You  and  I  are  old 
friends.  I  have  been  intending  to  walk  up 
the  hill  and  i)ay  my  respects  to  your  wife." 

"We'd  be  prouder  of  our  little  place 
than  ever,  sir,"  broadly  beamed  the  other. 


hoped.  Caroline  said  I  wouldn't  have 
the  spunk  to  do  it.  It  sounds  imperti- 
nent of  a  man  that  once  sailed  with  you  as 
chief  pot-walloper,  sir,  and  if  you  don't 
like  it,  why,  heave  me  out  by  the  slack 
of  my  breeches.     But  if  you're  sure  you 


He  flourished  his  cap  and  lustily  shouted. — Page  255. 


"Diggin'  in  the  garden  does  me  a  heap  of 
good.     You  ought  to  try  it." 

"They  say  there  is  nothing  like  a  bit  of 
land  to  putter  about  in,  Joel.  I  am  too  old  a 
dog  to  learn  new  tricks.  You  were  wise  to 
quit  the  sea  so  much  sooner  than  I  did." 

"Do  you  think  you'd  feel  better  if  you 
were  at  sea  again?"  queried  Mr.  Bangs, 
who  had  begun  to  breathe  hard. 

The  master  mariner  brightened.  The 
very  thought  of  it  was  like  a  tonic. 

"Go  to  sea  again?  Lord,  I'd  go  in  a 
barge!  I  am  pickled  and  salted  in  brine 
to  the  bone.  I  am  getting  full  of  dry  rot 
ashore,  like  a  stick  of  old  timber." 

Joel  wij)ed  his  bald  brow.  Even  those 
stout  legs  of  his  seemed  unable  to  su])p()rt 
him  satisfactorily  and  he  slumped  into  a 
chair.  After  opening  his  mouth  twice  the 
words  came  with  a  rush: 

"There,  I've  led  up  to  it  handier  than  I 


would  enjoy  better  health  at  sea  again — 
well,  I'm  managin'  owner  of  a  two-masted 
schooner  that  trades  between  St.  John  and 
Boston.  The  master  of  her  wants  to  quit 
me  and  go  deep  water.  If  you  want  her,  the 
schooner  is  yours  to  command  as  long  as 
you  live  and  as  long  as  she  stays  afloat." 

Joel  Bangs  lay  back  in  his  chair  like  one 
exhausted,  murmuring  under  his  breath 
by  way  of  peroration: 

"Me  talkin'  that  way  to  the  skipj)er  of 
the  Centariis^     Could  you  beat  it?" 

Ca])tain  Edward  Dorland  gazed  hard  at 
the  wall  and  blinked  before  he  brushed  a 
hand  across  his  eyes.  He  was  not  in- 
sulted. Very  dilTereut  from  resentment 
was  the  emotion  which  welled  in  his  heart. 
Ashamed  of  himself  as  womanish,  he 
rai)ped  out  in  the  old  curt,  incisi\e  man- 
ner: 

"I  am  ready  to  report  aboard  and  take 


254 


As  in   His  Youth 


the  vessel  to  sea  whenever  you  say  the 
word,  Mister  Bangs." 

"I  am  greatly  obliged   to  you,   sir," 
humbly  quoth  the  managing  owner. 

*'You  bully 
old  fool,  you," 
blurted  the 
shipmaster. 
''The  thanks 
are  all  on  my 
side.     I  will 
do  my  duty 
to  the  best  of 
my  ability. 
You  are  the 
boss.      Are 
you  sure  I'm 
not  too  old?" 
^'Good  for 
ten    years, 
sir,  and  then 
vou  take  the 
little   farm 
next  to  mine 
and    we'll 
plant    our 
gardens  to- 
gether. I  pay 
decent  wages 
in  my  vessels. 
You  are  a  very 
fine   gentle- 
man, Captain 
Borland. 
Only  a  thor- 
o  ughb  r ed 
could  take  it 
as  you   do. 
Now,   if  you 
want  to  come 
down  to  the 
wharf,  we'll 
look    the 
schooner  over. 
She  is  seawor- 
thy, and  I'm  willin'  to  spend  some  money 
to  make  her  fit  and  comfortable  for  you." 
A  fortnight  after  this   interview   the 
two-master  Caroline  B.  was  ready  for  sea. 
Vainly  had  Captain  Borland  protested 
against  the  lavish  outlay  for  paint,  stores, 
and  furnishings.     The  owner  was  stub- 
born and  his   wife   abetted    him.     The 
best  they  could  do  was  not  good  enough 
for  the  new  master  of  the  schooner.     She 
was  to  look  as  fresh   and  smart   as  a 
yacht. 


"  And  now  you  find  me  in  th 
daily  bread  ' 


''You  were  never  aboard  one  of  his 
crack  ships,  Caroline,"  declared  her  lord. 
"He  had  an  eye  hke  a  hawk  for  dirty 
paint  or  brass-work,  and  a  spot  on  the 

deck-plank- 
in'  gave  him 
fits.  It  would 
drive  him  dis- 
tracted to  go 
in  a  disrepu- 
table vessel. 
God  knows  it's 
hard  enough 
for  him  any- 
how." 

"The  cabin 
looks  mighty 
nice,  Joel,  with 
the  new  desk 
and  chair  and 
rugs.  And  I 
took  real 
pride  in  mak- 
in'  the  win- 
dow curtains. 
My  best  coun- 
terpane is  on 
his  bunk  and 
there's  plenty 
of  new  table 
linen." 

"I'm  givin' 
him  a  good 
crew,"  said 
the  owner. 
"There's  only 
five  of  'em, 
instead  of 
four  hun- 
dred. Ain't 
it  ridiculous? 
The  mate  is 
first-class  and 
the  seamen  are 


is  little  schooner,  earning  my 
Page  256. 


sober.  About 
the  cook,  I  dunno.  Captain  Borland  is 
used  to  having  things  served  in  proper 
style." 

Mrs.  Bangs  giggled  like  a  girl  as  she 
observed: 

"  Well,  you've  had  that  long-legged  cook 
from  the  schooner  up  here  every  night 
this  week,  drillin'  and  trainin'  him  to  make 
fancy  dishes  and  wait  on  table,  and  muss 
up  my  clean  kitchen." 

"I've  polished  him  off  as  well  as  I  could 
at  short  notice,"  he  anxiously  affirmed. 


As  in   His  Youth 


255 


*'If  he  don't  suit  the  captain  I'll  ship  as 
cook  myself  next  voyage." 

With  a  fair  wind  the  Caroline  B.  stood 
out  of  the  harbor  and  laid  her  course  to  the 
southward.  Pacing  the  tiny  poop-deck 
was  the  spare,  erect  figure  of  her  master 
in  a  uniform  of  blue  from  which  the  gilt 
buttons  of  the  Constellation  Line  had  been 
removed.  Nothing  of  chagrin  or  humili- 
ation was  wTitten  upon  his  thin,  kindly 
features,  only  thanksgiving  that  this  op- 
portunity for  usefulness  had  been  vouch- 
safed him.  The  crew  showed  solicitous 
eagerness  to  please  him.  They  \dewed  him 
as  a  great  man  fallen  to  a  very  humble  es- 
tate. The  respectful  friendliness  touched 
him  exceedingly.  The  seamanship  which 
he  had  learned  in  sailing  craft  came  back 
to  Captain  Borland  and  he  showed  his 
men  that  he  knew  the  business  of  han- 
dling a  schooner.  The  good  wind,  the 
heaving  deck,  the  spatter  of  spray,  the 
slatting  of  canvas  and  the  whining  song 
of  the  blocks  revived  in  him  the  ardent 
interest  of  the  yesteryears^ 

When  the  Caroline  B.  was  abreast  of  a 
bight  of  the  Maine  coast,  a  strong  westerly 
breeze  came  bowling  across  a  bright  sea 
under  blue  skies.  The  captain  hauled 
further  in  to  find  smooth  water  under  the 
lee  of  the  land  and  let  the  sturdy  vessel 
drive  with  all  sail  set.  The  mate  was 
upon  the  forecastle-head  tinkering  with  a 
broken  capstan-pawL  Straightening  him- 
self, he  glanced  beyond  the  bowsprit  by 
force  of  habit  and  discerned  a  white  motor- 
launch  a  little  to  starboard  of  the  schoon- 
■  er's  course  and  not  far  distant.  It  appeared 
to  be  drifting  without  headway,  now  lift- 
ing on  the  backs  of  the  breaking  waves, 
now  wallowing  in  the  small  valleys  be- 
tween. He  sang  out  to  the  man  at  the 
wheel  and  Captain  Borland,  who  was  scan- 
ning a  chart  in  the  cabin,  jumped  on  deck. 

There  were  two  persons  in  the  launch, 
one  of  them  a  man  who  raised  his  coat  on 
the  end  of  a  boat-hook  and  flourished  it  as 
a  signal  of  distress.  The  captain  caught 
up  his  binoculars  and  stepped  to  the  rail, 
telling  the  mate  to  heave-  the  schooner  to. 

The  other  occupant  of  the  launch  was  a 
woman,  slender,  composed,  who  showed 
no  signs  of  alarm.  Her  hair  was  as  white 
as  Captain  Edward  Borland's.  He  stared, 
and  the  hands  which  held  the  glasses  were 
so  unsteady  with  excitement  that  the  vis- 
VoL.  LV.— 25 


ion  of  the  woman  came  and  went.  The 
woman  with  whom  he  had  talked  that  day 
on  the  bridge  of  the  Centarus?  The  shi[)- 
mate  who  had  inspired  his  yearning  affec- 
tion? He  forgot  to  be  ashamed  that  she 
should  find  him  thus. 

It  was  easy  to  perceive  that  the  dis- 
abled launch  had  been  blown  off-shore. 
Cleverly  mana-uvred,  the  schooner  ran 
close  alongside  and  the  mate,  waiting  his 
chance,  leaped  in  and  helped  the  man  fend 
off.  Captain  Borland  dropped  a  short 
ladder  from  the  bulwark,  moving  with 
the  activity  of  a  boy.  Then,  as  he  stood 
braced  to  catch  her,  Miss  Tyndall  recog- 
nized him.  With  a  startled  gesture  she 
rose  to  her  feet  and  clung  to  the  coaming 
while  she  gazed  up  at  the  captain  in  word- 
less amazement.  He  flourished  his  cap 
and  lustily  shouted: 

''You  are  Miss  Amelia  Tyndall  or  her 
ghost.  Welcome  aboard  my  vessel. 
Steady,  now." 

The  mate  picked  her  up,  biding  his 
time  until  the  launch  lifted  again,  and 
swung  her  to  the  ladder  with  a  heave  and 
a  toss.  Captain  Borland  caught  her,  an 
arm  around  her  trim  waist,  and  helped 
her  to  mount  the  low  bulwark.  After  her 
came  a  trunk  and  several  pieces  of  hand- 
luggage.  The  navigator  of  the  launch 
scrambled  to  the  deck  and  his  crippled 
craft  was  dropped  astern  in  tow.  The 
mate  hovered  in  the  background,  expect- 
ing an  order  either  to  put  the  schooner  on 
her  course  or  to  land  the  castaways  at 
some  near-by  port.  The  crew,  mo\'ed  by 
lively  curiosity  that  two  old  friends  should 
meet  in  this  odd  fashion,  edged  within 
earshot.  They  heard  Miss  Tyndall  say, 
in  fluttered  accents: 

"Is  it  really,  actually  you?  Are  you 
quite  sure  you  are  not  your  own  twin 
brother?" 

"Thank  God,  I'm  no  twin  brother  nor 
anybody  else  but  myself,"  devoutly  ex- 
claimed the  skipper.  "Bless  my  stars, 
how  did  you  hai:)pen?  Where  do  you  hail 
from  and  whither  bound?" 

"I  was  on  my  way  from  ^Ir.  Under- 
wood's island  estate  off  the  coast  jontlcr. 
My  intention  was  to  reach  the  mainland 
and  take  a  train  to  Boston.  But  the  mo- 
tor-boat broke  down." 

"But  you  haven't  returned  from  Eu- 
rope, my  dear  woman." 


2:)(; 


As  In   His  Youth 


*'My  cousin,  Mrs,  Underwood,  died 
very  suddenly  in  France,"  she  explained. 
''And  her  husband  brought  home  the  lit- 
tle girl,  Dorothea,  and  opened  his  place  on 
the  island.  The  child  is  delicate,  the 
shock  affected  her  seriously,  and  the  phy- 
sicians advised  this  bracing  air.  But  you, 
Captain  Borland " 

''I  am  in  command  of  the  coasting 
schooner,  Caroline  B.  of  St.  John." 

He  spoke  with  simple  dignity  and  per- 
fect poise,  master  of  himself  and  the  cir- 
cumstances. Reminded  of  her  plight  he 
went  on  to  say: 

''You  wish  to  be  set  ashore  to  continue 
the  journey?  With  this  off-shore  breeze 
I'm  afraid  I  can't  fetch  much  nearer  than 
Boothbay  Harbor." 

The  man  in  charge  of  the  launch  stepped 
forward  to  assure  him: 

"  That  will  suit  me,  sir.  I  can  make  re- 
pairs in  Boothbay  and  go  back  to-morrow 
under  my  own  power.  It's  very  kind  of 
you." 

"Then  ease  off  and  keep  her  sou'-sou'- 
west,"  the  skipper  told  the  mate.  *'  Now, 
Miss  Tyndall,  will  you  come  below  and  let 
me  try  to  make  you  comfortable  while  we 
spin  our  yarns?  The  cook  will  fetch  tea 
and  a  bit  to  eat,  presently." 

They  vanished  into  the  cabin  and  the 
mate,  who  had  left  a  sweetheart  in  St. 
John,  sagaciously  observed  to  the  main- 
mast: 

"If  it  isn't  an  old-folks'  courtin'-match 
that  we've  crossed  the  hawse  of,  then  you 
can  call  me  seven  kinds  of  a  liar.  Their 
faces  were  just  shining." 

Miss  Amelia  Tyndall  dropped  wearily 
into  the  armchair  at  the  desk.  For  a 
spinster  of  her  age  the  episode  of  the 
drifting  launch  had  been  excessively  try- 
ing. She  could  not  understand  why,  but 
as  she  looked  at  the  captain  and  then  at 
the  pleasant  room  with  its  sense  of  simple 
homeliness,  tears  filled  her  eyes.  He  let 
her  rest  in  silence  for  a  few  minutes  before 
he  gently  began: 

"I  wanted  you  to  think  me  a  grand 
man,  commanding  a  big  ship.  I  put  my 
best  foot  forward  to  win  your  favor.  I 
am  sorry  I  deceived  you.  It  was  my  last 
voyage  and  I  knew  it.  And  I  was  due  to 
be  chucked  ashore,  stranded,  finished." 

"You  were  not  guilty  of  false  pretences, 
Captain  Borland.     It  must  not  make  you 


unhappy.  I — I  admired  you — not  be- 
cause of  your  ship " 

"And  now  you  find  me  in  this  Httle 
schooner,  earning  my  daily  bread — 
doesn't  it  make  a  difference?"  eagerly  ex- 
claimed the  mariner. 

"Why  should  it?"  she  asked  with  en- 
gaging sweetness.  "I  see  no  difference 
in  you.  Isn't  it  the  finer  thing  to  bear 
adversity  with  pride  and  fortitude?  But 
you  must  hear  my  confession  now.  I  de- 
ceived you.  I  am  only  a  poor  relation, 
nobody  at  all.  While  my  cousin,  Mrs. 
Underwood,  was  living,  she  gave  me  a 
home,  and  clothes — and  I  made  myself 
useful.  Her  husband  is  a  hard,  unfeeHng 
man.  He  sent  me  away — told  me  yes- 
terday— I  was  too  old.  He  wanted  a 
younger  w^oman  with  Borothea  now  that 
her  mother  is  gone." 

The  distressing  tidings  brought  no 
gloom  to  Captain  Borland. 

"What  do  you  expect  to  do  with  your- 
self?" he  blithely  inquired, 

"What  can  a  poor  relation  do  when  she 
has  worn  her  welcome  out?  I  shall  try  to 
find  work  of  some  kind,"  was  the  brave 
answer. 

A  moment  later  Miss  Amelia  Tyndall 
discovered  that  she  was  standing  close  to 
Captain  Edw^ard  Borland.  He  was  pat- 
ting her  cheek  wdth  his  hard,  brown  hand. 
His  white  mustache  brushed  her  lips  and 
she  was  not  indignant.  She  heard  him  say : 

"  So  you  and  I  are  in  the  same  boat,  my 
dear.  Bismissed  on  account  of  old  age. 
Are  you  willing  to  stay  in  the  same  boat 
with  me,  and  call  this  schooner  home — 
our  home?" 

"Nothing  in  this  whole  wide  world  could 
make  me  so  happy,"  she  murmured,  ra- 
diant and  content. 

In  the  firm  tones  of  one  accustomed  to 
command,  he  announced: 

"You  will  stay  aboard  for  the  run  to 
Boston,  Amelia.  It  is  perfectly  proper 
for  such  superannuated  lovers.  You  will 
have  my  quarters  all  to  yourself.  Then 
we  shall  have  a  wedding,  as  soon  as  I  can 
get  a  boat  ashore.  And  our  honeymoon 
voyage  will  be  back  to  St.  John.  And 
there  will  be  dear,  kind  friends  to  welcome 
you,  friends  who  have  made  this  wonder- 
ful thing  possible.  It  has  all  come  true 
at  last,  all  that  I  dreamed  of  when  I  was 
young. '•* 


THE  GENIUS  LOCI 
By  Carter  Goodloe 


}>k^!^MK^^^id: 


ONBRIGHT  held  out  the 
newly  arrived  copy  of  L\4rt 
Universel  opened  at  Ban- 
nister's article  on  Goya,  but 
Penrose  shook  his  head. 
''Thanks,"  he  said;  "the 


truth  is,  I  never  read  Bannister  now." 

"What!  you  disown  the  Lucifer  of  Amer- 
ican art  criticism!  My  dear  Penrose,  what 
can  have  happened  to  you?"  cried  Bon- 
bright  aghast. 

"My  dear  Bonbright,  don't  be  tragic," 
laughed  Penrose.  "Nothing  has  happened 
to  me — except  a  loss  of  faith  in  the  gentle- 
man you  vociferously  style  'the  Lucifer  of 
American  art  criticism.'  In  fact,  my  dear 
boy,  I  entertain  now  about  the  same  senti- 
ments toward  Bannister  as  an  art  critic 
that  you  would  toward  a  surgeon  who  had 
cut  off  your  leg  when  it  was  your  arm  that 
needed  amputation." 

"My  dear  fellow,  you  speak  in  riddles — 
do  explain  yourself! "  murmured  Bonbright, 
knocking  the  ash  from  his  cigar. 

His  host  laughed  again.  "All  right,"  he 
said,  settling  back  in  his  chaise  longiie  and 
looking  reminiscently  out  into  the  starlit 
night. 

They  were  sitting  in  the  loggia  of  Pen- 
rose's little  white  villa  just  beyond  Mon- 
treux.  In  the  warm  summer  night  they 
could  make  out  the  twinkling  lights  of 
near-by  villas  and  the  big  white  blur  above 
Vevay  and  Villeneuve,  and  could  hear  the 
cool  lapping  of  the  water  against  the  stone 
I)arapet  at  the  foot  of  the  gardens.  In  the 
softly  lighted  room  at  their  back  Penrose's 
young  wife — an  English  girl  with  a  con- 
tralto voice  too  ])recious  to  be  exposed  to 
the  night  air — talked  animatedly  with  Mrs. 
Bonbright.  A  delicious  sense  of  privacy 
brooded  over  the  place — a  privacy  that 
Penrose  took  good  care  should  be  rarely 
interrupted  except  by  the  occasional  visit 
of  old  friends  such  as  the  Bonbrights. 

"My  loss  of  faith  dates  from  the  last 
of  my  rare  visits  to  America  when  I  be- 
came Bannister's  guest,"  said  Penrose  at 
length,   pulling   rellectively   at   his  cigar. 


"My  guestship  was  absolutely  involuntar}-, 
however — pressed  upon  me  by  Bannister — 
and  it  is  this  fact  that  palliates,  to  my  way 
of  thinking,  the  somewhat  dreary  hapi)iness 
I  experienced  in  being  a  spectator  of  his 
professional  confusion.  I  say  'dreary'  be- 
cause, although  I  had  disliked  Bannister 
from  the  time  we  were  boys  together  in  old 
Ridgewold,  still  I  had  thoroughly  believed 
in  his  impeccability  as  an  art  critic — in  fact, 
my  dislike  had  increased  in  direct  propor- 
tion to  my  conviction  of  his  value  as  an  artis- 
tic monitor — and  after  all  one  does  not  ex- 
actly enjoy  having  one's  firmly  estaljlished 
illusions  indecorously  knocked  about.  In- 
deed, I  remember,  on  his  frequent  api)ear- 
ance  in  print,  having  often  referred  to  him, 
with  the  careless  ingenuity  one  displays 
in  mentioning  celebrated  connections,  as 
'my  old  friend,  the  author  Bannister.'  I 
don't  do  it  any  more.  The  truth  is  that 
Bannister  had  made  good  and  I  hadn't — 
in  other  words,  if  he  hasn't  turned  out  an 
artist  he  has  become  an  eminent  art  critic, 
the  next  best  thing  to  it  in  Ridgcwold's 
estimation,  while  I,  as  you  know,  have  sul)- 
sided  into  a  dilettante  musician.  Oh,  no! 
don't  protest!  I  am  perfectly  aware  that 
while  I  am  an  extraordinarily  good  am- 
ateur I  would  be  an  extremely  poor  ])ro- 
fessional.  Fortunately,  having  no  money 
w^orries,  it  hardly  matters,  and  I  am  and 
have  been  perfectly  content  with  my  lot. 
Music  has  always  been  my  ruling  passion, 
and  this  little  villa  suits  me  perfectly.  So 
don't  think  for  a  moment  that  I've  c^'er 
really  envied  Bannister — except  for  a  lew 
years  when  we  were  boys  together  in  Ridge- 
wold. 

"Do  you  know  Ridgewold?  No?  Well, 
it's  a  far  cry  from  Chicago,  though  I  dare 
say  that  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  my  na- 
tive town  would  be  surprised  to  know  that 
even  a  Chicago  stock-broker  could  be  ig- 
norant of  Ridgcwold's  existence,  and  they 
would  give  you  distinctly  to  understand 
that  it  was  your  misfortune,  not  theirs. 
Ridgewold,  my  dear  Bonbright,  lies  en- 
folded in  the  Connecticut  hills  and  an  at- 

257 


258 


The  Genius  Loci 


mosphere  of  art.  The  surrounding  coun- 
try is  enchantingly  picturesque — a  fit  set- 
ting for  Ridgewold,  and  artists  annually 
forgather  there  for  the  summer  with  en- 
thusiastic pupils  who  camp  upon  the  sce- 
nery and  reproduce  it  with  more  or  less 
fidelity  and  success.  You  know  the  kind 
of  place  I  mean.  When  I  go  back — which 
isn't  often — I  go  for  the  scenery. 

''  It's  not  a  large  place,  though  it  has  long 
since  outgrown  its  suburban  name,  and  in 
any  event  its  inhabitants  make  up  in  artis- 
tic culture  and  intensity  what  they  lack 
numerically.  The  whole  place  is  permeated 
with  art — it  amounts  to  a  saturated  solution; 
the  houses  are  artistic,  even  the  station  is 
artistic  with  its '  tapestry  bricks'  and  glazed 
tiles.  As  one  walks  about  one  is  continu- 
ally being  startled  by  coming  upon  archi- 
tectural bits  that  recall — if  faintly — dif- 
ferent European  capitals,  and  continually 
impressed  with  the  idea  that  this  is  not  so 
much  an  American  town  as  an  art  centre. 
It's  been  an  art  centre  ever  since  John 
Quincy  Lithgow  lived  and  painted  and  died 
there.  His  daughter,  Miss  Fehcia  Lithgow, 
a  charming  little  old  lady,  lives  there  still. 
What!  You  never  heard  of  Lithgow! 
Good  Lord!  I'm  confoundedly  glad  we 
are  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Geneva  and  not 
in  Ridgewold.    Even  here  I  feel  like  sink- 


mg  my  voice 


"Lithgow,  my  dear  fellow,  was  one  of 
the  early  ones.  He  flourished  along  in  the 
thirties  and  forties — you'll  find  him  in  any- 
thing on  American  art.  He  founded  what 
was  at  one  time  derisively  called  '  the  Con- 
necticut school, '  and  he  was,  in  my  humble 
opinion — re-inforced  by  Laley's — a  remark- 
able painter,  if  he  and  his  school  did  suffer 
ridicule  and  neglect  before  America  woke 
up  to  art.  Not  that  he  ever  suffered  either 
ridicule  or  neglect  in  Ridgewold.  Through 
him  did  Ridgewold  become  dedicated  to 
art.  He  was  'the  man  who  made  Ridge- 
wold famous.'  He  was  a  god  there,  the 
deity  of  the  place — at  least  until  Bannister 
came.     But  I'll  get  to  Bannister  directly. 

"As  for  Lithgow — my  dear  Bonbright,  I 
wish  that  you  had  seen  any  of  his  canvases. 
You  would  better  understand  my  enthusi- 
asm. I  can  only  say  that  when  our  Amer- 
ican landscape  art  was  in  its  not  over- 
promising  infancy,  there  appeared  this 
young  painter,  a  born  pleinairist  years  be- 
fore even  the  term  was  coined,  with  a  vigor- 


ous style  of  his  own  as  different  from  the 
tentative,  academic  processes  of  most  of 
his  fellow  pioneers  as  possible.  He  had 
invented  a  happy  method,  a  legitimate 
trick,  of  throwing  vivid  colors  together  on 
the  canvas  with  dazzling,  bravura  strokes 
that  put  cross-hatching,  dotting,  stippling, 
and  such-like  makeshifts  to  shame  and 
produced  a  radiant  luminosity  that  was 
later  to  be  the  chief  glory  of  the  French 
open-air  school.  And  by  a  miracle  of  good 
fortune  he  had,  too,  a  feeling  for  the  har- 
mony of  line  and  masses  almost  as  ac- 
cented as  his  sense  of  color.  Understand 
me — I  don't  mean  that  his  brush  work  and 
drawing  were  always  masterly — how  could 
they  be?  He  was  almost  entirely  self- 
taught,  and  he  never  put  his  foot  off  of 
American  soil.  But  if  his  methods  were 
sometimes  faltering,  his  ideals  were  always 
loftily  inaccessible  to  all  but  himself.  While 
his  fellow  artists  were  busy  with  remunera- 
tive portraiture  and  '  the  painted  anecdote,' 
while  his  fellow  landscapists  were  smearing 
titanic  canvases  with  chromo-lithographic 
representations  of  Rocky  Mountains  and 
Yosemite  Valleys,  or  subordinating  their 
art  to  allegorical  horrors,  Lithgow  content- 
ed himself  with  the  paysage  intime  of  his 
own  Connecticut.  He  went  straight  to 
nature,  and  he  could  make  a  purling  brook 
sing  you  a  low  song  between  its  sedgy 
banks,  a  defoliated  tree  against  a  windy 
sky  sigh  out  a  message. 

"Unfortunately,  Lithgow  was  not  pro- 
lific. He  must  have  painted  tout  d'un  coup^ 
and,  if  he  failed  of  his  hoped-for  effect, 
sulked  and  started  in  on  something  else. 
I've  a  notion  that  he  destroyed  an  immense 
amount  of  work.  At  any  rate,  his  pictures 
are  rare — you  don't  meet  with  them  often 
in  the  big  galleries.  There  are  three  in 
Ridgewold  and  a  few  scattered  about  in 
private  collections.  I  think  that  is  one  of 
the  things  that  put  poor  Bannister  on  the 
wrong  tack  about  him — he  believes  liter- 
ally that  there  is  safety  in  numbers — likes 
a  man  to  have  a  lot  of  canvases  to  his 
credit! 

"Well,  to  get  back  to  Ridgewold.  As 
I've  said,  I  rarely  go  back,  and  when  I  do 
it's  only  for  Lithgow  and  the  scenery. 
Ridgewold  itself  bores  me.  You  see,  the 
atmosphere  is  so  surcharged  with  art — pic- 
torial art — that  my  lungs  don't  function 
properly  in  it.     All  my  sympathies  and  few 


Tlie  Genius   Loci 


259 


talents  being  enlisted  on  the  side  of  music, 
I  always  felt  like  a  social  and  artistic  ])a- 
riah.  When  I  went  to  afternoon  teas  and 
art  receptions  and  heard  everybody  about 
me  babbling  of  'planes'  'glazing  and 
scumbling,'  and  the  virtues  of  the  poinlil- 
lists,  I  felt  as  helpless  as  a  ship  in  a  fog,  and 
the  worst  of  it  was  that  I  couldn't  blow  a 
horn  or  send  out  any  C  Q  D  messages.  I 
just  had  to  drift  conversationally  and  excite 
as  Httle  attention  to  my  unfortunate  artistic 
position  as  possible.  It  would  only  have 
made  things  worse  and  nobody  would  have 
come  to  my  assistance.  Nobody,  that  is, 
except  Peabody.  Peabody  helped  me  a  lot. 
Peabody  was  an  art  student  in  Paris  when 
I  was  at  the  Conservatoire.  He  had  started 
in  for  Hterature,  but  had  got  side-tracked 
to  art.  Pie  didn't  know  the  bass  from  the 
treble  cleff,  but  literature  was  our  bond  of 
union,  and  after  a  while  I  took  to  frequent- 
ing studios  and  art  exhibitions  wath  him, 
at  first  for  the  pleasure  of  being  in  his  com- 
pany and  later  because  I  found  that  under 
his  peculiar  tutelage  I  was  actually  learning 
something  about  art.  You  see,  my  dear 
fellow,  he  pursued  the  very  simple  method 
of  translating  art  into  terms  of  literature 
for  my  benefit.  Now,  when  a  man  tells  me 
that  such  or  such  a  painter  is  the  Swin- 
burne of  art,  I  seize  his  idea;  or  that  such 
another  is  as  great  a  'styhst'  as  Henry 
James,  I  get  at  what  he  means.  I  was 
blind  to  an  exquisite  little  thing  of  Manet's 
until  he  took  the  seals  off  my  eyes  by  sud- 
denly saying  one  day  that  it  was  to  art 
what  *  Mutaljility '  was  to  lyric  poetry.  He 
had  translated  it  for  me  into  a  language  I 
understood.  By  a  rigid  adherence  to  this 
artistic-literary  method  I  have  arrived  at 
some  comprehension  of  art — at  a  tardy  but 
enthusiastic  appreciation  of  Lithgow. 

''But  all  this  was  long  after  I  left  Ridge- 
wold.  At  twenty  I  couldn't  stand  the  place 
any  longer,  so  I  packed  my  things  and 
started  for  Paris  and  the  Conservatoire, 
and  I've  been  back  only  at  long  intervals 
since. 

"The  last  time  was  three  years  ago — a 
year  before  my  marriage.  I  hadn't  been 
home  for  a  long  while,  I  am  so  confound- 
edly contented  here.  But  one  morning  I 
woke  up  with  a  restless  feeling. ,  I  wanted 
a  sight  of  America  and  boresome,  art- 
soaked  old  Ridgewold.  The  next  day  I 
rushed  up  to  Paris,  took  the  boat  train,  and 


caught  the  Kronprinzessin  at  Cherbourg. 
I  thought  I  had  had  a  happy  inspiration 
until  I  saw  Bannister  directing  a  deck 
steward  where  to  put  his  steamer-chair. 

"Well,  he  took  possession  of  me  from 
the  first.  He  is  one  of  those  irritating  peo- 
ple who,  by  boisterously  and  unrelentingly 
assuming  your  eternal  friendship,  make  it 
impossible  for  you  to  reveal  the  real  cool- 
ness of  your  sentiments.  By  the  time  we 
were  half-way  across  the  Atlantic  I  had 
seen  enough  of  Bannister  to  last  me  a  life- 
time, and  felt  as  if  I  had  never  left  home. 
The  worst  of  it  all  was  that  I  had  com- 
mitted myself  to  stopping  with  him  while 
in  Ridgewold.  I  could  no  more  withstand 
his  cheerful  certainty  that  I  would  enjoy 
being  his  guest  than  I  could  stem  the  tor- 
rent of  his  local  information. 

"The  most  important  item  of  his  budget 
of  Ridgewold  'news'  was  the  recent  gift  to 
our  native  town  of  a  magnificent  new  art 
museum  by  Mr.  John  Greatorex,  president 
of  Ridgewold's  bank.  I  had  barely  time 
to  reflect,  not  without  trepidation,  that  art 
must  have  become  an  even  more  potent 
influence  in  Ridgewold  than  of  old,  to  have 
made  'tight-wad  Greatorex'  yield  up  three 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  when  I 
was  made  aware  that  I  was  speaking  with 
the  first  vice-president  and  the  chairman  of 
the  art  committee.  And  I  had  scarcely 
assimilated  this  idea  of  Bannister's  duplex 
greatness  when  I  received  the  subtle  im- 
pression that  though  there  were  three  on 
the  committee.  Bannister  himself  was  really 
the  only  one  who  knew  anything  about  art. 

"In  my  passive  role  of  listener  I  was 
further  informed  that  it  was  Bannister  who 
had  originated  the  idea  of  importing  a 
forei'gn  director  to  be  at  the  head  of  the 
new  art  museum  for  several  years  and  to 
give  a  cachet  to  the  affair.  As  chairman 
of  the  art  committee  he  had  himself  gone 
to  Paris  to  see  Laley  and  'pick  up'  a  few 
art  treasures  on  the  market.  The  negotia- 
tions and  purchases  having  been  trium- 
phantly concluded — he  had  got  hold  of  a 
Dagnan-Bouvcrct  Madonna  and  a  dancing- 
girl  of  Carriere  Bclleuse  as  pih'cs  dc  re- 
sistance— Bannister  was  then  on  his  way 
l)ack  to  Ridgewold  to  superintend  the  trans- 
fer of  the  art  objects  from  the  old  gallery 
to  the  new  and  prepare  the  way  for  Lalcy's 
arrival,  which  was  to  be  in  a  few  weeks. 
I  had  known  Laley  slightly  in  Paris  myself, 


260 


The  Genius  Loci 


but  I  had  not  thought  it  worth  while  to 
interrupt  Bannister's  llow  of  information 
to  speak  of  that  fact. 

"Well,  my  dear  fellow,  by  the  time  we 
got  to  Sandy  Hook  I  was  so  tired  of  Ban- 
nister and  his  art  projects  and  Ridgewold 
affairs  in  general  that  I  pretended  impor- 
tant business  in  New  York  and  stopped 
over  there  for  a  week  to  recuperate.  But 
Bannister,  of  course,  was  so  ajfaire  that  he 
could  hardly  get  from  the  pier  to  the  Grand 
Central  fast  enough. 

"When  I  joined  him  at  Ridgewold  a 
week  later  I  found  that  he  had  accom- 
plished prodigies.  The  old  art  gallery  had 
been  completely  denuded  and  the  new  one 
was  so  nearly  in  order  that  a  reception  was 
to  be  held  the  very  afternoon  of  my  arri- 
val, that  the  impatient  conoscenti  of  Ridge- 
wold might  get  a  glimpse  of  their  new  art 
treasures. 

"Bannister  was  so  busy  that  he  couldn't 
meet  me  at  the  station,  but  his  motor  was 
there,  and  after  a  hasty  and  solitary  lunch- 
eon at  his  house,  I  was  driven  up  to  the 
new  gallery,  where  I  found  him  excitedly 
directing  the  hanging  of  a  last  dozen  can- 
vases. While  he  was  thus  engaged,  I 
strolled  about  alone,  glad  to  see  things  by 
myself,  and  I  confess  it  was  all  good — very 
good.  An  hour  before  the  reception  Ban- 
nister got  away  from  his  workmen  and 
joined  me.  He  wanted  to  take  me  about 
himself,  he  said,  and  I  was  in  such  good 
humor  with  everything  that  I  even  failed 
to  be  irritated  by  the  implication  that  I 
hadn't  been  able  to  see  much  by  myself. 
He  was  full  of  enthusiasm,  an  enthusiasm 
that  seemed  to  be  justified,  and  I  said  so. 

" 'But  wait! — just  wait  until  you  see  our 
salon  carre r  chuckled  Bannister.  'I  am 
saving  it  for  the  last — the  bonne  houche. 
My  dear  Penrose,  there  are  things  in  it 
that  will  astonish  you.  There's  a  sea- 
piece  of  Flameng's — c^est  epatant  T 

"By  the  v^ay,  it  was  a  treat  to  watch 
Bannister  going  about  getting  opera-glass 
effects  of  the  pictures  through  his  doubled- 
up  hands  and  babbling  in  French  argot 
of  'tonality,'  'architectonic  backgrounds,' 
'wilful  chiaro-oscuro,'  and  'Munich  plati- 
tudes ' ! 

"As  we  went  from  room  to  room,  in  spite 
of  Bannister's  exaggerated  enthusiasm  I 
could  not  help  but  concede  that  the  col- 
lection   had    made    great    strides — Laley 


would  certainly  have  something  to  begin 
on.  Only  one  thing  surprised  and  mysti- 
fied me.  Nowhere,  among  the  old  favor- 
ites I  recognized  nor  among  the  many 
new  acquaintances,  did  I  see  the  three 
Lithgows  which  had  hung  for  so  many 
years  in  Ridgewold's  old  art  gallery.  It 
finally  struck  me  that  of  course  for  them 
had  been  reserved  the  honor  of  hanging  on 
the  walls  of  the  salon  carre.  You  can 
therefore  imagine  my  amazement  when  on 
looking  about  me  in  that  decidedly  crude 
imitation  of  the  Louvre's  famous  treasure- 
room  I  failed  to  find  them — they  were 
nowhere  to  be  seen. 

"My  curiosity  could  stand  no  more,  and 
clapping  Bannister  on  the  shoulder  I  cried 
out:  'My  dear  boy,  where  are  the  Lith- 
gows ? ' 

"For  a  moment  he  was  visibly  embar- 
rassed and  I  could  see  that  he  was  medi- 
tating an  evasive  answer;  and  then  sum- 
moning all  his  artistic  fortitude  he  turned 
resolutely  upon  me. 

"'My  dear  Penrose,  they  are  where  they 
ought  to  be — stored  in  the  basement  with 
half  a  dozen  other  impossible  canvases  that 
I've  had  removed.' 

"I  stared  at  him  incredulously.  His 
statement  sounded  too  monstrous  to  be  be- 
lieved. I  was  so  evidently  thunderstruck 
by  his  reply  that,  in  spite  of  his  assurance, 
he  must  have  felt  slightly  disconcerted,  for 
he  began  an  explanation,  a  sort  of  extenu- 
ation. 

"'My  dear  fellow,'  he  exclaimed  im- 
patiently, 'of  course  you  are  shocked.  I 
was  shocked  myself  at  first  when  it  began 
to  be  borne  in  on  me  that  they  must  go. 
I  wa?  as  sentimental  over  it  all  as  you 
could  possibly  be — more  so.  I  dare  say,' 
he  added  dryly.  'But  que  voulez-vous  ? 
I'm  not  here  to  uphold  sentiment — I'm 
here  to  uphold  art.  It's  a  sacred  trust. 
We've  made  a  sort  of  fetish  of  Lithgow 
here,  and  it's  time  we  stopped  worship- 
ping false  gods.  We've  tremendously  over- 
rated him.  Don't  you  see  that,  in  the  fight 
of  modern  landscape-painting,  his  work  is 
quite  impossible?  To  be  cruelly  frank,  it 
is  rubbish.  Lithgow  and  all  the  men  of 
his  day — an  awful  day,  illumined  by  a  light 
that  certainly  never  was  on  sea  or  land 
— were  all  ineffectual,  hopelessly  on  the 
wrong  tack.  I've  only  done  my  duty.  I 
will  confess  to  you  it  has  cost  me  one  or 


The  Genius  Loci  2G1 

two  sleepless  nights,  but  I  have  the  con-  private  conversation  with  Bannister  being 

sciousness  of  having  stuck  to  the  right  imi)ossible,  I  walked  away,  relieved  to  be 

artistically  at  some  expense  to  my  feelings.'  at  least  out  of  his  presence.    I  strolled  about, 

He  spoke  with  an  almost  touching  solem-  meeting  old  acquaintances  and  hearing  the 

nity.     '  I  simply  couldn't  let  a   man   like  familiar  artistic  chatter,  furbished  up  with 

Laley  come  here  and  find  such  specimens  the  latest  argot  like  an  old  spring  bonnet 

of  American  art  hanging  about.     I  declare  with  new  ribbons.     I  was  particularly  oc- 

I  believe  he  would  take  the  next  steamer  cupied  in  keeping  an  eye  out  for  Miss  Felicia 

back,  and  I  wouldn't  much  blame  him.  Lithgow,  for  since  boyhood  I  had  been  fond 

Lithgow,    my   dear   fellow,   has   had   his  of  her,  and  I  was  genuinely  concerned  as  to 

day.     I  don't  deny  that  he  was  something  what  effect  the  public  dishonor  heaped  on 

of  an  inspiration  to  the  early  ones,  but  he  her  father  might  have  upon  the  fragile  little 

wouldn't  be  an  inspiration  now — he'd  be  old  lady. 

an  "awful  warning."     Considered  in  that  "She  came  in  at  length — a  charming 

light,  I  might  have  continued  to  let  him  figure  in  pale-gray  silk,  with  a  fine  lace 

hang,  but  I  couldn't  quite  stand  that —  fichu  at  her  throat  and  her  white  curls 

I've  too  much  feeling  for  the  dear  old  chap,  bobbing  about  beneath  a  rather  smart  gray 

I'd  rather  hide  him  quietly  away — relegate  straw  bonnet.     Her  manner  was  gracious- 

him  right  now  to  the  oblivion  his  methods  ness  itself  and  expressed,  in  some  inoffen- 

were  bound  to  bring  him  to.'  sively  inarticulate  fashion,  the  fact  that  to 

"I  was  still  staring  at  Bannister  at  the  her,  in  that  artistic  milieu,  belonged  by 

end  of  this  tirade,  too  much  abasourdi  to  right  of  birth  a  certain  pre-eminence,  an 

attempt  to  argue  the  matter  with  him — I  especial  importance. 

would  as  soon  have  thought  of  trying  to  "I  watched  her  trip  with  an  astonishing 

explain  a  Tschaikowsky  symphony.  '  I  sim-  gayety  and  verve  from  one  room  to  another, 

ply  took  refuge  in  personalities.  greeting  her  friends  and  seeking — I  could 

"'And  what  will  she  do?'  not  doubt  it — the  coigns  of  vantage  where 

"He  had  the  audacity  to  pretend  not  to  hung  her  father's  masterpieces.     It  was 

understand  me.  rather  pusillanimous  of  me,  perhaps,  but  I 

"'She?     Whom  do  you  mean?'  confess,  my  dear  Bonbright,  that  I  actually 

"*My  dear  Bannister,  whom  on  earth  took  care  to  keep  out  of  her  way.     I  simply 

should  I  mean  but  Miss  Felicia?*  couldn't  have  borne  the  sight  of  her  humil- 

"He  had  the  grace  to  color.  iation,  and  it  was  only  by  an  unlucky  acci- 

"'Ah,  she  will  have  her  sleepless  nights,  dent  that  I  found  myself  at  the  top  of  the 

too,'  he  declared  at  length.  stairway  when  she  passed  out.     I  sha'n't 

"'Sleepless nights!'  I  cried.     'It  will  kill  soon  forget  the  stricken  look  on  her  dear 

her.     She  has  lived  on  her  father's  fame — •  old  face.     The  white  curls  that  had  bobbed 

blast  it,  and  you  will  destroy  her  as  surely  so   merrily  in  unison  with   her  gracious 

as  if  you  had  put  cyanide  of  potassium  in  nods  hung  with  a  pathetic  droop  about  her 

her  morning  coffee.     My  dear  Bannister,  lined,  thin  face.    The  gray  silk  rustled 

for  Heaven's  sake  let  your  sacrifices  to  art  dumbly  as  she  tottered  slowly  down  the 

take  some  other  form  than  the  blighting  of  steps.     I  gathered  my  wits  together  just  in 

a  reputation  and  a  life!'  time  to  rush  forward  and  offer  her  my  arm. 

"For  an  instant  I  thought  he  wavered.  The  poor  little  lady  scarcely  seemed  to 

but  the  next  moment,  assuming  the  look  recognize  me,  and  it  was  only  as  I  put  her 

of  a  harassed  martyr  and  passing  his  hand  in  her  carriage  that  she  recovered  her  com- 

with  a  theatrically  weary  movement  across  posurc  enough  to  murmur  a  tremulous  invi- 

his  troubled  brow,  he  delivered  his  ulti-  tation  to  come  to  sec  her. 

matum.  "She  went  into  retirement,  saw  abso- 

"'My  dear  Penrose,  I  have  but  done  my  lutely  no  one,  and  the  rumor  was  current 

duty,  and  I  must  stick  by  it.'  that  she  was  actually  ill.     I   was  really 

"I  was  so  irritated  by  his  attitude  of  wretched  over  the  affair  myself  and  after 

adamantine  artistic  probity  that  I  was  ready  a  week  determined  to  take  advantage  of 

to  reply  with  a  good  deal  of  heat,  but  was  Miss  Felicia's  invitation  anil  see  for  myself 

prevented  ])y  the  arrival  at  that  instant  of  how  she  was  bearing  up  under  the  blow 

the  vanguard  of  expected  callers.     Further  Bannister  had  administered.     She  lived  in 


262 


The  Genius  Loci 


a  little  flower-embowered  house  just  across 
the  wide,  elm-shaded  street  from  Bannis- 
ter's, and  taking  my  courage  in  both  hands 
I  walked  across  one  bright  afternoon.  The 
tidy  maid  who  answered  my  ring  was  at 
first  obviously  opposed  to  my  entrance,  but 
when  I  assured  her  I  was  there  at  her 
mistress's  own  request,  she  reluctantly  al- 
lowed me  to  come  in  and  motioned  me 
toward  a  little  garden  in  the  rear  of  the 
house.  I  found  Miss  FeHcia  there,  seated 
in  a  chair  drawn  up  in  a  sunny  spot,  and, 
although  the  day  was  overpoweringly  warm, 
wrapped  up  in  numberless  fleecy  white 
shawls  out  of  which  her  drawn  face  peered 
pathetically.  There  was  such  a  ravaged, 
blighted  look  about  the  little  old  lady  that 
as  I  sank  down  on  a  garden  bench  beside 
her  I  almost  wished  I  had  not  come.  Even 
my  worried  imaginings  had  not  been,  as 
bad  as  the  reality. 

"She  showed  unexpected  fortitude,  how- 
ever, and  for  a  long  while  tremulously  kept 
clear  of  the  whole  topic  of  the  new  art 
gallery.  I  was  just  beginning  to  congratu- 
late myself  that  I  was  going  to  make  my 
escape  without  a  reference  to  it  when,  un- 
fortunately, she  asked  me  where  I  was  stop- 
ping. Involuntarily  I  faltered  over  Ban- 
nister's name  and  instantly  she  fixed  me 
with  her  dark  eyes,  which  had  suddenly 
grown  bright  and  angry.  Her  lips  were 
'  drawn  tight  and  a  flush  sprang  to  her 
j  withered  cheeks. 

"'Bannister!'  she  exclaimed;  Mo  not 
j  mention  his  name  to  me!  He  is  a  mis- 
,  creant!'  ■ 

"It  may  sound  amusing  to  you,  Bon- 
bright,  that  in  her  personal  distress  and 
humiliation  she  should  have  called  poor 
Bannister  a  'miscreant,'  but  I  assure  you 
that  at  the  time  it  seemed  to  me  a  peculiarly 
fitting  epithet.  When  I  looked  at  the  palhd 
little  old  lady,  and  thought  of  that  long  life 
of  honorable  hero-worship  crowned  at  last 
with  insult,  I  could  have  called  Bannister 
almost  anything.  The  only  feeling  I  was 
aware  of  stronger  than  my  irritation  against 
Bannister  was  a  desire  to  comfort  Miss 
Felicia.  But  I  hardly  knew  how.  I 
sparred  for  time. 

"'My  dear  Miss  Felicia,'  I  cried,  'why 
on  earth  do  you  call  Bannister  a  miscreant  ?' 

"'Ah,  then  you  are  one  of  those  who 
think  he  has  done  right!'  She  spoke  with 
a  terrible  bitterness. 


"'Why,  what  has  he  done?'  I  faltered. 

"She  darted  another  bright,  scornful 
glance  at  me,  beneath  which  I  covertly 
quailed. 

"'Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,  John  Pen- 
rose, that  you  don't  know  that  he  has  dis- 
honored my  father? — refused  to  give  a 
place  to  his  pictures  in  this  grand  new  art 
gallery? — don't  you  know  that  they  are 
lying  with  the  rest  of  the  rubbish  down  in 
the  basement  of  this  new  temple  of  art  of 
which  he  is  the  high  priest?'  There  was 
a  sob  in  the  thin,  silvery  old  voice.  A  very 
passion  of  rage  against  Bannister  took  hold 
of  me.  I  would  have  Hked  to  thrash  him 
at  the  moment.  As  that  was  impossible, 
the  next  best  thing  to  do  was-  to  console 
Miss  Felicia,  and  I  determined  to  do  so  at 
all  costs. 

" '  My  dear  Miss  Felicia,  certainly  I  know 
that  your  father's  masterpieces  are  stored 
in  the  basement  of  the  new  art  gallery — • 
but  of  course  you,  too,  know  why!'  I  de- 
clared pleasantly.  At  that  instant,  I  as- 
sure you,  Bonbright,  I  hadn't  the  ghost  of 
an  idea  what  explanation  I  was  going  to 
give  her,  but  I  was  thinking  hard,  and  the 
next  moment  it  came  easily  to  my  lying 
lips — full-grown  like  Pallas  Athene  from 
the  head  of  Jove,  if  I  may  make  use  of  so 
resounding  a  comparison. 

"It  was  Miss  Felicia's  turn  to  falter. 
She  was  clearly  puzzled  by  my  tone  and 
manner. 

"'No,  I  don't  know,'  she  said  at  length, 
dubiously,  and  looking  hard  at  me. 

"I  crushed  my  soft  hat  between  my 
knees  and  leaned  forward  with  a  smiling 
plausibility  at  which  I  hardly  knew  whether 
to  be  more  astounded  or  pleased. 

'"My  dear  lady,  it's  a  question  of  var- 
nish. There  are  some  bad  cracks,  I  be- 
lieve, and  Bannister  is  waiting  to  consult 
with  Laley  about  a  new  varnish.  As  soon 
as  the  pictures  are  restored — !'  I  rose  to 
go  slowly.  '  Have  you  any  preference  as  to 
where  they  should  hang?  It's  hard  to  tell 
about  a  new  place — one  has  to  get  familiar 
with  a  new  milieu.  In  the  old  gallery 
every  one  knew  the  best  spots  and  the  Lith- 
gows  always  had  them!' 

"You  can  imagine,  my  dear  Bonbright, 
that  I  did  some  hard  thinking  as  I  walked 
back  to  Bannister's.  I  really  was  in  a 
tight  place.  I  did  not  regret  my  inventive- 
ness— I  am  an  habitually  truthful  person 


The  Genius  Loci 


263 


and  felt  I  could  afford  the  luxury  of  an 
occasional  lie — Ijut  the  fierce  alacrity  with 
which  Miss  Felicia  had  welcomed  my  ex- 
planation of  the  absence  of  her  father's 
landsca])es  from  the  walls  of  the  new  gal- 
lery had  had  something  terribly  pathetic 
in  it.  The  rebound  of  her  spirits  was  as 
sudden  and  complete  as  the  crushing  of 
them  had  been.  Her  blighted  air  passed 
with  the  passing  of  her  humiliation.  In 
fact,  she  dismissed  me  with  all  the  old  lofty 
graciousness  that  had  characterized  her 
manner  for  fifty  years.  What  it  would 
mean  to  her  to  be  replunged  in  her  gulf  of 
despair  made  me  shudder.  I  knew  that  it 
would  be  useless  to  argue  further  with  Ban- 
nister— he  had  all  the  obstinacy  of  the  es- 
sentially weak  person.  Besides,  the  poor 
fellow  really  thought  he  was  doing  his  ar- 
tistic duty — he  was  genuinely  blind.  I  had 
vague  notions  of  appealing  to  Laley.  But 
really,  on  sober  second  thoughts  I  hardly 
saw  how  I  could  interfere.  Laley  was  a 
man  of  determination,  of  the  highest  ar- 
tistic honesty.  He  would  scarcely  tolerate 
a  sentimental  appeal  from  a  comparative 
stranger.  I  consoled  myself  finally  by  de- 
ciding that  at  the  worst  I  could  leave  Ridge- 
wold — could  fold  my  tent  and  silently  steal 
away  to  the  shores  of  Lake  Geneva  and 
forget  things. 

"If  I  had  dishked  Bannister  before,  you 
can  understand  how  cordially  I  detested 
him  after  that  interview  with  poor  Miss 
Felicia  Lithgow.  Justly  or  unjustly,  I 
blamed  him  with  my  added  perplexities 
and  difficulties.  I  got  so  that  the  sight  of 
him  at  the  breakfast-table  destroyed  my 
appetite,  and  I  was  confoundedly  glad  that 
business  took  him  so  frequently  to  New 
York  and  left  me  to  the  solitary  enjoyment 
of  his  handsome  bachelor  establishment 
and  the  renewal  of  old  Ridgewold  ties. 

''  He  really  had  a  lot  on  his  shoulders  and 
had  to  see  to  a  host  of  things  which  his 
associates  on  the  art  committee — who  if 
they  were  artistic  were  certainly  not  busi- 
nesslike— would  not  attend  to.  To  add 
to  his  worries,  he  had  not  heard  for  some 
time  from  Laley  and  was  much  disturbed 
in  consequence,  for  he  wished  to  make  the 
art  director's  arrival  in  Ridgewold  some- 
thing of  an  event.  Laley  was  to  stoj)  with 
him  for  several  days,  and  I  think  Bannister 
rather  fancied  himself  in  the  role  of  cicerone 
to  the  great  art  connoisseur. 


"Well,  it  was  on  one  of  Bannister's  nu- 
merous absences  in  New  V(jrk,  five  or  six 
days  after  my  visit  to  Miss  Felicia,  I  think, 
that,  as  I  sat  in  the  o\)en  window  in  the 
library  smoking  a  solitary  after-luncheon 
cigar,  a  station  calj — a  deplorable  affair — 
rolled  up  to  the  door  and  Laley  stepped  out. 
For  a  moment  I  certainly  was  surprised, 
and  then  recalling  what  I  knew  i)ersonally 
of  Laley  and  what  I  had  heard  of  him,  I 
decided  that  his  abrupt  appearance  was 
characteristic  of  the  man.  Doubtless  Ban- 
nister had  been  unable  to  refrain  from  giv- 
ing him  a  hint  of  the  functions  attendant 
on  his  arrival  and,  his  shyness  taking  alarm, 
he  had  simj)ly  caught  an  earlier  steamer 
and  appeared  unheralded. 

"In  the  midst  of  my  pleasure  at  renew- 
ing Laley's  acquaintance,  I  couldn't  help  a 
passing  regret  for  poor  Bannister's  keen 
disappointment.  On  his  return  I  knew  he 
would  feel  a  good  deal  as  Admiral  Sampson 
did  when  he  got  back  and  found  that  the 
laurels  meant  for  the  adorning  of  his  own 
absent  brow  were  resting  becomingly  on 
the  head  of  the  man  who  had  been  '  Johnnv 
on  the  spot.'  But  I  confess  my  regrets 
evaporated  quickly  in  the  genial  glow  of 
Laley's  presence.  He  is  really  a  delightful 
creature,  and  was  as  interested  as  possible 
in  the  new  art  venture  at  Ridgewold,  which 
must  have  seemed  an  odd  enough  place  to 
him,  by  the  way.  After  half  an  hour's  rest 
he  was  eager  to  go  over  to  the  new  art 
gallery  and  have  a  look  at  his  future  field 
of  activity.  It  goes  without  saying  that  I 
was  anxious  to  have  the  pleasure  and  privi- 
lege of  accompanying  him,  and  in  my  qual- 
ity of  host  I  ordered  Bannister's  motor  and 
we  drove  over. 

"He  was  graciousness  itself  in  regard  to 
the  collection  and  rubbed  his  hands  with  sat- 
isfaction as  we  passed  from  room  to  room. 

"'Mais  c'est  bien — tres  bienP  he  de- 
clared warmly.  *I1  y  a  de  belles  choses 
ici.'  He  looked  about  him  at  the  walls  of 
the  salon  carrc  with  which  I  had  con- 
cluded our  promenade — I  had  followetl 
Bannister's  lead  and  saved  it  for  the  last. 
'Mais — est-ce  que  nous  avons  tout  vu? 
II  n'y  a  rien  de  plus? — pas  de  "beaux 
restes"?'  he  in(iuired  smilingly. 

"  I  looked  at  him  doui)tlully.  Suddenly  I 
had  an  ins[)iration. 

"'There  are  some  things  stored  in  the 
basement.     Suppose  we  give  them  a  look.' 


264 


The  Genius  Loci 


*'He  assented  with  enthusiasm,  and  to- 
gether we  made  our  way  to  the  basement. 
I  had  not  l)ecn  down  there  before  and  a 
vast  confusion  of  packing-boxes  reigned, 
but  by  good  fortune  we  had  not  gone  twen- 
ty paces  when  we  came  upon  the  three 
Lithgows  leaning  face  outward  against  the 
wall.  By  another  piece  of  good  fortune, 
as  we  approached  them  a  shaft  of  afternoon 
sunlight  struck  through  a  low  window  full 
upon  them,  bathing  them  in  a  mellow  radi- 
ance. I  had  never  seen  them  so  exquisitely 
beautiful. 

"I  heard  Laley  utter  a  low  exclamation 
and  saw  him  hurry  forward  toward  them. 

^'^Mon  cher,*  he  murmured  over  his 
shoulder,  '  whose  are  they  ? ' 

'"They  are  the  work  of  John  Quincy 
Lithgow,  a  native  of  this  place,  who  lived 
and  died  here  in  1850.  How  do  they  strike 
you?' 

"For  a  few  moments  he  did  not  answer; 
he  was  too  busy  moving  rapidly  from  one 
canvas  to  the  other,  now  scrutinizing  them 
closely,  now  stepping  back  to  get  a  better 
coup  deceit,  and  always  ejaculating  softly  to 
himself. 

'"How  do  they  strike  me?'  he  returned 
at  length.  'My  dear  Monsieur  Penrose, 
they  are  amazing,  simply  amazing.' 

"'I  think  they  are  amazing,  too — amaz- 
ingly good,'  I  said. 

'"Good! — my  dear  fellow,  from  certain 
points  of  view  they  are  superb!  And  to 
think  that  they  were  painted  before  1850! 
It's  positively  incredible!  Don't  tell  me 
America  has  produced  many  such  land- 
scapists!' 

"  I  shook  my  head.  '  He's  the  best  of  the 
bunch,'  I  replied  somewhat  irreverently, 

"'They  are  wonderful,  wonderful!'  mur- 
mured Laley.  He  turned  one  sidewise  to 
get  a  softer  light  on  it.  It  was  a  lovely  bit 
of  spring  nature  caught  at  twilight — the 
broad  green  edge  of  a  river  sparkling  in  the 
last  shafts  of  afternoon  sunlight,  a  group 
of  feathery  elms  rising  fountain-like  into 
the  radiant  air.  It  was  perhaps  as  suc- 
cessful as  anything  Lithgow  ever  did.  Sud- 
denly he  looked  at  me.  'My  dear  fellow^,' 
he  cried,  'what  puzzles  me  is  what  they 
are  doing  down  here!  In  Heaven's  name, 
why  hasn't  Monsieur  Bannister  had  them 
hung?' 

"I  shrugged  my  shoulders  and  said 
nothing.     I  didn't  intend  to  mitigate  by  a 


word  the  mauvais  quart  d'heure  that  I  saw 
was  in  store  for  Bannister.  He  might 
square  himself  as  best  he  could  with  Laley. 
I  metaphorically  left  him  to  his  fate,  not 
without,  as  I  told  you,  a  somewhat  dreary 
happiness  in  so  doing. 

"It  was  a  full  hour  before  I  could  drag 
Laley  away  from  the  new-found  treasures, 
and  we  had  scarcely  time  to  get  back  to 
Bannister's  and  dress  for  dinner  before  that 
punctual  and  admirable  meal  was  served. 
During  our  drive  back  Laley  kept  up  a 
running  fire  of  question  and  comment  about 
Lithgow.  He  wanted  to  know  all  about 
him,  and  in  return  pointed  out  to  me  in  his 
ardent,  epigrammatic  fashion  a  hundred 
beauties  and  excellences  in  his  work  that 
I  had  ignored.  When  we  were  seated  at 
the  table  he  again  took  up  the  theme  and 
we  were  in  the  midst  of  a  discussion  of 
Lithgow's  lyrical  suggestiveness  and  a  deli- 
cious vol-au-vent  when  Bannister  entered, 
fatigued  from  his  trip  to  town  and  inex- 
pressibly surprised  and  disappointed  at 
Laley's  unexpected  arrival,  of  which  he 
had  heard  from  his  chauffeur. 

"He  seated  himself  at  the  table  as  he 
was  and  began  profuse  apologies  and  ex- 
planations of  his  absence.  But  Laley  cut 
him  short.  He  could  understand  perfectly 
how  it  had  happened  that  there  was  no  one 
at  the  Ridgewold  station  to  meet  him — 
what  he  couldn't  understand  was  why  Ban- 
nister had  kept  from  him  the  knowledge  of 
exquisite,  unhung  art  treasures. 

"'My  dear  fellow,  you  were  sly — very 
sly!'  he  cried. 

"Bannister  turned  an  inquiring  eye  up- 
on me. 

" '  Monsieur  refers  to  the  three  wonderful 
Lithgows  in  the  basement,'  I  elucidated, 
not  without  a  grim  amusement  at  Bannis- 
ter's blank  look,  though  I  rather  dreaded 
the  hedging  and  crawling  he  would  have  to 
do  later. 

'"Ah,  mon  cheVy  they  are  indeed  wonder- 
ful— wonderful!'  murmured  Laley  enthusi- 
astically. 

"Bannister  got  up  slow^ly  and,  going  over 
to  a  table  with  smoking  things  on  it,  chose 
a  cigar. 

'"You  like  them,  then?'  he  asked  care- 
lessly, striking  a  match. 

'"Like  them?  My  dear  fellow^  I  have 
only  seen  the  three  you  are  lucky  to  have 
here,  but  they  at  least  are  masterpieces. 


The  Genius   Loci 


265 


tout  simplement.  He  transcribes  nature 
with  a  robust  method — I  think  it  is  the  vig- 
orous young  America  in  him  I — but  with  as 
fluid  a  color,  as  free  a  handUng,  as  though 
one  of  the  moderns  had  done  it  for  last 
spring's  salon.  He  strikes  that  almost  un- 
heard note  between  realism  and  suggestive- 
ness — you  look  at  a  reproduction  of  nature 
but  you  think  of  poetry!' 

"Bannister  had  returned  to  the  table  and 
sat  tkere  nervously  twisting  his  cigar  be- 
tween his  thumb -and  forefinger. 

"'Or  music,'  I  suggested  hastily,  turn- 
ing to  Laley,  for  a  sudden  compassion  for 
Bannister  smote  me.  I  saw  that  he  was 
quite  incapable  of  speech.  'I  believe  the 
appeal  he  makes  to  me,  who  know  so  little 
of  art,  is  the  musical  appeal.  The  radiant 
luminosity  of  most  of  his  canvases,  the  rich, 
sombre  tones  of  others,  make  me  think  of 
the  limpid  melodies,  the  overcrowded  chords 
of  Chopin.' 

"'Ah,  yes — "the  radiant  luminosity." 
His  light  effects  are  more  than  clever — they 
are  exquisitely  raffines.  If  his  drawing 
leaves  something  to  be  desired,  his  color 
work  is  amazing  for  that  day — amazing 
and  characteristic.  He  had  no  need  "to 
rescue  his  individuality  by  employing  an 
out-of-the-ordinary  handwriting  in  copying 
nature,"  as  one  of  your  critics  has  put  it. 
And  how  deep  and  sincere  a  feeling  for 
nature  1  He  was  great  enough  to  be  con- 
tent to  interpret  her  impersonally — a  thing 
almost  unknown  in  those  days  with  you. 
His  work,  to  my  mind,  is  the  forerunner  of 
all  that  is  best  in  your  contemporary  art. 
Cherish  it  accordingly,  my  dear  sirs!  What 
an  astonishing  artist  he  is  en  somnie ! 
and  to  think  that  he  was  a  farmer's  son, 
entirely  self-taught;  that  ho  never  left  his 
native  America !  He  should  nave  come  to  us 
— he  should  have  known  Rousseau,  Corot, 
Dupre!  Ah!  what  things  they  would  have 
had  to  say  to  one  another!' 

"During  this  eulogy  of  Laley's  I  had 
been  watching  Bannister  not  without  a 
good  deal  of  amazement.  At  the  beginning 
of  it  he  had  been  uneasy.  I  had  caught 
his  eye  and  I  fancied  that  I  saw  in  it  an 
acute  emlmrrassment,  a  tentative  appeal. 
But  as  Laley  progressed,  as  he  felicitated 
Bannister  again  and  again  upon  the  pos- 
session of  such  an  American  painter  and 
such  works  of  art,  I  noted  a  change  in  Ban- 
nister's manner.     He  leaned  forward;   an 


enthusiastic  expression  lit  \x\i  his  not  un- 
handsome features,  he  listened  attentively, 
with  an  air  of  almost  personal  grateful  ap- 
preciation. At  the  conclusion  of  Laley's 
remarks  he  half-rose  and,  to  my  llat  amaze- 
ment, stretched  a  cordial  hand  across  the 
table. 

"'My  dear  sir,'  he  cried,  'I  thank  you 
on  behalf  of  all  American  artists  and  es- 
pecially on  behalf  of  Ridgewold,  whose 
genius  loci  Lithgow  was !  You  are  generos- 
ity itself  to  the  man  who  has  been  one  of 
the  very  greatest  inspirations  to  American 
art.  I  felt  sure  that  his  fame,  his  place, 
were  safe  in  your  hands.  I  knew  you  would 
do  full  justice  to  one  of  the  greatest — per- 
haps the  greatest — of  our  pioneers  in  art. 
I  left  him  to  you!' 

"'In  the  basement,'  I  put  in,  somewhat 
offensively,  I  admit.  Bannister  stared  at 
me.  The  look  of  tentative  appeal  had  dis- 
appeared and  one  of  somewhat  belligerent 
innocence  had  taken  its  place. 

"'In  the  basement!'  he  echoed.  'Cer- 
tainly in  the  basement!  I  hardly  felt  com- 
petent to  hang  them.  I  wanted  Monsieur 
Laley's  advice.  My  position  was  somewhat 
delicate.  I  thought  that  we  enthusiasts 
of  Ridgewold  might  overestimate  Lith- 
gow's  importance — '  he  hesitated  and  di- 
rected an  ardent,  inquiring  glance  toward 
Laley.  As  for  myself,  I  looked  out  of  the 
window.  /  had  no  wish  to  meet  Laley's 
eye.  I  was  afraid  of  what  I  might  read 
there.  I  was  Bannister's  guest  and  I  had 
no  intention  of  'giving  him  away.'  But 
with  this  abstention  I  felt  that  our  accounts 
were  squared  and  I  permitted  myself  the 
luxury  of  a  last  shot. 

'"Ah,  then  I  have  made  a  mistake,'  I 
said  regretfully.  '  I  told  ]Mis3  Felicia  Lith- 
gow— she  was  somewnat  aistressea  ihat  her 
father's  pictures  have  not  been  en  h'idcme 
— that  it  was  a  question  of  a  few  cracks — 
you  wished  to  consult  Monsieur  Laley  as  to 
a  varnish ' 

"Bannister  turned  from  Laley  to  me. 
'My  dear  fellow,'  he  cried  coolly,  although 
I  had  the  rather  barren  satisfaction  of  see- 
ing him  redden,  'that  is  a  mistake!  I 
wouldn't  have  the  dear  old  lady  think  such 
a  thing  for  the  world.  The  pictures  are 
in  perfect  condition — they  are  miracles  of 
freshness!  Upon  my  word  you  ought  to 
put  on  your  hat  and  go  over  this  minute  to 
set  the  matter  straight  with  her.' 


2G6  With  Walton  in   Anorle-Land 


&' 


"I   looked  at  him  for  a  moment  over  day  I  received  a  loftily  reproachful  note 

my  coffee-cup.     'Suppose  you  go,'  I  sug-  from  Miss  Felicia  in  which  she  was  glad  to 

gested.  inform  me  that  I  had  been  quite  mistaken 

*''It  will  give  me  pleasure,'  he  declared  about  her  father's  pictures — they  were  in 

genially,  and  picking  up  his  hat  where  he  excellent  condition  and  were  to  be  hung 

bad  laid  it  on  coming  in,  he  strolled  out  of  immediately  in  the  salon  carre. 
the   house   and   across   the   way   to   Miss        ''And  now,  my  dear  Bonbright,  if  you'll 

Felicia's  door.     Heaven  only  knows  what  come  in  with  me,  I'll  get  my  wife  to  sing 

he  told  her.     I  can  only  say  that  the  next  'Caro  Mio  Ben'  for  us," 


WITH    WALTON    IN    ANGLE-LAND 

By  Robert  Gilbert  Welsh 

YorxG  Charles  was  crowned  in  ancient  Scone 

With  sceptre,  robe  and  ring. 
Upon  the  royal  seat  of  stone 

As  fits  a  Stuart  king. 
At  AA'orcester  he  was  put  to  rout, 

To  France  he  fled  away, — 
The  doughty  Cavaliers  were  out, 
It  was  Xoll  Cromwell's  day. 

**Alas!"   good  Isaak  Walton  sighed, 

His  puzzled  head  he  shook, 
Then  through  the  meadow-sweet  he  hied, 
And  fished  in  Shawford  Brook. 

Next,  Cromwell  with  a  tongue  of  flame 

Swept  Parliament  aside. 
*' Traitors,  self -servers,  men  of  shame, 

Begone!    Begone!"    he  cried. 
By  ones  and  twos  they  slipped  away, 

Xoll  Cromwell  turned  the  key. 
If  England  in  that  April  day 
•  Had  Parliament, — 'twas  he ! 

It  was  the  time  of  fly  and  rod, — 

Ik  Walton  breathed  a  prayer 
Resigning  England  unto  God 
And  angled  in  the  ^^^are. 

Then  Cromwell  died,  and  in  his  place 

His  son  ruled  England  sore 
Till,  haply  in  a  day  of  grace, 

The  King  came  home  once  more. 
At  Whitehall  then  he  spent  his  time 

As  no  wise  king  may  do, 
With  idle  gaming,  naughty  rhyme, 
A  careless  love  or  two. 

The  folk  of  England  said  their  say 

With  many  '"Haws!"   and  "Hems!" 
But  Isaak  Walton  slipped  away 
And  angled  in  the  Thames. 


The   Point  of  View  267 

The  younger  Isaak  sprouted  .fast, 

Old  Christ  Church  knew  him  well. 
Deep  learned,  he  came  home  at  last 

From  famous  Doctor  Fell. 
And  when  in  Holy  Orders  bound, 

He  preached  at  length, — no  douht 
The  elder  Isaak  slumbered  sound 
And  dreamed,  perchance,  of  trout. 

The  buds  were  breaking  on  the  thorn, 

The  skies  were  blue  above — 
Did  Isaak  wait  for  Monday  morn 
Ere  angling  in  the  Dove? 

Ik  Walton,  full  of  years  and  pain. 

Dull-eyed  and  short  of  breath. 
Had  seen  four  English  monarchs  reign, 

Had  known  one  done  to  death. 
His  time  was  come, — in  good  round  script, 

He  wrote  his  will,  full  bold, 
Remembering  those  whom  Winter  nipt, — 
The  poor  and  weak  and  old. 

He  prayed  in  Wykeham's  stately  pile, 

Where  now  he  sleeps  in  stone, 
Then  in  the  Itchen  for  a  while 
He  angled  all  alone! 


THE   POINT  OF   VIEW 


T 


'HERE  are  times  when  I  grow  impa-  then  in  the  endless  quest  of  youth.  I  like 
tient  of  our  threshold,  it  is  so  new,  the  sound  of  their  swift  footsteps,  with  the 
and  consequently  so  expressionless,  touch  of  eagerness,  of  question,  and  the  firm 
Under  the  green  door,  wide  to  admit  what-  note  of  assurance;  already  they  feel  the 
ever  may  come  of  life,  it  waits,  hospitable  goal.  Even  if  no  bride  has  paused  upon 
and  expectant,  but  it  is  as  yet  unworn.  No  our  door-step,  joyously  venturing  into  the 
hollows  tell  of  the  coming  and  unknown,  radiant-faced  maidens  bring  their 
—The  Real  g^ing  of  patient  and  impatient  fiances  for  our  benediction;  breathlessly 
feet;  no  dead  have  gone  forth  they  study  our  house-plan,  look  enviously 
over  it  toward  that  vast  threshold  that  at  our  dishes,  and  glance  shyly  at  our  Ca- 
waits  us  all;  nor  has  the  foot  of  wise  physi-  tering  for  T^vo.  There  is  one  fair-haired, 
cian  touched  it,  coming  to  usher  new  life  motherless  girl,  now  busy,  robin-fashion,  in 
over  the  threshold  of  the  earth.  It  is  igno-  gathering  together  this  and  that  for  her 
rant,  slow  to  learn  even  the  wisdom  that  we  home  nest,  whom  we  mean  to  coax  here  for 
have  brought  it,  and  yet — experience  comes,  her  wedding,  but  as  yet  she  does  not  know, 
for  it  guards  a  busy  doorway.  Young  seek-  Whatever  hospitality  we  offer  means  re- 
ers  after  knowledge  cross  and  recross  it,  for  ceiving  more  than  we  give,  for  in  all  this 
ours  is  an  academic  world.  Cladly  we  share  friendly  coming  and  going  across  our  t  hresh- 
our  crumb  and  pour  our  cup— small,  small,  old  we  feel  a  sense  of  fellowship  with  fire- 
yet  blue  with  the  blue  of  far  distance — with  sides  that  we  shall  never  see. 
these  young  wayfarers,  pilgrims  of  the  soul,  We  have  other,  and  many,  guests,  seen 
who  stop  with  us  for  a  moment  now  and  and  unseen.     When  the  crisp,  busy  winter 


2GS 


The   Point  of  View 


days,  and  the  busier  days  of  spring,  are  over; 
when  all  are  gone  and  no  one  else  uses  the 
knocker — old  friends  step  from  old  books  to 
visit  us:  Shakespeare,  with  his  timeless 
wisdom,  droll  Lamb,  and  tender  Thackeray, 
whom,  in  jest  and  in  earnest,  we  understand 
better  than  we  do  more  modern  acquaint- 
ances. Old,  charmed  days  come  back  to 
linger  with  us,  golden  moments  of  delight 
in  new  beauty  or  new  insight,  by  far  sea- 
shore or  distant  mountainside.  In  the 
summer  silences,  now  and  then  old  sorrows 
knock,  ever  so  gently;  they  have  been 
trained  to  be  unobtrusive,  and  we  are  too 
fully  occupied  to  entertain  them  often. 
Through  the  warm  fragrances  of  honey- 
suckle, rose,  and  sweetbrier,  while  drowsy 
birds  chirp  outside,  they  sometimes  enter 
and  possess  the  house,  but  with  new  faces, 
for 

"  Sorrows  change 
Into  not  altogether  sorrow  like." 

Sometimes  when  the  eternal  struggle  be- 
tween the  two  human  impulses  to  go,  to 
stay,  leaves  the  former  triumphant,  I  fling 
forth,  impatient  of  the  limitations  of  my  own 
threshold.  Though  the  little  white  house 
with  the  drooping  roof  looks  the  embodi- 
ment of  home  and  of  sheltering  peace,  for 
the  time  I  will  none  of  it,  being  breathless 
for  knowledge  of  how  life  has  fared  with 
others.  Lingering,  lingering  along  the  open 
road,  I  read  much  of  the  experience  of  my 
neighbors,  human  and  other,  written  on 
their  doorways.  The  bank-swallows,  with 
their  fascinating  thresholds  in  the  sand  cliff 
near  by;  the  orioles,  with  their  safe,  high 
thresholds  of  silken  thread;  the  squirrel, 
whose  doorway  is  a  hole  in  a  decayed  chest- 
nut; the  woodchuck,  into  whose  house  I 
almost  stepped,  uninvited,  are  of  undying 
interest.  I  know  an  old  frog  who  lives  down 
by  a  bend  in  the  river,  a  philosopher,  a 
friendly  Diogenes,  crooning  and  booming 
from  his  damp  and  charming  residence,  shel- 
tered by  reeds  and  lily-pads.  His  surprised 
and  scolding  protest  the  other  night  when 
a  canoe,  gliding  too  near,  violated  the  sanc- 
tity of  his  watery  threshold,  roused  sym- 
pathy of  full  understanding  in  me.  We  are 
not  so  far  as  we  think  from  the  stages  of 
unobtrusive  life  that  go  on  in  meadow  and 
wayside.  The  wood  near  us  is  one  great 
threshold  of  innumerable  homes  that  sug- 
gest a  hundred  points  of  contact  with  our 


own;  through  the  silences,  bright,  brave 
eyes  watch  the  intruder  from  beyond  the 
guarded  doorways.  I  feel  my  pride  in 
house-building  put  to  shame  by  these  little 
houses,  often  stronghold  and  larder  in  one, 
hidden  with  wise  cunning,  and  showing  a 
tender  and  secret  wisdom  shut  from  me. 

I  like  to  watch,  too,  people  at  their  door- 
ways: the  white-headed  carpenter,  who  sits 
on  the  front  step  of  his  little  brown  house 
by  the  aqueduct;  the  bent  old  woman  at 
the  edge  of  the  wood  who  banks  her  tiny 
habitation  with  leaves  when  winter  comes 
her  way;  the  "spinsters  and  the  knitters  in 
the  sun,"  on  their  old-fashioned  porches  in 
the  old-fashioned  villages  ne9,r  by.  From 
all  the  walks  and  ways  of  life  what  knowl- 
edge have  these  folk  brought  home;  word, 
or  look,  or  gesture  may  perhaps  bring  some 
fragment  of  their  hard-won  wisdom  to  me 
as  I  pass.  The  wise  ways  of  mothers  with 
their  children,  and  the  charm,  of  old  faces,  I 
see  often  through  the  lighted  pane.  If, 
sometimes,  rough  words  resound;  if  the 
uncanny  howling  of  the  phonograph,  the 
modern  banshee,  is  heard  through  the  open 
doorways  of  the  poor — one  hears  too  words 
that  are  the  very  melody  of  human  life. 
Music  floats  to  me  across  these  thresholds, 
sometimes  fine  and  sweet  and  far;  two 
afternoons  ago,  the  Pilgrim  Chorus  from 
''  Tannhauser,"  played  by  some  one  who  un- 
derstood, stole  through  the  leaves  and  set 
the  pace  for  me,  coming,  as  music  should,  as 
a  divine  surprise. 

There  is  nothing  that  more  fully  betrays 
the  individuality  of  the  dwellers  within  than 
these  entranceways  through  which  they 
come  and  go  between  their  arcana,  their 
secret  selves,  and  the  world  outside.  Char- 
acter is  written  on  a  doorway,  and  human 
history  on  a  gate-post.  As  I  stroll  past  the 
lodges  of  the  great  estates  hereabout,  the 
stately  hospitality  of  one  tells  me  all  I  wish 
to  know  about  the  indwelling  human  spirit, 
for  the  generous  paths  are  open,  the  wide 
driveways  and  curious  close-clipped  gardens 
are  free  to  all;  while  the  churlish  sign  of  an- 
other, ''Positively  no  admittance,"  makes 
up  a  fairly  complete  biography.  Certain 
doors  wear  always  an  expression  of  the 
wisdom  that  reigns  within.  One  is  that  of 
the  village  cobbler,  who  sits  forever  at  work 
in  his  tiny  shop,  among  his  many  lasts, 
pieces  of  leather  with  their  pungent  smell, 
shoemakers'  wax,  awls,  needles,  and  innu- 


The   Point  of  View 


209 


The  Symbol 


merable  instruments  whose  names  I  do  not 
know.  He  mends  holes,  puts  on  rubber 
heels,  and  performs  other  cunning  deeds, 
for  his  is  the  ancient  and  honorable  task 
of  fitting  the  human  pilgrim  for  the  endless 
way,  and  he  does  it  well,  being  of  incorrupti- 
ble honesty.  When  the  latest  muck-rak- 
ing article  about  corruption  in  this  or  that 
leaves  me  in  despair  about  the  race  of  man- 
kind, I  am  sometimes  tempted  to  cut  holes 
in  my  shoes  that  I  may  have  excuse  for 
going  down  to  watch  the  cobbler.  He  has 
solved  the  Labor  Problem  by  laboring  all 
the  hours  of  dayhght;  at  night  the  uncur- 
tained window  shows  him  often  busy  by 
candle-light,  his  head  bent  in  the  fashion 
belonging  only  to  those  who  take  absorbing 
interest  in  their  tasks.  I  have  never  yet 
succeeded  in  getting  him  to  utter  a  single 
sentence  about  anything  but  shoes,  but 
watching  his  silent,  busy  toil,  I  feel  in  the 
presence  of  one  who  Knows. 

There  are  other  thresholds  that  encourage 
belief  in  the  worth  of  life,  at  which  I  feel 
like  taking  the  shoes  from  off  my  feet,  such 
holy  living  and  dying  has  been  carried  on 
there.  Crossing  one,  I  feel  at  once  the  jolly 
and  indomitable  courage  of  a  widowed 
mother,  who,  worn  out  by  the  struggle  for 
existence,  lately  fell  ill,  but  fought  her  way 
back  from  the  very  gates  of  death  when  re- 
covery was  impossible,  her  physicians  said, 
that  she  might  protect  her  growing  boys 
and  girls  a  little  longer.  Such  tales  give 
one  thoughts  one  hardly  dare  fathom  about 
the  reach  of  the  human  will;  truly,  were  it 
not  for  the  record  written  on  certain  thresh- 
olds of  our  kind,  we  should  faint  and  fail  al- 
together, I  fancy,  in  this  allotted  task  of  life. 


FROM  these  habitations  which  have 
something  of  the  secret  of  true  living 
to  share  with  him  who  enters,  I  turn 
sometimes  toward  deserted  abiding-places, 
impressive  in  the  silence  of  life  gone  by. 
There  is  one  with  worn  gray  stone  steps 
that  lead  to  a  grass-grown  thresh- 
old out  under  the  open  sky.  Lilacs 
blossom  by  the  door-step;  old-fashioned 
pink  roses  tell  when  June  is  there,  but  the 
house  has  vanished  forever,  and  will  not 
give  up  its  garnered  wisdom.  Not  far  is 
a  fine,  old-fashioned,  uninhabited  farm- 
house, which,  in  spite  of  the  encompassing 
quiet,  looks  as  if  life  still  stirred  within. 


But  tendrils  of  woodbine  which  have 
reached  out  from  each  side  of  the  front 
door  have  clasped  hands  across  the  portal; 
the  tangle  of  sweet,  blossoming  things— lilies 
of  the  valley,  narcissus,  periwinkle,  and 
purple  iris— are  neglected  in  the  shade  of  the 
tall  solemn  pines,  and  of  clustering  lilac 
and  ragged  syringa. 

I  can  think  of  no  more  charming  place 
for  a  new  home  than  this,  with  its  beauti- 
ful, rough  stone  gate-posts,  its  sheltering 
apple-trees,  and  its  vines,  vines  ever>'where, 
over  the  house,  up  the  trees,  and  in  great 
masses  over  the  stone  wall — woodbine,  bit- 
tersweet, clematis,  wistaria,  tangled  and  en- 
twined in  loveliness  of  leaf  and  blossom. 
Pathos  clings  to  it  now,  and  it  rouses  wistful 
wonder,  as  does  every  spot  where  the  flame 
of  human  hfe  has  gone  up  and  out,  whether 
sloping-roofed  cottage  of  New  England,  or 
gray-rock  mountain  site  of  prehistoric  city 
on  the  road  to  Epidaurus,  dreaming  against 
the  blue-green  sky  of  Greece,  with  eagles 
circling  round. 

There  are  other  silent  doorways  that  arc 
full  of  eloquent  appeal,  such  as  the  church- 
yard in  our  busy  village,  with  motors  and 
street-cars  whizzing  by,  and  many  footsteps 
crossing  and  recrossing  it  past  the  old  white 
headstones.  It  gets  no  moments  for  itself 
and  for  eternity  except  at  dim  midnight. 
There  is  a  still  older  one  in  the  ancient  vil- 
lage to  westward,  set,  with  its  gray  and 
weather-beaten  slabs,  moss-touched,  half 
hidden  by  long  grass,  about  the  old  white 
church  that  wears  the  charm  of  an  elder 
day,  with  its  quaint  windows  and  its  faded 
blue  blinds.  Over  all  spreads  the  shadow 
of  a  gigantic  elm  under  which,  it  is  said,  the 
apostle  Eliot  used  to  preach  to  the  Indians. 
Generations  of  the  faithful  have  worn  that 
threshold  of  the  house  of  God,  and  have 
won  their  rest  in  the  deep  shade  without. 
The  quiet  hospitality  invites  us;  with  the 
old,  consuming  curiosity  we  wail  for  a  little 
near  those  grass-grown  doorways,  silent, 
lest  some  shade  of  the  larger  significance 
escape  us.  Over  this  vast  threshold  one 
steps  to — what? 

In  visiting  my  vanished  neighbors  I  often 
find  relief,  for  I  like,  when  watching  their 
abiding-places,  either  vacant  doorways  or 
the  resting-places  where  they  lie  snugly 
tucked  up  in  mother  earth,  to  fancy  that 
they  lived  well  and  bravely,  facing  the  tlilVi- 
culties  and  the  i)uzzles  that  wc  arc  facing 


270 


The  Point  of  View 


now,  victorious  on  the  whole.  Their  hos- 
pitaHty  is  restful  compared  with  that  of 
some  of  the  living,  whose  dwelling-places 
resound  with  anxious  talk  and  question, 
loud  debate  and  argument,  and  problems — 
you  would  think  to  hear  them  that  human 
life  had  never  been  a  problem  before  our 
time!  I  have  an  idea  that  part  of  this  is 
mistaken  zeal  for  well-being;  that  home 
should  be  the  abiding-place  of  peace,  and  that 
he  who  has  solved  the  problems  of  his  own 
fireside  has  made  his  best  and  wisest  step 
toward  solving  the  problem  of  the  whole. 

The  only  unfortunate  side  of  that  other- 
wise perfect  relaxation,  walking,  is  that  it 
sooner  or  later  sets  you  to  thinking;  the 
slow  jogging  on  of  one's  footsteps  almost 
inevitably  stirs  one's  brain,  and  then,  one's 
mind  is  busy  again,  trying  to  solve  the  old 
riddle  of  existence!  So,  pondering,  I  walk 
until  I  am  tired,  then  wander  back,  eager 
for  the  shelter  of  my  own  threshold,  and 
glad  to  sink  down  upon  it,  unconsciously 
typifying  the  deepest  paradox  of  human 
thought,  the  need  of  endless  motion,  the 
dream  of  endless  rest.  Those  two  old 
Greek  philosophers  who,  like  all  philos- 
ophers since,  were  busy  with  the  eternal 
apparent  flux  and  change  in  things — that 
greatest  and  most  tragic  of  all  earth's  prob- 
lems, the  glory  and  the  despair  of  thinkers 
since  the  dawn  of  time — doubtless  held  op- 
posing theories  partly  because  they  had 
different  habits.  Heraclitus,  with  his  doc- 
trine of  constant  shifting  and  endless  motion 
through  all  being,  probably  paced  and  paced 
woodland  walks  and  city  streets  and  sea- 
shore, where  he  watched  the  waves;  Par- 
menides,  who  taught  eternal  fixity,  doubt- 
less sat  ruminating  upon  his  own  door-step, 
and  was  sure  that  all  is  stable  and  perma- 
nent.   . 


As  I  sit  upon  my  own,  weary,  somewhat 
dusty,  and  full  of  a  sense  of  the  recurring 
irony  of  life,  I  think,  half-drowsily,  while 
fireflies  pass  now  and  then  against  the  soft 
darkness  of  the  leaves  beyond,  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  threshold.  To  all  of  us, 
human,  or  bird,  or  beast,  it  means  refuge; 
it  has  thus  a  sanctity  that  nothing  else  in 
the  wide  world  possesses.  It  brings  the 
joy  of  the  familiar,  the  settled,  to  reHeve 
the  haunting  sense  of  endless  quest.  This 
longing  for  the  unchanging,  sought  through 
shifting  theologies,  philosophies,  systems  of 
thought,  may,  after  all,  be  profounder  than 
this  sense  of  ceaseless  process  with  which 
it  is  constantly  at  war.  Of  this  longing 
the  threshold  is  our  best  and  most  constant 
symbol.  It  stands  for  man's  first  faith, 
and  for  his  final  faith  in  life.  The  fact  that 
he  can  fashion  it  bears  witness  to  his  deep 
belief  in  permanency;  sitting  upon  it,  he 
dreams  his  dream  of  stable  existence — even, 
if  he  be  so  minded,  of  the  time,  or  the 
eternity,  when  the  immemorial  hope  of  the 
race  may  come  true  in  everlastingness. 
Whatever  belief  the  threshold  may  possess 
is  not  that  of  ignorance,  or  knowledge  with- 
held; there  is  utter  pathos  in  the  thought 
that  this,  the  symbol  of  the  lasting,  must, 
more  than  any  other  part  of  the  house,  bear 
witness  to  all  there  is  of  change.  The 
threshold  survives  flood  and  fire,  wars  and 
revolutions,  cyclones,  material  and  imma- 
terial, external  and  internal.  That  endur- 
ing trust  in  home,  one  of  the  deepest  things 
in  human  nature,  is  magnificent  in  this 
universe  of  constant  flux  and  devastating 
change.  Its  sign  and  token,  the  threshold, 
flings  its  challenge  to  accident,  disaster, 
sickness,  death,  for 

**  It  is  more  strong  than  death, 
Being  strong  as  love." 


THE    FIELD    OF    ART  • 


CONTEMPORARY  ENGRjiVING  OX  WOOD 

FOLLOWING  the  decline  of  wood-en- 
graving before  the  advance  of  the  im- 
proved photo-mechanical  processes,  in 
this  country  and  abroad,  there  appeared 
something  like  an  organized  rescue  of  the 
art,  a  movement  to  set  it  up  on  a  new  basis, 
or  an  old  one  revived.  This  was  greatly 
aided  by  an  apparent  revival  of  the  desire 
of  painters  to  seek  in  some  form  of  engrav- 
ing another  medium  of  expression.  It  was 
accompanied  by  some  very  serious  reversals 
of  the  ordinary  conceptions  of  design  for  en- 
gravings, but  these,  also,  found  much  of 
their  justification  in  ancient  examples.  As 
for  the  longing  to  abandon  pigment  and 
brush  for  the  burin  and  black  ink,  there 
were  many  causes — the  adventurous  human 
temperament  for  one.  A  purely  artistic 
cause  was  an  increased  recognition  of  the 
very  curious  capacity  of  the  black  line, 
drawn  or  engraved,  to  render  something  of 
the  individuality  of  the  designer  or  en- 
graver and — what  is  equally  strange — very 
many  things  in  Nature  and  Fancy  with  which 
it  has,  apparently,  not  the  slightest  relation. 
There  is,  really,  not  very  much  exaggera- 
tion in  some  of  the  claims  made  for  this  un- 
natural thing,  a  black  line.  "Ze  trait,"  says 
M.  Henry  Bataille,  enthusing  over  the  work 
of  a  contemporary  etcher,  Eugene  Bcjot, 
''that  immediate  means  of  expression 
sprung  from  the  very  subconsciousness  of 
the  artist,  keeps  under  the  hand  of  the  en- 
graver all  its  lineal  beauty.  ...  In  such 
fashion  that  to  a  line  which  springs  in- 
stinctively from  the  hand  is  added  the  am- 
plification of  the  symphonic  accents,  light 
or  grave,  retained  or  supported."  And  he 
continues:  "There  is  in  this  a  veritable 
graphology,  in  the  engraving  of  the  painter 
(since  the  professional  engraver  abolishes, 
on  the  contrary,  the  personality  of  the  line), 
a  species  of  writing,  and  this  graphology  is, 
when  rightly  perceived,  a  revelation  of  the 
very  soul  which  inspired  it,  whether  it  be 
that  it  had  preserved  in  the  design  the  unre- 
flecting expressiveness  of  the  sketch  or" 
whether  it  had  transformed,  on  the  con- 
trary, this  spontaneous  impressionism  into 
Vol.  LV.— 26 


an  organized  and  more  deliberate  ensem- 
ble." The  subtle,  the  tremendous,  things 
in  heaven  and  earth  that  art  has  been  able 
to  express  or  suggest  by  means  of  black  lines 
need  not  be  cited. 

For  that  ''essential  quality"  in  the  "orig- 
inal engraving"  of  the  day  (more  par- 
ticularly in  wood-engraving)  which  has 
come  to  be  so  much  in  evidence — the  syn- 
thetic, it  is  called,  attained  frequently  by 
the  careful  selection,  the  freedom  and  bold- 
ness and  increased  size  and  greatly  dimin- 
ished number  of  the  lines  and  the  greater 
amplification  of  the  solid  blacks  and  the 
spacious  whites — an  American  artist,  Mr. 
Arthur  Wesley  Dow,  has  furnished  a  gen- 
eral thesis:  "Composition,  building  up  of 
harmony,  is  the  fundamental  process  in  all 
the  fine  arts.  I  hold  that  art  should  be  ap- 
proached through  composition  rather  than 
through  imitative  drawing.  The  many  dif- 
ferent acts  and  processes  combined  in  a 
work  of  art  may  be  attacked  and  mastered 
one  by  one,  and  thereby  power  gained  to 
handle  them  unconsciously  when  they  must 
be  used  together.  If  a  few  elements  can  be 
united  harmoniously  a  step  has  been  taken 
toward  further  creation.  .  .  .  This  ap- 
proach to  art  through  Structure  is  absolute- 
ly opposed  to  the  time-honored  approach 
through  Imitation."  Mr.  Charles  H. 
Mackie,  A.R.S.A.,  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful of  the  color-block  engravers  in  England, 
testifies  much  to  the  same  purpose:  "One 
thing  that  has  particularly  struck  me  in  this 
work,  in  which  I  have  been  experimenting 
for  about  fifteen  years,  is  the  capital  exer- 
cise it  affords  of  the  picture-making  faculty, 
since  one  sees  one's  picture  grow  to  com- 
pletion in  such  a  logical  way.  No  more  per- 
fect exercise,  in  fact,  could  be  devised  for 
educating  the  logical  side  of  an  artist,  for 
one  has  to  plan  the  whole  result  from  the 
beginning,  when  one  chooses  one's  forces 
and  sequences  of  the  block  color-shapes, 
while  throughout  the  printing  one  has  to  be 
as  constantly  on  the  alert  as  in  painting, 
perhaps  even  more  so,  as  any  error  in  lone 
is  irremediable."  Some  similarity  in  prin- 
ciple may  be  discovered  between  this  system 

371 


The   Field  of  Art 


of  instruction  in  art  and  those  which  have 
obtained  in  other  branches  of  education. 

With  these,  and  other,  buttresses  for  his 
cause  the  painter-engraver  of  the  day,  work- 
ing on  copper  or  on  wood,  has  been  en- 
couraged to  continue  in  these  pictorial  ex- 
pressions of  his  temperament.  The  very 
restriction  of  his  means  has  frequently  given 
him  inspiration — the  expert  workman's  joy 
in  overcoming  ditficulties — the  pleasure  in 
exploring  new  fields;  the  hope  that  in  some 
new  and  entirely  different  technical  process 
may  be  found  more  adequate  presentation 
for  those  feelings,  that  vision  of  things, 
those  "impressions,  which  he  has  received 
from  his  contact  with  nature  and  with 
life" — the  possibility  that  with  such  ap- 
parently primitive  methods  as  two  or  three 
flat  tints,  heavy  outlines,  and  suppression 
of  details  there  may  be  more  truly  pre- 
sented (to  a  select  audience),  e.  g.,  the  round 
white  lighthouse  towxr  on  the  dark  crest  of 
the  hill  against  a  shifting  gray  sky.  The 
number  and  variety  and  greatly  diversified 
temperaments  of  these  "original  engravers" 
in  northern  Europe  and  in  the  United 
States  are  surprising;  and  their  activitiesare 
of  recent  date.  The  very  first  forerunner 
of  what  the  French  call  Vheureuse  renais- 
sance de  la  xylographie  was  announced  by 
Bracquemond,  some  twenty  years  ago,  to 
be  August  Lepere,  some  of  whose  work  is 
familiar  to  the  readers  of  this  magazine; 
the  first  exhibition  of  the  Societe  des  Artistes 
Graveurs  Originaux  was  held  in  Paris,  in 
the  Galeries  Manzi,  Joyant  et  Cie.,  in  191 1, 
and  the  first  exhibition  of  the  Societe  de  la 
Gravure  sur  Bois  Originale,  in  the  Pavilion 
de  Marsan  of  the  Louvre,  in  November  and 
December,  191 2.  In  the  latter  there  w'ere 
three  or  four  English-speaking  exhibitors, 
one  of  w^hom  w^as  an  American,  Rudolph  Ru- 
zicka.  The  first  of  these  exhibitions  was  a 
very  comprehensive  one,  including  etchings, 
lithography,  engravings  on  wood  and  copper, 
all  the  processes  of  engraving  and  printing 
in  black  or  in  color,  and  many  designs. 
Many  of  these  lithographs  and  etchings,  in 
black-and-white  or  in  color,  were  not  ren- 
dered in  the  summary  methods  favored  by 
Lepere  and  his  followers,  but  were  much 
more  conventional  in  technique,  "finished" 
pictures,  full  of  detail,  treated  broadly,  more 
or  less  frankly  decorative. 

Without  waiting  for  the  second  exhibi- 
tion of  the  Society  of  Gravure  Originale  or 


the  appearance  of  their  journal,  Ymagier, 
a  number  of  the  more  enterprising  xylo- 
graphcs  organized  an  exhibition  in  Novem- 
ber, 1913,  in  the  Galerie  Grandhomme  in 
the  rue  des  Saints-Peres  in  which  they 
undertook  to  "modernize  the  frank  fac- 
ture  of  the  ancestors"  by  w'orks  executed 
with  the  pen-knife,  colored  after  the  Jap- 
anese methods,  with  "disquieting  nudes" 
and  with  "cama'ieux  largely  rustic,"  etc. 
The  very  great  liberty  of  design  assumed  in 
modern  art,  the  almost  entire  freedom  (if 
desired)  from  conventionality,  the  new  free- 
dom in  the  practically  unlimited  range  of 
combinations  of  tone,  color,  and  outline, 
give  a  surprising  interest  to  these  exhibi- 
tions. The  visitor  may  readily  ^et  the  im- 
pression that  a  new  field  of  design  has  been 
opened,  by  the  talent  and  the  courage  (some- 
times reckless)  of  these  artists. 

The  object  of  the  Societe  de  la  Gravure 
sur  Bois  Originale,  founded  by  wood-en- 
gravers, professionals  and  amateurs,  is 
stated  to  be  "to  keep  alive  the  true  method 
of  typographic  wood-engraving — blank  or 
in  color — by  assembling  at  expositions 
original  work,  and,  by  lectures,  publications, 
etc.,  to  again  centre  public  attention  on  the 
art  of  wood-engraving,  supplanted  at  pres- 
ent for  many  purposes  by  photo-engraving 
processes."  Each  exhibitor  is  required  to 
agree  in  w-riting  to  send  only  original  en- 
gravings on  wood  in  the  execution  of  which 
there  shall  have  been  no  use  of  any  photo- 
graphic process.  An  interesting  exhibition 
of  some  sixty  of  their  w^orks  was  shown  in 
the  gallery  of  the  Museum  of  French  Art, 
French  Institute  in  the  United  States,  in 
Madison  Avenue,  New  York,  in  November 
and  December,  1913.  There  are  said  to  be 
in  France  to-day  over  twenty  societies  of 
wood-engravers,  professionals  and  ama- 
teurs. 

The  "original  engravers"  on  wood, 
sw^orn  against  the  reproduction  of  any  work 
but  their  own,  found  their  inspiration,  they 
assert,  in  "the  wood-engraving  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  and  the  Renaissance,  in  the  meth- 
ods used  by  the  Japanese  for  nearly  three 
centuries."  In  the  study  of  the  prints  of 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  one  of 
the  leaders  of  these  moderns,  Pierre-Eugene 
Vibert,  discovered  "la  vraie  tradition^ ^  of  the 
art:  "A  large  and  free  distribution  of  the 
blacks  and  the  whites,  a  harmony  of  tones 
and  plans  in  the  cama'ieiix,  lines  nervously 


The  Field  of  Art 


273 


expressive,  and  that  striking  and  indelible 
aspect  which  is  the  peculiar  appanage  of 
typography."  By  cama'ieiix  is  probably 
meant  that  quality  of  low  relief  seen  in 
early  engraving,  when  tonal  refinements 
for  the  purpose  of  rendering  atmospheric 
depth  were  not  sought,  the  aim  being  toward 
the  decorative  feeling  of  simple  planes,  with 
but  little  modelling.  The  French  commonly 
use  the  term  en  cama'ieux  to  designate  en- 
gravings in  chiaro-oscuro,  such  as  those 
made  in  tw'o  blocks,  the  one  on  which  the 
high  lights  are  engraved  and  the  other 
superimposed  for  the  shadows.  This  sim- 
ple process  has  been  used  with  much  suc- 
cess by  some  of  the  American  engravers. 
The  range  of  the  new  art  is,  in  fact,  very 
wide,  a  great  variety  of  technical  processes, 
of  tools  and  materials,  is  allowed,  and  the 
most  varying  artistic  temperaments  may 
find  means  of  expression.  The  engravings 
vary  from  the  strictly  linear  on  a  white 
ground,  or  with  the  addition  of  bold  patches 
of  a  single  tint  or  color  variously  applied, 
to  the  fullest  exercise  of  the  color  sense,  or 
to  the  utmost  delicacy  of  engraving  in  black 
tint  only,  where  the  individual  line  dis- 
appears in  favor  of  the  tone.  This  latter 
method,  that  of  the  much-scorned  '^ repro- 
ductive "  engraving,  is  not  viewed  with  favor 
by  many  of  the  more  advanced  practitioners 
of  the  art. 

In  the  use  of  color  great  latitude  is  al- 
lowed, and  a  few'  of  these  painter-engravers 
are  painters  of  excellent  quality  and  secure 
results  with  their  color  blocks  that  are  of 
singular  richness  and  beauty.  In  the  exer- 
cise of  the  simplest  methods — a  strict  re- 
duction of  the  design  to  its  main  structural 
forms  in  black  and  white;  in  the  dipping 
into  luxury  and  alien  fields  by  borrowing 
from  the  palette  a  single  color,  made  into 
two  or  more  by  applying  it  either  solid  or 
broken  into  tints;  in  the  gradual  yielding 
to  temptation  and  more  painter-like  proc- 
esses; in  the  austere,  artistic,  etcher-like 
determination  to  render  everything  with  the 
bitten  or  engraved  black  line — in  all  these, 
and  in  all  the  shadings  from  one  of  these  to 
another,  are  hidden  untold  wealths  of  ex- 
pression. 

In  some  of  these  artists  the  Japanese  in- 
fluences, especially  in  the  chromo-xylograph, 
are  strongly  evident,  tempered  more  or  less 
by  individual  and  Western  qualities.  In 
the  choice  of  materials  individual  tastes  as- 


sert themselves:  some  cut  the  block  with  a 
pen-knife;  the  liner  wood-engraving,  for 
books,  has  been  executed  almost  since  the 
beginning  on  boxwood,  because  of  the  ex- 
ceeding fineness  of  its  grain;  the  coarser 
w^ork,  as  for  ''posters,"  was  usually  cut  on 
large  pine  or  soft  basswood  blocks,  free  from 
knots;  the  contemporary-  engravers,  in 
black  and  in  colors,  use  box,  cherry,  pear, 
maple,  sometimes  sycamore;  Mr.  William 
Giles,  one  of  the  most  successful  of  the  Eng- 
lish painter-engravers,  prefers  the  wood  of 
the  Kauri  pine  from  New  Zealand.  He 
also  uses  cameo  zinc  plates.  The  general 
testimony  indorses  Japanese  paper  to  take 
the  impressions  in  the  finer  work,  as  its  long 
fibre  enables  it  to  withstand  the  vigorous 
rubbing  to  which  it  is  subjected.  ^Mr. 
Charles  H.  Mackie  prefers  oak  for  his 
blocks,  and  he  mixes  his  color  with  an  in- 
finitesimal quantity  of  oil;  he  has  discarded 
entirely  the  black  key-block  and  rehes  for 
his  effects  on  color  shapes  carefully  juxta- 
posed. The  color-printing  is  carried  as  far 
as  thirty  impressions  or  more,  though  these 
may  be  obtained  from  a  very  much  smaller 
number  of  blocks.  Very  beautiful  results  in 
color  and  tone  may  be  obtained  by  this 
more  painter-like  process,  the  completed 
proof  presenting  effects  not  unlike  those  ac- 
complished by  a  very  skilful  use  of  water- 
color  washes.  The  grain  and  quality  of  the 
wood  from  which  it  is  printed  give  a  peculiar 
texture  and  depth  unlike  that  of  the  water- 
color,  and  in  pure  lightness  and  transpar- 
ency of  sky  it  is  probable  that  the  latter 
will  excel. 

Henri  Riviere's  generally  larger  pictures, 
in  flat  and  slightly  broken  colors,  with  a 
free  use  of  heavy  but  somewhat  broken  out- 
lines in  black  or  brown,  present  very  dec- 
orative patterns  and  can  suggest  atmos- 
phere and  even  aerial  perspective  by  these 
simple  means.  His  colored  wood-engrav- 
ings seen  in  connection  with  his  water-color 
paintings  enable  the  spectator  to  realize 
"his  power  of  abstracting  from  either  me- 
dium only  that  which  is  part  of  itself  and 
which  is  closely  allied  to  his  interpretation 
of  his  subject."  For  the  monochrome  prints 
Lepere  and  others  sometimes  print  their  ile- 
sign,  executed  in  black  lines  with  a  free  use 
of  solid  blacks,  on  a  flat  light-gray  tint  which 
serves  to  complete  the  picture  and  give  a 
decorative  effect.  Emile  \.  V'erpiileux,  as 
we  learn  from  a  recent  magazine  article, 


274 


Tlie  Field  of  Art 


works  on  the  ordinary  surface  of  the  block 
and  not  on  that  specially  prepared  by 
cutting  against  the  grain.  His  paper  is  or- 
dinary thick,  absorbent  paper;  he  uses 
printing-inks  exchisively,  and  at  most  six 
or  seven  different  blocks.  With  a  somewhat 
summary,  but  sufiicient,  modelling  he  con- 
trives to  present  very  important  features  of 
his  composition,  as  an  entire  building,  in 
gradations  of  one  or  two  Hat  tones  of  color. 
Sometimes  this  color-construction  takes  the 
form  of  a  very  intricate  pattern,  as  the  iron 
framework  of  a  railway  station.  With  this 
he  combines,  in  the  immediate  foreground, 
trees,  lamp-posts,  little  figures,  carriages, 
etc.,  in  almost  or  quite  black  silhouettes, 
much  like  the  Ombres  Chinoises  of  the  re- 
gretted Chat  Noir  of  Paris. 

Of  the  American  engravers,  one  of  those 
who  may  be  taken  as  a  representative  of  the 
successful  abstinence  from  color  is  William 
G.  Watt,  who  makes  use  of  every  variety  of 
line.  Sometimes  they  are  the  finest,  so  that 
his  proof  is  as  soft  and  atmospheric  as  a 
wash  drawing,  as  in  his  reproduction  of  his 
own  painting,  "The  Pool"  ;  and  sometimes 
they  reproduce  boldly  the  slashing  strokes 
of  the  crayon  drawing — keeping  them  not 
too  hard.  He  has  an  excellent  feeling  for 
the  suggestion  of  color  by  tone;  and  not 
infrequently  his  line  suddenly  grows  adven- 
turous, as  in  windy  skies,  flying  in  every 
direction.  This  sudden  contrast  with  the 
more  conservative,  strictly  constructive, 
lines  of  his  architecture  and  ground,  as  in 
his  ''Carcassonne,"  suggests  much  of  that 
vividness  and  lack  of  solidity  which  the  sky 
is  apt  to  present  in  nature.  An  effective 
contrast  is  secured  in  some  cases  by  differ- 
ent methods,  as  in  a  finished  and  smooth 
rendering  for  faces  and  hands  and  a  much 
bolder  one  for  contiguous  portions,  and  he 
even  uses  in  the  same  group  both  hard  out- 
lines and  the  softest  blendings  of  the  figure 
into  the  background.  In  his  occasional  use 
of  color  there  is  generally  a  discriminating 
economy,    as   in   a  little   Japanese   winter 


scene  where  the  blue  added  is  broken  and 
softened  in  the  sky  and  the  snow  shadows 
and  solid  in  the  small  figures,  the  pool  in  the 
foreground,  and  the  darks  of  the  houses. 

One  of  the  closest  followers  of  the  Japa- 
nese is  Miss  Helen  Hyde,  who  has  lived  in 
the  island  empire  and  generally  renders 
Japanese  subjects,  both  in  colored  wood- 
blocks and  in  etchings.  Rudolph  Ruzicka 
has  endeavored  in  an  ingenious  series  of 
experiments  in  black-and-white  and  in  color 
to  preserve  certain  fine  relat  ions  between  the 
initial  design,  which  is  of  first  importance, 
the  block,  and  the  press — this  including  con- 
siderations of  paper,  ink,  etc.  The  quality 
of  the  paper  on  which  his  block  is  to  be 
printed  is  nearly  always  in  the.  engraver's 
mind;  a  more  satisfactory  and  artistic 
effect  can  be  obtained  on  hand-made  paper 
than  on  the  glazed — the  quality  of  the 
former  giving  a  slight  effect  of  texture,  or  of 
atmosphere,  on  the  broken  surface,  and  of 
embossing  in  the  printing.  Howard  Mc- 
Cormick,  on  the  contrary,  is  content  to 
leave  the  printing  of  his  blocks  to  the  pro- 
fessionals, reserving  himself  for  the  more 
purely  artistic  problems;  he  believes  in  pre- 
serving the  character  of  the  wood-engraving 
as  such,  respecting  his  material,  not  sacri- 
ficing the  quality  of  the  wood  in  an  attempt 
to  reproduce  closely  the  medium  used  in  the 
design,  etc.;  usually  he  works  with  regard 
to  the  white  line,  but  does  not  follow  Lin- 
ton implicitly.  His  proofs  are  generally  low 
in  tone,  without  vivid  contrasts  of  light  and 
shade,  somewhat  summary  in  modelling, 
and  with  great  freedom  and  variety  and 
frequently  fineness  of  line.  In  the  use  of 
colors,  as  with  three,  which  give  in  the 
printing  seven,  he  thinks  the  best  results 
can  be  obtained  by  having  them  all  prac- 
tically of  the  same  tone,  which  insures  a 
good  general  tone  for  the  completed  proof; 
generally  the  successive  printing  of  all 
three  will  give  a  better  black  than  the  usual 
black  printers'  ink. 

William  Walton. 


THE   GLADE. 
BY    WALTER     LAUNT     PALMER. 


— See  "  Field  of  Art,"  page  403. 


ScRiBNER's  Magazine 


VOL.   LV 


MARCH,   1914 


NO. 


BREAKING    INTO    THE    MOVIES 

BY   RICHARD   HARDING   DAVIS 

Illustrations   from    the  "Soldiers, of  Fortune"    films  and  from  iMiorocu ai-ms  made 

ESPECIALLY    FOR    ScRIIINER's    MaGAZINE 


N  my  sophomore  year  my 
first  sea  voyage,  by  rare 
good  fortune,  led  me  to 
Santiago  de  Cuba,  of  all  the 
cities  of  the  Pearl  of  the  An- 
tilles the  oldest,  and  to  me 
the  most  beautiful.  During  the  war  with 
Spain,  owing  to  San  Juan  Hill,  to  Colonel 
Roosevelt's  Rough  Riders,  and  to  the  fact 
that  at  her  harbor  mouth  our  admirals 
sank  the  Spanish  ships,  Santiago  became 
famous.  But  when  I  first  visited  that 
city  her  history  was  only  of  buccaneers 
and  pirates,  and  except  in  the  secret  hopes 
of  the  Cuban  patriots  she  was  in  every- 
thing— in  tradition,  customs,  costumes, 
architecture — wholly  Spanish.  Within 
her  walls  the  few  Americans  were  Reimer, 
the  American  consul,  and  the  mining-engi- 
neers of  the  Juragua  Iron  Company,  and  it 
was  on  one  of  the  ore  boats  of  that  com- 
pany I  took  my  first  voyage  south.  The 
late  William  Wharton  Thurston  was  then 
president  of  the  company.  It  was  he  who 
in  Madrid  had  obtained  from  the  Queen 
the  concession  to  carry  north  the  moun- 
tain of  ore  that  ten  miles  from  Santiago 
rose  from  the  sea  at  Siboney.  It  was  his 
bribes  of  diamond  rings,  his  banquets — for 
one  of  which,  in  a  steamer  especially  char- 
tered, he  imported  a  cargo  of  flowers — his 
tact,  and  his  manner  of  the  great  gentle- 
man that  won  for  the  company  the  good 
will  of  the  Spanish  ofBcials.  It  was  he 
who  obtained  the  loan  of  regiments  of 
Spanish  soldiers  to  work  the  ore. 

For  the  American  company  those  were 
the  unhappy  days.     It  was  the  pioneer 


period.  Not  only  had  the  engineers  to 
make  the  dirt  fly  and  clear  the  jungle,  to 
build  bridges,  barracks,  hosjHtals,  a  rail- 
road, and  an  ore  pier,  but  with  dij)lomacy 
to  overcome  the  prejudices  and  indolence 
of  a  people  who,  since  Velazquez  led  them 
to  Santiago,  had  never  changed.  At  the 
mines,  from  these  same  engineers,  young 
and  eager,  and  at  La  Cruz  in  the  Casa  el 
Presidente,  perched  among  royal  palms 
above  the  harbor  of  Santiago,  from  Thurs- 
ton, I  heard  hourly  the  story  of  the  Ameri- 
can company,  of  its  fight  against  the  moun- 
tains, against  the  indifferent  and  hostile 
Spaniard.  Ten  years  later,  to  that  story 
I  added  a  love  story,  placed  the  mines  in 
an  imaginary  repubHc  in  South  America, 
and  succeeded  in  getting  the  story,  which 
was  called  ''Soldiers  of  Fortune,"  pub- 
lished in  this  magazine.  Later  it  ap- 
peared in  book  form.  Still  later  the  dean 
of  the  American  dramatists,  Augustus 
Thomas,  turned  the  novel  into  a  four-act 
melodrama  which  ran  successfully  for  two 
years  and  in  stock  is  still  running. 

And  ten  years  after  that,  hand  in  hand, 
Mr.  Thomas  and  1  sailed  to  Santiago, 
again  to  tell  the  same  story;  this  time 
in  a  succession  of  moving  ])ictures. 

I  am  assured  by  the  All-Star  Feature 
Corporation,  who  organized  this  expedi- 
tion, that  it  was  one  of  the  most  ambitious 
and  bcst-e(|uipi)e(l  that  as  yet,  for  the 
single  purpose  of  telling  a  story  on  a  lilm, 
have  sailed  from  the  United  States.  Al- 
ready the  rights  to  the  reels  we  shijiped 
north  have  been  sold  to  moving-picture 
palaces  from  St.  IV'tersburg  to  Rio  Janeiro 


Copyright,  1914,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.     All  rights  reserved. 


Vol.  LV.— 27 


275 


270 


Breaking  into  tlie  Movies 


and  to  all  of  our   I'niUHl  Slates,  where    all  haciendas,  trails,  forts,  mines,  jungles, 
each  day  three  million  peoi)le  i)atronize    palm  groves,  water-fronts,   and  harbors 
the  movies.     Some  of  these  three  million    within  a  ten-mile  radius  of  the  city.     The 
may  fmd  in  the  way  the  pictures  are  pro-    rest  of  Mr.  Pratt's  time  was  his  own. 
duced  some  of  the  same  interest  they  take        When  one  cold  morning  late  last  fall  our 

company  sailed  out  of  New 

York  harbor,  it  consisted  of 
three   actresses,  sixteen 
actors,  two  camera  men,  a 
business  manager,  a  stage- 
director,  our  star,  Mr.  Dustin 
Farnum,  and  Mr.  Augustus 
Thomas  (who,  besides  being 
the  director-general   of  the 
All- Star  Corporation,  was 
also  the  author  of  the  sce- 
nario), and  two  rniles  of  film. 
In  my  ignorance,  for  such  an 
undertaking  our  expedition 
seemed  inadequate.     I  did 
not  then  know  that  to  the 
moving-picture  people  all 
the  world's  a  stage,  and  men 
and  women  merely  actors.    I 
did  not  then  know  that 
through  the  energy  of  Mr. 
Pratt,  and  the  subtle  and 
diplomatic  urgings  of  the  di- 
rector-general,  volunteer 
actors  by   the   hundreds 
would  flock  to  our  standard, 
that  to  assist  us  recruits 
would  enlist  from  the  side- 
walks, from  mountain  passes, 
from  the  decks  of  ships,  from 
the  most  conservative  of 
clubs  and  drawing-rooms.    I 
did  not  then  know  that  to 
many  people,  of  all  con- 
ditions, to  appear  upon  a  film,  to  see  them- 
selves as  they  are  seen  by  others,  and  to 
have  their  friends  see  them,  is  a  tempta- 
tion and  an  adventure.     I  had  not  calcu- 
lated on  a  human  weakness,  on  the  vanity 
that  even  in  the  heart  of  the  Congo  leads 
a  naked  "wood  boy"  to  push  in  front  of 
your  camera.     That  he  will  never  see  the 
photograph  into  which  he  has  projected 
himself  does  not  deter  him.     He  desires 
only  that  his  features,  which  he  admires, 
may  be  perpetuated,  that  they  may  attain 
immortality,  even  the  brief  immortality 
of  a  strip  of  celluloid.     But,  whatever  the 
motive,  the  fact  remains  that  before  we 
left  Cuba,  by  the  addition  of  "extra  peo- 
ple," a  few  working  for  pay,  the  great  ma- 


From  a  Royal  Mail  steamer  Dustin  Farnum  starts  on  a  journey  that 

covers  two  miles  of  film.      Captain  Barrett,  Mr.  Thomas, 

and  Mr.  Davis  bid  him  good-by. 


in  the  pictures.     It  is  in  that  hope  that 
this  is  written. 

A  month  before  our  expedition  set  sail 
Mr.  John  H.  Pratt  had  preceded  us  to 
make  the  ways  straight.  It  was  his  duty 
to  secure  for  our  enterprise  the  good  will 
of  the  people  of  Santiago,  to  obtain  the 
co-operation  of  the  military,  the  civil  au- 
thorities, the  Juragua  Iron  Company, 
the  Spanish- American  Iron  Company,  the 
police,  the  customs  officials;  to  reserve 
board  and  lodging  for  the  twenty  members 
of  our  company;  to  engage  interpreters, 
carriages,  ponies,  launches,  and  special 
trains;  and  in  order  to  pick  out  "loca- 
tions," as  are  called  the  scenes  and  back- 
grounds of  a  moving-picture  play,  to  visit 


The  canvas  on  the  ground  reflects  the  lisht  in  the  face  of  the  actor.     The  numerals  held  in  front  of  the  camera 
give  the  number  of  the  scene  about  to  be  photographed. 


jority  out  of  courtesy,  our  cast  of  charac- 
ters had  grown  from  twenty  to  two  thou- 
sand. Of  these  were  the  soldiers  of  the 
garrison  at  Santi- 
ago, troops  of  the 
Guardia  Rural  es,  or 
mounted  constab- 
ulary, members  of 
the  most  distin- 
guished of  the  Cu- 
ban families,  all  the 
Spanish  w^orkmen 
on  the  pay-roll  of 
the  Juragua  Iron 
Company,  with  its 
rolling-stock  and 
good-will  thrown  in, 
the  Santiago  police, 
the  American  navy, 
and  hundreds  of 
kindly  strangers 
who  for  one  brief 
moment  passed  be- 
fore our  camera  and 
out  of  our  lives. 

The  scenario 
prepared  by  Mr. 
Thomas  consisted  of 
two  hundred  and 
thirty-three  scenes 
and ''inserts."     In  "Why  didn't  you  hri 


pantomime  these  scenes  tell  the  plot  of  the 
])lay.  Later,  when  they  are  thrown  upon 
the  screen,  they  will  cover  ten  thousand 

feet  of  film,  and  in 
l^assing  a  given 
point  consume  two 
hours.  Where 
pantomime  fails  to 
make  clear  the  plot 
an  "insert ''is  used. 
An  insert  may  be 
the  facsimile  of  a 
letter,  telegram,  or 
any  written  order; 
or  it  may  be  a  line 
of  explanation,  such 
as:  "The  President 
grants  the  Ameri- 
can engineer  a  con- 
cession to  work  the 
iron  ore."  Or,  it 
may  be  a  bit  of  di- 
alogue, or  an  cxcla- 
malion  which  will 
make  clear  to  the 
audience  what  the 
actor  is  saying  or 
thinking,  as,  "I 
wonder  if  1  would 
like  to  be  dictator 

ig  your  own  clothes?  "  of  Olancho?  '* 

277 


278 


Breaking  into  tlie  Movies 


As  Mr.  I'honias  iirrangrd  his  scenario, 
the  business  of  each  scene  and  the  word- 
ing of  each  insert  were  typewritten  on  a 
separate  page  of  cardboard.  There  were 
duplicate  sets  of  these  cardboards  bound 
in  flexible-leather  covers  by  adjustable 
steel  springs,  one  set  belonging  to  Mr. 
Thomas,  and  the  other  to  his  assistant 


would  read;  "President  Alvarez  in  num- 
ber six,  his  wife  in  number  five."  It 
sounded  as  though  he  were  condemning 
them  to  separate  cells.  But  by  his  sys- 
tem Thomas  saved  endless  confusion.  As 
soon  as  he  had  decided  what  "location" 
he  would  use,  it  was  necessary  only  to  turn 
to  the  page  that  called  for  that  location 


An  impromptu  dressing-room.     Mr.  Farnum,  Miss  Brownell,  Miss  L'Uttrell. 


and  stage-director,  Mr.  William  Haddock. 
Each  page  was  as  neatly  ruled  and  as 
methodically  planned  as  ship's  log.  Each 
gave  the  number  of  the  scene  and  act, 
and  the  "business"  of  that  scene;  and 
blank  spaces  were  left  for  recording  the 
time  of  day  and  the  kind  of  sunlight  by 
w^hich  that  scene  was  photographed.  In 
double  columns  were  the  names  of  the 
characters  to  appear  in  the  scene  and  the 
costumes  each  was  to  wear.  The  cos- 
tumes were  described  by  numerals.  The 
garments  a  man  wore  in  the  mines  would 
be  numbered  "i,"  his  evening  clothes 
"2,"  and  if  to  his  evening  clothes  a  belt 
and  revolver  were  added,  that  was  counted 
as  a  new  costume  and  described  by  a  new 
number.  At  first  it  was  confusing. 
"Clay  in  number  four,"  Mr.  Thomas 


and  at  a  glance  he  knew  what  actors  were 
needed,  in  what  clothes  they  were  to  ap- 
pear, and  what  part  of  the  story  they  must 
carry  forward. 

In  preparing  a  film  play  the  scenes  are 
not  produced  in  the  order  in  which  later 
they  appear  upon  the  screen.  Which 
scene  will  be  photographed  depends  upon 
the  location  most  available.  For  exam- 
ple, we  were  at  sea  and  the  scenario  called 
for  scenes  on  shipboard.  Accordingly, 
for  his  stage-setting  Thomas  borrowed  the 
decks  of  the  Royal  Mail  boat  on  which 
we  happened  to  be  passengers,  and  for  his 
backdrop  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  One  scene 
was  on  board  a  tramp  steamer,  the  other 
on  a  passenger  ship.  So,  for  our  tramp 
we  showed  only  the  bow  of  the  steamship 
Danube^  reserving  her  boat-deck  for  the 


Breaking  into  the  Movies 


279 


liner;  and  as  in  each  scene  we  needed  a 
ship's  captain,  and  the  same  captain  could 
not  appear  on  both  \essels,  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  tramp  we  i)romoted  the 
ship's  doctor. 

Captain  Barrett,  much  to  the  horror  of 
his  junior  officers,  all  of  whom  hold  mas- 
ter's tickets  and  write  after  their  names 


him  and  the  hun^Tv  waves.  On  his  safe 
return  to  the  ship  he  said  he  now  under- 
stood why.  when  in  times  of  disaster  boats 
are  lowered,  the  men  hold  back  and  cry: 
"Women  and  children  first  I" 

We  left  the  Danube  at  Antilla  and  the 
same  afternoon  arrived  in  Santiago,  where, 
at  the  Hotel  Venus,  on  the  Plaza  de  Ces- 


'r)^  .:<  ^ 


A  "location"  in  the  cocoanut  grove  at  El  Guao. 


R.N.R.,  appeared  as  himself.  He  made 
a  perfectly  good  captain,  but  his  actions 
on  the  film  are  most  misleading.  In  real 
life  he  does  not  beam  upon  passengers  who 
try  to  run  his  ship.  In  real  life  to  mount 
to  his  bridge,  as  did  Mr.  Farnum,  and  de- 
mand instantly  to  be  placed  ashore  would 
lead  only  to  one's  being  placed  in  irons. 
But  before  the  camera  Captain  Barrett 
could  not  resist  the  impetuous  gestures  of 
our  star,  and  for  him  manned  a  life-boat 
and  set  him  ashore.  At  least,  the  chief 
ofhcer  lowered  him  as  near  to  the  water  as 
was  necessary  to  escaj)e  the  eye  of  the 
camera.  There  was  a  heavy  sea  running, 
and  Farnum,  clinging  to  the  life-line,  and 
trying  to  look  as  though  he  liked  it,  twice 
was  swung,  ])umping  and  ])itching,  over 
the  side,  with  a  lifty-foot  drop  between 


pedes,  Pratt  had  established  our  head- 
quarters. That  evening,  as  on  every  suc- 
ceeding evening,  in  the  Cafe  de  Venus, 
within  a  few  yards  of  the  military  band 
and  the  pleasure-seekers  circling  in  the 
plaza  to  inspire  or  distract  us,  we  mapped 
out  the  work  for  the  day  to  come.  Pratt 
had  selected  many  locations,  and  as  San- 
tiago is  one  of  my  "home"  towns,  I  was 
able  to  suggest  others;  so  before  he  turned 
in  that  first  evening  the  director-general 
had  arranged  his  programme,  and  hung 
up  a  "call"  for  6.30.  For  the  legitimate 
actors  making  their  first  api)earance  in 
the  "movies,"  and  who  regard  an  11- 
o'clock  call  as  an  insult,  it  was  in  every 
sense  a  terrible  awakening. 

"It    can't    be    donel"    protested    Mr. 
Conkling,  c^ur  villain.     "Vou  can't  lake 


2S0 


Breakinsf  into  the  Movies 


])hoto,i::raplis  witlioul  tlio  sun.  and  tlu-  sun  the  afternoon  to  the  shack  of  the  Ameri- 

doesn't  get  up  tliat  early."  can  engineers,  known  in  the  play  as  Clay, 

We  began  work  at  the  wharves.     Far-  McWilliams,  and  Ted.     At  this  location 

num  was  shown  mcuuiting  the  gangway  nearly  all  the  characters  appeared,  and 

of   one   ship,  and   "Ted"  Langham   de-  on  our  departure  from  the  Venus  we  moved 

scending  another.    To  my  surprise  I  found  in  a  long  Une  of  open  carriages,  surrounded 


Hope  and  McWilliams  hold  up  the  traffic  on  the  tracks  of  the  Juragua  iron  mines. 


that  neither  then  nor  at  any  other  time 
did  any  one  object  to  our  making  use  of 
his  ship,  his  house,  or  himself.  Instead, 
every  one  stopped  work,  or,  if  for  local  col- 
or we  asked  it,  continued  about  his  busi- 
ness. Thomas  even  pressed  into  our  serv- 
ice a  boat-load  of  Hamburg-American 
tourists. 

"When  you  return  to  Boston,"  the 
director-general  insidiously  suggested, 
"would  you  not  like  your  friends  to  see 
you  walking  about  in  Cuba?"  They  de- 
cided they  would,  and  devoted  their  shore 
leave  in  Santiago  to  acting  as  supers. 

From  the  wharves  the  scene  shifted  in 


by  a  clattering  escort  of  ponies  and  a  rear- 
guard of  commissariat  wagons  filled  with 
interpreters  and  lunch-baskets. 

The  shack  chosen  for  the  engineers 
stands  in  the  grounds  of  El  Guao,  for- 
merly the  country  place  of  the  British  con- 
sul Mr.  Ramsden,  and  later  during  the 
American  occupation  the  official  residence 
of  Major-General  Leonard  Wood.  For 
three  days  we  worked  there,  and  the  con- 
trast between  our  rehearsals  and  those  of 
a  play  in  a  Broadway  theatre  were  ex- 
treme. El  Guao  was  no  gloomy  stage 
with  a  single  gas-jet  by  which  a  hungry, 
sleepy,  and  thoroughly  bored  company 


Breaking  into  tlic  Movies 


281 


pretended  to  read  their  ])arts,  or  with 
avidity  study  the  Morning  Telcf^rap/i.  In- 
stead we  rehearsed  among  the  rustling 
fronds  of  cocoanut-palms,  under  the  bluest 
of  skies,  and  in  the  most  brilliant  sun- 
shine. Those  who  were  not  in  the  scene 
sat  in  the  high  grass  where  the  shade  fell, 
or  lay  in  wait  for  the  small  boys  who  had 
climbed  aloft  after  co- 
co anuts,  and  of  the 
fruits  of  their  efforts 
robbed  them.  Nor,  if 
one  wanted  to  smoke, 
was  there  a  house-man- 
ager or  a  fire  commis- 
sioner's i)lacard  to  pre- 
vent, and  the  Cuban 
cigars  were  real  Cuban 
cigars,  less  sixty  per  cent 
duty.  And  when  the 
noon  hour  came  we  did 
not  race  to  a  quick- 
lunch  counter,  but  fared 
luxuriously  on  oranges, 
n-argoes,  alligator  pears, 
and  on  pineapples  that, 
at  a  touch  of  the  fork, 
melted  into  delicious 
morsels.  It  was  the  dif- 
ference be.tween  a  meal 
at  a  railroad  counter 
and  a  picnic  in  the  Bois. 
One  must  not  suggest 
that  in  any  other  sense 
it  was  a  picnic.  Work 
began  at  6.30,  continued 
even  though  the  ther- 
mometer was  at  110°, 
and  ended  only  when 
the  light  failed.  No  one 
ever  was  idle,  nor,  again 
in  contrast  to  the  thea- 
tre, did  any  one  suggest 
he  was  not  a  stage-hand 
but  an  artist.  The  director-general  him- 
self destroyed  that  illusion.  He  set  the  ex- 
ample of  ubiquitous  energy.  Although  in 
supreme  authority,  he  was  not  one  to  say 
go  and  come.  He  went  and  came  him- 
self. He  built  scenery,  assembled  ma- 
chine guns,  nailed  rifles  in  piano-cases, 
held  an  umbrella  over  the  camera  man, 
policed  the  side  lines,  found  a  place  of 
honor  for  the  alcalde,  and  in  his  idle  mo- 
ments drilled,  coached,  and  rehearsed 
everything  from  a  troop  of  cavalry  or  a 


string  of  flat  cars  to  the  lady  who  had  to 
say,  "Sluart,  more  than  life  I  love  you!" 
before  an  admiring  and  envious  audience 
of  six  hundred  Cubans. 

Our  location  on  the  second  day  was  at 
the  mines  of  the  Juragua  Iron  Company. 
Here  the  American  engineers  were  sup- 
posed to  show  the  millionaire  owner  of  the 


At  the  iron  mines.      Mr.  Thomas  selects  a  "location 


mines  and  his  daughters  the  result  of 
their  labors.  The  iron  company  carried 
us  to  the  mines  over  their  own  railroad  in 
a  special  train  that  had  the  right  of  way 
over  all  the  ore  trains,  and  throughout  our 
visit  the  comiKUiy  held  uj)  e\ery thing  else 
that  in  any  way  threatened  to  interfere 
with  the  ]~)ictures. 

On  our  arrival  at  the  mines  the  day  was 
declared  a  national  holiday,  and  every- 
body quit  work. 

Of  the  actor  engineers  the  real  engineers 


282 


Breaking  into  the  Movies 


were  sunicwluit  critical.  They  suggested 
they  would  like  to  see  the  actors  do  some- 
thing more  strenuous  than  escort  the 
ladies  over  the  landslides.  They  made  it 
evident  that  that  part  of  the  work  might 
safely  be  intrusted  to  them.  So  Farnum, 
stripped  to  the  belt  and  carrying  a  tran- 
sit, laid  out  a  new  road-bed,  and  later 
drove  a  steam-drill,  and  Mr.  Stark,  who 


Williams  laughing  gayly,  it  showed  on  the 
flat  car  the  others  pointing  out  the  won- 
ders of  the  mines;  but  it  does  not  show 
the  rest  of  us  on  the  car  that  held  the 
camera,  imploring  McWilliams  to  keep  on 
the  rails,  and  prepared  at  an  instant's 
warning  to  leap  into  space. 

Kirkpatrick,  the  engineer  who  was  the 
original  of  the  character  of  McWilliams, 


At  La  Cruz  overlooking  the  harbor  of  Santiago.     Mr.  Thomas  directing  a  love  scene. 


appeared  as  McWilliams,  ran  a  locomo- 
tive. One  of  the  best  pictures  we  secured 
was  that  of  Hope  Langham  and  McWil- 
liams in  the  cab  of  a  locomotive.  It 
pulled  a  flat  car  from  which  the  other 
members  of  their  party  were  supposed  to 
be  inspecting  the  mines.  To  that  flat  car 
was  coupled  another  on  which  was  the 
camera.  It  caught  all  that  went  forward 
in  the  locomotive  and  on  the  first  car,  as 
they  moved,  sometimes  through  tropical 
jungle,  sometimes  between  walls  of  ore  as 
high  as  a  skyscraper,  sometimes  balanced 
on  the  dizzy  edge  of  a  precipice.  It  made 
a  splendid  panorama.  Against  the  chan- 
ging backgrounds  it  showed  Hope  and  Mc- 


died  at  the  mines  and  was  buried  there. 
And  when  the  actor  who  represented  him 
stopped  at  the  grave,  dressed  as  I  always 
had  seen  Kirkpatrick,  in  mining-boots, 
blue  shirt,  and  sombrero,  it  gave  one  a 
curious  thrill.  It  was  more  curious  on 
the  days  following,  when  our  location  was 
at  La  Cruz,  which  overlooks  the  harbor 
of  Santiago.  This  is  the  house  that  was 
built  for  the  president  of  the  company 
and  which,  from  the  reign  of  Thurston 
to  that  of  Charles  M.  Schwab,  has  been 
his  official  residence.  In  the  novel  I  call 
this  place  the  Palms,  and  it  is  there  that 
much  of  the  action  of  the  story  takes 
place.     Sometimes  Thomas  followed  the 


1 

1 

il 

H 

•>,"        !^.           ?l                        ^' 

•  ^  '^:  '^,Lii 

■^M 

i 
I 

^Sf^^l^H^^^flli 

At  La  Cruz.     The  younger  Langham  sister  begs  to  go  to  a  dance. 


Tlic  Americans  dibiiibutc  tlic  ritlc-^  taken  lioiii  ilic  linbusicrsi. 


283 


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Breaking  into  tlie  Movies 


scLMics  in  liis  play,  sometimes  those  in  tlic 
novel.  Kill  \vhene\er  it  was  possible  he 
preferred  for  his  l)ack<j;rounds  the  exact 
pkices  the  novel  described.  So  1  had  the 
curious  sensation  of  seeing  characters  that 
had  existed  only  in  fiction,  but  which  had 
been  placed  in  a  real  setting,  now  appear- 
ing in  flesh  and  blood  in  that  real  setting, 
wearing  the  uniforms  or  ball  dresses  I 


bor  three  miles  across  and  the  red  roofs 
of  Santiago,  and  beyond  them  a  great 
circle  of  mountains,  with  shadows  in  the 
valleys  and  white  clouds  resting  on  the 
peaks.  And  for  our  immediate  needs 
there  were  dressing-rooms,  shower-baths, 
wicker  chairs,  a  library  of  novels,  and 
at  disturbingly  frequent  intervals  trays 
loaded  with  the  insidious  Daiquiri  cock- 


Madame  Alvarez  and  Hope  "escape"  fmrn  the  palace. 


had  described  and  which  Charles  Dana 
Gibson  had  drawn,  walking  in  the  same 
avenue  of  palms,  making  love  in  the  same 
corner  of  the  veranda,  fortifying  the  same 
iron  gates  with  real  machine  guns,  issuing 
the  same  commands  to  real  American 
bluejackets.  It  was  as  puzzling  as  one  of 
those  moments  when  you  come  upon  some 
spot  you  know  you  never  have  visited 
before  but  which,  you  feel,  in  some  other 
existence,  or  in  a  dream,  you  already  have 
seen. 

The  manager  of  the  iron  company,  Mr. 
D.  B.  Whitaker,  made  us  welcome  at  La 
Cruz,  and  few  rehearsals  ever  were  carried 
forward  under  such  conditions.  We  were 
surrounded  by  flowering  plants  and  whis- 
pering palms;  below  us  stretched  the  har- 


tail.  This  latter  is  the  creation  of  the 
late  Jennings  S.  Cox,  for  some  time  man- 
ager of  the  iron  mines,  and  it  is  as  genial 
and  as  brimful  of  brotherly  love  as  was 
the  man  who  invented  it.  It  consists  of 
Barcardi  rum,  limes,  sugar,  and  cracked 
ice;  and,  so  long  as  it  obtained,  rehearsals 
never  dragged  and  conversation  never 
flagged. 

Again  I  fear  it  reads  like  a  picnic;  but 
the  actors  did  not  find  it  a  picnic.  For  in 
the  ^'out-of-doois"  drama  one  man  in  his 
time  plays  many  parts.  In  the  legitimate 
drama  the  hero  has  only  to  read  lines,  and 
other  lines  inform  the  audience  that  he  is 
brave,  that  he  is  daring,  that  in  every  out- 
of-door  exercise  he  excels.  For  the  spec- 
tators of  the  silent  film  such  hearsay  evi- 


Real  soldiers  of  the  Cuban  infantry  scaling  the  gates  of  the  palace. 


dence  is  not  possible 
may  not  explain  in 
can  climb  a  tree, 
tree.  They  demand 
num,  who  was  mak- 
ing his  debut  in 
the  film  drama, 
illustrated  this. 
When  he  played 
Lieutenant  Denton 
in  Mr.  Thomas's 
"Arizona,"  every 
one  in  the  cast  ex- 
cept the  villain  told 
the  audience  that 
in  all  the  cavalry 
Denton  was  the 
finest  officer  and 
most  daring  rider. 
All  Denton  actually 
did  in  front  of  the 
audience  was  to 
comb  his  hair. 
But  in  the  ''out-of- 
doors"  drama,  with 
all  out-of-doors  to 
work  in,  Thomas 
(lid  not  give  Far- 
num  leisure  to 
comb  his  hair.  This 
time  Thomas  could 


To  them  the  actor    not   tell   the  spectators  his  hero  was   a 

pantomime  that  he    rough  rider;  but  on  horseback  sent  him  to 

He  must  climb  the    jump  precipices  and  scale  ravines,  and 

to  be  "shown."   Far-    so  proved  it.     It  was  fortunate  for  our 

star  that  he  enjoyed 
the  strenuous  life. 
We  gave  him  his 
share.  And  when 
we  did  not  invent 
work  he  improvised. 
In  one  scene  he  es- 
corted the  wife  of 
President  Alvarez 
to  the  coast,  where, 
under  a  hea\y  fire 
from  revolutionists, 
a  shore  boat  was  to 
row  her  to  a  war- 
ship. When  the 
])icture  was  being 
taken,  forty  feet 
from  shore,  the 
boat,  loaded  with 
l)kiejackets,  stuck 
on  a  sand-bar.  The 
boat  could  not 
come  to  the  lady, 
tlie  kuly  could  not 
go  to  the  boat,  and 
imaginary  bullets 
were   splashing 

285 


A  "cluse  lip,"  showing  Stuart  an<l  Alvarez  life-size. 


286 


Breaking  into 


tlic  Movies 


around  her.  \\  hat  was 
yards  of  real  lilm  \vere  be 
num  acted  as  the  hero 
must  act.  He  Hft- 
ed  the  lady  to  his 
shoulders,  and, 
with  the  water  up 
to  his  arm-pits, 
plunged  into  the 
surf  and  carried  her 
to  the  boat.  It 
made  a  far  better 
scene  than  the  one 
we  had  rehearsed. 
But,  if  our  hero 
had  been  a  small 

man ? 

After  each  scene 
in  which  he  ap- 
peared Leighton 
Stark,  w^ho  is  a  very 
large  man,  and  who 
on  and  ofT  is  pos- 
sessed with  humor, 
used  to  mutter 
grimly:  "It's  a 
small  part,  but  a 
good  one!" 

One  day  I  asked 
him  the  meaning 
of  this  cryptic  ut- 
terance. 


nu)iv  important,  "  In  New  York,  when  Thomas  engaged 
ing wasted.  Far-  mc,"  he  explained,  "he  said,  'I  want  you 
of  a  lilm  drama    to  play  McWilliams.     It's  a  small  part, 

but  a  good  one.' 
From  that  I  got  the 
idea  I  would  spend 
most  of  my  time 
in  Cuba  sitting 
around  the  plaza, 
instead  of  which  I'm 
on  in  every  scene  of 
the  play.  It  doesn't 
matter  whether  it's 
a  mining-camp,  or 
a  ballroom,  or  a 
mountain  trail,  I'm 
in  it.  I  have  to 
drive  engines,  coup- 
le freight-cars,  ride 
bucking  ponies,  and 
wear  a  dress-suit  at 
six  in  the  morning. 
Yesterday,  with  the 
sun  at  105, 1  had  to 
climb  a  telegraph 
pole  and  cut  the 
wires — and  I  weigh 
two  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds !  And 
to-morrow  I've  got 

The  death  of  Stuart  as  shown  by  Charles  Dana  ^^    Wadc    mtO    the 

Gibson  in  the  novel.  OCCan   and    shoVC    a 


The  death  of  Stuart  as  shown  by  Mr.  Thomas  in  the  play. 


Breaking  into  tlie   Movies 


287 


boat  through  the  surf,  and  if  I  don't  drown 
the  sharks  will  get  me.  So  that's  what  I 
mean  when  I  say:    'It's  a  small  part,  but 


a  good  one.'  " 


On  the  other  hand,  IMiss  Winifred  King- 
ston, who  was  Madame  Alvarez,  the  part 
played  in  the  stage  version  by  Miss  Dor- 


Miss  Kingston  really  had  much  nn)re 
to  do  than  to  register  fear,  and  did  it  well, 
but  it  seemed  as  though,  as  she  said,  she 
always  was  escaping.  One  would  come 
across  her  in  lonely  mountain  trails,  in 
the  crowded  streets  of  Santiago,  in  avenues 
of  arching  palms,  with  the  driver  of  her 


The  death  of  Stuart  as  shown  by  Mr.  I'homas  in  the  movies. 


othy  Donnelly,  complained  that  all  she 
had  to  do  was  to  escape  in  a  carriage  and 
"register"  fear. 

In  the  moving-picture  language  to  "  reg- 
ister" anything  means  to  put  it  on  record 
on  the  film.  If  in  one  scene  an  actor  wears 
a  certain  costume,  that  costume  is  regis- 
tered, and,  once  registered,  in  not  the 
slightest  detail  may  it  be  altered.  If  a 
character  walks  from  a  garden  into  a  street, 
even  though  the  two  scenes  are  photo- 
graphed on  days  a  month  apart,  in  both  his 
clothes  obviously  must  be  the  same.  It  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that  in  passing  through 
a  garden  gate  his  tan  shoes  changed  to 
patent  leathers.  And  in  the  same  vernac- 
ular, when  a  director  wants  an  actor  to  ex- 
press an  emotion,  he  tells  him  to  '^  register  " 
indignation,  laughter,  remorse. 


state  carriage  always  lashing  his  horses, 
w^hile  she  looked  back  at  imaginary  pur- 
suers and  registered  fear.  For  some 
time  no  one  but  Thomas  really  knew  from 
just  what  she  was  escaping;  we  were  cer- 
tain only  that  she  was  a  long  time  about 
it.  Thomas  finally  explained  she  was  the 
wife  of  the  President,  and  was  escaping 
from  the  palace,  where,  had  she  remained, 
the  disloyal  trooj)s  would  ha\e  shot  her. 
A  few  days  later  I  found  her  and  her  state 
carriage  in  a  dripping  jungle,  entirely  sur- 
rounded by  moscjuitoes  and  an  atmos- 
phere comparable  only  to  that  of  a  steam- 
laundry.  She  was  in  a  ball  dress,  with 
arms  and  shoulders  bare,  and  against  sev- 
eral thousand  mos(iuitoes  was  making  a 
hopeless  fight. 

"If  I  had  known,"  she  cried,  punctuat- 


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Hrcaking  into  the  Movies 


ing  each  word  with  a  \-ick)us  slap,  ''that 
escaping  was  like  this,  I'd  have  stayed  in 
that  palace  and  got  shot!" 

But  the  part  had  its  compensations.  In 
her  ball  gown  of  blue  satin  and  pearls, 
with  a  black-lace  mantilla  and  a  towering 
crown  of  tortoise-shell,  the  Cubans  and 
Spaniards  easily  found  her  the  most  inter- 
esting member  of  our  company.  That, 
except  on  match-boxes  and  bull-light  fans, 
no  such  Spanish  woman  had  ever  existed. 


had  impressed  me  as  they  have  thousands 
of  others;  and  it  was  because  he  possessed 
these  sterling  qualities  that  I  supposed 
he  had  been  engaged.  I  was  wrong.  I 
found  that  in  choosing  his  star  Mr. 
Thomas  had  considered  only  whether  he 
could  or  could  not  wear  my  clolhes.  Ev- 
ery other  leading  actor  in  America  had 
been  measured  and  found  wanting.  Far- 
num  had  survived  every  test.  It  was 
proved  that  he  alone  w^as  the  man  whose 


President  Alvarez  gives  the  signal  for  his  own  execution.     This  is  the  actor 
who  "played  dead"  too  realisiically. 


did  not  lessen  their  loyalty.  One  day  she 
was  escaping  at  one  location  when  she  was 
needed  at  another,  and  I  rode  after  her 
carriage  to  bring  it  back.  At  a  cross-road 
I  asked  a  man  if  he  had  seen  an  American 
woman  pass  that  way.  As  though  still 
questioning  his  eyesight  he  shook  his  head. 

"No,"  he  said  doubtfully;  "but  the 
Queen  of  Spain  just  went  by." 

When  in  New  York  I  learned  that 
Farnum  was  to  be  our  star  I  was  natu- 
rally delighted.  As  the  Cow-boy  in  the 
"  Virginian,"  the  Union  Officer  in  the 
"Little  Rebel,"  as  the  hero  of  "Arizona," 
his  manhness,  his  force,  his  charming  good 
humor  and  the  naturalness  of  his  acting 


head  my  hat  would  fit,  whose  legs  were  at 
ease  in  my  riding-breeches,  whose  hands 
w^ere  not  lost  in  my  gloves.  So,  at  enor- 
mous expense,  they  engaged  him.  The 
plot  against  my  property  developed  at 
the  first  location.  The  director-general 
said  critically:  "That  coat  is  the  sort  of 
coat  a  man  would  wear  in  a  mining-camp. 
Lend  it  to  Farnum — just  for  this  picture." 
The  next  day  they  borrowed  a  sombrero; 
on  succeeding  days  riding-boots,  leather 
gaiters,  gauntlets,  coats  of  khaki,  coats 
of  pongee,  gray  flannel  shirts,  white  flan- 
nel trousers,  tan  shoes,  tennis-shoes,  my 
riding- whip,  my  raincoat,  my  revolver. 
And  when,   to  cover   my   nakedness,   I 


In  the  patio  of  a  private  house  the  hostess  and  her  friends  watch  rehearsals  for  the  movies. 


begged  that  any  part  of  my  clothing  be 
returned,  I  was  greeted  with  exclamations 
of  amazement  and  reproach. 

"Impossible!"  they  cried.  "Every- 
thing you  own  is  'registered'!" 

By  that  time  I  had  learned  that  to  get 
back  anything  that  has  once  been  regis- 
tered is  as  easy  as  to  take  the  crown  jewels 
from  the  Tower  of  London.  There  was 
one  saving  clause.  Having  been  told  he 
was  to  play  a  mining-engineer,  who  spent 
his  time  either  on  a  horse  or  in  the  mines, 
Farnum  had  brought  with  him  perfectly 
good  evening  clothes  and  a  high  silk  hat. 
So  I  was  still  able  to  go  about  at  night. 

Before  we  arrived  in  Cuba  there  was  a 
rumor  we  were  coming  to  reproduce  the 
battle  of  San  Juan  Hill ,  and  that  we  wished 
to  use  the  soldiers  of  the  garrison  to  repre- 
sent American  and  Spanish  troops.  It 
took  some  time  to  make  it  clear  that  the 
soldiers  were  to  represent  an  army  which 
existed  only  in  a  novel,  and  on  the  stage. 
When,  thanks  to  the  diplomacy  of  Mr. 
Thomas  and  of  our  consul,  Mr.  R.  E. 
Holladay,  this  was  understood,  nothing 
could   have    been    more    courteous   and 


friendly  than  the  attitude  of  the  Cuban 
Government,  as  represented  by  the  min- 
ister of  foreign  affairs  in  Havana,  and  of 
Colonel  W.  I.  Consuegra,  commanding 
the  garrison  of  Santiago  Province,  and  of 
his  chief-of-staff  Major  Cuero.  At  the 
disposition  of  our  director-general  they 
placed  as  many  of  two  thousand  infantry- 
men and  of  the  mounted  Guardia  Rurales 
as  we  needed.  They  stipulated  only  that 
the  soldiers  should  not  appear  under  any 
other  flag  than  that  of  Cuba.  To  meet 
this  very  proper  condition,  Thomas  in- 
vented a  flag  of  his  own,  submitted  it  to 
Colonel  Consuegra,  and  on  its  receiving 
that  officer's  approval  issued  it  to  the 
troops.  And  if  the  Cuban  troops  light 
under  their  own  flag  as  they  fought  for 
us  under  the  grecn-and-white  banner  of 
Olancho,  their  enemies  had  best  keep 
away  from  Cuba.  They  fought  so  well 
that,  at  what  we  called  the  battle  of 
Obras  Publica,  two  were  wounded,  and  at 
the  battle  of  El  Guao  three  more  were 
sent  to  the  hospital.  That  the  list  of  cas- 
ualties was  no  larger  was  not  due  to  any 
caution  on  the  part  of  the  lighting  men. 

2S9 


200 


Breaking  into  tlic   Movies 


They  were  told  to  charge  the  gates  of 
the  Public  Works,  which  for  the  time  be- 
ing represented  the  gates  of  the  President's 
jKilace.  We  meant  they  were  to  charge 
the  "palace  guard"  who  were  holding  the 
gates;    to  drive  them  back  and  then  to 


selves  were  excellent  actors.  They  quick- 
ly understood,  and  moved  with  spirit,  and 
with  never  a  glance  at  the  camera.  Only 
once  were  they  embarrassed.  That  was 
when  a  firing  squad  that  had  been  told 
off  to  shoot  John  Santoplis  as  President 


To  Mr.  Thomas  and  the  camera  man  all  the  world's  a  stage,  even 
the  deck  of  a  ship. 


open  up  so  that  the  cavalry  could  pursue. 
But  in  an  excess  of  realism  the  palace 
guard,  before  they  fled,  bolted  the  gates. 
We  feared  our  picture  was  ruined.  We 
did  not  know  the  discipline  of  the  Cuban 
soldiers.  They  had  been  told  to  take 
those  gates — so  they  took  them.  Mount- 
ing on  the  shoulders  of  their  comrades, 
they  flung  themselves  across  the  sharp 
iron  spikes,  and,  while  some  were  impaled, 
others  with  the  butts  of  their  rifles  drove 
the  gates  open.  At  that  moment  the 
troopers,  eager  to  get  into  action,  charged 
at  a  gallop,  and  rode  them  down.  I 
thought  at  least  a  dozen  men  had  been 
injured,  and  the  only  moving  picture  I 
foresaw  was  an  exceedingly  moving  one 
of  Thomas  and  myself  in  the  dungeons  of 
Morro  Castle.  But  the  more  our  sham 
battles  approached  the  real  thing  the 
more  the  soldiers  enjoyed  them,  and, 
whether  led  by  their  own  officers  or  by  the 
actors  in  our  play,  they  fought,  marched, 
and  drilled  like  veterans.     They  them- 


Alvarez,  thought  they  had  killed  him.  Al- 
varez was  placed  with  his  back  to  a  cem- 
etery wall  and,  by  dropping  the  handker- 
chief with  which  they  had  tried  to  bind  his 
eyes,  gave  the  signal  for  his  own  execution. 
As  the  rifles  cracked  he  crumpled  up, 
pitched  forward,  and  fell  face  downward. 
He  supposed  the  camera  would  show  the 
firing  squad  reform  and  march  aw^ay.  So 
he  remained  motionless.  The  firing  squad 
did  not  march  away,  but  with  increasing 
concern  waited  for  Alvarez  to  come  to  life. 
The  prostrate  figure  did  not  move,  min- 
utes seemed  to  pass,  and  to  everyone  came 
the  terrible  thought  that  the  men  had 
been  served  with  ball  cartridges.  And 
then,  to  the  delight  of  the  firing  squad,  and 
in  answer  to  the  excited  appeals  of  the 
Americans,  Santoplis  rose  leisurely  and 
brushed  the  dust  from  his  trousers. 

On  another  morning  a  soldier  played 
with  such  realism  that  he  nearly  lost  us 
a  valuable  actor.  The  soldier  had  been 
rehearsed  to  shoot  George  Stilwell,  who 


Breaking  into  the  Movies 


291 


played  Captain  Stuart.  He  stood  with- 
in three  yards  of  Stilwell,  and  Thomas 
warned  him  not  to  aim  at  the  actor  but 
at  a  pencil-mark  which  Thomas  scratched 
on  the  wall.  When  the 'moment  came  the 
soldier  could  see  in  Stuart  only  the  enemy 
and  banged  at  him  point-blank;  and  all 
that  saved  Stilwell  was  Thomas's  flag, 
which  was  floating  at  his  side,  and  which 
received  the  wadding  and  powder.  As  it 
was,  for  some  time  after  he  came  to  life 
Stilwell  insisted  that  the  top  of  his  head 
was  missing.  Sometimes  an  accident 
gave  Thomas  a  scene  he  preferred  to  the 
one  he  rehearsed.  Sam  Coit,  as  the 
American  consul,  had  to  ride  a  donkey 
into  the  presence  of  an  officer  command- 
ing a  United  States  war-ship  and  demand 
protection.  Frantically  working  spurs 
and  whip,  Sam  approached  at  a  gallop. 
But  just  as  he  reached  the  officer,  the 
donkey  in  disgust  threw  out -his  front  legs 
and  sent  the  American  consul  hurtling 
through  space.  It  was  a  better  entrance 
than  the  one  prepared,  and,  appreciating 
this,  Coit,  while  still  on  his  knees,  began 
to  beg  for  a  war-ship. 

The  Hon.  Josephus  Daniels  believes,  by 
methods  that  are  legitimate,  in  adding,  if 
that  be  possible,  to  the  popularity  of  the 
navy.  And  it  was  owing  to  him  and  to 
his  generous  point  of  view,  and  to  the  fact 
that  with  the  present  administration  Mr. 
Thomas  is  persona  grata,  that  we  were  per- 
mitted to  show  in  our  pictures  American 
war-ships  and  bluejackets.  .  Indeed,  the 
use  we  might  make  of  them  seemed  so  un- 
limited that  I  wanted  to  take  a  moving 
picture  of  our  sailors  marching  into  the 
city  of  Mexico.  But  on  looking  through 
his  scenario  Thomas  said  he  could  find 
no  such  incident.  Instead,  I  had  the  priv- 
ilege of  watching  Cuban  soldiers  and  our 
own  bluejackets  marching  in  the  same 
column.  They  were  under  the  green-and- 
white  flag  of  Olancho.  When  last  I  had 
seen  them  together  they  were  allies,  and 
fighting  under  flags  of  a  very  different 
color. 

Should  a  company  of  actors  of  any  for- 
eign country  come  to  New  York  and  pro- 
pose to  use  Central  Park  as  a  battle- 
ground, and  fire  volleys  across  Madison 
Square,  you  can  imagine  the  j)ermits  the 
mayor,  the  police,  the  bureau  of  combus- 
tibles, the  park  commissioner,  and  the 
Vol.  LV.— 28 


fire  department  would  require  of  them. 
It  also  followed  that  when  we  invaded 
Santiago  we  were  not  at  once  given  a  free 
hand.  Our  purpose  at  first  was  mis- 
understood, and  often  in  our  ignorance 
we  neglected  to  apply  for  permits  to  the 
proper  authorities.  Difficulties  arose  that 
as  strangers  we  could  not  foresee,  and  the 
first  week  of  our  visit  was  spent  in  cabling 
and  telegraphing,  in  visiting  high  officials, 
and  in  obtaining  credentials.  If  during 
that  same  week  our  legation  in  Havana 
handled  as  many  international  questions 
as  diplomatically  as  did  Augustus  Thomas 
at  our  end  of  the  island,  it  should  be 
elevated  to  an  embassy.  I  admit  Mr. 
Thomas  is  our  leading  dramatist,  I  grant 
he  honors  the  gold  medal  of  the  Insti- 
tute of  Arts  and  Letters,  but  I  feel  that  as 
a  playwright  his  genius  is  wasted.  Any 
man  who,  in  a  foreign  country,  can  com- 
mand the  loyal  services  of  the  army  of 
that  country,  of  his  own  navy,  of  the  de- 
partment of  state  as  represented  by  our 
legation.  Consul  HoUaday  and  Vice- 
Consul  Morgan,  of  the  street-car  lines, 
the  electric-lighting  company,  the  police, 
and  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  should 
be  a  general  or  an  ambassador.  If  any 
one  questions  this  conclusion,  I  refer  him 
to  the  battle  of  the  Plaza  Aquilera.  On 
that  occasion,  under  the  orders  of  Mr. 
Thomas,  two  thousand  soldiers  and  civil- 
ians acted  before  his  camera.  The  tac- 
tics and  strategy  of  the  battle  itself  were 
worked  out  by  Thomas  and  the  Cuban 
officers  on  many  maps,  and  as  methodic- 
ally as  for  a  real  attack:  street-car  lines 
were  tied  up,  all  traffic  was  halted,  and 
among  those  present  were  the  highest 
officials  of  the  church,  army,  and  state 
and  the  first  families  of  Santiago,  who  for 
days  before  had  reser\-cd  windows  and 
balconies;  and  when  the  battle  finally 
came  off  they  greeted  it  as  they  always 
did  our  out-of-door  performances,  with 
the  most  courteous  apj^lause. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  of  our  perform- 
ances were  out  of  doors.  This  was  pos- 
sible only  because  the  action  of  the  j)lay 
was  laid  in  Spanish  America,  where  the 
indoor  life  of  the  peoj^le  is  largely  spent 
in  the  patio,  or  the  court  around  which 
the  house  is  built,  antl  which  lies  open 
to  the  sky  and  sun.  Not]  once  were  we 
forced  to  "  build''  a  scene,  or  use  " st udio " 


292 


Breaking  into  the  Movies 


locations.  Our  interiors  were  just  as 
solid  and  real  as  our  jxilm  groves  and 
mountains,  and  just  as  beautiful.  For 
when  the  good  people  of  Santiago  under- 
stood that  we  wished  to  photograph  their 
houses  and  gardens  because  we  so  greatly 
admired  them,  with  the  most  charming 
courtesy  they  invited  us  to  photograph 
what  we  pleased.  In  twenty  years  of 
visits  to  Santiago  it  has  been  my  priv- 
ilege to  know  some  of  the  Cuban  families, 
and  these  made  us  known  to  others. 
From  one  we  borrowed  a  background  or 
a  fountain ;  from  another  a  pair  of  marble 
stairs;  from  the  roof  of  another  a  view  of 
the  harbor.  In  this  way  our  President's 
palace  spread  over  half  the  city.  Sefior 
Batelle  graciously  gave  us  the  use  of  his 
patio;  Senora  Schumann  the  ornamental 
entrance  gates;  Herman  Michaelsen,  the 
German  consul,  the  garden;  the  San 
Carlos  Club  loaned  us  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  ballrooms  on  this  continent — it 
is  entirely  of  marble;  and  our  rear  en- 
trance we  stole  from  the  Public  Works. 
The  black  stallion  w^ith  his  saddle  of  silver, 
ridden  by  our  star,  was  loaned  us  by  Serior 
Prudencio  Bravo,  and  that  was  the  least 
of  his  many  courtesies. 

When  we  made  use  of  a  private  house 
our  host  and  hostess,  as  a  rule,  telephoned 
their  friends,  and  as  a  result  we  rehearsed 
before  a  large  and  interested  gallery.  One 
gentleman,  who  had  loaned  us  his  garden, 
had  built  a  chapel  in  memory  of  his  father 
which,  on  the  morning  w^e  visited  his  house, 
was  consecrated  with  high  mass.  His  re- 
turn from  that  ceremony  was  so  abrupt 
that  one  of  his  friends  commented  upon  the 
fact.     Our  host  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Any  time  I  can  say  my  prayers,"  he 
explained;  ''but  I  seldom  can  see  a  man 
murdered  in  my  own  patio." 

Under  these  unusual  but  charming  con- 
ditions rehearsals  took  on  a  social  aspect 
which  was  demoralizing;  our  paid  assist- 
ants and  interpreters  were  ousted  from 
their  jobs  by  the  gilded  youth  of  Santiago's 
four  hundred,  and  when  the  young  ladies 
of  the  company  were  called  to  rehearse  a 
ride  for  life,  they  were  found  at  afternoon 
tea. 

After  one  has  watched  rehearsals  under 
these  conditions,  the  traditions  and  mys- 
teries that  surround  those  held  in  the 
theatre  seem  rather  silly.     Have  you  ever 


tried  to  get  word  to  a  man  who  is  directing 
a  rehearsal,  or,  when  you  w^ere  directing  a 
rehearsal,  have  you  had  the  members  of 
your  family,  your  best  friend,  a  man  who 
is  trying  to  pay  you  money,  hurled  from 
the  stage-door,  or  permitted  to  approach 
you  only  on  his  tiptoes? 

When  the  lady  who  is  sweeping  out  the 
auditorium  lets  fall  her  mop,  have  not  you 
heard  the  star  and  the  author  and  the 
stage-manager  all  shriek:  "My  God!  how 
can  we  work  in  all  this  tumult?"  I  re- 
called the  holy  calm,  the  awful  secrecy,  of 
those  rehearsals  behind  closed  doors  when 
I  saw  Thomas  and  the  company  bowing 
and  picking  their  way  among  the  first 
families  and  murmuring,  "No  se  mueva 
usted,"  or  in  the  street,  dodging  trolley- 
cars,  automobiles,  and  sun-stroke,  while 
our  fifteen  policemen  struggled  with  a 
mob  of  five  or  six  hundred  people. 

Amidst  all  this  riot  there  was  one  figure 
that  remained  calm.  Even  the  imper- 
turbability of  our  director-general  could 
not  surpass  his  poise.  He  was  the  man 
behind  the  camera;  while  actors,  inter- 
preters, policemen  fretted  and  perspired, 
he  coldly  waited.  For,  no  matter  what  the 
others  may  plot,  the  only  thing  that  counts 
is  what  he  registers.  And  the  last  word 
always  is  his.  He  is  all-powerful.  He  can 
"cut  out"  the  love  scene  of  the  hero  to 
"cut  in"  a  messenger  approaching  on 
horseback,  or  follow  him  as  he  climbs  the 
mountain,  or,  as  he  gallops  at  right  angles 
to  the  camera,  "pan"  him.  To  "pan"  is 
to  make  of  the  picture  a  panorama.  Some 
think  nothing  is  required  of  the  camera 
man  but  to  turn  the  handle.  Were  that 
so,  the  ideal  camera  man  would  graduate 
from  a  street-organ.  He  must  be  much 
more  than  a  motive  power.  He  should 
have  three  hands :  to  keep  the  film  evenly 
unrolling,  to  swing  the  eye  of  the  camera 
left  or  right,  to  elevate  or  depress  it;  he 
must  possess  a  mind  that  acts  faster  than 
can  any  number  of  humans  and  animals, 
an  eye  to  follow  every  object  in  the  radius 
of  his  finder,  the  patience  of  Job,  and  the 
nerve  of  a  chilled-steel  safe.  We  had  such 
a  one  in  young  Irvin  Willat.  He  better 
understood  the  intricate  insides  of  his 
mysterious  box  than  most  men  understand 
the  mechanism  of  a  wheelbarrow;  he 
knew  which  variety  of  sunlight  called  for 
which  number  of  grease  paint;  he  knew 


Experience 


293 


which  colors  registered  white  and  which 
black;  he  knew  that  the  necktie  worn  by 
the  villain  was  not  the  same  necktie  he 
had  registered  three  weeks  previous,  and 
that  the  leading  lady,  since  she  had  last 
worn  them  in  front  of  his  camera,  had  dared 
send  her  gloves  to  the  cleaner's.  Undis- 
turbed he  would  grind  his  handle  from  a 
moving  train,  the  deck  of  a  pitching  ship, 
while  hanging  from  a  tree. 

Horses  rearing  and  plunging  bore  down 
upon  him;  men  fired  point-blank  at  him; 
as  he  stood  between  the  rails  a  locomotive 
charged  him,  but  he  only  smiled  hap- 
pily and  continued  to  grind.  From  an  air- 
ship he  had  photographed  Morro  Castle 
and  the  Caribbean  Sea.  He  saw  the 
world  only  as  food  for  his  camera.     Had 


his  brother  Edgar  raced  in  front  of  it,  pur- 
sued by  a  grizzly  bear,  "brother  Irvin," 
with  a  steady  hand,  would  have  "  panned  " 
him. 

One  day  in  a  cocoanut  grove,  when 
we  were  standing  about  at  lunch-time, 
brother  Irvin  turned  the  camera  on  us  to 
get  a  "souvenir"  picture.  As  he  did  so, 
a  man  on  horseback  suddenly  galloped  out 
of  the  trail  and  shouted:  "You  are  all 
under  arrest!" 

We  did  not  know  what  new  permit  we 
had  failed  to  obtain,  and  there  was  an 
unhappy  silence. 

It  was  broken  by  the  voice  of  Irvin 
raised  in  excitement. 

"Move  in  closer,  sheriff,"  he  shouted; 
"I  haven't  got  you!" 


EXPERIENCE 

By  Gordon  Hall  Gerould 


Illustrations  by  James  Montgomery  Flagg 


T  is  easy  enough  to  lose  one's 
character,  but  sometimes 
very  hard  to  get  rid  of  a  well- 
deserved  reputation.  So 
Peter  Sanders  discovered. 
He  had  abdicated  his 
throne  as  king  of  American  gamblers  rather 
than  recognize  the  suzerainty  of  district  at- 
torneys. He  could  never  have  been  con- 
tented to  rule  in  a  small  way,  or  to  evade  by 
craft  a  show  of  force  on  the  part  of  powers 
which  had  a  standing  army  of  police  at  their 
command.  When  diplomacy  failed,  he  had 
elected,  like  other  wise  monarchs  of  recent 
days,  to  live  in  dignified  and  opulent  re- 
tirement. For  some  years  he  had  enjoyed 
the  immunity  from  care  and  the  absolute 
leisure  that  all  ex-kings,  who  do  not  plot  to 
regain  their  thrones,  know  to  the  full. 

For  nearly  the  same  length  of  time,  how- 
ever, he  had  found  both  his  retirement  and 
his  leisure  too  absolute.  Fle  had  chafed 
at  his  complete  idleness  and  his  complete 
isolation.  Plans  cherished  in  busier  days 
for  self-improvement,  when  he  should  have 
time  for  it,  somehow  came  to  nothing;  and 
partly  because  he  was  so  much  thrown  back 


on  his  own  society.  In  his  enforced  wan- 
derings he  could  read  only  the  books  at 
hand,  and  he  lacked  the  stimulus  of  intel- 
lectual companionship.  With  the  instincts 
of  many  another  scholarly  gentleman,  just 
passing  middle  age,  for  a  solitude  tempered 
with  the  choicest  distillation  of  society,  he 
found  himself  condemned  to  associate  ei- 
ther with  sharpers  or  with  his  valet.  In  a 
philistine  world  he  seldom  came  upon  a 
man  sufficiently  unscrupulous  or  fearless  of 
evil  report  to  treat  him  civilly,  whose  con- 
versation was  not  extremely  dull.  He  ab- 
horred the  fraternity  of  gamblers  now  that 
he  had  no  business  with  them;  and  Henry 
was  no  adequate  substitute  for  a  circle  of 
cultivated  men  and  women. 

He  had  made  a  few  excursions  in  respect- 
ability, but  tentative  and  furtive  excur- 
sions, which  had  ended  in  some  sort  of 
disaster  or  other.  A  cynicism  bred  by  watch- 
ing his  victims  in  other  years  had  l)een  in- 
tensified by  observing  the  efforts  of  the 
righteous  to  avoid  the  moral  contamination 
of  his  presence.  Vet  he  knew  by  experi- 
ment that  just  so  long  as  his  name,  and  con- 
sequently his  reputation,  were  hidden,  the 


294 


Experience 


people  whom  he  liked  liked  him.     It  had 
all  been  very  discouraging. 

More  to  pass  the  time  than  with  any 
hope  of  escape  from  himself,  he  took  pas- 
sage one  April,  from  New  York  to  Ply- 
mouth. He  wished  to  attend  a  book  auc- 
tion at  Sotheby's  on  the  29th,  but  he  had 
no  plans  beyond  that.  He  was  drifting; 
and  the  currents  not  infrequently  swept 
him  to  the  other  hemisphere.  He  escaped 
reporters,  when  he  boarded  the  Sardonic, 
by  the  expedient  of  having  entered  his  name 
on  the  passenger  list  as  P.  Smith,  Esq. 
Monarchs  are  objects  of  public  interest  even 
in  exile,  and  must  travel  either  much  her- 
alded or  incognito.  Mr.  Sanders's  quiet 
taste  preferred  the  latter  course.  Aboard 
ship  he  avoided  publicity  by  keeping  to  his 
very  comfortable  state-room  on  the  prome- 
nade deck  and  w^ell  forward,  or  to  his  chair 
in  a  sheltered  spot  close  by,  where  Henry 
could  unobtrusively  make  him  quite  un- 
recognizable with  two  rugs  and  a  woollen 
cap. 

During  the  first  two  days  at  sea,  however, 
Mr.  Sanders  did  not  need  to  avoid  inquisi- 
tive fellow  passengers  by  studied  seclusion, 
for  he  was  a  bad  sailor.  When  he  ventured 
on  deck,  the  third  morning,  he  was  still  too 
miserable  to  care  whether  he  was  recognized 
or  not.  Revived  by  the  sun-filled  atmos- 
phere and  accustomed  at  length  to  the 
steady  lope  of  the  racing  steamer,  he  began 
by  afternoon  to  watch  with  some  interest  the 
procession  of  promenaders.  From  his  cov- 
ert of  rugs  he  could  review  the  endless 
chain  of  chattering  persons  which  wound  by 
as  if  impelled  by  the  throbbing  engines. 
Mr.  Sanders  was  still  bilious  and  a  little  in- 
clined to  resent  the  superabundant  health 
that  was  evident  in  the  free  gait  of  the  care- 
fully veiled  women  and  in  the  reddening 
cheeks  of  the  men.  He  wondered  how  they 
had  the  heart  to  ignore  so  completely  the 
rise  and  fall  of  the  deck;  he  himself  felt  so 
unnerved  and  miserable  that  their  vigor 
seemed  to  him  mere  bravado. 

Yet  he  liked  to  watch  them,  after  all.  He 
felt  a  queer  happiness  in  being  so  near  to 
them,  even  though  he  was  doing  his  best  to 
evade  recognition.  He  found,  as  always 
was  the  case  on  shipboard,  an  odd  pleasure 
in  making  part  of  a  company  which  during 
several  days  must  suffer  perforce  the  same 
fate  as  he.  They  were  the  comrades  of 
Peter  Sanders,  though  the  majority  of  them 


would  have  done  anything  in  their  power  to 
escape  the  possibility  of  such  an  infamy. 
That  he  knew,  and  he  hated  the  thought  of 
it.  He  wished  to  be  upright;  and  he  felt 
himself  to  be  in  all  essentials  the  equal  in 
virtue  of  these  people  of  good  repute  who 
had  their  friends  and  their  expectations 
of  friends,  their  freedom  to  come  and  go 
without  restriction  in  the  circles  of  which 
they  made  a  part.  He  was  frankly  envious, 
both  of  their  animated  health  and  of  their 
companionships,  though  the  cynicism  of  ex- 
perience made  him  sure  that  most  of  them 
had  guilty  secrets  of  their  own. 

One  young  woman  he  observed  with  es- 
pecial interest.  For  an  hour  or  more  she 
passed  and  repassed  his  chair  at  regular 
intervals.  She  did  not  bounce  along,  like 
so  many  of  the  women;  she  was  quietly 
dressed,  slender  and  dark;  she  was  a  wel- 
come relief  to  a  critical  eye  that  disapproved 
of  all  Jews  and  of  most  representatives  of 
other  races.  She  seemed  to  be  more  than 
twenty,  though  the  upper  limit  of  her  possi- 
ble age  he  could  not  guess.  Perhaps  she 
was  twenty-five. 

There  would  be  no  excuse,  Mr.  Sanders 
felt,  for  venting  his  misanthropic  scorn  upon 
this  girl.  He  could  not  imagine  her  to  be 
the  guardian  of  any  family  skeleton  or  the 
prey  of  any  improper  desires.  He  would 
like  to  talk  with  her  if  he  were  well  enough 
to  talk.  He  wondered  who  she  was  and 
where  she  came  from.  Every  time  she  cut 
the  lines  of  the  railing  in  front  of  his  chair 
he  opened  his  pursy  eyes  a  little,  though  he 
lay  quiet  all  the  while  with  the  deathlike 
stillness  of  the  seasick.  She  had  for  him 
the  charm  of  real  refinement  and  utter  re- 
spectability. With  her  rapid,  even  step, 
her  eager  face  bent  seaward  half  the  time  as 
if  she  were  some  wild  thing  with  kinship 
to  the  deep,  she  seemed  to  Peter  Sanders 
the  embodiment  of  romance  and  youth. 

The  afternoon  was  waning,  and  the  chill 
of  the  north  Atlantic  began  to  penetrate  his 
covers.  He  suspected  that  they  were  going 
to  run  into  fog.  "The  damned  siren  will 
keep  me  awake  all  night,"  he  reflected. 
He  grunted  two  or  three  times  to  mark 
his  emergence  from  his  day-dreams.  "San- 
ders, you're  a  fool!"  he  said  to  himself. 
"That  girl  wouldn't  talk  to  you  if  we  were 
shipwrecked  on  a  desert  island;  and  you 
know  it."  He  welcomed  the  coming  of  his 
valet. 


Experience 


295 


''Shall  I  help  you  in,  sir?"  asked  Henry. 
"The  first  gong  has  rung." 

Reclining  in  his  luxurious  state-room,  Mr. 
Sanders  ate  his  dinner  of  recovery.  After 
many  hours  of  sleep,  he  woke  the  next  morn- 
ing quite  rehabilitated  and  able  to  enjoy  the 
clean  sunlight  of  mid-ocean.  He  took  an 
early  breakfast  in  his  own  room,  for  he  had 
no  mind  to  expose  himself  to  the  people  and 
the  stuffiness  below,  or  to  the  service  of  any 
one  less  skilful  than  Plenry.  He  liked  his 
breakfast,  and  afterward,  while  the  deck 
was  still  comparatively  deserted,  he  took  a 
walk.  It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  morn- 
ing when  Henry  brought  him,  with  a  cup 
of  bouillon  specially  prepared,  his  opera- 
glasses. 

''Excuse  me,  Mr.  Sanders,"  said  the 
man,  "but  there's  a  rather  large  steamer 
approaching  off  the  starboard  bow.  I 
thought  it  might  amuse  you  to  look  at  her 
as  she  passes,  sir." 

"Thanks,  Henry,"  replied  Mr.  Sanders, 
sipping  the  bouillon.  "It  will  be  highly  ex- 
citing. Perhaps  you  think  that  I'd  better 
try  a  game  of  shuffle-board,  too,  or  turn  a 
few  handsprings,  to  avoid  ennui.^^ 

"I'm  sorry,  sir,"  said  Henry,  in  a  tone 
from  which  even  his  faultless  breeding  was 
unable  to  keep  a  trace  of  injured  feeling, 
''  but  I  thought  as  you'd  been  in  bed  so  long, 
sir " 


"You  are  quite  right.  As  you  imply,  I'm 
a  beast.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  shall  be  glad 
to  look  at  the  steamer.  Only  you're  never 
ill,  so  you  can't  appreciate  the  difficulty  of 
being  both  seasick  and  polite.  You  may 
take  the  cup  now," 

Assisted  by  Henry,  who  forthwith  disap- 
peared, Mr.  Sanders  rose.  Mechanically, 
he  adjusted  the  glasses  and,  steadying  him- 
self by  the  rail,  gazed  at  a  small  passenger- 
steamer  which  trailed  a  line  of  dirty  smoke 
not  far  off  to  starboard.  He  was  profound- 
ly uninterested,  but  felt  that  courtesy  to  his 
valet  demanded  a  show  of  concern.  One 
did  not  have  so  excellent  a  servant  with  im- 
punity. 

He  had  just  decided  that  it  made  no  dif- 
ference to  what  blanked  line  the  steamer 
belonged — it  looked  even  more  disgusting 
than  the  Sardonic — when  he  was  startled 
by  a  rather  sharp  voice,  which  evidently 
was  addressing  him.  "  I  beg  your  pardon. 
Can  you  tell  me  what  she  is?" 

He  turned,  and  recognized  with  amaze- 


ment the  girl  he  had  watched  the  previous 
afternoon.  She  stood,  quite  unabashed, 
awaiting  his  answer.  He,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  unable  to  conceal  his  embarrass- 
ment, and  both  blushed  and  stammered. 

"I — I'm  very  sorry — not  to  be  able  to 
tell  you.  W — would  you  look?  My  eyes 
are  not  what  they  were." 

She  accepted  the  glasses  readily  with 
an  interjected  word  of  thanks.  While  she 
stood  gazing  at  the  boat,  which  was  now 
direcdy  amidships,  she  gave  him  an  excel- 
lent opportunity  to  observe  her.  He  liked 
her  even  better  at  close  range  and  motion- 
less than  he  had  the  day  before.  He  didn't 
see  how  her  appearance  could  have  been 
altered  for  the  better.  She  was  trim  and 
admirably  clothed;  she  carried  herself 
wd\ ;  her  small  features  were  cut  for  beauty 
no  less  than  for  intelligence.  He  liked  the 
upward  flash  of  her  dark  eyes  as  she  re- 
turned the  glasses. 

"I  can't  make  it  out  either.  The  fun- 
nels are  red  and  black,  but  she's  not  a 
Cunarder." 

"Perhaps  I  could  find  one  of  the  offi- 
cers," suggested  Mr.  Sanders  tentatively. 
He  had  recovered  his  self-possession  and 
w^ith  it  his  ordinary  courteous  suavity  of 


manner. 


It  doesn't  matter,  really — it  was  the 
idlest  impulse  that  made  me  ask  you. 
Please  don't  bother.  I  had  no  right  to 
trouble  you  with  my  question,  and  it  isn't 
precisely  good  manners  to  be  talking  with 
you,  of  course." 

"It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me,  I  assure 
you,"  said  Mr.  Sanders,  with  reassuring 
gravity.     "I  was  feeling  rather  lonely." 

"Then  you  have  no  friends  aboard?" 
The  young  lady  made  her  speech  half  com- 
ment and  half  question.  "That  must  be 
rather  stupid.  I'm  not  overwhelmed  with 
acquaintances  myself.  I  know  two  old  la- 
dies and  the  elderly  banker  who  sits  next 
me  at  table,  but  I'm  with  my  aunt." 

"You  are  more  fortunate  than  I,"  he 
answered.    "  I  supi)osc  you're  never  lonely." 

She  laughed.  "Ought  I  to  be?  You 
see  how  easily  I  scrape  accjuaintance  when 
I  wish.  But,  ordinarily,  I  assure  you,  I'm 
much  more  conventional  than  this." 

"I  am  the  more  honored  by  the  excep- 
tion," said  Mr.  Sanders  with  a  bow.  "But 
isn't  it  perhaps  dangerous  to  make  ex- 
ceptions, particularly  on  an  Atlantic  liner? 


296 


Experience 


Vou  sec,  I'm  an  old  fellow  antl  don't  pre- 
ciselv  know  the  limits  of  convention  nowa- 


days. 


"I  deserve  the  reproof,"  she  answered, 
smilinj^  at  him  frankly,  ''but  I  think  you're 
paving  me  an  undeserved  compliment  in 
supposing  that  I  need  to  be  chaperoned 
every  minute.  One  doesn't  go  through 
college  (juite  for  nothing;  one  gains,  at  least, 
the  conlident  belief  of  the  world  in  one's 
ability  to  look  out  for  oneself." 

"But  you're  not — "  Mr.  Sanders  did 
not  conceal  his  genuine  surprise.  "I've 
never  had  the  pleasure  before  of  talking 
with  so  learned  a  lady,  at  least  not  to  my 
certain  knowledge.  I'm  not  even  a  college 
graduate  myself,  but  that  v^^as  a  mistake." 

''A  mistake?" 

"  In  the  arrangements  of  nature.  I  ought 
to  have  gone  to  college.  I  should  have  had 
a  more  interesting  life." 

''But  you  must  have  done  interesting 
things.  That's  a  perfectly  conventional 
thing  to  say" — she  spoke  protestingly — 
"only  I  mean  it." 

"Oh,  business  is,  I  suppose,  always  busi- 
ness," answered  Mr.  Sanders,  with  a  curi- 
ous shrug  of  his  fat  shoulders. 

"But  big  deals  and  that  sort  of  thing? 
You've  surely  made  them,  or — or  you 
wouldn't  be  travelling  with  a  man  servant. 
I  saw  him  leave  you  just  now."  She  ended 
with  a  laugh  and,  crossing  her  arms  on  the 
railing,  looked  up  at  him  little-girl-fashion. 

"Yes,"  he  admitted  doubtfully,  "I've 
been  in  some  deals;  I've  managed  some 
pretty  big  ones.  But  they  don't  interest 
me.  I'd  rather  have  your  knowledge  than 
my  experience." 

"How  absurd!"  she  exclaimed.  "Have 
you  still  to  discover  that  experience,  not 
knowledge,  is  what  one  goes  to  college  for 
nowadays  ?  " 

He  gasped  a  little.  "Not  to  get  learn- 
ing ?  Boys  and  girls  both  ?  What  kind  of 
experience?" 

"Oh.  of  life!"  She  made  merry  over  his 
evident  bewilderment.  "  They  don't  know 
anything  about  life,  and  most  of  their  pro- 
fessors don't  either,  so  they  all  learn  from 
one  another.  It's  extraordinarily  simple. 
Don't  you  see?" 

"I  see,"  said  Mr.  Sanders,  "that  you  are 
making  fun  of  me,  which  is  very  wrong  of 
you.  Please  remember  that  I'm  an  old 
man  who  hasn't  been  to  college  and  so 


hasn't  any  experience  of  life.  And  don't 
forget  that  I've  never  talked  with  a  lady  who 
had  a  college  education  before  I  met  you." 

"But  you  haven't  met  me!"  she  re- 
sponded, a  little  uneasily.  "I  don't  know 
why  I  should  go  on  talking  with  you  like 
this — except  that  I  like  it.  Seriously,  you 
must  have  had  a  great  deal  of  experience 
with  people." 

"With  some  kinds.  But  mostly  with 
men."  He  had  somehow  the  feeling  that 
he  was  being  pushed  by  her  innocence,  that 
he  was  on  the  verge  of  damaging  revela- 
tions. What  would  the  aunt  say  if  she 
knew  that  her  niece  had  fallen  into  conver- 
sation with  the  notorious  Peter  Sanders? 
Despite  his  rebellion  against  the  code  that 
made  him  an  outcast,  he  couldn't  help  feel- 
ing responsible  for  the  reputation  of  this 
young  creature  who  was  so  carelessly  talk- 
ing with  him.  He  wondered,  with  bitter 
irony,  why  the  officers  didn't  post  a  warning 
against  gamblers  in  the  ladies'  cabin  as  well 
as  in  the  smoking-room.  He  caught  only 
the  end  of  the  girl's  next  remark. 

" — so  much  better  worth  while.  Men 
who  can  talk  at  all  always  have  something 
to  say." 

"I'm  afraid  you  flatter  us,"  he  answered. 
"At  least,  most  men  can't  talk  at  all,  and 
most  women  can  talk  always.  Do  you 
happen  to  remember  Juvenal's  wicked  de- 
scription? 

"  'Cedunt  grammatici,  vincuntur  rhetores,  om- 
nis 
Turba  tacet  .  .  .  verborum  tanta  cadit  vis.'" 

"I'm  afraid  that  I  don't,"  said  the  girl, 
opening  her  eyes  very  wide.  "I  don't 
even  know  what  it  means,  but  perhaps 
that's  an  advantage." 

"  It  means,"  returned  Mr.  Sanders,  with  a 
grave  face,  "that  whatever  woman  says  is 
right  to  the  mind  of  any  gentleman.  That 
is  why  it  is  wicked." 

"I  don't  believe  I  do  understand,"  she 
said,  looking  very  much  puzzled.  "Like 
all  my  kind,  I  suppose  I  still  have  the  super- 
stition of  academic  training.  We  are  sur- 
prised when  we  hear  a  gentleman  quote 
Latin,  particularly  if  he  says  that  he  never 
took  a  college  degree." 

"On  your  own  showing?  You  see,  I 
didn't  go  to  college,  so  I  may  be  permitted 
to  know  something — a  very  little — about 
books.     I've  had  time." 


Experience 


297 


"But  you  said  you  were  in  business." 

"I  was,  but  I'm  very  idle  now.  I  cum- 
ber the  ground  and  sometimes  read.  By 
the  way,  you  can't  have  been  through  col- 
lege long."  He  felt  that  he  was  very  bold, 
but  he  had  the  excuse  of  her  questions  to 
him. 

"  Oh,  almost  a  year,"  she  answered.  "  I 
got  my  degree  last  June." 

"Not  so  long  as  I've  been  through  with 
business.  I've  had  more  time  than  you  to 
grow  wise,  only  I  don't  know  how  very  well. 
There  ought  to  be  a  new  kind  of  college  for 
old  men  with  nothing  to  do  but  improve 
their  minds." 

"What  an  amusing  idea!"  commented 
the  young  lady.    "What  would  they  teach  ?  " 

"  Lessons  in  the  conduct  and  associations 
of  life,  I  suppose.  I've  just  thought  of  the 
plan.  Nobody  admitted  under  fifty-five. 
From  what  you  tell  me,  I  judge  that  a  course 
in  human  experience  would  be  the  best  in- 
centive to  the  study  of  books.  The  lec- 
turers would  be  recent  graduates  of  colleges, 
particularly  of  women's  colleges,  which 
would  be  very  pleasant  indeed  for  the  old 
gentlemen  who  attended.  Don't  you  think 
it  a  good  idea?" 

"  I  think  you're  making  fun  of  me  now," 
answered  the  young  lady,  "but  I'm  not  sure 
but  what  I  like  it.  One  doesn't  often  have 
such  a  conversation  as  this."  She  bent 
forward  and  looked  over  the  rail  at  the  bub- 
bling water  as  she  made  the  avowal,  turning 
her  head  quite  away  from  her  companion. 

He  laughed.  "One  would  suppose  you 
had  led  a  very  arid  and  unadventurous 
life,"  he  said,  "whereas  I'm  sure  you  can't 
have  got  beyond  chaperons  without  need- 
ing them." 

"Life  is  very  dull,"  she  countered  with 
the  easy  cynici.sm  of  the  very  young,  but  she 
blushed  vividly. 

"I  usually  find  it  so,  but  not  this  morn- 
ing," said  Mr.  Sanders.  "You  are  very 
exciting — to  a  recluse  anyway." 

"A  recluse?"  She  was  clever  about 
leading  the  conversation  away  from  herself. 

"Every  person  in  retirement  is  a  recluse. 
A  hermit  doesn't  need  to  have  any  of  the  vir- 
tues, you  know,  except  the  ability  to  hold 
his  tongue.  I'm  not  a  very  good  hermit,  I 
admit,  but  ordinarily  I  talk  to  no  one  ex- 
cept Henry — my  man,  I  mean." 

"And  you  find  me  more  exciting  than 
Henry?     Is  that  a  compliment  too?"    Slie 


laughed  in  turn,  having  recovered  her  self- 
possession. 

"That's  the  kind  of  compliment  that  re- 
cluses pay,  yes.  They're  not  clever  people, 
or  they  wouldn't  be  hermits."  He  beamed, 
for  he  felt  that  he  was  acquitting  himself 
very  well. 

She  beamed  also.  "I  stick  to  it  that 
you're  extraordinarily  interesting  to  talk 
with.  I'm  going  to  do  it  some  more  if  you'll 
let  me.  I  must  go  back  to  my  aunt  now,  or 
she'll  think  I've  fallen  overboard.  I'm  go- 
ing to  be  unconventional  again — I  warn 
you,  you  see.  My  name  is  Paula  Smith." 
She  held  out  her  hand.     "  What  is  yours  ?  '^ 

It  was  one  of  the  few  occasions  in  his  life 
when  Peter  Sanders  lost  his  wits.  Miss 
Smith's  appalling  frankness  broke  down 
his  guard.  Unhesitatingly,  unthinkingly, 
quite  as  though  he  had  no  scandalous  past, 
he  took  her  hand  and  answered:  "I'm 
very  glad  to  have  met  you  now."  And  he 
added  the  fatal  name,  Sanders. 

He  was  panic-stricken  at  once.  Where 
would  she  run  to  cover?  W^ould  she  go 
trembling  to  her  aunt  or  to  the  captain? 
She  would  certainly  turn  in  flight  from  the 
horror  of  the  revelation.  So  self-conscious 
was  he  about  his  reputation  that  he  could 
not  immediately  grasp  the  meaning  of  her 
reaction.  He  had  not  believed  such  inno- 
cence possible.  She  tightened  her  grasp 
of  his  hand  momentarily  and  said,  as  she 
withdrew  it:  "It  has  been  such  a  nice 
morning,  Mr.  Sanders!  I'll  see  you  again 
soon.     Good-by." 

With  a  gay  nod,  she  disappeared  into 
a  doorway  down  the  deck,  leaving  Mr. 
Sanders  much  shaken  and  utterly  at  a  loss 
to  explain  the  encounter. 

"What  in  h — heaven's  name  does  it 
mean?"   he  murmured. 

He  was  surprised,  on  entering  his  state- 
room, to  find  Henry  making  ready  to  re- 
ceive the  luncheon-tray.  He  could  scarcely 
believe  that  the  morning  had  so  far  gone, 
but  he  had  enjoyed  himself.  The  pity  was 
that  the  experience  couldn't  be  repeated. 
Now  that  he  had  revealed  his  name,  she 
would  soon  find  out  (and  the  whole  ship- 
load, as  well)  who  he  was.  The  wonder 
was  that  she  had  not  taken  in  the  full  enor- 
mity of  the  situation  at  once.  He  should 
see  her  again  only  at  a  distance.  It  was  a 
j)ity,  though  he  realized  that  he  had  no  rea- 
son to  expect  anything  else. 


29S 


Experience 


He  was  quite  as  much  mystifiecl  by  the 
voung  lady's  conduct,  moreover,  as  he  was 
disgusted  by  his  own  awkwardness.     He 
was  not  so  witless  as  not  to  see  that  her  first 
question  about  the  steamer  had  been  merely 
an  excuse  for  addressing  him,  but  he  was 
^  crv  far  from  fathoming  why  she  wished 
the  excuse.   Though  his  experience  of  wom- 
en was  the  slightest,  he  was  not  so  fatuous 
as  to  suppose  himself  in  any  way  attractive 
to  the  boldest  young  person.   He  was  almost 
an  old  man,  he  recognized,  and  he  was  ap- 
proaching both  obesity  and  baldness.     Be- 
sides, he  could  not  fail  to  see  that  his  young 
lady  was,  in  every  particular,  a  "nice"  girl. 
Irreproachable  as  his  own  conduct  toward 
the  other  sex  had  been  throughout  a  sensa- 
tional career,  he  had  known  for  thirty-five 
years  the  ear-marks  of  feminine  impropri- 
ety.    He  was   an   elderly   Galahad   who 
could  not  be  deceived  by  the  most  perfect 
counterfeit  of  virtue.     He  would  take  a 
thousand  to  one  on  this  girl's  being  what 
she  seemed;    and  she  seemed  to  him  a 
charming  young  lady,  as  interesting  as  she 
was  pretty.     In  only  one  particular  could 
he  wish  her  different:  her  voice  was  un- 
modulated and,  to  his  critical  ear,  rather 
shrill.     That  was  part  of  her  Americanism, 
he  supposed.     He  had  heard  the  kind  of 
voice  he  liked  in  woman — he  quoted  Lear's 
phrase   to   himself — even   though  he  had 
seldom  talked  with  any  one  who  used  it. 
Otherwise  she  was  perfect,  a  joy  to  all  the 
senses  and  to  the  most  delicate  standards  of 
taste. 

What  puzzled  Peter  Sanders  was  the  diffi- 
culty, when  you  considered  her  admirable 
qualities,  of  finding  any  reasonable  explana- 
tion for  his  conversation  with  her.  Obvi- 
ously, she  hadn't  known  who  he  was,  else 
she  would  never  have  addressed  him;  just 
as  clearly,  she  was  not  the  kind  to  address  a 
stranger  without  excuse.  She  had  not  been 
interested  in  the  steamer,  and  she  couldn't 
have  felt  any  interest  in  him.  Between  the 
two  horns  of  this  dilemma  he  was  tossed 
uneasily  all  day  long.  He  pondered  the 
chances  and  spent  himself  in  trying  to  work 
out  a  solution,  just  as  many  of  his  victims 
had  in  other  days  vainly  attempted  to  find 
a  "system"  that  should  impoverish  him. 
The  odds  were  all  against  him  now;  he 
realized  that  he  did  not  understand  the 
workings  of  the  game.  At  last  he  gave  up 
the  problem  altogether,  concluding  that  an 


inscrutable  Providence  had  given  him  an 
opportunity  for  which  he  should  be  thank- 
ful. He  had  talked  on  equal  terms  for 
once  with  a  kind  of  human  being  such  as 
before  he  had  never  known. 

He  did  not  see  Miss  Smith  again  that  day, 
even  at  a  distance.  If  she  walked,  she 
walked  on  the  other  side  of  the  ship.  When 
Henry,  after  dinner,  asked  his  master  if  he 
would  go  out  again  to  see  the  moonlight  on 
the  water,  he  was  astounded  at  the  reply, 
which  accompanied  a  whimsically  melan- 
choly shake  of  the  head. 

"No,  Henry,  it's  no  use,  I  fear.  It  has 
been  the  dark  of  the  moon  for  me  since-mid- 
day." 

"I  beg  pardon,  sir?"  said  Henry. 

"The  disappearance  of  Diana,"  ex- 
plained Mr.  Sanders.  "But  you  won't 
understand,  I  fear,  since  you've  never  taken 
the  trouble  to  get  up  your  mythological  as- 
tronomy." 

"Very  good,  sir,"  Henry  answered  with 
equal  gravity,  for  there  were  things  that  he 
never  tried  to  understand.  "Then  I  think 
perhaps  you'd  better  be  got  to  bed,  sir." 

The  following  morning  Mr.  Sanders  sat 
reading,  yet  not  greatly  absorbed,  when  he 
saw  his  Diana  wandering  aimlessly  along 
the  deck.  To  his  astonishment  she  nodded 
to  him  in  the  friendliest  fashion  as  she 
approached.  Some  feeble  aftermath  of 
youthful  pride  made  him  dislike  to  get  out 
of  his  chair  in  her  immediate  presence. 
He  struggled  wildly  to  release  himself  from^ 
his  covers.  It  was  not  easy  for  a  person  so 
rotund  as  he  to  rise  gracefully  from  a  steam- 
er chair.  With  all  his  efforts  he  was  in  the 
act  of  it,  a  struggling  mass  of  rugs  and 
flesh,  when  she  came  opposite.  She  could 
not  fail  to  notice  the  spectacle;  but  she 
showed  her  good  breeding  by  ignoring  it, 
and  greeted  him  demurely. 

"Do  you  feel  like  taking  a  turn,  Mr. 
Sanders  ?  "  she  inquired.  "  If  you  do,  won't 
you  join  me?" 

"If  I  may?"  he  answered,  and  took  his 
place  at  her  side,  greatly  wondering  at  his 
good  luck  and  a  little  doubting  the  propriety 
of  his  conduct.  It  was  awkward.  He  cer- 
tainly didn't  wish  to  make  the  girl  conspicu- 
ous by  exhibiting  himself  in  company  with 
her;  but  he  couldn't  in  decency  decline  her 
invitation. 

"My  aunt  is  in  her  state-room  with  a 
headache  this  morning,"  she  volunteered. 


mis  WiOWV^^WBKf  TL^r: 


Drai^'ii  l>y  James  Moiiti;oiiicry  J-'atg;^. 


'J329»^'^^''''**'**!^^-ESffi>* 


He  let  Ins  heavy  eyes  close  till  ihcy  wcic  the  me. est  shls,  and  niudc  an  answer  that  he 

Vol.  LV.— 29 


rccogniied  as  inane— fa^e  joa 
399 


3(K) 


Experience 


'1  have  been  told  that  the  kindest  thing  I 
can  do  is  to  stay  away  till  lunch-time,  so  Fm 
particularly  grateful  to  have  some  one  talk 
to  me." 

"And  I  am  particularly  grateful  to  be 
humbly  serviceable  to  you,"  he  returned 
with  heavy-handed  gallantry. 

"By  the  way,"  remarked  Miss  Smith,  "I 
looked  for  your  name  in  the  list  of  passen- 
gers, and  it  seems  not  to  be  there.  Have 
you  noticed?" 

"I  confess  I  haven't  seen  the  list,"  an- 
swered Mr.  Sanders  with  an  effort.  "Vm 
a  bad  sailor,  you  see,  and  have  my  meals 
brought  up  here.  They've  probably  made 
some  mistake  about  my  name.  It's  not 
uncommon."  He  was  taking  care  not  to 
repeat  his  blunder  of  the  previous  day. 

"Perhaps  they've  set  you  down  under  my 
name,"  said  the  girl  lightly.  "There's  a 
Mr.  P.  Smith  aboard,  who  was  assigned  a 
seat  at  the  table  with  us,  but  he  hasn't  come 
to  the  dining-room  at  all." 

"Perhaps  they  have,"  he  replied,  glad  to 
be  furnished  with  so  reasonable  an  expla- 
nation. "That  would  be  odd,  wouldn't  it ? 
I  must  look  into  the  matter." 

Both  of  them  laughed,  and  the  conversa- 
tion drifted  off  through  a  discussion  about 
errors  in  names  and  cases  of  secondary 
personality  to  a  variety  of  other  topics  of 
equal  interest.  Mr.  Sanders  forgot  both  his 
fears  and  his  scruples,  and  kept  in  mind 
only  his  desire  to  make  the  girl  so  far  reveal 
her  tastes  and  experiences  that  he  might 
discover  her  reason  for  making  friends  with 
him.  He  had  no  difficulty  in  persuading 
her  to  tell  what  she  knew  of  books  and  pic- 
tures: she  gave  her  opinions  frankly,  ex- 
pressing her  preferences  and  dislikes  with- 
out any  trace  of  self-consciousness.  Her 
reticence  began  only  when  the  talk  fell  on 
themes  that  might  betray  her  family  con- 
nections and  personal  life.  She  did  not 
even  reveal  the  name  of  her  college,  though 
references  to  it  were  frequent.  Mr.  San- 
ders was  too  fearful  about  overstepping  the 
boundaries  of  decorum  to  question  her;  he 
had  the  instincts  of  a  gentleman  v/ithout 
the  habit  of  talking  with  well-bred  women. 
He  learned  that  she  preferred  Rossetti  to 
Byron,  but  he  did  not  find  out  whether  she 
had  been  reared  in  town  or  country.  He 
had  the  impression  every  time  the  conver- 
sation veered  to  himself,  just  as  he  had  got 
it  on  the  previous  day,  that  he  was  being 


prodded  a  little  to  reveal  his  own  expe- 
riences as  well  as  his  attitude  to  things  in 
general.  Though  by  no  word  or  play  of 
feature  did  she  indicate  that  she  had  any 
suspicion  of  his  identity  with  the  Peter 
Sanders  of  shameful  eminence,  she  seemed 
to  think  that  he  must  have  a  fund  of  inter- 
esting stories  at  command. 

He  would  have  been  glad  to  satisfy  his 
companion's  whim,  except  that  he  could 
think  of  few  experiences  that  seemed  proper 
to  relate.  If  he  told  her  how  he  succeeded 
in  ousting  Dick  Harris  from  the  control  of 
plutocratic  gambling,  she  would  be  shocked 
and  go  away,  though  the  struggle  had  been 
exciting;  if  he  sketched  the  most  approved 
methods  of  fleecing  young  gentlemen  of 
fortune,  she  would  think  him  "horrid." 
His  life  and  his  craft  seemed  singularly  ill 
fitted  to  be  subjects  of  conversation  with  a 
delicately  nurtured  young  lady.  Besides, 
they  didn't  interest  him  in  the  very  least. 
He  preferred  to  appear  an  elderly  nonentity 
rather  than  a  celebrated  rascal  She  was 
too  inexperienced,  he  felt  sure,  to  make 
allowances. 

It  all  came  to  a  head,  at  length,  as  they 
halted  in  a  sheltered,  sunny  corner  behind 
the  bridge  and  sat  down  on  the  edge  of 
some  kind  of  glazed  arrangement  for  light 
and  ventilation. 

^'I  wish,"  she  said  hesitatingly,  ''you 
would  tell  me — you  said  yesterday  that 
you'd  put  through  some  big  deals — which 
one  of  then!  interested  you  most.  My 
world  is  singularly  lacking  in  chances  for 
adventure,  and  I  have  to  get  romance  at 
second  hand." 

Though  she  put  it  in  such  a  tentative 
fashion,  a  horrible  suspicion  shot  through 
Mr.  Sanders's  mind,  that  she  might  have 
guessed  his  guilty  secret.  It  was,  of  course, 
absurd.  She  wouldn't  have  come  back 
if  she  had  divined.  She  was  probing  the 
sore  quite  innocently,  and  in  the  ruthless 
way  that  innocents  have.  He  did  not  know 
how  to  reply  without  being  impolite,  and  he 
needed  all  his  experience  of  many  years  to 
keep  from  showing  what  he  felt.  He  let 
his  heavy  eyes  close  till  they  were  the  merest 
slits,  and  made  an  answer  that  he  recog- 
nized as  inane. 

"Romance,  I  suppose,  is  always  what 
somebody  else  has.  Certainly,  I'm  as  pro- 
saic a  person  as  ever  was.  Fat  men  like 
me  don't  have  adventures." 


Experience 


:m 


"Fortune  doesn't  take  account  of  the 
figure,  does  it?"  she  responded,  smiHng. 
"You  admit  that  you've  made  a  fortune, 
yet  you  are  shy  of  instructing  my  igno- 
rance about  the  strange  ways  of  it.  Noth- 
ing seems  tome  more  romantic  than  making 
one's  fortune." 

"It's  grubby  while  you're  doing  it,"  he 
replied.  "All  businesses  are  pretty  much 
alike.  You've  got  something,  or  you  can 
make  something,  that  other  people  want; 
and  you  sell  as  much  as  possible  of  it  every 
day.     That's  the  whole  game." 

"Not  when  you  make  deals,  I  should 
suppose — big  deals,"  the  girl  suggested. 
"That  must  be  much  more  thrilling." 

"Not  a  bit  less  grubby  anyhow."  He 
was  evasive,  and  he  chose  his  words  care- 
fully. "Chance  plays  a  big  part  and — 
well — being  willing  to  take  advantage  of  the 
other  fellow's  disadvantages." 

"It  must  be  great  fun,  though,"  she  said 
reflectively,  clasping  her  knees  with  her 
hands,  "to  stake  everything  on  a  single 
moment,  to  plunge  in  and  hope  to  get  out 
somehow." 

Mr.  Sanders  shrugged  his  shoulders. 
"  Only  a  fool  does  that,  and  he  loses  almost 
every  time.  He  always  loses  in  the  end. 
The  man  wins  who  has  calculated  the 
chances  most  accurately  and  who  squeezes 
hardest." 

"You  make  it  sound  like  a  combina- 
tion of  mathematics  and  football,"  she  re- 
marked laughingly. 

"That's  not  such  a  bad  description.  I 
had  a  good  string  of — houses  before  I  re- 
tired, but  I  never  stood  to  lose  more  than 
I  could  afford.  And  whenever  a  man  got 
in  my  way  I  kicked  him  out.  Does  that 
sound  brutal?" 

"A  litde,  perhaps,  but  I  suppose  it  was 
necessary?"  She  seemed  absorbed  by  his 
words,  a  picture  of  uncritical  innocence. 

"My  business  was  like  everybody's,"  he 
went  on.  "I  had  to  do  it  or  go  under. 
Finally  I  had  to  quit — but  that's  another 
story.  It  hasn't  been  a  romantic  career, 
you  see." 

"That  depends  altogether  on  the  cir- 
cumstances, I  should  say:  how  you  took 
chances  and  why  you  quit." 

"Oh,  I  was  forced  out.  The  public 
didn't  want  what  I  had  to  give — or  pre- 
tended not  to.  At  any  rate,  they  got  rid 
of  me."     He  ended  with  the  air  of  having 


completely  unbosomed  himself,  and  he  felt 
satisfied  with  his  performance. 

"Somebody  kicked  you  out,  do  you 
mean?  You  got  in  somebody's  way?" 
The  young  lady  demanded  an  even  more 
explicit  statement.  "Or  did  the  business 
decline  ?  I'm  afraid  you'll  think  me  shock- 
ingly inquisitive,  Mr.  Sanders;  but  I'm 
really  interested  to  learn  how  things  go 
in  a  world  from  which  I'm  barred  out.  I 
like  the  element  of  chance — the  gambling,  I 
suppose  it  is.  There  are  disadvantages 
about  being  a  woman." 

Mr.  Sanders  laughed  easily.  "In  my 
opinion,"  he  said,  "you  don't  lose  anything. 
You're  not  barred  in,  at  any  rate,  as  I've 
been  for  a  good  many  years.  As  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  my  retirement,  all  I've  said 
is  true.  The  business  did  decline,  at  least 
my  business  did;  and  I  was  forced  out. 
I  don't  mean  that  other  concerns  don't 
keep  on.  That's  why  I'm  bitter  about  it, 
though  I  long  ago  ceased  to  feel  any  interest 
in  the  business.  A  man  doesn't  like  to  have 
his  game  blocked,  that's  all." 

"Of  course  not,"  said  the  girl.  "One 
understands  that.  But  you  make  the  whole 
thing  sound  dreadfully  prosaic,  somehow. 
Don't  you  think  you're  a  little  unkind  to 
prick  the  bubble  that  I've  blown?  If  no 
good  business  man  really  plays  a  gambling 
game,  what  am  I  going  to  do  for  romance  ?  " 
With  a  comical  tilt  of  her  litUe  head,  she 
looked  up  at  her  companion  and  sighed. 

She  made  him  feel  that  he  had  been  awk- 
ward and  unkind.  Though  she  spoke  of  it 
lightly,  he  was  persuaded  that  she  suffered 
from  the  shattering  of  her  dream.  He 
knew  little  about  children,  but  this  young 
creature  seemed  to  him  a  child,  really,  in 
spite  of  her  college  degree;  and,  according 
to  his  code,  the  man  was  a  brute  who  dark- 
ened the  sky  for  a  child,  even  momentarily. 

"I'm  dreadfully  sorry,  Miss  Smith,"  he 
said  with  sincerity.  "You've  come  to  the 
wrong  shop  for  romance,  Fm  afraid,  but 
you  may  be  sure  that  it  exists  and  that 
it  will  fnid  you  sometime.  You  deserve  it, 
and  I  never  have." 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  that!"  she  exclaimed 
with  a  sudden  catch  of  the  breath.  "Not 
that  at  all!  I  want  the  romance  that  men 
are  supposed  to  hnd  in  life,  even  if  I  can 
get  it  only  at  second  hand."  She  laughed 
a  little  uneasily. 

"As  to  that,"  he  answered  gravely,  "I 


Drawn  by  James  Montgomery  J''iagg. 

"  Good  Lord  !  "  he  muttered  to  himself.     "  What  a  mess  the  world  is!  "—Page  306. 
302 


Experience 


303 


can't  give  you  much  information,  you 
see." 

For  some  seconds  she  dici  not  speak,  Ijut 
looked  at  him  questioningly.  "I  won- 
der!" she  said  at  last.  *'I  should  think 
that  there  would  be  romance — real  adven- 
ture— in  professional  gamljling,  even  if  not 
in  what  they  call  legitimate  business.  I 
should  like  to  meet  a  real  gambler  and  have 
him  tell  me  about  it." 

Mr.  Sanders  pulled  himself  together  with 
an  effort.  It  seemed  to  him  that  his  per- 
turbation must  be  visible.  Outwardly  he 
remained  calm,  and  managed  to  arrange  a 
dry  smile,  as  he  shook  his  head.  ''You 
wouldn't  like  it  when  it  came  to  the  case  in 
hand,"  he  remarked.  "You'd  find  the 
gambler  vulgar  and  his  adventures  sordid." 

"That's  what  people  always  say,"  she  re- 
turned. "Personally,  I  don't  see  why  a 
professional  gambler  shouldn't  be  a  gentle- 
man, for  certainly  many  gentlemen  are 
gamblers.  And  why  is  the  excitement  of 
the  game  more  sordid  than  anything  else? 
Your  'deals,'  for  instance?" 

"Oh,  I  said  they  were  grubby."  Mr. 
Sanders  felt  himself  caught.  Ironic  as  the 
situation  might  be,  it  had  clearly  become 
his  duty  to  point  out  to  the  young  lady  the 
danger  and  wickedness  of  gambling,  and  it 
was  impossible  to  indicate  himself  as  a 
horrible  example,  though  that  would  have 
been  his  most  effective  line  of  argument.  He 
had  never  lacked  courage,  as  even  his  ene- 
mies admitted.  Forced  into  the  odd  role, 
he  accepted  the  duties  of  it  without  flinch- 
ing. His  chief  dif^culty  was  in  finding 
something  to  say. 

"You  don't  understand,"  he  began,  "or 
I  don't  believe  you  do,  the  difference  be- 
tween fighting  in  the  open  and  fighting 
behind  trees.  I  suppose  the  reason  why  the 
old  buccaneers  are  romantic  figures  is  just 
because  they  sailed  up  and  scuttled  ships  by 
main  strength.  I  must  say  I  think  modern 
war  would  be  more  attractive  if  the  soldiers 
ever  saw  the  other  army.  The  trouble  with 
a  lot  of  business,  and  even  more  with  gam- 
bling, is  just  this:  it  isn't  aboveboard.  A 
man  can't  get  much  feeling  of  adventure 
about  laying  a  trap  for  another  fellow  to 
fall  into.  At  least,  my  own  experience  is 
that  the  game  gets  tiresome,  though  it's 
better  than  idleness.  Besides,  I  give  you 
my  word  of  honor  that  I've  never  met  more 
than  two  or  three  professional  gamblers 
Vol.  LV. — 30 


who  were  at  all  interesting.  I  don't  ex- 
plain very  well,  but  I've  had  a  good  deal  of 
experience." 

"With  gamblers?"  questioned  the  girl  in 
evident  amusement.     'Tiow  interesting!" 

"  Oh,  any  man  meets  a  lot  of  queer  peo- 
ple," Mr.  Sanders  replied.  The  situation 
was  getting  too  much  for  him.  He  rose, 
feeling  that  in  retreat  lay  his  only  safety. 
"  In  reality,  they  weren't  interesting  at 
all,"  he  said.  "If  you  wish  my  advice — 
which  I'm  going  to  give  anyhow — I  may 
say  that  you'd  better  avoid  them.  Xot 
that  they  are  likely  to  cross  your  path!" 

She  rose  in  turn.  "I  suppose  not,"  she 
remarked  laughingly,  "but  I  wish  one  or 
two  really  good  specimens  might.  Your 
picture  of  them  doesn't  frighten  me.  I 
think — "  she  stopped  and  stood  with  her 
hands  clasped  behind  her  like  a  little  girl — ■ 
"I  think  they  might  be  as  nice  as  you  are. 
I'm  coming  back  to  talk  with  you  again. 
Good-by  for  now." 

She  floated  off  down  the  deck,  leaving 
Mr.  Sanders  to  make  his  way  thoughtfully 
to  his  state-room.  He  shook  his  head  a 
little  as  he  went.  It  was  a  pity,  he  reflect- 
ed, that  so  charming  a  young  lady  should 
be  so  deceived  about  life.  Her  college 
ought,  at  least,  to  have  enabled  her  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  tinsel  of  adventure 
and  the  real  thing.  Mad  about  meeting  a 
gambler!  Perhaps  the  sooner  she  discov- 
ered with  whom  she  had  been  talking,  the 
better  it  would  be  for  her.  That  would  dis- 
abuse her  of  her  foolish  notions:  she  would 
understand  then  how  little  romance  had  to 
do  with  gambling,  or  gambling  with  ro- 
mance. He  chuckled  at  the  notion  that 
anybody  could  conceive  of  him  as  a  figure 
of  adventure.  But  he  grew  grave  again. 
His  business  had  been  as  good  as  anybody's, 
no  doubt,  but  it  had  been  sordid.  As  for 
the  girl,  it  was  to  be  hoped  that  some  young 
man  would  fall  in  love  with  her  soon,  and 
woo  her  well.  He  almost  wished  that  he 
were  twenty  years  younger  and  a  reputable 
citizen. 

"Henry,"  he  said,  as  he  reclined  on  his 
sofa  and  took  up  a  volume  of  Ferrero.  "I 
have  had  a  very  exhausting  conversation, 
and  I  need  a  drhik.  Scotch,  please.  Wom- 
en are  hard  to  understand." 

"Yes,  sir,"  answered  the  man  imj)erturb- 
abiy.  "  In  a  tall  glass.  I  su|)pose.  Mr.  San- 
ders.   I  never  did  understand  my  wife,  sir." 


304 


Experience 


Mr.  Saiulors  smiled  ami  hc^ijan  to  read, 
though  he  louiul  that  the  face  of  Miss  Smith 
sometimes  obscured  the  lineaments  of  Ju- 
lius C\esar. 

The  afternoon  antl  evening  passed  un- 
eventfully. Mr.  Sanders  kept  to  his  state- 
room, partly  because  he  wished  to  avoid  the 
temptation  of  again  meeting  Miss  Smith 
and  partly  because  he  was  afraid  that  she 
might  seek  him  out.  Conscience  and  poli- 
cy alike  tiictated  the  severest  seclusion.  He 
could  not  properly  expose  her  to  further 
danger  from  his  society;  and  he  was  unwill- 
ing to  run  the  risk  of  being  exposed  to  her 
scorn,  when  she  learned  that  he  was  a  Mr. 
Sanders  whom  she  must  abhor,  the  Peter 
Sanders  of  diabolic  fame.  Luckily,  the 
voyage  was  nearing  its  end.  He  was  to 
land  the  following  afternoon.  The  inci- 
dent was  closed. 

But  Fortune,  the  goddess  whom  Peter 
Sanders  had  worshipped  so  long,  spun  her 
wheel  once  more.  Faithless  in  all  else,  she 
did  not  neglect  to  take  vengeance  on  her 
recreant  votary.  While  the  Sardonic  was 
steaming  up  the  Channel  under  clear  skies 
and  in  a  fresh  land  breeze,  he  left  Henry  to 
linish  packing  and  stepped  out  on  deck.  It 
was  two  o'clock.  The  bustle  of  landing  al- 
ready pervaded  the  ship.  In  a  couple  of 
hours  the  Sardonic  would  discharge  those 
of  her  passengers  who  were  landing  at  Ply- 
mouth. As  he  caught  the  smell  of  earth 
again  and  refreshed  his  eyes  with  the  green 
and  white  of  the  sunlit  coast,  Mr.  Sanders 
suddenly  remembered  that  one  obligation  of 
the  trip  was  not  yet  discharged;  he  certain- 
ly had  not  given  Henry  money  to  pay  a  very 
modest  bill  for  the  wreck's  supply  of  wine 
and  w^iiskey.  He  stepped  back  into  his 
state-room  to  consult  the  valet. 

'Tm  exceedingly  sorry,  Mr.  Sanders," 
said  Henry,  "but  I  supposed,  sir,  that  a 
steward  had  brought  the  bill  in  my  absence. 
I  will  go  at  once  and  rectify  the  matter." 

''Never  mind,"  answered  Mr.  Sanders, 
who  saw  that  the  man  was  unwarrantably 
disturbed  by  his  lapse  from  perfection  of 
service.  ''  You're  busy  packing.  I'll  get  a 
smoking-room  steward  to  look  out  for  it. 
That's  the  easiest  way." 

With  a  trace  of  self-consciousness,  he  en- 
tered the  smoking-room.  He  did  not  fail 
to  notice  that  interested  glances  were  cast  in 
his  direction  by  men  whose  appearance 
made  clear  their  knowledge  of  Peter  San- 


ders and  all  his  ways.  He  feared  a  little  that 
some  old  acquaintance  might  accost  him. 
Quite  brazenly,  however,  he. made  his  in- 
quiry. To  his  astonishment,  the  steward 
returned  in  a  few  minutes  with  the  informa- 
tion that  the  purser  had  no  bill  against  Mr. 
Smith. 

"But  he  has!"  exclaimed  Peter  Sanders, 
whose  honesty  had  always  been  meticulous, 
even  if  warped.  "I'll  go  down  and  see  him 
myself." 

"Very  good,  sir,"  said  the  steward,  pock- 
eting a  coin.  "Thank  you,  sir.  I'll  show 
you  his  office." 

So  Mr.  Sanders  descended  into  depths 
that  he  had  hitherto  avoided, '  and  con- 
fronted the  twinkling  blue  eyes  of  a  rubi- 
cund officer  in  a  mahogany  frame. 

"You  must  be  mistaken,  I  think,  Mr. 
Smith,"  the  purser  said.  "Your  bill  has 
been  paid." 

"But  I  tell  you  it  hasn't,"  answered  Mr. 
Sanders,  who  forgot  gentle  manners  in  the 
face  of  such  invincible  stupidity  as  this.  "  I 
haven't  paid  it,  and  my  man  hasn't;  and  I 
want  to  pay  it  now." 

"I'm  sorry  to  dispute  you,"  returned  the 
purser  rather  brusquely,  "but  you  owe 
nothing.  The  bill  was  paid  this  morning. 
It's  entered  here:     'P.  Smith,  State-room 

47.'" 

"I  must  say  your  book-keeping  seems  to 
me  rather  shocking!"  remarked  Mr.  San- 
ders, now  thoroughly  annoyed.  "  I've  never 
in  my  life  had  so  much  trouble  about  pay- 
ing a  bill.     My  room  is  17,  not  47." 

"Huh!"  grunted  the  purser,  looking  in- 
terested and  consulting  another  document. 

"This  is  odd.  I  see!  Two  ladies  have 
47,  and  one  of  them  is  Miss  P.  Smith.  I'm 
very  sorry  indeed,  sir;  the  bill  must  have 
been  presented  to  her." 

"  What  ?  "  roared  Mr.  Sanders.  "And  she 
paid  it?  How  much  is  it?  I  know  the 
young  lady.     What  a  dreadful  imposition ! " 

"It  is  very  regrettable,"  said  the  officer, 
who  looked  seriously  concerned.  "The  bill 
amounts  to  $4.17.  I  will  apologize  to  Miss 
Smith  personally  and  at  once.  Perhaps — 
eh — would  you  mind  helping  me  explain, 
since  the  lady  is  a  friend  of  yours?  It's 
deucedly  awkward,  you  know." 

He  appeared  so  much  disturbed  that  Mr. 
Sanders  had  no  choice  but  to  lend  his  aid. 
Since  he  had  been  so  foolish  as  to  acknowl- 
edge himself  a  friend  of  Miss  Smith's,  he 


Experience 


305 


could  not  well  explain  that  it  would  be  in- 
convenient. He  paid  the  bill,  and  unwill- 
ingly accompanied  the  officer.  On  the  up- 
per deck  a  stewardess  was  despatched, 
with  the  purser's  apologies,  to  request  the 
ladies  in  State-room  47  to  grant  him  a  mo- 
ment's interview. 

They  emerged  at  once:  Miss  Smith  and 
an  older  woman,  who  might  have  been  her 
mother  except  that  so  obviously  she  had 
never  married.  They  looked  a  little  wor- 
ried, and  Miss  Smith  both  blushed  and 
started  when  she  saw  Mr.  Sanders. 

"I'm  exceedingly  sorry.  Miss  Smith," 
began  the  purser — "I  never  knew  such  a 
thing  to  happen  before — but  we  have  been 
so  stupid  as  to  have  rendered  you  a  bill 
that  should  have  gone  to  this  gentleman. 
In  your  haste  you  seem  to  have  paid  it  with- 
out protest.  I  have  the  sum  here — $4.17. 
Mr.  Smith,  as  a  friend  of  yours,  has  been 
good  enough  to  come  with  me  to  help  ex- 
plain." 

''Thank  you,"  said  Miss  Smith  weakly. 

"Paula,"  put  in  the  older  woman  with 
some  heat,  "what  does  it  mean?  Why 
didn't  you  tell  me,  instead  of  paying  ?  What 
was  it  for?" 

"For  liquors,"  said  Mr.  Sanders  firmly. 
"It  was  merely  a  mistake,  madam,  which  I 
regret  quite  as  much  as  any  one." 

"Yes — indeed,  yes,"  protested  the  officer, 
placing  the  money  in  Miss  Smith's  hand, 
which  closed  over  it  mechanically.  "I 
hope  you  will  pardon  me — it  was  a  quite 
shocking  blunder — and  pardon  me  if  I  go 
back  to  my  office  now  ?  Mr.  Smith  will  tell 
you  the  circumstances,  I'm  sure.  I  am  very 
busy." 

He  took  the  license  of  the  occupied  and 
hastily  disappeared,  leaving  Mr.  Sanders  to 
cope  with  the  disagreeable  situation  alone. 
It  was  grossly  unfair  to  him,  but  he  was 
helpless. 

"Paula,"  continued  the  older  lady  in- 
exorably, "I  wish  you  would  explain  what 
this  means?  I  wish  you  would  say  some- 
thing." 

"There  isn't  anything  to  say,"  the  girl 
replied  miserably.  She  was  a  picture  of  de- 
jection. 

"Then  I  wish  you  would  introduce  this 
gentleman,"  said  her  aunt,  "since  he  seems 
to  be  an  acquaintance  of  yours.  Perhaps 
he  will  tell  me  what  it  all  means." 

Mr.  Sanders  felt  that  by  all  the  laws  of 


courtesy  he  must  save  Miss  Smith  from  her 
embarrassment,  but  he  felt  very  nervous. 

"The  mistake  was  due  to  the  similarity 
of  our  names — a  quite  natural  mistake,  you 
see — "  Under  the  aunt's  diaspproving 
gaze  he  spoke  with  increasing  confusion. 
"I  mean,  it  was  quite  natural.  You  see, 
I'm  Mr.  Sanders,  Mr.  Peter  Sanders." 

In  a  flash  he  realized  with  utter  horror 
the  thing  he  had  done.  He  did  not  need 
the  frozen  look  in  the  older  lady's  eye,  the 
perceptible  recoil  of  her  body,  to  show  him 
how  he  had  blundered. 

"What!"  she  exclaimed.  "How  dared 
you?  Paula,  you  will  explain  this  instant- 
ly, or  I  shall  cable  your  father  from  Ply- 
mouth." 

In  the  stress  of  the  moment  Mr.  Sanders 
found  his  wits  again.  His  very  disgust 
calmed  him.  He,  whose  nerves  had  stood 
the  shock  of  a  thousand  turns  of  fate,  had 
gone  to  pieces  first  before  a  maiden,  and 
then  before  a  maiden  aunt!  "  I  am  the  only 
one  to  blame,"  he  remarked  smoothly.  "  I 
am  a  lonely  old  man  and  foolishly  permitted 
your  niece  to  talk  with  me  on  two  occasions. 
I  think  she  has  taken  no  harm  from  it,  but  I 
apologize  to  you  most  abjectly.  I  had  as- 
sumed the  name  of  P.  Smith  for  the  voyage; 
and  they  seem  to  have  confused  us  in  the 
purser's  office.  You  need  feel  no  further 
alarm." 

"But  Peter  Sanders!"  exclaimed  the 
lady,  whose  distress  made  her  forget  all 
courtesy.  "Oh,  Paula,  how  could  you? 
What  would  your  father  and  mother  say?" 

"I'm  altogether  to  blame,"  repeated  Mr. 
Sanders.  "Miss  Smith  had  no  notion,  of 
course,  that  she  was  talking  with  a  person  of 
— of  my  repute.  Inadvertently  I  told  her 
my  true  name.  She  did  not  even  know  that 
I  was  using  the  name  Smith." 

"But  I  did!  I  did!"  cried  the  girl.  "I 
knew  all  the  time — I  knew  everything!  I 
recognized  you  from  your  pictures  as  soon 
as  I  saw  you  on  deck,  and — and  I  asked  the 
steward  when  Mr.  P.  Smith  didn't  come  to 
table.  I  wanted  to  see  what  you  were  like." 
She  was  on  the  verge  of  tears,  but  she  turned 
bravely  to  her  aunt.  "It's  I  who  ought  to 
ask  Mr.  Sanders's  pardon,  antl  I  do — most 
abjectly." 

"I  see,"  said  Mr.  Sanders  gravely.  He 
was  too  greatly  astonished  to  say  more. 

"Oh,  Paula!"  ejaculated  the  older  lady, 
utterly  overcome. 


306 


In   the 


High 


Mil 


"I  thought  it  would  be  a  lark,"  went  on 
Miss  Smith.  ''I  fancied  you'd  be  a  sort 
of  civilized  pirate.  I  didn't  see  how  it  could 
do  any  harm.  In  one  way,  you've  been  a 
great  disappointment  to  me." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  queried  Mr. 
Sanders,  in  whom  amazement  and  confu- 
sion began  to  give  way  to  amusement.  He 
had  been  played  by  this  little  girl — he  who 
had  measured  himself  successfully  against 
the  sharpest  wits  in  America — as  if  he  were 
a  lad  fresh  from  the  country.  He  enjoyed 
the  novelty  of  the  situation. 

*'I  expected  you  to  seem  romantically 
wicked,  I  suppose,"  Miss  Smith  confessed 
shamefacedly. 

'^  Oh,  Paula! "  exclaimed  the  aunt  again. 
"But  whatever  possessed  you  to  pay  Mr. 
Sanders's  bill?     It  is  too  dreadful!" 

''Yes,"  answered  her  niece.  "It  is.  I 
knew  Mr.  Sanders  didn't  know  what  I  was 
up  to;  and  when  the  bill  came  to  me,  I 
thought  he  would  be  still  more  mystified 
if  I  paid  it.  I  didn't  suppose  he  would  find 
out.  There  never  was  such  a  little  fool  as 
I  am!" 


The  aunt  nodded.  "That  is  quite  true, 
quite  true,  my  dear,"  she  said. 

Mr.  Sanders  smiled  and  turned  to  the 
older  lady.  "I  can't  quite  agree  with 
either  of  you,  I'm  afraid.  Your  niece's 
folly  can't  match  mine,  for  I  have  cut  my- 
self off  from  everything  I  like  best.  But  I 
hope  you  will  at  least  allow  me  to  shake  her 
hand  in  parting.  I  shall  have  one  pleasant 
recollection  the  more." 

The  girl  looked  up  bravely  and  took  his 
hand.  "  Please  forgive  me,"  she  said.  "  It 
has  been  a  great  experience  for  me  any- 
how." 

"Good-by,"  said  Mr.  Sanders.  "Don't 
forget  that  all  the  newspapers  have  said 
about  me  is  true.  The  devil  is  just  as  black 
as  he  is  painted.  You  must  never  play  with 
fire  again — I  warned  you  it  was  dangerous ! " 

"  I  won't,"  said  Miss  Smith.    "  Good-by." 

"I  wish  to  shake  hands,  too,"  put  in  the 
aunt.  "You're  not  what  I  should  have  ex- 
pected.    Good-by,  Mr.  Sanders." 

With  a  low  bow  Peter  Sanders  turned 
away.  "Good  Lord!"  he  muttered  to 
himself.     "What  a  mess  the  world  is!" 


IN    THE     HIGH     HILLS 


By  Maxwell  Struthers  Burt 

God  has  lent  the  wind  to  you, 

Swept  the  great  sweet  mind  of  you 
Keen  and  clean  and  splendid  as  the  morn  on  peaks  agleam. 

Peace  of  sunny  hidden  hollows 

Down  whose  slope  the  long  light  follows, 
And  the  hush  is  musical  with  dripping  mountain  stream. 

God  has  lent  his  coolness  too; 

Wet  green  woods  and  bramble-dew; 
Scent  of  quivering  aspen  leaves  still  joyous  from  rain; 

Ah,  if  one  were  burned  with  sorrow, 

Sleep  would  come  until  to-morrow 
From  a  dream  of  cool  fine  hands  to  bless  with  peace  the  pain. 

Morn  among  the  high  white  hills, 

Evening  where  the  forest  thrills, 
Magical  with  moonlight,  the  scented  ambient  hush: 

Things  like  these  are  part  of  you, 

Soul  and  mind  and  heart  of  you; 
Winds  and  storms  and  sunny  days  and  sparkling,  dawn-wet  brush. 


WITH     THE    NAVY 

THREE     PAINTINGS 

BY 

HENRY  REUTERDAHL 


DESTROYERS    IN    A    SEAWAY 

BATTLE    PRACTICE,    DIVISION    FIRING 

THE    AMERICAN    FLEET    IN 

THE   STRAIT   OF    AL\GELLAN   DURING 

ITS   WORLD -CRUISE,    1907 


MR.  REUTERDAHL,  AMONG  OTHER  VOYAGES  WITH  THE  NAVY,  MADE 
THE  CRUISE  FROM  HAMPTON  ROADS  THROUGH  THE  STRAIT  OF 
MAGELLAN  TO  SAN  FRANCISCO  AND  LATER  TO  THE  MEDITERRANEAN 


C  ^ 


Vol.  LV.— 31 


307 


3o8 


>     2 


^    o 
."3     E 


309 


.=   z 


310 


TOUGOURT 


BY    G.    E.    WOODBERRY 


3T  was  a  cold  dawn  in  late 
April  at  Biskra.  The  car- 
riage, long  and  heavy,  with 
three  horses  abreast,  stood 
at  the  door.  Ali,  a  sturdy 
Arab,  young  but  with  no 
look  of  youth,  wound  in  a  gorgeous  red 
sash,  sat  on  the  box;  and,  as  I  settled  in 
my  place,  Hamet,  the  guide,  followed  me 
gravelv  and  sat  down  beside  me,  and  at 
a  word  from  him  we  were  briskly  off  on 
the  long,  uneventful  drive  to  Tougourt, 
over  the  desert  route  of  about  a  hundred 
and  thirty  miles  southward,  to  be  covered 
in  two  days'  travel.  We  were  soon  beside 
the  sleepy  silence  of  the  oasis,  and  passed 
the  old  yellow  slope  that  was  once  a  for- 
tress to  guard  it  on  the  edge  of  the  sands; 
we  dipped  along  by  little  fields  of  fresh 
green  barley  and  rose  on  the  steppe  of  the 
hois,  a  tangle  of  low  undergrowth,  scarcely 
waist-high,  of  twisted  and  almost  leafless 
shrub  that  clothes  the  desert  there  with 
its  characteristic  dry,  rough,  tortured,  and 
stunted,  but  hardy,  vegetation.  A  few 
Arabs  were  to  be  seen  in  places  cutting 
it  for  fire-wood.  Camels,  too,  far  away 
in  almost  any  direction,  loomed  up,  soli- 
tary and  ungainly  as  harbor-buoys  on  a 
windless  morning  tide.  On  all  sides  lay 
the  sharp  black  outlines  of  oasis-clumps  of 
palm-trees,  distinct,  single,  solid,  each  a 
distant  island,  with  miles  to  cross  before 
one  should  land  on  its  unknown  shore; 
and  behind  us  the  range  of  the  Aures 
seemed  to  block  out  the  world  with  the 
wild  beauty  of  its  precipices,  which  made 
one  cliff  of  all  the  north  as  if  to  shut  out 
Europe.  It  was  like  a  wall  of  the  world. 
All  about  us  was  the  desert;  everything 
seemed  cold  and  gray  and  distant,  life- 
less, in  the  pallor  of  the  morning;  but 
with  every  mile  the  whole  world  bright- 
ened and  warmed.  Desert  air  intoxicates 
me;  every  breath  of  it  is  wine,  not  so 
much  to  my  blood  or  my  nerves,  but  to 
Vol.  LV.— 32 


my  whole  being  of  man;  and  long  before 
we  reached  Bordj  Saada,  the  first  halt,  I 
was  keyed  to  the  day.  It  was  a  glorious 
day,  cloudless  and  blue,  and  drenched 
with  sunshine  and  radiance  and  warmth 
pouring  on  vast  spaces;  and  the  Bordj, 
a  disused  military  post,  a  sort  of  large 
stockade  for  refuge  and  defence,  standing 
solitary  on  its  high  ridge,  was  an  old 
friend  and  a  place  of  memory  for  me; 
there  once  I  had  turned  back,  and  now  I 
was  going  on.  There  was  excitement  in 
the  moment,  in  the  look  ahead;  and  so  it 
was  only  as  we  swept  round  the  curve 
down  into  the  valley  of  oued  Djedi,  and 
crossed  its  dry  channel,  that  I  felt  myself 
embarked,  as  it  were,  on  my  first  true  des- 
ert voyage.  I  had  coasted  the  Sahara  for 
a  thousand  miles  here  and  there,  like  a 
boy  in  a  boat;  but  now  I  should  be  at  last 
out  of  sight  of  land. 

We  were  quite  happy  voyagers,  the 
three  of  us.  Ali,  on  the  box,  sang  from 
time  to  time  some  cadenced  stave,  careless 
as  a  bird,  in  a  world  of  his  own ;  indeed  the 
drive  was  an  adventure  to  him.  for,  as  I 
afterward  found,  it  was  his  first  going  to 
Tougourt;  and  had  not  Hamet,  almost  as 
soon  as  we  started,  lifting  one  intent ,  burn- 
ing glance  straight  in  my  eyes — it  was  the 
first  time  I  had  really  seen  him,  as  a  per- 
son— told  me  that  I  had  brought  him 
good  luck,  for  that  night  his  wife  had 
borne  him  a  boy?  He  was  content.  A 
fine  figure,  too,  was  Hamet;  he  answered, 
as  no  other  guide  but  one  I  ever  had,  to 
the  imagination;  he  filled  my  dream  of 
what  ought  to  be.  A  mature  man,  rather 
thick-set,  with  a  skin  so  bronzed  that  in 
the  shadow  it  was  black,  with  the  head  of 
a  desert  sheik,  noble,  powerful;  when  he 
moved  he  seemed  still  in  repose,  so  sculp- 
tural were  all  the  lines  of  his  figure,  such 
dignity  was  in  e\'ery  chance  attitude;  he 
seemed  more  like  some  distinguished  aid 
to  attend  me  than  a  guide.  His  white  bur- 
noose  fell  in  large  folds,  and  as  he  threw  it 
partly  over  me  in  the  first  cool  hours,  he 

311 


V2 


Tougourt 


disclosed  some  light  white  iinderdress  over 
whose  bosom  hung  low  a  great  gold  chain, 
with  heads  under;  a  revolver  swung  in  a 
leather  case,  rather  tightly  drawn  below 
his  right  breast  with  astrap  over  the  shoul- 
der; white  stockings  and  slippers  com- 
pleted his  garb.  We  talked  of  trifles,  and 
the  conversation  was  charming,  not  too 
fluent — talk  of  the  road;  but  what  I  re- 
member is  my  pleasure  in  finding  again 
what  often  seems  to  me  that  lost  grace  of 
a  line  natural  demeanor  in  men.  It  is  of 
less  consequence  to  me  what  a  man  says 
than  is  his  manner  of  saying  it,  and  speech 
is  not  of  the  lips  only  but  of  the  whole 
man ;  and,  in  my  experience,  it  is  the  un- 
learned who  are  also  unspoiled,  that,  all 
in  all,  say  things  best.  And  ever  as  we 
talked  or  were  silent  the  horses  went  on; 
the  brilliant  bare  line  of  the  Aures  sank 
slowly  down ;  and  round  us  was  the  waste 
of  rock  with  its  fitful  tangle  of  tamarack 
and  drin,  the  sea  of  sand  with  its  ridged 
breadths,  the  near  or  distant  horizon-lines 
as  the  track  rose  and  fell;  and  with  the 
hours  the  panorama  of  the  road  began  to 
disclose  itself. 

The  road  w^as  really  a  broad  camel- 
trodden  route  on  which  the  carriage-way, 
winding  about,  found  going  as  best  it 
could;  the  railway  that  will  sometime  be 
had  been  surveyed  along  it,  and  the  tele- 
graph-poles that  already  bore  the  wire  far 
beyond  Tougourt  into  the  desert  were  sel- 
dom far  away.  On  the  earlier  part  of  the 
journey  the  going  was  excellent  in  that  dry 
season.  It  was  not  a  lonely  road,  though 
for  long  stretches  it  was  solitary.  Over 
the  brink  of  a  rise  suddenly  would  spring 
up  a  half-dozen  human  figures,  sharp  out- 
lines on  the  blue  sky,  and  a  flock  would 
come  tumbling  after  as  if  clotted  about 
their  feet,  and  there  might  be  a  donkey  or 
two;  it  was  a  Bedouin  family  on  its  north- 
ern migration  to  the  summer  pasturage. 
What  an  isolated  fragment  of  human  life 
it  seemed,  flotsam  tossing  about  with  the 
seasons,  as  Httle  related  to  anything  neigh- 
borly as  seaweed,  yet  spawning  century 
after  century,  living  on,  with  the  milk  of 
goats,  in  such  a  waste;  and  how-  infinitely 
fresh  was  the  simple  scene!  one  or  tw'omen, 
a  boy,  women,  children,  and  goats  tramp- 
ing in  the  desert  toward  water  and  green 
food,  a  type  of  humanity  for  ages — and 
it  was  such  a  wTetched  subsistence!     But 


what  a  bodily  vigor,  what  a  look  of  inde- 
j)endence,  what  a  sense  of  liberty  there 
was  there,  too!  Now  it  would  be  two  or 
three  camels  with  the  canopy  in  which 
women  ride,  with  flocks,  too,  and  more 
men  and  boys,  more  warmly  clad,  with 
more  color  and  importance — some  wealth- 
ier headman  with  his  family  going  the 
same  northward  journey.  Or,  as  the  car- 
riage crested  some  ridge,  we  would  see 
miles  ahead  a  long  line  creeping  on  toward 
us — a  trade  caravan ;  and  after  a  while  it 
w^ould  pass,  the  camels  pouting  in  high  air, 
under  the  loads  of  balanced  boxes  or  bales 
laid  across  them,  lumbering  dumbly  along 
in  the  great  silence,  like  convicts,  as  it  al- 
ways seems  to  me,  from  another  sphere  of 
existence. 

Many  creatures  give  me  vividly  this  im- 
pression of  having  haplessly  intruded  into 
a  state  of  being  not  meant  for  them.  The 
turtles  in  the  swamps  of  my  boyhood,  lean- 
ing their  sly  and  protruded  heads  out  of 
their  impossible  shells,  the  fish  that  have 
great  staring  eyes  in  aquariums,  frogs  and 
toads  and  all  centipedal  sea  creatures,  are 
to  me  foreigners  to  life,  strays,  misbirths, 
"moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized," 
and  all  grotesque  forms  of  life — even 
human  deformity  when  it  becomes  gro- 
tesque— wake  in  me  something  between 
amusement  and  pity  that  they  should  be 
at  all.  I  feel  like  saying  as  a  guide,  wish- 
ing to  correct  a  friend  of  mine,  once  said: 
"Monsieur,  you  are  a  mistake."  But,  of 
all  such  creatures,  the  camel  fills  me  with 
the  most  profound  and  incurable  despair. 
He  is  the  most  homeless-looking  of  all 
creatures.  He  has  been  the  companion 
and  helpmate  of  man  from  the  dawn  of 
human  life,  and  ourrdebt  to  him  through 
uncounted  ages  and  in  places  where  the 
human  lot  has  been  most  penurious  and 
desperate  is  untold;  but  [man  has  never 
been  able  to  enlighten  him;  he  looks,  on 
all  occasions  and  under  all  circumstances, 
hopelessly  bored  with  existence,  unutter- 
ably sick  of  humanity.  There  is  a  suicidal 
mood  in  animal  life,  and  at  times  one  can 
see  glimpses  and  intimations  of  it  surely  in 
the  eyes  of  animals;  the  camel  embodies 
it,  like  a  stare.  I  wish  they  were  all  dead ; 
and  when  I  see  their  bones  in  the  sand,  as 
I  often  do,  I  am  glad  that  they  are  gone 
and  have  left  the  ribs  of  their  tabernacle 
of  life  behind  them  by  the  wayside.  Every 


Tougourt 


desert  traveller  writes  a  little  essay  on  the 
camel.  This  is  mine.  I  will  not  modify 
it  even  for  the  sake  of  the  meharis  that 
come  down  the  route,  overtaking  us  from 
Biskra;  they  are  the  racers  that  have  just 
competed  in  the  yearly  trial  of  speed  from 
Tougourt — aristocrats  of  the  s]^ecies;  they 
have  a  clear  gray  tone  and  slender  deli- 
cacies of  flank  and  skin ;  all  day  they  will 
be  speeding  ahead  and  dropping  behind 
us;  the  desert  is  their  cloth  of  gold  and 
they  its  chivalry — splendid  beasts  they 
are,  as  native  to  this  blown  empire  of  the 
sand  and  the  sun  and  the  free  air  as  a  bird 
to  the  sky — and  they  lift  their  blunt  noses 
over  it  with  unconquerable  contempt.  It 
is  amazing  how  the  creature,  supercilious 
or  abject,  refuses  to  be  comforted.  There 
is  no  link  between  him  and  man.  If  you 
seek  a  type  for  the  irreconcilable,  find  it 
in  the  camel. 

It  is  said  that  one  meets  his  enemy 
in  every  place,  and  every  traveller  expe- 
riences these  surprising  encounters  that 
prove  the  smallness  of  the  world;  but  I 
better  the  proverb,  for  it  is  a  friend  I  meet 
in  the  most  solitary  places.  On  the  lone- 
liest road  of  Greece  a  passing  traveller 
called  out  my  name;  in  the  high  passes  of 
Algiers  I  came  face  to  face  with  a  school- 
mate; and,  however  repeated,  the  expe- 
rience never  loses  its  surprise.  Surely  I 
had  seen  that  gaunt  figure  pressing  up 
on  a  stout  mule  from  the  head  of  the 
fresh  trade  caravan  that  w^as  just  ap- 
proaching; that  face,  like  a  bird  of  prey, 
that  predatory  nose  before  the  high  fore- 
head and  bold  eyes — yes,  it  was  Yussef, 
my  guide  of  years  ago,  with  welcome  all 
over  his  countenance  and  quick  saluta- 
tions to  his  old  companion.  He  was  a 
cara\'an-man  now,  for  the  nonce,  and  com- 
ing up  from  the  Souf.  How  natural  it 
was  to  meet  on  the  desert,  with  the  brief 
words  that  resumed  the  years  and  abol- 
ished the  time  that  had  si)ed  away  and  re- 
newed the  eternal  now.  But  we  must  fol- 
low the  meharis,  slim  forms  on  the  horizon 
ahead,  and  we  went  on  to  overtake  them 
at  Ain  Chegga,  a  mere  stopping-place, 
where  there  was  on  one  side  of  the  way  a 
sort  of  desert-farm,  and  a  relay  of  horses 
waiting  for  us,  and  on  the  other  a  small, 
lonesome  building  by  itself  where  we 
could  lunch  from  our  own  stores.  The 
sun  was  hot  now,  and  the  shade  and  rest 


grateful;  but  we  had  a  long  way  to  go. 
With  thoughtless  generosity  wc  ga\e  our 
fragments  of  bread  to  some  adjacent  boys, 
and  started  otT  rapidly  with  the  fresh 
horses  on  the  great  plain. 

The  road  was  lonelier  than  in  the  morn- 
ing hours;  the  solitude  began  to  make 
itself  felt,  the  silence  of  the  heat,  the  en- 
compassment  of  the  rolling  distances,  the 
splendor  of  the  sky.  There  was  hardly  any 
life  except  the  occasional  shrub,  the  drin. 
I  saw  a  falcon  once,  and  once  a  raven ;  but 
we  were  alone,  as  if  on  the  sea.  Then  the 
Sahara  began  to  give  up  its  bliss — the  un- 
speakable thing — the  innercalm,the  sense 
of  repose,  of  relief,  the  feeling  of  separa- 
tion from  life,  the  falling  away  of  the  bur- 
den, the  freedom  from  it  all  in  the  freedom 
of  those  blue  and  silent  distances  over 
sandy  and  rock-paved  tracts,  full  of  the 
sun.  How  quiet  it  was,  how  large,  and  what 
a  sense  of  effortless  elemental  power — of 
nature  in  her  pure  and  lifeless  being !  It 
is  easy  to  think  on  the  desert,  thought  is 
there  so  near  to  fact — a  still  fresh  imprint 
in  consciousness;  thought  and  being  are 
hardly  separate  there;  and  there  Nature 
seems  to  me  more  truly  felt  in  her  naked 
essence,  lifeless,  for  life  to  her  is  but  an  in- 
cident, a  detail,  uncared  for,  unessential. 
She  does  but  incline  her  poles  and  it  is 
gone.  Taken  in  the  millennial  a^ons  of  her 
existence,  it  is  a  lifeless  universe  that  is, 
and  on  the  desert  it  seems  so.  This  is  the 
spectacle  of  power  where  man  is  not — like 
the  sea,  like  the  vault  of  heaven,  like  all 
that  is  infinite.  What  a  repose  it  is  to 
behold  it,  to  feel  it,  to  know  it — this  elimi- 
nation, not  only  of  humanity,  but  of  life, 
from  things!  The  desert — it  is  the  truth. 
How  golden  is  the  sunlight,  how  majestic 
the  immobile  earth, howglorious  the  reach 
of  it — this  infinite  I  And  one  falls  asleep 
in  it,  cradled  and  fascinated  and  careless, 
Hooded  slowly  by  that  peace  which  pours 
in  upon  the  spirit  to  lull  and  strengthen 
and  quiet  it,  and  to  revive  it  changed 
and  more  in  Nature's  image,  i)urged — so 
it  seems — of  its  too  human  past. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon.  Hamet 
roused  himself  as  we  passed  down  to  oued 
Itel  and  crossed  its  drybed,  and  AH  ceased 
from  his  vagrant  music  as  the  horses 
breasted  the  slope  beyond.  We  came  out 
on  a  high  ridge.  It  was  a  magnificent 
view.     The  long  valley  of  the  great  chotts 


:\\i 


Tougourt 


lay  below  us  transversely,  like  a  vast  river- 
bottom;  far  off  to  the  northeast  glittered, 
pale  and  white,  the  chott  INlelrir,  like  a  sea 
of  salt,  and  before  us  the  chott  Merouan 
stretched  across  like  a  floor,  streaked  with 
blotches  of  saltpetre  and  dark  stains  of 
soil.     The  scene  made  the  impression  on 
me  of  immense  flats  at  a  dead  low  tide, 
reaching  on  the  left  into  distances  without 
a  sea.     It  was  a  scene  of  desolation,  of  un- 
speakable barrenness,  of  the  waste  world; 
its  dull  white  lights  were  infinitely  fantas- 
tic on  the  grays  and  the  blacks,  and  the 
lights  in  the  sky  w^ere  cold;  the  solitude  of 
it  was  complete;  but  its  great  extent,  its 
emptiness,  its  enclosing  walls  of  shadow  in 
the  falling  day  crinkling  the  w^hole  upper 
plane  of  the  endless  landscape  round  its 
blanching  hollows  and  horizontal  vistas 
below,  stamped  it  indelibly  on  my  eyes. 
I  was  not  prepared  for  it;  it  was  an  en- 
largement, a  new  aspect  of  the  world. 
This  was  the  southwestern  end  of  the  chain 
of  chotts,  or  salt  wastes,  that  lie  mostly  be- 
low sea-level  and  are  the  dried-up  bed  of 
the  ancient  inland  arm  of  the  sea  that 
washed  this  valley  in  some  distant  age; 
they  stretch  northeasterly  and  touch  the 
Mediterranean  near  Gabes,  and  the  sug- 
gestion is  constantly  made  that  the  sea 
be  let  into  them  again  by  a  canal,  thus 
flooding  and  transforming  this  part  of  the 
Sahara.     It  may  some  time  be  done;  but 
there  is  some  doubt  about  the  lay  of  the 
levels  and  whether  such  an  engineering 
feat  would  not  result  merely  in  stagnant 
waters.     Meanwhile  it  is  a  vast  barren 
basin,  saline,  and  in  the  wet  season  dan- 
gerous with  quicksands,  unsafe  ground,  a 
morass  of  death  for  man  and  beast.     The 
ridge  where  I  stood  commanded  a  long 
view  of  this  sterile  and  melancholy  waste; 
but  I  did  not  feel  it  to  be  sad;  I  only  felt 
it  to  be;  it  had  such  grandeur. 

We  went  down  by  a  rough  descent  and 
began  the  crossing  of  the  chott  before  us, 
Merouan,  on  its  westerly  edge.  The  road 
ran  on  flat  ground,  often  wet  and  thick 
with  a  coating  of  black  mud,  and  there 
was  the  smell  of  saltpetre  in  the  air;  the 
view  on  either  side  was  merely  desolate, 
night  was  falling,  it  began  to  be  chill ;  and 
by  the  time  we  reached  the  farther  side 
the  stars  came  out.  It  was  a  darkened 
scene  when  we  rode  into  the  first  oasis  of 
young  palms,  without  inhabitants,  which 


belonged  to  some  French  company.  It 
was  full  night  when  we  emerged  again  on 
the  sands;  a  splendor  of  stars  was  over 
us  and  utter  solitude  around;  it  was  long 
since  we  had  seen  any  one,  and  as  the  sec- 
ond oasis  came  into  view  it  looked  like  a 
low  black  island  cliff  on  the  sea,  and  as  de- 
serted. We  drove  into  its  shadows  by  a 
broad  road  like  an  avenue,  with  the  mo- 
tionless palms  thick  on  either  side,  as  in  a 
park;  there  was  no  sign  or  sound  of  life. 
It  was  like  night  in  a  forest,  heavy  with 
darkness  and  silence,  except  where  the 
stars  made  a  track  above  and  our  lights 
threw  a  pale  gleam  about.  -This  oasis, 
which  was  large,  also  seemed  uninhabited; 
and  we  passed  through  it  on  the  straight 
road  which  was  cut  by  other  crossing 
roads,  and  came  out  on  the  desert  by  the 
telegraph-poles.  The  going  was  through 
heavy  sand,  which  after  a  mile  or  two  was 
heavier;  our  hubs  were  now  in  drifts  of  it. 
Hamettook  the  lights  and  explored  to  find 
tracks  of  wheels,  and  the  horses  drew  us 
with  difficulty  into  what  seemed  a  route; 
in  ten  minutes  it  was  impracticable.  We 
crossed  with  much  bumping  and  careering 
to  the  other  side  of  the  telegraph-poles, 
and  that  was  no  better;  forward  and  back 
and  sidelong,  with  much  inspection  of  the 
ground,  we  plied  the  search;  we  were  off 
the  route. 

We  drove  back  to  the  oasis  thinking  we 
had  missed  the  right  way  out,  and  on  its 
edge  turned  at  right  angles  down  a  good 
road;  at  the  corner  we  found  ourselves  in 
the  dunes — there  was  no  semblance  of  a 
route.  We  returned  to  the  centre  of  the  si- 
lent palm  grove,  where  there  were  branch- 
ing ways,  and  taking  another  track  were 
blocked  by  a  ditch,  and,  avoiding  that, 
coasting  another  and  ruder  side  of  the 
grove,  again  at  the  upper  corner  of  the 
oasis  struck  the  impassable;  so  we  went 
back  to  our  starting-place.  Hamet  took 
the  lanterns  and  gathered  up  his  revolver 
and  set  up,  apparently  to  find  the  guard- 
ian, if  there  was  one.  It  was  then  Ali  told 
me  he  had  never  been  to  Tougourt  before; 
Hamet  was  so  experienced  a  guide  that  it 
was  thought  a  good  opportunity  to  break 
in  a  new  driver.  These  French  oases 
across  the  old  route,  with  their  new  roads, 
were  confusing;  and  Hamet  had  not  been 
down  to  Tougourt  of  late.  The  silence  of 
the  grove  was  great,  not  wholly  unbroken 


Tougourt 


'Mo 


now:  there  were  animal  cries,  insect  buzz- 
ings,  hootings,  noises  of  a  wood;  and  every 
sound  was  intensified  in  the  deep  quiet,  the 
strange  surroundings.  It  was  very  late. 
We  had  spent  hours  in  our  slow  progress 
wandering  about  in  the  sands  and  the 
grove  in  the  uncertain  light.  Hamet  was 
gone  quite  a  long  time,  but  at  last  we  saw 
his  waving  lantern  in  the  wide,  dark  avenue 
and  drove  toward  him.  He  got  in,  said 
something  to  Ali,  and  off  we  went  on  our 
original  track,  but  turned  sharply  to  the 
right  before  issuing  from  the  wood,  down  a 
broad  way ;  we  were  soon  skirting  the  west- 
ern edge  of  the  oasis;  branches  brushed 
the  carriage;  the  ruts  grew  deep,  the  track 
grew  narrow,  the  carriage  careened;  we 
got  out,  the  wheels  half  in  the  ditch,  horses 
backing.  Hamet  threw  up  his  hands.  It 
was  midnight.  We  would  camp  where 
we  were.  The  route  was  lost,  whatever 
might  be  our  state;  and  I  did  not  wonder, 
for  as  nearly  as  I  could  judge  we  were  then 
heading  north  by  east,  if  I  knew  the  pole- 
star.  We  were  on  the  only  corner  of  the 
oasis  we  had  not  hitherto  visited ;  the  spot 
had  one  recommendation  for  a  camp — it 
was  a  very  out-of-the-way  place.  The 
horses  were  taken  out,  and  each  of  us  dis- 
posed himself  for  the  night  according  to 
his  fancy.  It  was  intensely  cold,  and  I 
rolled  myself  in  my  rugs  and  sweaters  and 
curled  up  on  the  carriage-seat  and  at  once 
fell  fast  asleep. 

An  hour  later  I  awoke,  and  unwinding 
myself  got  out.  It  was  night  on  the  desert. 
Ali  was  asleep  on  the  box,  upright,  with 
his  chin  against  his  breast.  Hamet  lay  in 
his  burnoose  in  the  sand  some  little  dis- 
tance away.  The  horses  stood  in  some 
low  brush  near  the  ditch.  The  palm 
grove,  impenetrably  black,. stood  behind, 
edging  the  long,  low  line  of  the  sky;  there 
was  a  chorus  of  frogs  monotonously  chant- 
ing; and  before  me  to  the  west  was  the 
vague  of  the  sands,  with  undistinguishable 
lines  and  obscure  hillocks,  overlaid  with 
darkness.  Only  the  sky  gave  distance  to 
the  silent  solitude — such  a  sky  as  one  does 
not  see  elsewhere,  magnificent  with  multi- 
tudes of  stars,  bright  and  lucid,  or  fine  and 
innumerable, melting  into  nebulous  clouds 
and  milky  tracts,  sparkling  and  brilliant 
in  that  keen,  clear,  cloudless  cold,  all  the 
horizon  round.  I  was  alone,  and  1  was 
glad.     It  was  a  wonderful  moment  and 


scene.  Hamet  stirred  in  his  place,  and  I 
went  back  to  my  post  and  slept  soundly 
and  well. 


II 


I  WOKE  at  the  first  streak  of  dawn.  Two 
beautiful  morning  stars  still  hung,  large 
and  liquid,  in  the  fading  night,  but  the 
growing  pallor  of  daybreak  already  dis- 
closed the  wild  and  desolate  spot  where  we 
had  fortunately  stop])ed.  Drifts  of  track- 
less sand  stretched  interminably  before  us; 
the  young  palms  showed  low  and  forlorn 
in  the  gray  air;  the  scanty  brush  by  the 
ditch  was  starved  and  miserable;  every- 
thing had  a  meagre,  chill,  abandoned  look. 
As  soon  as  it  was  light  we  reversed  our 
course,  and  re-entering  the  oasis  hailed 
a  well-hidden  group  of  buildings  with  a 
koubba  that  Hamet  seemed  to  have  dis- 
covered the  night  before.  An  old  Arab 
gave  us  our  bearings.  We  were  seventeen 
kilometres  short  of  Mraier,  the  oasis  which 
we  should  have  reached;  and  now,  making 
the  right  turn-off,  we  saw  in  another  di- 
rection over  the  sands  the  black  line  of 
palms  toward  which  we  had  gone  astray. 
We  soon  covered  the  distance  to  Mraier, 
which  was  a  large  oasis  with  a  consider- 
able village  and  a  caravanserai  whose 
gates  were  crowded  with  camels;  here  we 
got  a  very  welcome  breakfast,  but  we  did 
not  linger,  and  were  quickly  out  again  on 
the  desert  on  the  long  day's  ride  before  us. 

Since  we  passed  the  chott  we  were  in 
the  valley  of  the  oued  Rir,  along  which  is 
strewn  a  chain  of  oases  like  a  necklace  as 
far  as  to  Tougourt  and  beyond.  We  were 
really  on  the  crust  of  what  has  been  well 
called  a  subterranean  Nile,  formed  by  the 
converging  flow  of  two  Saharan  rivers,  the 
oued  Igharghar  and  the  oued  Mya,  whose 
underground  bed  is  pierced  by  wells,  and 
the  waters  gathered  and  distributed  to 
feed  the  oases.  There  are  now  forty-six 
of  these  palm  gardens  that  lie  at  a  distance 
of  a  few  miles  one  from  another,  spotting 
the  arid  sands  with  their  black-green  isles 
of  solid  verdure,  making  a  fantastic  and 
beautiful  hindscai)e  of  the  rolling  plain  of 
mox'ing  sands,  with  many  heights  and  de- 
pressions, stretching  with  desert  breadth 
on  and  on  under  the  uninterrupted  blue  of 
the  glowing  sky.  The  district  has  long 
been  a  little  realm  by  itself,  sustaining 


mo 


Tougourt 


with  much  toil  the  meagre  life  of  its  people 
ami  periodically  invaded  and  subdued  by 
the  great  jKissing  kingdoms  of  the  north. 
Its  prosperity,  however,  really  dates  from 
the  French  occupation.  At  that  time  the 
oases  were  dying  out  under  the  invasion  of 
the  unresting  sands  that  slowly  were  bury- 
ing them  up.  The  French  almost  at  once, 
with  their  superior  skill,  sank  artesian 
wells,  and  the  new  flood  of  water  brought 
immediate  change.  The  number  of  the 
inhabitants  has  doubled,  the  product  of 
dates,  which  are  of  the  best  quality,  has 
increased  many-fold;  and  new  oases  of 
great  extent  and  value  have  been  planted 
by  French  companies.  This  is  one  of  the 
great  works  of  public  beneficence  accom- 
plished by  France  for  the  native  popula- 
tion; and  evidence  of  prosperity  was  to 
be  seen  on  every  hand  all  the  way. 

The  route  for  the  most  part  was  sandy 
with  occasional  stretches  of  rock,  often  a 
beautifully  colored  quartz,  whose  brilliant 
and  strange  veins  harmonized  well  with 
the  deep-toned  landscape;  but  the  eye 
w^andered  off  to  the  horizon  and  drifts  of 
sand  as  the  heavens  began  to  fill  with 
light  and  the  spaces  grew  brilliant ;  in  that 
vacancy  and  breadth  every  detail  grew 
strangely  important  and  interesting;  a 
single  palm,  a  far  glimmer  of  salt,  a  herd 
of  goats,  would  hold  the  eye,  and,  as  the 
day  grew  on,  the  deceptive  atmosphere 
gave  a  fresh  touch  of  the  fantastic,  playing 
with  the  lines  and  forms  of  objects.  We 
passed  from  Mraier,  leaving  these  island 
oases  on  the  horizon  as  the  route  threaded 
its  way  more  or  less  remote  from  them, 
and  at  intervals  we  would  touch  one — a 
palm  grove  on  the  right  and  the  village 
by  itself  on  higher  dry  ground  to  the  left. 
Two  of  these  villages,  of  considerable  size, 
were  entirely  new,  having  been  built  with- 
in two  years;  they  were  constructed  of 
the  sun-dried  mud  commonly  used,  but 
they  did  not  have  the  dilapidated  look  of 
the  ksar;  they  were  clean  and  fresh,  a  new 
home  for  the  people  who  had  abandoned 
the  old  unhealthy  site  that  they  had  for- 
merly occupied  and  had  made  a  new  tow^n 
for  themselves;  and  Hamet,  who  told  me 
this,  said  other  villages  had  done  the  same, 
and  he  seemed  proud  of  their  enterprise 
and  prosperity. 

We  went  on  now  —  through  heavy  sand 
at  times — and  always  there  was  the  broad 


prospect,  the  gray-and-brown  ribbed  dis- 
tance, the  blue  glow — a  universal  light,  a 
boundless  freedom,  the  desert  solitude  of 
the  dry,  soft  air.  ^^C^est  le  vrai  Sahara,^' 
said  Hamet,  content.  For  myself  I  could 
not  free  my  senses  of  the  previous  day's 
impression  of  the  great  chotts  as  of  the 
shore  of  a  world,  and  the  landscape  con- 
tinued to  have  a  prevailing  marine  char- 
acter. I  do  not  mean  that  the  desert  was 
like  the  ocean;  it  was  not.  But  the  out- 
looks, the  levels,  the  sand-colored  and 
blue-bathed  spaces  were  like  scenes  by  the 
sea-shore;  only  there  was  no  sea  there. 
The  affluence  of  light,  the  shadowless  bril- 
liancy, the  silences,  the  absence  of  human- 
ity and  human  things  as  again  and  again 
they  dropped  from  us  and  ceased  to  be, 
were  ocean  traits ;  but  there  was  no  sea — 
only  the  wdnd-sculpture  of  the  sands,  beau- 
tifully mottled  and  printed,  and  delicately 
modulated  by  the  wind's  breath,  only  a 
blue  distance,  an  island  horizon.  Even 
the  birds — there  were  many  larks  to-day 
— seemed  sea-birds,  so  lonesomely  flying. 
But  there  was  never  any  sea.  It  was  the 
kingdom  of  the  sands. 

Here,  not  far  from  the  route,  I  saw  what 
was  meant  by  the  invasion  of  the  sand. 
The  oasis  on  its  farther  side  toward  the 
desert  was  half  blown  over  with  the  white 
drifts  of  it  that  made  in  like  a  tide;  the 
trunks  of  the  palms  were  buried  to  a  third 
of  their  height  in  it ;  the  whole  garden  was 
bedded  wdth  it,  and  as  we  drew  away  from 
the  place,  looking  back,  the  little  oasis 
with  its  bare  palm-stems  resembled  a 
wreck  driving  in  the  sea  of  sands.  Else- 
where I  saw  the  barriers,  fences  of  palm- 
leaves  and  fagots,  raised  against  the  en- 
croaching dunes,  where  the  sand  was 
packed  against  them  like  high  snow-drifts. 
The  sand  grew  heavier  now,  and  as  we 
came  to  Ourlana,  about  which  palmerais 
lay  clustering  in  all  directions,  the  horses 
could  hardly  drag  through  the  deep,  loose 
mass  up  to  the  low  building  and  enclosure 
where  was  our  noon  stopping-place.  The 
resources  of  the  house  were  scanty :  only  an 
omelet,  but  an  excellent  one,  and  coffee; 
bread,  too,  and  I  had  wine.  The  family,  a 
small  one  with  boy  and  girl,  whom  choc- 
olate soon  w^on  to  my  side,  was  pleasant, 
and  there  was  a  welcome  feeling  of  human 
society  about  the  incident;  but  as  I  lit  a 
cigarette  and  watched  the  fresh  horses  put 


Tougourt 


:n7 


in — for  here  we  found  our  second  relay 
that  had  been  sent  ahead  some  days  be- 
fore— I  saw  that,  if  the  population  seemed 
scanty,  it  was  not  for  any  lack  of  num- 
bers. A  short  distance  beyond  our  en- 
closure, and  on  a  line  with  it,  in  the  same 
bare  sandy  waste,  stood  another  long 
building  with  a  great  dome,  evidently  a 
government  structure,  and  at  right  angles 
to  it  before  the  door  was  forming  a  long 
line  of  young  children;  it  was  the  vil- 
lage school — these  were  the  native  boys 
marching  in  to  the  afternoon  session,  for 
all  the  world  like  an  American  school  at 
home.  I  had  not  expected  to  see  that  on 
the  Sahara.  I  photographed  it  at  once 
— a  striking  token  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion; and  I  saw  no  happier  sight  than 
those  playful  little  Arabs  going  to  school. 
We  dipped  ahead  into  the  oasis  by  the 
long  lines  of  palms  lifting  their  bare  stems 
far  overhead  and  fretting  the  sky  with 
their  decorative  border  of  tufts.  Here 
and  there  were  fruit-trees,  and  occasion- 
ally vegetables  beneath,  but  as  a  rule 
there  were  only  the  palms  rising  from  bare 
earth,  cut  by  ditches  in  which  flowed  the 
water;  there  was  no  orchard  or  garden 
character  to  the  soil,  only  a  barren  under- 
ground, but  all  above  was  forest  silence 
and  the  beauty  of  tall  trees.  It  was 
spring,  and  the  trees  had  begun  to  put  out 
their  great  spikes  and  plumes  of  white 
blossoms  in  places,  and  the  air  was  warm 
and  soft.  A  palm  fascinates  me  with  the 
beauty  of  its  formal  lines;  where  two  or 
three  are  gathered  together  they  make  a 
picture;  a  single  one  in  the  distance  gives 
composition  to  a  whole  landscape.  This 
was,  notwithstanding  the  interludes  of 
the  oases,  a  continuously  desert  ride,  and 
I  remember  it  mostly  for  its  beauty  of 
color  and  line,  and  a  strange  intensity  and 
aloofness  of  the  beauty ;  there  was  nothing 
human  in  it.  It  seemed  to  live  by  its  own 
glow  in  a  world  that  had  never  known 
man,  the  scene  of  some  other  planet 
where  he  had  never  been.  There  was, 
too,  over  all  the  monotony  and  immobility 
of  things,  a  film  of  changefulness,  a  waver 
of  surface,  a  shifting  of  lights  and  planes; 
it  was  full  of  the  fascination  of  horizons, 
the  elusiveness  of  far  objects,  and  the  feel- 
ing of  endlessness  in  it,  like  the  sky,  was  a 
deep  chord  never  lost.  It  was  beyond 
Ourlana  that  I  noticed  to  the  southwest, 


a  mile  or  two  away,  three  or  four  detached 
l)alms  by  a  lake;  their  tall  stems  leaned 
through  the  transjxirent  air  above  a 
low  bank  over  a  liquid,  mirror-like  belt 
of  quiet  water — a  perfect  Oriental  scene. 
It  was  my  first  mirage;  and  two  or  three 
times  more  I  saw  it  that  afternoon — the 
perfect  symbol  of  all  the  illusion  of  life. 
How  beautiful  it  was,  how  was  its  beau- 
ty enhanced,  framed  there  in  the  waste 
world,  how  after  a  while  it  melted  away! 

Oasis  after  oasis  dropped  from  us  on  the 
left  and  the  right,  and  in  the  late  afternoon 
we  were  climbing  a  sharp  rise  through  the 
deepest  sand  we  had  yet  encountered,  so 
that  we  all  got  out  and  walked  to  relieve 
the  horses,  and  ourselves  toiled  up  the 
slope;  and  soon  from  the  ridge  we  saw  a 
broad  panorama  like  that  of  the  day  be- 
fore; but,  instead  of  that  salt  desolation, 
here  the  eye  surveyed  an  endless  lowland 
through  which  ahead  ran  a  long  dark  clus- 
ter of  oases,  one  beyond  another,  like  an 
archipelago;  and  Hamet,  pointing  to  one 
far  beyond  all,  on  the  very  edge  of  the 
horizon,  said, ''  Tougourt."  We  descended 
to  the  valley,  passing  a  lonely  old  gray 
mosque,  or  koubba,  of  some  desert  saint 
by  the  way — very  solemn  and  impressive 
it  was  in  the  failing  light,  far  from  men; 
and  we  rolled  on  for  miles  over  land  like  a 
floor,  as  on  a  Western  prairie;  and  the 
stars  came  out;  and  at  intervals  a  dark 
grove  went  by;  and  we  were  again  in  the 
sands;  and  another  grove  loomed  up  with 
its  look  of  a  black  low  island,  and  we 
passed  on  beside  it.  I  thought  each,  as  it 
came  in  view,  was  our  goal,  but  we  kept 
steadily  on.  It  was  nigh  ten  o'clock  when 
we  saw,  some  miles  away,  the  two  great 
lights,  like  low  harbor  lights,  that  are  the 
lights  of  the  gate  of  Tougourt.  Ali  was 
perceptibly  relieved  when  we  made  sure 
of  them;  for  they  were  unmistakable  at 
last. 

Then,  in  that  last  half-hour,  I  witnessed 
a  strange  phenomenon.  The  whole  sky 
w^as  powdered  with  stars:  I  had  never  seen 
such  a  myriad  glimmer  and  glow,  thicken- 
ing, filling  the  heavenly  si)aces,  innumcr- 
able;  and  all  at  once  they  seemed  to  inter- 
link, great  and  small,  with  rays  passing 
between  them,  and  while  they  shone  in 
their  places,  intinite  in  multituile,  light  fell 
from  them  in  long  lines,  like  falling  rain, 
down  the  whole  concave  of  night  from 


318 


Tougourt 


the  zenith  to  the  horizon  on  every  side. 
It  was  a  Niagara  of  stars.  The  celestial 
dome  without  a  break  was  sheeted  with 
the  starry  rain,  pouring  down  the  hollow 
sphere  of  darkness  from  the  apex  to  the 
desert  rims.  No  words  can  describe  that 
sight,  as  a  mere  vision;  still  less  can  they 
tell  its  mystical  effect  at  the  moment.  It 
was  like  beholding  a  miracle.  And  it  was 
not  momentary;  for  half  an  hour,  as  we 
drove  over  the  dark  level,  obscure,  silent, 
lonely,  I  was  arched  in  and  shadowed  by 
that  ceaseless  starry  rain  on  all  sides  round; 
and  as  we  passed  the  great  twin  lights  of 
the  gates,  and  entered  Tougourt,  and  drew 
up  in  the  dim  and  solitary  square,  it  was 


still  falling. 


Ill 


I  EMERGED  the  next  morning  from  the 
arcaded  entrance  of  the  hotel,  which  was 
one  of  a  continuous  line  of  low  buildings 
making  the  business  side  of  the  public 
square,  and  glancing  up  I  saw  a  great  dog 
looking  down  on  me  from  the  flat  roof. 
There  w^as  little  other  sign  of  life.  The 
square  was  a  large  irregular  space  which 
seemed  the  more  extensive  owing  to  the 
low  level  of  the  adjoining  buildings,  over 
which  rose  the  massive  tower  of  the  kasbah 
close  at  hand  on  the  right  and,  diagonally 
across ,  the  high  dome  of  the  French  B  ureau, 
with  its  arcaded  front  beneath,  filling  that 
eastern  side.  A  fountain  stood  in  the 
midst  of  the  bare  space,  and  beyond  it  was 
"a  charming  little  park  of  trees;  and  still 
farther  the  white  gleam  of  the  barracks, 
through  the  green  and  on  either  side, 
closed  the  vista  to  the  south.  The  Mo- 
resque architecture,  which  the  French  af- 
fect in  the  desert,  with  its  white  lights  and 
open  structure,  gave  a  pleasing  amplitude 
to  the  scene;  and  the  same  style  was  taken 
up  by  the  main  street  straight  down  my 
left,  whose  line  was  edged  by  a  long  arcade 
with  low  round  arches,  and  the  view  lost 
itself  beyond  in  the  market-square  with 
thick  tufts  of  palms  fringing  the  sky.  A 
few  burnoosed  figures  were  scattered  here 
and  there. 

Hamet  joined  me  at  once,  still  content; 
he  held  in  his  hand  a  telegram  from  his 
new  boy,  or  those  who  could  interpret  for 
him.  We  turned  at  once  to  the  near  cor- 
ner by  the  kasbah,  where  was  the  entrance 


to  the  old  town  and  the  mosque — a  pre- 
cinct of  covered  streets,  narrow,  tortuous 
ways,  with  blank  walls,  dim  light.  There 
were  few  passers-by;  occasionally  there 
was  a  glimpse  of  some  human  scene;  but 
the  general  effect,  though  the  houses  were 
often  well  built,  was  dingy,  poor,  and  mean, 
as  such  an  obscure  warren  of  streets  must 
seem  to  us,  and  there  was  nothing  here  of 
the  picturesque  gloom  and  threatening 
mystery  of  Figuig.  I  remember  it  as  a 
desert  hive  of  the  human  swarm;  it  was  a 
new,  strange,  dark  mode  of  man's  animal 
existence.  This  was  a  typical  desert  town, 
an  old  capital  of  the  caravans.  It  had 
been  thus  for  ages;  and  my  feeling,  as  I 
wandered  about,  was  less  that  of  the  life 
than  of  its  everlastingness. 

We  went  back  to  the  mosque  and  climbed 
the  minaret.  It  was  a  welcome  change  to 
step  out  on  the  balcony  into  the  flood  of 
azure.  The  true  Sahara  stretched  round 
us — the  roll  of  the  white  sands,  motion  in 
immobility;  and  all  about,  as  far  as  one 
could  see,  the  dark  palm-islands  in  the 
foreground  and  on  every  horizon.  The  ter- 
race roofs  of  the  old  town  lay  dark  under 
our  feet;  off  there  to  the  west  in  the  sand 
were  the  tombs  of  its  fifty  kings ;  eastward 
the  palm  gardens,  bordering  and  over- 
flowing into  the  new  quarter  with  its  mod- 
ern buildings,  lifted  their  fronds;  and  near 
at  hand  the  tower  of  the  kasbah,  and  here 
and  there  a  white-domed  koubba,  rose  in 
the  dreaming  air;  and  the  streets  with 
their  life  were  spread  beneath.  Tougourt, 
at  the  confluence  of  the  underground 
streams,  is  the  natural  capital  of  the  Rir 
country,  a  commanding  point;  on  the 
north  and  west  it  is  walled  against  the  in- 
road of  the  sands ;  south  and  east  is  a  more 
smiling  scene,  but  the  white  sand  lies  every- 
where between,  like  roads  of  the  sea;  it  is 
the  queen  of  the  oases,  and  one  under- 
stood in  that  sparkling  air  why  it  was  called 
a  jewel  of  the  desert.  I  went  down  to  the 
gardens,  where  there  were  fruit-trees  and 
vegetables  among  the  palms,  but  for  the 
most  part  there  was  as  usual  only  the  bar- 
ren surface  of  earth,  fed  with  little  canals 
and  crossed  by  narrow  raised  footways, 
over  which  sprang  the  fan-shaped  or  cir- 
cular tufts  of  sworded  green.  On  that 
side,  too,  was  a  native  village — dreary 
walls  of  sun-dried  earth  with  open  ways; 
they  seemed  merely  a  new  form  of  the 


Tougourt 


319 


naked  ground  shaped  perpendicularly  and 
squared — windowless,  sealed,  forlorn.  I 
entered  one  or  two.  Indeed,  I  went  every- 
where that  morning,  for  the  distances  were 
short. 

In  the  afternoon  I  sat  down  by  a  table 
near  a  cafe  in  the  market-square,  and  I 
remained  there  for  hours  over  my  cofTee, 
watching  the  scene.  All  Arab  markets 
are  much  alike,  but  this  was  prettily 
framed.  On  my  right  a  pa'm  grove  rose 
over  a  low  wall;  on  the  left,  across  the 
broad  space,  the  low  line  of  shops,  with  a 
glistening  koubba  dome  in  their  midst, 
broke  the  blue  sky;  and  all  between,  in 
front,  was  the  market-place.  In  the  fore- 
ground were  a  few  raised  booths,  or  tables, 
and  at  the  near  end  by  a  group  of  three  or 
four  palms  was  a  butcher's  stock  in  trade, 
the  carcasses  hanging  on  the  limbs  of  a 
dead  tree.  Farther  off  to  the  left  squatted 
a  half-dozen  Bedouins  round  little  fagots 
of  brushwood  spread  on  the  ground,  and 
beyond  them  a  group  of  animals  huddled; 
in  the  centre,  on  the  earth,  one  behind  an- 
other into  the  distance,  were  many  little 
squares  and  heaps  of  country  goods,  each 
with  its  guardian  group  as  at  a  fair — veg- 
etables, grains,  cloths,  slippers,  ropes,  caps, 
utensils — that  together  measured  the  scale 
of  the  simple  wants  of  the  desert.  The 
place,  though  not  crowded,  was  well  filled 
with  an  ever-moving  and  changing  throng, 
gathering  into  groups  here  and  there — tur- 
baned  people  of  every  tint  and  costume, 
young  and  old,  poor  and  prosperous,  pic- 
turesque alike  in  their  bright  colors  or  worn 
rags;  but  the  white  or  brown  flowing  gar- 
ments predominated.  There  were  Arab 
and  Berber  faces  of  purer  race;  but  in  the 
people  at  large  there  was  a  strong  negroid 
character,  showing  the  deeper  infusion  of 
negro  blood  which  one  notices  as  he  goes 
south  of  the  Atlas.  All  the  afternoon  the 
quiet  but  interested  crowd  swarmed  about; 
and  round  me  at  the  close  tables  were  sol- 
diers and  Arabs  who  seemed  of  a  more 
prosperous  class,  drinking  and  talking, 
playing  at  cards,  chess,  and  dominoes,  and 
some  were  old  and  grave  and  silent.  At 
our  table  there  was  always  one  or  two,  who 
came  and  went,  to  whom  Hamet  would 
perhaps  present  me,  a  thin-featured  cadi, 
a  burly  merchant  —  and  we  talked  a  little; 
but  1  left  the  talk  to  them  and  watched 
the  scene,  and  from  time  to  time  snapped 


my  camera.  A  caravan  came  down  the 
street,  with  great  boxes  strapped  on  the 
camels,  and  I  thought  the  first  two  would 
sweep  me,  camera,  table, and  all,  out  of  the 
way;  but  the  long  line  got  by  at  last,  un- 
gainly beasts  with  their  pawing  necks  and 
sardonic  mouths.  At  Tougourt  one  was 
always  meeting  a  caravan.  As  I  stood,  at 
a  later  hour,  in  a  lonely  corner  by  the  wall 
outside  the  gates,  one  was  just  kneeling 
down  on  the  great  sweep  of  the  sand-hill 
to  camp  in  the  melancholy  light  that  was 
falling  from  the  darkening  sky — a  sombre 
scene;  and  when  I  came  out  of  the  hotel 
at  night  I  found  another  sleeping,  humped 
and  shadowy,  on  the  public  square.  The 
camel  was  as  omnipresent  as  the  palm,  and 
belonged  to  the  same  dunes  and  sky;  and 
as  I  sat  watching  there  through  the  un- 
eventful and  unhurried  hours,  the  market- 
place was  a  microcosm  of  the  desert  world. 

IV 

I  SPENT  the  evening  in  the  Cafe  Maiire 
of  the  Ouled-Nails.  They  are  la  femme 
of  the  Sahara,  daughters  of  a  tribe  whose 
centre  is  at  Djelfa,  not  far  from  Laghouat, 
leagues  away  to  the  west,  and  thence  they 
are  dispersed  through  the  desert,  adept 
dancing-girls  who  perform  in  cafes;  and 
in  that  primitive  society,  it  is  said,  no  re- 
proach attaches  to  their  mode  of  life,  which 
yields  them  a  dowry  and  brings  them  at 
last  a  husband.  The  custom  is  not  pecul- 
iar to  the  Sahara :  I  have  read  of  its  exist- 
ence in  Japan  and  in  the  north  of  Scotland 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  I  had  met 
with  them  before,  and  was  familiar  with 
their  figures,  but  always  in  a  tourist 
atmosphere;  here  they  were  on  their  own 
soil,  and  an  natiirel,  and  I  expected  a 
different  impression. 

The  room  was  rather  large,  with  the  fur- 
nace and  the  utensils  for  colTee  in  the 
corner  near  the  entrance ;  four  or  live  musi- 
cians, on  a  raised  platform,  were  discours- 
ing their  shrill  barbarian  art,  but  it  i)leases 
me  with  its  plaintive  intensity  and  rapid 
crescendos,  in  its  sa\age  surroundings;  a 
bench  went  round  the  wall,  and  there  were 
tal)les,  at  one  of  which  Hamet  and  I  sat 
down,  and  cofTee  was  brought.  There 
were  not  many  in  the  room — a  sprinkling 
of  soldiers,  mostly  in  the  blue  of  the  ti- 
railleurs, Arabs,  old  and  gray-bearded,  or 


:l>o 


Tougourt 


younger  and  stalwart  like  AH,  whom  I  had 
k)st  sight  of  and  now  found  here,  much 
more  attractive  than  I  had  thought  pos- 
sible, with  a  desert  rose  in  his  mouth  and 
a  handsome  comrade.  A  few  women  with 
the  high  head-dress  and  heavy  clothes  they 
wear  were  scattered  about.  Close  behind 
me,  and  to  my  left,  was  a  wide  entrance  to 
the  dark  shadows  of  the  half-lighted  court 
whose  cell-like  rooms  I  had  inspected  in 
the  morning,  and  men  and  women  were 
passing  in  and  out,  singly  and  in  groups, 
all  the  evening.  For  a  while  there  was 
no  dancing — only  the  music;  but  at  some 
sign  or  call  a  full-grown  woman,  who 
seemed  large  and  heavy,  began  the  slow 
cadence  and  sw^ay  of  the  dance.  I  had 
often  seen  the  performance,  but  never  in 
such  a  setting ;  at  Biskra  and  in  the  north 
it  is  a  show^;  here  it  was  a  life.  She  fin- 
ished, and  I  beckoned  to  a  young  slip  of  a 
girl  standing  near.  She  came,  leaning  her 
dark  hands  on  the  table,  with  those  un- 
thinking eyes  that  are  so  wandering  and 
unconcerned  until  they  fill  with  that  liquid 
superficial  light  which  in  the  south  is  so 
like  a  caress.  I  offered  her  my  cigarettes, 
and  she  smiled,  and  permitted  me  to  ex- 
amine the  bracelets  on  her  arms  and  the 
silver  ornaments  that  hung  from  her  few 
necklaces ;  she  was  simply  dressed  and  not 
over-ornamented;  she  was  probably  poor 
in  such  riches;  there  was  no  necklace  of 
golden  louis  that  one  sometimes  sees;  but 
there  were  bracelets  on  her  ankles,  and  she 
wore  the  head-dress,  with  heavy,  twisted 
braids  of  hair.  A  blue  star  was  tattooed 
on  her  forehead,  and  her  features  were 
small  but  fine,  with  firm  lines  and  rounded 
cheek  and  chin;  she  was  too  young  to  be 
handsome,  but  she  was  pretty  for  her  type 
and  she  had  the  pleasant  charm  that  youth 
gives  to  the  children  of  every  tint  and  race. 
She  stood  by  us  a  while  with  a  little  talk, 
and  as  the  music  began  she  drew  back  and 
danced  before  us;  and  if  she  had  less  mus- 
cular power  and  vivacity  than  the'previous 
dancer,  she  had  more  grace  in  her  slighter 
motions.  She  used  her  handkerchief  as  a 
background  to  pose  her  head  and  profile 
her  features  and  form;  and  all  through  the 
dance  she  shot  her  vivid  glances,  that  had 
an  elasticity  and  verve  of  steel,  at  me. 
She  came  back  to  tak  ^  our  applause  and 
thanks,  and  talked  with  Hamet,  for  her 
simple  French^  phrases  were  exhausted; 


there  was  nothing  meretricious  in  her  de- 
meanor, rather  an  extraordinary  sim- 
plicity and  naturalness  of  behavior;  she 
seemed  a  thing  of  nature.  The  room  be- 
gan to  fill  now;  three  women  were  dan- 
cing ;  and  she  went  over  to  the  bench  by  the 
wall  opposite,  and  I  noticed  a  young  boy 
of  eight  or  ten  years  ran  to  sit  by  her  and 
made  up  to  her  like  a  little  brother.  There 
were  three  or  four  such  young  boys  there. 
The  scene  was  now  at  its  full  value  as 
a  picture;  not  that  there  was  any  throng 
or  excitement,  and  to  a  European  eye  it 
might  seem  only  dull,  provincial, rude;  the 
rather  feebly  lighted  room  was  obscure  in 
the  corners  and  the  walls  were  naked;  the 
furnace  corner,  however,  was  full  of  dark 
movement,  the  sharp  music  broke  out 
afresh,  the  dance  was  almost  sombre  in 
its  monotony,  seen  mechanically  and  with- 
out any  apparent  interest  by  the  Arabs, 
wrinkled  and  grizzled,  banked  together  or 
leaning  immobile  on  the  bench  by  the  wall; 
and  the  cavernous  shadow  of  the  court 
behind  me  made  a  fine  background  to 
the  figures  or  groups  that  disappeared  or 
emerged,  or  sometimes  stood  stationary 
there  in  the  semi-obscurity.  To  my  color 
and  shadow  loving  eye  it  was  an  interest- 
ing scene;  and  its  rudeness  enhanced  its 
quality.  I  noticed  many  a  slight  thing:  a 
tall  negro  stalked  along  the  opposite  wall 
with  a  handful  of  candles  which  he  offered 
to  a  woman  and  found  no  welcome  for,  and 
he  went  away  apparently  exceeding  sor- 
rowful. And  I  sat  there  long  in  the  midst 
of  it,  thinking  of  striped  tents  by  the  city 
wall  in  the  sand  near  the  graves;  of  streets 
in  the  Orient  and  the  north  where  the 
women  sit  by  the  door-post  like  idols ;  and 
especially  reconstructing  in  imagination 
the  scenes  of  a  romance  by  an  Arab  which 
I  had  lately  read,  depicting  the  life  of  an 
Ouled-Nail  along  these  very  routes  where 
I  had  been  passing,  a  book  full  of  desert 
truth — ^'Khaled,"  it  is  called.  Toward 
ten  o'clock  we  rose  to  go,  and  I  caught  the 
eye  of  the  young  girl  I  had  talked  with, 
and  had  a  smile  for  good-by. 


V 


The  horses  stood  at  the  door  early  the 
next  morning  for  a  drive  toTemacin,some 
thirteen  kilometres  south.  We  were  soon 
out  of  town,  travelling  beside  an  oasis  on 


Tougourt 


321 


the  left  and  going  in  the  open  desert ;  a  boy 
joined  us  from  the  oasis  and  excitedly 
struggled  to  keep  up  with  the  carriage,  no 
difficult  task,  for  the  route  was  heavy  with 
sand;  two  other  boys  on  donkeys  ahead 
were  having  a  race;  and  the  route  had 
always  some  touches  of  travel.  The  open- 
ness of  the  view  was  boundless,,  and  I 
had  not  seen  finer  sands,  stretching  away 
in  long  rolls  and  ridges,  and  mounded 
into  splendid  dunes,  with  palms  here  and 
there  for  horizon-lines.  There  were  always 
groups  and  little  strings  of  camels,  isolated 
but  living,  in  the  expanse  over  which  the 
eye  roamed;  we  passed  from  time  to  time 
within  view  of  clumps  of  lost  palms,  little 
oases  buried  and  left  in  the  sands,  half- 
submerged,  derelicts;  now  there  were 
Bedouin  tents,  low,  striped  shelters,  by 
one's  or  two's,  pitched  on  the  sterile  waste, 
looking  infinitely  solitary,  at  a  distance 
from  a  small  village  or  a  ridge  that  itself 
seemed  a  heap  of  ruined  and  ribbed  walls 
left  abandoned.  The  morning  w^as  hot, 
the  sun  beat  down,  and  every  line  and 
tracery  of  the  wind  w^as  visible  on  the 
sand.  The  surface  of  the  dunes  was 
beautiful — light  and  full  of  the  spirit  of 
fantasy;  the  modulation  was  exquisite, 
ribbed  and  fretted,  furrowed  in  lines  and 
touched  all  over  wath  little  disks  and 
curves,  like  the  imprint  of  small  shells; 
and  their  mottled  and  wavy  surfaces 
broke  the  monotony  of  the  vast  slopes 
and  dunes  like  an  infinite  enamelling  of 
nature.  It  was  the  land  of  the  blue  dis- 
tance, the  simple  in  the  grand,  the  apothe- 
osis of  paucity  in  the  means,  of  poverty  in 
the  substance,  elemental,  abstract,  superb : 
the  glory  of  the  desert.  I  never  so  felt  it 
as  on  that  morning.  I  w^atched  the  slen- 
der, lilm-like,  far-off  minaret  of  Temacin 
take  body  and  height  as  we  drew  nearer 
and  nearer,  and  saw  plainly  and  distinctly 
at  last  the  boldly  perched,  irregular  ob- 
long of  walls  and  roofs  that  topped  a  rising 
ridge  of  the  sands,  with  its  minaret  like  a 
dark,  mediiuval  tower  standing  in  heaven 
with  a  lance-like  solitude.  Its  top  was 
bordered  with  a  broad  frieze  of  colored 
tiles  and  capped  with  a  pyramidal  head  or 
balcony  j)ierced  with  slim  Moorish  arches. 
There  were  men  working  under  the  wall; 
but  the  town  looked  marvellously  silent 
and  alone,  dark  and  withdrawn,  like  an 
impenetrable  earthern  ruin,  incommunica- 


ble; it  rose  as  if  made  of  the  earth  itself, 
with  the  dilapidation  of  old  earthworks, 
forbidding  and  melancholy,  with  no  touch 
of  life  except  the  gleam  of  its  tiled  mina- 
ret; in  all  that  sun  it  seemed  sunless — ruin- 
ous, decadent,  infinitely  old.  Soon  after 
we  passed  another  heap  of  earth-walls  on  a 
sand-mound,  a  small  village,  and  came 
almost  at  once  to  Tamelhat,  the  zaouia, 
which  we  had  set  out  to  see. 

High  walls  surrounded  the  enclosure, 
which  was  extensive.  Tamelhat  is  a  holy 
village,  a  chief  seat  of  the  religious  or- 
der of  the  Tidjania  and  daughter  of  the 
mother-zaouia  at  Ain  Madhi  near  La- 
ghouat,  with  which  it  shares  the  devotion 
of  this  important  brotherhood,  one  of  the 
most  influential  of  theMoslemassociations 
in  North  Africa.  The  zaouia  is  a  sort  of 
monastery  or  abbey;  but  I  was  not  pre- 
pared to  find  it  so  large  an  establishment. 
We  left  the  carriage  at  the  gate,  and  passed 
in  to  a  second  gate,  and  I  was  struck  by 
the  ornamental  work  and  texts  on  them 
and  on  the  walls.  A  straight  avenue  led 
down  to  an  open  space  where  the  mosque 
stood  on  the  right  side  of  the  street  as  we 
turned  sharply  upon  it.  Three  square  win- 
dows set  in  little  ornamented  arches  in 
the  centre  broke  the  broad  white  space  of 
the  wall,  and  there  were  other  windows 
irregularly  placed.  A  little  to  one  side  was 
a  heavy  door,  with  a  double  row  of  faience 
set  over  its  square  top  and  descending 
on  beautiful  onyx  pillars.  An  octag- 
onal dome,  tipped  with  a  shaft  of  three 
golden  balls,  completed  the  building  above. 
It  was  a  pretty  exterior  with  a  touch  of  art 
in  the  line  of  windows,  and  as  I  passed  into 
the  interior  by  the  lovely  onyx  columns  it 
seemed  like  a  reminiscence,  abnost  a  renais- 
sance, to  find  before  my  gaze  the  familiar 
blue  and  green  tiles,  plaques  of  wrought 
plaster  in  arabesque,  pretty  bits  of  faience 
adornment, — forms  of  the  ornament  and 
color  so  delightful  to  me.  The  interior 
was  roomy,  with  good  spaces,  and  lofty 
above;  in  the  main  fore  part  a  palanquin 
was  in  one  corner,  and  a  few  tombs  were 
placed  here  and  there;  but  the  shrine,  the 
tomb  of  the  marabout  who  founded  the 
zaouia,  stood  in  the  s{)ace  to  the  left, 
directly  under  the  dome,  as  in  a  chapel.  It 
was  heavily  covered  with  stutTs,  as  usual, 
and  overhung  with  many  banners;  a  grill 
ran  round  it,  and  outside  of  that  a  wooden 


Tougourt 


rail;  the  tomb  also  bore  Arabian  texts. 
The  whole  effect,  notwithstanding  the 
bareness,  the  few  elements,  the  uncostly 
materials,  had  the  grand  simplicity  of  the 
Moslem  faith;  it  was  impressive — impos- 
ing to  a  simjile  soul ;  but,  beyond  the  rest- 
ful sense  of  the  neighborhood  of  beautiful 
and  sacred  things  in  that  far  and  desert 
solitude,  what  pleased  me  most  and  the 
feature  I  carried  away  to  be  my  memory 
of  it  was  the  ample  lights  in  the  cool 
spaces  by  the  open  windows  above  the 
tomb  toward  the  street,  where  the  birds 
were  continually  fluttering  in  and  out,  un- 
frightened  and  undisturbed,  as  if  this  was 
their  quiet  home. 

I  thanked  the  Arab  sacristan  who  stood 
looking  at  me  with  old  and  tranquil  eyes, 
and  we  went  out  and  walked  up  the  street 
which  seemed  like  a  long  cloister.  There 
were  grilled  w^indows  on  the  well-built 
walls  at  intervals ;  a  few  men  sat  here  and 
there  on  benches  along  the  way;  it  seemed 
a  place  of  peace.  The  street,  which  was 
quite  long  and  straight,  ended  in  a  large 
court  near  which  was  the  dwelling  of  the 
marabout.  Hamet  asked  me  if  I  would 
like  to  see  him,  and  I  gladly  assented. 
After  a  brief  interval  an  Arab  came  to  us, 
to  whom  I  gave  my  coat  and  what  things 
I  was  carrying;  and  leaving  them  below 
he  guided  us  up  an  irregular  stairway,  as 
in  an  old  house,  and  took  us  into  a  rather 
large,  high  room,  plainly  plastered  and 
bare.  The  desert  saint — such  he  was — 
was  seated  on  the  floor  in  the  middle  of 
one  side  by  the  wall  on  a  rug ;  he  was  old 
and  large,  white-bearded,  with  a  heavy 
look,  as  if  he  were  used  to  much  repose 
and  was  aged.  He  gave  me  his  hand  as 
I  stooped  down  to  him,  and  after  a  word  or 
two  invited  me  to  be  seated  at  a  plain 
table  before  him  ir^  the  middle  of  the  room ; 
and  attendants  silently  brought  food. 
There  was  already  in  the  room  the  caid 
of  Temacin,  a  stout  and  prosperous-look- 
ing Arab,  to  whom  Hamet  presented  me, 
and  the  three  of  us  sat  down  to  what 
turned  out  to  be  a  hearty  breakfast.  Two 
or  three  other  tall  Arabs,  apparently  be- 
longing to  the  family,  sat  by  the  wall  to 
my  left,  as  I  faced  the  marabout,  and  at 
a  doorway  in  the  corner  on  the  right  stood 
a  group  of  different  ages,  younger,  with 
one  or  two  boys,  intelligent  and  bright- 
eyed.     The  caid  and  myself  talked  in  low 


tones,  and  no  one  else  spoke,  except  from 
time  to  time  the  marabout  gave  some 
direction  to  the  attendants,  apparently  of 
a  hospitable  nature,  as  each  time  it  re- 
sulted in  fresh  dishes.  There  was  pastry 
that  resembled  rolls,  and  after  a  few  mo- 
ments, served  in  another  form,  hot  with 
sugar,  it  resembled  pancakes,  but  I  dare 
say  it  was  something  quite  different,  and 
the  marabout  urged  it  upon  me;  there 
was  another  combination  that  reminded 
me  distantly  of  doughnuts,  with  w^hich 
the  hot  food  ended;  but  there  was  a  des- 
sert of  French  cakes,  almonds,  and  dried 
aromatic  kernels  like  peas,  and  much  to 
my  surprise  there  were  oranges  that  must 
have  come  on  camel-back  from  Biskra. 
There  was  coffee,  too,  with  a  curious  pot 
and  sugar-bowl,  and  the  whole  service  was 
excellent,  the  attendants  kindly  and  press- 
ing, though  very  quiet.  It  appeared  after- 
ward that  no  one  ever  sees  the  saint  eat; 
his  food  is  brought  and  left,  and  he  takes 
what  he  likes  alone.  I  observed  him 
through  the  meal,  and  occasionally  he  ad- 
dressed a  sentence  of  inquiry  or  interest  to 
us.  The  impression  he  made  on  me  was 
one  of  great  indolence,  as  if  he  had  never 
done  anything  for  himself,  and  also  of 
what  I  can  only  describe  as  a  somnolent 
temperament,  heavy  and  rousing  himself 
at  times ;  but  it  may  have  been  only  age. 
The  profound  silence  and  atmosphere  of 
awed  respect  were  remarkable;  the  few 
words  spoken  were  hardly  above  a  whis- 
per, and  the  caid  and  I  used  low  tones.  It 
was  a  hospitable  and  generous  breakfast, 
however,  and  the  manner  of  it  wholly 
pleasant  and  friendly;  and  as  I  again  took 
the  old  marabout's  large,  soft  hand,  and 
expressed  my  pleasure  and  thanks  for  hav- 
ing been  thus  received,  he  seemed  to  me 
very  cordial  and  kind ;  and  for  my  part  I 
was  glad  that  I  had  found  the  unusual  ex- 
perience of  breakfasting  with  a  saint  so 
agreeable.  The  caid  and  I  parted  below, 
and  I  walked  back  through  the  tranquil 
street  and  by  the  mosque  with  the  bird- 
haunted  windows  and  the  onyx  portal,  well 
pleased  with  my  morning  in  such  a  place 
of  peace  and  good  will. 

We  drove  back  through  the  hot  horizons 
of  a  burning  noon;  by  sombre  Temacin 
with  its  far-seen  tower,  old  watcher  of  the 
desert;  by  the  distant  western  oasis  with 
its  two  gleaming  koubbas,  that  seemed  to 


Tougourt 


323 


dissolve  between  the  sands  and  the  blue; 
by  the  Bedouin  tents  crouched  in  the  long 
drifts  below  the  brow  of  the  earthen  ruin 
whose  walls  gaped  on  the  hill  with  fissure 
and  breach.  We  passed  a  bevy  of  bright- 
colored  Bedouin  women  hurrying  in  their 
finery'  to  some  marabout  to  pray.  The  long 
slopes  and  mounded  dunes  had  not  lost 
that  wonderful  enamel  of  the  breath  of  the 
wind.  All  nature  seemed  to  stretch  out  in 
the  glory  of  the  heat.  It  was  spring  on  the 
desert ;  it  was  a  dreaming  world.  "  Le  vrai 
Sahara,'"  said  Hamet,  half  to  himself.  And 
slowly  over  the  palmy  plain,  beyond  the 
lost  oasis,  the  tower  and  minaret  of  Tou- 
gourt, slim  lines  on  the  sky,  grew  distinct 
in  their  turn,  and  solid,  and  near,  and  we 
drove  in  through  the  garden  green  as  over 
a  threshold  of  verdure.  It  was  a  great 
ride. 

The  day  ended  lazily.  I  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  a  few  courteous  words  with  the  agha 
of  Tougourt,  to  add  to  my  hospitable 
distinctions.  "He  is  an  Arabian  prince," 
said  Hamet  proudly,  as  we  walked  away. 
Along  the  arcade  I  saw  a  Jew  seated  cross- 
legged  with  his  back  to  the  jamb  of  his 
shop;  he  held  a  hea\y  folio  volume  on  his 
lap  and  seemed  to  peruse  it  with  grave 
attention .;  that  was  the  only  time  I  ever 
saw  a  native  reading  a  book  in  North 
Africa,  and  I  looked  curiously  at  the  fine 
venerable  face.  The  boys  wxre  playing 
leap-frog  before  the  hotel  as  I  came  back 
from  my  walk;  they  had  thrown  off  their 
haiks,  or  jackets,  or  whatever  their  upper 
garment  might  be.  How  they  played! 
with  what  strong,  young  sinews  and  vi- 
vacity of  rivalry  and  happiness  I  though 
the  children  of  the  street  seemed  often 
poor,  destitute,  and  with  faces  of  want.  I 
photographed  two  of  these  Bedouin  boys, 
with  whom  I  had  made  friends.  In  the 
evening  I  sat  outside  and  watched  the 
camp-fires  burning  by  the  camels  in  the 
square.  I  thought  of  the  massacring  of 
the  French  garrison  here  forty  years  ago, 
and  of  the  protests  that  a  military  inter- 
preter, Fernand  Philii)pe,  records  from  the 
lips  of  the  soldiers  when  a  year  or  two 
later  the  government  contemj^lated  with- 
drawing from  this  advanced  desert  post. 


It  was  a  place  of  homesickness,  of  fever, 
and  of  utter  isolation;  but  the  soldiers 
wished  to  stay — withdraw?  never  I — and 
all  this  peace  and  prosperity  that  I  had 
witnessed  was  the  French  peace. 


VI 


It  was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning 
when  I  went  out  to  start  on  the  return 
under  the  stars.  The  streets  were  dark 
and  silent  as  we  drove  out;  but  the  heav- 
ens were  brilliant,  and  the  twin  lights 
of  Tougourt  shone  behind  us  like  light- 
houses as  we  made  out  into  the  sandy 
plain.  A  few  miles  on  we  passed  a  com- 
pany of  soldiers  convoying  a  baggage-train 
— strong,  fine  faces  above  their  heavy 
cloaks,  marching  along  in  the  night.  The 
stars  faded  and  day  broke  quietly — a  faint 
green,  a  dash  of  pink,  a  low  black  band  of 
cloud,  and  the  great  luminary  rolled  up 
over  the  horizontal  waste.  The  morning 
hours  found  us  soon  in  the  heavy  sands 
of  the  upland,  with  the  old  gray  mosque 
and  stretches  of  the  hois,  the  desert  drin, 
and  we  descended  into  the  country  of 
the  marine  views,  the  land  of  the  mirage, 
mirror-like  waters  shoaling  on  banks  of 
palm,  dreaming  their  dream;  and  now  it 
was  Ourlana  and  the  school,  fresh  horses 
and  an  early  arrival  at  Alraier,  and  sleep 
in  the  caravanserai  amid  horses  and  camels 
and  passing  soldiers,  a  busy  yard.  The 
chotts  looked  less  melancholy  as  we  passed 
over  the  lowland  in  the  bright  forenoon, 
and  again  there  shimmered  the  far  salt — 
the  ocean-look  where  there  was  no  sea, 
near  marine  views,  and  there  was  much 
mirage;  and  we  climbed  the  ascent  and 
glided  on  over  the  colored  quartz,  and  the 
range  of  the  Aures  rose  once  more  above 
the  horizon,  beautiful  and  calling,  and  Ain 
Chegga  seemed  a  familiar  way-station. 
Fresh  horses,  and  the  last  start,  and  Bordj 
Saada  seemed  a  suburb;  and  as  we  drove 
into  Biskra,  with  its  road  well-filled  with 
pedestrians  and  carriages,  it  seemed  like  a 
return  to  Furopc — so  soon  tloes  thetra\- 
eller's  eye  become  accustomed  to  what  at 
first  was  ''  rich  and  strange."  And  Hamet 
went  to  his  baby  boy. 


THE    GHOST    ON    THE    STAIRS 


By  Mrs.  W.  K.  Clifford 


^rm^m^:^ 


IRS.  DAWLEY  sat  on  the 
sands,  leaning  a  little  for- 
ward, watching  the  great 
waves  that  came  nearer  and 
nearer,  foaming  and  roar- 
ing at  their  highest,  then 
spending  themselves  on  the  shore,  only 
to  be  followed  by  others  that  were  higher 
and  louder  and  came  nearer  still,  as  if 
they  were  trying  to  force  her  back,  up 
the  steps  and  along  the  pathway,  to  the 
little  house  at  the  end  of  the  terrace  in 
which  she  lived  her  secluded  life. 

She  had  gone  down  to  the  sea,  when  the 
early  post  brought  its  news,  to  think  the 
past  years  over,  holding  in  her  hand  the 
while  a  gold  cross  on  a  slender  chain 
which  she  wore  round  her  neck.  It  had 
been  given  her  in  Rome  some  years  be- 
fore, a  parting  gift  from  a  Catholic  friend 
who  was  about  to  take  the  veil.  Con- 
cealed in  it  was  a  little  photograph  of 
Leo  XIII.  Leo  XIII  had  blessed  it,  the 
friend  told  her,  and  said:  "Wear  it  day 
and  night;  it  will  keep  the  Evil  One  from 
you."  She  pressed  it  against  her  face  now, 
while  gradually  she  realized  what  the  news 
meant.  Just  this,  that  the  man  she  had 
loved  best  in  the  world  was  lying  dead, 
not  here  but  in  London.  She  had  sup- 
posed that  all  feeling  for  him  had  ended, 
that  he  was  nothing — nothing  to  her;  but 
those  three  lines  had  made  her  heart  leap 
and  then  grow  cold,  as  if  an  icy  hand  had 
been  laid  on  it.  She  had  risen  to  her  feet 
and  stood  for  a  moment  dazed,  then  read 
the  notice  again,  and  again,  and  told  her- 
self that  it  was  true — true,  he  was  dead; 
it  was  all  over,  everything  in  the  world 
was  over  for  him — never,  never  would  she 
see  him  again.  And  O  God!  dear  God, 
how  did  it  fare  with  him? 

It  was  impossible  to  stay  in  the  house; 
the  whole  weight  of  the  ceiling,  of  the  roof 
itself,  seemed  to  be  on  her  head.  She' 
dragged  herself  out,  along  the  garden 
path,  to  the  road,  to  the  little  gate  and 
324 


down  the  steps  to  the  bay,  which  was  al- 
ways deserted  in  the  early  morning;  it 
was  the  one  place  in  which  she  might  be 
able  calmly  to  think.  The  sands  looked 
soft  and  yellow,  the  sea  was  blue,  the  sky 
was  blue,  the  sunshine  was  everywhere. 
The  great  waves  seemed  to  mock  her — all 
Nature  seemed  to  mock  her;  she  felt  afraid 
and  lonely,  an  alien  in  the  world;  for  a 
moment  she  almost  lost  count  of  her  own 
identity  and  wondered  aimlessly  how  she 
came  there,  and  thought  again  of  the  man 
she  had  loved.  He  was  lying  dead.  She 
imagined  his  face,  and  wondered  if  he  had 
thought  of  her  in  that  last  hour,  and  if  he 
had  known  that  the  end  was  coming. 

She  had  been  married  to  him  when  she 
was  twenty- two.  He  was  infatuated  with 
her  for  three  weeks  before  he  proposed 
and  for  a  hurrying  month  after  he  was  ac- 
cepted, well  content  for  half  a  year  of 
marriage.  Then  he  cooled  down.  He 
was  incapable  of  being  constant  to  any 
one  woman  long,  and  rather  despised  the 
men  who  were;  he  thought  it  showed  a 
lack  of  enterprise  and  too  much  satisfac- 
tion with  existing  conditions  which,  he 
told  her  with  a  laugh,  he  held  to  be  fatal 
to  the  advancement  of  the  world  in  gen- 
eral and  the  exhilaration  of  man  in  par- 
ticular. Two  years  later  she  had  di- 
vorced him  and  was  living  alone  at  St. 
Ives.  For  a  time  she  was  utterly  miser- 
able; then  the  thought  of  the  other  woman, 
of  his  desertion — his  desertion  for  that 
woman! — had  filled  her  with  a  shivering 
anger  and  repulsion.  She  imagined  that 
she  had  learned  to  hate  him.  Now  it  was 
all  swept  away,  and  she  thought  of  the  day 
she  had  met  him  first,  of  the  mad  infatu- 
ation on  his  part  and  her  own  calmer, 
deeper  love  for  him:  it  struggled  to  come 
back,  and  the  tones  of  his  voice,  the  sound 
of  his  laughter,  filled  her  ears. 

The  waves  frightened  her;  they  seemed 
to  know — they  did  know — she  felt  it, 
heard  it ;  they  came  nearer  and  nearer  with 
their  message.  They  drove  her  at  last  into 
her  own  room  to  lie  face  downward  on  the 


The  Ghost  on  the  Stairs 


325 


bed  and  think.  Lionel  was  dead,  and  the 
other  woman  had  watched  beside  him. 
What  could  he  have  seen  in  her,  "a  free 
lance"  she  had  been  called,  probably  be- 
cause she  lived  alone,  smoked — and  drank 
too  much,  it  was  said — painted  little  daubs 
of  pictures,  and  had  a  studio  at  Chelsea  to 
which  she  gathered  a  Bohemian  godless 
set?  * 

Those  last  two  words  made  Edith  Daw- 
ley  stop  and  shiver  again.  She  was  a  re- 
ligious woman,  and  she  didn't  believe  that 
a  serious  thought  had  entered  his  heart  or 
brain  since  the  day  he  made  his  marriage 
vows  only  to  break  them.  She  had  talked 
to  him  of  their  solemnity  once.  He  had 
looked  rather  amused  and  said:  "All  right, 
my  dear.  I  don't  believe  in  hell,  you 
know,  and  if  there  is  one  I  don't  expect  it's 
such  a  bad  place,  after  all."  Now  per- 
haps he  was  standing  at  the  bar  waiting 
for  judgment.  How^  had  he  lived  these 
last  few  years?  How  had  he  died?  Had 
any  one  prayed  beside  him  when  he  w^as 
ill?  Did  any  one  kneel  by  him  now  that  he 
was  dead?  The  old  tenderness  had  stolen 
back  into  her  heart,  but  with  it  there 
came  a  paralyzing  fear,  an  awful  dread. 

She  looked  at  The  Times  again — on  the 
8th.  This  was  the  loth.  He  was  probably 
lying  in  the  front  room  over  the  first  floor 
in  Connaught  Square,  the  house  he  had 
removed  to  after  the  divorce.  She  felt 
that  she  would  give  everything  she  pos- 
sessed to  see  him  once  again,  to  see  his 
dead  face — even  to  be  near  the  house  in 
which  he  lay  still  and  cold  would  be  some- 
thing. 

She  got  up,  hesitated,  and  with  weary 
eyes  looked  round  the  room,  then  took 
a  time-table  from  a  little  shelf  over  the 
bureau  in  the  corner.  The  London  train 
started  at  10.25 — three-quarters  of  an 
hour  hence.  As  if  at  the  bidding  of  a 
dream,  she  put  on  a  long  black  cloak  and 
hat,  tied  a  thick  veil  over  her  face,  gath- 
ered a  few  things  into  a  hand-bag,  and  with 
a  word  or  two  of  explanation  to  the  soli- 
tary servant  went  down  to  the  station. 

A  long,  weary  day.  The  train  stopped 
at  all  the  little  Cornish  places.  Despair- 
ingly she  stared  at  them,  at  the  station- 
master  gossiping  with  the  guard,  at  the 
few  passengers,  country  folk  mosl  ly,  carry- 
ing baskets  or  bags,  leisurely  taking  lea\'e 
of  those  who  had  come  to  see  them  oil. 


The  start  again  was  slow  and  reluctant; 
but  after  Plymouth  the  engine  seemed 
to  shake  itself  free  and  rushed  on,  the 
carriages  rocking  with  relief  behind  it. 
Across  the  quiet  west  country,  past  sleepy 
villages  and  their  blurred  name-boards  at 
the  stations,  till  with  a  shriek  of  exulta- 
tion they  were  in  sight  of  Exeter — the  plat- 
form was  crowded  with  people,  but  the 
train  only  gathered  speed  as  if  to  avoid 
some  signal  that  might  delay  it. 

All  the  time  in  her  thoughts  she  fol- 
lowed a  scared  and  silent  procession  of 
men  and  women  who  went  through  the 
gate  of  the  world  and  on  in  the  mist  and 
blackness  toward  a  shining  road — for  the 
stars  were  its  landmarks — and  a  distance 
that  was  saturated  with  light  and  mys- 
tery. Away  from  it  stretched  a  pathway, 
dark  and  dank  it  looked,  darker — darker 
till  blackness  hid  it.  She  shuddered  with 
dread  as  they  came  near  and  went  past  her 
— the  ghostly  men  and  women.  She  could 
see  them  plainly.  Their  worn  faces  were 
marked  with  care  and  pain  and  remem- 
bered deeds;  their  shadowy  robes  and  out- 
stretched hands  would  have  touched  her 
but  for  the  screening  glass;  she  watched 
their  noiseless  feet,  that  had  not  power  to 
hesitate  or  stop,  going  on — and  on.  O 
merciful  God,  was  Lionel  among  them  I 
And  what  would  be  his  sentence  when  it 
was  given  out?  Which  way  would  his 
feet  turn  ?  Suddenly  she  remembered  be- 
ing told  that  the  Semitic  races  believed 
the  soul  did  not  leave  the  body  till  the 
third  day.  Perhaps  even  yet  there  was 
time!  With  her  whole  heart,  with  pas- 
sionate intensity,  she  prayed — as  she  sat 
there  silent,  motionless,  in  the  railway 
carriage — pleading  his  carelessness,  his 
charm  and  good  nature,  his  lack  of 
strength  to  do  right  and  of  intention  to 
do  wrong;  and  his  happy  generosity,  for 
he  had  given  all  he  possessed  carelessly 
enough. 

She  arrived  at  Paddington  in  the  eve- 
ning and  waited  till  the  twilight  came. 
Then,  leaving  her  hand-bag  in  the  cloak- 
room, she  put  down  her  veil  and  walked 
slowly  to  Connaught  Square.  It  was  just 
a  little  way — she  knew  the  house  well,  for 
long  ago  she  had  gone  to  parties  next  door 
to  it. 

The  blinds  were  down;  there  were  lights 
in   the   dining-room;   probably   she — the 


.S20 


Tlie  Gliost  on  the  Stairs 


other  woman — was  having  dinner.    Edith 
Dawley  shrank  back,  and   drawing   her 
cloak  round  her  walked  by  on  the  other 
side  and  looked  up.     The  windows  were 
oi)en  a  little  way  in  the  room  over  the 
drawing-room.     It  was  as  she   thought 
.  .  .  While  she  hesitated  at  the  corner  a 
servant  opened  the  door  and  whistled  for 
a  cab.     A  woman  came  out  and  drove 
away — the  woman  who  had  supplanted 
her.     And  the  dead  man  was  left  in  the 
house.     If  only  she  could  get  in  and  see 
his  face  once  more?   But  she  had  no  cour- 
age to  knock,  no  excuse  to  give.     She 
walked  round  the  square  again,  the  shad- 
ows of  the  calm  night  hesitated  to  shroud 
it,  but  gradually  they  were  blurring  and 
hiding  and  beautifying  everything  with 
their  grayness.     As  she  drew^  near  the 
house  again  a  postman  went  there  and 
knocked  twice;  she  w^as  ten  yards  off,  she 
saw  him  give  in  a  letter  and  a  paper  which 
the  servant,  leaving  the  door  open,  evi- 
dently went  away  to  sign.     Without  con- 
sidering what  she  w^as  doing,  she  went  up 
the  steps  and  entered  the  house.     The 
postman,  seeing  her  blackness,  thought 
she  belonged  to  it;  the  servant  had  not 
returned. 

She  went  softly  up-stairs  to  the  room, 
the  electric  light  had  not  been  turned  on, 
but  enough  twilight  lingered  to  let  her  see 
the  way.  The  door  was  locked,  but  the 
key  was  there;  she  turned  it  and  went  in. 
It  felt  very  still  and  cold  and  everything 
was  w^hite :  the  whiteness  showed  plainly 
through  the  gathering  darkness.  Between 
the  windows  she  could  see  dimly  that  for 
which  she  was  seeking.  For  a  moment 
she  shuddered  and  hesitated.  On  a  little 
table  outside  she  had  vaguely  noticed  a 
candlestick  and  a  box  of  matches;  she 
went  back  for  the  matches,  took  them  into 
the  room  and  shut  the  door.  For  a  mo- 
ment she  stood  still,  while  gradually  the 
room  revealed  itself  to  her  and  the  silence 
struck  icily  at  her  heart;  a  sheet  was  over 
him;  she  drew  it  back  and  softly  lit  a 
match,  shielding  it  with  her  figure  so  that 
its  radiance  might  not  fall  on  the  door  and 
show  from  without.  Then  she  saw  his 
face.  It  was  grave  and  very  sad — she  felt 
her  whole  being  reach  out  to  him  with 


yearning  love,  with  pity  and  dread.  6 
God,  what  did  his  closed  eyes  see — what 
was  he  hearing — what  surprise  had  come 
to  him  ?  She  lighted  another  match,  care- 
fully smothering  the  little  sound  its  strik- 
ing made.  Another  long  look,  an  uncon- 
scious entreaty  to  all  the  unknown  Im- 
mensities— then  wdth  her  left  hand  she 
pulled  the  gold  cross  from  her  neck  and 
pushed  it  into  the  white  folds  next  his 
heart.  "If  it's  true  what  they  believe," 
she  thought,  "it  will  help — it  will  bar  the 
downward  way."  She  drew  the  sheet 
back  over  his  face.  The  ends  of  the 
matches  were  in  her  hands;  she  clutched 
them  tightly;  the  last  one  burned  her 
palm,  but  she  did  not  even  feel  it. 

The  closed  door  was  between  them 
again;  she  turned  the  key  and,  keenly 
listening  with  the  sense  of  a  hunted  woman 
leaving  forever  all  that  was  left  of  what 
had  once  been  dearest  life,  she  went  slowly 
down. 

There  was  no  light  on  the  staircase,  but 
as  she  passed  the  first  floor  she  could  see 
that  a  door  was  open;  the  room  beyond 
was  still  and  dark;  her  dress  made  a  little 
swishing  sound  against  the  banister — a 
smothered  cry — a  sound  of  fright  within 
the  drawing-room — a  movement  and  then 
a  halt  from  sheer  horror — she  knew  it  was 
her  chance  and  quickened  her  steps.  In 
a  minute  she  was  at  the  street  door ;  she 
closed  it  noiselessly,  but  a  scream  met  her 
ears — the  sudden  isolated  scream  of  fear. 
Luckily  the  house  was  near  a  corner;  she 
turned  it  and  disappeared. 

She  went  back  to  Cornwall  by  the  night 
mail,  desolate,  miserable,  but  shiveringly, 
shudderingly  thankful.  "It  will  bar  the 
way,"  she  said  to  herself  again  and  again; 
"perhaps  I  have  done  that  for  him." 
In  the  darkness  without  the  faces  of 
thwarted  fiends  shaped  themselves  and 
pressed  against  the  windows;  they  mocked 
and  mouthed  at  her;  she  covered  her  face 
with  her  hands.  .  .  . 

Three  months  later,  in  a  letter  from  a 
friend,  she  heard  that  the  house  in  Con- 
naught  Square  was  empty.  It  was  said 
to  be  haunted  by  a  w^oman  in  black,  who, 
in  the  twilight,  went  up  and  down  the 
staircase. 


THE    FETE    OF    M'SIEUR    BOB 
By  Mary   Raymond  Shipman   Andrews 

Illustrations  hy  Thilh'  R.   Goodwin 


SMALL,  fair  man  whose 
scholarly  forehead  was  set 
into  child-like  curls,  not 
very  gray  yet  at  sixty-five, 
in  his  dressing-room,  his 
careful  morning  toilet  al- 
most completed,  fresh  in  line  linen  and 
well-cut  tweed,  he  fingered  a  razor.  With 
a  considering  manner  he  moved  the  blade 
this  way  and  that.  Through  the  closed 
door  came  the  sound  of  his  valet  in  his 
bedroom.  The  man  turned  a  glance  to- 
ward the  door,  reflectively;  then,  with  a 
shrug,  lowered  the  razor.  ''  Such  a  mess," 
he  muttered,  and  proceeded  quietly  to 
put  on  his  coat. 

It  was  the  self-contained  gentleman  to 
whom  the  valet  was  accustomed  who 
gave  a  crisp  order  two  minutes  later. 
''The  electric  in  half  an  hour,  Stebbins." 

In  exactly  half  an  hour,  as  he  walked 
through  the  door  of  his  house,  another, 
younger  man  was  stepping  along  the  side- 
walk. This  one  stopped;  a  smile  lighted 
his  face. 

"I'm  delighted  to  see  you  back,  Mr. 
Schuyler,"  he  said. 

Schuyler's  greeting  was  calm,  a  bit  aus- 
tere, yet  there  was  pleasure  too  in  his 
manner.  He  nodded  toward  the  brough- 
am and  the  chauffeur  at  the  curb.  *'  Won't 
you  drive  down  with  me?" 

Walter  Morgan  hesitated.  ^'I  meant 
to  walk,"  he  said.  "It's  hard  to  get  ex- 
ercise. But  I  want  to  hear  about  the 
Canadian  fishing.  You  had  a  wonderful 
time?"  he  began  as  the  car  slid  away. 
"And  how  are  you?     A  lot  better?" 

Schuyler  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "As 
to  that — but  the  fishing  was  very  fine.  I 
took  a  large  number  of  salmon.  One  of 
them  kept  me  busy  two  hours  ])y  the 
clock.  The  only  reason  I  killed  him  and 
he  didn't  kill  me  is  that  I  had  a  flask 
and  he  hadn't.  He  weighed  thirty-seven 
pounds." 

"Ah!"  said  Morgan  enviously;  "I'd 
Vol.  LV.-33 


like  a  chance  like  that.     I've  never  taken 

salmon." 

"You  should  have  come.  I  wanted 
you." 

"I  wanted  to  go,"  answered  Morgan. 
"But  I  must  work  for  my  living  at  times 
instead  of  going  fishing.  It's  hard  lines." 
He  slewed  about  and  regarded  the  older 
man.  "It's  done  you  good,  I  hope?"  he 
asked  again.  "A  month  of  fighting  sal- 
mon ought  to  do  good."  But  his  tone 
was  uncertain  as  he  gazed  at  the  worn 
face,  with  its  reserve,  with  the  tell-tale 
sadness  in  the  large  eyes. 

Peter  Schuyler,  millionaire  banker,  art 
amateur,  collector,  expert  fisherman,  met 
the  gaze.  The  blue  eyes,  which  with  the 
carved  features  and  short,  fair  curls,  had 
given  him  inTiis  heyday  the  title  of  "the 
most  beautiful  boy  in  New  York" — the 
old  blue  eyes  knew  how  to  guard  against 
impertinent  looks.  He  had  been  stared  at 
all  along  his  life.  But  he  did  not  meet 
Walter  Morgan's  gaze  with  the  usual 
chilling  courtesy.  He  was  fond  of  this 
man.  The  mask  was  dropped,  and  Mor- 
gan, looking,  saw  a  lonely  soul  in  trouble. 

Then  Schuyler  laughed,  not  mirthfully. 
"To  tell  the  truth,  I  didn't  have  such  a 
tremendous  spree  up  there  by  myself.  I 
got  a  bit  depressed.  A  man  isn't  in  high 
spirits  after  a  bout  of  nerves.  You  were 
lucky  in  not  going  with  me." 

"I  would  have  given  a  great  deal  to 
go,"  Morgan  threw  back.  "If  I  could 
have  helped  you  at  all  it  would  have  been 
an  added  pleasure." 

"You're  very  good,"  said  Schuyler,  in  a 
colorless  tone.  And  Morgan  felt  that  he 
had  somewhere  oxerstcpped  the  line,  and 
the  talk  drifted  swiftly  to  commonplace. 

A  week  later  the  ycuuiger  man  aj)- 
j)eared  on  a  morning  at  Peter  Schuyler's 
office.  Although  nearly  July  there  were 
doings  in  the  world  of  affairs  which  made 
necessary  his  i)resence  there.  Morgan 
got  through  the  suave  clerks  and  secre- 

327 


328 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


tarics  who  guarded  the  throne.    "  I  have  a 
scheme,"  he  began. 

Something  in  the  joyous,  friendly  man- 
ner of  this  man  always  touched  Schuyler 
with  a  shock  of  pleasure. 

"Vou  have?"  he  threw  back,  and 
smiled  as  few  people  saw  him  smile. 

Morgan  went  on.  ''You  remember 
that  I've  told  you  about  our  camp  in  the 
club  in  Canada?" 

"Certainly." 

"It's  a  rough  log  camp,  you  know,  but 
it's  a  great  lake  country,  and  the  trout 
are  thick  and  big.  Would  you  consider 
coming  up  there  with  Bob  and  me  for  a 
month?" 

The  great  blue  eyes  regarded  the  other 
man  wdth  a  startled  expression.  A  flush 
crept  across  Morgan's  fresh  color. 

'T  quite  realize,  Mr.,  Schuyler,"  he 
said,  "that  you  have  any  number  of  at- 
tractive things  to  do,  always.  I  feel  that 
it's  rather  presuming  to  suggest  this.  My 
idea  was" — he  hesitated  a  little  and  went 
on  with  a  winning  sincerity.  "My  idea 
was  partly  that  the  simplicity  of  the  thing 
might  be  a  change,  after  the  way  you  get 
•  amusement  generally.  My  young  broth- 
er Bob  is  uncommonly  good  company 
too.  I'm  pretty  sure  you'd  find  him  good 
company.  And  then — it  would  be  such  a 
pleasure  to  Bob  and  me.  My  wife  has 
gone  to  England  with  her  sister  for  Au- 
gust. Bob  and  I  are  off  by  ourselves  on 
July  29th.     I  believe  you'd  enjoy  it.     Do 


come. 


My  dear  fellow,"  said  the  banker,  and 
laid  his  hand  on  Morgan's  hand,  lying  on 
the  desk.  "My  dear  fellow!"  he  re- 
peated, and  stopped  a  second.  "Enjoy 
it!  You've  given  me  the  best  moment 
I've  had  for  months  merely  in  asking  me. 
I'm  so  pleased  to  think  you  want  me.  I 
didn't  know" — he  stopped.  "I'm  get- 
ting old,"  he  said,  and  his  voice  broke  as 
the  hidden  soreness  of  his  soul  crept  into 
it.  "I'm  old — and  sick.  Those  things 
are  not  attractive.  Young,  strong  peo- 
ple don't  want  detrimentals."  Then 
quickly,  giving  no  chance  for  an  answer, 
he  went  on  with, calm  dignity  again.  "I 
can't  quite  tell,  Morgan.  May  I  let  you 
know  in  a  few  days?  I  may  have  to — be 
somewhere  else,  at  that  time." 

Morgan  was  gone.     Peter  Schuyler  sat 
at  his  desk  with  the  door  locked.     He 


stared  down  at  the  litter  of  papers.  For 
moments  he  sat  so,  staring.  Then  in  a 
flash  he  was  alert;  a  gleam  came  into  the 
blue  eyes.  He  drew  a  bunch  of  keys  from 
his  pocket  and  chose  one  and  opened  a 
drawer.  Out  of  it  he  lifted  a  small, 
bright  affair,  and  turned  the  barrel  to- 
ward him.  He  looked  into  it,  half  long- 
ing, half  curious. 

"Peace  dowm  there,"  he  whispered. 
"Peace,  locked  up — I  think.  1  think  it's 
peace.  Shall  I  turn  the  key  and  let  peace 
loose  into  my  brain?" 

He  lifted  and  cocked  the  pistol  and 
pressed  the  cold  ring  of  the  end  of  it 
against  his  forehead.  His  finger  was  on 
the  trigger. 

"One  easy  movement  and  this  unbear- 
able life  would  be  over."  He  was  whis- 
pering aloud  again.  "God  knows  what 
next.  I've  a  right  to  see.  Haven't  I? 
Why  haven't  I?  It's  my  own  life."  He 
was  arguing  now  against  some  ghostly  ad- 
versary. 

With  that  he  sighed  suddenly,  wearily; 
he  lowered  the  pistol,  put  it  at  half-cock, 
laid  it  back  in  its  drawer,  and  locked  the 
drawer. 

"Not  yet,"  he  spoke.  'T  can't  leave 
loose  ends  to  other  men." 

He  whirled  in  his  swinging  chair  and 
stared  from  the  high  window.  Over  New 
York  Bay  the  June  sunlight  poured  and 
broke  across  millions  of  wave-tops.  Ships 
moved  with  leisurely  swiftness;  sail-boats 
fled  before  the  wind,  like  irresponsible, 
playful  big  birds.  Away  down  there  the 
tall  goddess  lifted  her  torch  eternally  over 
the  eternal  ocean.  It  seemed,  as  he  looked 
at  it,  a  glaring  happy  planet,  with  no  cor- 
ner in  it  which  needed  him.  His  wife  was 
dead;  his  children  were  grown  and  mar- 
ried and  rich ;  he  had  more  money  than  he 
could  use;  there  was  no  point  in  piling  up 
more  still;  he  was  ill;  he  was  growing  old. 
What  dignity  was  there  in  a  life  with  no 
work  to  do?  So  he  reasoned,  and,  clear 
of  brain  as  he  was,  never  saw  his  fallacy. 
A  disgust  of  the  whole  useless  round  of  his 
days  seized  him  as  he  sat  at  the  wide  win- 
dow of  the  nineteenth  story  of  the  great 
building  and  looked  over  the  teeming  June 
world.  He  would  not  stay  about  this 
place,  earth,  and  finish  out  an  ever-sillier 
life  of  twenty  or  thirty  more  years.  In 
September,  when  his  business  should  be 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


329 


so  arranged  that  he  might  leave  it  with- 
out giving  too  much  trouble,  here  in  his 
office  he  would  take  out  the  little  steel 
affair  and  retire  from  life.  The  time  be- 
tween must  be  got  through. 

With  that  he  was  aware  of  a  subcon- 
scious pleasant  thought,  and  dragged  the 
thought  out.  The  Morgans  had  asked 
him  to  their  camp  for  a  month.  He  would 
go.  It  would  be  an  agreeable  taste  for  his 
last  mouthful  of  life.  With  a  brighten- 
ing face  the  man  who  had  decided  on  sui- 
cide drew  a  sheet  of  paper  toward  him 
and  wrote.  .  .  . 

"Many  happy  returns.  Bob." 

The  eight-o'clock  sunlight  of  the  Au- 
gust morning  poured  full  on  the  lake 
dancing  twenty  feet  aw^ay.  In  the  woods 
it  was  cool;  a  light  breeze  was  stirring. 
Schuyler,  moving  through  sun-spotted 
shadows  down  the  trail,  from  the  big  tent 
which  was  the  guest-room,  came  in  range 
of  Bob  Morgan  on  the  log  step  hovering 
over  an  assortment  of  articles.  He  sprang 
up,  a  big  young  American  in  a  gray  flannel 
shirt,  and  towered  above  the  small,  el- 
derly gentleman  in  his  dapper  woods  togs. 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Schuyler.  Good 
morning,  sir.  I  want  to  thank  you  a  lot 
for  this  stunning  reel.  It's  a  wonder," 
said  Bob.  "I  never  saw  one  like  it,  and 
I'm  clean  crazy  about  it.  It  sure  was 
nice  of  you."  He  shook  hands  with  a 
smile  like  the  morning  and  a  grip  that 
made  Schuyler  wince. 

"Good,"  said  the  older  man  heartily, 
with  a  throb  of  satisfaction.  "  You've  got 
a  good  bit  of  loot,  I  see." 

"You  bet — I  mean,  ves,  indeed," 
agreed  Bob.  "Walter  gave  me  these 
cunnin'  things,"  and  he  dangled  a  huge 
pair  of  Canadian  bottes  saiwages,  cari- 
bou moccasin  boots.  "And  Margaret, 
my  sister-in-law,  sent  this  princely  fly- 
book;  and  my  mother  some  silk  socks, 
which  I  can't  wear  with  the  hunting- 
boots;  and  my  uncle  donated  this  shot- 
gun. Walter  bought  it  for  him.  Isn't 
that  a  beauty?"  He  handed  it  over  for 
inspection.  "And  I've  got  other  things 
— an  electric  torch,  and  books,  and  a  sub- 
scription to  Country  Life — a  lot  of  stuff'. 
See." 

"You're  a  lucky  fellow,"  said  Peter 
Schuyler.     He  thought  of  his  sons,  and 


the  automobiles  and  checks  which  cele- 
brated their  birthdays,  and  of  the  satiated 
appetites  which  needed  that  and  more  to 
stir  them.  He  considered  the  pleasure  of 
Bob  in  his  presents  and  found  him  lucky. 
"You're  a  fortunate  lad,"  he  repeated. 
"Where's  your  brother?" 

Bob  turned  his  head  and  lifted  his  hand. 
"Shaving,"  he  whispered.  "Hear!"  Out 
of  the  other  side  of  the  camp  issued 
sounds  as  of  measured  wailing.  Indian 
medicine-men  over  a  victim  might  chant 
such  music.  "That's  his  shaving-song," 
explained  Bob.  "It  dies  down  when  he's 
in  action — hear?  He's  finished  now;  lis- 
ten to  that! "  Loud  and  steady  the  wails 
swelled  triumphant  through  the  camp 
window. 

"  I  want  to  be  an  ange-eye-el 
And  with  th'  ange-eye-els  stand; 
A  crown  upon  my  fore-eye-head 
A  harp  within  my  hand-hand-hand 
A  harp  within  my — 

"Bobby,  you  young  cuss,  where's  my 
trewsies?  Holy  Moses,  Bob,  you've 
coopered  my  trewsies  and  I  haven't  got 
the  wherewithal  to  appear  in  society  and 
how " 

Bob  sent  a  big  laugh  crashing  into  the 
everlasting  hills.  "  Cut  it  out,  Wallie,"  he 
shouted.  "I'll  bring  the  trewsies — left 
'em  in  my  room  to  dry,"  he  explained  en 
passant  as  he  dashed  inside,  and  then 
came  swinging  out,  his  tall  head  bent  in 
the  low  doorway,  with  the  cherished  rai- 
ment. 

Schuyler  watched  him  as  he  went  leap- 
ing like  a  giant  young  rabbit  down  the 
wide  gallery  of  the  camp.  Bob's  strength 
and  youth  never  made  him  feel  old  and 
quiet,  as  that  of  many  youngster?  It 
seemed  rather  that  youth  and  strength 
were  in  the  air  and  he  himself  likely  to 
catch  them.  From  the  other  side  of  the 
camp  came  now  a  chastened  song  of  joy. 

"Every  night  I  used  to  hang  my  trewsies  up 
On  the  back  of  the  bedroom  door," 

warbled  Morgan,  far,  far  out  of  Harry 
Lauder's  tune.  Boi)  swung,  moccasin- 
footed,  around  the  corner,  grinning. 

"He'll  bo  ready  in  a  minute,  sir.  Hun- 
gry for  your  breakfast?" 

And  Schuyler,  now  he  came  to  think  of 
it,  was  hungry.  The  guides'  camp  and 
the  dining-room  and  the  kitchen  were  a 


330 


Tlie  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


huiulrcd  \aRls  away  through  the  woods. 
The   procession    of    three    filed    down    a 
brown    thread    of    trail,    deep    in  forest 
shades,  briijjht  with  drops  of  sunlight,  lil- 
tered,   shaken    through    the   birches  and 
spruces.     The  breeze  blew  the  tall  ferns, 
and  the  ferns  nodded  a  broken,  contin- 
uous good-morning,  and   brushed  them 
softly  as  they  passed.    A  brown  partridge 
ran  across  the  brown  earth  by  an  old 
log  and  fled  clucking  up  the  hillside.     Up 
there,   one    heard    the   ring   of   an   axe, 
and  knew  that  the  garqons,  the  younger 
guides,   were  after  firewood.     The  lake 
sparkled  through  the  tree-trunks  like  a 
mammoth,  tossing  field  of  jewels.     And 
with  that  the  dining-camp  was  in  view. 
Godin,  the  butler,  stood  smiling;  a  pleas- 
ant crackling  of  wood,  a  flash  of  flame,  a 
sputtering  of  hot  butter  in  the  frying-pan, 
an  appetizing  smell  of  homely  good  things 
to  eat,  such  as  bacon  and  trout  and  coffee, 
met  them  full,  coming  around  the  moss- 
set  trail.     They   sat  down  on  backless 
plank  benches  about  a  table  covered  with 
w^hite    oil-cloth,    and    breakfasted    from 
enamelled- ware  plates,  and  the  roof  above 
their  heads  made  all  the  dining-room  there 
was.     Yet  that  is  a  misstatement,  for  the 
walls  of  their  dining-room  were  a  pano- 
rama.    The  lake  twenty  feet  from  their 
feet  lapped  two  sides  of  the  knoll  shadowy 
wdth  spruce  trees;  across  the  lake  green 
hills  crowded  to  the  water  and  beyond 
them  tops  of  higher  hills  rolled  into  the 
blueness  of  the  oldest  mountains  on  the 
planet,  the  Laurentian  range. 

''Gosh,"  remarked  Bob  later,  and  pat- 
ted his  lungs,  "I've  et  plentiful."  And 
Godin  carried  away  the  last  poelee  of 
flapjacks  untouched.  The  butler  here 
served  flapjacks  in  the  frying-pan.  And 
with  that  Godin  stepped  forward  and 
presented  Morgan  with  a  pile  of  envel- 
opes. 

^' La  poste,  m'sieur,'''  he  said.  ''The 
morning's  mail,"  and  rippled  a  laugh. 

Morgan  put  them  in  his  corduroy 
pocket  with  a  grave  "Thank  you,"  and 
led  the  way  over  the  trail  back  to  camp. 
There  one  proceeded  to  sit  on  the  step  of 
the  wide  log  gallery,  facing  down  the  lake 
to  the  Damned  Little  River  two  miles 
away,  and  read  the  letters.  There  were 
five.  In  various  forms,  all  unconven- 
tional, Jean  Godin,  Josef  Vezina,  Jacques 


Alouasse,  Zoetique  Vezina,  and  Josef  Go- 
din acce})ted  an  invitation  from  Monsieur 
Morgan  for  the  fete  of  his  brother.  Mon- 
sieur Robert  Morgan,  on  the  afternoon  of 
August  9,  from  four  to  six  o'clock. 

"We  always  do  it  this  way,"  explained 
Bob.  "We  send  them  each  a  solemn 
note  the  day  before,  and  they  accept  it 
solemnly  in  a  note  apiece  the  morning  of 
my  birthday.  They  can't  all  write,  but 
they  worry  out  the  answers  among  'em. 
They're  a  good  lot  of  fellows,"  he  add- 
ed, with  a  manner  of  protecting  gentle- 
ness over  the  labored,  ill-written  papers. 
And  Walter  indorsed  him. 

"They're  nice  fellows,  all  of 'them,"  he 
said  heartily. 

"Josef  Godin,  that's  Blanc,"  explained 
Bob  further.  "Here's  his  note,  Mr. 
Schuyler.  It  makes  me — well,  sort  of 
ashamed  to  have  had  all  the  chances." 

And  Peter  Schuyler,  putting  on  his  gold- 
rimmed  eye-glasses,  read  Blanc's  note. 

"Monsieur: 

"  I,  Josef  Vezina,  present  my  respectful 
compliments  to  monsieur,  with  a  thou- 
sand thanks  for  my  invitation  to  the  fete 
of  Monsieur  Bob,  and  I  will  come  with  all 
that  there  is  of  pleasure.  Monsieur  will 
be  good  enough  to  pardon  my  writing  and 
also  the  spelling,  because  one  has  not  had 
very  much  of  instruction, 

"Monsieur,  I  am 

"  Votre  serviteur, 

"Josef  Vezina." 

"He  is  a  good  fellow,"  Schuyler  re- 
peated, and  was  aware  of  a  queer  feeling 
which  warmed  him  interiorly. 

"  I'm  going  across  to  Lake  Harlan,"  an- 
nounced Bob  then.  "It's  getting  too 
blamed  beaverish  over  there.  Zoetique 
and  I  tore  down  the  dam  yesterday,  and 
if  those  blessed  beasts  have  built  it  again 
I'm  going  to  hang  up  a  handkerchief 
soaked  in  tar  oil  to  smell  'em  away. 
Want  to  come,  Mr.  Schuyler?  I'd  be  de- 
lighted to  paddle  you  across;  and  it's  a 
nice  walk  to  Harlan." 

There  was  a  quality  in  Bob's  doing  of 
things  which  made  the  things  he  did  seem 
desirable.  Schuyler  was  suddenly  anx- 
ious to  know  personally  if  the  beaver  had 
rebuilt  their  dam,  which  flooded  the  lake 
and  ruined  it  for  hunting. 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


331 


'T'd  like  to  go,"  he  said,  "and — and 
I'd  rather  like  to  paddle  too." 

''Sure,  sir,"  said  Bob.  And  presently 
the  bright,  long  morning  was  gone,  and 
then  lunch  was  over. 

''Now  we've  got  to  get  ready  for  the 
festivities,"  said  Walter  Morgan,  and 
Schuyler,  at  first  looking  on,  and  wonder- 
ing, found  himself,  shortly,  helping  with 
his  whole  soul.  Wiping  perspiration  from 
his  brow  he  stood  back,"  an  hour  later, 
and  viewed  with  deep  satisfaction  the  re- 
sult of  his  labors. 

"I  think  I've  got  those  prizes  pretty 
well  arranged,"  he  announced,  and  re- 
garded a  miscellaneous  labelled  lot  of 
small  articles  spread  on  a  box  cover,  on 
the  gallery  bench,  with  interest  and 
pride. 

There  was  a  package  of  cigarettes,  la- 
belled "First,  Potato  race";  there  was  a 
box  of  letter-paper  labelled  "First,  Axe- 
throwing";  there  was  a  necktie,  not  from 
Budd's,  marked  "First,  Obstacle  race"; 
and  four  cigars  w^hich  said  "First,  Shoot- 
ing." Other  first  and  second  prizes  of 
much  the  same  ilk  were  there.  On  the 
writing-table  inside,  where  one  might 
reach  through  the  window  and  serve 
them,  were  refreshments:  punch,  brewed 
of  good  ingredients,  in  the  thermos  bot- 
tles; candies  brought  from  New  York;  a 
box  of  sweet  w^afers  unknow^n  of  guides; 
that  was  all — except  cigars,  which  were  a 
crown  of  glory  to  these  pipe-smokers. 

At  four  o'clock  sounds  of  desultory  con- 
versation and  a  little  chopping  and  a  little 
sawing  of  wood  were  heard  back  of  the 
camp.  The  Morgans  grinned  at  each 
other. 

"You'll  have  to  lep  into  the  high-and- 
by-ways  and  lug  in  the  party,"  said  Bob. 
"They  always  lose  their  nerve  at  the  last 
minute  and  fuss  around  in  the  woods,"  he 
explained  to  Schuyler.  And  shortly  Mor- 
gan was  heard  genially  adjuring  his  guests 
from  the  wings,  in  his  own  peerless 
French. 

"  Venez,  Godin,  ct  Zoctique,  et  Jacques^ 
ct  toutes  pcrsonnes.  Le  bal  champctrc  sotn- 
mcs  prel.  Nous  attendait  pour  vous.  Tout 
sommes  pret.     Venez  avec  moiy 

And  around  the  corner  he  led  his  shee]^. 
Clean  and  scrubbed  they  were,  in  fresh 
cotton  shirts  and  no  coats,  and  conspic- 
uously   suspendered.     The    sheej)    were 


sheepish;  they  shook  hands  shyly,  with 
pretty  French  politeness,  as  if  they  had 
not  met  for  weeks,  with  Bob  and  Mr. 
Schuyler,  recei\ing.  And  with  that  the 
bal  champetre  began. 

There  was  a  shooting-match  first,  and 
the  men  who  never  wasted  a  cartridge  be- 
cause of  expense  were  given  Schuyler's 
English  magazine  rifle  and  cartridges  ga- 
lore, and  everybody  shot  in  turn.  Jacques 
Alouasse  won.  Schuyler  looked  at  him 
curiously  as  he  swung  forward,  hand- 
some, nonchalant,  as  full  of  grace  as  a 
wild  animal,  to  take  his  prize  of  cigars. 

Jacques  was  an  Indian,  unlike  the 
others,  who  were  French-Canadian  broth- 
ers and  cousins  from  the  Riviere  Sainte 
Anne.  The  ancestors  of  Jacques  were 
those  Hurons  who  had  been  chased  from 
what  is  now  central  New  York  State  by 
the  Iroquois  and  had  found  asylum  and 
made  a  little  village,  still  called  Indian 
Lorette,  beyond  Quebec.  Here  they  live 
to-day,  a  tiny  colony  in  a  foreign  land, 
pure-blooded  Indians  yet,  and  manufac- 
ture canoes  and  moccasins  and  do  guid- 
ing. Schuyler  looked  at  Jacques.  Not 
only  w^as  the  historic  background  a  setting 
for  the  lithe  and  vigorous  figure,  but  his 
personality  was  interesting.  He  was  here 
in  the  Morgan  camp  to  fill  a  vacancy, 
accepted  here  only  because  guides  were 
scarce.  Yet  he  was  probably  the  best 
guide  in  the  club,  untiring,  willing,  pow- 
erful, capable. 

"Just  that  one  thing  against  him,"  said 
Walter  Morgan,  "but  it's  enough.  You 
can  never  tell  when  he'll  turn  up  wild 
drunk." 

It  was  said  that  he  was  now  deliber- 
ately drinking  himself  to  death,  and  no 
one  could  give  a  reason  why.  His  dark 
face  was  a  mask  of  stolidity,  but  a  smile 
flashed  and  was  gone  as  he  took  the  cigars 
from  Walter  Morgan  with  a  deei)-toned 
"Merci,  m'sieur.''  A  heron's  feather, 
stuck  in  his  hat,  gave  a  dr>imatic  touch  to 
his  old  clothes;  a  scarlet  bandanna  was 
around  his  straight  throat;  his  shoulders 
were  broad  and  his  waist  small  and  he 
moved  springily  as  if  e\ery  muscle  i)layed 
joyfully.  He  was  lean  and  not  too  tall,  a 
])erfect  figure  of  an  athlete.  "A  beauti- 
ful creature,"  thought  Schuyler  regret- 
fully, as  Jaccjues  turned  away. 

The  games   went   on   and   each  guide 


332 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


threw  his  heart  into  each  event.  No  one 
ever  had  more  cleli<j;httul  guests.  They 
were  interested  in  every  moment,  consid- 
erate, eager  to  hel]-),  quick  to  understand. 
Peter  Schuyler,  the  world-worn,  the  blase, 
forgot  that  he  was  either,  forgot  to  remem- 
ber himself  at  all.  He  roared  with  laugh- 
ter as  Blanc,  driven  by  Bob,  with  long 
strips  of  red  cotton  for  reins  in  the  blind- 
fold race,  charged  whole-heartedly  into  a 
spruce-bush;  he  presided  with  keen  inter- 
est over  the  tableful  of  seventeen  odds 
and  ends  which  the  men  were  to  try  to 
catalogue  after  ninety  seconds'  study,  and 
he  marvelled,  with  the  appreciation  of  a 
trained  brain,  at  the  high  percentage 
which  these  brains  of  home-made  training 
could  remember.  He  entered  like  a  boy, 
like  Bob  Morgan,  into  the  entire  primi- 
tive festivity. 

Then  the  laughing,  happy  Frenchmen 
had  said  their  "  au  revoirs  "  with  shy  grat- 
itude and  thanks  repeated  over  and  over, 
and,  each  with  his  load  of  two-penny,  pre- 
cious prizes,  each  crowned  wdth  a  bright- 
colored  paper  cap  out  of  the  ''snappers" 
that  were  a  wonderful  novelty  to  these 
children  of  the  remote  world,  had  gone 
ofif  down  the  little  trail  into  the  forest, 
with  fainter  and  fainter  sound  of  gay,  ex- 
cited voices.  And  Schuyler,  as  he  turned 
with  a  sigh  of  pleasure  toward  the  broth- 
ers, suddenly  realized  that  he  too  had 
been  happy.  Unused  nerve  connections 
were  tingling;  atrophied  muscles  were 
aching  deliciously  from  laughter  and  ex- 
ercise. And  he  was  conscious  of  push- 
ing aside  impatiently  the  familiar  thought 
of  his  own  wretchedness,  to  get  room  for 
the  thought  of  the  pleasure  of  a  handful 
of  French  habitants. 

"By  Jove,"  he  exploded.  "I've  had  a 
remarkable  afternoon.  What  fellows  they 
are — what  a  joyful  lot!  And  what  gra- 
cious manners !  /  never  had  a  party  with 
such  guests.  It  makes  me  feel  like  going 
home  and  shovelling  cart-loads  of  things 
to  give  them." 

Walter  Morgan  shook  his  head.  "You 
mustn't  spoil  them,  Mr.  Schuyler.  You 
could  do  it,  you  know.  Their  life  runs 
in  narrow  grooves.  They're  contented 
inside  those  grooves,  and  mostly  they've 
got  to  stay  inside."  And  Schuyler  de- 
ferred to  the  man  who  knew  them, 

"But  I'd  Hke  to  do  something  for — or 


to — that  fellow  Jacques  Alouasse,"  he  re- 
flected aloud.  "  Does  any  one  know  why 
— "  and  behold  here  was  Godin,  slipping 
noiselessly  back,  a  brown  figure,  out  of 
brown  afternoon  shadows.  Would  M'sieur 
speak  to  him  a  moment?  And  as  Mor- 
gan went  down  the  portage,  Bob  grinned. 
"They're  going  to  surprise  me,"  he 
stated.  "Just  wait,  sir — it's  going  to  be 
awfully  pretty.     You'll  see." 

As  they  went  through  the  twilight 
woods  to  dinner  Schuyler  saw.  When  they 
turned  the  corner  of  the  trail  toward  the 
dining-camp,  suddenly  all  the  forest  of 
Canada  was  dancing  with  many-colored 
lights.  High  in  the  darkness, 'low,  and 
near  and  far  they  hung  and  swung  and 
sparkled ;  red  and  green  and  yellow  they 
were,  and  ringmarked  and  speckled.  One 
cannot  believe,  till  one  has  seen,  what  a 
magic  earth  fifty  paper  lanterns  can  man- 
ufacture, with  a  lake  reflecting  manyfold 
their  broken  brilliancy. 

As  they  came  to  the  camp  all  the 
guides  stood  at  the  fire,  smiling,  pleased 
with  the  great  fete,  gay  yet  with  the  after- 
noon's pleasure.  Sitting  at  the  table  to 
trout  and  bacon  and  fried  potatoes  was 
feasting  in  fairyland,  and  the  men's  fig- 
ures moving  about,  serving,  topped  with 
the  mad-shaped,  colored-paper  head- 
dresses were  as  unreal  as  a  story  of  Ger- 
man elfs.  And  then,  when  one  had  de- 
voured corn  bread  and  flapjacks  and  other 
delicacies,  at  the  last  came  Godin  emer- 
ging from  a  secret  place,  bearing  in  state  a 
large  frosted  cake  blazing  with  candles, 
one  for  each  year  of  Bob's  great  age  and 
one  "to  grow  on."  And  the  guides,  in 
their  bright  caps,  trooped  respectfully  be- 
hind Godin,  for  one  did  this  each  year — 
one  knew  what  was  expected. 

The  cake  was  set  in  front  of  the  hero  of 
the  day,  and  all  the  bright  head-dresses 
bent  about  the  table  around  the  mes- 
sieurs seated  there,  and  blew  mightily  to 
see  who  should  be  the  last  one  married. 
And  with  great  laughter  it  was  judged  to 
be  Bob  himself,  who  proceeded  to  knock 
out  the  pretty  pink  candles  brought  from 
New  York  and  cut  open  the  cake  to  give  a 
slice  to  each  one.  The  little  regiment 
stood  under  the  gay  Japanese  lanterns, 
odd  and  picturesque  in  their  white  and  blue 
and  crimson  and  orange  caps,  and  each 
one  held  his  plate  with  its  huge  slice  of 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


333 


fruit-cake,  and  munched  a  bit  slyly  and 
searched  surreptitiously  for  what  might 
be  found.  Till  Godin  discovered  a  thim- 
ble, amid  much  laughter,  for  Godin  was 
an  old  bachelor,  a  "'vietix  garqon.'''  And 
then  promptly  Zoetique  had  a  silver  ten- 
cent  piece  and  Blanc  a  ring  and  Jacques 
Alouasse  had  found  a  toy  watch  for  the 
one  who  should  live  the  longest.  A  light- 
ning gleam  flashed  across  the  immobile 
Indian  face. 

^^Crais  que  nofi'^ — ''I  think  not,"  said 
Jacques  Alouasse,  and  swiftly  he  had 
laughed  and  was  saying  his  deep-toned 
^'Merci,  m'sieur^'  to  Bob. 

When  the  messieurs  went  home,  lan- 
tern-guided, through  the  velvet  darkness, 
the  night  was  so  warm  and  the  lure  of  the 
starlit  lake  so  strong  that  they  strolled 
down  twenty  feet  to  the  dock,  and  then 
Bob  shoved  a  canoe  into  water  and  the 
three  stepped  in  and  floated  into  the  dim- 
ness between  sky  and  sea,  to  the  silent 
pushes  of  a  paddle.  And  behold,  as  they 
rounded  a  point  toward  the  guides'  camp,  a 
miracle :  the  black  mass  of  Canadian  woods 
was  all  alight  and  the  lake  gave  back  en- 
chantment, redoubling  the  elusive  sparkle 
of  the  lanterns  in  the  rippled  water. 
There  seemed  no  end  of  the  lights;  all  the 
woodland  was  en  fete;  it  might  have  been  a 
casino  at  Newport  or  Narragansett  Pier; 
one  listened  for  the  music  of  an  orchestra, 
for  sounds  of  revelry.  Instead  there 
came  voices  and  laughter  of  the  guides, 
out  of  the  clump  of  spruces  where  the  flame 
of  candles  told  of  the  dining-table.  Ex- 
cited words  floated  to  the  three  on  the 
lake. 

''M'sieur  Bob — crais — but  he  fell  hard 
in  the  potato  race — crais  que  ouif^'  and 
much  laughter.  Then  an  animated  dis- 
cussion of  the  eating  of  the  biscuit  and 
smoking  of  cigarettes  in  the  obstacle  race: 
''But  the  biscuits  there  wxre  dry — but 
yes!  Me,  I  choked  on  the  second  and 
thou,  Blanc,  I  saw  thee  gobble  a  whole  one 
at  a  boiichee — a  mouthful.  I  saw  it." 
Shouts  of  laughter  again,  at  Blanc's  ex- 
pense. The  men,  simple-hearted  as  chil- 
dren, were  going  over  the  events  of  the 
"/e/e  of  M'sieur  Bob,"  the  great  day  of 
the  summer. 

Schuyler,  an  hour  later,  lying  on  his  cot, 
inhaling  the  balsam  through  his  tent-door, 
stared   out   at  the   dark  rim   of   moun- 


tains across  the  lake  back  of  which  a  six- 
foot  golden  moon  was  slowly  lifting,  and 
wondered  what  was  the  hidden  magic 
which  had  made  this  day  a  landmark  in 
his  history. 

"The/e/e  of  M'sieur  Bob,"  he  spoke 
half-aloud  in  the  dark.  "The  fete  of 
M'sieur  Bob,  I  wonder  why  it  has  been 
such  a  beautiful  day."     And  was  asleep. 

He  woke  to  the  scolding  trill  of  a  squir- 
rel and  a  cannonade  of  pine  cones  on  his 
tent.  He  laughed.  The  squirrel  whisked 
into  a  tree-top,  and  Schuyler  lay  and 
basked  in  a  peace  which  passed  under- 
standing. Noiselessly  across  the  tent 
roof  wove  a  dance  of  breeze-blown 
branches.  Reflected  inside  the  tent  walls, 
the  light  and  shade  of  the  lake  waves 
played  unendingly;  one  heard  birds  in  the 
tree-tops  and  silver  lapping  of  water 
against  the  pebbled  shore ;  far  off ,  dreamily, 
one  heard  the  slow  ring  of  an  axe.  Schuy- 
ler looked  at  his  watch;  half  an  hour  yet 
before  it  was  time  for  the  dash  to  the  lake 
and  the  swim  in  the  sharp,  sweet  water. 
He  lay  still  and  thought. 

"The/^/e  of  M'sieur  Bob"  was  still  his 
consideration.  How  had  it  been  possible 
to  construct  hours  of  genuine  delight  out 
of  a  dozen  or  two  paltry  jimcracks  whose 
total  value  would  not  have  exceeded  five 
dollars;  out  of  association  with  a  number 
of  ignorant  peasants?  It  sounded  to  this 
man  of  opportunity  paradoxical.  Yet  it 
had  happened;  he  had  felt  it.  Slowly,  as 
he  considered,  it  came  to  him,  more  or  less 
unphrased,  that  perhaps  all  people,  even 
though  they  do  not  know  it,  enjoy  giving 
themselves — that  yesterday  every  one 
had  given  the  best  that  was  in  him  to  all 
the  others;  that  consequently — perhaps 
consequently,  for  this  was  only  a  theory 
to  Peter  Schuyler — each  one  had  enjoyed 
himself  hugely.  That  might  be  it.  With 
that  came  the  memory  of  a  dark  young 
face  masked  in  stoic  calmness;  of  a  re- 
served dignity  which  Schuyler  felt  akin  to 
something  in  himself.  The  two  thoughts 
fused.  If  it  was  so  delightful  an  amuse- 
ment to  do  things  for  some  one,  why 
should  he  not  try  the  trick  with  this  fel- 
low who  attracted  him,  Jacques  Alouasse? 

About  four  that  afternoon,  armed  with 
the  last  thought  in  a  four-ounce  rod,  with  a 
fly-book  dc  luxe  and  the  general  si)orting 
outfit  of  a  dandy  who  was  yet  a  sport. 


334 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


Schuyler  stc]-)ped  into  the  bow  of  a  canoe 
which  Alouasse  held.  He  took  his  place 
facing  the  stern  and  watched  with  fastidi- 
ous satisfaction  the  perfection  of  the 
guides'  movements  as  he  slid  the  boat  to 
the  end  of  the  dock  and  sprang  into  the 
flying  stern  effortless  and  sure.  Down 
at  the  tete  du  lac,  in  a  bay,  was  a  hole 
which  was  in  shade  early.  With  short, 
strong  strokes,  as  the  Canadian  woodsman 
paddles,  Alouasse  brought  the  canoe  to 
this  place,  and  Schuyler,  as  they  came, 
trailed  his  leader  and  his  flies  to  take  the 
curl  out  of  them.  Then  he  cast  carefully; 
he  was  conscious  of  doing  his  best  for  the 
knowledge  in  the  dark,  watchful  eyes.  He 
was  conscious  of  a  desire  to  win  the  good 
opinion  of  an  Indian  guide  who  was  drink- 
ing himself  to  death.  He  was  an  expert 
fisherman  and  he  cast  to-day  as  even 
Jacques  had  seen  few  people  cast.  The 
nine-foot  thread  of  light  which  was  the 
leader  lifted,  folded  back  into  space, 
paused,  and  with  a  single  movement  of  the 
forearm  shivered  forward,  out  and  out  in 
a  clean  loop  till  it  hung  straight ;  till  sev- 
enty-five feet  away  the  tail  fly  touched, 
then  the  second,  and  then  the  hand  fly. 
The  three  bright  spots  flecked  the  water 
in  a  line  scientifically  zigzagged,  not  too 
slow  and  not  too  fast;  it  was  "perfect  cast- 
ing and  Schuyler  knew  it,  and  knew  that 
Jacques  knew  it.  A  truly  Indian  grunt 
at  the  third  cast  spoke  approval.  But  no 
fish  rose  to  break  the  brown  surface  with  a 
flash  of  white,  and  the  whir  of  the  reel  and 
the  glory  of  the  fight  were  not  forthcom- 
ing. 

After  ten  minutes  of  exhibition  casting, 
"Go  somewhere  else,  Jacques,"  ordered 
Schuyler.  And  Jacques,  twisting  his  pad- 
dle under  water,  had  the  boat  about  in 
forty-five  seconds  and  shortly  they  were 
landing  at  the  portage  up  the  Riviere  a  la 
Poele. 

There  is  probably  no  sweeter  spot  on 
earth.  The  spruces  lean  over  the  after- 
noon water  in  a  dark  canopy ;  back  of  them 
are  silver  birches  and  a  shadowy  trail  up  a 
slope;  above,  the  river  spins  and  whirls,  a 
sliding  mass,  in  crests  of  foam,  in  pol- 
ished, dangerous  pools,  over  and  around 
and  through  great  gray  rocks  tossed 
about  as  if  giant  children  had  been  at 
play.  There  is  a  gentle  murmur  all  about 
one,  and  under  that  one  detects  the  swift 


rush  of  strong  water,  and  under,  deep  un- 
der all,  is  the  hollow,  booming  beat  of  the 
heart  of  the  rapids.  One  is  drowned  in  a 
luxury  of  rich  sound,  of  keen,  fragrant  air, 
of  pervading  dim  greenness. 

Schuyler,  after  walking  the  half-mile 
portage  to  the  pool  above  was  disap- 
pointed to  find  it  still  partly  in  sunlight. 

"One  must  wait,"  said  Jacques  Alou- 
asse philosophically,  and  squatted  at  a 
civil  distance  and  filled  his  pipe. 

Schuyler  sat  down  on  a  log  and  fol- 
lowed his  example.  "It  was  a  good 
party  yesterday,  Jacques?"  he  inquired. 
"The/^/e  of  M'sieur  Bob,  eh!"  , 

"But  yes,  m'sieur,"  said  Jacques,  and 
said  no  more. 

Schuyler  wished  the  man  to  talk. 
"You  have  been  here  before  at  such 
times?"  he  went  on. 

"But  no,  m'sieur,"  said  Jacques,  and 
fell  into  another  pool  of  silence.  This 
time,  however,  he  was  moved  to  climb  out 
alone.  "I  have  wished  to  be  here  for 
that  Jete,^^  Jacques  volunteered.  "One 
has  heard  much  of  it.  In  Saint  Ray- 
mond, where  I  worked  at  boat-building 
last  winter,  they  spoke  of  the  fete  of 
M'sieur  Bob.  The  men  had  told  of  it, 
and  it  was  w^onderful  to  the  people  of 
Saint  Raymond.  They  could  hardly  be- 
lieve that  such  things  could  happen  in  the 
woods." 

Schuyler  gasped.  Was  this  naivete 
possible?  But  Jacques  was  perfectly  seri- 
ous. His  enthusiasm  had  carried  away 
his  reserve;  he  went  on: 

"  Me,  I  wished  to  see  such  an  affair.  I 
asked  the  steward  of  the  club,  M'sieur  De- 
mers,  to  say  a  good  word  for  me  if  m'sieur 
should  wish  another  guide.     And  he  did." 

A  sudden  thought  flashed  to  Schuyler's 
mind,  to  his  lips. 

"Everybody  is  ready  to  say  a  good 
word  for  you,  Jacques,  in  every  way  ex- 
cept one,"  said  Schuyler. 

A  silence;  the  older  man  felt  his  pulse 
quicken  as  he  thought, "Now, I've  spoiled 
it  all — now  he  will  think  he  is  to  be  lec- 
tured and  go  back  into  his  shell." 

Jacques  spoke.  "Ah!  I  get  drunk," 
he  agreed  with  quiet  dignity. 

"  Yes,"Schuylernodded.  "  Whatmakes 
you?" 

Jacques  visibly  hesitated,  and  Schuyler, 
in  the  pause,  was  conscious  of  a  feeling 


i)raivii  hy  I'liiiip  R.  Cioodiviii. 
He  roared  wilh  laughter  as  IMaiic,  driven  by  Bob, 

Vol.  LV— 34 


charged  whule-hearicdly  tiiio  a  spruce-bush.  —  Page  33a. 


335 


33G 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


wliich  most  people,  all  people  surely  who 
have  what  is  called  temperament,  have 
known  a  few  times.  It  was  the  feeling 
that  between  this  man  and  himself  there 
stretched  a  definite  bond  of  comprehen- 
sion. Perhaps  no  intangible  proof  is 
stronger  than  this  that  we  are  all  rather 
literally  "members  one  of  another";  that 
under  all  our  small  personal  manifesta- 
tions of  life  lies  the  universal  linking  life 
which  is  God.  Neither  Schuyler  nor 
Jacques  had  any  such  formulated  thought ; 
}'et  both  felt  the  unmistakable  glow  and 
opening  of  spirit  which  is  the  thing  meant. 
The  mask  seemed  to  drop  from  the  In- 
dian face;  the  dark,  bright  eyes  met 
Schuyler's,  wistful,  troubled.  Schuyler's 
heart  warmed  to  the  look. 

"M'sieur  w^ould  like  to  know  about 
me?  "  asked  Jacques.  And  m'sieur  briefly 
indicated  that  he  would. 

So  Jacques,  in  bare  sentences,  told  a 
curious,  mediaeval  tale.  He  had  been 
wild;  he  had  drunk  whiskey  and  gotten 
en  fete;  he  had  played  tricks  on  the 
chiefs  at  Lorette;  he  had  been  absent  from 
mass  many  times,  and  one  Sunday  morn- 
ing while  so  absent  he  had  fought  a  bear 
and  killed  him  without  a  gun;  when  he 
had  gone  back  in  high  glee  with  his  game, 
the  priest,  Pere  Augustin,  had  made  him 
come  into  his  house  and  had  told  him  that 
it  was  the  devil  who  had  helped  him  to 
kill  that  bear — that  he  was  no  doubt 
possessed  of  the  devil.  Pere  Augustin 
had  gone  farther;  he  had  told  Jacques  that 
there  was  no  doubt  that,  for  his  many 
sins,  he  was  now  damned  to  all  eternity; 
also  that  if  Marie  Gros-Pierre  should 
marry  him  she  also  would  be  damned. 
Jacques  had  come  out  from  that  inter- 
view a  desperate  man.  He  had  gone  to 
Marie  and  freed  her  from  her  promise. 
But  Marie  would  not  be  freed.  She 
would  marry  Jacques  if  he  were  a  lost  soul 
or  not;  she  would  go  to  hell  with  him  if 
that  must  be.  He  was  hers;  she  would 
not  leave  him  for  heaven  or  hell. 

Jacques,  squatting  by  the  brown,  lap- 
ping water,  laid  down  his  pipe  and  gazed 
at  Peter  Schuyler  from  dark  eyes  filled 
with  the  tragedy  of  a  race.  "  What,  then, 
can  one  do?  "  he  demanded.  "  Me,  I  can- 
not let  Marie  be  damned.  I  cannot  re- 
fuse to  marry  her.  So  I  kill  myself.  It 
is  all  the  way  I  can  think  of.     It  is  more 


trouble  to  my  people  and  to  Marie  if  I 
shoot  myself,  so  I  drink.  I  drink  very 
much.  I  am  strong,  so  it  go  more  slow, 
but  I  kill  me  in  one  year,  maybe.  Maybe 
more.     It  is  a  good  way;  m'sieur  thinks 

SO.f* 

M'sieur  did  not.  M'sieur  stared  speech- 
less for  a  moment,  and  then  found  ener- 
getic speech.  Jacques  listened  atten- 
tively. 

''But,  m'sieur,"  he  reasoned  gently, 
''the  good  God  had  doubtless  told  Pere 
Augustin  that  I  was  damned.  In  fact  he 
said  so." 

"The  good  God  never  told'any  one  any 
such  thing,"  Peter  Schuyler  answered 
hotly.  "The  good  God  is  ready  to  help 
you  out  of  the  mess  you  are  in  the  minute 
you're  ready  to  try  to  get  out."  Schuy- 
ler marvelled  as  he  heard  his  own  voice  in 
this  unmistakable  sermonizing.  But  he 
was  too  eager  to  think  about  that. 

Jacques  shook  his  head.  "I  thank 
you,  m'sieur.  It  would  be  agreeable  to 
believe  m'sieur.  But  the  priests  know. 
That  is  their  metier,''^  he  repeated. 

Schuyler  considered.  He  thought  of 
the  saintly  priests  whom  he  had  known, 
of  the  church  to  which  Jacques  belonged ; 
of  shepherds  of  little  flocks,  such  as  this 
Huron  fold  at  Lorette,  and  their  kindly 
guidance  and  lifelong  examples  of  self- 
sacrifice  and  loving-kindness;  he  thought 
of  priestly  orators,  swaying  masses  of  ig- 
norant souls  to  better  things;  he  thought 
of  busy,  earnest  years  of  unselfish  men 
threading  in  their  worn  black  clothes  the 
close  streets  of  crowded  cities;  he  thought 
of  Father  Jogues  and  the  martyrs  who 
had  counted  their  lives  as  nothing  for  the 
souls  of  other  Indian  people  three  hundred 
years  ago ;  and  then  he  marvelled  that  the 
poor  little  village  had  somehow  missed  the 
multitude  of  good  men  and  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  a  rascal.  For  rascality  will  hap- 
pen in  any  calling,  and  a  sacred  one  is  no 
exception. 

Then  Schuyler  squared  himself  to  ar- 
gument. Had  Jacques  meant  to  be 
wicked?  Why,  no,  Jacques  answered,  not 
at  all.  He  had  been  foolish;  he  had  per- 
haps wished  to  be  more  daring  than 
others,  but  that  was  all.  Would  Jacques 
himself  forgive  a  person  who  had  done 
these  things?  Schuyler  asked.  Why,  cer- 
tainly, Jacques  said.    Then,  threw  back 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


337 


Schuyler,  what  sort  of  a  God  would  it  be 
who  would  not  be  as  generous  as  Jacques 
Alouasse?  Who  would  send  a  young  fel- 
low to  eternal  torture  for  foolishness? 
Why,  reasoned  he,  dragging  out  long-neg- 
lected teachings,  why,  even  if  a  man  were  a 


— with  a  shrug — "take  the  punishment. 
Also" —  an  arrow  of  light  glittered  from 
the  black  eyes — ' '  also,  I  hate  the  good  God. 
And  I  hate  Pere  Augustin." 

"I   don't   wonder,"   agreed   Schuyler. 
And  then:  "Why  do  you  hate  him?" 


All  the  blight  head-dresses  bent  about  the  table  around  the 

messieurs  seated  there,  and  blew  inijihtily  to  see  who 

should  be  the  last  one  married.  —  Page  332. 


criminal,  the  wickedest  man  on  earth,  the 
good  God  was  so  great  and  so  kind  that  he 
would  gladly  forgive  him  the  moment  he 
tried  to  do  better. 

A  gleam  of  grim  amusement  lighted 
the  tragic  black  eyes.  "M'sieur  doesn't 
know  God  very  well,"  suggested  Jacques. 
M'sieur  agreed  to  that. 

"  We  are  not  instructed  of  him  like  that 
in  our  village,"  Jacques  went  on.  "Pere 
Augustin  has  taught  us  that  if  one  does 
not  do  as  Pere  Augustin  says,  God  will  give 
him  the  stick,  one  way  or  another.  It  is 
probably  well  for  us  to  believe  so.  Mostly 
it  makes  a  ])erson  careful.  Me,  I  have  a 
feeling  here" — he  tapped  his  broad  chest 
— "that  if  God  is  unjust  to  me  like  that  I 
will  not  do  his  way,  but  my  own.     And" 


"Because  when  I  am  dead  he  will  force 
Marie  to  marry  his  nephew.  His  nephew, 
Achille,  will  give  him  Marie's  money. 
Marie  is  rich.  She  has  nine  hundred  dol- 
lars which  her  father  left  her.  Me" — -and 
he  lifted  his  head  haughtily — "me,  I  do 
not  want  Marie's  money.  I  want  Marie. 
And  any  one  listening  would  have  known 
that  he  spoke  the  truth. 

Schuyler  meditated.  He  formed  a  men- 
tal picture  of  a  greedy  plotter,  e\i)loiting 
the  ])oor  little  \illage.  He  followed  the 
windings  of  the  sordid  ])lan.  Jacques, 
the  difticult  black  sheep,  driven  to  suicide; 
Marie  bullied  into  marriage  with  Achille, 
his  tool;  and  Marie's  money  absorbed,  un- 
der some  pretence,  by  himself;  then  Pere 
Augustin,  with  his  wealth  of  nine  hundred 


338 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


dollars,  might  leave  Indian  Lorette  and  go 
afield  for  a  career. 

"Jaecjues,"  spoke  Schuyler,  ''you make 
a  mistake  to  kill  yourself." 

Jacques  shrugged  his  shoulders  French- 

"That  makes  nothing.  I  go  to  hell  m 
any  case.  God  is  bad.  He  send  me  to 
hell  no  matter  what  I  do  now." 

With  that  Schuyler  argued  again  as  to 
the  ine\itable  character  of  a  good  God. 
Jacques  listened  even  more  attentively. 

"M'sieur,  is  there  another  God  than 
the  God  of  Pere  Augustin?"  he  asked 
hopefully. 

And  Schuyler,  considering,  thought  how 
each  of  us,  in  his  groping  to  find  out, 
shapes  that  great  unknowable  after  his 
own  feeble  pattern.  Very  gently  he  tried 
to  tell  the  man,  listening  breathless  to  the 
tale  of  wonder,  how  the  reality  must  be 
kinder,  stronger  than  any  vision  of  any  of 
us.  "Your  life  is  a  part  of  him,"  ex- 
plained Schuyler.  "  It  is  for  that  you  have 
no  right  to  cut  it  short" — and  was  aware 
with  a  jump  that  his  words  applied  to 
others  than  Jacques.  Yet,  he  thought 
hurriedly,  it  was  most  different.  Jacques 
was  young,  strong,  at  the  beginning;  he 
himself  was  ill  and  growing  old,  nearing  the 
end;  it  was  another  question;  also,  he  was 
capable  of  judging;  Jacques  was  not.  He 
went  on. 

"Do  you  think  you  are  a  brave  man, 
Jacques?"  The  troubled  eyes  met  his 
with  a  glance  like  a  blow. 

"I  have  not  the  habit  to  be  afraid, 
m'sieur." 

"Then,  if  you  are  brave,  why  should 
you  act  like  a  coward?" 

Schuyler  had  a  glimpse  then  of  how  the 
forebears  of  Jacques,  only  a  few  genera- 
tions ago,  had  looked,  on  the  war-path. 
But  Jacques  said  nothing.  Schuyler  went 
on.  "To  live  our  lives  here  is  a  battle. 
Many  creatures  suffer  to  make  a  life  pos- 
sible. We  come  here  through  suffering. 
The  poor  beasts  suffer  whose  flesh  we  eat 
and  whose  skins  and  fur  are  our  clothing. 
Isn't  it  honorable  that  we  should  suffer 
something  in  return  for  all  this  innocent 
pain?  Also,  isn't  it  the  part  of  a  brave 
man  to  stay  in  the  fight  till  the  fight  is 
ended?  Or — or" — Schuyler  stammered 
a  bit — "or  as  good  as  ended.  You  are 
just  beginning.     It  would  be  like  a  cow- 


ard to  throw  down  your  bow  and  arrow 
and  run  out  of  the  battle.  And  how  do 
you  know  what  is  coming?  It  may  be 
good  things.  It  may  be  honest  work  and 
a  man's  place  in  the  world.  Prove  that 
Pere  Augustin  is  wrong.  Take  up  your 
life  and  live  it  well.  God  will  not  damn 
you  because  any  one  says  so." 

"Won't  he?"  inquired  Jacques  sur- 
prised. 

Schuyler  brought  down  his  fist  on  the 
old  log  with  a  force  that  sent  loose  bark 
flying.  "You  have  a  better  chance  for 
heaven  than  Pere  Augustin.  It's  damned 
nonsense  and  malice.  The  ga:me  is  in  your 
own  hands.  Stop  drinking,  live  the  best 
life  you  know  how,  and  you'll  get  to 
heaven  in  spite  of  Pere  Augustin." 

"Ah!"  said  Jacques,  with  a  shadowy 
smile.  "I  thank  m'sieur."  And  with 
that  a  large  fish  jumped  and  the  case  rested 
for  this  sitting. 

There  were  other  sittings.  Paddling 
in  the  gleaming,  hill-set  fastnesses  of  the 
Riviere  a  la  Poele,  floating  down  the  west 
side  of  Lac  Noir,  deep  in  afternoon 
shadow,  casting  the  long  light-ray  of  the 
leader  over  the  dark  bay  at  the  head  of 
the  lake,  fishing  the  Lightning  River  amid 
murmuring  waters,  one  held  seances. 
One  discussed  heaven  and  hell  when  the 
fish  did  not  rise.  Schuyler's  blood  was 
up;  he  would  save  this  fellow.  More  and 
more  he  grew  to  like  him.  He  threw  the 
force  of  his  trained  brain  into  the  com- 
bat, and  he  began  to  see  that  he  scored. 
Jacques  was  intelligent.  The  wall  of 
prejudice  was  sapped  from  within  while 
it  was  battered  from  without. 

"M'sieur  is  very  clever?  The  educa- 
tion of  m'sieur  coutait  cher — cost  much?" 
he  asked  wistfully  one  day,  twisting  the 
canoe  deftly  to  a  better  position.  He. 
wanted  to  believe  in  this  strange  new 
hope. 

And  Schuyler  went  to  work,  half-smil- 
ing, half  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  to  set 
forth  the  expense  of  sending  a  boy  to 
Groton,  to  Yale,  to  Oxford,  and  around 
the  world.  Jacques  was  impressed  to 
speechlessness.  It  was  apparent  that  the 
brains  of  Schuyler,  translated  into  cash, 
were  more  than  the  brains  of  Pere  Au- 
gustin so  translated.  Schuyler  saw  the 
blind  faith  of  years  crumbling  before  this 
battering-ram  of  dollars.     Yet  the  argu- 


Druiun  by  Philip  R.  Goodwin. 

"  You  have  u  better  cli;incc  for  heaven  lliaii  he."  —  Page  338. 


339 


One  discussed  lieaven  and  hell  when  the  fish  did  not  rise. — Page  338. 


ments  which  fetched  Jacques  in  the  end 
were  better  arguments  than  this.  The 
mind  behind  the  keen  black  eyes  was  a 
thinking  mind,  once  stirred.  Schuyler 
drag-netted  his  brain  for  the  reading  of 
years  back  and  put  it  in  battle-array,  and 
so  Jacques,  who  did  not  know  how  to 
write,  came  to  be  fairly  well  informed  in 
the  broadest  modern  views  of  philosophy 
and  religion. 

Then,  on  a  day,  the  f^arqons  came  back 
from  a  two-days' trip  to  the  club  with  mail. 
Among  the  letters  vvas  one  for  Schuyler 
from  the  daughter  whom  he  loved  the 
best  of  his  children. 

''Can't  you  pick  up  a  trustworthy,  in- 
teresting guide  for  little  Peter?"  wrote 
Mary  Van  Rensseller  from  her  Adiron- 
dack place.  "He  reads  too  much,  and  I 
can't  get  him  excited  over  paddling  and 
woodscraft  as  a  boy  should  be.  Our 
guides  are  too  old  for  him,  I  think,  and 
not  one  is  dramatic  enough  to  appeal  to 
little  Peter,  who  is  greedy  for  a  Cooper, 
King  Arthur,  Robin  Hood  incarnation. 
Can  you  lay  hands  on  such,  father?  He 
needs  it  physically." 

And  Schuyler  recognized  the  letter  as  a 
crisis  in  a  life  not  that  of  little  Peter. 

The  water  was  high  that  afternoon;  the 
foam  lay  in  mounds  of  whipped  cream 
under  the  bushes  of  "  the  Sauvage,"  which 
overhung  the  shores  of  the  Riviere  a  la 
Poele,  the  Frying-Pan  River.  The  water 
being  so  high,  it  was  not  good  fishing,  but 
yet  it  was  worth  while  to  paddle  to  the 
wide  mouth  of  the  stream,  sentinelled 
with  bowlders,  with  grouped  serene  spruce- 
spires  pointing  upward  to  the  sky,  re- 
340 


fleeted  downward  in  the  lake.  It  was 
worth  while  to  cast  across  cold  brown 
water  and  know  that  big  trout  lay  hidden 
there  and  might  by  chance  rise  to  the  fly. 

''Jacques,"  said  Schuyler,  when,  after 
fifteen  minutes,  no  trout  had  risen, 
"Jacques,  would  you  like  to  go  back  with 
me  and  guide  for  my  little  grandson?" 

The  black  velvet  eyes  glittered  with  a 
swift  light ;  Jacques  said  nothing.  Schuy- 
ler briefly  stated  the  case. 

"M'sieur  jokes?"  inquired  Jacques. 

M'sieur  made  it  clear  that  he  did  not 
joke.  There  was  a  silence.  Schuyler 
waited.  Out  of  the  black-green  depths 
of  a  spruce  wood  on  the  hillside  an  hour- 
bird,  a  hermit  thrush,  sang  his  liquid, 
lingering  four  notes  and  stopped.  The 
earth  was  deep  peace. 

"M'sieur  knows  my  affair,  that  I  am  a 
drunkard?"  Jacques  asked. 

"I  know  your  affair,"  answered  Schuy- 
ler. 

"M'sieur  would  trust  the  grandchild 
which  m'sieur  loves,  the  little  chief,  to  a 
drunkard?" 

"You  are  wrong,"  said  Schuyler. 
"The  man  to  whom  I  would  trust  my 
grandchild  would  be  a  man  who  has  got 
through  with  drink  forever." 

Then  he  waited  rather  breathlessly. 
Jacques  sucked  in  a  long  breath. 

"M'sieur  would  trust  me,  the  outcast, 
with  a  child  dear  to  him?" 

"I  would  trust  you,"  Schuyler  an- 
swered. 

It  was  the  crucial  moment.  Neither  of 
the  two  men  missed  the  largeness  of  the 
four  words.    To  Schuyler  a  vision  of  little 


The  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


341 


Peter  rose,  and  he  shivered  a  bit.     Who 
was  this  wild  Indian  that  for  his  salvation 
he  should  hand  over  the  safety  of  that  be- 
loved cropped  head  and  those  priceless 
bare  brown  legs?     Yet  some  force  held 
him  to  his  bargain.     As  he  stared  at  the 
wild  Indian  concerned  he  was  aware  with 
a  start  of  embar- 
rassment that  the 
brilliant  black 
eyes  were  staring 
back  through  a 
mist;  two  drops 
rolled  on  the  lean, 
dark  cheeks  of 
Jacques. 

"M'sieur,"  said 
Jacques, ''my  life 
is  not  good  enough 
to  give  you.  But 
I  will  give  it  to 
you,  for  it  is  all  I 
have." 

Three  years 
after  this  Peter 
Schuyler  waited, 
on  a  day,  at  a  lit- 
tle country  sta- 
tion in  the  far 
northern  part  of 
New  York  State. 
His  great-grand- 
father had  owned 
a  tract  of  land 
thereabouts  be- 
fore the  Revolu- 
tion, and  much  of 
it  had  come  down 
to  him.  He  had 
lately  installed  a 
new  superintend- 
ent, trained   for 

the  purpose,  over  the  farms  and  their  in- 
dustries, and  he  was  interested  in  the 
young  man's  success.  The  young  man 
had  gone  away  to  get  married,  and  Schuy- 
ler, at  the  little  station  on  the  road  to 
Canada,  sat  in  his  touring-car  and  waited 
to  meet  him  and  his  bride. 

Far  down  the  rails  a  whistle  tooted  dis- 
tantly, a  locomotive  slid  into  the  gap  be- 
tween the  great  hills,  raced  screaming 
toward  him,  stop})ed;  the  train  had  ar- 
rived. Schuyler,on  theplatform, watched 
a  dark,  lithe  young  man  spring  out  with 


He  turned,  and  helped 

prettiest  dark  girls 

ever 


a  free  grace  a  bit  incongruous  with  his 
middle-class  new  clothes.  He  turned,  and 
helped  to  alight  one  of  the  very  prettiest 
dark  girls  whom  Schuyler  had  ever  seen. 
And  then  in  a  moment  the  two  had  spied 
him  and  the  man's  black  eyes  were  ablaze. 
"It   is   my   wife — it   is    Marie    Gros- 

Pierre,"  Jacques 
cried  eagerly, 
sweeping  the  slim 
figure  forward, 
and  looked  proud- 
ly from  one  to 
the  other.  And 
Schuyler  took  the 
girl's  hand  and 
said  friendly 
things  with  a  gra- 
ciousness  which 
many  high-born 
ladies  had  never 
known  from  him. 
And  with  that 
Marie  Gros-Pierre 
was  having  the 
first  motor-drive 
of  her  life,  and 
Schuyler  was  won- 
dering more  and 
more, as  he  talked 
to  her,not  shy , not 
forward,  spark- 
ling with  happi- 
ness, responsive 
to  every  kind 
look,  at  the  per- 
fect breedingwhich 
nature  gives  to 
some  of  her  chil- 
dren free  gratis. 
He  had  made 
plans  for  Marie 
Gros-Pierre's  well- 
being  for  years  to  come,  before  the  car 
drew  up  at  the  stone  farm-house  in  the 
deep  valley  by  the  stream. 

"But,  m'sieur,  it  is  a  palace,"  said 
Marie,  gazing  awe-struck  at  her  home. 
"Jacques  and  I,  we  can  ne\cr  deserxe  it. 
But  yet  we  will  try."  And  she  went  io 
get  suj^per  in  her  palace. 

Two  hours  later,  as  Marie  rattled 
dishes  happily,  Schuyler  and  his  superin- 
tendent talked  oulsi(le  in  the  scented  June 
darkness.  First  practically,  of  crops  and 
machines  and  money.     Then,  as  the  pipes 


© 


t(i  alight  one  of  the  very 
whom  Schuyler  had 
seen. 


.342 


Tlie  Fete  of  M'sieur  Bob 


burned  low,  Jac(|ues,  in  his  deep,  vague 
tones,  resonant  yet  of  forest  streams  and 
still  hills,  thanked  Schuyler  strai^j^htfor- 
wardly  for  giving  him  life  and  God  and  a 
career  and  his  wife.  "There  is  nothing 
of  the  great  things  I  have  this  night  which 
I  do  not  owe  to  m'sieur,"  Jacques  said. 
And  Schuyler,  laying  his  j^ipe  on  his  knee, 
had  no  answer.  Yet  after  a  time  he 
spoke. 

"Jacques,"  said  Schuyler,  ''I  owe  you 
as  much  as  you  owe  me." 

''Me,  m'sieur?"  Jacques  w^as  surprised. 
"M'sieur  owes  me  anything?  M'sieur 
jokes." 

So  Schuyler,  seeing  of  Jacques  only  the 
light  of  adoring  black  eyes,  talked  for  a 
few  minutes  as  if  to  his  own  soul.  He  told 
of  his  illness,  his  loss  of  interest  in  the 
world,  his  dread  of  old  age;  he  told  of  the 
little  steel  affair  in  his  desk  and  of  his  re- 
solve to  use  it  that  September,  of  his 
going  to  Canada  to  fill  in  the  interval;  he 
told  how  the  simple  joy  of  living  of  the 
Morgans  had  given  him  a  manner  of  happy 
shock;  how^  he  had  found  himself,  with 
his  resolve  of  suicide  still  unbroken,  feel- 
ing oftener  and  oftener  inconsistently 
contented.  Then  he  told  how,  with  this 
preparation,  he  had  grown  interested  in 
Jacques  himself;  how  he  had  come  to  feel 
it  vitally  necessary  to  save  him;  how  in 
reasoning  against  Jacques's  self-murder 
he  had  reasoned  against  his  own,  and  how 
at  last  the  keen  interest  in  another  life  had 
undermined  the  morbid  desire  to  end  his 
ow^n.  He  told  how  it  had  come  to  him  as 
an  illumination,  as  world-old  truths  often 
come,  that  the  one  thing  which  keeps  a 
life  fresh  is  that  it  should,  like  a  stream, 
continually  spend  itself.  These  inmost 
soul-secrets  Schuyler,  the  reserved,  the 
haughty,  who  could  not  have  said  such 
things  to  his  brother  or  his  son,  these 
things  he  expounded  to  an  Indian  guide, 
his  farm -superintendent.     It  is  hkely  that 


when  a  soul  gets  down  to  bottom  real- 
ity it  talks,  if  talking  is  done,  to  a  soul, 
without  regard  for  race,  creed,  or  color. 
Jacques's  soul  was  a  strong  one,  and  de- 
veloped by  suffering,  and  given  once  for 
all,  with  Indian  finality,  to  the  service  and 
worship  of  Schuyler.  Also,  now,  of  a  new 
God  introduced  by  Schuyler.  Jacques 
listened,  and  understood. 

When  the  older  man  had  finished,  and 
the  quiet  June  night  had  closed  about  his 
voice  and  laid  over  it  two  or  three  soft 
moments,  and  built  it  into  the  great  wall  of 
things  past,  then  Jacques  answered,  with 
a  liquid,  hollow  depth  of  tone  which  had 
often  made  Schuyler  think  of  the  rapids 
on  the  Riviere  a  la  Poele,  booming  dis- 
tantly at  midnight. 

'' M'sieur,"  Jacques  said,  and  his  Eng- 
lish still  carried  a  strong  accent  and  an  ef- 
fect of  translation.  "I  am  an  ignorant 
man,  but  I  see  more  clearly  than  I  did 
formerly.  It  appears  to  me,  m'sieur,  that 
if  a  man's  life  is  for  himself  he  becomes 
rather  sick  of  it,  ennuye,  m'sieur;  and 
sometimes  would  like  to  end  it  because  it 
is  tiresome;  but  if  it  is  for  others,  which  I 
believe  is  the  better  arrangement,  and 
which  is  m'sieur's  way," — and  Schuyler 
in  the  dark  felt  ashamed  and  contented — 
"then  it  is  clear  that  a  man  has  no  right 
to  end  his  life.  For  how  can  one  tell  at 
what  moment  one  may  be  of  use  to  those 
others — anybody— everybody?  One  can- 
not tell;  therefore,  one  must  live  on,  and 
keep  the  lookout  to  be  of  service;  for  that 
is  what  living  is  for.  Also  that  way  is 
more  amusing.     N'est-ce  pas,  m'sieur?" 

"You  are  undoubtedly  right,  Jacques," 
answered  Peter  Schuyler  calmly.  "I  be- 
gan to  see  that  point  of  view  on  the  day  of 
th^fete  of  M'sieur  Bob." 

"  Ah! "  Jacques  was  smiling  in  the  dark- 
ness. "  The  fete  of  M'sieur  Bob!  It  was 
a  day  of  good  luck  for  me,  that  day." 

"And  for  me,"  agreed  Schuyler. 


SARDIS  AND  THE  AMERICAN    EXCAVATIONS 

By   Howard  Crosby  Butler 


^^^^^^JHE  excavations  which  have 
l)een  in  progress  at  ancient 
Sardis  during  several 
months  of  each  year  for  the 
past  four  years  are  the  first 
work  of  the  kind,  on  so  large 
a  scale,  that  has  yet  been  undertaken 
by  Americans  in  Greek  lands.  The  place 
which,  after  the  first  season,  was  pro- 
nounced by  competent  scholars  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  to  be  the  most  im- 
portant of  all  the  ancient  sites  in  Asia 
Minor,  has  already  yielded  scientific  re- 
sults far  beyond  the  expectations  of  those 
who  were  most  interested  in  it.  A  temple 
to  Artemis,  one  of  the  largest  erected  in 
Greek  antiquity,  has  been  completely  un- 
earthed. Hundreds  of  objects,  large  and 
small,  objects  of  beauty  as  w^ell  as  of 
archaeological  interest,  have  been  brought 
to  light,  and  many  inscriptions  in  Greek, 
one  of  them  of  great  historical  importance, 
have  been  discovered.  But  the  discovery 
which  stands  out  by  itself  and  which  would 
make  the  whole  undertaking  worth  while 
if  nothing  else  had  been  found  is  that  of 
a  large  body  of  inscriptions  in  Lydian,  a 
new  and  unknown  tongue,  together  with 
two  keys  which  promise  eventually  to 
open  this  entirely  new  store  of  historical 
information.  Thus,  archaeologists  and  his- 
torians, as  wtU  as  philologians  and  epig- 
raphists,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  are 
looking  with  the  keenest  interest  toward 
this  new  field  for  research.  But  an  article 
which  is  to  describe,  in  a  popular  way, 
the  work  being  done  at  a  place  so  little 
known  as  Sardis  must  begin  with  excur- 
sions into  geography  and  history,  and 
some  brief  descriptions  of  the  country  and 
its  present  inhabitants  may  serve  to  give 
a  fresh  and  living  setting  to  a  theme  de- 
voted to  the  resurrection  of  a  long-dead 
city. 

There  is  a  river  which  flows  northward, 
eastward,  and  northward  again,  finding  its 
hazardous  way  through  the  rugged  moun- 
tains of  ancient  Lydia  in  Asia  Minor.     Its 
Vol.  LV.-35 


waters,  now  scant  and  limpid,  now  volumi- 
nous and  turbid,  are  poured  at  length  into 
a  larger  and  more  sluggish  stream,  which, 
fed  by  a  hundred  other  snow-born  foun- 
tains that  descend  from  the  almost  per- 
petually snow-clad  mountains  on  the 
south,  flows  westward,  in  its  turn,  through 
a  broad  and  fruitful  plain,  and  then  through 
a  narrow  defile,  to  lose  itself  and  its  yel- 
low hue  at  last  in  the  clear  expanse  of  the 
Bay  of  Smyrna,  which  at  this  point  rep- 
resents the  iEgean  Sea.  The  smaller 
river  is  the  ancient  Pactolus — the  gold- 
bearing  stream  of  classical  legend  and 
song — in  which  mythical  Midas  washed 
to  cleanse  himself  of  the  '' golden  touch" 
and  from  which  historical  Crcesus  washed 
his  wealth  by  the  simple  process  known 
as  placer  mining.  For  Croesus  was  no 
other  than  the  last  king  of  the  ancient 
Lydian  nation,  and  the  Pactolus  cut  in 
halves  the  market-place  of  no  less  a  city 
than  Sardis,  his  capital.  The  greater 
river  was  anciently  the  Hermus.  Beside 
its  banks  the  armies  of  Xerxes  and  of 
Alexander  encamped.  It  made  of  the 
plain  of  Lydia  a  great  nation's  granary 
and  garden;  but  it  did  not  appeal  to  the 
poets  and  the  builders  of  legend  as  did 
its  httle  mountain  arm  with  the  sands  of 
gold.  The  snow-capped  mountain  was 
Tmolus  to  the  Greeks.  Its  rugged  fast- 
nesses saw  the  birth  and  youthful  sports 
of  Pan.  Thus,  in  a  few  words,  we  may 
place  the  setting  of  this  story  on  the 
ancient  geographical  chart,  and  in  the 
mythology  and  legends  of  the  ancient 
Greeks. 

On  the  east  bank  of  the  Pactolus,  just 
above  the  point  where  that  stream  enters 
the  plain  to  join  the  Hermus,  rises  a  sharp- 
crested,  precipitous-sided  crag,  some  six 
hundred  feet  high,  composed  of  reddish, 
hard-packed  clay  sliot  through  with 
rounded  pebbles.  There  is  a  thin  line  t)f 
green  along  its  summit,  and  straggling 
wisps  of  i)ine  and  broom  cling  to  its  al- 
most naked  sides  as  they  rise  abruptly 
from   lower  slopes   that  are  thick   with 

343 


;i44 


Sardis  and   the  American   Excavations 


scrub-oak,  thorn,  and  oleander.  This  shaft 
of  red  chiy  \nth  its  spear-point  crest — 
for  it  is  hardly  more  than  a  shaft — is  all 
that  remains  of  the  famous  acropolis  of 
ancient  Sardis,  and,  if  you  look  care- 
fully, you  will  sec  two  fragments  of  mass- 
ive wall  balancing  themselves  below  the 
crest.  If  you  were  to  climb  the  shoulder 
of  the  acropolis  you  would  see  several 
hundred  feet  of  this  wall  still  holding  it- 
self in  place  by  some  acrobatic  feat  of 
statics  which  the  beholder  is  powerless  to 
explain. 

At  the  foot  of  the  acropolis,  quite  near 
the  river's  eastern  bank,  two  Ionic  col- 
umns of  white  marble,  for  years  on  end, 
have  been  the  only  monument  to  mark  the 
last  resting-place  of  the  older  Sardis,  the 
lower  city  of  the  Lydians  and  the  Greeks. 
Beside  these  columns,  in  the  month  of 
March,  1910,  a  party  of  American  exca- 
vators pitched  their  tents,  prepared  to 
begin  the  unearthing  of  the  ancient  city, 
and,  since  the  two  Ionic  shafts  were  the 
only  visible  signs  of  a  building  of  un- 
doubted antiquity  that  might,  or  must,  be 
buried  below,  it  was  natural  that  the  ex- 
cavators should  choose  to  begin  their 
operations  in  the  neighborhood  of  these 
tw^o  guide-posts,  rather  than  on  the  far- 
ther side  of  the  acropolis  hill  where  there 
are  remains  of  a  Roman  Sardis,  or  out 
toward  the  plain  where  crude  and  un- 
sightly masses  of  broken  wall  mark  the 
site  of  the  town  of  Byzantine  days. 

A  moderately  practised  eye  could  see 
that  columns  of  such  massive  girth,  and 
so  disproportionally  low,  could  be  show- 
ing hardly  more  than  one  half  of  their 
original  height.  They  stood  over  six  feet 
in  diameter,  and  only  a  little  over  thir- 
ty feet  high.  They  were  undoubtedly 
Greek,  and  in  the  Ionic  style,  and  the 
correct  proportion  of  height  to  diameter 
should  be  nearer  nine  times  than  five 
times.  Thus  one  could  reason  that  the 
building  to  which  these  columns  belonged, 
allowing  for  the  platform  upon  which  such 
a  building  might  be  presumed  to  stand, 
must  be  buried  from  thirty  to  forty  feet 
deep  at  this  point.  To  the  south  and 
west  the  level  of  the  ground  fell  off 
toward  the  river,  whose  banks  were  not 
more  than  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  high; 
but  to  the  north  and  east  the  present 
level  gains  one  or  two  feet  with  every 


rod,  so  that  the  city,  in  these  directions 
from  the  columns,  must  lie  fifty,  sixty, 
even  seventy  feet-  under  ground.  Every 
intelligent  visitor  who  stands  beneath 
these  columns  and  looks  up  to  the  scanty 
remnants  of  the  fortifications  on  the 
sharp  peak  above  them,  asks  the  same 
question:  ''How  did  a  city  as  great  as 
Sardis  is  believed  to  have  been,  a  city 
which  must  have  had  many  and  large 
buildings,  ever  become  so  completely  and 
so  deeply  buried?"  And  such  as  have 
read  their  Polybius,  as  a  few  visitors  do 
in  preparation  for  a  visit,  also  ask:  "How 
in  the  world  were  a  great  fortress,  one  of 
the  most  impregnable  of  antiquity,  and 
numerous  large  buildings,  enough  to  com- 
pose an  upper  city,  ever  perched  upon 
that  knife-blade,  and  what  has  become 
of  them  all?  surely  they  were  not  buried. " 
The  answer  to  one  question  is  answer  to 
the  other.  It  involves  an  explanation 
that  the  hill  we  now  see  is  not  the  hill  of 
Croesus's  stronghold,  not  the  acropolis  so 
gallantly  defended  by  Achaeus  in  the 
third  century  B.  C,  but  only  a  small 
fragment  of  it:  the  remainder  of  it  lies 
below,  burying  the  ancient  lower  city  in 
its  debris.  Look  at  it  now;  tiny  ava- 
lanches of  sand  and  pebbles  are  coming 
down  under  the  tread  of  every  venture- 
some goat;  with  the  flap  of  an  eagle's 
wing  against  its  sides  it  is  falling  every 
moment.  Or,  better,  creep  up  toward 
the  base  of  one  of  those  cliffs  on  a  winter 
morning,  when  the  sun  first  strikes  it 
after  a  night  of  frost,  hear  that  bang  and 
rattle  like  artillery,  see  that  pinnacle 
topple  and  fall;  while  the  eagles,  the 
hawks,  and  the  owls  which  have  their 
nests  in  its  pitted  surface  fly  screaming 
from  their  nooks.  This  is  a  country  of 
earthquakes.  It  is  written  down  in  his- 
tory that  a  great  one  destroyed  Sardis 
in  the  year  17  of  this  era,  in  the  reign 
of  Tiberius  Caesar.  We  shall  never  know 
how  much  of  the  acropolis  fell  down  on 
that  occasion,  nor  how  much  has  fallen 
in  the  earthquakes  which  have  shaken  it 
during  the  nineteen  hundred  years  since; 
but  the  fragments  of  walls  which  we  see 
up  there  are  not  the  walls  of  Lydians  or 
Greeks,  not  even  of  the  Romans;  they 
are  the  building  of  the  latest  of  the  By- 
zantine defenders,  even  Turkish  perhaps; 
but  not  an  inch  of  the  hilltop  now  visible 


Sardis  and  the  American   Excavations 


345 


could  be  seen  when  Alexander  the  Great 
stood  upon  it;  these  parts  were  probably 
near  the  core  of  the  acropolis  in  those 
days. 

I  cannot  leave  Alexander  standing  upon 
the  top  of  the  acropolis  without  giving 
some  description  of  the  splendid  pano- 
rama that  spread  out  before  him,  look- 
ing then  very  much  as  it  does  now;  for, 
although  the  pedestal  on  which  he  stood 
and  its  base  have  changed  much,  the 
outlying  hills,  being  of  more  enduring 
stuff,  the  plain,  the  river,  the  lake,  and 
the  glorious  expanse  of  sky  have  altered 
only  as  light  and  shade  and  the  vary- 
ing clouds  can  change  them.  Beyond 
the  vast  expanse  of  whitened  housetops 
and  marble-tiled  temple  roofs,  beyond 
the  massive  walls  and  the  city  gates,  be- 
yond all  these  things  that  are  no  more,  to 
the  north,  and  far  around  tow^ard  the 
rising  sun,  spreads  out  the  sumptuous 
plain  divided  and  subdivided  into  squares 
and  rectangles  of  golden  yellow,  green,  and 
reddish-brown — the  wealth  of  Lydia  in 
various  stages  of  development.  Through 
the  midst  runs  a  stream  of  molten  silver 
winding  in  broad  majestic  curves.  Near 
the  river  a  mighty  assemblage  of  tents 
marked  the  camp  of  the  Macedonian 
army;  the  plain  was  dotted  with  more 
and  better-looking  villages;  but  the 
squares  and  rectangles  which  change  their 
colors  with  every  moon  were  there  as 
they  are  now.  Beyond  the  plain,  straight 
to  the  northward,  on  a  long  low  ridge, 
rises  a  vast  array  of  cone-shaped  mounds 
of  varying  sizes,  some  as  large  as  the 
great  pyramids,  others  no  bigger  than 
a  thirty-foot  tent;  all  regular  in  form 
and  smoothly  overgrown  with  grass.  If 
Aristotle  had  schooled  him  thoroughly  in 
Herodotus  as  well  as  in  Plato,  Alexander 
knew  that  these  mounds  were  the  famous 
tombs  of  the  Lydian  kings,  even  before 
his  attendants  informed  him  of  the  fact. 
The  great  one  toward  the  east  is  the  tomb 
of  Alyattes,  the  next  one  is  King  Gyges's 
tomb,  the  others  have  no  names,  and 
the  smaller  ones  were  probably  not  royal 
tombs  at  all,  unless  the  kingdom  of  Lydia 
lasted  much  longer  and  had  many  more 
kings  than  we  have  any  reason  to  sup- 
pose. The  Turks  now  call  the  ridge  with 
its  tumuli  Bin  Tepc  —  The  Thousand 
Mounds.    The  background  of  the  tomb- 


hills  is  a  broad  expanse  of  burnished  steel 
— the  lake  of  Gyges.  Beyond  this,  range 
above  range,  purple  and  azure,  rise  the 
distant  mountains  which  form  the  north- 
ern boundary  of  the  plain;  the  faint  blue 
peak  which  seems  to  pierce  the  sky  is 
said  to  be  the  summit  of  the  Mocsian 
Olympus.  In  all  other  directions,  far 
and  near,  mountains  and  hills,  snowy 
crest  and  beetling  crag,  tufted  forest 
slope  and  black  cavernous  ravine,  com- 
pose a  prospect  of  wild  splendor.  To  the 
east  loom  the  towering  masses  of  Mount 
Tmolus,  crowned  and  streaked  with 
white.  To  the  south  rises  a  mighty  pine- 
clad  mountain  wall,  cleft  with  deep  and 
shadowy  gorges  through  which  wild 
mountain  torrents  roar  and  leap  from 
cataract  to  cataract,  cutting  their  way 
through  barriers  of  glistening  marble  un- 
til white  precipices  rise  sheer  on  either 
hand.  To  the  westward,  gaunt  and  bare, 
the  red-clay  hills  stand,  carved  by  wind 
and  rain  into  a  thousand  fantastic  shapes, 
like  the  spires  and  pinnacles  of  Gothic 
architecture;  and  beyond,  more  fair  blue 
hills  reaching  up  to  mountain  height. 
Then  at  the  northwest  the  eye  once  more 
rests  where  the  plain  and  mountain  meet 
again  below  the  steep  wall  of  Mount 
Sipylus,  where  still  weeps  Niobe,  that 
huge  pathetic  figure  in  stone. 

'^But  what  w^as  there,"  inquires  again 
the  intelligent  visitor,  ''to  make  a  town 
like  Sardis,  shut  up  between  two  moun- 
tains, on  the  edge  of  a  plain  that  was  no 
richer  than  many  other  plains,  so  im- 
portant in  antiquity?  Surely  it  was  not 
merely  the  wealth  of  Croesus,  and  what 
is  there  about  Sardis  now  that  makes  it 
worth  while  to  spend  so  much  money  and 
so  much  labor  in  excavating  it?" 

The  two  questions  are  perfectly  fair; 
but  it  would  make  a  very  long  story  to 
answer  them  fully,  and  I  doubt  if  I  ha\e 
the  knowledge  to  answer  them  in  de- 
tail, giving  justly  balanced  weight  to  the 
claims  of  every  reason  for  these  things; 
but  brief  answers  which  may  be  satisfy- 
ing for  the  moment  can  be  given  olThand 
by  any  of  us  who  have  the  work  here  in 
our  hands.  It  certainly  was  not  simi)ly 
the  wealth  of  Crtrsus  that  ga\e  Sardis  its 
ancient  imi)ortance,  although,  in  a  sense, 
that  played  an  important  part.    Croesus's 


340 


Sardis  and   the   American   Excavations 


great  fortune  may  ha\c  l)ccn,  in  pari  at 
least,  a  myth— he  mi«^lit  rank  to-day  only 
as  a  third  or  fourth  rate  millionaire;  but 
let  us  consider  that  fortune  as  a  symbol 
of  things  more  significant  than  the  treas- 
ure of  one  man.  Gold  was  found  in  the 
bed  of  the  Pactolus— it  was  easily  ob- 
tained; the  Lydians  and  Croesus's  royal 
predecessors  for  generations  had  been 
growing  rich  from  this  source.  But  it  is 
more  important  to  remember  that  the 
Lydians  were  the  first  nation  to  coin  gold. 
C'rccsus  made  his  coinage  in  such  values 
that  it  was  easily  exchangeable  in  the 
East  and  West.  He  became,  one  might 
say,  a  great  exchange  banker,  and  the 
position  of  his  kingdom,  midway  between 
the  Oriental  world  and  the  Greek  world, 
helped  his  business.  And  this  brings  us 
to  a  consideration  of  the  second  question. 
Sardis  is  important  as  a  site  for  excava- 
tion just  because  of  her  position  at  a 
point  where  East  and  West  met.  She 
moreover  commanded  the  terminus  of 
the  greatest  of  all  the  trade-routes  of  its. 
day — the  Royal  Road — which,  coming 
straight  through  Asia  Minor,  carried  the 
converging  commerce  of  all  the  peoples 
of  the  East  into  her  warehouses,  and  sent 
it  forth  again  westward  to  the  seaports. 
Imagine  what  tolls  and  customs  duties 
Sardis  could  have  exacted  from  this  com- 
merce; imagine  what  a  power  she  had  as 
a  disseminator  of  Oriental  goods  in  the 
West  and  of  Occidental  goods  in  the  East, 
a  power  of  exchanging  thoughts,  arts,  in- 
dustries between  the  two — this  made  her 
important. 

There  are  many  people  nowadays, 
many  scholars  in  fact,  who  believe  that 
the  civilization  of  the  Greeks,  their  re- 
ligion, and  their  art  did  not  spring  wholly 
and  independently  from  the  soil  of  Hellas. 
Eastern  civilization  was  older.  Eastern 
art  had  been  longer;  did  they  affect  the 
civiUzation  and  the  art  of  Greece,  and,  if 
so,  to  what  extent?  This  is  an  important 
question;  for  to  a  high  degree  it  bears 
upon  the  origins  of  our  own  civilization, 
though  few  realize  this  until  their  atten- 
tion is  called  to  it.  And  how  much  we 
hear  of  origins  in  these  days!  Since  Dar- 
win wrote  his  "Origin  of  Species"  what 
mines  of  wealth,  what  labors  of  the  brain, 
what  regiments  of  Hves  have  been  de- 
voted to  the  study  of  origins !    The  study 


of  history  and  of  art,  no  less  than  that 
of  the  natural  world,  must  be  treated 
by  the  evolutionary  method,  and  these 
sciences  are  no  longer  sciences  without  it. 
Now,  it  safely  may  be  assumed  that  if 
there  is  any  ancient  site  which  holds 
secrets  touching  the  origins  of  Greek  civ- 
ilization, that  site,  for  reasons  given 
above,  is  Sardis.  Sardis  had  a  long  his- 
tory, longer  than  the  unbroken  history  of 
Greece.  She  was  great,  powerful,  and 
progressive;  yet  all  that  we  know  about 
her  is  to  be  gleaned  from  a  few  sentences 
of  the  great  Greek  historian.  This  can- 
not be  all  there  is  to  know.  The  Lyd- 
ians had  a  language  of  their  own,  writ- 
ten in  characters  of  their  own  devising — 
a  highly  developed  language  which  they 
wrote  in  beautiful  letters  on  their  monu- 
ments, as  we  have  actually  discovered. 
This  language  has  not  yet  been  com- 
pletely deciphered,  but  it  will  be  before 
very  long.  Is  it  presumptuous  to  say 
that  more  secrets  will  be  revealed  here  in 
time? 

In  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century 
B.  C.  Sardis  was  the  capital  of  an  old  and 
powerful  independent  kingdom  and  one 
of  the  great  cities  of  the  world.  Her  his- 
tory must  have  been  a  long  one,  though 
how  long  we  cannot  say,  owing  to  the 
scantiness  of  our  present  information. 
Croesus,  the  last,  and  perhaps  the  great- 
est, of  the  Lydian  kings,  was  himself  a 
Phil-Hellene,  but  he  was  undoubtedly 
not  the  first  to  encourage  Greek  culture  in 
Lydia.  The  sixth  century  was  a  time  of 
Greek  expansion  and  of  Greek  coloniza- 
tion in  all  parts  of  the  Mediterranean 
basin.  Greeks  had  come  to  Lydia  and 
had  settled  in  Sardis,  bringing  their  cul- 
ture with  them,  long  before  the  famous 
visit  of  Solon.  Then  came  the  Persian 
war — that  great  war  of  invasion  from  the 
East — and  Croesus,  who  had  done  so 
much  to  save  Hellas  from  the  invaders, 
lost  his  throne,  and  was  carried  away  a 
captive  to  the  Persian  capital.  Sardis 
became  the  western  capital  of  the  Persian 
Empire,  the  seat  of  a  Persian  satrap,  and 
a  Persian  garrison  became  a  fixture  upon 
the  acropolis.  For  over  two  hundred 
years  the  city  remained  under  Persian 
sway,  but  she  did  not  become  Persian — 
quite  the  contrary;  for  the  seeds  of 
Greek  civilization  already  sown  grew  up, 


Sardls  and  the  American   Excavations 


34: 


bore  fruit,  increased,  and  multiplied,  so  cities  of  Asia  Sardis  was  rebuilt  after  the 

that  the  conquest  was  in  effect  one  for  greatearthcjuakeof  theyear  17  A.  D.,  and 

the    Greeks.      When    Alexander   arrived  flourished  as  a  metropolis  for  a  few  cen- 

before    the   gates   of    Sardis    they   were  turies  longer.    She  was  among  the  earlier 

thrown  open  to  him,  he  was  welcomed  as  cities  to  harbor  a  community  who  had 


The  columns  before  the  excavations  were  begun,  March,  1910. 


a  deliverer,  and,  without  delay,  he  made 
Sardis  a  free  Greek  city,  on  a  footing 
with  the  Ionian  cities  of  the  coast.  From 
this  time  whatever  still  survived  of  the 
old  Lydian  life  and  custom  was  merged 
in  the  common  Hellenistic  civilization 
that  had  begun  to  cover  the  then  known 
world.  Lydia  and  her  capital,  after  two 
stormy  centuries  under  the  successors  of 
Alexander,  like  all  the  ancient  kingdoms 
of  Asia,  were  engulfed  in  the  maw  of  Rome. 
Holding  an  honored  and  more  or  less 
independent  position  among  her  sister 
Vol.  LV.— 36 


embraced  the  newly  preached  tenets  of 
Christianity,  and  was  the  seat  of  one  of 
the  seven  churches  of  Asia.  Although 
Saint  John,  in  the  Apocalypse,  is  not  san- 
guine of  the  condition  of  the  Sardian 
church  in  the  first  century,  it  remained 
an  imjwrtant  centre  of  Christianity  long 
after  the  early  struggles  of  the  infant 
church  were  o\er  and  i)assed.  .\s  a  city 
of  the  later  Roman  and  Byzantine  days, 
Sardis  seems  to  ha\e  lost  much  of  her 
l)ristine  power  and  eminence.  She  fell  to 
the  Turks  in  the  eleventh  century  and 


The  excavations  in  April,  1910. 
Acropolis,  tents  of  the  excavators,  and  columns  of  the  temple  of  Artemis  Pactolus  in  the  foreground. 


met  her  final  destruction  at  the  hands  of 
Timour  Lenk  (Tamerlane)  in  the  year 
1402  A.  D. 

The  task  of  excavation  was  begun  to 
the  westward  of  the  columns  so  often  re- 
ferred to  above,  at  the  river-bank,  where 
some  flood  had  cut  a  perpendicular  face — 
a  practical  cross-section — of  the  accumu- 
lated debris  that  buried  the  city.  The 
first  cutting  was  carried  down  to  a  level, 
or  stratum,  of  clay  almost  as  hard  as 
rock,  which  seemed  to  be  a  natural  and 
undisturbed  formation.  But  this  lowest 
level  was  soon  abandoned  for  one  about 
five  feet  higher,  where  a  large  paving- 
block  of  marble,  apparently  in  place,  gave 
the  first  sign  of  human  handiwork.  Ex- 
cavation was  carried  rapidly  eastward  on 
this  level,  by  means  of  a  cutting  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet  wide,  for  several  weeks, 
until  an  ancient  building,  oblong,  with  a 
flight  of  steps  on  its  long  western  side, 
and  preserved  to  a  height  of  from  six  to 
ten  feet,  was  unearthed.  It  was  evident 
that  the  building  was  very  early;  it  was 
348 


tentatively  called  the  ''Lydian  build- 
ing," and  the  level  was  called  the  Lydian 
level;  later  discoveries  established  the 
correctness  of  these  titles.  About  the 
walls  of  this  Lydian  building,  and  in  two 
rows  on  either  side  of  it,  stood  rectan- 
gular marble  bases  with  sockets  in  their 
tops  to  receive  the  bottoms  of  tall  in- 
scribed slabs  or  stelce.  One  of  these 
stelae  was  found,  having  fallen  forward 
from  its  elevated  base;  it  contained  a 
long  and  well-engraved  Lydian  inscription. 
All  the  other  stelae  had  been  carried  away. 
But  scarcely  had  these  interesting  re- 
mains of  Lydian  civilization  come  to 
light  when  farther  advance  on  this  level 
was  checked  by  the  finding  of  heavy  walls 
of  huge,  roughly  finished  blocks  of  white 
marble  perfectly  fitted  together  immedi- 
ately east  of  the  Lydian  building.  These 
were  soon  found  to  be  the  foundations  of 
the  great  temple  the  eastern  end  of 
which  was  represented  by  the  two  tall 
columns  standing  over  three  hundred 
feet  away.  This  discovery  at  once  gave 
proof  that  the  temple  was  one  of  the 


The  temple  from  tlie  north,  March,  1912. 


largest  of  Greek  antiquity,  and  necessi- 
tated the  temporary  abandonment  of  the 
Lydian  level  for  that  of  the  temple  plat- 
form about  ten  feet  above  it.  The  orig- 
inal cutting  was  then  widened,  and  the 
force  of  laborers  was  increased  to  about 
one  hundred  men.  Before  the  end  of 
the  first  season  the  foundations  of  the 
western  quarter  of  the  temple  had  been 
exposed,  and  progress  eastward  had 
carried  the  excavations  into  the  western 
chamber  of  the  temple,  that  is  to  say,  the 
treasury.  With  every  few  yards'  advance 
the  temple  was  found  in  a  better  and 
better  state  of  preservation.  The  west- 
ern portico  preserved  only  the  founda- 
tions of  columns  in  large  blocks  of  marble; 
but  the  north  wall  of  the  treasury  cham- 
ber was  found  to  be  standing  to  a  height 
of  about  seven  feet  above  its  foundations, 
and  here,  on  the  inner  face,  was  found  a 
long  inscription,  beautifully  cut  in  small 
Greek  letters,  which  was  found  to  be  a 
mortgage  given  by  one  Mnesymachos  to 
the  stewards  of  the  temple  of  Artemis,  a 
most  interesting  and  important  document 


in  itself,  which  gave  the  first  incontest- 
able proof  that  the  building  was  the  tem- 
ple of  Artemis.  The  inscription  is  to  be 
dated,  by  internal  evidence,  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  fourth  century  B.  C.  Ionic 
capitals  of  unusual  beauty,  and  a  number 
of  highly  finished  fluted-column  drums, 
together  with  fragments  of  carved-col- 
umn  bases  and  other  details  which  were 
recovered  during  the  first  season,  indi- 
cated that  the  temple  was  begun  early  in 
the  fourth  century. 

With  the  second  campaign  a  further 
widening  out  of  the  original  cutting  was 
accomplished  in  addition  to  the  j^rincipal 
work  of  digging  continually  eastward  in 
the  direction  of  the  columns.  But  even 
with  the  introduction  of  a  de  Couville  sys- 
tem of  railway,  and  an  increase  in  the 
number  of  laborers  to  two  hundred  men, 
the  eastern  progress  was  slower  than  it 
had  been  during  the  pre\ious  campaign. 
This  was  due,  in  part,  as  had  been  an- 
ticipated, to  the  rapid  increase  of  the 
(lei)lh  of  soil  to  be  removed;  but  prin- 
cipally to  the  increasing  number  of  fallen 

349 


350 


Sardis  and   tlie  American   Excavations 


buikling-stoncs  and  architectural  details  buried  in  thirty  feet  of  debris.     As  the 

which  were  encountered.     Drums  of  col-  excaxations  ])rop;ressed  it  became  more 

umns  and  blocks  for  the  walls,  weighing  and  more  apparent  that  the  western  end 

from  five  to  seven  tons,  to  say  nothing  of  the  temple  had  been  exposed,  or  only 

of  a  block  of  the  architrave  of  twenty-  little  buried,  during  the  Byzantine  pe- 

five  tons'  weight  suspended  in  soft  earth  riod,  and  that  the  ancient  building  had 


General  view  of  the  excavations  in  June,  191 2. 


high  above  the  bottom  of  the  excava- 
tions, constituted  an  ever-present  dan- 
ger to  laborers  working  near  them,  and 
caused  constant  delays  until  these  huge 
obstructions  could  be  removed  to  per- 
manent places  of  safety.  The  end  of  the 
season,  however,  saw  the  clearing  out  of 
the  cella — the  main  chamber  of  the  tem- 
ple— the  exposing  of  the  foundations  of 
a  long  line  of  columns  on  either  side  of 
the  building,  and  the  unearthing  of  the 
bases  of  two  columns  at  the  southeast 
angle,  including  one  of  the  standing  col- 
umns which  was  thus  converted  from  a 
short,  thick  shaft  to  one  of  unusual  height 
and  slenderness,  about  twenty-five  feet 
having  been  added  to  its  length.  The 
remainder  of  the  eastern  portico  remained 


served  as  a  quarry,  at  least  from  the 
sixth  century  onward.  On  the  level  upon 
which  much  of  this  breaking  up  had  been 
carried  on,  among  a  heap  of  intentionally 
broken  blocks  of  marble,  we  found  a 
hoard  of  two  hundred  and  seventeen 
bronze  coins  of  the  sixth  century,  which 
probably  represented  the  savings  of  some 
laborer  engaged  in  the  work  of  destruc- 
tion. It  was  further  evident  that  the 
temple  was  preserved  only  in  proportion 
as  it  had  been  buried,  and  that  more 
than  two  thirds  of  the  edifice,  its  walls, 
its  columns  and  entablature,  even  its 
roof  of  marble  tiles,  had  been  broken  up 
and  converted  into  lime  at  least  twelve 
hundred  years  ago.  Fortunately  the 
foundations  had  been  spared  even  at  the 


Sardis  and  the  American  Excavations 


351 


unfortunate  west  end.  In  the  middle  of 
the  cultus  chamber  was  disclosed  a  mass- 
ive platform,  composed  of  two  layers  of 
coarse  purple  sandstone  blocks  evidently 
belonging  to  a  structure  far  older  than  the 
fourth-century  temple  and  presumed  to 


plete  unearthing  of  the  temple  and  the 
discovery  of  a  large  body  of  Lydian  in- 
scriptions, together  with  a  key  in  the 
form  of  an  Aramaic  translation  of  one  of 
them,  in  addition  to  the  almost  daily 
''  finds"  of  greater  or  less  importance;  but 


'l"he  little  church  from  the  north. 


be  the  basis  for  the  great  cultus  statue  of 
Artemis.  At  a  point  w^here  one  of  the 
later  marble-column  foundations  had 
been  joined  on  to  this  ancient  construc- 
tion, in  the  vertical  joints  between  the 
two,  a  collection  of  large  Greek  coins  in 
silver  was  found,  fifty-five  in  all,  tetra- 
drachms  of  Philip,  Alexander,  and  sev- 
eral of  the  earlier  successors  of  Alexander, 
all  in  a  perfect  state  of  preservation  and 
most  of  them  as  fresh  as  they  were  the 
day  they  came  from  the  mint.  In  an- 
other similar  position  a  mass  of  copper 
coin  of  the  same  age  was  found,  and,  be- 
tween the  layers  of  the  "basis,"  a  silver 
coin  of  Crcesus. 

The  third  season  was  most  interesting 
and  spectacular,  for  it  witnessed  the  com- 


the  fourth  season,  the  campaign  just 
closed,  was  the  most  satisfactory  of  all, 
for  it  saw  the  temple  brought  up,  as  it 
were,  out  of  a  pit  and  set  in  a  broad  o])en 
space,  more  as  it  was  of  old.  It  equalled 
the  preceding  season  from  a  scientific 
standpoint  by  producing  a  bilingual  in 
Lydian  and  Greek,  and  it  sur])assed  all 
previous  seasons  in  the  field  of  the  history 
of  art.  The  four  campaigns  ha\'e  com- 
prised but  eighteen  months  of  actual  work- 
ing-time, since  it  has  been  ])ossible  to 
carry  on  the  work  only  between  the  end 
of  January  and  the  beginning  of  July  of 
each  year,  owing  to  severe  weather  con- 
ditions in  the  winter  and  the  demands  of 
the  cr()])s  upon  the  laborers  in  the  late 
sununer  and  autunui  months,     liut,  in 


.>.)L' 


Sardis  and  tlic  American   Excavations 


this  brief  space  of  time,  a  sloping  barley 
tk'ld,  with  twt)  columns  and  a  hea})  of 
fallen  column-drums  clustering  about 
them,  has  been  converted  into  a  vast  pit 
o\er  six  hundred  feet  long  and  four  hun- 
dred feet  wide,  twelve  feet  deep  at  one 


were  to  have  carved  the  flutings.  This 
and  other  evidence  shows  that  this  ])or- 
tion  of  the  building  was  undergoing  a  proc- 
ess of  rebuilding,  doubtless  as  the  result 
of  earthquakes,  and  was  not  comi)letely 
finished  in  all  details  when  it  was  finally 


-<;  X'-\''-''.r^^,C 


Capital  found  in  the  excavations. 


end  and  fifty  feet  deep  at  the  other, 
with  four  lines  of  railway  on  either  side 
running  on  four  different  levels  and 
spreading  out,  toward  the  west,  over  the 
great,  flat,  brown  dump  which  now  al- 
most nils  the  broad  river-bed  at  this  point. 
In  the  midst  of  the  excavation  stands  the 
temple,  its  every  outline  at  the  far  end 
marked  out  by  marble  foundations  against 
the  brown  earth,  its  middle  section  out- 
lined by  walls  standing  at  a  height  of  six 
feet  or  more,  and  its  east  end  rising  ma- 
jestically in  highly  finished  walls  fifteen 
to  twenty  feet  high,  and  thirteen  huge 
columns  still  preserving  twenty-five  to 
thirty  feet  of  their  original  height,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  two  original  columns  which 
tower  almost  sixty  feet  above  the  plat- 
form. All  this  marble  is  now  a  soft  yel- 
lowish-brown rapidly  turning  to  an  ivory 
white  by  the  natural  washing  of  rains  and 
intentional  washing  with  a  hose-pipe. 
The  columns,  almost  seven  feet  in  diam- 
eter, create  an  impression  of  Egyptian 
massiveness  which  is  relieved  by  the 
graceful  curves  and  the  rich  and  varied 
ornament  of  their  bases.  Only  two  of 
these  eastern  columns  are  fluted,  though 
all  the  others  show  bands  and  lines  for 
the  guidance  of  the  stone-cutters  who 


overwhelmed  and  abandoned.  All  the 
fragments  of  columns  at  the  opposite  end 
of  the  building  are  in  a  finished  state,  with 
deep  and  well-cut  flutings.  At  the  west- 
ward of  the  temple,  and  on  a  level  well  be- 
low it,  is  the  ancient  Lydian  building;  at 
the  east  end,  near  the  southeast  angle, 
and  on  a  level  five  feet  above  the  column 
bases  is  an  early  Christian  church,  crudely 
built  of  brick,  with  its  walls  and  the  half- 
dome  of  its  apse  all  intact,  and  the  little 
altar  standing  as  it  stood  at  the  close  of 
the  celebration  of  its  last  mass.  Behind 
the  little  apse  is  a  half-ruined  one  that 
belonged  to  a  still  earlier  period.  At  the 
very  close  of  the  third  campaign,  directly 
in  front  of  the  temple  of  Artemis,  the  ex- 
cavation of  which  had  just  been  com- 
pleted, we  found  a  tall  stele  with  a  fine 
Greek  inscription  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  lines,  one  of  the  longest  in- 
scriptions that  have  been  found  in  Asia 
Minor,  which  contained  a  letter  from  the 
Emperor  Augustus  and  gave  us  the  wel- 
come information  that  the  temple  of  Zeus 
is  in  the  same  sacred  enclosure  with  the 
temple  of  Artemis.  Owing  to  the  con- 
ditions of  the  site,  this  temple  must  be 
near  at  hand,  buried  in  from  fifty  to 
seventy  feet  of  soil.     If,  like  the  other 


Sardis  and  the  American   Excavations 


353 


temple,  it  is  preserved  in  proportion  as  it 
is  deeply  buried,  we  should  find  it  a  \ery 
well-preserved  building,  and,  if  it  is  the 
temple  of  Zeus  referred  to  by  Arrian,  it 
stands  upon  the  ruins  of  the  Palace  of 
Croesus. 

It  is  almost  startling,  even  to  those  who 
have  watched  the  work  day  by  day,  to 
reflect  upon  the  miracle  that  has  trans- 
formed the  barley-field  into  the  site  of  a 
si)lendid  building:  it  is  the  next  best 
thing  to  the  creation  of  a  great  work  of 
art,  to  dig  it  out  of  the  earth.  Most  of 
the  credit  for  the  rapidity  of  this  trans- 
formation is  due  to  the  skill  and  the  untir- 
ing energy  and  patience  of  the  engineers 
who  have  had  the  work  in  charge.  But 
we  cannot  pass  without  a  tribute  to  the 
quality  of  the  laborers  which  good  for- 
tune has  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  ex- 
cavators. Good  fellows  they  are,  mostly 
Turkish  peasants,  farmers  from  the  plain, 
and  shepherds  and  woodmen  from  the 
hills,  with  an  occasional  Cretan  Moslem 
or  a  Greek  from  one  of  the  neighboring 
towns.     Strong  of  back  and  limb,  tract- 


al)le  and  hard-working,  and,  to  an  aston- 
ishing degree,  interested  in  their  work  and 
devoted  to  their  foreign  employers,  they 
make  as  satisfactory  a  body  (^f  workmen 
as  could  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world. 
They  have  learned  that  the  excavators 
are  not  in  search  of  treasure  in  their  ac- 
cepted sense  of  the  word,  and  in  their  de- 
sire to  please  take  great  ])ains  with  the 
digging  out  of  bits  of  carving  or  inscri])- 
tions,  and  seem,  many  of  them,  to  be 
truly  interested  in  what  they  are  doing. 

The  most  important  discovery  from  a 
scientific  point  of  view,  namely,  that  of 
the  collection  of  Lydian  inscriptions  and 
the  Lydian-Aramaic  bilingual  key,  was 
not  made  at  the  temple,  where,  to  be  sure, 
several  good  inscriptions  in  this  new  lan- 
guage and  the  Lydian-Greek  bilingual 
have  been  found,  but  at  the  tombs  across 
the  river,  where  excavations  on  a  small 
scale  have  been  in  progress  simultane- 
ously with  those  at  the  temple.  I  say  a 
"collection"  of  Lydian  inscriptions,  for 
the  reason  that  most  of  them  were  found, 
not  in  place,  but  built  into  a  compara- 


lii  llic  t■a^t  porcli  of  ilic   I  emplc  nf  Aitcinis. 


The  east  end  of  the  temple. 


tively  late  wall  which  itself  had  become 
deeply  buried.  They  had  stood  original- 
ly in  front  of  the  entrances  to  tombs,  and, 
after  the  dead  whom  they  commemo- 
rated had  been  forgotten  by  generations 
that  could  not  read  Lydian,  had  been  col- 
lected and  used  in  the  construction  of  the 
foundation  walls  of  some  Greek  or  Roman 
monument.  A  remarkable  hoard  of  docu- 
ments they  proved  to  be,  large  marble 
slabs  with  long  and  beautifully  written 
inscriptions,  perfectly  preserved,  as  in- 
scriptions, in  many  cases,  and  as  clear  as 
the  day  they  were  written.  They  had 
been  tall  stelae  with  rich  anthemion  crest- 
ings,  and  all  of  them  had  been  broken  into 
two  or  three  pieces  to  render  them  more 
useful  for  building  purposes.  But  few  of 
the  inscriptions  had  been  injured,  and 
others  which  had  been  broken  were  found 
to  fit  together  without  injury  to  the  writ- 
ing, and  the  flowery  crests  of  two  of  them 
were  easily  reset  in  place.  Among  them 
was  the  biUngual,  with  two  long  docu- 
ments, one  hne  of  the  Lydian  part  miss- 
354 


ing  but  supplied  in  the  translation.  That 
the  one  was  a  translation  of  the  other 
there  could  be  no  doubt,  for  a  slight  emen- 
dation of  the  writing  had  been  made  at 
the  same  point  in  both.  The  first  line  of 
the  Aramaic  translation  gives  a  date,  for 
it  names  the  day  and  the  month  and  the 
year  in  the  reign  of  King  Artaxerxes  in 
which  it  was  written.  This  extraordi- 
nary document,  even  with  the  aid  of  the 
Lydian-Greek  key,  of  course  does  not 
solve  the  whole  problem  of  the  reading  of 
the  Lydian  tongue;  but  it  gave  the  first 
surely  right  turn  in  an  intricate  combina- 
tion lock. 

The  tombs,  already  referred  to  above, 
form  a  great  necropolis  which  honey- 
combs the  steep  clay  hills  across  the  river 
opposite  the  temple.  They  are  pretty 
much  of  one  type  and  are  arranged  in 
tiers,  each  tomb  consisting  of  an  entrance 
passage  leading  to  one  or  more  chambers 
with  raised  shelves  or  couches  on  either 
side,  and  at  the  end  all  hewn  out  of  the 
hard  clay,  and  for  the  most  part  still  well 


The  excavations  as  they  are  to-day. 


preserved,  though  full,  or  nearly  full,  of 
earth  and  completely  concealed  from  view 
by  the  surface  earth  that  has  been  carried 
down  over  them. 

The  objects  found  in  these  tombs  are 
the  usual  furnishings  of  sepulchres  in 
Greek  lands, — pottery  of  the  highest  in- 
terest, vessels  of  bronze  and  silver,  bottles 
of  alabaster  and  of  figured  glass,  personal 
ornaments  in  gold,  and  stones  which  were 
precious  to  the  ancients,  engraved  seals, 
and  odd  objects  connected  with  the  daily 
life  of  those  who  have  passed  away,  ob- 
jects too  numerous  and  too  varied  to  be 
described  in  an  article  of  this  kind.  No 
effort  was  made  on  the  part  of  the  ancient 
Lydians  to  preserve  the  bodies  of  their 
dead;  only  a  few  bones  remain  and  these 
usually  crumble  at  the  touch.  The  dead 
were,  in  most  cases,  brought  lo  the  tombs 
on  wooden  biers  and  kiid  upon  the  simi)le 
hewn-out  couches,  though  a  consideral)le 
number  were  ])lace{l  in  large  terra-cotta 
coffins,  and  a  few  bodies  were  laid  in  huge 
sarcophagi  of  limestone    unornamented. 


These  were  the  tombs  of  the  ordinary 
well-to-do  citizens,  and  it  is  plain  that, 
while  some  of  the  dead  were  entombed 
with  objects  of  intrinsic  value,  others, 
even  in  the  same  chambers,  were  buried 
^\'ith  little  or  nothing  of  this  world's 
wealth.  A  sarcophagus  of  terra-cotta  or 
of  stone  is  no  indication  of  wealth,  for 
some  of  the  most  valuable  articles  are 
found  upon  simple  couches,  and  many  of 
the  sarcophagi  contain  nothing  but  bones 
and  dust. 

The  lure  of  the  gold  is,  as  in  all  excava- 
tions, irresistible;  but  the  jewelry  found 
at  Sardis  is  ])articularly  attractive  be- 
cause it  is  all  of  a  most  delicate,  refmed, 
and  careful  workmanship  which  suggests 
the  best  Ktruscan  work.  There  are  neck- 
kices  of  many  forms  with  jiendants  of 
rare  beauty,  earrings  ol"  tascinating  de- 
signs, some  large  and  some  small,  fmger- 
rings  in  many  charming  forms,  placjues 
with  delicate  moulded  designs,  to  be  sewn 
onto  garments,  and  beads  and  trinkets  of 
many  varieties.     With  the  jewelry  may 

355 


356 


SarcHs  and  the  American  Excavations 


fine  laro:e 


be  counted  the  engraved  gems  which,  as  a 
collection,  are  among  the  most  beautiful 
and  interesting  of  all  the  tnids.  A  few  of 
these  are  Greek,  including  a 
chalcedony,  with 
an  intaglio  of  Athe- 
na and  Hermes,  set 
in  a  gold  bracelet; 
but  the  majority 
belong  to  an  older 
period,  and  are  of  a 
very  rare  style 
which  has  been 
known  as  Greco- 
Persian,  but  which 
we  now  believe  to 
have  been  Lydian. 
They  are  for  the 
most  part  cut  in 
chalcedony,  carne- 
han,  or  rock  crystal, 
and  of  conoid  form, 
and  many  still  pre- 
serve their  mount- 
ings of  gold  or  sil- 
ver, which  provide 
rings  by  which  they 
were  attached  to  or 
suspended  from  a 
girdle  or  perhaps 
a  necklace.  The 
technique  of  the  cutting  is  exquisite;  the 
subjects  are  decidedly  Oriental  and  sug- 
gest many  Persian  prototypes,  such  as 
kings  fighting  with  lions  or  griffins,  en- 
throned kings,  lions  and  bulls  in  combat, 
single  lions,  two  monsters  facing  each 
other,  and  similar  scenes  which  are  often 
connected  with  early  Persian  art.  The 
most  interesting  of  all  represents  an  ar- 
chaic Artemis  holding  two  lions  aloft  at 
arm's  length,  precisely  lik  the  Artemis 
of  a  bronze  relief  found  at  Olympia  which 
is  usually  dated  as  of  the  seventh  century 
B.  C.  and  which  may  possibly  have  come 
from  Sardis.  Some  of  these  intaglios  are 
cut  in  carnelians  of  scaraboid  form  set 
in  rings  of  gold,  one  was  executed  on  a 
cylinder  which  still  has  its  gold  mounting, 
while  in  other  cases  lions  and  human  fig- 
ures are  engraved  with  rare  beauty  of 
technique  on  plain  gold  rings  which  are 
Mycenaean  in  shape. 

Early  in  the  third  campaign  a  find  of 
unexpected  interest  was  made  in  a  tomb 
the  outer  chamber  of  which  had  collapsed 


rena-cotta  mask 


and  the  inner  chamber  had  become  filled 
with  earth.  As  the  earth  was  removed  it 
was  found  that  there  were  two  terra- 
cotta sarcophagi  on  the  double  couch  at 

the  end  of  the  inner 
chamber.  These 
were  carefully 
cleared  of  earth  and 
the  cover  of  the  first 
was  lifted  off  to  dis- 
close a  small  skele- 
ton rapidly  falling 
to  dust,  with  an  ala- 
baster bottle  beside 
either  shoulder. 
Two  bright  and 
beautiful  earrings, 
like  little  clusters  of 
berries,  lay  one  on 
either  side  of  the 
head;  where  the 
breast  had  been 
were  a  mass  of  gold- 
en beads  and  pend- 
ants of  lovely  design 
that  had  composed 
the  necklace ;  on  the 
finger-bone  of  one 
hand  was  a  seal-ring 
of  gold.  About  the 
foot  of  the  coffin 
were  clusters  of  gold  beads  that  had  prob- 
ably been  sewn  onto  the  bottom  of  the 
garment.  A  physician  happened  to  be 
visiting  the  excavations  at  the  time.  He 
was  called,  among  the  first,  to  examine 
the  body.  He  pronounced  it  to  be  the 
remains  of  a  young  girl  of  sixteen  or 
seventeen.  She  had  probably  died  as  a 
bride  and  had  been  buried  in  her  wed- 
ding garments  and  jewels.  The  coffin 
next  to  this,  probably  that  of  the  hus- 
band, who  may  have  died  many  years 
later,  contained  nothing  but  bones.  Less 
sentiment  had  been  shown  at  his  fu- 
neral. 

It  is  a  source  of  regret,  even  of  disap- 
pointment, I  might  say,  to  many  of  those 
interested  in  these  excavations  that  there 
is  small  likelihood  of  any  of  the  objects 
discovered  at  Sardis  ever  coming  to  en- 
rich the  collections  of  American  museums, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  American  funds 
are  being  expended  and  that  the  work 
is  being  carried  on  by  Americans.  The 
Turkish  law  covering  these  matters,  like 


Sardis  and  tlie  American   Excavations 


357 


those  of  Greece  and  of  Italy,  ])r()\i(lcs  that 
all  movables  shall  go  to  the  National 
Museum.  One  may  find  satisfaction, 
however,  in  the  reflection  that,  by  this 
arrangement,  all  objects  of  all  kinds  will 
be  kept  together,  and  can  be  observed 
and  studied  in  their  mutual  relations.  It 
is  further  satisfaction  to  know  that  the 
Imperial  Ottoman  Museum  at  Constan- 
tinople is  rapidly  becoming  one  of  the 
most  important  of  the  art  museums  of 
Europe,  a  well-administered  institution 
where  all  these  things  will  be  well  cared 
for  and  well  displayed. 

Of  course  the  sole  right  of  publication, 
both  of  the  ruins  and  of  the  various  kinds 
of  objects,  belongs  to  the  American  ex- 
cavators. It  has  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
in  these  days  all  archaeological  investi- 
gation in  the  Ottoman  Empire,  in  Greece, 
or  in  Italy,  must  be  undertaken  on  purely 
scientific  grounds,  without  hope  of  tan- 
gible rewards,  just  as  expeditions  to  ob- 
serve an  eclipse  or  to  find  the  poles  of  the 
earth  are  undertaken. 

We  may  hope  that  this  undertaking, 
among  the  many  supported  by  generous 
and  disinterested  Americans  w^ho  are  in 
a  position  to  do  these  things,  will  not  be 


])ermitted  to  become  crij)j)le(l,  or  to  lan- 
guish and  die,  for  lack  of  funds.  An 
American  enterprise,  it  has  had  the  good 
fortune  to  secure  a  site  for  excavations 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  archaeologists  and  histori- 
ans of  this  and  of  other  nations,  is  the 
most  to  be  desired  in  Asia  Minor  or  i)cr- 
haps  in  the  world  of  the  ancient  Greeks, 
and  which  has  remained  so  long  unexca- 
vated  solely  on  account  of  the  difficul- 
ties and  heavy  expense  entailed  by  the 
great  depth  of  the  soil  in  which  the  city 
is  buried.  The  returns,  after  eighteen 
months  of  work,  have  far  exceeded  the 
highest  hopes  of  the  excavators  and  the 
expectations  of  scholars  who  have  been 
interested  in  the  work  from  the  beginning. 
Thus  far  the  undertaking  has  been  sup- 
ported by  the  private  subscriptions  of  a 
small  number  of  lovers  of  art.  One  can- 
not but  believe  that  the  spirit  of  idealism 
in  the  United  States  will  see  it  through  to 
a  position  of  efficiency  and  accomplish- 
ment which  will  make  the  excavation  of 
Sardis  the  first  great  American  monu- 
ment to  the  science  of  archaeology  and 
history  in  its  broadest  sense,  as  well  as  to 
art  as  a  living  subject. 


Objects  in  pottery. 


Drawn  by  Victor  C.  A  udersou. 

"The  rose  arbor  ought  to  be  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff  over  tliere,  with  a  stone  balustrade  broad  enough  to  sit  on  and  watch 

the  ships  in  the  harbor." — Page  359. 


358 


THE  STUFF  THAT  DREAMS  ARE   MADE  ON 

By  Gerald  Chittenden 

Illustration'  by  Victor  C.  Anderson 


^^^^^^jHE   rose  arbor — "   began 
Havens. 

"The  pergola,  you 
mean,"  interrupted  Mrs. 
Havens,  smiling. 

''The  rose  arbor,"  re- 
peated Havens,  with  emphasis.  "I  won't 
call  it  a  pergola.  When  I  design  houses  for 
the  criminal  classes,  I  call  such  things  per- 
golas because  the  name  adds  ten  per  cent 
to  my  fees.  I  can't  afford  the  luxury,  and, 
anyhow,  it's  a  rose  arbor.  Madeira  isn't 
Long  Island  or  Newport." 

''No.  Madeira  is  just  Madeira,  though 
it  would  smell  as  sweet  by  any  other  name," 
answered  his  wife.  "What  were  you  going 
to  say  about  the  per — rose  arbor?" 

"The  per — rose  arbor,"  Havens  contin- 
ued, "ought  to  be  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff 
over  there  to  the  left,  with  a  stone  balus- 
trade broad  enough  to  sit  on  and  watch  the 
ships  in  th€  harbor  and  be  glad  you  didn't 
have  to  go  away." 

"And  it  must  join  on  to  the  dining- 
room." 

"By  all  means.  Is  there  soil  enough  for 
roses,  do  you  think?" 

"  Plenty."  Mrs.  Havens  poked  the  point 
of  her  parasol  deep  into  the  heavy  loam 
that  brings  forth  flowers  that  have  no  peers 
under  the  sun.  "Plenty.  Roses,  and  rho- 
dodendrons, and — and  radishes;  everything 
that  begins  with  an  '  R.'  It  will  be  a  dream 
of  a  place,  Jim." 

"A  dream  of  a  place,"  he  assented,  and 
looked  for  a  long  time  down  upon  the  roofs 
of  Funchal,  jasper  against  the  jade  and  sap- 
phire of  the  bay.  A  steamer  had  just 
rounded  to  under  the  wide  sweep  of  the 
j>()int  opposite,  and  the  brief  rattle  of  her 
anchor-chain  came  to  them,  mellowed  by 
distance  to  an  almost  musical  cadence. 

"Union  Castle  line,"  he  commented, 
"bound  for  Cape  Town.  The  sun's  set- 
ting." 

She  ro.se  and  stood  beside  him,  leaning  on 
her  parasol. 

Vol.  LV.— 37 


"A  dream,"  she  mused;  "do  the  best 
ones  ever  come  true?" 

"They're  the  only  kind  that  do,"  he 
replied. 

They  walked  slowly  away  from  the  clifT, 
and  through  a  tangle  of  bushes  and  vines 
to  the  road,  where  Jose  and  the  mules 
awaited  them,  and  then  rode  downward 
through  the  unreal  dusk  to  Funchal. 

It  was  their  last  night  on  the  island;  to- 
morrow the  liner  would  call  at  the  port  on 
her  way  to  New  York,  and  ^Madeira  would 
be  but  the  Mecca  of  another  year,  as  it  had 
been  the  Nirvana  of  many  a  spring.  His 
friends  called  him  the  hardest-working 
architect  on  Manhattan  Island;  he  had  al- 
way's  in  his  office  two  or  three  impecunious 
young  men,  whose  goal  was  the  Beaux- 
Arts,  and  whom  he  instructed  variously  in 
drawing  and  French.  He  spent  almost  as 
much  time  advising  them  about  their  de- 
signs as  he  did  on  his  own  ideas,  and  did 
not  lose  sight  of  them  even  when  they  had 
left  him  and  gone  to  Paris.  He  always 
spent  the  summer  in  his  office;  week-end 
parties  along  the  Sound  welcomed  him  and 
his  wife  for  their  good-fellowship  and  their 
thousand  whimsicalities.  At  several  places 
it  was  probable  that  some  one  would  speak 
of  Madeira;  the  mention  of  the  island  would 
induce  no  incriminating  comment  from 
cither  Jim  Havens  or  his  wife. 

"Oh,  yes.  We've  been  there.  A  beau- 
tiful spot." 

No  more  than  that.  Only  a  few  of  their 
intimates  had  certain  knowledge  that  every 
spring  for  the  last  ten  years  they  had  gone 
to  the  island  and  seen  the  llowers  freshen  in 
the  ocean-softened  air,  and  heard  ihrougli 
the  smooth  night  the  theme  of  old  and  j)ure 
romance — the  vagrant  thrumming  of  a 
guitar,  the  lilt  of  a  murmured  song,  the 
light  laugh  from  a  balcony  veiled  in  rose 
and  bougainvillea.  Keenly  analytical  in 
most  of  the  relations  of  life.  Havens  took 
Madeira  for  granted,  just  as  in  his  child- 
hood he  had  accepted  fairy-tales,  and  later 

3  SO 


;]oo 


The  Stuff  That  Dreams  Are  Made  On 


stories  of  buried  treasure.  His  feeling  for 
the  island  was  vital  to  him,  and  yet  so  deli- 
cate a  thing  that  he  never  spoke  of  it. 
Clients  found  him  an  eminently  practical 
architect,  who  never  attem})ted  to  shoe-horn 
a  t'lfteen-foot  load  of  hay  through  a  highly 
ornamental  stable  door  twelve  feet  high; 
contractors  were  unable  to  circumvent  him 
or  to  put  him  off  with  excuses.  Acquaint- 
ances of  his  college  days  from  whom  he  had 
grown  apart  wondered  at  the  change  the 
world  had  wrought  in  him;  his  friends 
mar\-elled  that  he  had  never  changed.  He 
had  only  put  on  a  surface  for  the  daws  to 
peck  at ;  a  shell  for  the  soul  behind  his  eyes. 

Jim  Havens  and  Mrs.  Jim  had  dis- 
covered Madeira  on  their  wedding-trip; 
they  had  meant  to  stop  over  one  steamer, 
and  had  stayed  on  for  two  months.  Three 
years  later,  when  their  child  had  died,  he 
had  taken  her  back  to  the  island  and  they 
had  spent  the  spring  there.  After  that,  at 
first  every  two  or  three  years  and  then 
more  frequently,  they  had  returned  to  the 
island,  and  had  found  new  beauties  in  it 
at  every  visit.  The  quarantine  boat  had 
never  quite  cleared  the  ship's  gangway  be- 
fore Manoel,  dressed  in  fresh  white  dunga- 
rees to  do  honor  to  their  arrival — Manoel, 
with  the  sinewy  throat  and  the  huge  gold 
rings  in  his  ears,  appeared  on  deck  to 
take  entire  charge  of  them  and  their  effects. 
*T  kiss  your  hands,  senhora,"  he  would 
say,  and  did  it  forthwith,  while  Cooks  and 
Cookesses  stood  about  them,  vocal  in  the 
ribaldry  of  raw  surprise.  Long  since  the 
Havenses  had  forsworn  Madeiran  hotels; 
Manoel  had  an  aunt  who  owned  two  teeth, 
a  passion  for  cleanliness,  and  a  reverential 
affection  for  the  senhor  and  the  senhora. 

''But  next  year,"  she  was  used  to  say  as 
she  served  them  on  the  first  evening,  "next 
year  the  senhor  and  the  senhora  will  have 
their  own  house  on  the  cliff?" 

"Who  knows?"  Havens  always  an- 
swered.    "Next  year  is — next  year,  Anita." 

Anita  usually  vanished  at  that,  and  re- 
turned presently  with  an  old,  old  bottle, 
wherein  lay  such  nectar  as  Ganymede  was 
wont  to  put  aside  for  his  own  consumption 
when  Jove  wasn't  looking. 

"  What  vintage  this  time,  Anita  ?  " 

"Sixty-three,  if  the  senhor  pleases." 

The  senhor  always  did  please,  and  the 
senhora  also,  to  the  extent  of  one  glass 
sipped  slowly.     More  would  have  been  a 


desecration.  They  paid  for  these  things 
in  the  bill,  or  Anita  thought  they  did.  She 
charged  them  the  equivalent  of  two  dollars 
a  day,  and  lived  for  the  rest  of  the  year  on 
the  proceeds  of  their  visit. 

They  were  never  without  occupation  in 
Madeira.  Sometimes  they  sailed  with  Ma- 
noel when  he  went  fishing,  sometimes 
they  took  his  boat  for  the  whole  day,  and 
visited  the  little  villages  that  melt  into  the 
flowery  shores  of  unknown  coves,  or  cruised 
to  the  furrowed  cliffs  of  Las  Desertas — 
"No  man  knows  what  is  on  top  of  them, 
senhor."  Thence  they  would  come  back 
in  the  level  sunlight,  and  sail  under  the 
stern  of  some  newly  arrived  vessel  to  see 
what  her  name  was,  while  the  passengers 
looked  down  upon  them  in  the  inquisitive 
and  superior  manner  that  is  characteristic 
of  passengers,  and  so  through  the  high  surf, 
where  half-naked  boys  caught  the  boat  by 
the  gunwales  and  rushed  it  up  the  beach  on 
the  crest  of  a  roller. 

"  And  to-morrow  ?  "  Manoel  always  asked 

"We  shall  not  want  the  boat  to-morrow.'^ 

"The  mules,  perhaps?" 

"Not  to-morrow." 

From  the  wharves  they  would  wander  in- 
land through  the  clean,  pebbled  streets  to 
their  dinner  of  soup  with  sweet  peppers, 
baked  fish,  and  a  Spanish  omelet  of  the 
finest,  topped  off  with  a  glass  of  the  sixty- 
three.  Thereafter,  they  sat  among  the  roses 
on  the  balcony,  or  strolled  into  the  Botan- 
ical Gardens  and  watched  the  popula- 
tion of  Funchal  parade  in  the  half-light  un- 
der the  palms  and  rhododendrons.  Here 
Mrs.  Havens  kept  calling  Jim's  attention 
to  this  and  that  and  the  other  person — to  a 
slim  dandy  with  a  malacca  cane,  to  the  play 
of  long-lashed  eyes  between  a  mantilla  and 
a  fan.  Every  night  is  a  festa  to  your  right 
Madeiran,  a  time  for  the  making  of  love 
and  the  superficial  bruising  of  hearts,  and 
every  new  senhorita  the  loveliest  of  the  year. 
The  Havenses  watched  it  all,  and  some- 
times, when  the  moon  was  large,  summoned 
Jose  and  the  mules  and  rode  out  to  their 
point  to  see  how  it  looked  when  every  rock 
was  tarnished  silver. 

On  certain — or  rather  uncertain — morn- 
ings, Jose  came  for  them  before  the  sun 
was  up,  and  they  drank  their  morning 
coffee  to  the  jingle  of  shaken  head-stalls 
and  the  stamp  of  impatient  little  hoofs  in 
the  street  below. 


The  Stuff  That   Dreams  Are  Made  On 


3G1 


*'We  shall  be  gone  three  days,  senhor?" 

*'Yes,  Jose.  The  kit  is  packed,  and  the 
food?" 

'Tn  the  alforjas,  senhor — as  you  di- 
rected." 

In  proof  he  always  lifted  a  corner  of  a 
tarpaulin,  while  Havens  glanced  beneath 
it.  There  was  no  need  for  closer  inspec- 
tion; Manoel,  the  father  of  Jose,  never  for- 
got any  necessary  thing.  They  would  jog 
inland,  past  the  vines  and  villas  that  the 
tourist  knows,  and  up  the  long  ravine  that 
he  looks  down  upon  from  the  hotel  on  the 
heights.  Even  the  children  seemed  pret- 
tier on  the  mountain  farms  and  vineyards; 
the  griminess  of  them  was  less  evident — no 
more  than  a  contrast  to  their  red  cheeks. 
There  were  woods  also,  and  mountains  to 
be  clambered  over,  and  at  night  a  grove  of 
live  oaks  by  a  stream  in  which  to  sling  their 
hammocks.  Their  excursion  over,  they 
vrould  return  to  Funchal,  a  little  torn,  on 
Havens's  part  a  little  unshaven,  but  not  in 
the  least  bored  or  weary  of  the  island. 

They  never  had  enough  time  to  do  all 
they  wanted  to  do.  Almost  every  day  some 
hour  would  find  them  on  the  point  which, 
in  defiance  of  the  Portuguese  Admiralty, 
they  had  christened  sinlply  ''Havens,"  and 
they  could  never  decide  which  of  its  many 
aspects  they  liked  the  best.  Days  there 
were  when  the  woolly  sea  fog  glistened  upon 
the  rocks,  dripped  from  the  leaves,  and 
shut  them  into  a  world  twenty  feet  in  diam- 
eter; other  days  when  it  hung  low  over 
the  bay,  and  the  sun  touched  the  billows 
of  it  with  fairy  argent,  and  the  topmasts 
of  ships  pricked  through  it  like  the  lances  of 
a  giant  cavalry.  There  were  days  when 
the  seas  pounded  at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs, 
when  the  spindrift  bit  like  hail,  and  the 
orange-trees  leaned  before  the  storm.  More 
often  the  ocean  stretched  calm  to  the  hori- 
zon in  a  tinted  harmony  of  blues  and  grays 
and  greens.  The  nights  were  as  various  as 
the  days — now  intensely  and  caressingly 
dark,  now  cameo-cut  in  contrast  of  silver 
and  sable  shadows.  There  were  dawns  also, 
and  sunsets. 

The  house  which  they  meant  to  build  had 
changed  its  shape  with  a  ])r()tean  whimsy 
in  the  first  years,  but  of  late  it  had  taken 
on  a  permanent  form,  and  only  details  were 
altered.  It  never  grew  much  larger  than 
they  had  at  first  conceived  it,  however, 
but  remained  a  miniature — small  and  per- 


fect. Six  or  eight  weeks  out  of  the  fifty- 
two  were  all  they  could  spend  in  Madeira, 
but  those  weeks  restored  Havens  as  nothing 
else  could  have  done,  and  sent  him  back  to 
his  ofilce  a  new  man.  Six  or  eight  weeks' 
vacation — it  was  none  too  much  for  Jimmy 
Havens,  said  those  who  knew  him.  They 
wondered  how  a  man  of  his  physique 
got  along  with  so  little  and  did  so  much. 
They  wondered  also  why  he  took  it  in  the 
spring,  and  whether  he  always  went  to 
Madeira.  Many  accused  him  of  a  peri- 
odical and  uncontrollable  liking  for  cer- 
tain vintages,  and  of  very  great  selfishness 
in  keeping  them  all  to  himself;  for  all  their 
exploratory  l^adinage,  they  got  nothing  save 
a  conclusive  repartee. 

Coombe,  however,  got  a  little  more.  He 
came  one  raw  March  day  into  Havens's 
inner  draughting-room,  and  found  Havens 
busy  on  the  ])lans  for  a  house. 

"Hello,  Nelson,"  said  the  architect,  look- 
ing up  for  a  moment  from  the  drawing- 
table.    ''Want  a  house  or  a  cigarette?" 

Coombe  chose  a  cigarette,  and  busied 
himself  with  examining  the  elevations  and 
floor  plans  upon  which  Havens  was  work- 
ing. 

"I  want  a  house,"  he  said  at  length,  lean- 
ing on  his  elbows  over  a  finished  drawing. 
"Why  are  all  these  measurements  in  me- 
tres?" 

"I  asked  you  if  you  wanted  a  house  or 
a  cigarette,"  answered  Haven,  sketching 
in  the  bowl  of  a  fountain;  '*you  can't  have 
both."  He  sat  back,  cocked  an  eve  at  the 
drawing,  and  added,  "Pig." 

Coombe  came  around  the  tal)le  and 
looked  over  Havens's  shoulder. 

"More  than  that,"  he  said,  'T  want  this 
house." 

"You  can't  have  it,"  responded  Havens. 

"What  multimillionaire  has  monopolized 
it?" 

"A  fellow  called  Havens,"  said  the  other, 
"and  he  isn't  even  an  unprefixed  million- 
aire." 

"So  that's  it?"  commented  Coombe. 
"Madeira,  I  .supj)ose?  It  looks  as  if  it 
belonged  on  a  ruij^ged  coast.  That's  the 
reason  I  wanted  it — Maine,  you  know. 
Tell  me  about  it." 

"You've  been  to  Madeira,  Xelson?" 
Coombe  nodded.  "Then  you  must  re- 
member the  long,  high  i)oint  on  the  eastern 
side  of  Funchal  Bav.     That's  where  I've 


3(i2 


The  Stuff  That   Dreams  Are  Made   On 


hought  land.  The  open  side  of  the  pa- 
tio"—he  indicated  the  plan— "faces  the 
west." 

Coombe  leaned  forward  in  interest;  Ha- 
vens went  over  the  sketches  one  by  one  with 
the  detail  of  an  enthusiast. 

"Helen  insists  on  calling  that  a  pergola," 
he  concluded.  "What  do  you  think  of  the 
place?" 

"Helen's  right,  as  usual,"  asserted 
Coombe.  He  looked  appreciatively  at  the 
outline  of  the  patio.  "Spanish,  rather — 
concrete  and  red  tiles.  As  good  a  house 
as  you've  ever  designed.  How  appropri- 
ate that  you  have  to  build  the  cellar  first, 
even  in  Madeira!" 

"  It  is  the  most  important  part.  I  knew 
that  you  would  come  and  visit  me,  you 
see." 

"Why  did  you  select  Madeira?" 

Havens  laid  aside  his  pencil,  clasped  his 
hands  over  one  knee,  and  leaned  back 
against  the  pull  of  them,  looking  out  over 
the  roofs  of  the  lower  office  buildings  to- 
ward the  Hudson,  just  visible  in  the  dis- 
tance. 

"There  are  many  poets,"  he  said  slowly, 
"and  somewhere  in  their  poems  you  find 
the  reasons  for  most  things — this  among 
others: 

'  God  gave  all  men  all  earth  to  love, 
But,  since  man's  heart  is  small, 
Ordained  for  each  one  spot  should  prove 
Beloved  over  all.' 

Madeira  attracted  me  first  because  it  was 
an  island;  the  name  meant  romance  to  me 
even  when  I  was  a  small  kid,  though  I 
didn't  call  it  romance  in  those  days.  Then 
Helen  and  I  went  there  on  our  wedding- 
trip,  and  found  that  it  was  beautiful;  a  few 
years  later  we  found  it  was  more  than  that 
— consolatory,  and — and  soothing.  Ships 
call  there,  too,  on  their  way  to  all  the  im- 
probable ports  in  the  world,  and  you  get 
to  know  them,  and  hail  them  as  old  friends. 
It's  an  improbable  place,  is  Madeira;  just 
as  Venice  is.  It  seems  to  be  the  only  place 
where  I  can  really  rest  and  get  acquainted 
with  myself  after  a  year  in  New  York.  I 
can't  explain  my  feeling  for  it  very  well; 
it's  more  as  if  the  island  was  a  person  I 
was  very  fond  of.     Do  you  see  ?  " 

"I  see,"  said  Coombe,  after  a  few  min- 
utes. "No  wonder  you  wouldn't  duplicate 
the  house.     When  will  it  be  done?" 


"A  year  from  now.     We're  sailing  this 


week  to  get  things  started." 


"There  it  is,"  said  Mrs,  Havens  a  year 
later,  handing  the  binoculars  to  Jimmy. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  not  taking  them,  "there 
it  is." 

Manoel  took  charge  of  them  as  usual, 
only,  instead  of  going  to  his  aunt's  they 
took  a  carriage  out  along  the  upland  road 
to  "Havens."  Manoel  had  seen  to  every- 
thing; old  Anita  cooked  and  served  their 
dinner  that  evening. 

"There  is  a  cook,"  she  said  haughtily,  as 
she  brought  coffee  to  them  in  the  patio, 
"but  I  wished  everything  to  be  well  to-night. 
Is  everything  well,  senhora?" 

"Quite  well,  Anita,"  answered  Mrs, 
Havens, 

Manoel  came  later,  cat-footed  through 
the  dark,  and  to  him  also  they  said,  "Every- 
thing is  well." 

''Good  nighl,  senhora  and  senhor." 

''Good  night,  Manoel." 

He  vanished  into  the  house,  and  the  low- 
ered hum  of  his  voice  and  Anita's  came  to 
them  from  somewhere  in  the  rear. 

"Last  year,"  said  Havens,  throwing 
away  his  cigar,  "they  would  have  sat  here 
and  told  us  the  gossip:  the  latest  cure  of 
that  old  witch  Maria,  and  who  had  had  chil- 
dren, and  who  had  married  whom." 

"They  don't  want  to  intrude  on  the  first 
night,"  said  Mrs.  Havens. 

But  they  did  not  bring  their  budget 
of  island  news  on  the  next  night,  or  on 
any  following  night.  Once,  when  Havens 
made  Manoel  sit  on  the  parapet  and  talk 
to  them,  the  Portuguese  was  so  evidently 
uncomfortable  and  so  stiltedly  communi- 
cative that  Havens  took  pity  on  him  and 
let  him  go.  It  was  the  same,  though  to  a 
less  degree,  in  Manoel's  boat,  and  even  the 
mercurial  Jose  stood  at  a  low  temperature 
on  the  inland  excursions.  They  were  land- 
owners now,  and  guests  no  longer.  The 
old  intimacy  of  their  humble  friends  gave 
place  to  a  certain  aloofness;  the  men 
bowed  to  them  with  bent  shoulders,  and 
not  standing  upright  as  heretofore,  and  the 
women  swept  a  lower  courtesy.  They  en- 
joyed their  excursions  as  much,  or  nearly 
as  much,  as  formerly,  but  their  property 
had  brought  them  an  undesired  standing 
in  the  community;  there  was  a  shadow  be- 
tween the  old  life  and  the  new  one.     The 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


3()3 


gossamer  of  their  dreams  had  given  way  to 
the  coarser  thread  of  reality. 

''It's  a  jewel  of  a  spot,"  mused  Havens, 
''but " 

"But  what?"  asked  his  wife. 

"Damn,"  said  he. 

"Exactly,"  said  she,  reflecting  his  smile. 

One  morning  Manoel  brought  them  a 
wireless  message;  Coombe  would  arrive 
that  afternoon.  A  year  ago  even  Coombe 
would  have  been  almost  an  intruder;  now 
his  imminent  arrival  made  them  eager. 
They  went  out  to  the  steamer  for  him  in 
Manoel's  boat ;  during  the  drive  out  to ' '  Ha- 
vens "  they  kept  stopping  the  carriage  to  show 
him  a  typical  view,  or  to  point  out  a  charac- 
teristic group  of  Madeirans  in  the  vineyards. 
Somehow  his  coming  had  in  some  degree 
revived  their  old  childish  delight. 


Anita,  who  firmly  believed  that  she  alone 
of  all  the  islanders  knew  what  things  tick- 
led the  palate,  had  come  voluntarily  to 
"Havens,"  and  had  for  the  second  time 
ousted  the  regular  cook;  she  outdid  Sav- 
arin  that  evening.  After  dinner  the  three 
of  them  sat  in  the  pergola — even  Havens 
called  it  that  now— and  breathed  in  thefused 
odors  of  the  night,  and  watched  the  lights 
in  the  harbor  below,  and  luxuriated  in  the 
sensation  that  there  was  nothing  to  do  in 
the  morning.  Coombe  rose  as  the  coal  of 
his  cigar  burned  near  his  lips,  and  leaned 
on  the  broad  parapet. 

"I  don't  wonder  at  you  at  all,"  he  said; 
''I  don't  wonder." 

"All  the  same,"  said  Havens,  "if  you 
still  want  a  house  like  this  on  Seguin 
Island,  I'll  build  you  one." 


MY    FIRST    YEARS    AS    A 
FRENCHWOMAN 

BY    MARY    KING   WADDINGTON 

III— M.    WADDINGTON    AS    PRIME    MINISTER 

1879 

Illustrations  from  photographs  and  drawings 


^S^^^gjHERE  had  been  a  respite,  a 
sort  of  armed  truce  in  po- 
litical circles  as  long  as  the 
Exposition  lasted,  but  when 
the  Chambers  met  again  in 
November,  it  was  evident 


that  things  were  not  going  smoothly.  The 
Republicans  and  Radicals  were  dissatis- 
fied. Every  day  there  were  speeches  and 
insinuations  against  the  marshal  and  his 
government,  and  one  felt  that  a  crisis  was 
impending.  There  were  not  loaves  and 
fishes  enough  for  the  whole  Radical  party. 
If  one  listened  to  them  it  would  seem  as  if 
every  prefet  and  every  general  were  con- 
s]Mring  against  the  Republic.  There  were 
long  consultations  in  W.'s*  cabinet,  and  I 
went  often  to  our  house  in  the  rue  Du- 
mont-d'Urville  to  see  if  everything  was  in 

*W.,  here  and  throughout  these  articles,  refers  to  Mme. 
Waddington's  husband,  M.  William  Waddinglon. 


order  there,  as  I  quite  expected  to  be  back 
there  for  Christmas.  A  climax  was  reached 
when  the  marshal  was  asked  to  sign  the 
deposition  of  some  of  the  generals.  He  ab- 
solutely refused — the  ministers  persisted 
in  their  demands.  There  was  not  much 
discussion,  the  marshal's  mind  was  made 
up,  and  on  the  30th  of  January,  1879,  he 
announced  in  theConseil  des  INIinistrcshis 
irrevocable  decision,  and  handed  his  min- 
isters his  letter  of  resignation.  VVe  had  a 
melancholy  breakfast — W.,  Count  de  P., 
and  I — the  last  day  of  the  marshal's  i)resi- 
dency.  W.  was  very  blue,  was  quite  sure 
the  marshal  would  resign,  and  foresaw  all 
sorts  of  complications  both  at  home  and 
abroad.  The  day  was  gloomy  too,  gray 
and  cold,  even  the  big  rooms  of  the  min- 
istry were  dark.  As  soon  as  they  had 
started  for  Versailles,  I  took  baby  and 
went  to  mother's.     As  I   wont  o\er  the 


364 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


bridi^e  I  wondered  liow  many  more  times 
I  would  cross  it,  and  whether  the  end  of 
the  week  would  see  me  settled  again  in 
my  own  house.  We  drove  about  and  had 
tea  together,  and  I  got  back  to  the  Quai 
d'Orsay  about  six  o'clock.  Neither  W. 
nor  Count  de  P.  had  got  back  from  Ver- 
sailles, but  there  were  two  telegrams, — 
the  first  one  to  say  that  the  marshal  had 
resigned,  the  second  one  that  Grevy  was 
named  in  his  place,  wdth  a  large  majority. 
W.  was  rather  depressed  when  he  came 
home, — he  had  always  a  great  sympathy 
and  respect  for  the  marshal,  and  was  very, 
very  sorry  to  see  him  go, — thought  his  de- 
parture would  compHcate  foreign  affairs. 
As  long  as  the  marshal  was  at  the  Ely  see, 
foreign  governments  were  not  afraid  of 
coups  d'etat  or  revolutions.  He  was  also 
sorry  that  Dufaure  would  not  remain,  but 
he  was  an  old  man,  had  had  enough  of 
political  life  and  party  struggles — left  the 
field  to  younger  men.  The  marshal's  let- 
ter was  communicated  at  once  to  the  Par- 
liam.ent,  and  the  houses  met  in  the  after- 
noon. There  was  a  short  session  to  hear 
the  marshal's  letter  read  (by  Grevy  in  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies)  and  the  two  houses, 
Senate  and  Chamber  of  Deputies,  were 
convoked  for  a  later  hour  of  the  same 
afternoon.  There  was  not  much  excite- 
ment, two  or  three  names  were  pro- 
nounced, but  every  one  felt  sure  that 
Grevy  would  be  the  man.  He  was  nom- 
inated by  a  large  majority,  and  the  Re- 
publicans were  jubilant — thought  the  Re- 
public was  at  last  established  on  a  firm 
and  proper  basis.  Grevy  was  perfectly 
calm  and  self-possessed — did  not  show 
much  enthusiasm.  He  must  have  felt 
quite  sure  from  the  first  moment  that  he 
would  be  named.  His  first  visitor  was 
the  marshal,  who  wished  him  all  possible 
success  in  his  new  mission,  and,  if  Grevy 
was  pleased  to  be  the  President  of  the  Re- 
public, the  marshal  was  even  more  pleased 
not  to  be,  and  to  take  up  his  private  life 
again.  There  were  many  speculations  as 
to  who  would  be  charged  by  Grevy  to 
form  his  first  cabinet — and  almost  perma- 
nent meetings  in  all  the  groups  of  the  Left. 
W.'s  friends  all  said  he  would  certainly 
remain  at  the  Foreign  Office,  but  that  de- 
pended naturally  upon  the  choice  of  the 
premier.  If  he  were  taken  from  the  more 
advanced  ranks  of  the  Left,  W.  could  not 


possibly  stay.  We  were  not  long  in  sus- 
pense. W.  had  one  or  two  interviews 
with  Grevy,  which  resulted  in  his  remain- 
ing at  the  Foreign  Ofiice,  but  as  prime  min- 
ister. W,  hesitated  at  first,  felt  that  it 
would  not  be  an  easy  task  to  keep  all 
those  very  conflicting  elements  together. 
There  were  four  Protestants  in  the  minis- 
try, W.,  Leon  Say,  de  Freycinet,  and  Le 
Royer.  Jules  Ferry,  who  took  the  Minis- 
try of  Public  Instruction,  a  very  clever 
man,  was  practically  a  freethinker,  and  the 
Parliament  Avas  decidedly  more  advanced. 
The  last  elections  had  given  a  strong  Re- 
publican majority  to  the  Senate.  He 
consulted  with  his  brother,  Richard  Wad- 
dington,  then  a  deputy,  now  a  senator, 
president  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce 
of  Rouen,  and  some  of  his  friends,  and 
finally  decided  to  accept  the  very  honor- 
able but  very  onerous  position,  and  re- 
mained at  the  Foreign  Affairs  with  Grevy, 
as  prime  minister.  If  I  had  seen  little  of 
him  before,  I  saw  nothing  of  him  now, 
as  his  work  was  exactly  doubled.  We  did 
breakfast  together,  but  it  was  a  most 
irregular  meal — sometimes  at  twelve 
o'clock,  sometimes  at  one-thirty,  and  very 
rarely  alone.  We  always  dined  out  or 
had  people  dining  with  us,  so  that  family 
life  became  a  dream  of  the  past.  We 
very  rarely  went  together  when  we  dined 
out.  W.  was  always  late, — his  coupe 
waited  hours  in  the  court.  I  had  my  car- 
riage and  went  alone.  After  eight  or  ten 
days  of  irregular  meals  at  impossible 
hours  (we  often  dined  at  nine-thirty)  I 
said  to  Count  de  P.,  W.'s  chef  de  cabinet: 
"  Can't  you  arrange  to  have  business  over 
a  little  earlier?  It  is  awful  to  dine  so  late 
and  to  wait  so  long,"  to  which  he  replied: 
"Ah,  Madame,  no  one  can  be  miore  desir- 
ous than  I  to  change  that  order  of  things, 
for  when  the  minister  dines  at  nine-thirty, 
the  chef  de  cabinet  gets  his  dinner  at  ten- 
thirty."  We  did  manage  to  get  rather 
more  satisfactory  hours  after  a  little  while, 
but  it  was  always  difficult  to  extract  W. 
from  his  work  if  it  were  anything  impor- 
tant. He  became  absorbed,  and  abso- 
lutely unconscious  of  time. 

The  new  President,  Grevy,  installed 
himself  at  once  at  the  Elysee  with  his  wife 
and  daughter.  There  was  much  specu- 
lation about  Madame  Grevy, — no  one 
had  ever  seen  her — she  was  absolutelv 


My  First  Years  as  a   Frenchwoman 


365 


unknown.  When  Grevy  was  president 
of  the  National  Assembly,  he  gave  very 
pleasant  men's  dinners,  when  Madame 
Grevy  never  appeared.  Every  one  (of  all 
opinions)  was  delighted  to  go  to  him,  and 
the  talk  was  most  brilliant  and  interest- 
ing. Grevy  was  a 
perfect  host,  very 
cultivated,  with  a 
marvellous  mem- 
ory— quoting  pages 
of  the  classics, 
French,  and  Latin. 
Madame  Grevy 
was  always  spoken 
of  as  a  quiet,  un- 
pretending person 
— occupied  with 
domestic  duties, 
who  hated  society 
and  never  went 
anywhere — in  fact, 
no  one  ever  heard 
her  name  men- 
tioned. A  great 
many  people  didn't 
know  that  Grevy 
had  a  wife.  When 
her  husband  be- 
came President  of 
the  Republic,  there 
was  much  discus- 
sion as  to  Madame  Grevy's  social  status 
in  the  official  world.  I  don't  think  Grevy 
wanted  her  to  appear  nor  to  take  any  part 
in  the  new  life,  and  she  certainly  didn't 
want  to.  Nothing  in  her  former  life  had 
prepared  her  for  such  a  change,  and  it  was 
always  an  effort  for  her,  but  both  were 
overruled  by  their  friends,  who  thought  a 
w'oman  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  posi- 
tion. It  was  some  little  time  before  they 
were  settled  at  the  Elysee.  W.  asked 
Grevy  once  or  twice  when  Madame  Wad- 
dington  might  call  upon  his  wife — and  he 
answered  that  as  soon  as  they  were  quite 
installed  I  would  receive  a  notice.  One 
day  a  communication  arrived  from  the 
Elysee,  saying  that  Madame  Grevy  would 
receive  the  Diplomatic  Corps  and  the 
ministers'  wives  on  a  fixed  day  at  five 
o'clock.  The  message  was  sent  on  to 
the  Diplomatic  Corps,  and  when  I  arrived 
on  the  appointed  day  (early,  as  I  want- 
ed to  sec  the  })eople  come  in,  and  also 
thought  I  must  present  the  foreign  ladies) 


Jules  Ferry 


there  were  already  several  carriages  in  the 
court. 

The  Elysee  looked  just  as  it  did  in 
the  marshal's  time — plenty  of  servants  in 
gala  liveries — two  or  three  huissiers  who 
knew  everybody — palms,  flowers,  e\er)'- 

where.  The  tradi- 
tions of  the  palace 
are  carried  on  from 
one  President  to  an- 
other, and  a  perma- 
nent staff  of  serv- 
ants remains.  We 
found  Madame 
Grevy  with  her 
daughter  and  one 
or  two  ladies,  wives 
I  suppose  of  the 
secretaries,  seated 
in  the  well-known 
drawing-room  with 
the  beautiful  tap- 
estries— Madame 
Grevy  in  a  large 
gold  armchair  at 
the  end  of  the  room 
— a  row^  of  gilt  arm- 
chairs on  each  side 
of  hers — Mademoi- 
selle standing  be- 
hind her  mother.  A 
huissier  announced 
every  one  distinctly,  but  the  names  and 
titles  said  nothing  to  Madame  Grevy. 
She  was  tall,  middle-aged,  handsomely 
dressed,  and  visibly  nervous — made  a 
great  many  gestures  when  she  talked.  It 
was  amusing  to  see  all  the  people  arrive. 
I  had  nothing  to  do — there  were  no  intro- 
ductions— every  one  was  announced,  and 
they  all  w^alked  straight  up  to  Madame 
Grevy,  who  was  very  polite,  got  up  for 
every  one,  men  and  women.  It  was  rather 
an  imposing  circle  that  gathered  around 
her — Princess  Hohenlohe,  German  am- 
bassadress, sat  on  one  side  of  her — Mar- 
quise Molins,  Spanish  ambassadress,  on 
the  other.  There  were  not  many  men, — 
Lord  Lyons,  as  "doyen"  of  the  Dii)lo- 
matic  Corps,  the  Nuncio,  and  a  good  many 
representatives  of  the  South  American 
RepubHcs.  Madame Gre\y  was  perfectly 
bewildered,  did  try  to  talk  to  the  ladies 
next  to  her,  but  it  was  an  intimidating 
function  for  any  one,  and  she  liad  no  one 
to  help  her,  as  they  were  all  (juite  new  to 


3G6 


Mv   F'u'st  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


the  work.  Tt  was  obviously  an  immense 
relief  to  her  when  some  hidy  of  the  official 
world  came  in  whom  she  had  known  be- 
fore. The  two  ladies  plunged  at  once  into 
a  very  animated  conversation  about  their 
children,  husbands,  and  various  domestic 
matters— a  perfectly  natural  conversation, 
but  not  interesting  to  the  foreign  ladies. 

We  didn't  make  a  very  long  visit — it 
was  merely  a  matter  of  form.  Lord  Ly- 
ons came  out  with  me,  and  we  had  quite 
a  talk  while  I  was  waiting  for  my  car- 
riage in  the  anteroom.  He  was  so  sen- 
sible always  in  his  intercourse  with  the 
official  w^orld,  quite  realized  that  the  po- 
sition w^as  difficult  and  trying  for  Madame 
Grevy, — it  w^ould  have  been  for  any  one 
thrown  at  once  wdthout  any  preparation 
into  such  perfectly  different  surroundings. 
He  had  a  certain  experience  of  republics 
and  republican  manners,  as  he  had  been 
some  years  in  Washington  as  British  min- 
ister, and  had  often  seen  wives  of  Ameri- 
can statesmen  and  ministers,  fresh  from 
the  far  West,  beginning  their  career  in 
W^ashington,  quite  bewildered  by  the 
novelty  of  everything  and  utterly  igno- 
rant of  all  questions  of  etiquette — only  he 
said  the  American  women  were  far  more 
adaptable  than  either  French  or  English 
— or  than  any  others  in  the  world,  in  fact. 
He  also  said  that  day,  and  I  have  heard 
him  repeat  it  once  or  twice  since,  that 
he  had  never  met  a  stupid  American 
woman.  .  .  . 

I  have  always  thought  it  was  unneces- 
sary to  insist  upon  Madame  Grevy's  pres- 
ence at  the  Elysee.  It  is  very  difficult 
for  any  woman,  no  longer  very  young,  to 
begin  an  entirely  new  life  in  a  perfectly 
different  "milieu,"  and  certainly  more  dif- 
ficult for  a  Frenchwoman  of  the  bourgeoisie 
than  any  other.  They  live  in  such  a  nar- 
row circle,  their  lives  are  so  cramped  and 
uninteresting — they  know  so  little  of  so- 
ciety and  foreign  ways  and  rnanners,  that 
they  must  be  often  uncomfortable  and 
make  mistakes.  It  is  very  different  for  a 
man.  All  the  small  questions  of  dress  and 
manners,  etc.,  don't  exist  for  them.  One 
man  in  a  dress  coat  and  white  cravat  looks 
very  like  another,  and  men  of  all  con- 
ditions are  polite  to  a  lady.  When  a  man 
is  intelligent,  no  one  notices  whether  his 
coat  and  waistcoat  are  too  wide  or  too 
short  and  whether  his  boots  are  clumsy. 


Madame  Grevy  never  looked  happy  at 
the  Elysee.  They  had  a  big  dinner  every 
Thursday,  with  a  reception  afterward, 
and  she  looked  so  tired  when  she  was  sit- 
ting on  the  sofa,  in  the  diplomatic  salon, 
making  conversation  for  the  foreigners 
and  people  of  all  kinds  who  came  to  their 
receptions,  that  one  felt  really  sorry  for 
her.  Grevy  was  always  a  striking  per- 
sonality. He  had  a  fine  head,  a  quiet,  dig- 
nified manner,  and  looked  very  well  when 
he  stood  at  the  door  receiving  his  guests. 
I  don't  think  he  cared  very  much  about 
foreign  affairs — he  was  essentially  French 
— had  never  lived  abroad  nor  known  any 
foreigners.  He  was  too  intelligent  not  to 
understand  that  a  country  must  have  for- 
eign relations,  and  that  France  must  take 
her  place  again  as  a  great  power,  but  home 
politics  interested  him  much  more  than 
anything  else.  He  was  a  charming  talker 
— every  one  wanted  to  talk  to  him,  or 
rather  to  listen  to  him.  The  evenings  were 
pleasant  enough  in  the  diplomatic  salon. 
It  was  interesting  to  see  the  attitude  of  the 
different  diplomatists.  All  were  correct, 
but  most  of  them  were  visibly  antago- 
nistic to  the  Republic  and  the  Republi- 
cans (which  they  considered  much  "ac- 
centuee"  since  the  nomination  of  Grevy) 
the  women  rather  more  so  than  the  men. 
One  felt,  if  one  didn't  hear,  the  criticisms 
on  the  dress,  deportment,  and  general 
style  of  the  Republican  ladies. 

We  saw  a  great  many  English  at  the 
Quai  d'Orsay.  Queen  Victoria  stayed 
one  or  two  nights  at  the  British  Embassy, 
passing  through  Paris  on  her  way  south. 
She  sent  for  W.,  who  had  never  seen  her 
since  his  undergraduate  days  at  Cam- 
bridge. He  found  her  quite  charming, 
very  easy,  interested  in  everything.  She 
began  the  conversation  in  French  (he 
was  announced  with  all  due  ceremony  as 
Monsieur  le  Ministre  des  Affaires  Etran- 
geres)  and  W.  said  she  spoke  it  remark- 
ably well, — then,  with  her  beautiful  smile 
which  lightened  up  her  whole  face:  "I 
think  I  can  speak  English  with  a  Cam- 
bridge scholar."  She  was  much  inter- 
ested in  his  beginnings  in  England  at 
Rugby  and  Cambridge — and  was  evi- 
dently astonished,  though  she  had  too 
much  tact  to  show  it,  that  he  had  chosen 
to  make  his  life  and  career  in  France  in- 


My   First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


3G; 


stead  of  accepting  the  proposition  made 
to  him  by  his  cousin  Waddington,  then 
Dean  of  Durham,  to  remain  in  England 
and  continue  his  classic  and  literary 
studies  under  his  guidance.     When  the  in- 


French  minister — everything  about  him 
was  so  absolutely  English,  figure,  color- 
ing, and  speech. 

Many  old  school  and  college  experi- 
ences were  evoked  that  year  by  the  vari- 


l-'rom  L' /Lustration,  Icbiuary  8,  1879. 


Jules  Gr^vj',  reading  Marshal  MacMahon's  letter  of  resignation  to  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies. 


terview  was  over  he  found  the  Queen's 
faithful  Scotch  retainer,  John  Brown, 
who  always  accompanied  her  everywhere, 
waiting  outside  the  door,  evidently  hop- 
ing to  see  the  minister.  He  spoke  a  few 
words  w4th  him,  as  a  countryman, — W. 
being  half  Scotch — his  mother  was  born 
Chisholm.  They  shook  hands  and  John 
Brown  begged  him  to  come  to  Scotland, 
where  he  would  receive  a  hearty  wel- 
come. W.  was  very  pleased  with  his  recep- 
tion by  the  Queen.  Lord  Lyons  told  him 
afterward  that  she  had  been  very  anxious 
to  see  him;  she  told  him  later,  in  speaking 
of  the  interview,  that  it  was  very  difTicult 
to  realize  that  she  was  speaking  to  a 
Vol.  LV.— 38 


ous  English  who  passed  through  Paris. 
One  night  at  a  big  dinner  at  the  British 
Embassy  I  was  sitting  next  to  the  Prince 
of  Wales  (late  King  Edward).  He  said 
to  me:  "There  is  an  old  friend  of  your  hus- 
band's here  to-night,  who  will  be  so  glad  to 
see  him  again.  They  haven't  met  since 
he  was  his  fag  at  Rugby."  After  dinner 
he  was  introduced  to  me — Admiral  (ilynn 
— a  charming  man,  said  his  last  recollec- 
tion of  W.  was  making  his  toast  for  him 
and  getting  a  good  culT  when  the  toast  fell 
into  the  lire  and  got  burnt.  The  two 
men  talked  together  for  some  time  in  the 
smoking-room,  recalling  all  sorts  of  school- 
boy exploits.     Another  school  friend  was 


308 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


Sir  Francis  Adams,   first  secretary  and 

''counsellor"  at  the  British  Embassy. 
When  the  ambassador  took  his  hoHday, 
Adams  replaced  him,  and  had  the  rank 
and  title  of  minister  plenipotentiary.  He 
came  every  Wednesday,  the  diplomatic 
reception  day,  to  the  Quai  d'Orsay  to 
talk  business.  As  long  as  a  secretary  or 
a  huissier  was  in  the  room,  they  spoke 
to  each  other  most  correctly  in  French; 
as  soon  as  they  were  alone,  relapsed  into 
easy  and  colloquial  English.  We  were 
very  fond  of  Adams — saw  a  great  deal  of 
him  not  only  in  Paris,  but  when  we  first 
lived  in  London  at  the  Embassy.  He  died 
suddenly  in  Switzerland,  and  W.  missed 
him  very  much.  He  was  very  intelligent, 
a  keen  observer,  had  been  all  over  the 
world,  and  his  knowledge  and  appreciation 
of  foreign  countries  and  ways  was  often 
very  useful  to  W. 

All  the  autumn  of  '79  was  very  agi- 
tated. We  were  obliged  to  curtail  our  stay 
at  Bourneville,  our  country  home.  Even 
though  the  Chambers  were  not  sitting, 
every  description  of  political  intrigue  was 
going  on.  Every  day  W.  had  an  immense 
''courrier"  and  every  second  day  a  secre- 
tary came  down  from  the  Quai  d'Orsay  with 
despatches  and  papers  to  sign.  Telegrams 
came  all  day  long.  W.  had  one  or  two 
shooting-breakfasts  and  the  .long  tramps 
in  the  woods  rested  him.  The  guests  were 
generally  the  notabilities  of  the  small 
towns  and  villages  of  his  circumscription, 
— mayors,  farmers,  and  small  landown- 
ers. They  all  talked  politics  and  W.  was 
surprised  to  see  how  in  this  quiet  agricul- 
tural district  the  fever  of  democracy  had 
mounted.  Usually  the  well-to-do  farmer 
is  very  conservative,  looks  askance  at  the 
very  advanced  opinions  of  the  young  rad- 
icals, but  a  complete  change  had  come 
over  them.  They  seemed  to  think  the 
Republic,  founded  at  last  upon  a  solid 
basis,  supported  by  honest  Republicans, 
would  bring  untold  prosperity  not  only  to 
the  country,  but  to  each  individual,  and 
many  very  modest,  unpretending  citizens 
of  the  small  towns  saw  themselves  ''con- 
seilleurs  generaux,"  deputies,  perhaps 
even  ministers.  It  was  a  curious  change. 
However,  on  the  whole,  the  people  in  our 
part  of  the  world  were  reasonable.  I  was 
sorry  to  go  back  to  town.    I  liked  the  last 


beautiful  days  of  September  in  the  coun- 
try. The  trees  were  just  beginning  to 
turn,  and  the  rides  in  the  woods  were  de- 
lightful, the  roads  so  soft  and  springy. 
The  horses  seemed  to  like  the  brisk  canter 
as  much  as  we  did.  We  disturbed  all  the 
forest  life  as  we  galloped  along — hares  and 
rabbits  scuttled  away — we  saw  their  white 
tails  disappearing  into  holes,  and  when  we 
crossed  a  bit  of  plain,  partridges  a  long 
distance  off  would  rise  and  take  their 
crooked  flight  across  the  fields.  It  was  so 
still,  always  is  in  the  woods,  that  the 
horses'  feet  could  be  heard  a  long  way 
off.  It  was  getting  colder  (all  the  coun- 
try folk  predicted  a  very  cold  winter)  and 
the  wood  fire  looked  very  cheerful  and 
comfortable  in  my  little  salon  when  we 
came  in. 

However,  everything  must  end,  and  W. 
had  to  go  back  to  the  fight,  which  promised 
to  be  lively.  In  Paris  we  found  people 
wearing  furs  and  preparing  for  a  cold  win- 
ter. The  house  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay  was 
comfortable,  well-warmed,  ''caloriferes" 
and  big  fires  in  all  the  rooms,  and  whenever 
there  was  any  sun  it  poured  into  the  rooms 
from  the  garden.  I  didn't  take  up  my  of- 
ficial afternoon  receptions.  The  session 
had  not  begun,  and,  as  it  seemed  extremely 
unlikely  that  the  coming  year  would  see  us 
still  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  it  was  not  worth 
while  to  embark  upon  that  dreary  func- 
tion. I  was  at  home  every  afternoon  after 
five — had  tea  in  my  little  blue  salon,  and 
always  had  two  or  three  people  to  keep 
me  company.  Prince  Hohenlohe  came 
often,  settled  himself  in  an  armchair  with 
his  cup  of  tea,  and  talked  easily  and 
charmingly  about  everything.  He  was 
just  back  from  Germany  and  reported 
Bismarck  and  the  Emperor  (I  should  have 
said,  perhaps,  the  Emperor  and  Bismarck) 
as  rather  worried  over  the  rapid  strides 
France  was  making  in  radicalism.  He 
reassured  them,  told  them  Grevy  was  es- 
sentially a  man  of  peace,  and,  as  long  as 
moderate  men  like  W.,  Leon  Say,  and 
their  friends  remained  in  office,  things 
would  go  quietly.  "Yes,  if  they  remain. 
I  have  an  idea  we  sha'n't  stay  much 
longer,  and  report  says  Freycinet  will  be 
the  next  premier."  He  evidently  had 
heard  the  same  report,  and  spoke  warmly 
of  Freycinet, — intelligent,  energetic,  and 
such  a  precise  mind.     If  W.  were  obliged 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frencliwoman 


369 


to  resign,  which  he  personally  would  re-  Chamljcrs  continued  to  sit  at  \'ersailles, 

gret,  he  thought  Freycinet  was  the  com-  he  would   he   obliged   to   establish    him- 

ing  man — unless  Gambetta  wanted  to  be  self  there,  which  he  didn't  want  to  do. 

premier.     He   didn't  think  he  did,  was  Many  people  were  very  unwilling  to  make 

not  quite  ready  yet,  but  his  hand  might  be  the  change,  were  honestly  nervous  about 


iTuiii  J.' JUiisiruUoii,  1  cbiuary  B,  1679. 

M    Jules  Grevy  elected  President  of  the  Renublic  by  the  Senate  and  Chamber  of  Heiiuties  meeting  as  the 

National  Assembly 


forced  by  his  friends,  and  of  course  if  he 
wanted  it,  he  would  be  the  next  president 
du  conseil.  He  also  told  me  a  great  many 
things  that  Blowitz  had  said  to  him — he 
had  a  great  opinion  of  him — said  he  was 
so  marvellously  well-informed  of  all  that 
was  going  on.  The  Nuncio,  Mgr.  Czaski, 
came  too  sometimes  at  tea-time.  He  was 
a  charming  talker,  but  I  always  felt  as  if 
he  were  saying  exactly  what  he  meant  to 
and  what  he  wanted  me  to  repeat  to  W. 
I  am  never  quite  sure  with  Italians.  There 
is  always  a  certain  reticence  under  their 
extremely  natural,  rather  exuberant  man- 
ner. Mgr.  Czaski  was  not  an  Italian  by 
birth — a  Pole,  but  I  don't  know  that  they 
inspire  much  more  confidence. 

The  fjuestion  of  the  return  of  the  Par- 
liament to  Paris  had  at  last  been  sohed 
after  endless  discussions.  All  the  Re- 
])ublicans  were  in  favor  of  it,  and  they  were 
masters  of  the  situation.  The  President, 
Grevy,  too  wanted  it  very  much.     If  tlie 


possible  disturbances  in  the  streets,  and, 
though  they  grumbled  too  at  the  loss  of 
time,  the  draughty  carriages  of  the  ]^ar- 
liamentary  train,  etc.,  they  still  ]')referred 
those  discomforts  to  any  possibility  of 
rioting  and  street  lights,  and  the  inva- 
sion of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  by  a  Paris 
mob.  W.  was  very  anxious  for  the  change. 
He  didn't  in  the  least  anticii)ate  any 
trouble — his  principal  reason  for  wanting 
the  Parliament  back  was  the  loss  of  time, 
and  also  to  get  rid  of  the  conversations 
in  the  train,  which  tired  him  very  much. 
He  never  could  make  himself  heard  with- 
out an  effort,  as  his  voice  was  low,  had 
no  ''  timbre,"  and  he  didn't  hear  his  neigh- 
bors very  well  in  the  noise  of  the  train.  He 
always  arri\ed  at  the  station  at  the  last 
minute,  and  got  into  the  last  carriage, 
hoping  to  be  undisturbed, and  have  a  quiet 
half-hour  with  his  ])apers,  but  he  was  rare- 
ly left  alone.  If  any  deputy  wlu)  wanted 
anything  recognized  him,  he  of  course  got 


.STO 


My   First  Years  as  a   Frenchwoman 


in  the  same  carriage,  because  he  knew  he 
was  sure  of  a  half-hour  to  state  his  case, 
as  the  minister  couldn't  get  away  from 
him.  The  Chambers  met,  after  a  short  va- 
cation in  November,  at  last  in  Paris,  and 
already  there  were  so  many  ''interpel- 
lations" announced  on  every  possible  sub- 
ject, so  many  criticisms  on  the  policy  of 
the  cabinet,  and  so 
niany  people  want- 
ing other  people's 
places,  that  the 
session  promised 
to  be  very  lively — 
the  Senate  at  the 
Palais  du  Luxem- 
bourg, the  Depu- 
ties at  the  Palais 
Bourbon. 

The  end  of  De- 
cember was  detest- 
able. We  were  "en 
pleine  crise"  for 
ten  days.  Every 
day  W.  went  to  the 
Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties expecting  to  be 
beaten,  and  every 
evening  came  home 
discouraged  and 
disgusted.  The 
Chamber  was  mak- 
ing the  position  of 
the  ministers  per- 
fectly untenable — all  sorts  of  violent  and 
useless  propositions  were  discussed,  and 
there  was  an  undercurrent  of  jealousy  and 
intrigue  everywhere.  One  day,  just  be- 
fore Christmas,  about  the  20th,  W.  and  his 
chef  de  cabinet,  Comte  de  P.,  started  for 
the  house,  after  breakfast, — W.  expecting 
to  be  beaten  by  a  coalition  vote  of  the  ex- 
treme Left,  Bonapartists,  and  Legitimists. 
It  was  insane  policy  on  the  part  of  the 
two  last,  as  they  knew  perfectly  well  they 
wouldn't  gain  anything  by  upsetting  the 
actual  cabinet.  They  would  only  get  an- 
other one  much  more  advanced  and  more 
masterful.  I  suppose  their  idea  was  to 
have  a  succession  of  radical  inefficient 
ministers,  which  in  the  end  would  dis- 
gust the  country  and  make  a  ''savior,"  a 
prince  (which  one?)  or  general,  possible. 
How  wise  their  reasoning  was  time  has 
shown!    I  wanted  to  go  to  the  Chamber 


M.  le  Marquis  de  Mollns,  Ambassador  to  Spain. 


to  hear  the  debate,  but  W.  didn't  want 
.me.  He  would  be  obliged  to  speak,  and 
said  it  would  worry  him  if  I  were  in  the 
gallery  listening  to  all  the  attacks  made 
upon  him.  (It  is  rather  curious  that  I 
never  heard  him  speak  in  public,  either  in 
the  house  or  in  the  country,  where  he 
often  made  political  speeches,  in  election 

times.)  He  was  so 
sure  that  the  min- 
istry would  fall 
that  we  had  al- 
ready begun  clean- 
ing and  making 
fires  in. our  own 
house,  so  on  that 
afternoon,  as  I 
didn't  want  to  sit 
at  home  waiting  for 
telegrams,  I  went 
up  to  the  house 
with  Henrietta. 
The  caretaker  had 
already  told  us  that 
the  stock  of  wood 
and  coal  was  giv- 
ing out,  and  she 
couldn't  get  any 
more  in  the  quar- 
ter, and  if  she 
couldn't  make  fires 
the  pipes  would 
burst — which  was 
a  pleasant  prospect 
with  the  thermom- 
eter at  I  don't  remember  how  many  de- 
grees below  zero.  We  found  a  fine  clean- 
ing going  on — doors  and  windows  open 
all  over  the  house — and  women  scrubbing 
stairs,  floors,  and  windows,  rather  under 
difficulties,  with  little  fire  and  little  water. 
It  looked  perfectly  dreary  and  comfortless 
— not  at  all  tempting.  All  the  furniture 
was  piled  up  in  the  middle  of  the  rooms, 
and  W.'s  library  was  a  curiosity.  Books 
and  pamphlets  accumulated  rapidly  with 
us,  as  W.  was  a  member  of  so  many  literary 
societies  of  all  kinds,  and  packages  and 
boxes  of  unopened  books  quite  choked  up 
the  room.  H .  and  I  tried  to  arrange  things 
a  little,  but  it  was  hopeless  that  day,  and, 
besides,  the  house  was  bitterly  cold.  It 
didn't  feel  as  if  a  fire  could  make  any  im- 
pression. 

As  we  could  do  nothing  there,  we  went 
back  to  the  ministry.     No  telegrams  had 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


371 


come,  but  Kruft,  our  faithful  and  efficient 
''chef  du  materiel,"  was  waiting  for  me 
for  last  instructions  about  a  Christmas 
tree.     Some  days  before  I  had  decided  to 
have  a  Christmas  tree,  about  the  end  of 
the  month.     W.  then  thought  the  minis- 
try  would   last   over   the   holidays,    the 
^'treve   des   confiseurs,"   and   was   quite 
willing   I   should 
have  a  Christmas 
party  as  a  last  en- 
tertainment.     He 
had  been  too  occu- 
pied the  last  days 
to  think  about  any 
such  trifles,  and 
Kruft,  not  ha\'ing 
had  any  contrary 
instructions,  had 
ordered   the  pres- 
ents and  decora- 
tions.    He  w  a  s 
rather  depressed, 
because  W.  had 
told  him  that  morn- 
ing that  we  surely 
would  not  be  at  the 
Quai    d'Orsay    on 
the  29th,  the  day 
we  had  chosen  for 
our  party.     How- 
ever, I  reassured 
him,  and  told  him 
we  would  have  the 
Christmas  tree  all 

the  same,  only  at  my  house  instead  of  the 
ministry.  We  went  to  look  at  his  presents, 
which  were  all  spread  out  on  a  big  table  in 
one  of  the  drawing-rooms.  He  really  was 
a  wonderful  man,  never  forgot  anything, 
and  had  remembered  that  at  the  last  tree, 
the  year  before,  one  or  two  nurses  had  had 
no  presents,  and  several  who  had  were  not 
pleased  with  what  was  given  to  them. 
He  had  made  a  very  good  selection  for 
those  ladies, — lace  scarfs  and  "  rabat s  "  and 
little  ''tours  de  cou"  of  fur, — really  very 
pretty.  I  believe  they  were  satisfied  this 
time.  The  young  men  sent  me  up  two  tel- 
egrams: "rien  de  nouveau," — "ministere 
delK)ut." 

W.  came  home  late,  very  tired  and  much 
disgusted  with  politics  in  general  and  his 
party  in  particular.  The  cabinet  still  lived, 
but  merely  to  give  Grevy  time  to  make 
another.    W.  had  been  to  the  Elysee  and 


A 


Lord  I-\-ons, 


had  a  long  conversation  with  Grevy.  He 
found  him  very  preoccupied,  very  unwill- 
ing to  make  a  change,  and  he  again  urged 
W.  very  much  to  keep  the  Foreign  Office, 
if  Freycinut  shjuld  succeed  in  making  a 
ministry.  That  W.  would  not  agree  to — 
he  was  sick  of  the  whole  thing.  He  told 
Grevy  he  was  quite  right  to  send  for  Frey- 

cinet — if  any  man 
could  save  the  situ- 
ation he  could. 
We  had  one  or  two 
friends,  political 
men,  to  dinner, 
and  they  discussed 
the  situation  from 
every  point  of 
view,  always  end- 
ing with  the  same 
conclusion,  that 
W.  was  right  to  go. 
His  policy  wasn't 
the  policy  of  the 
Chamber  (I  don't 
say  of  thecountr}', 
for  I  think  the 
country  knew  lit- 
tle and  cared  less 
about  what  was 
going  on  in  Parlia- 
ment), hardly  the 
policy  of  all  his 
own  colleagues. 
There  was  really 
no  use  to  continue 
worrying  himself  to  death  and  doing  no 
good.  W.  said  his  conversation  with 
Grevy  was  interesting,  but  he  was  much 
more  concerned  with  home  politics  and 
the  sweeping  changes  the  Re])ublicans 
wanted  to  make  in  all  the  Administra- 
tions than  with  foreign  policy.  He  said 
Europe  was  quiet  and  France's  first  duty 
was  to  establish  herself  firmly,  which 
would  only  be  done  by  peace  and  pros- 
perity at  home.  I  told  W.  I  had  spent  a 
very  cold  and  uncomfortable  hour  at  the 
house,  and  I  was  worried  about  the  cold, 
thought  I  might,  ])erhaps,  send  the  boy  io 
mother,  but  he  had  taken  his  precautions 
and  arranged  with  the  minister  of  war  io 
have  a  certain  amount  of  wood  delivered 
at  the  house.  They  always  had  reserves 
of  wood  at  the  \arious  ministries.  We 
had  ours  directly  from  our  own  woods  in 
the  country,  and  it  was  en  route,  but  a 


372 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


Hotilla  of  boats  was  frozen  uj^  in  the  Canal 
de  rOurcq,  and  it  might  be  weeks  before 
the  wood  could  be  deHvered. 

We  dined  one  night  at  the  British  Em- 
bassy, while  all  these  pourparlers  were  go- 


W.'s  presence  at  the  Foreign  Oflfice  during 
the  last  year  had  been  a  help  to  the  Re- 
public— said  also  he  didn't  believe  his  re- 
tirement would  last  very  long.  It  was 
frightfully  cold  when  we  came  out  of  the 


Frotn  a  Jrhoto^raph  by  Chancellor^  Dtcblin. 

Her  Majesty  Queen  Victoria,  about  1879. 


ing  on, "  en  petit  comite,"  all  English,  Lord 
and  Lady  Reay,  Lord  Edmond  Fitz-Mau- 
rice,  and  one  or  two  members  of  Parliament 
whose  names  I  have  forgotten.  Both  Lord 
and  Lady  Reay  were  very  keen  about 
politics,  knew  France  well,  and  were  much 
interested  in  the  phase  she  was  passing 
through.  Lord  Lyons  was  charming,  so 
friendly  and  sensible,  said  he  wasn't  sur- 
prised at  W.'s  wanting  to  go — still  hoped 
this  crisis  would  pass  like  so  many  others 
he  had  seen  in   France;  that  certainly 


Embassy — very  few  carriages  out,  all  the 
coachmen  wrapped  up  in  mufflers  and  fur 
caps,  and  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  a  sea 
of  ice  so  slippery  I  thought  we  should 
never  get  across  and  over  the  bridge.  I 
went  to  the  Opera  one  night  that  week, 
got  there  in  an  entr'acte,  when  people 
were  walking  about  and  reading  the  pa- 
pers. As  I  passed  several  groups  of  men, 
I  heard  W.'s  name  mentioned,  also  that 
of  Leon  Say  and  Freycinet,  but  just  in 
passing  by  quickly  I  could  not  hear  any 


Mv   First  Years  as  a   Frencli woman 


",73 


comments.  I  fancy  they  were  not  fa- 
vorable in  that "  mih'eu."  It  was  very  cold 
in  the  house — -almost  all  the  women  had 
their  cloaks  on — and  the  coming  out  was 
something  awful,  crossing  that  broad 
"perron"  in  the  face  of  a  biting  wind. 


end  on  the  2Cth  of  December,  and  the  next 
(lay  the  ])ai)ers  announced  that  the  min- 
isters had  given  their  resignation  to  the 
President,  who  had  accepted  it  and  had 
charged  M.  de  Freycinet  to  form  a  cabinet. 
We  dined  with  mother  on  Christmas  day, 


Fro>n  a  photograph  hy  Lock  a)ui  ll'hitjicui,  I.ouxon. 

His  Royal  Highness,  Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  in  1876. 


I  began  my  packing  seriously  this  time, 
as  W.'s  mind  was  quite  made  up.  He 
had  thought  the  matter  well  over,  and 
had  a  final  talk  with  Freycinet,  who  would 
have  liked  to  keep  both  W.  and  Leon  Say, 
but  it  wasn't  easy  to  manage  the  new  ele- 
ment that  Freycinet  brought  with  him. 
The  new  members  were  much  more  ad- 
vanced in  their  opinions.  W.  couldn't 
have  worked  with  them,  and  they  cer- 
tainly didn't  want  to  work  with  him. 
The  autumn  session  came  to  a  turbulent 


a  family  party,  with  the  addition  of  Comte 
de  P.  and  one  or  two  stray  Americans  who 
were  at  hotels  and  were  of  course  delighted 
not  to  dine  on  Christmas  day  at  a  "  table 
d'hote  "  or  cafe.  W.  was  rather  tired ;  the 
constant  talking  and  seeing  so  many  peo- 
ple of  all  kinds  was  very  fatiguing,  for,  as 
long  as  his  resignation  was  not  ollicial.  an- 
nounced in  the  Journal  OJfici el,  he  was  still 
minister  of  foreign  alTairs.  One  of  the  last 
days,  when  they  were  hoping  to  come  to  an 
agreement,  he  was  obliged  to  come  home 


374 


My   First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


early  to  receive  the  mission  from  Mo- 
rocco. 1  saw  thein  arri\e;  they  were  a 
tine  set  of  men,  tall,  powerfully  built,  their 
skin  a  red-brown,  not  black,  entirely 
dressed  in  white  from  turbans  to  sandals. 
None  of  them  spoke  any  French — all  the 
conversation  took  place  through  an  inter- 
preter. Notwithstanding  our  worries,  we 
had  a  very  pleasant  e\'ening  and  W.  was 
very  cheerful  —  looking  forward  to  our 
Italian  trip  with  quite  as  much  pleasure 
as  I  did. 

W.  made  over  the  ministry  to  Freycinet 
on  Monday,  the  28th,  the  "transmission 
des  pouvoirs."  Freycinet  was  very  nice 
and  friendly,  regretted  that  he  and  W. 
were  no  longer  colleagues.  He  thought 
his  ministry  was  strong  and  was  confident 
he  would  manage  the  Chamber.  W.  told 
him  he  could  settle  himself  as  soon  as  he 
liked  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  as  we  should  go 
at  once,  and  would  sleep  at  our  house  on 
Wednesday  night.  Freycinet  said  Mme. 
de  Freycinet  (whom  I  knew  well  and  liked 
very  much)  would  come  and  see  me  on 
Wednesday,  and  would  like  to  go  over  the 
house  with  me.  I  was  rather  taken  aback 
when  W.  told  me  we  must  sleep  in  our 
own  house  on  Wednesday  night.  The 
actual  packing  was  not  very  troublesome, 
as  I  had  not  brought  many  of  my  own 
things  from  the  rue  Dumont-d'Urville. 
There  was  scarcely  a  van-load  of  small 
furniture  and  boxes,  but  the  getting  to- 
gether of  all  the  small  things  was  a  bore, — 
books,  "bibelots,"  music,  cards,  and  notes 
(these  in  quantities,  "lettres  de  condole- 
ance,"  which  had  to  be  carefully  sorted  as 
they  had  all  to  be  answered).  The  hotel 
of  the  Quai  d'Orsay  was  crowded  with 
people  those  last  two  days,  all  W.'s 
friends  coming  to  express  their  regrets  at 
his  departure,  some  very  sincerely  sorry 
to  see  him  go,  as  his  name  and  character 
certainly  inspired  confidence  abroad — and 
some  delighted  that  he  was  no  longer  a 
member  of  such  an  advanced  cabinet — 
(some  said  "de  cet  infect  gouverne- 
ment")  when  he  was  obliged  by  his  mere 
presence  to  sanction  many  things  he  didn't 
approve  of.  He  and  Freycinet  had  a 
long  talk  on  Wednesday,  as  W.  naturally 
wanted  to  be  sure  that  some  provision 
would  be  made  for  his  chef  de  cabinet 
and  secretaries.  Each  incoming  minister 
brings  his  own  staff  with  him.  Freycinet 
offered  W.  the  London  Embassy,  but  he 


wouldn't  take  it,  had  had  enough  of 
public  life  for  the  present.  I  didn't  want 
it  either,  I  had  never  lived  much  in  Eng- 
land, had  not  many  friends  there,  and 
was  counting  the  days  until  we  could  get 
off  to  Rome.  There  was  one  funny  re- 
sult of  W.  having  declined  the  London 
Embassy.  Admiral  Pothuau,  whom  W. 
had  named  there,  and  who  was  very  much 
liked,  came  to  see  him  one  day  and  made 
him  a  great  scene  because  Freycinet  had  of- 
fered him  the  London  Embassy.  W.  said 
he  didn't  understand  why  he  made  him 
a  scene,  as  he  had  refused  it.  "But  it 
should  never  have  been  offered  to  you  over 
my  head."  "  Perhaps,  but  that  is  not  my 
fault.  I  didn't  ask  for  it — and  don't  want 
it.  If  you  think  you  have  been  treated 
badly,  you  should  speak  to  Freycinet." 
However,  the  admiral  was  very  much  put 
out,  and  was  very  cool  with  us  both  for  a 
long  time.  I  suppose  his  idea  was  that  be- 
ing recalled  would  mean  that  he  had  not 
done  well  in  London,  which  was  quite  a 
mistake,  as  he  was  very  much  liked  there. 

We  dined  alone  that  last  night  at  the 
ministry,  and  sat  some  time  in  the  window, 
looking  at  the  crowds  of  people  amusing 
themselves  on  the  Seine,  and  wondering  if 
we  would  ever  see  the  Quai  d'Orsay  again. 
After  all,  we  had  had  two  very  happy  in- 
teresting years  there — and  memories  that 
would  last  a  lifetime.  Some  of  the  last 
experiences  of  the  month  of  December 
had  been  rather  disillusioning,  but  I  sup- 
pose one  must  not  bring  any  sentiment 
into  politics.  In  the  world  it  is  always  a 
case  of  "donnant — donnant"  and — when 
one  is  no  longer  in  a  position  to  give  a 
great  deal — people  naturally  turn  to  the 
rising  man.  Comte  de  P.,  chef  de  ca- 
binet, came  in  late  as  usual,  to  have  a  last 
talk.  He  too  had  been  busy,  as  he  had  a 
small  apartment  and  stables  in  the  hotel 
of  the  ministry,  and  was  also  very  anxious 
to  get  away.  He  told  us  all  the  young 
men  of  the  cabinet  were  very  sorry  to  see 
W.  go — at  first  they  had  found  him  a  little 
cold  and  reserved — but  a  two  years'  ex- 
perience had  shown  them  that,  if  he  were 
not  expansive,  he  was  perfectly  just,  and 
always  did  what  he  said  he  w^ould. 

The  next  day  Madame  de  Freycinet 
came  to  see  me,  and  we  went  over  the  house. 
She  didn't  care  about  the  living-rooms,  as 
they  never  lived  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  re- 
mained in  their  own  hotel  near  the  Bois  de 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


375 


Boulogne.  Freycinet  came  e\ery  day  to 
the  ministry,  and  she  merely  on  reception 
days — or  when  there  was  a  party.  Just 
as  she  was  going,  Madame  de  Zuylen,  wife 
of  the  Dutch  minister,  a  great  friend  of 
mine,  came  in.  She  told  me  she  had  great 
difficulty  in  getting  uj),  as  I  had  for- 
bidden my  door, 
but  my  faithful 
Gerard  (I  think 
I  missed  him  as 
much  as  anything 
else  at  first), 
knowing  we  were 
friends,  thought 
Madame  would 
like  to  see  her. 
She  paid  me  quite 
a  long  visit,  —  I 
even  gave  her 
some  tea  off  gov- 
ernment plate 
and  china, — all 
mine  had  been  al- 
ready sent  to  my 
own  house.  We 
sat  talking  for 
some  time.  She 
had  heard  that 
W.  had  refused 
the  London  Em- 
bassy, was  afraid 
it  was  a  mistake, 
and  that  the  win- 
ter in  Paris  would 
be  a  difficult  one 
forhim— he  would 


John  Brown,  Queen  Victoria's  Scotch  retainer. 


day,  so  ]\Iadame  de  Zuylen  took  her  leave, 
])romising  to  come  to  my  Christmas  tree 
in  the  rue  Dumont  d'Urville.  The  young 
men  seemed  sorry  to  say  good-by — I  was, 
too.  I  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  them 
and  always  found  them  ready  and  anx- 
ious to  hel])  me  in  every  way.    The  Comte 

deLasteyrie,  who 
was  a  great  friend 
of  ours  as  well  as 
a  secretary,  went 
about  a  great 
deal  with  us.  \V. 
called  upon  him 
very  often  for  all 
sorts  of  things, 
knowing  he  could 
trust  him  abso- 
lutely. He  told 
one  of  my  friends 
that  one  of  his 
principal  func- 
tions was  to  ac- 
company Mme. 
Waddington  to 
all  the  charity 
sales,  carrying  a 
package  of  wom- 
en's chemises 
under  his  arm. 
It  was  quite 
true  that  I  oft- 
en bought  "poor 
clothes"  at  the 
sales.  The  ob- 
jects exposed  in 
the  way  of  screens, 


certainly  be  inop- 

position  to  the  government  on  all  sorts  of 
questions — and  if  he  remained  in  Paris  he 
would  naturally  go  to  the  Senate  and 
vote.  I  quite  agreed  that  he  couldn't 
suddenly  detach  himself  from  all  political 
discussions,  must  take  part  in  them  and 
must  vote.  The  policy  of  abstention  has 
always  seemed  to  me  the  weakest  pos- 
sible line  in  politics.  If  a  man,  for  some 
reason  or  another,  hasn't  the  courage  of 
his  opinions,  he  mustn't  take  any  po- 
sition where  that  opinion  would  carry 
weight.  I  told  her  we  were  going  to  It- 
aly as  soon  as  we  could  get  off  after  the 
holidays. 

While  we  were  talking,  a  message  came 
up  to  say  that  the  young  men  of  the  cab- 
inet were  all  coming  up  to  say  good-by  to 
me.    I  had  seen  the  directors  earlier  in  the 


pin-cushions,  ta- 
ble-covers, and,  in  the  spring,  hats  made 
by  some  of  the  ladies,  were  so  appalling 
that  I  was  glad  to  have  poor  clothes  to 
fall  back  upon,  but  I  don't  remember  his 
ever  carrying  my  purchases  home  with  me. 
They  were  much  anuiscd  when  suddenly 
Francis  burst  into  I  he  room,  ha\ing  es- 
caped a  moment  from  his  "  Nonnon,"  who 
was  busy  with  her  last  packing,  his  little 
face  flushed  and  qui\ering  with  anger  be- 
cause his  toys  had  been  packed  and  he 
was  to  be  taken  away  from  the  big  house. 
He  kicked  and  screamed  like  a  little  mad 
thing,  until  his  nurse  came  to  the  rescue. 
I  made  a  last  turn  in  the  rooms  to  see  tliat 
all  trace  of  my  occupation  had  vanished. 
Francis,  half  pacilied,  was  seated  on  the 
billiard-table,  an  old  gray-haired  huissier, 
who  was  always  on  duty  up-stairs,  taking 


o/ 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


care  of  him.  The  luiissiers  and  house- 
servants  were  all  assembled  in  the  hall, 
and  the  old  Pierson,  who  had  been  there 
for  years,  was  the  sj^okesman,  and  hoped 
respectfully  that  ]\ladame  *' would  soon 
come  back.  ..."  W.  didn't  come  wuth 
us,  as  he  still  had  people  to  see  and  only 
got  home  in  time  for  a  late  dinner. 

We  dined  that  night  and  for  many 
nights  afterward  with  our  uncle  Lutte- 
roth  (who  had  a 
charming  hotel 
tilled  with  pic- 
tures and  "bibe- 
lots" and  pretty 
things)  just 
across  the  street, 
as  it  was  some 
little  time  before 
our  kitchen  and 
household  got 
into  working  or- 
der again.  The 
first  few  days 
were,  of  course, 
very  tiring  and 
uncomfortable — 
the  house  seemed 
so  small  after  the 
big  rooms  at  the 
Quai  d'Orsay.  I 
didn't  attempt 
to  do  anything 
with  the  salons, 
as  we  wxre  going 
away  so  soon — 
carpets  and  cur- 
tains had  to  be 
arranged  to  keep 

the  cold  out,  but  the  big  boxes  remained  in 
the  carriage-house — not  unpacked.  We 
had  a  procession  of  visitors  all  day — and 
tried  to  make  W.'s  library  possible, — com- 
fortable it  wasn't,  as  there  were  packages 
of  books  and  papers  and  boxes  everywhere. 

I  had  a  good  many  visits  and  flowers 
on  New  Year's  day — which  was  an  agree- 
able surprise, — Lord  Lyons,  Orloff,  the 
Sibberns,  Comte  de  Segur,  M.  Alfred  An- 
dre, and  others.  Andre,  an  old  friend 
of  W.'s,  a  very  conservative  Protestant 
banker,  was  very  blue  about  affairs. 
Andre  was  the  type  of  the  modern  French 
Protestant.  They  are  almost  a  separate 
class  in  France — are  very  earnest,  religious, 
honorable,  narrow-minded  people.  They 
give  a  great  deal  in  charity  and  good  works 


Prince  Hohenlohe. 
After  the  painting:  by  F.  ]l.  I^aszlo 


of  all  kinds.  In  Paris  the  Protestant  co- 
terie is  very  rich.  They  associate  with  all 
the  Catholics,  as  many  of  them  entertain 
a  great  deal,  but  they  live  among  them- 
selves and  never  intermarry.  I  hardly 
know  a  case  where  a  French  Protestant 
has  married  a  Catholic.  I  suppose  it  is 
a  remnant  of  their  old  Huguenot  blood,  and 
the  memories  of  all  their  forefathers  suf- 
fered for  their  religion,  which  makes  them  so 

intolerant.  The 
ambassadors  had 
paid  their  usual 
ofi&cial  visit  to 
the  Elysee — said 
Grevy  was  very 
smiling  and  ami- 
able, didn't  seem 
at  all  preoccu- 
pied. We  had  a 
family  dinner  at 
my  uncle's  on 
NewYear'snight, 
and  all  the  family 
with  wonderful 
unanimity  said 
the  best  wish 
they  could  make 
for  W.  was  that 
1880  would  see 
him  out  of  poli- 
J^jjl^  tics  and  leadirg 

an  independent 
if  less  interesting 
life. 

An  interesting 
life  it  certainly 
was,  hearing  so 
many  questions 
discussed,  seeing  all  sorts  of  people  of  all 
nationalities  and  living  as  it  were  be- 
hind the  scenes.  The  Chamber  of  Dep- 
uties in  itself  was  a  study,  with  its 
astounding  changes  of  opinion,  with  no  ap- 
parent cause.  One  never  knew  in  the  morn- 
ing what  the  afternoon's  session  would 
bring,  for,  as  soon  as  the  Republican  party 
felt  themselves  firmly  established,  they  be- 
gan to  quarrel  among  themselves.  I  went 
back  to  the  ministry  one  afternoon  to  pay 
a  formal  visit  to  Mme.  de  Freycinet  on  her 
reception  day.  I  had  rather  put  it  off, 
thinking  that  the  sight  of  the  well-known 
rooms  and  faces  would  be  disagreeable  to 
me  and  make  me  regret,  perhaps,  the  past, 
but  I  felt  already  that  all  that  old  life  was 
over — one  adapts  oneself  so  quickly  to  dif- 


Mv   First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


377 


ferent  surroundings.  It  did  seem  funny 
to  be  announced  by  my  own  special  huis- 
sier,  Gerard,  and  to  find  myself  sitting  in 
the  green  drawing-room  with  all  the  palms 
and  flowers  arranged  just  as  they  always 
were  for  me,  and  a  semicircle  of  di])lomats 
saying  exactly  the  same  things  to  Alme. 
de  F  r  e  y  c  i  n  e  t 
that  they  had 
said  to  me  a  few 
days  before,  but 
I  fancy  that  al- 
ways happens  in 
these  days  of 
democracy  and 
equalizing  edu- 
cation, and  that, 
under  certain  cir- 
cumstances, we 
all  say  and  do  ex- 
actly the  same 
thing.  I  had 
quite  a  talk  with 
Sibbern,  the 
Swedish  minis- 
ter, who  was 
very  friendly  and 
sympathetic,  not 
only  at  our  leav- 
ing the  Foreign 
Office,  but  at  the 
extreme  discom- 
fort of  moving  in 
such  frightfully 
cold  weather. 
He  was  wrapped 
in  furs,  as  if  he 
were  going  to 
the  North  Pole. 

However,  I  assured  him  we  were  quite 
warm  and  comfortable,  gradually  set- 
tling down  into  our  old  ways,  and  I 
was  already  looking  back  on  my  two 
years  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay  as  an  agreeable 
episode  in  my  life.  I  had  quite  a  talk 
too  with  the  Portuguese  minister,  Men- 
des  Leal.  He  was  an  interesting  man, 
a  poet  and  a  dreamer,  saw  more,  1  fancy. 


in  England— was  surj)rised  that  I  hadn't 
Xirged  it.  I  replied  that  I  had  not  been 
consulted.  Many  people  asked  when  they 
could  come  and  see  me  —  would  I  take 
up  my  reception  day  again  ?  That  wasn't 
worth  while,  as  I  was  going  away  so  soon, 
but  I  said  T  would  be  there  every  day  at  five 

o'clock,  and  al- 
ways had  visits. 
One  day  Ma- 
dame Sadi  Car- 
not  sat  a  long 
time  with  me. 
Her  husband  had 
been  named  un- 
der secretary  at 
the  ministry  of 
Public  Works  in 
the  new  cabinet, 
and  she  was  \-ery 
pleased.  She 
was  a  ver\'  charm- 
ing, intelligent, 
cultivated  wom- 
an— read  a  great 


^f^^: 


'>Jti(^'y  "' 


v.. 


deal, 


was  very 


M.  de  Freyclnet. 
After  a  photograph  by  M.  Nadaz,  Paris 


^.■:^\  keen  al)()ut  })()li- 

ticsandxeryam- 
^  bitious  (as  every 

^^.  clever  woman 

should  be)  for  her 
husband   and 
f  sons.    I  think  she 

was  a  great  help 
socially  to  her 
husband  when  he 
became  Pres- 
ident of  the  Re- 
public.    He  was 
a  grave,  reserved  man,  didn't  care  very 
much  for  society.     I  saw  her  very  often 
and  always  found  her  most  attractive.    At 
the  Elysee  she  was  amiable  and  courteous 
to    everybody    and    her   slight    deafness 
didn't  seem  to  worry  her  nor  make  con- 
versation difficult.    She  did  such  a  charm- 
ing womanly   thing  just   after  her  hus- 
band's assassination.     He  lay  in  stale  for 
of  the  literary  world  of  Paris  than  the    some  days  at  the  Elysee,  and  M.  Casi- 


political.  Blowitz  was  there,  of  course 
— was  always  everywhere  in  moments  of 
crisis,  talking  a  great  deal,  and  letting  it 
be  understood  that  he  had  pulled  a  great 
many  wires  all  those  last  weeks.  He  too 
regretted  that  W.  had  not  taken  the  Lon- 
don Embassy,  assured  me  that  it  would 
have  been  a  very  agreeable  appointment 


mir-Perier,  his  successor,  went  to  make 
her  a  visit.  As  he  was  leaving  he  said 
his  wife  would  come  the  next  day  to  see 
Mme.  Carnot.  She  instantly  answered: 
*'Pray  do  not  let  her  come;  she  is  young, 
beginning  her  life  here  at  the  I''.lysee.  1 
wouldn't  for  worlds  that  she  should  have 
the  impression  of  sadness  and  gloom  that 


378 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


must  hang  over  the  Palace  as  long  as  the 
President  is  lyinj::  there.  I  should  like  her 
to  come  to  the  Elysee  only  when  all  traces 
of  this  tragedy  have  gone — and  to  have  no 


^^^^^B 

W»«?B 

■ 

1 

^^^^^^^^ 

^B                        -^ 

1 

1 

Kb 

B^^-  _'..^HB|b|i 

Pliotograph,  co/yright  by  Pierre  Petit,  Paris. 

President  Sadi  Carnot. 


sad  associations — on  the  contrary,  with  the 
prospect  of  a  long  happy  future  before  her. ' ' 
W.  w^nt  the  two  or  three  Fridays  we 
were  in  Paris  to  the  Institute,  where  he 
was  most  warmly  received  by  his  col- 
leagues, who  had  much  regretted  his  en- 
forced absences  the  years  he  was  at  the 
Foreign  Office.  He  told  them  he  was  go- 
ing to  Rome,  where  he  hoped  still  to 
find  some  treasures  in  the  shape  of  '' in- 
scriptions inedites,"  with  the  help  of  his 
friend  Lanciani.  The  days  passed  quick- 
ly enough  until  we  started.  It  was  not 
altogether  a  rest,  as  there  were  always 
so  many  people  at  the  house,  and  W. 


wanted  to  put  order  into  his  papers  be- 
fore he  left.  Freycinet  made  various 
changes  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay.  M.  Des- 
prey,  directeur  de  la  politique  (a  post 
he  had  occupied  for  years)  was  named 
ambassador  to  Rome  in  the  place 
of  the  Marquis  de  Gabriac.  I  don't 
think  he  was  very  anxious  to  go. 
His  career  had  been  made  almost  en- 
tirely at  the  Foreign  Office,  and  he 
was  much  more  at  home  in  his  cabinet, 
with  all  his  papers  and  books  about 
him,  than  he  would  be  abroad  among 
strangers.  He  came  to  dinner  one 
night,  and  we  talked  the  thiiig  over. 
W.  thought  the  rest  and  change  would 
do  him  good.  He  was  named  to  the 
Vatican,  where  necessarily  there  was 
much  less  to  do  in  the  way  of  social 
life  than  at  the  Quirinal.  He  was  per- 
fectly ''au  courant"of  all  the  questions 
between  the  Vatican  and  the  French 
clergy — his  son,  secretary  of  embassy, 
would  go  with  him.  It  seemed  rather 
a  pleasant  prospect. 

W.  went  once  or  twice  to  the  Senate, 
as  the  houses  met  on  the  12th  or  14th 
of  January,  but  there  was  nothing 
very  interesting  those  first  days.  The 
Chamber  was  taking  breath  after  the 
holidays  and  the  last  ministerial  crisis 
and  giving  the  new  ministry  a  chance. 
I  think  Freycinet  had  his  hands  full, 
but  he  was  quite  equal  to  the  task.  I 
went  late  one  afternoon  to  the  Elysee. 
I  had  written  to  Mme.  Grevy  to  ask  if 
she  would  receive  me  before  I  left  for  It- 
aly. When  I  arrived,  the  one  footman 
at  the  door  told  me  Mme.  Grevy  was 
' '  un  peu  souff  rante, ' '  would  see  me  up- 
stairs. I  went  up  a  side  staircase, 
rather  dark,  preceded  by  the  footman, 
who  ushered  me  into  Mme.  Grevy's  bed- 
room. It  looked  perfectly  uncomfort- 
able— was  large,  with  very  high  ceilings, 
stiff  gilt  furniture  standing  against  the 
wall,  and  the  heat  something  awful, — a 
blazing  fire  in  the  chimney.  Mme.  Gre- 
vy was  sitting  in  an  armchair,  near  the 
fire,  a  gray  shawl  on  her  shoulders  and 
a  lace  fichu  on  her  head.  It  was  curi- 
ously unlike  the  bedroom  I  had  just 
left.  I  had  been  to  see  a  friend  who  was 
also  ''  souff  rante."  She  was  lying  under  a 
lace  coverlet  lined  with  pink  silk,  lace, 
and  embroidered  cushions  all  around  her, 
flowers,  pink  lamp-shades,  silver  "flacons," 


My  First  Years  as  a  Frenchwoman 


379 


everythinf]^  most  luxurious  and  modern. 
The  contrast  was  striking.  Mme.  Grevy 
was  very  civil,  and  talkative, — said  she 
was  very  tired.  The  big  dinners  and  late 
hours  she  found  very  fa- 
tiguing. She  quite  under- 
stood that  T  was  glad  to  get 
away,  but  didn't  think 
it  was  very  prudent  to 
travel  in  such  bitterly  cold 
weather  —  and  Rome  was 
very  far,  and  wasn '  1 1  afraid 
of  fever?  I  told  her  I  was 
an  old  Roman — had  lived 
there  for  years,  knew  the 
climate  well  and  didn't 
think  it  was  worse  than  any 
other.  She  said  the  Presi- 
dent had  had  a  visit  from 
W.  and  a  very  long  talk 
with  him,  and  that  he  re- 
gretted his  departure  very 
much,  but  that  he  didn't 
think  "  Monsieur  Wadding- 
ton  etait  au  fond  de  son 
sac. ' '  Grevy  was  always  a 
good  friend  to  W. — on  one 
or  two  occasions,  when 
there  was  a  sort  of  cabal 
against  him,  Gre\y  took 
his  part  very  warmly — and 
in  all  questions  of  home 
policy  and  persons  W.  found 
him  a  very  keen,  shrewd  ob- 
server— though  he  said  very 
little, — rarely  expressed  an 
opinion.  I  didn't  make  a 
very  long  visit — found  my 
way  down-stairs  as  well  as 
I  could — no  servant  was 
visible  either  on  the  stairs 
or  in  the  hall,  and  my  own 
footman  opened  the  big 
doors  and  let  me  out. 

We  got  off  the  first  days  of  February — as, 
up  to  the  last  moment,  W.  had  people  to  see. 
We  went  for  two  or  three  days  to  Bourne- 
ville — I  had  one  or  two  very  cold  tramps  in 
the  woods  (very  dry)  which  is  quite  un- 
usual at  this  time  of  the  year,  but  the 
earth  was  frozen  hard.  Inside  the  woods 
one  was  well  sheltered,  but  when  we  came 


looked  half-perished  with  cold,  always  in- 
sufficiently clad,  but  they  were  c|uite  hap- 
l)y,  roasting  j)otatoes  in  the  ashes.  I  was 
so  cold  that  I  tied  a  woollen  scarf  around 


Mine.  Sadi  Caiiiot 
I'riiiii  n  drawiiii,'  l>y  Mile.  Anu'lie  Hc;yiry-Saurel. 

my  head,  just  as  the  women  in  Canada 
do  when  they  go  sleighing  or  skating. 

We  had  a  breakfast  one  day  for  some  of 
W.'s  iniluential  men  in  the  country,  who 
were  much  disgusted  at  the  turn  atlairs  had 
taken  and  that  W.  could  no  longer  remain 
minister,  but  they  were  \ery  fairly  "au  cou- 
rant "  of  all  that  was  going  on  in  Parliiuiient , 


out  on  the  plain  the  cold  and  icy  wind  was  and  quite  understood  that  for  the  moment 

awful.     The  workmen  had  made  fires  to  the  moderate,  experienced   men   had   no 

burn  the  roots  and  rotten  wood,  and  we  chance.   Theyoung  Republicmust  have  its 

were  very  glad  to  stop  and  warm  ourselves,  fling.     Has  the  country  learned  much  or 

Some  had  their  children  with  them,  who  gained  much  in  its  forty  years  of  Republic? 


THE    BRAVEST    SON 

By  Mary  Synon 


Illustrations    i^,  y   N  .    C  .    W  y  e  t  h 


OHN  RODNEY  and  the 
North  Country  committee 
of  the  Toronto  Board  of 
Trade  came  to  Haileybury 
on  the  same  June  day.  The 
committee's  special  train 
steamed  in  from  Cobalt  to  the  little  sta- 
tion on  the  hill  ten  minutes  before  Rod- 
ney fell  from  the  van  of  a  freight  that 
had  been  scorched  in  two  bush  fires  on  its 
way  southward  from  the  Porcupine  gold 
camps.  In  those  minutes  Haileybury  had 
welcomed  its  important  visitors  w^th  a 
fearful  brass  band,  and  started  them  on 
a  steamer  chartered  to  keep  them  out  on 
the  silver  waters  of  Lake  Temiskaming, 
while  the  Ladies'  Aid  Society  stacked  up 
the  evening's  banquet  in  the  big  hockey 
rink.  Every  man  in  the  town,  except  the 
bishop,  the  habitants,  the  bartenders,  and 
MacLaren,  who  was  supervising  the  ban- 
quet preparations,  was  at  the  dock.  The 
habitants,  already  drawing  the  Unes  of  the 
approaching  elections,  kept  to  their  own 
part  of  the  town,  disdaining  to  notice  the 
coming  of  the  party  from  southern  Onta- 
rio, and  so,  with  the  rest  of  Haileybury, 
missing  the  reappearance  of  Rodney,  usu- 
ally the  signal  for  the  rise  of  the  curtain 
on  some  wild  adventure. 

Rodney  must  have  felt  the  omission  of 
the  half-laughing,  half-jeering  welcome 
the  depot  crowd  was  wont  to  give  him,  for 
he  stared  a  little  uncertainly  around  the 
deserted  platform  before  he  found  a  flar- 
ing announcement  in  red-and-yellow  that 
flaunted  the  more  sombre  bulletins  of  the 
railroad.  He  rubbed  his  fire-smartened 
eyes  to  read  its  grandiloquent  phrasing  of 
the  Haileybury  Commercial  Club's  invi- 
tation to  the  public  to  attend  the  after- 
dinner  speeches  in  the  rink.  He  nodded 
to  express  his  acceptance  of  it  before  he 
strode  down  the  hill  to  the  nearest  saloon. 
For  John  Rodney  was  drunk  and  bent  on 
getting  drunker. 

By  the  time  he  reached  the  bar  of  the 
380 


hotel  near  the  lake  he  had  succeeded  so 
well  that  MacLaren,  just  over  from  the 
rink,  suggested  to  the  few  stragglers  in  the 
room  that  Rodney  be  put  in  jail  until  after 
the  guests  from  the  south  had  departed. 
"He's  so  varry  noticeable,"  the  little 
Scotchman  argued,  "with  his  size  and 
record,  that  he'll  shame  the  city.  The 
Board  of  Trade  '11  never  be  knowing  that 
he's  just  drifted  in  from  the  Porcupine 
with  the  desire  of  tearing  up  our  town." 
But  his  record  and  his  size  were  the  fac- 
tors that  saved  John  Rodney  from  the 
Haileybury  jail.  Not  even  the  sergeant 
of  provincial  police  cared  to  approach  the 
big  man  without  more  urgent  cause  than 
MacLaren's  civic  pride. 

With  his  arms  set  solidly  on  the  brass 
rod  of  the  hotel-bar  the  man  from  the  Por- 
cupine defied  MacLaren's  diplomatic  ef- 
forts to  take  him  out  of  the  place  that 
would  be  the  area  of  the  spotlight  as  soon 
as  the  steamer  brought  the  Board  of  Trade 
men  back  to  the  town.  He  had  arrived  at 
his  most  joyous  mood  of  rollicking  good 
humor.  He  reeled  off  tale  after  tale  of 
other  men's  splendid  deeds  in  his  inimita- 
ble narrative  manner.  He  recalled  Odys- 
sean  wanderings  and  Hectorean  combats. 
John  Rodney  had  taken  to  every  big  gold- 
camp  the  world  has  erupted  in  the  last 
twenty  years  his  gift  of  dropping  a  plumb- 
line  into  the  heart  of  every  man  he  met — 
when  he  was  sober.  Drunk,  he  drama- 
tized his  wanderings  and  his  visionings  in 
vivid  flashes  of  brilliant  prose  that  seldom 
failed  to  surround  him  with  avidly  inter- 
ested listeners.  But  to-day,  although 
men  kept  coming  to  and  going  from  the 
room,  no  one  but  MacLaren  paid  any 
heed  to  his  monologue.  And  after  a  time 
MacLaren  went,  warned  by  the  shrill 
whistle  of  the  returning  steamer.  Then 
Rodney  addressed  himself  to  a  statue  of 
Robert  Burns  that  decorated  the  bar. 

"There  was  a  time  in  Dawson,  Bobbie 
Burns,"  he  confided  to  the  gray  plaster 


The  Bravest  Son 


381 


image  of  the  poet,  "when  men  came  in 
from  the  trails  to  hear  John  Rodney. 
Big  men  they  were,  too,  men  who  sent  the 
fame  of  the  Klondike  ringing  around  the 
span  of  this  lit- 
tle old  earth, 
Ladue,  and 
MacCormack, 
and  Henderson, 
and  old  Juneau, 
the  first  of  them 
all.  And  they 
vowed  they'd 
rather  hear 
John  Rodney 
tell  a  habitant 
story  than  find 
a  new  strike. 
But  they're 
gone,  all  gone." 
He  shook  his 
head  at  the 
statue  lugubri- 
ously. Then 
his  arm  swept 
out  in  orator- 
ical circling. 
"And  down  in 
the  Diamond 
Town,  "he  cried, 
"he  used  to 
play  to  bigger 
crowds  than  ev- 
er Bernhardt 
drew.  Dukes 
and  earls,  and 
little  knights 
sought  to  know 
him  there.  Ce- 
cil Rhodes  used 
to  listen  to  him 
and  laugh  at  him 


something  you  will  understand."  He 
whirled  his  back  against  the  bar  and  faced 
the  little  group  of  loungers  defiantly. 
"You'll  have  to  build  an  empire  before 

you  can 


laugh 
he 


'^^^ 


He  rubbed  his  fire-smartened  eyes  to  read  .  .  .  the  Haileybury 
Commercial  Club's  invitation  to  the  public.  —  Page  380. 


at    me . 
boasted. 

No  one  took 
his  challenge. 
For  a  moment, 
while  the  room 
was  so  still  that 
the  chugging 
of  the  steamer 
sounded  close, 
the  raucous 
tones  of  the 
band  arose  in 
the  strains  of 
"The  Maple 
Leaf  Forever." 
Rodney,  catch- 
ing the  tune, 
hummed  it  for 
three  bars,  then 
shifted  his  song 
to  one  of  the 
plaintive  melo- 
dies of  the  hab- 
itants on  the 
Quebec  side  of 
the  lake.  Al- 
most as  quickly 
again,  with  the 
mimetic  facility 
that  made  him 
the  fame  and 
the  game  of  the 
North  Country, 
he had  launched 


into  the  swing 

But  you  can't  laugh  of   "Mandalay"  just  as  MacLaren  re- 

at  me,  old  Timber-toes,"  he  blazed  out  turned.     The  Scotchman  was  puffing  fu- 

at  a  lumber-jack  who   made   hasty  re-  riously,  holding  to  the  edge  of  one  of  the 

treat  after  his  mistake  of  the  questioning  swinging  doors.     "Your  husky  dog,"  he 

smile  that  had  called  Rodney's  attention  trumpeted  to  Rodney,  "the  brute  you 

to  him.     "Do  you  see  that?"     He  drew  brought  with  you  from  the  fretful  Porcu- 


from  the  pocket  of  his  blue  flannel  shirt  a 
shining  bit  of  metal  on  a  red  ribbon  that 
he  swung  before  the  uninterested  watch- 
ers. "Do  you  know  what  that  means?" 
His  contemptuous  scorn  leaped  over  every 
man  in  the  ])lace.  "  It  means  a  thing  you 
can't  understand,"  he  sneered  at  them,  re- 
placing the  ribbon,  and  its  dangling  bau- 
ble swiftly  in  his  pocket,  "but  I'll  tell  you 


pine,  IS  eating  the  head  oil  the  Episcopal 
minister's  bulldog.  If  you'd  see  a  grar.d 
fight.  Jack  Rodney,  you'll  find  it  going  on 
near  the  church  at  the  top  of  the  hill." 
He  could  not  wait  to  see  the  effect  of  the 
inspiration  that  had  come  to  him  from  an 
urchin's  rumor,  for  the  steamer  was  com- 
ing against  the  pier;  and  as  he  ran  toward 
the  dock  he  looked  back,  fearful  lest  Rod- 


The  man  watched  the  tussle  for  a  time  with  apparently  concentrated  interest. 


ney  should  follow  him  rather  than  climb 
the  hill  to  the  promised  entertainment. 
But  Haileybury  was  safe  for  the  time. 
Rodney's  great  figure  was  vaulting  over 
shorts  cuts  to  the  sentinel  spire  that 
marked  the  scene  of  bitter  conflict. 

It  was  a  good  fight  that  John  Rodney's 
husky  and  the  minister's  bulldog  waged 
against  each  other  on  the  Haileybury  hill. 
The  pup  was  gamely  fighting  a  losing  bat- 
tle when  Rodney  came  close  enough  to  see 
its  progress.  The  man  watched  the  tussle 
for  a  time  with  apparently  concentrated 
interest,  but  he  did  not  interfere  till  his 
husky  began  to  show  the  wolf  in  his  breed. 
Then  Rodney  called  off  the  brute,  and  ad- 
dressed himself  to  the  yelping  bulldog 
with  maudlin  philosophy. 

"Blood  tells,"  he  said  solemnly,  "and 
if  the  fight's  in  you,  it  stays.  But  that 
wolf  of  mine  would  have  killed  you  if  I 
382 


hadn't  stopped  him,  for  he's  the  concen- 
trated essence  of  all  that's  wild  in  the 
North.  But,  never  mind,  doggie,"  he  as- 
sured the  aggrieved  but  none  the  less  com- 
bative victim,  "you'll  get  your  chance  to 
fight  again,  and  that's  no  more  than  any 
of  us  get. ' '  He  whistled  the  husky  to  him 
and  with  the  wolfish  creature  at  his  heels, 
sauntered  loiteringly  along  the  street. 

At  the  first  intersecting  avenue  he 
paused,  looking  down  on  the  crescent 
of  the  town  that  sloped  out  to  the  gleam- 
ing twilight  beauty  of  the  great  lake  of 
the  voyagers.  From  the  farther  purple 
shore  of  the  Quebec  province  dusk  was 
rising,  softly  looming  over  Temiskaming 
and  drifting  in  to  the  harbor  where  the 
white  steamer  lay  close  to  the  long  pier. 
On  the  northern  horizon  against  the  black- 
ness of  the  bush  blazed  the  line  of  one  of 
the  fires  Rodney  had  come  through  on  his 


The  Bravest  Son 


383 


way  down  from  the  Porcupine.  To  the 
southward  along  the  track  of  the  railroad 
Cobalt  had  already  lighted  the  beacons  of 
her  welcome  to  the  men  coming  in  from 
the  silver  mines.  ''Good  old  Cobalt," 
said  Rodney,  ''I'll  see  you  later."  He 
waved  a  promising  hand  to  the  sweeping 
headlight  of  an  electric  car  that  rushed 
along  the  ridge  between  the  towns.  An 
arc  light  over  his  head  sizzled  into  flame 
with  a  hundred  others,  flinging  long  lines 
of  brightness  and  shadow  over  Haileybury . 
Down  at  the  shore  the  great  building  of 
the  hockey  rink  suddenly  blazed  into  a 
hulk  of  lavender  light.  The  banquet  to 
the  North  Country  committee  of  the 
Board  of  Trade  had  begun. 

Some  recollection  of  the  red-and-yellow 
invitation  to  the  public  must  have  flick- 
ered nebulously  across  Rodney's  brain,  for 
the  illumination  sped  him  down  the  ave- 
nue toward  the  rink.  But  at  the  next  cor- 
ner chance  again  aided  MacLaren.  The 
pink  door  of  a  little  green-and-white  sa- 
loon stood  open.  Rodney,  attracted  to- 
ward the  doorway  by  the  sound  of  fid- 
dling, saw  a  lithe  little  Frenchman,  who 
wore  the  sash  of  the  Riviere  Quinze  voy- 
ager, dancing  with  gay  abandon  to  the 
accompaniment  of  an  old  man's  violin. 
The  dance  was  one  that  the  watcher,  fa- 
miliar as  he  was  with  habitant  steps,  had 
never  seen,  and  he  moved  nearer  to  ob- 
serve it.  A  shout  of  welcome  greeted  him 
from  the  dozen  men  within,  calling  him  to 
their  revelry,  to  their  yarns,  to  their  dance, 
to  their  cherry  brandy.  He  joined  them 
in  all,  making  himself  one  of  them  in 
speech  and  in  act,  echoing  their  political 
sentiments  against  his  own  people's  party 
— for  in  the  North  racial  difference  had 
come  to  be  the  line  of  political  cleavage 
— with  a  bitterness  none  of  them  knew, 
and  amusing  them  with  his  mimicry  till 
twilight  had  run  into  darkness  before  he 
came  out  of  the  pink  doorway. 

The  sound  of  the  band  led  his  wavering 
steps  through  the  quiet  streets  to  the  rink. 
The  music  was  coming  to  a  sharp  stop  as 
he  paused  under  the  great  open  windows. 
Fluttering  echoes  of  aj)plause  were  rising 
as  he  shoved  his  husky  into  a  corner  by 
the  threshold  and  went  blinkingly  for- 
ward into  the  brilliancy  of  the  impro\'ised 
banquet-hall. 

On  the  floor  of  the  rink  the  tables  had 
Vol.  LV.— 39 


been  shoved  back  so  that  the  diners  might 
cluster  around  the  board  from  behind 
which  the  speakers  of  the  evening  faced 
their  hearers.  There  was  a  long  line  of 
speakers  and  many  of  them  had  already 
sj)oken  overlong.  The  hosts  of  the  occa- 
sion, vividly  alert  to  the  opportunity  of 
instructing  their  guests  in  the  magnitude 
of  the  North  Country,  had  set  no  time- 
limit  on  the  speeches  of  glorification.  The 
men  of  the  Board  of  Trade  listened  with 
poHte  interest,  but  the  crowd,  packed 
closely  behind  the  netting  that  separated 
it  from  the  rink  floor,  had  come  to  the 
point  of  restive  weariness.  MacLaren, 
watching  the  men  there  with  the  nervous- 
ness of  a  little  man  who  tries  to  shoulder 
the  Atlean  burden  of  his  world,  was  the 
first  to  see  Rodney.  He  signalled  to  old 
man  Parr,  the  big  Englishman  whose  bore- 
dom had  led  him  into  heavy  pacing  of  an 
imaginary  line  at  one  side  of  the  tables 
while  he  puffed  furiously  on  a  thick  black 
pipe.  "Watch  Rodney,"  ordered  Mac- 
Laren. 

Old  man  Parr  changed  his  pacing  to  a 
line  that  brought  him  close  to  the  pillar 
where  Rodney  stood.  Rodney  grinned  at 
him  sleepily.  "Got  on  the  boiled  shirt, 
haven't  you,  grandad?''  he  inquired  geni- 
ally. "Saw  it  out  on  the  line  this  after- 
noon.    Great  occasion,  eh?" 

Old  man  Parr  nodded  ponderously.  He 
expressed  his  dominating  idea,  that  of  the 
greatness  of  the  British  Empire,  by  solem- 
nity of  personal  demeanor,  particularly 
in  the  presence  of  Rodney,  who  always 
seemed  to  him  a  personified  mockery  of 
certain  ideals  he  held  sacred. 

"What  are  they  playin'?"  Rodney  in- 
quired, peering  through  the  rising  cigar 
smoke  toward  the  tables.  "  Playin'  hock- 
ey, grandad?" 

"No,"  said  Parr. 

"Not  hockey,"  Rodney  went  on. 
"  'Nother  old  game,  then.  Know  it  now. 
'You  scratch  my  back  and  Til  scratch 
yours'  we  used  to  call  it  in  the  service." 

"Hush!"  commanded  the  other. 

For  a  silence  had  fallen  on  the  restless 
crowd.  The  president  of  the  Board  of 
Trade,  chairman  of  the  committee  and 
honored  guest  of  the  e\-ening,  had  risen 
amid  the  applause  of  the  IIaiieyl)ury  men 
and  was  standing  in  readiness  to  make 
answer  to  the  celebrating  welcome  their 


384 


The  Bravest  Son 


North  Country  hosts  had  given  to  him 
and  his  fellows.  There  was  in  his  wait- 
ing a  quality  of  authority  that  held  the 
crowd  before  he  began  to  speak.  When 
he  spoke  he  drove  in  his  words  incisively. 

"Vou  have  a  wonderful  country,"  he 
said,  raising  his  hand  to  hold  back  the  out- 
break of  self-gratulatory  cheers,  "a  coun- 
try that  has  impressed  us  in  every  way,  by 
its  vast  resources,  by  its  impelling  beauty, 
by  its  magnificent  power.  But  I  pass  over 
these  glories  without  comment.  You, 
yourselves,  have  been  telling  us  of  them, 
showing  them  to  us.  May  I  speak  of 
something  that  I've  found  for  myself? 

"It  is  always  true  that  new  countries 
draw  the  best  and  the  w^orst  of  men. 
They  have  a  way  of  tempering  the  best, 
and  of  making  over  the  worst  so  that  in 
the  long  run  the  ne\v  country's  excellence 
lies  in  its  men.  There  is  no  new  land 
without  its  heroes,  but  it  has  always 
seemed  to  me  that  no  point  of  the  com- 
pass has  ever  drawn  so  many  brave  men 
as  has  the  North.  I  do  not  know  by 
what  magic  the  North  draws  to  itself  the 
splendid  men  of  the  earth.  I  only  know 
that  it  is  the  magnet  for  the  braver  ad- 
venturers." 

"Little  Lajeune  in  Frenchtown  makes  a 
better  speech, ' '  muttered  Rodney.  ' '  Talks 
for  Laurier,  too." 

"Keep  still,"  rumbled  old  man  Parr. 

"  I  am  sure  that  I  should  have  remarked 
on  the  men  of  the  North  Country,"  the 
speaker  was  saying,  "  even  without  the  co- 
incidence of  discovering  that  my  own  par- 
ticular hero  was  now^  in  this  part  of  the 
world.  When  I  chanced  to  see  in  one  of 
your  newspapers  the  mention  that  this 
man  of  whom  I  had  not  heard  in  ten 
years,  but  whom  I  have  held  in  my  heart 
as  the  standard-bearer  of  a  true  ideal  of 
heroism,  was  in  the  Porcupine  camp,  I 
realized  how  truly  was  the  North  mag- 
netic to  men  of  his  quality. 

"  I  never  met  this  man.  I  heard  of  him 
only  as  tens  of  thousands  of  others  did,  at 
a  time  when  an  empire  thrilled  with  the 
tale  of  his  courage."  The  president  of  the 
Board  of  Trade  dropped  his  voice  to 
the  conversational  level  with  the  ease  of 
the  practised  orator.  "Ten  years  ago,"  he 
said,  "I  was  in  London  when  the  news  of 
the  taking  of  Bloemfontein  flashed  across 
the  world.     I  was  dining  in  one  of  the  ho- 


tels with  three  English  merchants  when 
the  boys  on  the  street  began  to  cry  the 
news  of  a  great  fight  on  the  South  Afri- 
can veldt.  We  had  the  papers  brought, 
searching  them  for  the  special  tale  of  how 
our  men  had  broken  the  cordon  that  held 
Bloemfontein  so  long.  One  of  us  began 
to  read  jerkily  phrases  that  set  our  blood 
on  fire.  We  grasped  our  own  papers  to 
leap  past  his  reading  to  the  heart  of  the 
tale. 

"'Oh,  it's  great!'  one  chap  cried  out. 

"'That's  fightin'!'  some  one  banged. 

"'Glorious!'  'Splendid!'  'They're the 
boys!'  'Went  it  alone,  that  chap!'  All 
around  us  men  at  the  tables  wefe  crying 
out  in  praise  of  some  one  whose  deed 
shouted  from  the  black-and-white  of  the 
print. 

"'One  of  your  countrymen,'  the  man 
who  was  dining  us  cried  to  me.  A  dozen 
men  circled  me.  'D'ye  know  him? '  they 
were  asking.  ' One  of  us,'  a  boy  declared. 
'As  English  as  we  are,  God  bless  him.' 

"I  couldn't  find  the  part  they'd  been 
reading  and  the  boy  read  it  to  me.  I  don't 
know  what  it  said.  There  were  burning 
words  trying  to  picture  the  story  of  how 
one  man's  courage  under  fire  had  inspired 
the  army  behind  him  till  he  had  swept 
them  into  Driefontein,  the  key  to  the  city 
of  the  siege.  'How  many  men  do  they 
make  like  him  over  in  your  land?'  they 
asked  me.  And  never  in  all  the  days  of 
my  life  have  I  known  such  a  thrill  of  glory 
as  I  had  in  the  joy  of  knowing  that  the 
hero  of  the  great  battle  of  the  Boer  War 
was  my  countryman.  I  was  as  proud  of 
him  that  night  in  London  as  you  have  oc- 
casion to  be  proud  of  him  to-night,  for  that 
captain  of  Canadian  scouts  who  won  the 
Victoria  Cross  for  continued,  repeated,  and 
glorious  bravery  on  the  battle-fields  of 
Africa  is  one  of  you,  one  of  the  men  of 
your  North  Country,  the  greatest  of  your 
Iliad  of  heroes.  I  give  you  Canada's 
bravest  son.  Captain  John  Rodney!" 

The  president  of  the  Board  of  Trade 
raised  high  his  glass.  The  members  of 
the  committee  came  to  their  feet  with 
courteous  haste.  But  for  a  full  instant 
there  was  a  pause  of  hesitation  among  the 
men  of  Haileybury.  Then  a  score  of  them 
rose  stragglingly,  the  others  following.  In 
silence  they  drank  the  toast  while  along 
the  benches  back  of  the  netting  there  ran 


The  Bravest  Son 


385 


a  snickering  laugh.  ''Jack  Rodney?" 
The  derisive  inquiry  pierced  the  space  be- 
tween the  benches  and  the  pillar  where 
Rodney  stood. 

"The  braves'  son,"  Rodney  was  repeat- 
ing.    "Who  was  he,  grandad?" 

Old  man  Parr  removed  his  thick  black 
pipe  from  his  mouth,  and  looked  contemp- 
tuously at  the  lounging  figure.  "He  was 
you,"  he  said.  Then  he  turned  his  back 
on  him  and  crossed  to  the  tables. 

Rodney  stared  after  him  with  the  dawn- 
ing of  resentment  rising  to  his  flushed  face. 
A  feeble  hurrah  was  forming  amid  the 
crowd  on  the  benches  where  some  one  had 
recognized  the  hero  of  Driefontein.  Rod- 
ney caught  the  beginning  of  the  cheer.  He 
pulled  himself  up,  standing  erect  and  fac- 
ing the  speakers'  table  with  arm  uplifted 
for  attention.  "Hooraw!"  he  shouted. 
**  Vive  Laurier !  Vive  reciprocite !  Vive  la 
France!" 

The  president  of  the  Board  of  Trade 
peered  down  under  the  lights  at  Rodney's 
vivid  pose.  "The  voyagers  have  started 
their  electioneering?"  he  inquired  smil- 
ingly. 

The  cheer  of  the  crowd,  halted  by  Rod- 
ney's daring  shout,  took  life  again  as  the 
men  on  the  benches  caught  the  full  humor 
of  the  situation.  Jeers  w^ere  volleying  into 
roars  when  MacLaren  gave  frantic  signal 
to  the  band.  Loud  and  louder  shrilled  the 
strident  brasses  into  bars  of  martial  music, 
dinning  cheers  and  jeers  alike,  and  rous- 
ing the  man  who  stood  alone  at  the  back 
of  the  rink  to  some  recollection  of  times  he 
had  listened  to  more  stirring  strains.  He 
squared  his  shoulders,  clicked  his  heels, 
raised  his  hand  to  his  hat  in  an  officer's  sa- 
lute to  his  men,  and  turned  to  the  door. 
The  Haileybury  band  was  playing  "  Rule, 
Britannia"  as  Captain  John  Rodney  went 
out  of  the  banquet-hall. 

All  the  way  up  the  street  the  music  fol- 
lowed him.  Its  dinning  insistence  must 
have  irritated  him,  for  he  pushed  from  the 
narrow  sidewalk  the  husky  that  came  to 
his  heels  and  paced  on  in  dejected  slouch- 
ing to  where  the  electric  car  stood  waiting 
for  passengers  from  the  lake  town  to  Co- 
balt. "  We  don't  go  to-night  till  the  crowd 
comes,"  the  conductor  told  him  as  he 
shoved  through  the  rear  plalform.  Rod- 
ney disdained  answer,  slouching  through 
the  car  to  the  front  where  he  took  his 


stand  beside  the  motorman.  "Been  at 
the  banquet?  "  asked  the  man  at  the  lever. 
"  No,"  said  Rodney  shortly,  peering  ahead 
toward  the  lights  of  Cobalt. 

For  the  sting  of  old  man  Parr's  con- 
tempt was  corroding  its  way  through  his 
befuddled  senses.  He  fumbled  in  his  coat- 
pocket  for  a  worn  wallet  that  he  opened 
with  over-cautious  care  to  find  a  news- 
paper clipping.  In  the  dim  light  of  his 
post  he  read  it  dazedly.  "^lan  at  the 
table  was  right,"  he  said  as  he  replaced  the 
bit  of  worn  paper.  "  Did  all  of  it  years  an' 
years  ago."  The  motorman  gave  him  a 
curious  glance.  "Yes,  I  did,"  he  reiter- 
ated. "Time  when  I  was  Rodney  of  the 
Scouts.  An'  Rodney  of  the  Scouts  won 
the  Victoria.  That  was  I!"  With  the 
phrase  the  toxin  of  old  man  Parr's  slur 
struck  the  canker  of  the  man's  vanity. 
"  Did  he  mean  that  I  couldn't  do  it  now?  " 
he  cried  to  the  astonished  motorman. 
"Did  that  old  grandad  mean  that  I'm  not 
brave  any  more?  Just  you  wait,"  he 
promised.  "  Wait  till  I  get  another  chance 
and  I'll  show  him." 

"Sure,  you  will,"  said  the  motorman 
soothingly.  He  looked  at  his  watch,  then 
back  into  the  car.  "We've  our  crowd," 
he  said  as  the  conductor  gave  him  the  sig- 
nal. He  had  been  about  to  order  Rodney 
back  from  the  platform,  but  a  look  at  the 
suddenly  disclosed  ugly  lines  around  the 
man's  mouthdeterred  him.  "  You  can  stay 
here  if  you  keep  quiet,''  he  compromised. 

As  the  car  whirled  along  the  high  ridge 
to  the  silver  camp,  Rodney,  standing  mo- 
tionless, tried  in  vain  to  reconstruct  a 
mental  picture  of  the  scene  in  the  rink.  He 
felt  vaguely  that  the  speaker's  words,  the 
shouts,  the  toast,  the  braying  of  the  band, 
had  all  concerned  him,  but  he  could  not 
give  them  visual  reality.  Whenever  the 
key-thought  came  close  to  the  lock  of  real- 
ization, some  laughter  in  the  car  dispelled 
it.  Once  he  had  groj^ed  into  nearness  of 
the  meaning  of  the  scene  in  which  he  had 
been  the  semiconscious  actor,  but  just 
when  he  was  about  to  enter  it  again  the 
blazing  headlight  of  the  car  illuminated  the 
rails  with  so  vivid  a  likeness  tt)  a  memory 
Rodney  held  of  a  night  run  in  an  armored 
train  across  the  African  xeldt  toward 
Wolvespruit  that  he  lost  tiiought  of  in- 
ter\'ening  time  and  circumstance  and  was 
living  again  through  those  days  of  war. 


386 


The  Bravest  Son 


Before  he  came  from  his  drowsy  dream- 
ing, the  car  had  swung  into  Cobalt,  and 
had  stopped  with  a  jerk  at  the  first  street- 
crossing.  Most  of  the  crowd  had  aUghted, 
and  Rodney,  seized  by  a  sudden  impulse, 
opened  the  door  at  the  front,  and  dropped 
down  to  the  road.  Across  the  track,  not 
fifty  feet  away,  rose  the  workmen's  shacks 
of  the  Right-of-Way  Mine.  A  score  of 
men  from  the  car  were  coming  toward  him 
on  their  way  there.  The  track  was  clear 
as  the  motorman's  gong  clanged  and  the 
car  shot  forward. 

Then — and  to  Rodney  it  seemed  a  scene 
in  a  moving  picture,  so  flashing,  so  graphic, 
and  so  unreal  that  he  gazed  at  it  without 
emotion — the  headlight  found  just  in  front 
of  the  shacks  the  running  figure  of  a  boy — • 
a  child  who  stopped  in  sudden  terror,  tried 
to  turn,  stumbled,  arose,  stumbled  again, 
and  fell  upon  the  rail  as  the  car  slid  over 
him.  There  came  the  racking  sound  of 
grating  brakes,  the  cries  of  the  men  on  the 
road,  and  Rodney  had  plunged  beneath 
the  car  before  the  man  at  the  lever  could 
bring  it  to  pulsing  stillness. 

Ten  seconds  later  the  men  of  the  crowd 
surrounded  him  as  he  knelt  over  the  poor, 
crushed  body  of  the  boy.  He  raised  to 
them  a  face  so  white  that  no  one  of  them 
knew^  him.  "I  was  too  late,"  he  told 
them.     ''He's  dead." 

The  conductor  held  a  shaking  lantern 
over  the  bright  curls  of  the  dead  boy.  A 
sob,  strangling,  unforgettable,  rasped  in 
the  throat  of  one  of  the  watchers.  ''He 
is  my  little  boy,"  he  said,  "and  he  was 
w^aiting  for  me."  In  the  wavering  circle 
of  light  Rodney,  looking  up,  saw  him,  and 
knew  him  for  one  of  the  company  with 
whom  he  had  spent  the  twilight  in  the 
gay  little  saloon  of  the  pink  door. 

"Could  no  one  save  him?"  the  man 
moaned. 

"  I  could  have  saved  him,"  Rodney  said, 
"if — if  I  hadn't  been  drunk." 

For  John  Rodney  was  sober  now.  He 
turned  to  the  men  who  stood  by.  "Take 
his  father  away,"  he  ordered.  "Get  a 
track-jack."  He  snapped  out  his  com- 
mands with  the  abruptness  of  his  officer's 
training.  Men  stumbled  to  do  his  bid- 
ding, driven  by  the  mastery  in  his  tone  no 
less  than  by  their  awe  of  the  pitiful  trag- 
edy. For  long,  dragging  minutes  he  held 
the  helm  of  his  grewsome  task,  directing, 


advising,  commanding,  till  the  moment 
came  when  he  rose  with  the  limp  little 
body  in  his  arms  and  stood  revealed  in  the 
flare  of  the  futile  headlight. 

Half-way  up  to  the  shacks  from  the 
rails  he  paused.  "Where's  his  mother?" 
he  asked  a  man  in  the  trailing  group. 
"Dead,"  some  one  answered.  "There 
was  just  him  and  his  father.  They  came 
from  the  Quebec  side." 

"Who's  his  father's  buddy?"  Rodney 
demanded. 

"I  am."  A  grimy  miner  stepped  out 
from  the  others. 

"You'll  look  after  him?" 

"Yes,  captain,"  the  other  promised. 

With  martial  certainty  Rodney  went 
up  the  grade  to  the  central  shack,  hold- 
ing his  burden  tenderly  close  to  him.  With 
martial  peremptoriness  he  set  his  rule 
within  the  shack  in  spite  of  the  coming  of 
the  mining  company's  superintendent  and 
doctor.  He  was  the  one  who  thought  of 
all  that  should  be  done  for  the  dead  boy 
and  his  father,  and  who  ordered  its  accom- 
plishment without  question  of  conve- 
nience or  courtesy.  And  he  was  the  one 
who,  after  all  others  had  gone,  folded  the 
maimed  hands  over  the  rough  coat  and 
drew  the  sheet  over  the  bright  hair  of  the 
child.  Then  he  lighted  the  candle  on  the 
table  and  went  out  into  the  night. 

Below  the  ridge  where  he  stood  the 
lights  of  Cobalt  beckoned  in  welcoming 
friendliness  their  promise  of  evasion  of 
that  law  which  forbade  the  sale  of  liquor 
in  the  mining-camps  of  the  North  Coun- 
try. With  a  heavy,  relaxing  sigh  of  relief 
he  turned  his  steps  toward  them.  His  ut- 
ter exhaustion  cried  for  stimulant  after  the 
hour  of  strain  that  had  left  him  clammy- 
cold.  He  groped  through  his  pockets  to 
find  a  handkerchief  to  wipe  the  dampness 
from  his  forehead,  then  remembered  that 
he  had  used  his  own  for  the  boy  who  died. 
Still  searching,  he  thrust  his  hand  in  the 
pocket  of  his  flannel  shirt.  His  fingers 
closed  on  something  colder  than  they,  a 
sharp-pointed  bit  of  metal  on  a  worn  rib- 
bon. They  clutched  it,  brought  it  out,  and 
dangled  it  before  his  gaze.  And  as  John 
Rodney  saw  it  for  what  it  was  he  clenched 
it  in  his  fist  till  the  points  drove  themselves 
into  his  flesh.  For  the  man  who  had  won 
the  battle  of  Driefontein  was  holding  the 
badge  of  his  courage,  his  Victoria  Cross. 


The  Bravest  Son 


387 


Before  him  the  lights  of  Cobalt  dimmed 
to  vagueness  as  there  swung  in  their  stead 
a  wider  range,  a  dry,  parched  veldt,  rolling 
for  illimitable  miles  under  the  blazing  sun- 
light of  Africa,  gigantic  scene  of  gigantic 
conflict.  Once  more  the  man  on  the  hill 
was  one  of  the  army  sweeping  forward  to 
meet  another  army  of  daring,  determined 
lighters.  Once  more  he  was  hearing  the 
sharp  ping  of  Mauser  bullets.  Once  more 
he  was  dodging  the  flying  lyddite.  Once 
more  he  smelled  the  smoke  that  came  roll- 
ing toward  him.  Once  more  he  heard  the 
call  to  the  charge.  Once  more  he  spurred 
out  in  front  of  his  men.  Once  more  he 
was  riding  over  the  plain,  all  athrill  with 
the  joy  of  knowing  that  he  had  no  fear. 
He  had  dashed  down  the  man  who  sought 
to  hold  his  bridle  as  the  dark  shape  rose 
from  the  grass.  He  felt  the  blood  trick- 
ling down  after  the  sharp  sting  had  pricked 
his  arm.  He  had  known  that  he  w^as  fall- 
ing, and  falling;  he  had  seen  the  colors  of 
his  regiment  going  down  as  the  color- 
bearer  sank.  From  the  man's  hand  he 
had  caught  them  up.  He  w^as  rushing 
on.  There  was  film  coming  over  his  eyes. 
A  roaring  was  in  his  ears,  a  burning  in  his 
nostrils.  But  he  was  going  on  across  the 
veldt  to  where  the  low  kopje  of  Driefon- 
tein  seemed  to  be  falling  toward  him.  He 
w^as  climbing  the  hummock,  breasting  it, 
shouting,  yelling,  sobbing,  cursing  in  his 
fury.  He  was  battling  now  with  a  black- 
bearded  Boojer  whose  hand  clutched  the 
standard  while  the  two  of  them  rocked  in 
conflict.  He  had  flung  him  over,  and  he 
stood  alone  on  the  kopje,  the  splendid  tar- 
get of  the  whistling  bullets.  The  weight 
of  the  standard  w^as  piercing  his  arm  like 
a  thousand  needles,  and  the  pain,  driving 
up  to  his  brain,  maddened  him.  But  men, 
he  knew  not  whether  they  were  friends 
or  foes,  were  sweeping  toward  him.  He 
braced  himself  on  the  summit  as  darkness 
filmed  over  his  eyes.  Then  an  arm  stead- 
ied his  shoulder,  and  a  familiar  voice,  his 
colonel's  voice,  rang  out  over  the  yells,  and 
the  cries,  and  the  singing  bullets,  and  the 
shrieking  artillery,  "You're  in.  Jack, 
you're  in!     We've  taken  Driefontein!" 

As  a  dreamer,  slipping  without  tran- 
sition through  times  and  places  of  his 
dream,  John  Rodney  watched  the  ghosts 
of  his  time  of  glory  passing  across  the 
stage  of  his  memories.     There  had  been 


hundreds  of  men  to  give  him  praise  for 
his  deed,  men  of  power,  and  position,  and 
authority;  but  of  them  all  he  remembered 
only  the  colonel  whose  belief  in  him  had 
been  justified;  Kitchener,  who  had  shaken 
hands  with  him  on  the  day  the  army  en- 
tered Bloemfontein,  and  who  had  written 
him  down  for  the  decoration;  and  the 
great  Rhodes,  who  had  laughed  when  he 
said  to  him,  "You're  as  quick  to  lead  an 
army  as  you  are  to  tell  a  tale,  eh?"  For 
after  Bloemfontein  had  come  the  time 
when  thousands  of  the  service  men  pointed 
him  out  as  the  panther  of  the  scouts,  the 
man  whose  daring  dash  had  won  a  great 
battle.  Only  to-night,  over  there  in 
Haileybury,  had  come  an  echo  of  those 
days  in  the  speech  of  that  man  who  re- 
called how  London  had  thrilled  at  the 
story  of  a  man's  courage. 

And  he,  John  Rodney,  had  been  that 
man! 

Now,  less  than  a  hundred  feet  away,  a 
little  bright-haired  boy  lay  dead  because 
the  man  whose  plunging  quickness  of 
brain  had  won  a  momentous  battle  for  an 
empire  had  not  been  quick  enough  to 
save  him.  The  thought,  piercing  to  Rod- 
ney's soul  more  deeply  than  the  points  of 
the  cross  in  his  clenched  hand  cut  into  his 
flesh,  corroded  there  in  bitter  festering. 
Through  the  years  in  which  he  had  been 
slipping  down  into  degradation  John  Rod- 
ney had  not  lost  faith  in  himself.  The 
mirage  of  Driefontein  had  shone  for  him 
across  deserts  of  discouragement,  gleam- 
ing in  promise  that  if  need  of  courage 
should  come  again  he  would  be  ready  to 
meet  it.  He  had  laughed  at  his  own  vices, 
balancing  them  against  equally  flagrant 
virtues,  boasting  to  himself  that  no  emer- 
gency should  lind  him  ungirded.  On  the 
raft  of  that  belief  he  had  weathered  the 
storms  of  ten  useless,  drifting  years.  And 
now  that  faith  was  gone.  John  Rodney 
saw  himself  for  what  he  was,  a  roystering 
drunkard  of  the  camps,  comrade  of  other 
besotted  drifters,  the  butt  of  scorn  of  men 
he  had  once  thought  to  scorn. 

His  fingers  unclasju'd  themselves  slowly 
from  the  medal.  He  looked  at  it  tensely 
as  if  he  would  read  in  the  darkness  the  in- 
scrij)tion.  "I  thought,"  he  said,  "that 
I'd  keep  you  till  1  died.  But  I  've  lost  the 
right  to  you — and  so " 

He  caught  his  breath  sharply  as  he 


388 


The  Bravest  Son 


raised  his  arm  to  fling  the  bit  of  metal 
from  the  ridge.  Across  his  whirling  brain 
there  raced  another  scene,  trivial,  absurd 
in  its  setting  of  mightier  thoughts,  the 
recollection  of  the  light  his  husky  had 
waged  that  afternoon  with  the  little  bull- 
dog. But  Rodney's  memory  of  it  went 
past  the  mere  picturing  of  its  details,  go- 
ing to  the  heart  of  its  lesson  as  he  had 
once  gone  to  the  thick  of  battles.  ^'That 
dog'd  be  fighting  yet,  if  I  hadn't  pulled  off 
mine,"  he  thought.  He  set  his  jaw  hard 
and  held  his  arm  taut.  ''By  God,"  he 
cried,  "if  the  pup  could  hold  on,  so  can 
I!"  Once  again  his  fingers  closed  over 
the  points  of  the  medal.  Before  him  the 
lights  of  Cobalt  still  blinked  in  their  beck- 
oning. Gone  w^as  the  vision  of  the  veldt, 
the  thrill  of  glory,  the  fires  of  courage. 
But  in  the  ashes  of  self-respect,  of  honor, 
of  bravery  there  leaped  a  tiny  flame.  "  So 
help  me,"  said  John  Rodney,  "I'll  prove 
up!"  And  he  put  back  his  cross  in  the 
pocket  of  his  shirt. 

Unsteadily,  uncertainly,  he  stood  in 
waiting  on  the  crest  of  the  ridge,  his  de- 
cision mocked  by  his  knowledge  that  every 
street  in  the  camp  held  for  him  the  temp- 
tation of  old  haunts  of  his  visits  there. 
But  back  of  him  lay  that  boy  who  was 
dead  because  he  had  not  reached  him  in 
time.  The  morbid  horror  of  repassing  the 
shack  daunted  him.  While  he  hesitated, 
a  lithe  figure  swung  down  the  dark  road 
toward  him.  When  the  stranger  came 
near  he  spoke.  "M'sieu  1'  capitaine?" 
he  asked  of  Rodney.  He  struck  a  match 
to  light  a  cigarette,  and  by  its  sputtering 
flame  Rodney  recognized  him  as  the  voy- 
ager who  had  danced  in  the  Haileybury 
saloon.  When  Rodney  failed  to  answer, 
he  held  the  light  close  enough  to  see  his 
face.  Instantly,  with  the  camaraderie  of 
the  river  men  for  the  captain  who  had 
crossed  the  barrier  of  race  to  make  him- 
self one  of  them,  he  drew  from  his  wide 
sash  a  flask  of  brandy."  "M'sieu  is  ill?" 
he  inquired  with  solicitude. 

"No,"  said  Rodney.  His  eyes  de- 
voured the  flask.  He  kept  wetting  his 
parched  lips  with  his  tongue.  His  hands 
trembled  as  he  put  them  behind  his  back. 
"No,"  he  repeated.  And  he  strode  back 
along  the  ridge  to  the  shack  where  the 
dead  boy  lay. 

All  through  the  night  he  kept  vigil  there. 


The  red  of  dawn  was  rising  in  the  east 
when  he  went  out  into  a  gray  world,  turn- 
ing his  back  on  Cobalt.  Daylight  blazed 
its  blue  through  the  iridescent  mists  of  the 
lake  when  he  came  to  the  little  station  on 
the  Haileybury  hill.  The  special  train  of 
the  Board  of  Trade  committee  was  holding 
the  right  of  way  to  the  north,  but  on  the 
siding  the  engine  of  the  freight  on  which 
he  had  come  down  yesterday  puffed  in 
waiting  for  its  return  trip.  He  swung 
himself  up  to  the  van.  A  sleepy  brake- 
man  looked  up  from  his  bunk  when  Rod- 
ney opened  the  door.  "Thought  we  just 
landed  you,"  he  said.  "Did  you  forget 
something?" 

Rodney  did  not  answer. 

"What  are  you  going  back  for?"  asked 
the  brakeman  curiously. 

"For  something  I  lost,"  said  Rodney. 

"Well,  turn  in,"  said  the  man,  too 
accustomed  to  Rodney's  eccentricities 
of  conduct  to  interest  himself  further. 
"Help  yourself  to  a  blanket.  We've  all 
day,  and  a  new  fire  ahead  of  us  before  we 
strike  the  junction."  He  turned  on  his 
side  and  was  asleep  again  before  Rodney 
had  huddled  hijnself  on  the  narrow  bench 
and  sunk  into  the  stupor  of  utter  exhaus- 
tion from  which  he  did  not  wake  until  the 
freight  ran  by  the  side  of  the  junction 
platform.  The  accommodation  train  for 
the  western  branch  toward  the  Porcupine 
camps  was  pulling  out  as  Rodney,  clearing 
the  platform  at  a  bound,  almost  knocked 
from  his  feet  the  provincial  policeman  who 
had  just  completed  his  search  for  contra- 
band liquor  in  the  luggage  of  the  Porcu- 
pine pilgrims.  "No  use  searching  you, 
Rodney,"  the  officer  called  after  him. 
"You  never  had  enough  for  your  own 
use."  But  Rodney  gave  him  no  more  heed 
than  he  seemed  to  give  the  crowd  within 
the  coach  after  he  opened  the  door  and 
dropped  down  into  the  nearest  seat.  Pull- 
ing his  hat  down  over  his  face,  he  pretend- 
ed to  sleep.  But  the  crowd  numbered 
men  who  had  been  at. the  hockey-rink,  men 
who  had  rioted  and  rollicked  with  Rodney, 
and  to  whom  the  idea  of  Rodney  as  a  hero 
was  deliciously,  satirically  funny.  All  af- 
ternoon on  the  way  north  from  Haileybury 
on  the  express  that  was  overtaking  the 
freight  the  topic  of  the  speech  about  Rod- 
ney had  engrossed  them  out  of  their  talk 
of  gold.  Now,  with  Rodney  at  their  mercy, 


The  Bravest  Son 


389 


they  directed  their  batteries  of  hea\y  sar- 
casm upon  him. 

Slouched  in  the  corner  of  the  seat  Rod- 
ney Hstened  to  every  word  of  their  goad- 
ing ridicule.  From  men  he  had  called  his 
friends  came  the  most  biting  sneers,  baits 
to  catch  him  in  speech  that  they  might 
find  amusement  in  his  self-defence.  Know- 
ing their  purpose,  Rodney  held  his  self- 
control  with  the  apparent  impassivity  of 
a  Greek.  But  w^hen  a  boy,  just  in  the 
camps  that  summer  from  a  jerkwater  col- 
lege, sprang  to  his  seat  with  arm  up- 
raised and  the  laughing  cry,  "I  give  you 
Canada's  bravest  son!"  John  Rodney 
threw  aside  his  mask  of  sleep.  His  eyes 
blazed  terribly  as  he  flung  off  his  hat  and 
drew  himself  up  to  his  great  height.  His 
face  was  drawn  into  hard  lines  of  bitter 
determination  and  white  with  the  fury  of 
garnered  rage.  *  In  the  aisle  he  towered 
over  the  seats  as  slowly,  surely,  he  made 
his  way  toward  the  boy.  The  crowd,  see- 
ing his  anger  and  knowing  his  strength, 
fell  back.  The  boy  jumped  to  the  floor, 
bringing  his  left  arm  before  him  for  de- 
fence ;  but  his  eyes  w^re  shadowed  by  fear 
as  they  saw  the  flaring  fires  of  Rodney's 
rage.  He  gave  a  swdft  signal  of  appeal  to 
the  men  who  had  started  the  baiting  he 
had  climaxed;  but  all  of  them  were  wait- 
ing for  Rodney's  action.  No  one  in  the 
car  moved  but  Rodney,  advancing  with 
the  springing  step  of  the  panther  he  had 
once  been  likened  to,  and  a  thin,  blond 
Englishman  who,  alien  to  the  crowd,  had 
been  seated  behind  the  boy.  Just  as 
Rodney  came  abreast  of  him  the  man 
thrust  out  his  arm.  "Captain  Rodney," 
he  said,  and  the  sharp  note  of  authority 
in  his  voice  brought  to  the  raging  man 
the  insistent  memory  of  obedience  to  its 
mandates,  ''an  offlcer  does  not  engage  in 
common  brawls." 

For  an  instant  Rodney  glowered  as  if  he 
would  veer  his  attack  upon  him.  "They 
know  you  can  fight,"  the  man  went  on. 
He  tossed  a  disdainful  glance  at  the  gaping 
crowd.     "Let  them  alone,"  he  ordered. 

"Let  me  alone,"  yelled  Rodney.  " For 
the  honor  of  the  service,  I'm  going  to 
teach  that  kid." 

"For  the  honor  of  the  service,"  asked 
the  man  between  him  and  the  frightened 
boy,  "why  don't  you  teach  yourself?" 

"What's  it  to  you?"  cried  Rodney. 


The  man  smiled.  The  unexpectedness 
of  it  startled  the  crowd  more  than  had  his 
interference.  "I  flattered  myself  that 
you'd  recall  me,"  he  said.  "  I  was  Kitch- 
ener's aide  at  Bloemfontein.  Hurst,  you 
know.  Do  you  remember  me  now?" 
His  hand  went  out  to  Rodney's.  But 
Rodney  stepped  back,  his  hand  rising  to 
his  forehead  in  salute.  "Captain  Hurst," 
he  said,  "I'm  fighting  yet.  When  I've  won 
the  first  battle,  I'll  meet  you,  man  to 
man."  As  suddenly  as  he  had  risen  from 
his  place  he  turned  his  back  on  the  men 
who  watched  him  and  went  to  his  seat. 

Some  one  in  the  crowd  laughed.  But 
the  boy  Rodney  had  come  to  fight  spoke. 
"I  want  to  apologize,"  he  said.  And 
there  came  no  more  laughter. 

After  that  no  one  spoke  of  Rodney  or 
to  him.  When  the  train  came  to  the 
Frederick  House  River,  the  Englishman 
went  toward  him,  but  Rodney  only  nodded 
to  him  as  he  swung  oft"  across  the  girders  of 
the  railroad  bridge  on  his  fifteen-mile  walk 
to  Golden  City. 

Through  the  night,  as  he  strode  along 
the  right  of  way  under  the  diamond- 
clear  stars  of  the  north,  John  Rodney 
strengthened  his  decision  by  a  determined 
plan  of  seclusion  from  his  old  haunts  and 
his  boon  companions.  He  would  not  lin- 
ger in  South  Porcupine,  filled  as  it  would 
be  with  men  whose  invitations  were  so 
hard  to  resist.  He  would  go  out  on  the 
Wallaby  Track,  that  road  through  the 
bush  to  the  greater  mines  strung  along  to- 
ward the  Mattagami  River,  directing  his 
prospecting  from  the  river  camp.  But 
when  he  had  crossed  the  lake  from  Golden 
City  to  South  Porcupine  the  next  day,  he 
found  that  he  had  made  his  decision  in 
vain.  He  would  have  to  wait  a  week  for 
the  coming  of  his  supplies. 

He  was  hardly  in  the  hotel  before  a 
half-score  of  men  had  invited  him  to  drink 
with  them,  taking  his  refusal  with  careless 
amusement.  By  noon  the  forelopcrs  of 
the  crowd  from  Haileybury  had  l)rt)ught 
to  the  camp  the  news  of  the  scenes  in  the 
rink  and  the  car.  By  night  the  tale  of 
how  Rodney  had  failed  to  fight  the  boy 
who  jeered  at  him  had  become  a  story  of 
a  man's  rank  cowardice  under  insult.  By 
the  next  day  the  game  of  trying  to  break 
down  Rodney's  determination  to  keep 
from  drinking  had  become  the  amusement 


390 


The  Bravest  Son 


of  his  old  companions  of  the  town.  All 
that  saved  Rodney  from  having  to  defend 
his  resolve  in  physical  combat  was  the  gen- 
eral recognition  by  the  men  who  plied  him 
of  his  superior  physical  strength.  But 
they  took  their  revenge  in  other  ways. 
Every  man  whom  Rodney  refused  chose 
to  regard  the  refusal  as  a  personal  affront 
and  disdained  to  speak  to  him  on  the  occa- 
sion of  their  next  meeting.  With  the  bet- 
ter element  of  the  camp  Rodney  had  never 
associated,  having  chosen  from  the  begin- 
ning the  easier  way  of  finding  his  com- 
radeships below  his  level.  Hurst,  new  to 
the  camp  though  he  was,  drifted  in  with 
the  more  reserved  of  the  men  there  by 
virtue  of  his  letters  and  his  personality, 
and  of  him  Rodney  saw^  nothing.  By  the 
end  of  the  week  John  Rodney  was  an  exile 
in  the  camp  he  had  pioneered. 

While  he  waited  impatiently  for  his  de- 
layed supplies  Rodney  took  to  long  ram- 
bles out  in  the  bush  along  the  Wallaby 
Track.  Out  there  a  half-dozen  times  he 
noted  smoke  from  forest  fires  that  aroused 
his  alarm.  Had  he  been  talking  with  his 
old  comrades  he  would  have  warned  them 
of  the  danger  he  believed  was  threatening. 
Once,  indeed,  he  essayed  to  speak  of  it  to 
the  hotel  clerk,  but  the  latter  had  laughed 
it  ofi.  "  That  bush  has  been  smoking  ever 
since  I  came  here,"  he  declared. 

"And  it'll  be  smoking  after  you're 
gone,"  said  Rodney  ominously.  But  he 
spoke  to  no  other  of  his  dread.  He 
watched  the  smoke,  however,  with  the 
uneasiness  of  a  ranger,  calculating  chances 
of  fire-fighting,  and  throwing  aside  every 
feasibility  in  the  face  of  his  knowledge  of 
the  devastating  swiftness  of  a  bush  fire. 
And  the  while  he  watched  he  was  obsessed 
by  the  desire  to  go  back  to  his  old  crowd 
in  his  old  way.  The  sound  of  the  phono- 
graphs in  the  "  speak-easy s  "  as  he  passed 
them  at  night  on  his  way  back  to  the  hotel 
maddened  him  with  a  thirst  for  compan- 
ionship rather  than  for  liquor.  Through 
the  thin  wooden  walls  of  the  hotel  room 
he  could  hear  the  slamming  of  cards  on  the 
tables,  the  murmur  of  voices,  the  echoes 
of  laughter.  And  he  cursed  himself  for  a 
fool  for  holding  away  from  the  thing  he 
most  desired;  but  his  dogged  strength  of 
decision  held  him  to  the  keeping  of  his 
promise  until  the  morning  when  he  met 
Hurst. 


He  had  gone  on  a  needless  errand  to  one 
of  the  mines  southwest  of  the  town,  and 
wearied  by  the  heat  was  sitting  on  a  fallen 
log,  smoking  furiously  while  he  watched 
the  wavering  smoke-cloud  toward  the 
river,  when  he  heard  voices  on  the  trail. 
Coming  down  the  corduroy  were  four 
men.  Hurst  and  three  others.  Rodney 
raised  his  hand  in  salute  to  the  Enghsh- 
man,  but  the  four  passed  without  even  a 
look  in  his  direction.  Long  after  they  had 
disappeared  he  sat  there,  watching  the  road. 
Then  he  rose.  *'  Hell,"  he  said, "  what's  the 
use?"  And  with  the  old  dare-devil  glint 
in  his  eyes  he  started  back  to  the  town. 

As  he  walked  the  heat  seemed  to  grow 
more  oppressive.  He  took  off  his  coat, 
and  flung  it  over  his  shoulder.  He  tried 
to  whistle  the  tune  of  "Tommy  Atkins," 
but  a  curious  dryness  in  his  mouth  halted 
the  attempt.  The  bush  seemed  to  be 
growing  darker.  But  Rodney  slouched  on, 
heedless  of  everything  but  his  own  reck- 
less intention  of  fhnging  away  the  weeks 
of  self-denial,  until  the  curiously  pun- 
gent odor  that  a  bush  prospector  never 
forgets  when  it  has  once  come  to  him 
struck  his  nostrils.  In  the  middle  of  the 
road  he  wheeled,  looking  back  toward  the 
Mattagami. 

Less  than  a  mile  away  the  smoke  hung, 
its  scudding  messengers  of  gray  obscur- 
ing the  sun  into  a  distant  and  lightless 
ball  of  red.  A  great  w^ind  was  rising, 
whirling  before  it  the  leaves  from  birches 
that  stood  in  ghastly  whiteness  against  the 
darkness  of  the  smoke-palled  forest.  A 
rabbit  rushed  from  cover.  Down  the  cor- 
duroy a  pack  of  huskies  ran.  A  roar, 
growing  with  the  wind,  came  to  Rodney's 
ears  just  as  his  eyes  sighted  the  leaping 
pillars  of  flame  in  the  cloud.  He  put  up 
his  hand  to  feel  the  direction  of  the  wind. 
Then,  flinging  his  coat  to  the  ground,  he 
turned  his  back  on  the  fire  and  ran  to- 
ward the  town. 

As  he  ran  he  seemed  to  lose  all  sense 
but  that  of  sight,  becoming  only  a  mov- 
ing machine.  Wild  creatures  passed  him 
in  their  panic  rush.  From  the  mines  on 
either  side  of  the  track  the  shrieks  of 
whistles  summoned  men  to  action  or  to 
flight.  Down  the  trails  men  ran,  some 
bearing  grotesque  burdens,  others  with  no 
thought  but  that  of  immediate  safety. 
One  of  them  struck  at  Rodney  as  he  went 


The  Bravest  Son 


301 


by.     "Keep  your  head,"  Rodney  called  lire,  kept  steadily  to  the  road.     Only  once 

after  him,  "you'll  need  it  later."     Every  did   he  pause.     An   old   man   had   been 

moment  the  roar  of  the  fire  grew  louder,  thrown  to  the  pjround  by  the  shock  of  one 

the  smoke  grew  denser.     Rodney,  loping  of  those  dynamite  explosions  that  kept  de- 


/ 


Hut  Rodney  stepped  back,  Iiis  hand  rising  to  his  forehead  in  salute.     "Captain  Hurst," 

he  said.  —  Page  389. 


along  w^ith  the  steady  swing  of  the  trail- 
blazer,  kept  looking  back  over  his  shoul- 
der mechanically  at  intervals,  calculating 
the  distance  between  him  and  the  fore- 
runners of  the  flames,  those  pyramids  that 
flashed  here  and  there  through  the  trees. 
Squinting  ahead,  he  measured  the  distance 
to  the  lake  that  showed  itself  a  haven  of 
refuge.  "We'll  make  it,  boys,"  he  cried 
to  the  others. 

Into  the  clearing  between  the  bush  and 
the  town  men  and  women  came  from 
north,  south,  and  west,  stumbling  over 
stumps  in  their  rush  to  the  lake.  Rodney, 
muttering  to  himself  his  bitterness  for 
having  failed  to  heed  the  signals  of  the 
Vol.  LV.— 40 


tonating  the  approach  of  the  fire  to  the 
mines.  The  crowd,  heedless  of  anything 
but  its  goal,  would  have  tram])led  on  him 
had  not  Rodney  waited  to  pick  him  u|). 

At  the  outskirts  of  the  town  the  mob 
grew  denser.  Rodney  wondered  vaguely 
where  the  men  and  women  who  thronged 
the  streets  in  their  rush  to  their  one  chance 
of  safety  could  have  come  from.  At  the 
doors  of  offices  and  stores  men  a])|H\ired, 
begging  the  runners  for  aid  in  taking  out 
their  goods;  but  the  men  from  tlie  mines 
passed  them,  careless  of  the  less  \ital  pre- 
dicament, knowing  that  in  the  face  of  the 
flames  life  was  the  one  issue. 

When  he  liad  come  to  the  dock  Rodney 


392 


The  Bravest  Son 


stood,  calculating  with  mathematical  pre- 
cision his  exact  chance  of  escape,  and  de- 
ciding that  his  ability  to  swim  in  any  water 
assured  it  to  him.  As  he  unlaced  his  great 
l)oots  he  let  himself  watch  the  drama  on 
the  shore,  where  a  thousand  people  were 
huddled,  beseeching  the  boatmen  to  take 
them  out  of  the  danger  zone.  Already 
hundreds  were  taking  to  the  water,  stand- 
ing up  to  their  waists  in  its  wash  and  ready 
to  plunge  deeper.  Overweighted  boats 
tossed  on  the  waves  that  the  wind  from 
the  fire  was  churning.  At  the  foot  of  the 
dock  a  canoe,  jammed  with  twice  the  num- 
ber it  could  carry,  went  down  as  some  one 
sprang  into  it  from  the  pier.  A  man  near 
Rodney  kept  shouting  to  some  one  on  a 
row-boat  to  come  back  for  a  little  girl  who 
w^as  crying  piteously.  Rodney  had  time 
to  be  glad  that  he  was  responsible  for  no 
one  but  himself,  as  he  saw  a  gasolene- 
launch  chugging  in.  '^  Put  the  women  on 
it!"  came  the  shout  just  as  there  swept 
from  the  street  a  maddened  crowd  of  Hun- 
garians from  the  mines,  pushing,  shoving, 
fighting  in  desperation  to  win  their  way  to 
the  end  of  the  dock.  Rodney,  kicking  off 
his  boots,  certain  now  of  his  safety,  in- 
stinctively turned  to  drive  back  the  fren- 
zied men  who  threatened  the  only  chance 
the  others  had  for  life.  Then,  "Why 
should  I  ?  "  he  asked  himself.  ''  What  are 
they  to  me?  "  But  one  of  the  Hungarians, 
passing  him  in  his  crazed  rush,  drove  his 
elbow  into  him.  The  shock  of  the  impact 
galvanized  him  to  awful  rage.  His  hand 
went  to  his  hip-pocket.  In  an  instant  he 
was  on  the  dock,  driving  his  way  to  the 
foot  through  the  wall  of  men,  towering 
above  them  all,  forcing  himself  inch  by 
inch  to  the  place  where  he  might  face 
them. 

"Stand  back!"  His  cry  clamored  on 
the  fearful  stillness  that  held  the  crowd 
ominously.  Only  the  sound  of  the  motor- 
boat  broke  in  on  his  command.  "The 
women  are  going  in  that  boat,"  he  shout- 
ed, his  staccato  utterance  thudding  down 
on  the  upraised  white  faces,  "and  if  one 
man  dares  to  crowd  up  here,  I'm  going  to 
kill  him."  The  menace  of  his  voice  drove 
back  the  Hungarians  inch  by  inch  till  the 
women  had  room  to  remain.  The  menace 
of  his  levelled  gun  kept  them  there.  The 
motor-boat,  with  engine  stopped,  crept 
up  to  the  dock.     "Pull  her  in,"  Rodney 


ordered  the  man  nearest  to  it.  One  by 
one  the  women  stepped  down  until  the 
boatman  gave  the  signal  that  he  could  take 
no  more.  As  the  launch  set  off  from  the 
dock  the  man  nearest  to  Rodney  struck  at 
him.  Rodney  dashed  him  off  into  the 
water.  Clinging  to  the  dock  he  made  his 
wail,  "There  are  no  more  boats!"  and  the 
crowd,  with  guttural  cries,  pressed  forward 
toward  the  man  who  had  cheated  them  of 
their  chance. 

Rodney  held  his  gun  steady.  His  voice, 
raised  over  the  roar  of  the  wind,  never  fal- 
tered as  he  spoke.  "Just  back  of  you,"  he 
said,  "is  a  hardware  store.  Go  over  there 
and  get  axes,  and  hatchets,  and  nails. 
Break  down  the  shacks  for  the  lumber. 
Then  we'll  make  rafts.  It's  your  only 
chance  if  you  can't  swim." 

Only  the  Hungarians,  not  understand- 
ing the  command,  lingered.  Every  other 
man  joined  in  the  rush  toward  the  store. 
But  while  the  sound  of  spHtting  lumber 
cracked,  one  of  the  foreigners,  looking  far- 
ther back,  saw  a  great  ball  of  fire  tossed 
from  the  bush  back  of  the  clearing  over  to 
the  first  shack  in  the  town.  Instantly  the 
shack  was  ablaze.  Another  and  another 
spurted  in  flame.  The  watching  man  gave 
a  throaty  cry,  and  flung  himself  at  Rod- 
ney. But  Rodney  had  seen  him  in  time 
to  step  to  one  side,  and  to  let  him  sprawl 
on  the  floor  of  the  dock.  Then  he  set  his 
foot  on  him,  while  he  scanned  the  crowd 
around  the  store. 

Men  were  working  with  driving  fury, 
nailing  boards  together  in  haphazard  haste. 
Rodney  groaned  as  he  saw  how  futile  was 
their  unskilled  labor  on  rafts  that  would 
not  stand  the  first  frenzy  of  the  gale.  A 
blazing  hot  breath  from  the  fire  roused 
him  to  the  urgency  of  haste.  He  could 
show  them  in  five  minutes  how  to  make 
those  rafts.  B  ut  if  he  left  these  mad  Hun- 
garians on  the  dock,  they  would  run  wild. 
If  they  killed  no  one  else,  they  would  kill 
themselves  in  their  fury.  Rodney's  eyes 
roved  through  the  crowd  beyond,  sight- 
ing a  tall,  blond  man  who  was  splitting  a 
long  timber  into  poles.  "  Captain  Hurst," 
he  cried  to  him. 

Hurst  sprang  from  his  task  to  the  dock. 
"  Captain  Hurst,"  Rodney  gave  command, 
"  you  will  hold^these  men  here  while  I  show 
those  fools  how  to  make  rafts."  Hurst's 
hand  went  up  in  acceptance  of  the  order, 


Wild  creatures  passed  him  in  their  panic  rush.  —  Page  390. 


then  came  down  again  to  his  gun-pocket 
as  he  took  Rodney's  place. 

With  his  ow^n  revolver  still  in  his  hand, 
Rodney  jumped  from  the  dock  to  the 
ground.  From  group  to  group  he  went, 
working,  planning,  counting,  till  the  rafts 
were  fmished.  And  all  the  time  the  smoke 
from  the  fire  was  blinding  him,  the  breath 
of  the  fire  was  scorching  him.  His  hat 
was  gone,  and  he  could  feel  his  hair  grow- 
ing crisp  in  the  horrible  heat  that  choked 
him  as  he  drove  the  last  nail  in  the  last 
raft. 

On  the  dock  Hurst  was  piling  the  Hun- 
garians on  the  rafts.  ''  Get  them  off  first," 
Rodney  had  yelled  to  him.  After  them 
came  the  men  who  bore  the  rafts  to  the 
shore  as  the  fire  bkized  less  than  five  hun- 
dred feet  back  of  them,  throwing  lurid 
light  on  the  darkness.  The  tornado  of 
the  fire  was  tossing  the  waves  over  tiie 


rafts,  but  Rodney  saw  that  none  of  them 
w^as  going  down.  At  the  dock  men  were 
tumbling  on  the  last  raft,  calling  to  Rod- 
ney to  join  them.  Hurst  and  he  were 
the  last  on  the  shore.  ''Get  in!"  he  or- 
dered Hurst.  The  f^nglishman  hesitated, 
then  obeyed.  Rodney,  with  one  knee  on 
the  edge  of  the  pier,  set  this  foot  down 
on  the  frail  craft,  reasoning  that  it  in- 
creased his  hope  of  safety  tenfold.  Then 
he  drew  it  back.  "Too  hea\y,"  he  said. 
Hurst  tried  to  clamber  olT,  l)ut  Rodney 
shoved  him  back.  "  I'm  gt)ing  to  swim," 
he  said. 

Through  the  choking  darkness  Hurst 
spoke  to  him.  "Captain  Rodney,"  he 
said,  "twice  you've  i)ro\en  yourself  the 
bravest  man  of  us  all."  Rodney  held  out 
his  hand  to  him.  "'I'hank  you,"  he  said. 
Then  he  shoxiul  the  raft  away  from  the 
dock. 

393 


CORMAC    O'BRIEN,    PIPER 
By  Amanda  Mathews 

Illustration    r. y    F.    C.    Vohn 


ORMAC  O'BRIEN,  the  an- 
cient piper,  and  old  Norah, 
his  wife,  lived  up  a  bit  of 
rooked  stone-walled  lane 
across  the  road  from  the 
Duffys.  This  bleak,  cloudy 
winter  afternoon  the  couple  sat  in  their 
respective  chimney-corners  silent  as  their 
own  hearth,  for  the  peat  never  roars, 
spits,  or  crackles;  it  gives  a  tranquil  fire  of 
yellow  glows  and  gentle,  caressing  orange 
flames. 

A  red  cow  walked  confidently  into  the 
kitchen,  her  calf  at  her  flank.  Cormac 
rose  and  opened  for  them  the  door  of  what 
had  once  been  "the  room,"  but  a  great 
patch  of  roof  had  fallen  in  so  that  it  was 
now  used  only  as  the  byre.  Behind  the 
calf  the  procession  was  extended  by  ducks 
and  chickens.  These  broke  rank  and 
dashed  clamorously  about  the  kitchen. 

"Ye  unmannerly  birds!"  admonished 
Norah,  but  she  scattered  food  on  the  flag- 
stones. Their  supper  over,  they  went 
peaceably  to  the  byre.  Norah  lighted 
the  candle.  Husband  and  wife  then  re- 
sumed their  low  wooden  chairs. 

The  fireplace  was  very  shallow  and 
smoked  in  all  winds.  A  holy  picture  on 
the  gable  wall  was  so  blackened  that 
Mary  and  the  Child  could  scarcely  be  rec- 
ognizejl.  The  few  small  objects  on  the 
mantel  might  have  been  carved  out  of 
bog  oak.  A  saucy  smoke-puff  fanned  the 
piper's  face,  then  made  itself  into  a  wreath 
about  his  head,  instantly  dissolved,  and 
mingled  with  the  general  smokiness  of  the 
room.     He  coughed. 

"There  must  a  bit  of  black  stone  been 
builded  into  this  chimly,"  observed  his 
wife  sympathetically.  Her  remark  was 
as  customary  as  the  behavior  of  the  chim- 
ney; her  husband  offered  no  reply. 

The   piper   was    blear-eyed    from    his 

eighty-five  years  but  erect  as  youth.    His 

abundant   black    hair   was   only   slightly 

grizzled,  though  the  sideburns  framing  his 

Vol.  LV.— 41 


clear-cut  old  features  were  quite  gray.  He 
wore  a  gray  homespun  suit  with  patch  on 
patch.  Norah,  ten  years  his  junior,  had 
a  softly  wrinkled  face  and  pleasant  brown 
eyes.  She  was  dressed  in  black  skirt,  red 
"body,"  and  blue  kerchief.  Her  feet 
were  bare. 

Johneen  Duffy  slipped  in,  his  right  in- 
dex-finger holding  a  place  near  the  back 
cover  of  a  book. 

"  I  cannot  read  in  me  own  home  for  the 
ructions  of  Kitty  and  Dermot,"  he  ex- 
plained plaintively. 

"Ye  be's  welcome,"  encouraged  the  pi- 
per. "  I  perceive  ye  to  be  a  lad  of  parts." 
In  this  sentiment  old  Cormac  voiced  the 
general  changed  opinion  of  the  neighbors 
since  Johneen  had  borne  off  the  prize  of 
the  Letterkenny  Feis  for  a  Gaelic  poem 
by  a  school-child.  The  boy  stretched  him- 
self luxuriously  on  the  warm  flags  with 
his  book  lying  within  the  circle  of  yellow 
firelight. 

Mary  Anne  appeared  next  with  some- 
thing wrapped  in  a  cloth. 

"I  cannot  keep  clean  the  white  coat  I 
am  knitting  with  me  sister  Kitty  rubbing 
herself  against  it  every  minute,"  she  com- 
plained. 

"Ye  be's  welcome,"  repeated  ]\Irs. 
O'Brien,  as  the  girl  took  the  creepie-stool 
and  spread  out  on  her  knees  the  compo- 
nent parts  of  the  white  jersey. 

"You  are  the  great  knitter  entirely," 
approved  Norah.  "So  was  I  once  but 
that  once  is  away.  Me  eyes  are  no  more 
equal  for  it  and  now  I  never  take  the  skiv- 
ers in  me  hands.  I  mind,  though,  when  I 
was  a  wee  one  and  our  old  servant  set  me  to 
learning  with  a  couple  of  goose-feathers." 

"I  must  finish  this  coat  the  night,  for 
mother  will  be  taking  in  all  our  knitting 
to  the  shop  at  Anlnagapery  to-morrow," 
anxiously  declared  xMary  Anne. 

Her  lingers  fairly  twinkled  the  ski\ers. 
A  silence  reigned  which  was  most  grateful 
to  Johneen  as  he  rapidly  turned  the  thrill- 

395 


J90 


Cormac   O'Brien,   Piper 


ing  final  pages.  He  closed  the  book  and 
looked  into  the  fire. 

"What  he's  your  thought,  lad?"  in- 
quired his  host. 

'*I  was  wondering  just,  would  you  be 
blowing  your  pij^es  the  night." 

Old  Cormac  took  down  his  instrument 
from  the  top  of  the  dresser,  deliberately 
tied  the  leathern  string  about  his  body, 
strapped  the  pad  above  his  right  knee,  ad- 
justed a  bellows  under  each  arm,  and 
struck  up  ^IcLeod's  reel. 

As  if  charmed  in  by  the  music,  two  more 
people  entered.  Mary  Anne  had  started 
and  dipped  her  flushed  face  almost  into 
her  work,  but  she  looked  up  and  nodded 
shyly  when  she  heard  the  hearty  voices  of 
Tim  McGarvey  and  his  wife  Peggy,  who 
was  Peggy  Doogan  before  Tim  returned 
from  America  and  resumed  his  long-inter- 
rupted courtship.  What  had  been  Peggy's 
house  was  now  the  byre;  Tim  had  built  a 
grand  new  cottage  exceeding  the  splendor 
of  the  O'Donnells'. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  McGarvey  were  w-el- 
comed.  They  seated  themselves  side  by 
side  on  the  box-bed  and  begged  that  the 
music  proceed. 

It  was  proceeding  through  the  mazes  of 
McSweeney's  march,  w^hen  Mary  Anne's 
face  again  dipped  into  her  work  at  another 
step  on  the  threshold.  This  time  it  was 
Shane  O'Donnell,  big,  clumsy,  and  fairly 
gruff,  what  with  being  intensely  bashful 
and  now  intensely  conscious  of  Mary 
Anne's  presence.  He  was  monitor  at 
school  and  on  the  high  road  to  being  a 
master. 

"I  am  trying  to  think  what  the  pipes 
sound  like,"  said  Johneen. 

*' Troth,  what  could  they  be  sounding 
like  but  themselves?"  queried  Norah. 

Her  husband  lifted  his  hand  wdth  affa- 
ble yet  commanding  gesture. 

"Remember,  Norah,  ye  are  only  a 
woman.  I  am  not  denyin'  ye  do  very  w-ell 
for  what  ye  he's,  but  the  faymale  mind  is 
lackin'  raich." 

"The  pipes  has  the  makings  of  a  whole 
orchestra,"  chimed  in  McGarvey.  "There 
is  a  flute  and  a  pipe-organ  on  a  jag  and  a 
beeskip  after  you  have  put  a  stick  in  it." 
•  The  piper  scowled  at  the  Yankee's  well- 
intentioned  encomium. 

"It  is  a  grand  sound  they  make  alto- 
gether," put  in  Peggy  pacifically. 


"A  man  has  a  big  ear  to  be  picking  up 
all  them  tunes,"  McGarvey  blundered  on, 

O'Brien  straightened  himself  away  from 
the  back  of  his  chair. 

"It  is  plain  you  are  no  musicianer  not 
to  be  telling  pieces  from  tunes,  Mr.  Tim 
McGarvey.  Boy,"  to  Johneen,  "open 
yon  chest  and  fetch  me  dark  music." 

It  w^as  "dark"  music  in  the  most  literal 
sense,  being  blackened  by  age  and  smoke 
until  only  an  occasional  note  was  visible, 
but  the  piper  had  Johneen  hold  it  up  in 
front  of  him  while  he  went  through  "  Fare- 
well to  Erin"  without  taking  his  eyes 
once  from  the  blurred  sheet. 

"What  say  yez  to  me  dark  music?"  he 
demanded. 

"That  is  the  tidiest  piece  whatever," 
responded  Peggy.  "It  is  not  to-day  nor 
yesterday  you  got  to  learn." 

"I  forgot  to  knit,"  said  Mary  Anne 
simply. 

"  I  know  now  about  the  pipes — "  began 
Johneen,  restrained  by  shyness  but  driven 
by  the  urge  of  his  thought. 

"Speak  up,  lad." 

"The  wind  gets  caught  in  them  and 
may  not  be  away  until  it  has  told  all  its 
secrets  to  Cormac  O'Brien." 

The  old  man  was  mollified  and  thun- 
dered on  with  "  Roderick  Dhu." 

"The  pipes  he's  too  wild  for  the  tamer 
times  we  has  now  and  too  dark  for  the 
lazy  ones  to  learn.  Holy  saints,  but  they 
had  their  day  of  old!  The  Irish  has 
danced  to  them,  fought  to  them,  laughed 
to  them,  wept  to  them,  died  to  them!" 

As  old  Cormac  ceased  speaking  Shane 
drew  forth  once  more  the  white  envelope 
from  his  pocket. 

"This  letter  came  to  the  master,"  he 
explained,  "and  the  master  was  sending 
it  to  you  by  me.  They  will  be  having  a 
grand  Gaelic  festival  in  Dublin  come  next 
month,  and  they  are  w^anting  to  gather  all 
the  Irish  pipers  in  the  w^hole  island.  They 
will  be  giving  them  tickets  to  Dublin  and 
there  will  be  prizes " 

Cormac  O'Brien  looked  inches  taller  in 
his  chair,  but  his  only  immediate  response 
was  to  plunge  into  a  series  of  Irish  jigs. 

"Have  I  gone  back  in  me  piping?"  he 
demanded.     "Have  I  gone  back?" 

"Ye  have  not  gone  back!"  cried  Mrs. 
O'Brien. 

"Norah,"  he  answered,  "I  must  be  re- 


Cormac  O'Brien,   Piper 


397 


mindin'  ye  that  ye  he's  only  a  woman. 
How  can  a  man's  wife  hearing  him  all  the 
time  be  telling  if  he  has  gone  back?" 

''Sure  you  have  gone  back  nothing!" 
declared  Shane.  ''I  doubt  the  likes  of 
you  will  be  found  in  all  Ireland.  Was 
you  not  carrying  ofT  the  first  prize  of  the 
Donegal  Feis  three  years  since?" 

'*I  was,"  responded  the  gratified  mu- 
sician. ''Was  I  ever  tellin'  yez  the  an- 
swer I  made  to  the  band-master  at  Done- 
gal when  he  was  inquirin'  how  I  come  by 
such  a  strong  grasp  of  music?" 

Every  one  present  had  heard  the  anec- 
dote innumerable  times,  but  this  moment- 
ous invitation  to  play  at  the  Dublin  Feis 
threw  over  it  such  a  glow  of  fresh  signifi- 
cance that  the  requests  were  sufficiently 
genuine  and  spontaneous. 

''I  am  a  son  of  nature,"  I  told  that 
band-master.  "I  live  between  two  ele- 
ments, the  wind  of  the  sea  and  the  wind 
of  the  mountains,  so  I  get  the  both  winds 
mixed  up  like  in  me  music." 

Again  he  played — an  impromptu  med- 
ley of  old  selections  threaded  with  his  own 
variations  of  the  moment.  Indeed,  his 
listeners  seemed  to  hear  screaming  sea- 
gulls and  the  shrilling  of  wind  among  sails 
mingled  with  the  tossing  of  wrenched 
boughs  on  storm-beaten  mountain-tops. 
A  sort  of  awe  fell  upon  his  hearers. 

''You  must  be  mending  the  hinges  on 
your  old  bag  or  I  doubt  but  it  will  spill 
your  clothes  on  you." 

Cormac  wilted  down  in  his  chair  look- 
ing dazed  and  troubled.  This  time  he  was 
plaintively  petulant. 

"Norah,  why  can  ye  no  understand  to 
let  a  man  soar  when  he  do  be  soaring!" 

But  Shane  and  the  rest  sympathized 
with  Norah  in  realizing  that  there  were 
certain  practical  aspects  of  the  Dublin 
matter  which  the  old  man  should  be 
brought  to  consider. 

"  Me  father  will  be  proud  to  drive  ye  to 
the  station  in  our  donkey-cart,"  volun- 
teered Shane. 

"I  am  sure  me  mother  will  be  killing  a 
young  bird  for  you  to  be  eating  along  the 
road,"  ventured  Mary  Anne. 

The  Yankee  plumped  down  a  half-crown 
on  the  piper's  knee.  "Here  is  for  you  to 
bring  Norah  a  gewgaw  from  Dublin." 

Norah  clasped  her  hands  dclighledly. 

"That's  terrible  kind  of  you,  Tim  Mc- 


Garvey,  and  himself  will  be  seeing  some 
brave  fairing  like  a  new  handkercher " 

"Thank  ye  kindly,"  muttered  the  old 
man,  but  he  was  evidently  still  dazed  and 
the  half-crown  rolled  to  the  floor. 

"Shane,  what  day  must  he  be  starting 
for  beyant?"  asked  Peggy  McGarvey. 

Shane  took  out  the  letter  and  studied  it. 

"This  day  fortnight,  I  would  say.  That 
will  let  the  master  write  for  the  booking." 

"Yez  mean  well,"  the  piper  interposed, 
irritably,  "but  yez  seem  to  be  all  pushing 
me  out  of  me  own  house  into  the  road. 
Has  anybody  yet  heerd  me  say  I  was 
going?     Tell  me  that!" 

"  But  are  ye  not?  "  inquired  one  and  an- 
other of  his  listeners. 

Norah  smiled  into  the  fire.  Her  voice 
was  so  fresh  and  girlish  it  seemed  to  come 
from  Mary  Anne. 

"I  can  fair  hear  ye  swirling  away  to 
them  all  in  Dublin  and  the  wonder- " 

"Norah,"  he  protested,  "ye  are  hearin' 
what  ye  are  no  called  upon  to  hear." 

"And  for  what  would  she  no  be  called 
upon  to  hear  it?"  asked  McGarvey. 

The  piper  continued  to  look  only  at  old 
Norah,  who  in  her  turn  was  still  smiling 
into  the  fire. 

"We  have  been  married  fifty-five  years 
come  Candlemas,"  he  mused  aloud.  "I 
was  a  young  gossoon  on  me  way  to  pipe 
for  a  dance,  and  I  met  a  big  house  I  took 
for  a  workhouse,  and  I  sent  out  a  tune 
going  by  to  hearten  up  the  poor  old  souls 
inside,  and  who  came  running  out  but  the 
tidiest  jewel  of  a  girl  with  her  hair  blow- 
ing all  about  her  sweet  face.  Hashkee! 
Hashkee!  how  I  wished  I  could  pipe  her 
after  me  down  the  road " 

"Ye  were  swirling  'Bonny  Charlie.'" 

"And  I  learned  the  big  house  to  be  a 
rectory  and  her  the  rector's  daughter,  and 
every  day  I  passed  piping  and  wishing  her 
to  follow.  We  got  acquainted  at  the  cross- 
roads, and  the  night  come  when  I  piped 
'  Bonny  Charlie '  down  by  the  wall  and  she 
was  away  with  me  to  be  married." 

"I  wore  a  purple  camelot  gown," 
beamed  Norah. 

"Was  her  folks  annoyed?"  incjuircd 
Peggy. 

"They  was  done  with  her  the  day  she 
run  ofT  with  a  poor  Catholic  nuisiciancr — 
so  she  come  down  to  this  miserable  house 
instid  of  that  grand  rectory." 


398 


Reprieve 


"There  was  blue- velvet  chairs  in  the 
drawing-room,"  crooned  Norah,  ''but  I 
had  to  follow  the  piper  swirling  'Bonny 
Charlie,'  and  this  house  is  warmer."  She 
extended  her  bare  feet  to  the  glowing 
embers. 

"Norah  do  be  growing  a  bit  childish- 
like  with  her  years,"  offered  Mr.  O'Brien. 
"To  be  sure  I  am  ten  years  older  nor  her 
and  there  he's  nothing  childish  about  me 
as  yet,  God  be  thanked,  but  that  is  be- 
cause he  made  a  man's  brain  stronger  to 
bear  up  under  his  age." 

"Cormac  dear,  ye  be's  the  great  man 
entirely  for  discourse.  Give  me  a  taste 
of  your  dudeen."     He  passed  it  to  her. 

"If  you  were  not  to  go  to  Dublin," 
Shane  expostulated,  "it  is  the  chance  of 
your  life  you  would  be  missing." 

"But  Norah  is  me  life  and  I  am  more 
thinking  it  is  me  chance  for  losin'  her " 

"Now  do  ye  not  be  fretting  about 
Norah,"  cheered  Mrs.  McGarvey.  "It 
is  fine  care  we  will  all  be  taking  of  her, 


and  it  is  meself  will  be  in  and  out  and 
out  and  in — so  will  Shusan  Duffy  and  the 
childer." 

"  Yez  be  good  neighbors  and  mean  kind 
by  us,  but  yez  have  your  own  troubles 
with  the  fow4  and  the  animals.  Norah 
has  dizzy  spells,  and  the  time  ye  was  out 
might  not  be  long  and  yet  long  enough 
for  me  Norah  to  fall  into  the  fire.  I  will 
be  stayin'." 

Norah  looked  up  happily. 

"Cormac  darlin',  we  have  our  pensions 
and  ye  need  not  be  going  up  after  that 
prize,  though  it's  yourself  would  bring  it 
away.  I  would  be  heart-scalded  missing 
ye  so  long  from  the  house.^'  For  once 
she  was  not  reproved. 

Shane  and  Mary  Anne  gazed  dreamily 
at  Cormac  and  Norah  in  their  chimney- 
corners.  Both  were  having  a  dim,  sol- 
emn, prophetic  vision  of  themselves  at 
the  far  end  of  the  long  road  down  which 
they  w^ere  now  groping  for  each  other's 
hands  to  make  the  start  together. 


REPRIEVE 


By  Charlotte  Wilson 

The  other  day  it  dawned  on  me, 
A  sudden  shock  across  our  play: 
He  is  so  old — the  miracle 
May  happen  any  day! 

The  miracle!  at  any  hour 
This  small  man-comrade  at  my  knee 
May  grave  upon  his  soul  his  first 
Clear  memory  of  me. 

Some  trivial  moment,  slackened  mood, 
Imperishably  there  may  trace 
My  picture,  as  at  heart  I  bear 
My  sweet,  dead  mother's  face. 

I — I,  unworthy.     Let  me  bow 
(Like  kneeling  page  of  old,  to  feel, 
Laid  on  his  shoulder,  stiff  and  shrewd, 
The  consecrating  steel), 

Abased  in  utter  thankfulness 
Before  the  mirror  of  his  eyes: 
He  is  so  little  yet — I  still 
May  make  his  memories! 


APROPOS  of  the  efforls  made  from  lime 
to  time  to  take  Mount  Vernon  away 
from  the  Association  in  whose  hands 
it  has  been  for  more  than  fifty  years,  one  is 
struck  afresh  by  the  amount  of  forgetting 
which  is  going  on  in  the  world.     For  there 

-  ,,.    , .     .     .      seems  to  be  a   wide-spread  igno- 
A  Washington  3  '^  ,  ?      . 

Birthday  rance  as  to  the  actual  ownership  of 

I5^'?^"^^^*'^""~     the  place.     Some  newspapers  hand 

The  Mount  .        '  *      ^u      Tk         u*  c   *u 

Vernon  Ladies'       't   over  to  the  Daughters  of  the 

Association  "  and   American  Revolution,  and,  indeed, 
er  ^  member  of  that  society  has  been 

heard  to  say  blandly:  "Oh,  yes,  we  own 
Mount  Vernon  " ;  fancying,  of  course,  that  she 
w\is  correct  in  the  statement,  and  ignorant 
of  the  fact  that  there  is  one  woman's  patri- 
otic society  in  America  which  antedates  her 
own.  But  there  are  still  persons  living  w'ho 
remember  the  appeals  to  women  in  every 
town  and  village,  from  one  end  of  the 
United  States  to  the  other,  to  subscribe  the 
sum  of  one  dollar  apiece  for  the  purchase  of 
"The  Home  and  Grave  of  Washington." 

I  have  before  me  an  interesting  pam- 
phlet giving  a  sketch  of  Ann  Pamela  Cun- 
ningham, the  founder  of  "The  Mount  Vernon 
Ladies'  Association."  The  first  suggestion 
of  the  purchase  of  the  estate  came,  however, 
from  Miss  Cunningham's  mother,  although 
it  was  far  from  her  thoughts  or  wishes  that 
her  invalid  daughter  should  carry  the  enter- 
prise on  her  shoulders.  Going  down  the 
Potomac  one  evening  in  the  year  1853,  Mrs. 
Cunningham  noted,  in  the  moonlight,  the 
neglected  and  desolate  condition  of  Mount 
Vernon.  Reflecting  on  the  ruin  w^hich  was 
likely  to  overtake  the  place  unless  some 
speedy  effort  w'ere  made  to  save  it,  the  idea 
came  to  her  that  the  women  of  America 
should  ow^n  and  preserve  it.  She  suggested 
the  plan  in  a  letter  to  her  daughter,  and  Miss 
Cunningham  at  once  said:  "I  will  do  it." 
At  all  crucial  points  in  the  undertaking, 
when  the  impossible  had  to  be  accomplished, 
Miss  Cunningham  had  a  way  of  saying:  "I 
will  do  it."     And  she  always  made  good. 

She  started  the  movement  at  once,  but, 
being  a  gentlewoman  of  the  old  school,  could 
not  imagine  herself  coming  before  the  public 
in  her  own  person.  She  always  signed  her- 
self "The  Southern  Matron,"  and  it   was 


only  in  1858,  when  the  estate  had  finally 
been  purchased,  that  she  yielded  to  the  solic- 
itation of  Mr.  Everett  and  other  friends 
and  signed  a  public  letter  with  her  own 
name.  In  1861  she  was  horrified  to  see  a 
notice  of  herself  in  a  newspaper.  Her  re- 
turn to  South  Carolina  was  mentioned,  and 
her  sympathy  with  secession  was  assumed. 
She  wrote  to  a  friend:  "Conceive  of  my 
amazement  and  distress  when  the  paper  was 
handed  to  me.  You  know  my  horror  of 
publicity  for  a  lady — of  her  name  appearing 
in  the  newspapers  I  ...  It  was,  under  any 
circumstances,  most  improper  and  indeli- 
cate to  draw^  a  lady  into  the  political  arena; 
how^  much  more  to  do  it  in  connection  with 
her  relation  to  an  association  formed  to 
have  joint  ownership  and  guardianship  of 
the  grave  of  the  father  of  all — no  matter 
how  our  country  is  divided."  Which  shows 
that  this  South  Carolina  woman  was  not 
sectional  in  her  sympathies.  As  to  the  rest, 
her  times  were  indeed  different  from  ours, 
for  when,  in  1855,  Philadelphia  was  respond- 
ing enthusiastically  to  the  call  for  money  for 
the  purchase  of -Mount  Vernon,  the  leading 
men  of  that  city  suddenly  refused  any  sup- 
port to  the  movement,  "because  it  was  a 
w^oman's  effort,  and  they  disapproved  of 
women's  mixing  in  public  affairs." 

The  movement  was  at  first  started  wholly 
as  a  Southern  affair.  Southern  women  were 
to  raise  the  two  hundred  thousand  dollars 
for  the  purchase  of  the  property,  and  \ir- 
ginia  was  to  hold  it,  "the  ladies  to  have  it 
in  charge  and  adorn  it  if  they  could  have  the 
means."  Fortunately  the  owner,  ^Ir.  John 
Augustine  Washington,  refused  to  agree  to 
the  first  charter,  and  the  Northern  press  then 
began  to  notice  the  movement,  claiming 
that  it  should  be  a  national  one,  in  which 
the  Northern  States  should  aid.  Miss  Cun- 
ningham's patriotism  rose  to  the  occasion. 
As  she  wrote  later  concerning  the  first  ef- 
forts, they  failed  because  "Washington  be- 
longed not  alone  to  the  South";  while,  as 
she  went  on  to  say,  the  second  effort  failed 
because  "the  title  and  power  were  to  i)e 
given  to  one  State,  and  Washington  be- 
longed not  to  one  State  alone." 

An  invalid,  confined  to  Iht  room.   Miss 


4(X) 


The   Point  of  View 


Cunningham  started  the  enterprise,  found- 
ing "The  Mount  \'ernon  Ladies'  Associa- 
tion" in  1853.  From  tirst  to  hist  she  ac- 
cepted no  failure  or  rebutT.  Nor  did  she 
depend  on  her  pen  alone.  Was  her  presence 
required  at  Mount  \'ernon,  to  win  over  Mr. 
Washington;  at  Richmond,  to  persuade  the 
legislature;  or  at  Charleston,  Philadelphia, 
or  Washington,  to  those  places  she  went, 
sometimes  carried  on  a  bed.  A  woman  of 
great  intellectual  ability  and  force  of  char- 
acter, she  must  also  have  been  gifted  with 
unusual  charm;  for  obstacles,  apparently 
insuperable,  disappeared  before  her  personal 
appeal.  When  she  begged  Edward  Everett 
to  aid  her  he  found  her  arguments  so  con- 
vincing that  he  most  generously  devoted 
the  proceeds  of  his  lectures  to  the  cause  until 
he  placed  in  her  hands  the  sum  of  sixty- 
nine  thousand  dollars.  She  persuaded  Mr. 
Washington  to  part  with  Mount  Vernon; 
she  made  friends  in  Richmond,  and,  in  spite 
of  the  opposition  of  those  who  warned  the 
legislature  not  to  be  carried  out  of  its 
propriety  by  "sentiment  and  female  witch- 
ery," and  the  consequent  loss  of  one  bill, 
another  one  was  entered  and  carried  the 
next  year.  So  great  had  been  the  w^ar  and 
tear  of  the  struggle  that,  after  the  victory, 
it  seemed  as  if  Miss  Cunningham  might  die 
before  the  necessary  papers  could  be  signed. 
The  lawyers  and  her  friends  waited  in  an 
anteroom  for  her  to  rally  from  an  alarming 
attack,  and  finally  the  papers  were  read  in 
due  form,  and  then,  as  she  describes  it  in  a 
letter  to  a  friend:  ^'A  gentlemen  knelt  be- 
side my  couch  and  held  the  papers  for  my 
signature;  my  lifeless  fingers  could  hold  a 
pen  but  a  few  moments;  could  only  make 
two  or  three  letters  at  a  time."  No  wonder 
she  was  in  a  mental  stupor  for  three  weeks. 
She  roused  herself  to  raise  money  for  resto- 
ration and  repairs,  and  early  in  1858  issued 
the  appeal  which  was  the  first  to  be  signed 
with  her  own  name.  Before  the  work  had 
progressed  very  far  came  the  Civil  War. 
During  the  war  ]\Iiss  Cunningham  was  shut 
up  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time  in  her 
South  Carolina  home,  with  heavy  burdens 
of  private  affairs  on  her  shoulders,  but  as 
long  as  she  could  keep  in  communication 
with  the  agents  whom  she  had  left  in  charge 
at  Mount  Vernon  she  coiltinued  to  guide  its 
affairs.  She  directed  that  a  request  should 
be  made  of  the  commanders  of  both  armies 
to  give  a  pledge  for  the  safety  of  Mount 


Vernon,  and  this  appeal  doubtless  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  fact  that  the  spot  was 
held  sacred  by  both  armies. 

When  the  war  was  over  Miss  Cunning- 
ham and  her  vice-regents  at  once  renewed 
their  efforts  to  raise  money  for  the  restora- 
tion and  care  of  the  place.  Her  last  great 
effort  was  to  obtain  an  indemnity  for  the 
government  use  of  the  Mount  Vernon 
steamboat  during  the  four  years  of  the  war. 
She  went  to  Washington  and  to  the  Capitol, 
and,  although  she  "  had  not  for  twenty  years 
dared  to  walk  up  such  a  long  flight  of  steps," 
she  ventured  to  do  it.  She  had  to  climb 
those  steps  six  or  seven  times  during  the 
next  ten  days.  When  the  senator  who  was 
to  introduce  the  bill  told  her  that  he  could 
do  no  more;  that  no  member  of  his  commit- 
tee would  consent  to  ask  him  to  introduce 
the  bill  without  further  consideration,  he 
added:  ''But  you  can  do  it."  She  did  do  it. 
He  needed  three  members  of  the  committee 
to  empower  him  to  act.  She  selected  three 
from  the  list,  asked  them  one  by  one,  and 
each  one  assented  immediately  to  her  re- 
quest. On  another  day  she  went,  ill  with 
fever,  to  give  the  necessary  information  to 
enable  her  friend,  the  senator,  to  reply  to 
the  opposition,  since  every  one  seemed  to  be 
''as  ignorant  of  an  association  whose  work 
had  filled  the  newspapers  but  a  few  years 
before  as  if  America  had  not  been  the  scene 
of  action."  And,  after  all,  the  bill  did  not 
pass  at  that  time.  Again,  in  February, 
1869,  she  went  to  Washington,  and  in  March 
Congress  finally  granted  the  claim,  and  the 
association  received  seven  thousand  dollars 
with  which  to  repair  the  desolation  at 
Mount  Vernon.  Miss  Cunningham's  great 
work  was  done.  She  kept  the  regency  a 
few  years  longer  and  then,  in  1874,  resigned 
and,  as  her  biographer  says,  "left  Mount 
Vernon  with  just  strength  enough  to  reach 
Rosemont,"  her  Carolina  estate,  where  she 
died,  May  i,  1875. 


THE  constitution  of  the  association 
was  drawn  up  by  Miss  Cunningham. 
It  provides  for  "a  regent,  vice-re- 
gents, secretary  and  treasurer,  and  such 
subordinate  officers  as  may  be,  from  time  to 
time,  appointed."  One  vice-regent  was  to 
be  appointed,  "if  practicable,  from  each 
State  in  the  Union."  The  appointments 
are  for  life  and,  so  far,  there  have  been  but 


The  Point  of  View 


401 


four  regents,  the  last  one  elected  in  1009. 
Under  them  is  a  resident  superintendent 
who  has  his  assistant  superintendent,  head 
gardener,  and  such  other  officials  as  are 
needed.  The  Grand  Council,  composed  of 
the  regent  and  all  the  vice-regents, 
tJat"k)n"^'""'  meets  once  a  year  at  Mount  \'er- 

non,  where  the  ladies  remain  in 
residence  for  a  fortnight  or  more,  during 
which  time  they  carefully  go  over  all  details 
of  the  care  of  the  place.  They  have  never 
found  it  necessary  to  depart  from  the  scheme 
laid  down  by  their  first  regent.  In  Miss 
Cunningham's  farewell  address  she  said  to 
those  whom  she  was  leaving:  "The  Home 
of  Washington  is  in  your  charge;  see  to  it 
that  you  keep  it  the  Home  of  Washington. 
Let  no  irreverent  hand  change  it;  no  vandal 
hands  desecrate  it  with  the  fingers  of  prog- 
ress !  Those  who  go  to  the  home  in  which 
he  lived  and  died  wish  to  see  in  what  he 
lived  and  died.  Let  one  spot  in  this  grand 
country  of  ours  be  saved  from  change! 
Upon  you  rests  this  duty." 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  Mount  Vernon  is 
cared  for.  Everything  is  done  to  keep  it  in 
perfect  repair,  but  the  repairs  are  made  in 
accordance  with  the  period  of  the  place. 
The  visitor  sees  the  finished  result — the 
house  as  Washington  lived  in  it;  the  garden 
as  it  was  when  Mrs.  Washington  and  Nelly 
Custis  walked  along  its  paths.  He  sees 
nothing  of  the  infinity  of  pains  which  pro- 
duces this  result:  the  w'atchful  care  of  the 
mansion  and  the  tomb,  the  minute  attention 
to  trees  and  shrubs,  to  garden  and  farm,  to 
roads  and  drainage,  and,  finally,  the  way  in 
which  the  income  is  helped  out  by  gifts  from 
the  regents  of  every  manner  of  thing,  from 
furniture  and  relics  within  the  house  to  stone 
boundary  vails  without.  And  so,  not  see- 
ing, there  aie  some  restless  souls  who  would 
like  to  change  matters. 

It  is  from  the  entrance  fees  that  the  in- 
come for  the  care  of  the  estate  is  derived,  an 
income  none  too  large;  yet  there  has  been  a 
clamor  to  abolish  these  fees,  and  the  regents 
have  even  been  grotesquely  accused  of  di- 
viding and  pocketing  them.  Other  persons 
have  demanded  that  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment dc[)rive  the  association  of  its  char- 
ter and  turn  the  place  into  a  national  park. 
There  has  been  considerable  activity  in  this 
direction  during  the  past'year. 

When,  in  the  early  days  of  struggle,  Miss 
Cunningham  was  asked  what  qualifications 


were  necessary  for  acceptable  service  on  the 
board  of  regents,  the  reply  was:  "The  qual- 
ifications needed  on  the  part  of  a  lady  are 
that  she  shall  be  of  a  family  whose  social 
position  would  command  the  confidence  of 
the  State,  and  enable  her  to  enlist  the  aid  of 
persons  of  the  widest  influence.  She  must 
be  in  independent  circumstances,  as  the  of- 
fice is  not  a  salaried  one,  and  attending  the 
annual  meetings  would  involve  some  ex- 
pense. She  must  be  able  to  command  con- 
siderable leisure,  as  the  duties  will  require 
much  time  until  the  stipulated  funds  are 
raised.  She  should  also  possess  liberal  pa- 
triotism, energy  of  character,  cultivation  of 
mind,  and  such  a  combination  of  mental 
powers  as  will  insure  that  she  shall  wisely 
and  judiciously  exercise  the  power  of  voting 
in  Grand  Council  upon  the  future  guardian- 
ship and  improvement  of  Mount  Vernon." 

This  is  the  standard  up  to  which  the  re- 
gents have  always  conscientiously  tried  to 
live.  Is  there  any  government  office  which 
demands  such  qualifications?  Any  person 
who  knows  something  of  the  history  of 
Mount  Vernon  since  it  came  into  the  hands 
of  the  Association  is  satisfied  that  its  pres- 
ent regent  speaks  nothing  more  than  the 
truth  when  she  says  that  the  association 
has  for  more  than  half  a  century  "main- 
tained the  high  standards  that  have  from 
the  beginning  characterized  the  manage- 
ment of  this  Mecca  of  the  nation."  And 
that  "there  is  no  record  of  failure  on  the 
part  of  any  vice-regent  to  fulfil  these  in- 
herited obligations."  Where,  in  our  public 
service,  is  there  a  record  equal  to  this? 

Some  one  may  say  that  it  is  an  aristocratic 
administration.  What  of  it?  It  is  a  won- 
derful survival  of  the  best  traditions  of  the 
early  days  of  the  republic,  ard  is  itself  a 
part  of  the  sacred  relic  which  Ivlount  \'er- 
non  is  to  the  nation.  In  addition,  it  is  in  all 
probability  the  sort  of  administration  which 
would  best  please  that  aristocratic  repub- 
lican George  Washington,  and  ^Lirtha  his 
wife.  Where  could  their  tastes  be  more  ap- 
propriately consulted? 


IT  came  to  me  very  clearly  the  other  day 
in  reading  Herodotus  that  the  great 
need  of  our  present  civilization  is  for  a 
Delphic  Oracle.  We  show  plainly  enough 
that  we  yearn  for  authoritative  utterances 
on  all  such  subjects  as  art,  education,  poli- 


402 


The   Point  of  View 


tics,  and  {philosophy.  \Vc  accept  final  words 
almost  too  docilely  when  we  find  them — 
and  we  find  them  constantly — only  they  arc 
so  liable  to  change.  It  is  discouraging  to 
go  so  often  through  the  same  experience:  to 
be  told  an  eternal  truth,  to  learn  it  by 
Iraclcs  heart,  to  decide  that  on  this  subject 

at  least  we  need  never  again  do  the 
smallest  amount  of  thinking,  and  then  to 
find  that  something  entirely  different  and 
even  more  authoritative  has  been  promul- 
gated by  the  powers  that  be.  There  again 
is  one  of  our  great  difficulties.  The  Powers 
That  Be!  It  is  not  always  easy  to  reach 
the  critic  who  knows  absolutely  the  last 
fashion  in  art;  or  to  induce  some  hermit- 
scientist  to  tell  us  what  w-e  ought  to  be  ac- 
cepting as  scientific  truth. 

Fancy  how^  restful  it  would  have  been  last 
winter  if  we  could  have  sent  in  a  body  to  a 
good  dependable  oracle  and  asked:  ''Is  this 
Futurist  movement  in  art  anything  we  must 
really  trouble  ourselves  about?"  or  as  a 
friend  of  mine  would  more  succinctly  put  it, 
"Is  it  any  good?"  Imagine  the  amount  of 
unenlightening  discussion  that  a  definite 
reply  to  this  question  would  have  spared  us. 
Can  you  not  fancy  a  messenger  from  the 
present  administration  approaching  the 
pythoness  to  inquire  w^hether  the  proceeds 
from  the  income  tax  would  balance  the 
losses  in  revenue  consequent  on  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  tariff;  to  say  nothing  of  all  the 
personal  problems  of  manners  and  business 
and  love  with  which  our  daily  press  attempts 
to  deal  with  a  reasonableness  far  from  con- 
vincing? We  don't  want  to  be  taken  behind 
the  scenes;  we  don't  want  "  the  facts  set  be- 
fore us  so  that  we  can  judge  for  ourselves." 
We  want  to  be  told  yes  or  no. 

Some  superficial  thinkers  will  say  that 
the  age  lacks  faith,  and  that  without  faith 
an  oracle  is  impossible.  This  is  a  complete 
mistake.  The  ancients  themselves  were 
sceptical.  Nothing  could  be  more  scientific 
than  the  spirit  in  which  Croesus  tested  the 
oracles  before  he  decided  to  which  he  would 
submit  the  question  of  his  Persian  campaign. 
He  first  sent   messengers   to  all  the  best- 


recommended  oracles.  Exactly  one  hun- 
dred days  from  the  time  of  departure  each 
messenger  was  to  address  the  same  ques- 
tion to  the  shrine  to  which  he  had  been  ac- 
credited: What  was  the  king  doing  at  that 
time?  Observe  that  the  messengers  did 
themselves  not  know  the  answer.  This  is 
in  the  style  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search at  its  most  rigorous.  Probably,  at 
the  time  the  messengers  left  Sardis,  Croesus 
had  not  yet  decided.  He  did,  however, 
manage  to  think  of  an  unlikely  occupation. 
He  was  cooking  two  different  kinds  of  meat 
in  a  brass  vessel  with  a  brass  top.  Only  the 
oracles  at  Delphi  and  of  Amphiarg^us  were 
able  to  give  the  correct  reply. 

To  such  simple  tests  as  these  our  oracle 
would  of  course  be  subjected;  and  for  my 
part,  in  these  days  of  thought-transference, 
I  have  no  doubt  the  priestess  would  know 
the  answer  to  such  a  demand  as  ''What  was 
I  doing  a  year  ago  last  Easter?  "  But  if  her 
occult  powers  should  fail  her  in  an  emer- 
gency, such  a  reply  as  "Secretly  wishing  for 
that  which  once  had  been  yours  for  the  ask- 
ing," or,  *' Trying  in  vain  to  forget  what 
your  heart  forever  remembers,"  would  do 
very  well  with  nine  inquirers  out  of  ten. 
And  how  a  few  successes  would  run  like 
wildfire  over  the  country  and  be  written 
up  by  the  daily  papers! 

The  stage  setting  would  be  simple — a 
deep  cavern  in  some  rocky  range  preferably 
near,  but  not  too  near,  one  of  our  more  fash- 
ionable health  resorts;  a  young  woman  of 
pleasing  appearance  and  psychic  tempera- 
ment; a  tripod,  and,  since  a  pythoness  might 
still  be  regarded  as  requiring  a  python,  an 
amiable  snake. 

The  more  one  thinks  of  it,  the  more  the 
prospect  opens.  For  instance,  one  of  the 
minor  benefits  would  be  the  profession  of- 
fered to  a  class  of  people  who  as  things  are 
find  few  useful  employments  open  to  them 
— the  overeducated,  subtle  men  and  w^omen 
too  sensitive  for  drudgery  and  not  robust 
enough  for  creative  work.  They  would  be 
admirably  adapted  to  act  as  interpreters  of 
the  oracle's  replies. 


THE    FIELD    OF    ART 


Rock-Ribbed  Hills.      I)y  Gardner  Symons. 


THE  APPEAL  OF  THE  WINTER 
LANDSCAPE 

THE  art  of  the  landscape-painter  makes 
its  appeal  to  the  public  from  two 
widely  different  standpoints — each  le- 
gitimate in  its  way  and  each  finding  its 
source  in  one  of  the  fundamental  and  uni- 
versal instincts  of  the  human  race.  The 
first  and  by  far  the  more  usual  avenue  of 
approach  is  by  way  of  association  and  sug- 
gested sentiment.  Helen  and  John  strolling 
through  the  spring  academy  come  upon  a 
delightful  little  picture  of  the  woods  in  June, 
with  a  streamlet  meandering  through  I  he 
open  spaces,  rellecting  here  a  tree  and  there 
a  bit  of  sky  in  its  limpid  mirror.  It  reminds 
them  irresistibly  of  that  red-letter  day  long 
ago  when  they  wandered  together  through 
just  such  a  patch  of  woodland  and  seated 
themselves  upon  the  mossy  banks  of  just 
such  a  delightful  little  stream;  and  it  recalls 
Vol.  LV. — 42 


to  them  the  memorable  fact  that  they  came 
home  hand-in-hand  an  engaged  and  blissful 
couple. 

Although  it  means  many  a  small  sacrifice 
in  other  ways,  they  purchase  the  picture, 
and  install  it  in  the  breakfast-room,  where  it 
will  meet  their  gaze  morning  after  morning. 

There  were  other  canvases  which  im- 
pressed them  less  favorably — a  gray  day  in 
autumn,  for  instance,  which  left  them  op- 
pressed with  a  sense  of  sadness;  and  a  cer- 
tain snow  scene  which  positively  made  them 
shiver. 

They  derive  genuine  pleasure  from  their 
j)eriodic  rounds  of  the  picture-galleries — but 
their  pleasure  is  purely  derivative — the  re- 
sult of  association  and  suggestion.  They 
are  very  apt  to  demand  anectlotal  interest 
in  a  figure  picture,  and  a  landscape  must  re- 
call something,  or  suggest  some  experience 
of  their  own.     Their  interest  is  intellectual 

40s 


404 


The  Field  of  Art 


raihcr  than  artistic.  The  intrinsic  beauty 
of  the  work  itself  does  not  suffice. 

It  was  the  Johns  and  the  Helens  of  this 
world  who  placed  Raphael  on  a  pedestal  and 
kept  him  there  for  three  hundred  years, 
while  \'elasquez  and  Hals  and  Rembrandt 
and  \'ermeer  remained  in  outer  obscurity 
and  neglect.  In  the  generation  immediately 
preceding  our  own,  they  did  not  understand 
Turner.  Their  children  did  not  care  much 
for  Inness  and  they  allowed  John  Twacht- 
man  to  die  unrecognized.  Beauty  in  itself 
and  by  itself  made  no  appeal  to  them. 

There  is  another  class  of  picture-lovers, 
however, — smaller,  it  is  true,  than  the  group 
to  which  John  and  Helen  belong,  but  rapidly 
increasing  in  numbers  nevertheless — who  de- 
mand only  of  a  work  of  art  that  it  shall  be 
beautiful.  It  was  they  who,  some  fifty  years 
ago,  rediscovered  Velasquez;  who,  twenty- 
five  years  later,  found  in  the  forgotten 
corners  of  the  old  Dutch  galleries  certain 
pictures  by  an  unknown  painter  named 
Vermeer  of  Delft,  pictures  which  have  now 
taken  their  place  among  the  great  master- 
pieces of  the  world.  It  was  they  who  ac- 
claimed Constable  and  Millet  and  Corot  and 
Manet  when  these  great  artists  were  cav- 
iare to  the  vulgar.  They  possessed  the  true 
vision.  They  were  sensitive  to  beauty. 
They  recognized  it  whenever  and  wherever 
it  appeared,  and  hailed  its  creators  as  the 
''masters." 

Now,  just  as  false  standards  in  art  have 
frequently  dominated  humanity  for  long 
periods,  so  false  standards  have  sometimes 
been  used  for  generations  in  judging  nature's 
own  beauties;  and  the  decrees  rendered 
under  their  influence  have  been  repeated 
over  and  over  again  until  they  have  become 
traditional,  and  so  firmly  rooted  in  the  con- 
victions and  prejudices  of  the  race  that  even 
the  artist  is  affected  by  them  and  at  times 
doubts  the  verdict  of  his  own  vision. 

A  good  example  of  one  of  these  false  and 
misleading  world  traditions  is  that  which 
proclaims  the  tropical  landscape  to  be  na- 
ture's supreme  effort  in  the  domain  of  natur- 
al out-of-door  beauty,  and  which  classes  the 
landscape  of  the  temperate  zone  as  a  very 
poor  and  uninteresting  second  by  compari- 
son. Of  course  the  very  opposite  of  this  is 
true.  Any  one  who  has  resided  long  in  the 
tropics,  and  who  has  suffered  as  I  have  from 
the  barbaric  riot  of  tropical  color — the  howl- 
ing greens  and  blues  and  reds  and  yellows 


that  everywhere  afiflict  the  eye  in  equatorial 
regions — understands  why  the  only  really 
great  school  of  landscape-painting  which  the 
world  has  ever  seen  should  have  grown  up 
in  the  misty  north.  It  is  not  contrast  which 
makes  beauty,  but  harmony.  Contrast  is 
the  joy  of  the  savage;  harmony  the  delight 
of  the  civilized  man.  The  Patagonian  stalks 
triumphant  in  a  blanket  whose  alternate 
bands  are  of  bright  crimson  and  vivid  blue, 
but  the  cultivated  man  finds  his  highest  aes- 
thetic pleasure  in  subdued  tones  of  harmoni- 
ously blended  color.  It  is  at  least  open  to 
reasonable  doubt  if  the  most  vociferous  ef- 
forts of  our  post-impressionist  brothers  will 
succeed  in  wholly  destroying  our  taste  for 
the  work  of  Whistler  and  of  Botticelli. 

The  distinction  which  is  here  drawn  be- 
tween the  landscape  of  the  tropics  and  that 
of  the  temperate  zone  in  my  opinion  holds 
good  (if  in  a  somewhat  milder  degree)  when 
applied  to  our  own  American  landscape 
under  its  summer  and  its  winter  aspects. 
The  interest  which  John  and  Helen  found 
in  that  picture  of  the  woods  in  summer  was 
due  wholly  to  association  and  not  at  all  to 
the  intrinsic  beauty  of  the  picture  itself — 
for  of  that  the  canvas  had  little  or  none. 

The  crude  green  of  its  trees  contrasting 
with  the  crude  blue  of  its  summer  sky  made 
a  color  relation  that  was  anything  but  agree- 
able, for  blue  and  green  are  not  complemen- 
tary colors;  and  only  when  used  in  attenu- 
ated scale  and  handled  by  a  master  like  Corot 
can  they  be  fused  into  a  true  work  of  art. 
This  same  landscape,  however,  when  man- 
tled with  snow — its  white  vistas  stretching 
away  to  meet  the  deep  blue  of  the  winter 
sky— might  easily  have  furnished  the  motive 
for  a  work  of  art  of  the  first  order. 

And  herein  we  find  the  dividing  line  be- 
tween the  two  points  of  view  above  noted. 
In  the  first  it  is  sentiment  which  counts;  in 
the  second  beauty  pure  and  simple.  The 
first  is  intellectual;  the  second  visual.  The 
first  would  make  of  the  painter  a  story-teller ; 
the  second  demands  that  he  be  an  artist. 

And  it  is  the  growing  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  the  true  function  of  art  is  the 
creation  of  beauty  which  has  turned  the 
attention  of  so  many  of  our  first  landscape- 
painters  to  winter  subjects,  for  there  can  be 
no  question  that  the  inclement  season  of  the 
year,  which  is  least  productive  in  the  material 
sense,  is  by  far  the  most  productive  in  the 
artistic  sense.     Considered  in  terms  of  color 


The   Field  of  Art 


405 


and  of  decorative  line,  winter  is  far  more  hundred  limes  a  day  in  response  to  changes 

beautiful  than  summer.     It  would  almost  in  thecolorof  the  sky — for  the  sky  color  is  al- 

seem  as  if  kindly  mother  Nature,  desiring  to  ways  the  key-note  of  a  snow-scene.     And  its 

compensate  her  children  for  the  loss  of  the  response  to  this  color  call  will  invariably  be 

peas  and  the  peaches,  had  provided  them  the  complementary  color;  so  subtly  stated, 


The  Old  Inn  at  Cos-Cob.     By  Birge  Harrison. 


v/ith  a  special  feast  for  the  eyes  and  the 
spirit.  ''But  why,"  asks  Helen,  "should 
plain  white  snow  be  considered  more  beau- 
tiful than  the  lovely  green  of  summer  leaves? 
A  sheet  of  paper  is  clean  and  fresh  and  pleas- 
ant to  look  upon,  but  after  all  it  is  just  white 
paper." 

Ah!  There  you  are!  Snow  is  never  white! 
It  will  take  on  a  thousand  exquisite  and 
varied  tints — you  can  exhaust  the  vocabu- 
lary of  jewels  and  of  {lowers  in  attempt- 
ing to  describe  them  and  still  leave  more  than 
half  unmentioned  -  but  it  is  never  wliilc!  It  is 
an  instrument  upon  which  Nature  plays  won- 
derful color  symphonies,  with  never  a  harsh 
or  a  discordant  note.     It  changes  color  a 


however,  that  to  the  non-professional  eye 
the  snow  will  appear  to  remain  a  pure  and 
virgin  white. 

If  the  sky  is  yellow,  as  at  sunset,  the  snow 
will  reply  with  a  note  of  exquisite  lavender 
blue;  if  the  sky  is  blue,  the  snow  will  be  deli- 
cately yellow;  if  the  sky  is  greenish,  the 
snow  will  be  roseate  in  hue.  I  have  even 
seen  it  assume  an  unbelievable  tone  of  crim- 
son jMuk  in  reply  to  the  call  oi  a  violently 
emerald  sunset  sky. 

Hut  snow  has  still  another  attribute  which 
occasionally  interrupts  anil  varies  the  action 
of  this  general  law  of  complementaries.  In 
a  shy  and  gentle  way  it  rellects  adjacent 
color-masses  much  in  the  s;ime  way  as  water 


406 


Tlic  Field  of  Art 


rcllccls  nciir-by  objects.  So  ihat,  like  a  ca- 
pricious maiden,  the  snow  is  constantly  offer- 
ing surprises  even  to  the  trained  expert  who 
is  conversant  with  her  ways  and  her  gen- 
eral character.  It  therefore  behooves  the 
painter  to  bring  each  day  a  fresh  and  un- 
prejudiced vision  if  he  would  catch  her  most 
delightful  moods. 

At  one  time  it  was  my  unfortunate  lot  to 
reside  in  the  tropics  for  a  period  of  more 
than  ten  years.  When,  at  last,  I  came 
north  again  I  was  frankly  fascinated  by  the 
beauty  of  our  New  England  winter,  and  es- 
pecially when  the  whole  country  was  trans- 
figured and  glorified  by  the  white  beauty  of 
the  snow.  I  could  not  get  enough  of  it,  and 
like  a  Saint  Bernard  dog  returning  to  his 
own  I  rolled  in  the  white  drifts  for  the  pure 
joy  of  the  thing. 

During  my  ten  wandering  years  I  had 
sailed  more  than  once  around  the  world, 
visiting  almost  all  of  the  spots  which  have 
been  admired  for  their  rare  and  special 
beauty;  yet  I  found  the  snow-covered  hills 
of  New  England  more  beautiful  than  any 
of  these  famous  places  of  the  earth. 

Opposite  my  present  home  in  the  Catskills 
there  rises  a  wooded  and  rather  featureless 
hill,  at  the  foot  of  which  nestles  an  old  Dutch 
farmhouse.  When  it  is  clothed  in  its  usual 
garb  of  summer  green  no  one  would  suspect 
it  of  any  aesthetic  or  artistic  possibilities. 
But  when  the  snow  comes  its  climbing  pas- 
tures suddenly  develop  a  delightful  and  most 
interesting  pattern;  and,  as  its  white  mass 
stands  forth  against  the  ringing  blue  of  the 
December  sky,  it  makes  an  ideal  motive  for 
a  landscape-painter. 

At  sunrise  its  summit  receives  the  first 
rosy  kiss  of  the  mounting  sun,  while  all  else 
sleeps  in  amethystine  shadow.  At  noonday 
it  rises  pale  and  beautiful  through  the  sunny 


winter  haze — a  symphony  in  mother-of- 
pearl.  At  twilight  it  looms  a  mass  of  ultra- 
marine and  turquoise  against  a  sky  of  palest 
amber;  and  under  the  ghostly  light  of  the 
December  moon  it  floats  a  dream  mountain 
of  faintest  blue  against  the  deeper  blue  of 
the  midnight  sky.  I  have  painted  it  six 
times  under  as  many  different  effects,  and  I 
shall  probably  paint  it  as  many  times  again. 
Every  one  of  these  pictures  of ''  the  hill "  has 
been  sold  at  its  first  public  exhibition,  and  I 
am  convinced  that  were  I  to  make  a  picture 
of  the  hill  in  summer  it  would  go  the  weary 
rounds  of  the  exhibitions  for  years  unsold 
and  undesired— if,  indeed,  it  were  ever  ac- 
cepted by  the  exhibition  juries. 

No  one  certainly  would  find  any  touch  of 
beauty  in  its  crude  blue-and-green  contrasts. 
Even  John  and  Helen  would  pass  it  by,  as  it 
has  no  possible  human  or  anecdotic  interest 
to  feature  it — to  pull  it  out  of  the  slough. 

But  our  American  winter  landscape  is 
paintable  even  when  devoid  of  its  white 
mantle  of  snow.  The  general  color  of  the 
woods  and  the  fields  is  a  tender  russet-yel- 
low enlivened  with  a  brilliant  touch  of  rose 
or  orange  here  and  there.  This,  of  course, 
makes  a  delightful  color  harmony  against 
a  sky  that  has  in  it  the  faintest  tint  of  crys- 
tal-green, drawn  over  an  ashes-of-roses  un- 
derground. Indeed,  at  this  season  it  is  just 
about  as  difiicult  to  find  a  picture  motive 
which  is  not  beautiful  in  color  and  harmo- 
nious in  line  as  it  is  in  midsummer  to  dis- 
cover one  which  has  these  qualities.  But 
after  all  it  is  the  snow  which  gives  to  our 
winter  landscape  its  greatest  beauty;  and 
the  frequency  with  which  snow-scenes  are 
now  appearing  in  the  annual  exhibitions  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  our  landscape-painters 
have  discovered  this  cardinal  truth. 

BiRGE  Harrison. 


Fro}>t  a  photograph  by  Kerniit  Roosevelt. 

COLONEL  ROOSEVELT    AND  COLONEL   RONDON   ABOARD   THE  "NYOAC." 


ScRiBNER's  Magazine 


VOL.   LV 


APRIL,   1914 


NO.  4 


A   HUNTER-NATURALIST    IN   THE 
BRAZILIAN    WILDERNESS* 

BY  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
UP    THE    PARAGUAY 

Illustrations  from  photographs  by  Kermit  Roosevf.lt  and  other  members 

OF  the  expedition 


I — THE     START 

ONE  day  in  1908,  when  my  presi- 
dential term  was  coming  to  a  close, 
Father  Zahm,  a  priest  whom  I 
knew,  came  in  to  call  on  me.  Father  Zahm 
and  I  had  been  cronies  for  some  time,  be- 
cause we  were  both  of  us  fond  of  Dante 
and  of  history  and  of  science — I  had  al- 
ways commended  to  theologians  his  book, 
''Evolution  and  Dogma."  Moreover, 
both  of  us  had  a  taste  for  exploration;  and 
his  career  had  appealed  to  me  in  many 
ways.  He  was  an  Ohio  boy,  and  his  early 
schooling  had  been  obtained  in  old-time 
American  fashion  in  a  little  log  school; 
where,  by  the  way,  one  of  the  other  boys 
was  Januarius  Aloysius  Mac  Gahan,  after- 
ward the  famous  war-correspondent,  and 
friend  of  Skobeloff.  Father  Zahm  told 
me  that  Mac  Gahan  even  at  that  time 
added  an  utter  fearlessness  to  chivalric 
tenderness  for  the  weak,  and  was  the  de- 
fender of  any  small  boy  who  was  oppressed 
by  a  larger  one.  Later  Father  Zahm  was 
at  Notre  Dame  University,  in  Indiana, 
with  Maurice  Egan,  whom,  when  I  was 
President,  I  appointed  minister  to  Den- 
mark. 

*  CopyriKht,  1914,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York, 
U.  S.  A.  All  risjhts  reserved,  including  that  of  translation 
into  foreign  languages,  including  the  Scandinavian. 


On  the  occasion  in  question  Father 
Zahm  had  just  returned  from  a  trip  across 
the  Andes  and  down  the  Amazon,  and 
came  in  to  propose  that  after  I  left  the 
presidency,  he  and  I  should  go  up  the 
Paraguay  into  the  interior  of  South  Amer- 
ica. At  the  time  I  wished  to  go  to  Africa, 
and  so  the  subject  was  dropped;  but  from 
time  to  time  afterward  we  talked  it  over. 
Five  years  later,  in  the  spring  of  19 13, 
I  accepted  invitations  conveyed  through 
the  governments  of  Argentina,  Brazil,  and 
Chile  to  address  certain  learned  bodies  in 
these  countries.  Then  it  occurred  to  me 
that,  instead  of  making  the  conventional 
tourist  trip  purely  by  sea  round  South 
America,  after  I  had  finished  my  lectures, 
I  would  come  north  through  the  middle  of 
the  continent  into  the  valley  of  the  Ama- 
zon; and  I  decided  to  write  Father  Zahm 
and  tell  him  my  intentions.  Before  doing 
so,  however,  I  desired  to  see  the  authori- 
ties of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  in  New  York  City,  to  find  out 
whether  they  cared  to  have  me  take  a 
couple  of  naturalists  with  me  into  Brazil 
and  make  a  collecting  trip  for  the  mu- 
seum. 

Accordingly,  I  wrote  to  Frank  Chap- 
man, the  curator  of  ornithology  of  the 
museum,  and  accepted  his  invitation  to 


Si'EClAL   Notice. — These   articles   are   fully   protected   under  the  copyright  law,  wliich  iniposc>  a  severe  penalty  for 

infringement. 


Copyright,  1914,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.     All  rights  reserved. 
Printed  in  New  York. 


Vol.  LV.— 43 


407 


408 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


lunch  at  the  museum  one  day  early  in 
June.  At  the  lunch,  in  addition  to  vari- 
ous naturalists,  to  my  astonishment  I  also 
found  Father  Zahm;  and  as  soon  as  I  saw 
him  I  told  him  I  was  now  intending  to 
make  the  South  American  trip.  It  ap- 
peared that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
he  would  take  it  himself,  and  had  actually 
come  on  to  see  Mr.  Chapman  to  find  out 
if  the  latter  could  recommend  a  naturalist 
to  go  with  him;  and  he  at  once  said  he 
would  accompany  me.  Chapman  was 
pleased  when  he  found  out  that  we  in- 
tended to  go  up  the  Paraguay  and  across 
into  the  valley  of  the  Amazon,  because 
much  of  the  ground  over  which  we  were 
to  pass  had  not  been  covered  by  collectors. 
He  saw  Henry  Fairfield  Osborn,  the  presi- 
dent of  the  museum,  who  wrote  me  that 
the  museum  would  be  glad  to  send  under 
me  a  couple  of  naturalists,  whom,  with  my 
approval,  Chapman  would  choose. 

The  men  whom  Chapman  recommended 
were  Messrs.  George  K.  Cherrie  and  Leo 
C.  Miller.  I  gladly  accepted  both.  The 
former  was  to  attend  chiefly  to  the  or- 
nithology and  the  latter  to  the  mammal- 
ogy of  the  expedition;  but  each  was  to 
help  out  the  other.  No  two  better  men 
for  such  a  trip  could  have  been  found. 
Both  were  veterans  of  the  tropical  Amer- 
ican forests.  Miller  was  a  young  man, 
born  in  Indiana,  an  enthusiastic  natural- 
ist with  good  literary  as  well  as  scientific 
training.  He  was  at  the  time  in  the  Gui- 
ana forests,  and  joined  us  at  Barbados. 
Cherrie  was  an  older  man,  born  in  Iowa, 
and  at  the  time  a  citizen  of  Vermont.  He 
had  a  wife  and  six  children.  Mrs.  Cherrie 
had  accompanied  him  during  two  or  three 
years  of  their  early  married  life  in  his  col- 
lecting trips  along  the  Orinoco.  Their 
second  child  was  born  when  they  were  in 
camp  a  couple  of  hundred  miles  from  any 
white  man  or  woman.  One  night  a  few 
weeks  later  they  were  obliged  to  leave  a 
camping-place  where  they  had  intended 
to  spend  the  night,  because  the  baby  was 
fretful,  and  its  cries  attracted  a  jaguar, 
which  growled  nearer  and  nearer  in  the 
twilight  until  they  thought  it  safest  once 
more  to  put  out  into  the  open  river  and 
seek  a  new  resting-place.  Cherrie  had 
spent  about  twenty-two  years  collecting 
in  the  American  tropics.  Like  most  of 
the  field-naturalists  I  have  met,  he  is  an 


unusually  efficient  and  fearless  man ;  and 
willy-nilly  he  had  been  forced  at  times  to 
vary  his  career  by  taking  part  in  insur- 
rections. Twice  he  had  been  behind  the 
bars  in  consequence,  on  one  occasion 
spending  three  months  in  a  prison  of  a 
certain  South  American  state,  expecting 
each  day  to  be  taken  out  and  shot.  In  an- 
other state  he  had,  as  an  interlude  to  his 
ornithological  pursuits,  followed  the  ca- 
reer of  a  gun-runner,  acting  as  such  off  and 
on  for  two  and  a  half  years.  The  particu- 
lar revolutionary  chief  whose  fortunes  he 
was  following  finally  came  into  power,  and 
Cherrie  immortalized  his  name  by  naming 
a  new  species  of  ant-thrush  after  him — a 
touch  that  struck  me  as  delightful  be- 
cause of  its  practical  combination  of  those 
not  normally  kindred  pursuits,  ornithol- 
ogy and  gun-running. 

Cherrie  was  just  the  right  man  to  give 
us  practical  advice  about  the  particular 
kind  of  trip  we  intended  to  take. 

In  Anthony  Fiala,  a  former  arctic  ex- 
plorer, we  found  an  equally  good  man  for 
assembling  equipment  and  taking  charge 
of  the  actual  handling  of  the  expedition. 
At  the  time  Fiala  was  with  Rogers,  Peet  & 
Co.  In  addition  to  his  four  years  in  the 
arctic  regions,  Fiala  had  served  in  the  New 
York  Squadron  in  Porto  Rico  during  tlie 
Spanish  War,  and  through  his  service  in 
the  squadron  had  been  brought  into  con- 
tact with  his  little  Tennessee  wife.  She 
came  down  with  her  four  children  to  say 
good-by  to  him  when  the  steamer  left. 
My  secretary,  Mr.  Frank  Harper,  went 
with  us,  and  Jacob  Sigg,  who  had  served 
three  years  in  the  United  States  Army, 
and  was  both  a  hospital  nurse  and  a  cook, 
as  well  as  having  a  natural  taste  for  ad- 
venture. In  southern  Brazil  my  son 
Kermit  joined  me.  He  had  been  bridge- 
building,  and  a  couple  of  months  pre- 
viously, while  on  top  of  a  long  steel  span, 
something  went  wrong  with  the  derrick, 
he  and  the  steel  span  coming  down  to- 
gether on  the  rocky  bed  beneath.  He  es- 
caped with  two  broken  ribs,  two  teeth 
knocked  out,  and  a  knee  partially  dislo- 
cated, but  was  practically  all  right  again 
when  he  started  with  us. 

In  its  composition  ours  was  a  typical 
American  expedition.  Cherrie  and  Ker- 
mit and  I  were  of  the  old  Revolutionary 
stock,  Cherrie  being  of  Scotch-Irish  and 


l<f 


20 


TquiouePftV    '^^^   Rprto  .Muifinho<*^ 


30 


'orto  Aleyre 
D^A-^^'"prande  do  Sul 


10 


50 


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^^^LOJlij_AHZ,^0 


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30 


40 


^33?FALKLAND 


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Col.  RoQBerelt**  Rout^U  dioim' 


90" 


80"__Long^       70",    \VcBt     _60"      from       60°     fiiyea,  _M^'_ 


30' 


20° 


Colonel  Roosevelt's  route  up  the  Paraguay  into  the  Urazilian  wilderness. 


409 


410 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


Huguenot  descent,  and  we  not  only  of 
Dutch  but  of  about  every  other  strain 
of  blood  that  there  was  on  this  side  of 
the  water  during  colonial  times.  Father 
Zahm's  father  was  an  Alsacian  immi- 
grant, and  his  mother  was  partly  of  Irish 
and  i^artly  of  old  American  stock,  a  de- 
scendant of  a  niece  of  General  Braddock. 
Miller's  father  came  from  Germany,  and 
his  mother  from  France.  Fiala's  father 
and  mother  were  both  from  Bohemia, 
being  Czechs,  and  his  father  had  served 
four  years  in  the  Civil  War  in  the  Union 
Army — his  Tennessee  wife  w^as  of  old  Rev- 
olutionary stock.  Harper  was  born  in 
England,  and  Sigg  in  Switzerland.  We 
were  as  varied  in  religious  creed  as  in  eth- 
nic origin.  Father  Zahm  and  Miller  were 
Catholics,  Kermit  and  Harper  Episcopa- 
lians, Cherrie  a  Presbyterian,  Fiala  a  Bap- 
tist, Sigg  a  Lutheran,  while  I  belonged  to 
the  Dutch  Reformed  Church. 

For  arms  the  naturalists  took  i6-bore 
shotguns,  one  of  Cherrie's  having  a  rifle 
barrel  underneath.  The  firearms  for  the 
rest  of  the  party  were  supplied  by  Kermit 
and  myself,  including  my  Springfield  rifle, 
Kermit's  two  Winchesters,  a  405  and  30- 
40,  the  Fox  i2-gauge  shotgun,  and  an- 
other i6-gauge  gun,  and  a  couple  of  re- 
volvers, a  Colt  and  a  Smith  &  Wesson. 
W^e  took  from  New  York  a  couple  of  can- 
vas canoes,  tents,  mosquito-bars,  plenty  of 
cheese-cloth,  including  nets  for  the  hats, 
and  both  light  cots  and  hammocks.  Each 
equipped  himself  with  the  clothing  he  fan- 
cied. Mine  consisted  of  khaki,  such  as  I 
wore  in  Africa,  with  a  couple  of  United 
States  Army  flannel  shirts  and  a  couple  of 
silk  shirts,  one  pair  of  hob-nailed  shoes 
with  leggings,  and  one  pair  of  laced  leather 
boots  coming  nearly  to  the  knee.  Both 
the  naturalists  told  me  that  it  was  well  to 
have  either  the  boots  or  leggings  as  a  pro- 
tection against  snake-bites,  and  I  also  had 
gauntlets  because  of  the  mosquitoes  and 
sand-flies.  We  intended  where  possible 
to  live  on  what  we  could  get  from  time  to 
time  in  the  country,  but  we  took  some 
United  States  Army  emergency  rations, 
and  also  ninety  cans,  each  containing  a 
day's  provisions  for  six  men,  made  up  by 
Fiala. 

The  trip  I  proposed  to  take  can  be 
understood  only  if  there  is  a  slight  knowl- 
edge of  South  American  topography.    The 


great  mountain  chain  of  the  Andes  ex- 
tends down  the  entire  length  of  the  western 
coast,  so  close  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  that 
no  rivers  of  any  importance  enter  it.  All 
the  rivers  of  South  America  drain  into  the 
Atlantic.  Southernmost  South  America, 
including  over  half  of  the  territory  of  the 
Argentine  Republic,  consists  chiefly  of  a 
cool,  open  plains  country.  Northward  of 
this  country,  and  eastward  of  the  Andes, 
lies  the  great  bulk  of  the  South  American 
continent,  which  is  included  in  the  trop- 
ical and  the  subtropical  regions.  Most  of 
this  territory  is  Brazilian.  Aside  from 
certain  relatively  small  stretches  drained 
by  coast  rivers,  this  immense  region  of 
tropical  and  subtropical  America  east  of 
the  Andes  is  drained  by  the  three  great 
river  systems  of  the  Plate,  the  Amazon, 
and  the  Orinoco.  At  their  head  waters, 
the  Amazon  and  the  Orinoco  systems  are 
actually  connected  by  a  sluggish  natural 
canal.  The  head  waters  of  the  northern 
affluents  of  the  Paraguay  and  the  south- 
ern affluents  of  the  Amazon  are  sundered 
by  a  stretch  of  high  land,  which  toward 
the  east  broadens  out  into  the  central 
plateau  of  Brazil.  Geologically  this  is 
a  very  ancient  region,  having  appeared 
above  the  waters  before  the  dawning  of 
^the  age  of  reptiles,  or,  indeed,  of  any  true 
land  vertebrates  on  the  globe.  This  pla- 
teau is  a  region  partly  of  healthy,  rather 
dry  and  sandy,  open  prairie,  partly  of  for- 
est. The  great  and  low-lying  basin  of  the 
Paraguay,  which  borders  it  on  the  south, 
is  one  of  the  largest,  and  the  still  greater 
basin  of  the  Amazon,  which  borders  it  on 
the  north,  is  the  very  largest,  of  all  the 
river  basins  of  the  earth. 

In  these  basins,  but  especially  in  the 
basin  of  the  Amazon,  and  thence  in  most 
places  northward  to  the  Caribbean  Sea, 
lie  the  most  extensive  stretches  of  tropical 
forest  to  be  found  anywhere.  The^rests 
of  tropical  West  Africa,  and  of  portions  of 
the  Farther-Indian  region,  are  the  only 
ones  that  can  be  compared  with  them. 
Much  difficulty  has  been  experienced  in 
exploring  these  forests,  because  under  the 
torrential  rains  and  steaming  heat  the 
rank  growth  of  vegetation  becomes  almost 
impenetrable,  and  the  streams  difficult  of 
navigation ;  while  white  men  suffer  much 
from  the  terrible  insect  scourges  and  the 
deadly  diseases  which  modern  science  has 


A    I  lunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian   Wilderness 


111 


discovered  to  be  due  very  largely  to  in- 
sect bites.  The  fauna  and  flora,  ho\ve\'er, 
are  of  great  interest.  The  American  mu- 
seum was  particularly  anxious  to  obtain 
collections  from  the  divide  between  the 
head  waters  of  the  Paraguay  and  the  Ama- 
zon, and  from  the  southern  affluents  of  the 
Amazon.  Our  purpose  was  to  ascend  the 
Paraguay  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  head 


us  over  to  the  head  waters  of  the  afTluent 
of  the  Amazon  down  which  we  were  to  go, 
where  he  would  get  i)ad(llers  and  canoes 
for  us  and  probably  himself  go  with  us. 
He  was  at  the  time  in  Manaos,  but  his 
lieutenants  were  in  Caceres  and  had  been 
notihed  that  we  were  coming.  I  had 
to  travel  through  Brazil,  Uruguay,  the 
Argentine,   and   Chile  for  six   weeks  to 


luoiii  a  photograph  ta^e>i  aboard  l  he  steamship  "  I'anJycA'." 

Members  of  JMr.  Roosevelt's  expedition. 

From  left  to  ri^ht,  Anthony  I'iala,  George  K.  Cherrie,  Father  /^alini,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Keriuit  Roosevelt,  I-'rank  Harper, 

Leo  C.  Miller. 


of  navigation,  thence  cress  to  the  sources 
of  one  of  the  aflluents  of  the  Amazon,  and 
if  possible  descend  it  in  canoes  built  on 
the  spot.  The  Paraguay  is  regularly  nav- 
igated as  high  as  boats  can  go.  The  start- 
ing-point for  our  trip  was  to  be  Asuncion, 
in  the  state  of  Paraguay. 

My  exact  i)lan  of  oj)erations  was  nec- 
essarily a  little  indeflnite,  but  on  reaching 
Rio  de  Janeiro  the  minister  of  foreign 
"ffairs,  Mr.  Lauro  Muller,  who  had  been 
kinl  enough  to  take  great  personal  inter- 
est in  my  trij),  informed  me  that  he  had 
arranged  that  on  the  head  waters  of  the 
Paraguay,  at  the  town  of  Caceres,  T  would 
be  met  by  a  Brazilian  Army  colonel,  him- 
self chiefly  Indian  by  blood.  Colonel  Ron- 
don.  Colonel  Rondon  was  to  accompany 
Vol.  LV.— 44 


fulfll  my  s]:)eaking  engagements.  Fiala, 
Cherrie,  Miller,  and  Sigg  left  me  at  Rio, 
continuing  to  Ikienos  Aires  in  the  boat  in 
which  we  had  all  come  down  from  New 
York.  From  Buenos  Aires  they  went  uj) 
the  Paraguay  to  Caceres,  where  they  were 
to  await  me.  The  two  naturalists  went 
flrst,  to  do  all  the  collecting  that  was  pos.<i- 
ble;  Fiala  and  Sigg  tra\elled  more  leisure- 
ly, with  the  hea\y  baggage. 

During  the  two  months  before  start- 
ing from  .Asuncion,  in  I'araguay,  for  owv 
journey  into  the  interior,  1  was  kept  so 
l)us\'  that  I  had  si'ant  time  to  think  of 
natural  histor}-.  Hut  in  a  strange  land  a 
man  who  cares  for  wild  birds  and  wild 
beasts  always  sees  and  hears  something 


From  a  J-' 


■  y  Jiitr/e) 


Asuncion,  Paraguay. 


that  is  new  to  him  and  interests  him.  In 
the  dense  tropical  woods  near  Rio  Janeiro 
I  heard  in  late  October — springtime,  near 
the  southern  tropic — the  songs  of  many 
birds  that  I  could  not  identify.  But  the 
most  beautiful  music  was  from  a  shy 
woodland  thrush,  sombre-colored,  which 
lived  near  the  ground  in  the  thick  timber, 
but  sang  high  among  the  branches.  At  a 
great  distance  we  could  hear  the  ringing, 
musical,  bell-like  note,  long-drawn  and  of 
piercing  sweetness,  which  occurs  at  in- 
tervals in  the  song ;  at  first  I  thought  this 
was  the  song,  but  when  it  was  possible  to 
approach  the  singer  I  found  that  these 
far-sounding  notes  were  scattered  through 
a  continuous  song  of  great  melody.  I 
never  listened  to  one  that  impressed  me 


more.  In  different  places  in  Argentina 
I  heard  and  saw  the  Argentine  mock- 
ing-bird, which  is  not  very  unlike  our 
own,  and  is  also  a  delightful  and  remark- 
able singer.  But  I  never  heard  the  won- 
derful white-banded  mocking-bird,  which 
is  said  by  Hudson,  who  knew  well  the 
birds  of  both  South  America  and  Europe, 
to  be  the  song-king  of  them  all. 

Most  of  the  birds  I  thus  noticed  while 
hurriedly  passing  through  the  country 
were,  of  course,  the  conspicuous  ones. 
The  spurred  lapwings,  big,  tame,  boldly 
marked  plover,  were  everywhere;  they 
were  very  noisy  and  active  and  both  in- 
quisitive and  daring,  and  they  have  a  very 
curious  dance  custom.  No  man  need  look 
for  them.     They  will  look  for  him,  and 


l'7-07)i  a  photof^raph  by  K'ei-»nt  Roosevelt. 

The  Adolfo  Riquelmo,  the  government  gunboat-yacht  of  the  President  of  Paraguay,  on  which  Mr.  Roosevelt 

ascended  the  river. 
412 


A    Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian   Wilderness 


4 1:1 


when  they  find  him  ihcy  will  fairly  yell 
the  discovery  to  the  universe.  In  the 
marshes  of  the  lower  Parana  I  saw  flocks 
of  scarlet-headed  blackbirds  on  the  toi)s 
of  the  reeds;  the  females  are  as  strikingly 
colored  as  the  males,  and  their  jet-black 
bodies  and  brilliant  red  heads  make  it 
impossible  for  them  to  escape  observation 
among  their  natural  surroundings.  On 
the  plains  to  the  west  I  saw  flocks  of  the 
beautiful  rose-breasted  starlings;  unlike 
the  red-headed  black- 
birds, which  seemed 
fairly  to  court  atten- 
tion, these  starlings 
sought  to  escape  obser- 
vation by  crouching  on 
the  ground  so  that  their 
red  breasts  were  hidden. 
There  were  yellows- 
shouldered  blackbirds 
in  wet  places,  and  cow- 
buntings  abounded. 
But  the  most  conspic- 
uous birds  I  saw  were 
members  of  the  family 
of  Tyrant  Flycatchers, 
of  which  our  o\vn  king- 
bird is  the  most  familiar 
example.  This  family 
is  very  numerously  rep- 
resented in  Argentina, 
both  in  species  and  in- 
dividuals. Some  of  the 
species  are  so  striking,  both  in  color  and 
habits,  and  in  one  case  also  in  shape,  as 
to  attract  the  attention  of  even  the  unob- 
servant. The  least  conspicuous,  and  never- 
theless very  conspicuous,  among  those  that 
I  saw  w'as  the  Bientevido,  which  is  brown 
above,  yellow  beneath,  with  a  boldly 
marked  black  and  white  head,  and  a  yellow' 
crest.  It  is  very  noisy,  is  common  in  the 
neighborhood  of  houses,  and  builds  a  big 
domed  nest.  It  is  really  a  big,  heavy 
kingbird,  fiercer  and  more  powerful  than 
any  Northern  kingbird.  I  saw  them  as- 
sail not  only  the  big  but  the  small  hawks 
with  fearlessness,  driving  them  in  head- 
long flight.  They  not  only  cai)ture  in- 
sects, but  j)ounce  on  mice,  small  frogs, 
lizards,  and  little  snakes,  rob  birds'  nests 
of  the  fledgling  young,  and  catch  tadi)oles 
and  even  small  flsh.  Two  of  these  tyrants 
which  I  observed  are  like  two  with  which  1 
grew  fairly  familiar  in  Texas.    The  scissor- 


tail  is  common  throughout  the  open  coun- 
try, and  the  long  tail  feathers,  which  seem 
at  times  to  hamper  its  flight,  attract  atten- 
tion whether  the  bird  is  in  flight  or  perched 
on  a  tree,  and  it  has  a  habit  of  occasion- 
ally soaring  into  the  air  and  descending  in 
loops  and  spirals.  The  scarlet  tyrant  I 
saw  in  the  orchards  and  gardens.  The 
male  is  a  fascinating  little  bird,  coal- 
black  above,  while  its  crested  head  and  the 
body  beneath  are  brilliant  scarlet.     He 


Fyo»t  a  pholograph  by  Harper. 

W'ood-ibis  on  a  tree  on  tlie  river-bank. 


utters  his  rapid,  low-voiced  musical  trill 
in  the  air,  rising  with  fluttering  wings  to  a 
height  of  a  hundred  feet,  ho\ering  while 
he  sings,  and  then  falling  back  to  earth. 
The  color  of  the  bird  and  the  character 
of  his  performance  attract  the  attention 
of  every  observer,  bird,  beast,  or  man, 
within  reach  of  vision.  The  red-backed 
tyrant  is  utterly  unlike  any  of  his  kind  in 
the  United  States,  and  until  I  looked  him 
up  in  Sclater  and  Hudson's  ornithology  I 
never  dreamed  that  he  belonged  to  this 
family.  He — for  only  the  male  is  so 
brightly  colored — is  coal-black  with  a  dull- 
red  back.  I  saw  these  birds  on  December 
I  near  Barillode,  out  on  tin-  bare  Pata- 
gonia })lains.  They  behaxed  like  i)ii)its 
or  longsi)urs,  running  actixely  o\er  the 
ground  in  the  same  manner  and  showing 
the  same  restlessness  and  the  same  kind 
of  flight.  Hut  whereas  j)ipils  are  incon- 
spicuous, the  red-backs  at  once  attra«  ted 


114 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


attention  by  the  contrast  between  their 
bold  coloring  and  the  grayish  or  yellowish 
tones  of  the  ground  along  which  they  ran. 
The  sil\er-bill  tyrant,  however,  is  much 
more  conspicuous;  I  saw  it  in  the  same 
neighborhood  as  the  red-back  and  also 
in  many  other  places.  The  male  is  jet- 
black,  with  white  bill  and  wdngs.  He 
runs  about  on  the  ground  like  a  pipit,  but 
also  frequently  perches  on  some  bush  to 
go  through  a  strange  flight-song  perform- 
ance. He  perches  motionless,  bolt  up- 
right, and  even  then  his  black  coloring 
advertises  him  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
round  about.  But  every  few  minutes  he 
springs  up  into  the  air  to  the  height 
of  twenty  or  thirty  feet,  the  white  wings 
flashing  in  contrast  to  the  black  body, 
screams  and  gyrates,  and  then  instantly 
returns  to  his  former  post  and  resumes 
his  erect  pose  of  waiting.  It  is  hard  to 
imagine  a  more  conspicuous  bird  than  the 
silver-bill;  but  the  next  and  last  tyrant 
flycatcher  of  which  I  shall  speak  possesses 
on  the  w^hole  the  most  advertising  color- 
ation of  any  bird  I  have  ever  seen  in  the 
open  country,  and  moreover  this  adver- 
tising coloration  exists  in  both  sexes  and 
throughout  the  year.  It  is  a  brilliant 
white,  all  over,  except  the  long  wing  quills 
and  the  ends  of  the  tail,  which  are  black. 
The  first  one  I  saw,  at  a  very  long  dis- 
tance, I  thought  must  be  an  albino.  It 
perches  on  the  top  of  a  bush  or  tree  watch- 
ing for  its  prey,  and  it  shines  in  the  sun 
like  a  silver  mirror.  Every  hawk,  cat,  or 
man  must  see  it ;  no  one  can  help  see- 
ing it. 

These  common  Argentine  birds,  most 
of  them  of  the  open  country,  and  all  of 
them  with  a  strikingly  advertising  color- 
ation, are  interesting  because  of  their 
beauty  and  their  habits.  They  are  also 
interesting  because  they  offer  such  illu- 
minating examples  of  the  truth  that  many 
of  the  most  common  and  successful  birds 
not  merely  lack  a  concealing  coloration, 
but  possess  a  coloration  which  is  in  the 
highest  degree  revealing.  The  colora- 
tion and  the  habits  of  most  of  these  birds 
are  such  that  every  hawk  or  other  foe 
that  can  see  at  all  must  have  its  attention 
attracted  to  them.  Evidently  in  their 
cases  neither  the  coloration  nor  any  habit 
of  concealment  based  on  the  coloration  is 
a  survival  factor,  and  this  although  they 


live  in  a  land  teeming  with  bird-eating 
hawks.  Among  the  higher  vertebrates 
there  are  many  known  factors  which  have 
influence,  some  in  one  set  of  cases,  some  in 
another  set  of  cases,  in  the  development 
and  preservation  of  species.  Courage,  in- 
telligence, adaptability,  prowess,  bodily 
vigor,  speed,  alertness,  ability  to  hide,  abil- 
ity to  build  structures  which  will  protect, 
the  young  while  they  are  helpless,  fecund- 
ity— all,  and  many  more  like  them,  have 
their  several  places;  and  behind  all  these 
visible  causes  there  are  at  work  other  and 
often  more  potent  causes  of  which  as  yet 
science  can  say  nothing.  Sorne  species 
owe  much  to  a  given  attribute  which  may 
be  wholly  lacking  in  influence  on  other 
species;  and  every  one  of  the  attributes 
above  enumerated  is  a  survival  factor  in 
some  species,  while  in  others  it  has  no 
survival  value  whatever,  and  in  yet  others, 
although  of  benefit,  it  is  not  of  sufficient 
benefit  to  offset  the  benefit  conferred  on 
foes  or  rivals  by  totally  different  attri- 
butes. Intelligence,  for  instance,  is  of 
course  a  survival  factor;  but  to-day  there 
exist  multitudes  of  animals  with  very  little 
intelligence  which  have  persisted  through 
immense  periods  of  geologic  time  either 
unchanged  or  else  without  any  change 
in  the  direction  of  increased  intelligence; 
and  during  their  species-life  they  have 
witnessed  the  death  of  countless  other 
species  of  far  greater  intelligence  but  in 
other  ways  less  adapted  to  succeed  in  the 
environmental  complex.  The  same  state- 
ment can  be  made  of  all  the  many,  many 
other  known  factors  in  development,  from 
fecundity  to  concealing  coloration;  and 
behind  them  lie  forces  as  to  which  we  veil 
our  ignorance  by  the  use  of  high-sounding 
nomenclature — as  when  we  use  such  a 
convenient  but  far  from  satisfactory  term 
as  orthogenesis. 

II — UP    THE    PARAGUAY 

On  the  afternoon  of  December  9  we 
left  the  attractive  and  picturesque  city  of 
Asuncion  to  ascend  the  Paraguay.  With 
generous  courtesy  the  Paraguayan  Gov- 
ernment had  put  at  my  disposal  the  gun- 
boat-yacht of  the  President  himself,  a 
most  comfortable  river  steamer,  and  so 
the  opening  days  of  our  trip  were  pleasant 
in  every  way.     The  food  was  good,  our 


V 


••"Si' 


■'i\ 


4 


i 


•P.-> 


Fyo}n  a  j>hotogyaj)ii,  by  Kerinit  Roosevelt. 


Indians  rolling  logs  at  wood  station. 


quarters  were  clean,  we  slept  well,  below 
or  on  deck,  usually  without  our  mosquito 
nettings,  and  in  daytime  the  deck  was 
pleasant  under  the  awnings.  It  was  hot, 
of  course,  but  wt  were  dressed  suitably 
in  our  exploring  and  hunting  clothes  and 
did  not  mind  the  heat.  The  river  was 
low,  for  there  had  been  dry  weather  for 
some  weeks — judging  from  the  vague 
and  contradictory  information  I  received 
there  is  much  elasticity  to  the  terms  wet 
season  and  dry  season  at  this  part  of  the 


Paraguay.  Under  the  brilliant  sky  we 
steamed  steadily  up  the  mighty  river;  the 
sunset  was  glorious  as  we  leaned  on  the 
port  railing;  and  after  nightfall  the  moon, 
nearly  full  and  hanging  high  in  the 
heavens,  turned  the  water  to  shimmering 
radiance.  On  the  mud-fiats  and  sand- 
bars, and  among  the  green  rushes  of  the 
bays  and  inlets,  were  stately  waterfowl; 
crimson  flamingoes  and  rosy  spoonbills, 
dark-colored  ibis  and  white  storks  with 
black   wings.      Darters,    with    snakelike 


From  a  piioto^i^rtrpJi  by  K'e}->/iit  Koosevc/L 


416 


Palms  along  the  bank  of  the  river. 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  tlie   Brazilian  Wilderness 


41 


they  been  so  tortured  as  in  tlic  Chaco. 
'rhL'sand-llics  crawled  throu^^h  the  nieslies 
in  the  moscjuito-nets.and  forbade  them  to 
sleej);  if  in  their  sleej)  a  knee  touched  the 
net  the  moscjuitoes  fell  on  it  so  that  it 
looked  as  if  riddled  by  birdshot;  and  the 


necks  and  pointed  bills,  perched  in  the 
trees  on  the  brink  of  the  ri\er.     Sno\v\' 
egrets  flapped  across  the  marshes.    Cay- 
mans were  common,  and  ditTered  from  the 
crocodiles  we  had  seen  in  Africa  in  two 
])oints:  they  were  not  alarmed  by  the  re- 
l)ort  of  a  rifle  when  fired  at, 
and  they  lay  with  the  head 
raised  instead  of  stretched 
along  the  sand. 

For  three  days,  as  we 
steamed  northward  toward 
the  Tropic  of  Capricorn,  and 
then  passed  it,  we  were  with- 
in the  Re])ublicof  Paraguay. 
On  our  right,  to  the  east,  there 
was  a  fairly  well-settled 
country,  where  bananas  and 
oranges  were  cultivated  and 
other  cro])s  of  hot  countries 
raised.  On  the  banks  we 
passed  an  occasional  small 
town,  or  saw  a  ranch-house 
close  to  the  river's  brink,  or 
stopped  for  wood  at  some 
little  settlement.  Across 
the  river  to  the  west  lay  the 
level  swampy,  fertile  wastes 
known  as  the  Chaco,  still 
given  over  either  to  the  wild 
Indians  or  to  cattle-ranching 
on  a  gigantic  scale.  The 
broad  river  ran  in  curves  l)e- 
tween  mud-banks  where  ter- 
races marked  successive 
periods  of  flood.  A  belt  of 
forest  stood  on  each  bank, 
but  it  was  only  a  couple  of 
hundred  yards  wide.  Back 
of  it  was  the  open  country; 
on  the  Chaco  side  this  was 
a  vast  })lain  of  grass  dotted 
with  tall,  graceful  ])alms.  In 
l)laces  the  belt  of  forest  van- 
ished and  the  ])alm-dotted  prairie  came  days  were  a  torment,  although  they  had 
to  the  river's  edge.  The  Chaco  is  an  done  well  in  their  work,  collecting  some 
ideal  cattle  country,  and  not  really  un-  two  hundred  and  fifty  specimens  of  birds 
healthy.    It  will  be  c()\ered  with  ranches    and  mammals. 


Woman  wa-^hins  clothes  in  the  river. 


at  a  not  distant  day.  Jkit  moscjuitoes  and 
many  other  winged  insect  pests  swarm 
over  it.  Cherrie  and  Miller  had  si)cnl  a 
week  there  collecting  mammals  and  birds 
prior  to  my  arrival  at  Asuncion.  They 
were  veterans  of  the  tro])ics,  hardened  to 
the  insect  ])lagues  of  (iuiana  and  the  Ori- 
noco.    But  they  re[)orte(l  that  never  had 


Ne\'ertheless  for  some  as  yet  inscrutable 
reason  the  rixer  ser\  ed  as  a  barrier  to  cer- 
tain insects  which  are  menaces  to  the  cat- 
tle men.  With  me  on  the  gunbi)at  was  an 
old  Western  friend,  Tex  Rickard,  of  the 
Panhandle  and  Alaska  and  various  places 
in  between.  He  now  has  a  large  tract  o\ 
land  and  some  thirty-live  thou.sand  head 


418 


A    Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


Fro)}i  a  photograph  by  Kerinit  J\o<xs£vcU, 

Paraguayan  gaucho  (cowboy). 

of  cattle  in  the  Chaco,  opposite  Concep- 
cion,  at  which  city  he  was  to  stop.  He 
told  me  that 
horses  did  not 
do  well  in  the 
Chaco  but  that 
cattle  throve, 
and  that  while 
ticks  swarmed 
on  the  east  bank 
of  the  great  riv- 
er, they  would 
not  live  on  the 
west  bank. 
Again  and  again 
he  had  crossed 
herds  of  cattle 
which  were  cov- 
ered with  the 
loathsome  blood- 
suckers;  and 
in  a  couple  of 
months  every 
tick  would  be 
dead.  The  worst 
animal  foes  of 
man,  indeed  the 
only  dangerous 
foes,  are  insects; 
and  this   is  es- 


pecially true  in  the  tropics. 
Fortunately,  exactly  as  cer- 
tain differences  too  minute  for 
us  as  yet  to  explain  render 
some  insects  deadly  to  man 
or  domestic  animals,  while 
closely  allied  forms  are  harm- 
less, so,  for  other  reasons, 
which  also  we  are  not  as  yet 
able  to  fathom,  these  insects 
are  for  the  most  part  strictly 
limited  by  geographical  and 
other  considerations.  The 
war  against  what  Sir  Harry 
Johnston  calls  the  really  ma- 
terial devil,  the  devil  of  evil 
wild  nature  in  the  tropics,  has 
been  waged  with  marked  suc- 
cess only  during  the  last  two 
decades.  The  men,  in  the 
United  States,  in  England, 
France,  Germany,  Italy — the 
men  like  Doctor  Cruz  in  Rio 
Janeiro  and  Doctor  Vital  Bra- 
zil in  Sao  Paulo — who  work 
experimentally  within  and 
without  the  laboratory  in 
their  warfare  against  the  disease  and  death 
bearing  insects  and  microbes,  are  the  true 


Froin  a  pilot og yap h  by  IIa>pe>-. 


Man-eating  fish,  piranha. 
Note  the  razor-edgetl  teeth. 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  In  the  Brazilian  Wilderness 


419 


leaders  in  the  fight  to  make  the  troi)ics  the 
home  of  civilized  man. 

Late  on  the  evening  of  the  second  day  of 
our  trip,  just  l^efore  midnight,  we  reached 
Concepcion.  On  this  day,  when  we  stopped 
for  wood  or  to  get  provisions — at  pic- 
turesque places,  where  the  women  from 
rough  mud  and  thatched  cabins  were 
washing  clothes  in  the  river,  or  where  rag- 


devour  ali\'e  any  wounded  man  or  beast; 
for  l)lo()d  in  the  water  excites  them  t(j  mad- 
ness. They  will  tear  wounded  wild  fowl  to 
])ieces;  and  bite  olT  the  tails  of  big  hsh  as 
they  grow  exhausted  when  lighting  after 
being  hooked.  Miller,  before  I  reached 
Asuncion,  had  been  badly  bitten  by  one. 
Those  that  we  caught  sometimes  bit 
through  the  hooks,  or  the  double  strands 


From  a  photograph  by  Harper. 


A  street  in  Concepcion. 


ged  horsemen  stood  gazing  at  us  from  the 
bank,  or  where  dark,  well-dressed  ranch- 
men stood  in  front  of  red-roofed  houses — 
we  caught  many  fish.  They  belonged  to 
one  of  the  most  formidable  genera  of  fish 
in  the  world,  the  piranha  or  cannibal  fish, 
the  fish  that  eats  men  when  it  can  get  the 
chance.  Farther  north  there  are  species 
of  small  piranha  that  go  in  schools.  At 
this  point  on  the  Paraguay  the  piranha  do 
not  seem  to  go  in  regular  schools,  but  they 
swarm  in  all  the  waters  and  attain  a  length 
of  eighteen  inches  or  over.  Hiey  are  the 
most  ferocious  fish  in  the  world.  Even 
the  most  formidable  fish,  the  sharks  or  the 
barracudas,  usually  attack  things  smaller 
than  themselves.  But  the  j)iranhas  ha- 
bitually attack  things  much  larger  than 
themselves.  They  will  snap  a  linger  off  a 
hand  incautiously  trailed  in  the  water; 
they  mutilate  swimmers— in  every  river 
town  in  Paraguay  there  are  men  who  ha\e 
been  thus  mutilated;  they  will  rend  and 


of  copper  wire  that  ser\'ed  as  leaders,  and 
got  away.  Those  that  we  hauled  on  deck 
lived  for  many  minutes.  Most  predatory 
fish  are  long  and  slim,  like  the  alligator 
and  ])ickerel.  But  the  i)iranha  is  a  short, 
deep-bodied  fish,  with  a  blunt  face  and  a 
heavily  undershot  or  projecting  lower  jaw 
which  gapes  widel}'.  The  razor-edged 
teeth  are  wedge-shaped  like  a  shark's,  and 
the  jaw  muscles  ])ossess  great  power.  The 
rabid,  furious  snaps  dri\e  the  teeth 
through  flesh  and  bone.  The  head  with 
its  short  muzzle,  staring  malignant  eyes, 
and  ga])ing,  cruelly  armed  jaws,  is  the  em- 
bodiment of  e\il  ferocity;  and  the  actions 
of  the  fish  exactly  match  its  looks.  I 
ne\er  witnessed  an  exhil)itit)n  of  such  im- 
l)()tent,  sa\age  fury  as  was  shown  by  the 
piranhas  as  they  napi)e(l  on  deck.  When 
fresh  from  the  water  and  thrown  on 
the  boards  they  uttered  an  extrat)rdinary 
s(|uealing  sound.  As  they  flap|)ed  about 
thev  bit  with  vicious  eagerness  at  what- 


420 


A    Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


c\cr presented  itself.  One ol  them  flapped 
into  a  cloth  and  seized  it  with  a  bull- 
dog grip.  Another  grasped  one  of  its  fel- 
lows; another  snai)i)ed  at  a  piece  of  wood, 
and  left  the  teeth-marks  deep  therein. 
They  are  the  pests  of  the  waters,  and  it  is 
necessary  to  be  exceedingly  cautious  about 
either  swimming  or  wading  where  they  are 
found.  If  cattle  are  dri\'en  into,  or  of 
their  own  accord  enter,  the  water,  they  are 
commonly  not  molested;  but  if  by  chance 
some  unusually  big  or  ferocious  specimen 
of  these  fearsome  fishes  does  bite  an  ani- 
mal— taking  off  an  ear,  or  perhaps  a  teat 
from  the  udder  of  a  cow — the  blood  brings 
up  every  member  of  the  ravenous  throng 
which  is  anywhere  near,  and  unless  the  at- 
tacked animal  can  immediately  make  its 
escape  from  the  water  it  is  devoured  alive. 
Here  on  the  Paraguay  the  natives  hold 


them  in  much  respect,  whereas  the  cay- 
mans are  not  feared  at  all.  The  only  re- 
deeming feature  about  them  is  that  they 
are  themselves  fairly  good  to  eat,  although 
with  too  many  bones. 

At  daybreak  of  the  third  day,  finding  we 
were  still  moored  off  Concepcion,  we  were 
rowed  ashore  and  strolled  off  through  the 
streets  of  the  quaint,  picturesque  old 
town;  a  town  which,  like  Asuncion,  was 
founded  by  the  Conquistadores  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  before  our  own  Eng- 
lish and  Dutch  forefathers  landed  in  what 
is  now  the  United  States.  The  Jesuits 
then  took  practically  complete  p'ossession 
of  what  is  now  Paraguay,  controlling  and 
Christianizing  the  Indians,  and  raising 
their  flourishing  missions  to  a  pitch  of 
prosperity  they  never  elsewhere  achieved. 
They  were  expelled  by  the  civil  authori- 


l-yo»i  a  photo^rapli  by  Keriiiit  Rooscxielt. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  and  officials  at  Concepcion. 


A    Hunter-Naturalist  in  tlic   Brazilian   Wilderness 


421 


ties  (backed  by  the  other  representatives 

of  ecclesiastical  authority)  some  fifty  years 
before  Si)anish  South  America  l)ecame  in- 
dependent. But  they  had  already  made 
the  lanpjuafije  of  the  Indians,  Guarany, 
a  culture-ton<^ue,  reducing  it  to  \vritin<i;, 
and  printing  religious  books  in  it.  Gua- 
rany is  one  of  the  most  wide-spread  of  the 


ture;  while  the  upper  classes  are  ])rcdom- 
inantly  white,  with  a  strong  infusion  of 
Indian.  There  is  no  other  case  c|uite  par- 
allel to  this  in  the  annals  of  Euroi)ean  col- 
onization, although  the  Goanese  in  India 
have  a  native  tongue  and  a  Portuguese 
creed,  while  in  several  of  the  Si)anish- 
American  states  the  Indian  blood  is  dom- 


From  a  photograph  by  Kerniit  Roosevelt. 

Paraguaj'an  horseman  at  Concepcion  with  spurs  attached  to  his  bare  feet 


Indian  tongues,  being  originally  found  in 
various  closely  allied  forms  not  only  in 
Paraguay  but  in  Uruguay  and  over  the 
major  part  of  Brazil.  It  remains  here  and 
there,  as  a  lingua  geral  at  least,  and  doubt- 
less in  cases  as  an  original  tongue,  among 
the  wild  tribes;  in  most  of  Brazil,  as 
around  Para  and  around  Sao  Paulo,  it  has 
left  its  traces  in  place-names,  but  has  been 
C()m])letely  superseded  as  a  language  by 
Portuguese;  ])ut  in  Paraguay  it  still  ex- 
ists side  by  side  with  Spanish  as  the  com- 
mon language  of  the  lower  i)e()j)le  and  as  a 
familiar  tongue  among  the  upper  classes. 
The  blood  of  the  j)e()i)le  is  mixed,  their 
language  dual ;  the  lower  classes  arechielly 
of  Indian  blood  but  with  a  white  admix- 


inant  and  the  majority  of  the  population 
speak  an  Indian  tongue,  perhaps  itself, 
as  with  the  Quichuas,  once  a  culture- 
tongue  of  the  archaic  type.  Whether  in 
Paraguay  one  tongue  will  ultimately  drive 
out  the  other,  and  if  so  which  will  be  the 
\ictor,  it  is  yet  too  early  to  j)rophesy. 
The  English  missionaries  and  the  Bible 
Society  have  recently  ])ublishe(l  parts  of 
the  Scriptures  in  (iuarany;  and  in  Asun- 
cion a  daily  ])aper  is  published  with  the 
text  in  ])arallel  columns,  Spanish  and 
Guarany  —just  as  in  Oklahoma  there  is  a 
similar  paper  i)ul)lished  in  English  and  in 
the  tongue  which  the  extraordinary  Cher- 
okee chief  Se((Uoia,  a  veritable  Gadmus, 
made  a  literary  language. 


422 


A    Iluntei--Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


h'yom  a  J>hotograpH  by  Kcriiut  Jxi^csi-Ziii'. 

Indian  gill  at  cooking-pot. 

The  Guarany-speaking  Paraguayan  is  a 
Christian,  and  as  much  an  inheritor  of 
our  common  culture  as  most  of  the  peas- 
ant populations  of  Europe.  He  has  no 
kinship  with  the  wild  Indian,  who  hates 
and  fears  him.  The  Indian  of  the  Chaco, 
a  pure  savage,  a  bow-bearing  savage,  will 
never  come  east  of  the  Paraguay,  and  the 
Paraguayan  is  only  beginning  to  venture 
into  the  western  interior,  away  from  the 
banks  of  the  river — under  the  lead  of 
pioneer  settlers  like  Rickard,  whom,  by 
the  way,  the  wild  Indians  thoroughly  trust, 
and  for  whom  they  work  eagerly  and  faith- 
fully. There  is  a  great  development  ahead 
for  Paraguay,  as  soon  as  they  can  defi- 
nitely shake  off  the  revolutionary  habit 
and  establish  an  orderly  permanence  of 
government.  The  people  are  a  fine  peo- 
ple; the  strains  of  blood — white  and  In- 
dian— are  good. 

We  walked  up  the  streets  of  Concep- 
cion,  and  interestedly  looked  at  every- 
thing of  interest:  at  the  one-story  houses, 
their  windows  covered  with  gratings  of 
fretted  iron-work,  and    their   occasional 


o])en  doors  gix'ing  us  glimpses  into  cool 
inner  courtyards,  with  trees  and  flowers; 
at  the  two-wheel  carts,  drawn  by  mules 
or  oxen ;  at  an  occasional  rider,  with  spurs 
on  his  bare  feet,  and  his  big  toes  thrust 
into  the  small  stirrup-rings;  at  the  little 
stores,  and  the  warehouses  for  matte  and 
hides.  Then  we  came  to  a  pleasant  little 
inn,  kept  by  a  Frenchman  and  his  wife, 
of  old  Spanish  style,  with  its  patio  or 
inner  court,  but  as  neat  as  an  inn  in  Nor- 
mandy or  Britanny.  We  were  sitting  at 
coffee,  around  a  little  table,  when  in  cam.e 
the  colonel  of  the  garrison — for  Concep- 
cion  is  the  second  city  in  Paraguay.  He 
told  me  that  they  had  prepared  a  recep- 
tion for  me !  I  was  in  my  rough  hunting- 
clothes,  but  there  was  nothing  to  do  but 
to  accompany  my  kind  hosts  and  trust  to 
their  good  nature  to  pardon  my  short- 
comings in  the  matter  of  dress.  He  drove 
me  about  in  a  smart  open  carriage,  with 
two  good  horses  and  a  liveried  driver. 
It  was  a  much  more  fashionable  turnout 
than  would  be  seen  in  any  of  our  cities 


MKiWAmi^X.' 


•«£=, 


^^^891^.1 


■w. 


'J'upi 


/'v  k'cyyutt 
girl  witli  y 


Roosi-. 
•oiing 


■fit. 
ostrich. 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian   Wilderness  423 


save  the  largest,  and  even  in  them  prol)-  esprit  de  corps,  an  increased  pride  in  the 

ably  not  in  the  ser\ice  of  a  public  oOicial.  army,  and  therefore  a  desire  to  see  the 

In  all  the  South  American  countries  there  army  marie  the  servant  of  the  nation  as  a 

is  more  pomp  and  ceremony  in  connection  whole  and  therefore  not  the  to<jl  of  any  fac- 

with  public  functions  than  with  us,  and  tion  or  individual.     If  these  feelinKS^'row 

at  these  functions  the  li\eried  servants,  strong  enough  they  will  be  powerful  fac- 
tors in  giving  Para- 


often  with  knee- 
breeches  and  pow- 
dered hair,  are  like 
those  seen  at  similar 
European  functions ; 
there  is  not  the  dem- 
ocratic simplicity 
which  better  suits 
our  own  habits  of 
life  and  ways  of 
thought.  But  the 
South  Americans 
often  surpass  us,  not 
merely  in  pomp  and 
ceremony  but  in 
what  is  of  real  im- 
portance, courtesy; 
in  civility  and  cour- 
tesy we  can  well  af- 
ford to  take  lessons 
from  them. 

We  first  visited 
the  barracks,  saw 
the  troops  in  the  set- 
ting-up exercises, 
and  inspected  the 
arms,  the  artillery, 
the  equipment. 
There  was  a  Ger- 
man lieutenant  with 
the  Paraguayan  of- 
ficers; one  of  several 
German  officers  who 
are  now  engaged  in 
helping  the  Para 


Fruiit  a  photograph,  by  Kertnit  Kooscftlt. 

Indian  boy  with  coati  (coon-like  animal)  and 
paraquet. 


guay  what  she  most 
nee<ls,  freedom  from 
rcNolutionary  dis- 
turbance and  there- 
fore the  chance  to 
achie\e  the  material 
l)rosperity  without 
which  as  a  basis 
there  can  be  no  ad- 
vance in  other  and 
even  more  im{)or- 
tant  matters. 

Then  I  wasdri\en 
to  the  City  Hall,  ac- 
companied by  the 
intendente,  or  may- 
or, a  German  long 
settled  in  the  coun- 
try and  one  of  the 
leading  men  of  the 
city.  There  was  a 
breakfast.  When  I 
had  to  s])eak  I  in:- 
])ressed  into  my  ser- 
vice as  interj)reter 
ayoung  Paraguay  an 
who  was  a  graduate 
of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania.  He 
was  able  to  render 
into  Spanish  my 
ideas — o\\  such  sub- 
jects as  orderly  lil)er- 
ty  and  the  far-reach- 


guayans  with  their  army.  The  equip-  ing  mischief  done  by  the  revolutionary 
ments  and  arms  were  in  good  condition;  habit — with  clearness  and  vigor,  l)ecause 
the  enlisted  men  evidently  offered  fine    he  thoroughly  understood  not  only  how  I 


material;  and  the  offtcers  were  doing  hard 
work.  It  is  worth  while  for  anti-milita- 
rists to  ponder  the  fact  that  in  every  South 
American  country  where  a  really  efiicient 
army  is  devel()i:)ed,  the  increase  in  military 
efficiency  goes  hand  in  hand  with  a  de- 
crease in  lawlessness  and  disorder,  and  a 
growing  reluctance  to  settle  internal  dis- 
agreements by  \i()lence.     They  are  intro- 


felt  but  also  the  American  way  of  kK)k- 
ing  at  such  things.  My  hosts  were  hospi- 
tality itself,  and  I  enjo\ed  the  unexpecteti 
greeting. 

We  steamed  on  up  the  river.  Now  and 
then  we  j)assed  another  boat  -a  steamer, 
or,  to  my  surprise,  i)erhaps  a  barkentine 
or  schooner.  The  Paraguay  is  a  highway 
of  traffic.     Once  we  j)asseti  a  l)ig  beef- 


ducing  universal  military  service  in  Para-  canning  factory.  Ranches  stood  on  ei- 
guay;  the  officers,  many  of  whom  studied  (her  bank  a  few  leagues  apart,  and  we 
abroad,  are  growing  to  feel  an  increased     slopped  at  wood  yards  on  the  west  bank. 


from  a  jthotog)  aj>/i  by  Harper. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  wuh  Colonel  Rondon  on  his  boat  the  Nyoac. 


Indians  worked  around  them.  At  one 
such  yard  the  Indians  were  evidently 
l)art  of  the  regular  force.  Their  squaws 
were  with  them,  cooking  at  queer  open- 
air  ovens.  One  small  child  had  as  pets  a 
parrot  and  a  young  coati — a  kind  of  long- 
nosed  raccoon .  Loading  wood,  the  Indians 
stood  in  a  line,  tossing  the  logs  from  one 
to  the  other.  These  Indians  wore  some 
clothes.    This  day  we  got  into  the  tropics. 


Even  in  the  heat  of  the  day  the  deck  was 
pleasant  under  the  awnings;  the  sun  rose 
and  set  in  crimson  splendor;  and  the 
nights,  with  the  moon  at  the  full,  were 
wonderful.  In  a  day  or  two  we  were  far 
enough  north,  toward  the  equator,  to  see 
the  Dipper  ahead  of  us  on  the  very  edge  of 
the  horizon ;  Orion  blazed  overhead ;  and 
the  Southern  Cross  hung  in  the  star- 
brilliant  heavens  behind  us.     But  after 


Fro7>i  a  />hoto_i;raph  by  K'erinit  Roosevelt. 

Meeting  Brazilian  officers  and  members  of  the  expedition  at  the  boundary. 
424 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  In  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


42." 


the  moon  rose  the  constellations  i)ale(l; 
and  clear  in  her  light  the  tree-clad  banks 
stood  on  either  hand  as  we  steamed  stead- 
ily against  the  swirling  current  of  the 
great  river. 

At  noon  on  the  twelfth  we  came  to  the 
Brazilian  boundary.  On  this  day  we  here 
and  there  came  on  low,  conical  hills  close 
to  the  river.     In  places  the  palm  groves 


or  workers,  who  lived  in  a  long  line  of 
wooden  cabins  back  of  the  main  build- 
ing, were  mostly  Paraguayans,  with  a  few 
Brazilians,  and  a  dozen  German  and  Ar- 
gentine foremen.  There  were  also  some 
wild  Indians,  who  were  camped  in  the 
usual  sfiualid  fashion  of  Indians  who  are 
hangers-on  round  the  white  man  but 
have  not  yet  adopted  his  ways.    Most  of 


iroin  a />holograph  by  Harper. 


Father  Zahni  and  a  group  of  Indian  children. 


broke  through  the  belts  of  deciduous  trees 
and  stretched  for  a  mile  or  so  right  along 
the  river's  bank.  At  times  we  passed 
some  cattle-herder  or  a  handsome  ranch- 
house,  under  a  cluster  of  shady  trees, 
some  bearing  a  wealth  of  red,  and  some  a 
wealth  of  yellow  blossoms;  or  we  saw  a 
horse-corral  among  the  trees  close  to  the 
brink,  with  the  horses  in  it  and  a  bare- 
footed man  in  shirt  and  trousers  lean- 
ing against  the  fence;  or  a  herd  of  cattle 
among  the  palms;  or  a  big  tannery  or 
factory  or  a  little  native  hamlet  came  in 
sight.  We  stopped  at  one  tannery.  The 
owner  was  a  Spaniard,  the  manager  an 
"Oriental,"  as  he  called  himself,  or  Uru- 
guayan of  German  parentage.    The  peons 


the  men  were  at  work  cutting  wood  for 
the  tannery.  The  women  and  children 
were  in  cam]:).  Some  individuals  of  both 
sexes  were  naked  to  the  waist.  One  little 
girl  had  a  young  ostrich  as  a  i)et. 

Water-fowl  were  i)lentiful.  We  saw 
large  flocks  of  wild  muscovy  ducks.  Our 
tame  birds  come  from  this  wild  si)ecies 
and  its  absurd  misnaming  dates  back 
to  the  period  when  the  turkey  and  guinea- 
pig  were  misnamed  in  similar  fashion  - 
our  European  forefathers  taking  a  large 
and  hazy  view  of  geography,  and  includ- 
ing Turkey,  Guinea,  India,  and  Muscovy 
as  places,  which,  in  their  capacity  of  be- 
ing outlandish,  could  be  comprehensively 
used   as   incluiling   America.     The   mus- 


Fro»i  a  photograph  by  Ke>')nit  Roosevelt. 


Fort  Coimbra  (Colonial  Portuguese). 


covy  ducks  were  very  good  eating.  Dart- 
ers swarmed.  They  waddled  on  the  sand- 
bars in  big  flocks  and  crowded  the  trees 
by  the  water's  edge.  Beautiful  snow- 
white  egrets  also  lit  in  the  trees,  often  well 
back  from  the  river.  A  full-foliaged  tree 
of  vivid  green,  its  round  surface  crowded 
with  these  birds,  as  if  it  had  suddenly 
blossomed  with  huge  white  flowers,  is  a 


sight  worth  seeing.  Here  and  there  on 
the  sand-bars  we  saw  huge  jabiru  storks, 
and  once  a  flock  of  white  wood-ibis  among 
the  trees  on  the  bank. 

On  the  Brazilian  boundary  we  met  a 
shallow  river  steamer  carrying  Colonel 
Candido  Mariano  da  Silva  Rondon  and 
several  other  Brazilian  members  of  the 
expedition.    Corumba  was  the  appointed 


From  o  /•hoto^ro/'/i  by  Kertnit  Roosevelt. 


426 


The  street  of  Fort  Coimbra. 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian   Wilderness 


427 


meeting-place  for  all  of  us.  The  Brazilian 
members  came  in  consequence  of  a  sug- 
gestion made  to  me  by  the  minister  of 
foreign  affairs  of  Brazil,  Mr.  Lauro 
Muller,  when  I  reached  Rio  Janeiro.  Mr. 
Muller  is  a  very  efficient  public  servant, 
and  he  is  also  a  man  of  wide  cultivation 


that  he  was  all,  and  more  than  all,  that 
could  be  desired.  It  was  evident  that  he 
knew  his  business  thoroughly,  and  it  was 
ecjually  evident  that  he  was  a  most  de- 
lightful companion.  He  was  a  classmate 
of  Mr.  Lauro  Muller  at  the  Brazilian 
Military  Academy.    He  is  of  almost  pure 


Fro»i   ;//.■   t-,_>\ij>h  by  Ker}>iit  Roosevelt. 

Graveyard  with  mausoleum  at  Fort  Coimbra. 


and  reading;  he  reminded  me  much  of 
John  Hay.  He  has  taken  a  keen  inter- 
est in  the  exploration  and  development  of 
the  interior  of  Brazil,  and  he  believed  it 
wise  to  use  my  trip  as  a  means  toward 
spreading  abroad  a  more  general  knowl- 
edge of  the  country.  Accordingly,  with 
generous  courtesy,  he,  on  behalf  of  the 
Brazilian  Government,  offered  to  send 
with  me  Colonel  Rondon,  the  man  who 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century  has  been  the 
foremost  explorer  of  the  Brazilian  hinter- 
land, and  a  number  of  assistants  and  of 
scientific  men.  I  gladly  accepted,  for 
with  such  hel]:)  I  felt  that  the  trip  could  be 
made  of  much  scientific  value,  and  that 
it  was  even  possible  that  we  should  add  a 
little  to  the  fund  of  geographic  knowl- 
edge concerning  the  little-known  parts  of 
South  America. 

Colonel  Rondon  immediately  showed 
Vol.  LV.— 45 


Indian  blood,  and  is  a  Positivist — the 
Positivists  are  a  really  strong  body  in 
Brazil,  as  they  are  in  France  and  indeed 
in  Chile.  The  colonel's  seven  children 
have  all  been  formally  made  members  of 
the  Positivist  Church  in  Rio  Janeiro. 
Brazil  possesses  the  same  complete  lib- 
erty in  matters  religious,  si)iritual,  and 
intellectual  as  we,  for  our  great  good  for- 
tune, do  in  the  United  States,  and  my 
Brazilian  com])anions  included  devout 
Catholics  and  c(|ually  sincere  men  who 
described  themselves  as  "libres  pen- 
seurs."  Colonel  Rondon  has  spent  the 
last  twenty-four  years  in  exi)loring  the 
western  highlands  of  Brazil,  pioneering 
the  way  for  telegraph-lines  and  railroads. 
During  that  time  he  has  travelled  some 
fourteen  thousand  miles,  on  territory 
most  of  which  had  not  i)re\iously  been 
tra\ersed  by  civilized  man,  and  has  built 


428 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the  Brazilian  Wilderness 


three  thousand  miles  of  telegraph.  He 
has  an  exceptional  knowledge  of  the  In- 
dian tribes  and  has  always  zealously  en- 
deavored to  serve  them  and  indeed  to 
serve  the  cause  of  humanity  wherever  and 
whenever  he  was  able.  Thanks  mainly  to 
his  efforts,  four  of  the  wild  tribes  of  the 
region  he  has  explored  have  begun  to 
tread  the  road  of  civilization.  They  have 
become  Christians.  It  may  seem  strange 
that  among  the  first-fruits  of  the  efforts  of 
a  Positivist  should  be  the  conversion  of 
those  he  seeks  to  benefit  to  Christianity. 
But  in  South  America  Christianity  is  at 
least  as  much  a  status  as  a  theology.  It 
represents  the  indispensable  first  step  up- 
ward from  savagery.  In  the  wilder  and 
poorer  districts  men  are  divided  into  the 
two  great  classes  of  "Christians"  and 
''Indians."  When  an  Indian  becomes  a 
Christian  he  is  accepted  into  and  becomes 
w^holly  absorbed  or  partly  assimilated  by 
the  crude  and  simple  neighboring  civili- 
zation, and  then  he  moves  up  or  down 
like  any  one  else  among  his  fellows.  Colo- 
nel Rondon  does  in  very  fact  believe 
in  the  religion  of  humanity  exactly  as  he 
is  devoted  to  scientific  research,  and  what 
he  preaches  he  practises. 

His  companions  included  Captain  Amil- 
car  de  Magalhaes,  Lieutenants  Joao  Lyra, 
Julio  Barbosa,  Thomas  Reis  (an  expert 
with  the  cinematograph),  Joaquin  de 
Mello  Filho,  and  Alcides  de  Sant'  Anna; 
Doctor  Euzebio  de  Oliveira,  a  geologist, 
and  Frederico  Hoehne,  a  botanist,  with 
two  assistant  taxidermists.  Captain  Ma- 
galhaes has  done  much  previous  exploring 
work;  Lieutenant  Reis  has  taken  ex- 
traordinary photographs  on  these  explor- 
ing expeditions. 

The  steamers  halted;  Colonel  Rondon 
and  several  of  his  officers,  spick  and  span 
in  their  white  uniforms,  came  aboard; 
and  in  the  afternoon  I  visited  him  on  his 
steamer  to  talk  over  our  plans.  When 
these  had  been  fully  discussed  and  agreed 
on  we  took  tea.  I  happened  to  mention 
that  one  of  our  naturalists,  Miller,  had 
been  bitten  by  a  piranha,  and  the  man- 
eating  fish  at  once  became  the  subject  of 
conversation.  Curiously  enough,  one  of 
the  Brazilian  taxidermists  had  also  just 
been  severely  bitten  by  a  piranha.  My 
new  companions  had  story  after  story  to 
tell  of  them.    Only  three  weeks  previously 


a  twelve-year-old  boy  who  had  gone  in 
swimming  near  Corumba  was  attacked, 
and  literally  devoured  alive  by  them. 
Colonel  Rondon  during  his  exploring 
trips  had  met  with  more  than  one  un- 
pleasant experience  in  connection  with 
them.  He  had  lost  one  of  his  toes  by  the 
bite  of  a  piranha.  He  was  about  to  bathe 
and  had  chosen  a  shallow  pool  at  the  edge 
of  the  river,  which  he  carefully  inspected 
until  he  was  satisfied  that  none  of  the 
man-eating  fish  were  in  it;  yet  as  soon  as 
he  put  his  foot  into  the  water  one  of  them 
attacked  him  and  bit  off  a  toe.  On  an- 
other occasion  while  wading  across  a  nar- 
row stream  one  of  his  party  was  attacked; 
the  fish  bit  him  on  the  thighs  and  but- 
tocks, and  when  he  put  down  his  hands 
tore  them  also ;  he  was  near  the  bank  and 
by  a  rush  reached  it  and  swung  himself 
out  of  the  water  by  means  of  an  over- 
hanging limb  of  a  tree;  but  he  was  terribly 
injured,  and  it  took  him  six  months  before 
his  wounds  healed  and  he  recovered.  An 
extraordinary  incident  occurred  on  an- 
other trip.  The  party  were  without  food 
and  very  hungry.  On  reaching  a  stream 
they  dynamited  it,  and  waded  in  to  seize 
the  stunned  fish  as  they  floated  on  the 
surface.  One  man,  having  his  hands  full, 
tried  to  hold  one  fish  by  putting  its  head 
into  his  mouth;  it  was  a  piranha  and 
seemingly  stunned,  but  in  a  moment  it 
recovered  and  bit  a  big  section  out  of  his 
tongue.  Such  a  hemorrhage  followed  that 
his  life  was  saved  with  the  utmost  diffi- 
culty. On  another  occasion  a  member  of 
the  party,  a  brother  of  the  Lieutenant 
Barbosa  who  was  with  us,  was  off  by  him- 
self on  a  mule.  The  mule  came  into  camp 
alone.  Following  his  back  track  they 
came  to  a  ford,  where  in  the  water  they 
found  the  skeleton  of  the  dead  man,  his 
clothes  uninjured  but  every  particle  of 
flesh  stripped  from  his  bones.  Whether 
he  had  drowned,  and  the  fishes  had  then 
eaten  his  body,  or  whether  they  had  killed 
him  it  was  impossible  to  say.  They  had 
not  hurt  the  clothes,  getting  in  under 
them,  which  made  it  seem  likely  that 
there  had  been  no  struggle.  These  man- 
eating  fish  are  a  veritable  scourge  in  the 
waters  they  frequent.  But  it  must  not  be 
understood  by  this  that  the  piranhas 
■ — or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  the  new- 
world  caymans  and  crocodiles — ever  be- 


I 


03 
E 

2 

o 


429 


Fro7n  a  photograph  by  Fiala. 


Water-carts  around  the  well  at  Corumba. 


come  such  dreaded  foes  of  man  as  for  in- 
stance the  man-eating  crocodiles  of  Africa. 
Accidents  occur,  and  there  are  certain 
places  where  swimming  and  bathing  are 
dangerous;  but  in  most  places  the  people 
swim  freely,  although  they  are  usually 
careful  to  find  spots  they  believe  safe  or 
else  to  keep  together  and  make  a  splash- 
ing in  the  water. 

During  his  trips  Colonel  Rondon  had  met 
with  various  experiences  with  wild  crea- 
tures. The  Paraguayan  caymans  are  not 
ordinarily  dangerous  to  man ;  but  they  do 
sometimes  become  man-eaters  and  should 
be  destroyed  whenever  the  opportunity 
offers.  The  huge  cayman,  or  crocodile,  of 
the  Amazon  is  far  more  dangerous,  and 
the  colonel  knew  of  repeated  instances 
where  men,  women,  and  children  had  be- 
come its  victims.  Once  while  dynamiting 
a  stream  for  fish  for  his  starving  party  he 
partially  stunned  a  giant  anaconda,  which 
he  killed  as  it  crept  slowly  off.  He  said 
that  it  was  of  a  size  that  no  other  ana- 
conda he  had  ever  seen  even  approached, 
and  that  in  his  opinion  such  a  brute  if 
hungry  would  readily  attack.  Twice 
smaller  anacondas  had  attacked  his  dogs; 
one  was  carried  under  water — for  the 
430 


anaconda  is  a  water-loving  serpent — but 
he  rescued  it.  One  of  his  men  was 
bitten  by  a  jararaca;  he  killed  the  veno- 
mous snake,  but  was  not  discovered  and 
brought  back  to  camp  until  it  was  too  late 
to  save  his  life.  The  puma  Colonel  Ron- 
don had  found  to  be  as  cowardly  as  I  have 
always  found  it,  but  the  jaguar  was  a  for- 
midable beast,  which  occasionally  turned 
man-eater,  and  usually  charged  savagely 
when  brought  to  bay.  He  had  known  a 
hunter  to  be  killed  by  a  jaguar  he  was  fol- 
lowing in  thick  grass  cover. 

All  such  enemies,  however,  he  regarded 
as  utterly  trivial  compared  to  the  real 
dangers  of  the  wilderness — the  torment 
and  menace  of  attacks  by  the  swarming 
insects,  from  mosquitoes  and  the  even 
more  intolerable  tiny  gnats  to  the  ticks 
and  the  vicious  poisonous  ants  which  oc- 
casionally cause  villages  and  even  whole 
districts  to  be  deserted  by  human  beings. 
These  insects,  and  the  fevers  they  cause, 
and  dysentery  and  starvation  and  wear- 
ing hardship  are  what  the  pioneer  ex- 
plorers have  to  bear.  The  conversation 
was  to  me  most  interesting.  The  colonel 
spoke  French  about  to  the  extent  I  did; 
but  of  course  he  and  the  others  preferred 


1 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in   tlie   Brazilian  Wilderness 


431 


Portuguese;  and  Kermit  was  the  inter- 
preter. 

In  the  evening,  soon  after  moonrise,  we 
stopped  for  wood  at  the  little  Brazilian 
town  of  Porto  Martinho.  There  are  about 
twelve  hundred  inhabitants.  Some  of  the 
buildings  were  of  stone;  a  large  private 
house  with  a  castellated  tower  was  of 
stone;  there  were  shops,  and  a  post-office, 
stores,  a  restaurant  and  billiard-hall,  and 
warehouses  for  matte;  of  which  much  is 
grown  in  the  region  roundabout.  Most  of 
the  houses  were  low,  with  overhanging, 
sloping  eaves ;  and  there  were  gardens,  with 
high  walls  inside  of  which  trees  rose,  many 
of  them  fragrant.  We  wandered  through 
the  wide,  dusty  streets,  and  along  the  nar- 
row sidewalks.  It  was  a  hot,  still  eve- 
ning; the  smell  of  the  tropics  was  on  the 
hea\y  December  air.  Through  the  open 
doors  and  windows  we  caught  dim  glimpses 
of  the  half-clad  inmates  of  the  poorer 
houses;  women  and  young  girls  sat  outside 
their  thresholds  in  the  moonlight.  All 
whom  we  met  were  most  friendly :  the  cap- 
tain of  the  little  Brazilian  garrison;  the  in- 
tendente,  a  local  trader;  another  trader 
and  ranchman,  a  Uruguayan,  who  had 
just  received  his  newspaper  containing 


my  speech  in  Montevideo,  and  who,  as  I 
gathered  from  what  I  understood  of  his 
rather  voluble  Spanish,  was  much  im- 
pressed by  my  views  on  democracy,  hon- 
esty, liberty,  and  order  (rather  well-worn 
topics) ;  and  a  Catalan  who  spoke  French, 
and  who  was  accompanied  by  his  pretty 
daughter,  a  dear  little  girl  of  eight  or  ten, 
who  said  with  much  pride  that  she  spoke 
three  languages — Brazilian,  Spanish,  and 
Catalan!  Her  father  exi)ressed  strongly 
his  desire  for  a  church  and  for  a  school  in 
the  little  city. 

When  at  last  the  wood  was  aboard  we 
resumed  our  journey.  The  river  was  like 
glass.  In  the  white  moonlight  the  palms 
on  the  edge  of  the  banks  stood  mirrored 
in  the  still  water.  We  sat  forward  and  as 
we  rounded  the  curves  the  long  silver 
reaches  of  water  stretched  ahead  of  us, 
and  the  ghostly  outlines  of  hills  rose  in  the 
distance.  Here  and  there  the  prairie  tires 
burned,  and  the  red  glow  warred  with  the 
moon's  radiance. 

Next  morning  was  overcast.  Occa- 
sionally we  passed  a  wood-yard ,  or  factory, 
or  cabin,  now  on  the  eastern,  the  Brazilian, 
now  on  the  western,  the  Paraguayan, 
bank.     The  Paraguay  was  known  to  men 


From  a  photo^rafih  by  b'iala. 


Kiding  bullocks. 


432 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the  Brazilian  Wilderness 


Frotn  a  photograph  by  Fiala. 


Corumba  family  of  poor  people  in  their  Sunday 
clothes. 


of  European  birth,  bore  soldiers 
and  priests  and  merchants  as 
they  sailed  and  rowed  up  and 
down  the  current  of  its  stream,' 
and  beheld  little  towns  and  forts 
rise  on  its  bank,  long  before 
the  Mississippi  had  become  the 
white  man's  highway.  Now, 
along  its  upper  course,  the  set- 
tlements are  much  like  those 
on  the  Mississippi  at  the  end  of 
the  first  quarter  of  the  last  cen- 
tury;  and  it  is  about  to  witness 
a  burst  of  growth  and  pros- 
perity much  like  that  which  the 
Mississippi  saw  when  the  old 
men  of  to-day  were  very  young. 
In  the  early  forenoon  we 
stopped  at  a  little  Paraguayan 
hamlet,  nestling  in  the  green 
growth  under  a  group  of  low 
hills  by  the  river-brink.  On 
one  of  these  hills  stood  a  pic- 
turesque old  stone  fort,  known 
as  Fort  Bourbon  in  the  Span- 
ish, the  colonial,  days.     Now 


the  Paraguayan  flag  floats  over  it,  and 
it  is  garrisoned  by  a  handful  of  Para- 
guayan soldiers.  Here  Father  Zahm  bap- 
tized two  children,  the  youngest  of  a  large 
family  of  fair-skinned,  light-haired  small 
people,  whose  father  was  a  Paraguayan 
and  the  mother  an  ''Oriental,"  or  Uru- 
guayan. No  priest  had  visited  the  village 
for  three  years,  and  the  children  were  re- 
spectively one  and  two  years  of  age.  The 
sponsors  included  the  local  commandante 
and  a  married  couple  from  Austria.  In 
answer  to  what  was  supposed  to  be  the 
perfunctory  question  whether  they  were 
Catholics,  the  parents  returned  the  unex- 
pected answer  that  they  were  not.  Fur- 
ther questioning  elicited  the  fact  that 
the  father  called  himself  a  ''free-thinking 
Catholic,"  and  the  mother  said  she  was  a 
"  Protestant  Catholic,"  her  mother  having 
been  a  Protestant,  the  daughter  of  an  im- 
migrant from  Normandy.  However,  it 
appeared  that  the  older  children  had  been 
baptized  by  the  Bishop  of  Asuncion,  so 
Father  Zahm  at  the  earnest  request  of  the 
parents  proceeded  with  the  ceremony. 
They  were  good  people ;  and,  although  they 
wished  liberty  to  think  exactly  as  they  in- 
dividually pleased,  they  also  wished  to  be 
connected  and  to  have  their  children  con- 


a  pJtoto^raph  by  Fiala. 

Corumba  family  not  in  their  Sunday  clothes. 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the  Brazilian  Wilderness 


433 


nected  with  some  church,  by  preference 
the  church  of  the  majority  of  their  {people. 
A  very  short  experience  of  communities 
where  there  is  no  church  ought  to  convince 
the  most  heterodox  of  the  absolute  need  of 
a  church.  I  earnestly  wish  that  there 
could  be  such  an  increase  in  the  personnel 
and  equipment  of  the  Catholic  Church  in 
South  America  as  to  permit  the  establish- 
ment of  one  good 
and  earnest  priest  in 
ever>'  village  or  Httle 
community  in  the 
far  interior.  Nor  is 
there  any  inconsist- 
ency between  this 
wish  and  the  fur- 
ther wish  that  there 
could  be  a  marked 
extension  and  de- 
velopment of  the 
native  Protestant 
churches,  such  as  I 
saw  established  here 
and  there  in  Brazil, 
Uruguay,  and  Ar- 
gentina, and  of  the 
Y.  M.  C.  Associa- 
tions. The  bulk  of 
these  good  people 
who  prefer  religion 
will  continue  to  be 
Catholics,  but  the 
spiritual  needs  of  a 
more  or  less  consid- 
erable majority  will 
best  be  met  by  the 
establishment  of 
Protestant  churches, 

or  in  places  even  of  a  Positivist  Church 
or  Ethical  Culture  Society.  Not  only 
is  the  establishment  of  such  churches  a 
good  thing  for  the  body  politic  as  a 
whole,  but  a  good  thing  for  the  Catholic 
Church  itself;  for  their  presence  is  a  con- 
stant spur  to  activity  and  clean  and  hon- 
orable conduct,  and  a  constant  reflection 
on  sloth  and  moral  laxity.  The  govern- 
ment in  each  of  these  commonwealths  is 
doing  everything  possible  to  further  the 
cause  of  education,  and  the  tendency  is  to 
treat  education  as  peculiarly  a  function  of 
government  and  to  make  it,  where  the 
government  acts,  non-sectarian,  obliga- 
tory, and  free — a  cardinal  doctrine  of  our 
own  great  democracy,  to  which  we  are 


6y 


.^ 


Cactus- 


committed  by  every  principle  of  sound 
Americanism.  But  no  democracy  can 
afford  to  overlook  the  \ital  importance  of 
the  ethical  and  spiritual,  the  truly  relig- 
ious, element  in  life;  and  in  practice  the 
average  good  man  grows  clearly  to  under- 
stand this,  and  to  express  the  need  in  con- 
crete form  by  saying  that  no  community 
can  make  much  headway  if  it  does  not  con- 
tain both  a  church 
and  a  school. 

We  took  break- 
fast— the  eleven- 
o' clock  Brazilian 
breakfast — on  Colo- 
nel Rondon's  boat. 
Ca\Tnans  were  be- 
coming more  plen- 
tiful. The  ugly 
brutes  lay  on  the 
sand-flats  and  mud- 
banks  like  logs,  al- 
ways with  the  head 
raised,  sometimes 
with  the  jaws  open. 
Thev  are  sometimes 
dangerous  to  man 
and  to  his  domestic 
animals,  and  are  al- 
ways destructive  to 
fish ;  and  it  is  good  to 
shoot  them ;  I  killed 
half  a  dozen,  and 
missed  nearly  as 
many  more — a  throb- 
bing boat  does  not 
improve  one's  aim. 
We  passed  forests  of 
palms  that  extended 
for  leagues,  and  vast  marshy  meadows, 
where  storks,  herons,  and  ibis  were  gath- 
ered, with  flocks  of  cormorants  and  darters 
on  the  sand-bars,  and  stilts,  skimmers,  and 
clouds  of  beautiful  swaying  terns  in  the 
foreground.  Al)out  noon  we  ])assed  the 
highest  point  which  the  old  Spanish  con- 
quistadores  and  explorers,  Iraki  and  Ayo- 
las,  had  reached  in  the  course  of  their 
marvellous  journeys  in  the  first  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century — at  a  time  when  there 
was  not  a  settlement  in  what  is  now  the 
United  States,  and  when  not  a  single  Kng- 
lish  sea  captain  had  \entured  so  much  as 
to  cross  the  Atlantic. 

By  the  following  day  the  country  on 
the  east  bank  had  become  a  vast  marshy 


tree. 


4U 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


plain  dotted  here  and  there  by  tree-clad 
patches  of  higher  land.  The  morning  was 
rainy;  a  contrast  to  the  tine  weather  we 
had  hitherto  encountered.  We  passed 
wood-yards  and  cattle-ranches.  At  one  of 
the  latter  the  owner,  an  Argentine  of 
Irish  parentage,  who  still  si)oke  English 
with  the  accent  of  the  land  of  his  parents' 
nativity,  remarked  that  this  was  the  first 
time  the  American 
flag  had  been  seen  on 
the  upper  Paraguay ; 
for  our  gunboat  car- 
ried it  at  the  mast- 
head. Early  in  the 
afternoon,  having 
reached  the  part 
where  both  banks  of 
the  river  were  Bra- 
zilian territory,  we 
came  to  the  old  colo- 
nial Portuguese  fort 
of  Coimbra.  It 
stands  w^here  tw^o 
steep  hills  rise,  one 
on  either  side  of  the 
river,  and  it  guards 
the  w^ater-gorge  be- 
tween them.  It  was 
captured  by  the 
Paraguayans  in  the 
war.  Some  modern 
guns  have  been 
mounted,  and  there 
is  a  garrison  of  Bra- 
zilian troops.  The 
white  fort  is  perched 

on  the  hillside,  where  it  clings  and  rises, 
terrace  above  terrace,  with  bastion  and 
parapet  and  crenellated  wall.  At  the  foot 
of  the  hill,  on  the  riverine  plain,  stretches 


From  photographs  by  Fiala. 


Brazilian  babies  bathing. 


and  girls  with  skins  as  fair  as  any  in  the 
northland,  and  others  that  were  predomi- 
nantly negro.  Most  were  of  intervening 
shades.  All  this  was  paralleled  among 
the  men ;  and  the  fusion  of  the  colors  was 
going  on  steadily. 

Around  the  village  black  vultures  were 
gathered.  Not  long  before  reaching  it  we 
passed  somiC  rounded  green  trees,  their 

tops  covered  with 
the  showy  wood- 
ibis;  at  the  same 
time  we  saw  behind 
them,  farther  inland, 
other  trees  crowded 
with  the  rriore  deli- 
cate forms  of  the 
shining  white  egrets. 
The  river  now 
widened  so  that  in 
places  it  looked  like 
a  long  lake ;  it  wound 
in  every  direction 
through  the  endless 
marshy  plain,  whose 
surface  was  broken 
here  and  there  by 
low  mountains. 
The  splendor  of  the 
sunset  I  never  saw 
surpassed.  We 
were  steaming  east 
toward  clouds  of 
storms.  The  river 
ran,  a  broad  high- 
way of  molten  gold, 
into  the  flaming  sky ; 
the  far-off  mountains  loomed  purple  across 
the  marshes;  belts  of  rich  green,  the  riv- 
er-banks stood  out  on  either  side  against 
the  rose-hues  of  the  rippling  water;  in 


the  old-time  village  with  its  roofs  of  palm,    front,  as  we  forged  steadily  onward,  hung 
In  the  village  dwell  several  hundred  souls,    the  tropic  night,  dim  and  vast. 


almost  entirely  the  officers  and  soldiers  and 
their  families.  There  is  one  long  street. 
The  one-story,  daub-and-wattle  houses 
have  low  eaves  and  steep  sloping  roofs  of 
palm-leaves  or  of  split  palm-trunks.  Un- 
der one  or  two  old  but  small  trees  there 
are  rude  benches;  and  for  a  part  of  the 


On  December  15  we  reached  Corumba. 
For  three  or  four  miles  before  it  is  reached 
the  west  bank,  on  which  it  stands,  be- 
comes high  rocky  ground,  falling  away  in  to 
cliffs.  The  country  roundabout  was  evi- 
dently well  peopled.  We  saw  gauchos, 
cattle-herders — the  equivalent  of  our  own 


length  of  the  street  there  is  a  rough  stone  cowboys — riding  along  the  bank.    Women 

sidewalk.     A  little  graveyard,  some  of  the  were  washing  clothes,  and  their  naked 

tombs  very  old,  stands  at  one  end.     As  we  children  bathing,  on  the  shore;  we  were 

passed  down  the  street  the  wives  and  the  told  that  caymans  and  piranhas  rarely 

swarming  children  of  the  garrison  were  at  ventured  near  a  place  where  so  much  was 

the  doors  and  windows;  there  were  women  going  on,  and  that  accidents  generally 


Return 


435 


occurred  in  ponds  or  lonely  stretches  of 
the  river.  Several  steamers  came  out  to 
meet  us,  and  accompanied  us  for  a  dozen 
miles,  with  bands  playing  and  the  pas- 
sengers cheering,  just  as  if  we  were  nearing 
some  town  on  the  Hudson. 

Corumba  is  on  a  steep  hillside,  with 
wide,  roughly  paved  streets,  some  of  them 
lined  with  the  beautiful  trees  that  bear 
scarlet  flowers,  and  with  well-built  houses, 
most  of  them  of  one  story,  some  of  two  or 
three  stories.  We  were  greeted  with  a  re- 
ception by  the  municipal  council,  and 
were  given  a  state  dinner.  The  hotel, 
kept  by  an  Italian,  was  as  comfortable  as 
possible — stone  floors,  big  windows  and 
doors,  a  cool,  open  courtyard,  and  a 
shower-bath.  Of  course  Corumba  is  still 
a  frontier  town.     The  vehicles  are  ox- 


carts and  mule-carts;  and  we  saw  men 
riding  oxen.  The  water  comes  from  a  big 
central  well;  around  it  the  water-carts 
gather,  and  their  contents  are  then  ped- 
dled around  at  the  difTerent  houses.  The 
families  showed  the  mixture  of  races  char- 
acteristic of  Brazil;  one,  after  the  children 
had  been  photographed  in  their  ordinary 
costume,  begged  that  we  return  and  take 
them  in  their  Sunday  clothes,  which  was 
accordingly  done.  In  a  year  the  railway 
from  Rio  will  reach  Corumba;  and  then 
this  city,  and  '.he  country  roundabout, 
will  see  a  great  development. 

At  this  point  we  rejoined  the  rest  of  the 
party,  and  very  glad  we  were  to  see  them. 
Cherrie  and  ^liller  had  already  collected 
some  eight  hundred  specimens  of  mam- 
mals and  birds. 


RETURN 

By    David    Morton 

How  could  you  ever  think  that  I  would  sleep 
There  in  that  narrow  place,  or  silence  keep? 

I  am  the  rain  that  sings  to  you  by  night, 
When  you  lie  wakeful,  hurt  with  lost  delight. 

I  am  that  song  whose  fragile  failing  wing 
Comes  ever  near,  and  yet  you  cannot  sing. 

I  am  that  star  you  gaze  on  and  call  fair; 
(Felt  you  no  slender  fingers  in  your  hair?) 

But  more  than  these,  O  more,  I  am  the  grass 
That  gladdens  at  your  coming  when  you  pass 

These  ways  along,  so  grieving  and  so  dear. 
Where  they  had  laid  me  now  this  many  a  year. 

How  could  you  ever  think  that  I  would  sleep 
There  in  that  narrow  place,  or  silence  keep? 


Vol.  LV.— 46 


ON    THE    MAT 


BY    G.    E.    WOOD  BERRY 


T  was  afternoon  in  a  small 
oasis- village  of  the  Zibans. 
I  was  seated  on  a  straw  mat 
in  a  little  garden-space 
just  outside  the  cafe,  and 
dreamily  regarding  the  in- 
tense blue  sky  through  the  vine  leaves 
trellised  overhead,  which  flecked  me  with 
their  shadows.  An  old  Arab  was  praying 
just  in  front.  Two  groups,  one  on  each 
side  of  me,  were  placidly  seated  on  clean 
yellow  mats — young  men,  whose  dark, 
sad  faces,  thin-featured  and  large-eyed, 
contrasted  with  their  white  robes.  They 
were  smoking  kif — a  translucence  of  gold 
in  their  clear  bronze  skin,  a  languor  of 
light  in  their  immobile  gaze,  content.  The 
garden  made  off  before  me,  topped  with 
palmy  distance;  the  silent  street,  to  one 
side,  was  out  of  sight,  as  if  it  were  not. 
It  was  a  place  of  peace.  I  had  finished  my 
coffee  and  dates.  I  filled  my  brier- wood. 
The  May  heat  was  great,  intense;  and  I 
settled  myself  to  a  long  smoke,  and  fell 
into  revery  and  recollection. 

How  simple  it  all  was!  That  praying 
Arab — what  an  immediacy  with  God  I 
What  a  nonchalance  in  the  dreamy  pleas- 
ures of  those  delicate-featured  youths! 
What  a  disburdenment  was  here!  I  had 
only  to  lift  my  index-finger  to  heaven  dy- 
ing, to  be  one  of  the  faithful ;  and  the  fact 
was  symbolic,  exemplary,  of  the  simplic- 
ity of  Islam.  It  makes  the  minimum  de- 
mand on  the  intellect,  on  the  whole  na- 
ture of  man.  I  had  but  lately  placed  the 
faith  in  its  true  perspective,  historically. 
Mohammedanism,  the  Ishmael  of  relig- 
ions, was  the  elder  brother  of  Protestant- 
ism, notwithstanding  profound  differences 
of  racial  temperament  between  them. 
The  Occidental  mind  is  absorbent,  con- 
servative, antiseptic.  It  is  not  content, 
like  the  Mohammedan,  to  let  things  lie 
where  they  fall,  disintegrate,  crumble, 
and  sink  into  oblivion.  Western  educa- 
tion fills  the  mind  with  the  tangle-foot  of 
436 


the  past.  Catholicism  was  of  this  racial 
strain.  It  had  a  genius  for  absorption. 
It  was  the  melting-pot  of  the  religious 
past,  and  w^hat  resulted  after  centuries 
was  an  amalgam,  rich  in  dogma,  ritual, 
and  institution,  full  of  inheritance.  The 
Reformation  was  an  attempt  to  simplify 
religion  and  disburden  the  soul  of  this  in- 
heritance in  so  far  as  it  contained  obso- 
lete, harmful,  or  inessential  elements; 
many  things,  such  as  saint- worship,  art, 
celibacy,  were  excised.  Mohammedan- 
ism, ages  before  and  somewhat  differently 
placed,  initiating  rather  than  reforming 
a  faith,  was  an  effort  of  the  desert  soul 
to  adapt  to  itself  by  instinct  the  Semitic 
tradition  of  God  that  had  grown  up  in  it, 
and  to  simplify  what  was  received  from 
its  neighbors.  The  founder  of  Islam  was 
more  absolute  and  radical  in  exclusion 
than  the  reformers  in  elimination.  Islam 
had  a  genius  for  rejection.  Mohammed, 
with  the  profound  monotheistic  instinct 
that  was  racial  in  him,  affirmed  the  unity 
of  God  w^ith  such  grandeur  and  decision 
that  there  was  no  room  in  the  system  for 
that  metaphysical  scrutiny  of  the  divine 
nature  in  which  Catholic  theology  found 
so  great  a  career;  on  the  other  hand,  with 
his  positive  sense  of  human  reality,  which 
was  also  racial,  he  shut  out  asceticism, 
in  w^hich  Catholic  conscience  worked  out 
its  illustrious  monastic  future.  He  had 
achieved  a  reconciliation  between  religion 
and  human  nature  in  the  sphere  of  con- 
duct, and  he  had  silenced  controversial 
dogma  in  its  principal  field  in  the  sphere 
of  theology. 

A  creed  so  single  and  elementary  had  no 
need  of  a  priesthood  to  preserve  and  ex- 
pound it.  There  was  no  room  for  a  clergy 
here,  and  there  was  none.  The  reform- 
ers lessened  but  did  not  end  the  priest; 
Islam  suppressed  him;  yet  there  re- 
mained much  analogy  between  Moham- 
medanism and  Protestantism  in  the  field 
of  religious  phenomena  in  which  the  priest 
is  embryonic.  Protestantism  is  the  best 
example  in  human  affairs  of  the  actual 


On  the  Mat 


437 


working  of  anarchy;  and,  in  proportion 
as  its  sects  recede  from  the  authority  and 
organization  of  the  Catholic  Church,  it 
presents  in  an  increasing  degree,  in  its 
individuality  of  private  judgment  and 
freedom  of  religious  impulse,  the  anarchic 
ideal  of  personal  life.  Islam  offers  in  prac- 
tice a  similar  anarchy.  I  was  struck  from 
the  beginning  with  an  odd  resemblance  to 
my  native  New  England  in  this  regard.  It, 
too,  has  been  a  marabout-breeding  coun- 
try, with  its  old  revivals,  transcendental- 
ists,  new-lights,  Holy  Ghosters,  and  vend- 
ers of  Christian  Science.  Emerson  was 
a  great  marabout.  The  Mormons,  who 
went  to  Utah  and  made  a  paradise  in  the 
desert,  were  not  so  very  different  from  the 
Mzabites  who  planted  an  oasis-Eden  in 
the  Saharan  waste.  The  communities  that 
from  time  to  time  have  sprung  up  anddied 
away,  or  dragged  on  an  unnoticed  life  in 
country  districts,  are  analogous,  at  least, 
to  the  zaouias  scattered  through  this 
world  of  mountain  and  sand.  In  many 
ways  my  first  contacts  with  the  faith  were 
sympathetic.  The  faith  that  had  no  need 
of  an  intellectual  subsidy,  that  placed  no 
interdict  on  human  nature,  that  inter- 
posed no  middle-men  between  the  soul 
and  God,  woke  intelligible  responses  in 
my  agnostic, pagan,  and  Puritan  instincts; 
here,  too,  was  great  freedom  for  the  re- 
ligious impulse,  and  toleration  of  its  ca- 
reer; and  I  saw  with  novel  interest  in 
operation  before  my  eyes  the  religious  in- 
stinct of  man,  simple  in  idea,  direct  in 
practice,  free  in  manifestation,  and  on 
the  scale  of  a  race.  It  was  the  desert-soul 
that  was  primarily  interesting  to  me — its 
environment,  its  comprehension  of  that, 
its  responses  thereto;  and,  examining  it 
thus,  its  religion  seemed  a  thing  intime 
and  scarcely  separable  from  its  natural 
instincts  and  notions. 

What  is  it  that  is  borne  in  on  the  desert- 
soul,  when  it  wakes  in  the  great  silence, 
the  luminosity,  the  boundless  surge  of  the 
sands  against  the  sky?  Immensity — the 
feeling  of  the  infinite — nature  taking  on 
the  cosmic  forms  of  God.  The  desert 
is  simple.  It  has  few  features,  but  they 
are  all  elements  of  grandeur.  It  is  the 
mood  of  the  Psalms.  Awe  is  inbred  in  the 
desert-dweller.  There  is,  too,  a  harmony 
between  these  few  elements  in  their  su- 
perb singleness  and  his  lowly  mind;   not 


much  is  required  of  him,  and  that  little 
is  written  large  for  his  understanding; 
he  takes  things  in  wholes.  His  mind  is 
primary,  intuitive,  not  analytical;  he  does 
not  multiply  thought,  he  beholds;  and 
this  vision  of  the  world  he  lives  in,  a 
wonderfully  grand  and  simple  world,  suf- 
fices for  a  religious  intuition  as  native  to 
him  as  the  palm  to  the  water-source.  The 
palm  is  a  monotheistic  tree.  Monotheism 
belongs  to  the  desert.  The  faith  of  the 
desert  is  a  theism  of  pure  nature,  unen- 
riched  by  any  theism  of  humanity,  of  the 
human  heart  in  its  self-deification;  it  is  a 
spiritualization  of  pure  nature-worship, 
whereas  Christianity,  at  least  under  some 
aspects,  is  the  grafting  of  a  human  ideal 
on  an  old  cosmogony.  The  God  of  the  des- 
ert is  an  out-of-doors  god,  like  the  Great 
Spirit  of  the  Indians,  who  had  no  temples. 
No  mosque  can  hold  him ;  there  is  no  al- 
tar there,  no  image.  He  cannot  be  clois- 
tered; he  has  no  house,  no  shrine,  where 
one  can  repair,  and  abide  for  a  time,  and 
come  away,  and  perhaps  leave  religion  be- 
hind in  a  place  of  its  own.  He  is  in  the 
desert  air;  and  the  desert-dweller,  girt 
with  that  immensity,  wherever  his  eye 
falls  can  commune  with  him;  five  times 
daily  he  bows  down  in  prayer  to  him  and 
has  the  intimate  sense  of  his  being;  he 
does  not  think  about  him — he  believes. 

The  desert  cradles,  nurses,  deepens, 
colors,  and  confirms  this  belief.  It  is  a 
land  of  monotony,  full  of  solitude  and 
silence.  The  impression  it  thus  made 
upon  me  was  profound,  and  amounted  to 
an  annihilation  of  the  past.  The  freshness 
of  the  wilderness,  as  the  discoverer  feels 
it,  lay  there;  it  abolished  what  was  left 
behind;  the  old  world  had  rolled  down  the 
other  side  of  the  mountains.  Life  in  its 
turmoil  and  news,  its  physical  clamor  and 
mental  clatter,  life  the  distract iiMi,  had 
ceased.  It  was  not  that  silence  had  fallen 
upon  it;  but  the  soul  had  gone  out  from 
it  and  returned  to  the  silence  of  nature. 
There  is  no  speech  in  that  rosy  ring  of 
mountain  walls,  in  the  implacable  gold 
of  the  sands  undulating  away  to  the  blue 
ends  of  earth,  in  the  immutable  sky;  they 
simply  are.  In  the  ])assage  of  the  winds 
there  is  stillness.  It  is  not  that  there 
are  no  sounds.  The  hush  is  of  the  soul. 
Monotonous?  Yes.  That  is  its  charm. 
Monotony  belongs  to  the  simple  soul;  and 


438 


On  the  Mat 


what  is  monotone  to  the  eyes  of  the 
desert-dweller  is  monotone  in  the  ideas 
and  emotions  of  his  psychology.  Repeti- 
tion belongs  to  Islam;  its  words  and  rites, 
its  music  and  dances  are  stereotyped, 
something  completely  intelligible,  identi- 
cally recurrent,  like  tales  that  please  chil- 
dren— the  same  stories  in  the  same  words. 
Prayer  and  posture,  formula  and  rhythm, 
endlessly  renewing  the  same  idea  and  the 
same  sensation — they  imprint,  they  in- 
tensify; desert-moulds,  they  help  the  soul 
to  retain  its  conscious  form.  The  larger 
mind  that  discriminates,  analyzes,  and  ex- 
plores, may  tire  of  this;  but  it  also  finds 
in  such  a  solitude,  full  of  silence  and  mo- 
notony, a  place  where  the  soul  collects  it- 
self, integrates,  and  has  more  profoundly 
the  sense  of  its  own  being. 

The  desert  is  not  only  the  generator  and 
fosterer  of  the  desert-soul,  in  its  spiritual 
attitude,  its  practices  and  processes,  by 
the  larger  and  universal  elements  in  the 
environment,  but  in  more  detailed  ways 
it  provides  the  atmosphere  of  life.  It  is 
strangely  sympathetic  with  the  dweller 
upon  its  sands.  He  is  a  nomad;  and  the 
desert  is  itself  nomadic.  The  landscape 
is  a  shifting  world.  The  dunes  travel. 
The  scene  dissolves  and  rebuilds.  The 
sand-hills  lift  a  sculptured  mountain  edge 
upon  the  blue,  swells  like  the  bosom  of  a 
wave,  precipices  and  hollows  like  moun- 
tain defiles,  outlooks,  and  hiding-places  in 
the  valleys,  and  the  surface  shall  be  finely 
mottled  and  delicately  printed  and  pat- 
terned with  lace-work  as  far  as  the  eye 
can  see.  The  wind  erases  it  in  a  night, 
hollows  the  hills  and  fills  the  hollows;  it 
is  gone.  The  oases  disappear;  they  are 
like  islands  sinking  in  the  sea  of  driving 
sands;  you  see  their  half-sunken  trees  like 
ruins  buried  beneath  the  wave,  still  visi- 
ble in  the  depths.  The  face  of  the  land  is 
ephemeral ;  to  leave  the  route  is  to  be  lost. 
And  after  the  wind,  the  light  begins  its 
play.  The  lakes  of  salt  and  saltpetre,  the 
lifeless  lands,  the  irremediable  waste — 
ruins  of  some  more  ancient  and  primordial 
desolation,  the  region  cursed  before  its 
time  with  planetary  death — change,  glit- 
ter, disclose  placid  reaches  of  palm-fringed 
water,  island-paradises,  mirage  beyond 
mirage  in  the  far-reaching  enchantment, 
strips  of  fertility  like  lagoons  on  the  min- 
eral mud  as  when  one  sees  a  valley-land 


through  clouds.  The  heat  gives  witchcraft 
to  the  air;  size  and  distance  are  trans- 
formed; what  is  small  seems  gigantic, 
what  is  far  seems  beside  you;  a  flock  of 
goats  is  a  cavalcade,  a  bush  is  a  strange 
monster.  To  the  nomad  in  those  moving 
sands,  in  that  air  of  illusion  and  vision,  in 
those  imprecise  horizons,  the  solid  earth 
might  seem  the  stuff  that  dreams  are 
made  on.  The  desert  is  a  paradox;  im- 
mutable, it  presents  the  spectacle  of  con- 
tinuous change. 

Nowhere  is  the  transitory  so  suggested, 
set  forth,  and  embodied.  Here  is  the  com- 
plete type  of  human  existence, 'permeated 
with  impermanence,  the  illusory,  and 
oblivion,  yet  immutable;  the  generations 
are  erased,  but  humanity  abides  with  the 
same  general  aspects.  The  land  is  a  type, 
too,  of  the  desert  past — its  tribes  globing 
into  hosts  and  dispersed,  its  dynasties  that 
crumble  and  leave  not  a  ruin  behind,  its 
inconsecutiveness  in  history,  wars  like 
sand-storms,  peace  without  fruition.  It 
is  on  this  life,  and  issuing  from  its  mor- 
tal senses,  that  there  falls  the  impalpable 
melancholy  and  intimate  sadness  of  the 
desert.  The  formlessness  of  the  vague 
envelops  all  there;  it  is  the  path  of  the 
unfinished,  the  illimitable;  it  is  the  bosom 
of  the  infinite  where  life  is  a  momentary 
foam.  Mystery  is  continuous  there,  a  per- 
petual presence.  Its  human  counterpart, 
its  image  in  the  soul,  is  la  reve,  the  dream, 
revery,  as  changeful,  as  illusory,  that 
takes  no  root,  fades,  and  vanishes.  It  is 
not  a  merely  contemplative  sadness ;  it  is 
a  physical  melancholy.  The  oases  are 
full  of  fever,  of  the  incredible  languors  of 
the  heat — breath  is  a  weight  upon  the 
lungs,  blood  is  weariness  in  the  veins,  life 
is  an  oppression  and  an  exhaustion.  It 
revives,  but  it  remembers.  There  is  a 
swift  spring-time  of  life,  a  resilience,  a  jet, 
of  the  eternal  force,  and  age  comes  like 
night  with  a  stride.  Death  is  the  strik- 
ing of  the  tent.  It  is  quickly  over.  You 
shall  see  four  men  passing  rapidly  with  the 
bier,  a  wide  frame  on  which  the  body  lies, 
wrapped  in  white;  in  the  barren  place  of 
the  dead  they  dig  with  haste  a  shallow  hol- 
low in  the  sand;  they  stand  a  moment  in 
the  last  prayer;  they  have  covered  the 
grave  swiftly  and  stuck  three  palm  twdgs 
in  the  loose  sand,  and  are  gone.  A  change 
of  day  and  night,  of  winter  and  summer, 


On  tl-ic   Mat 


439 


of  birth  and  death,  and  at  the  centre  the 
wind-blown  desert  and  the  frail  nomad 
tent;  and  then,  three  palm  twigs  in  the 
nameless  sand. 

The  desert  gives  new  values  to  life.  It 
is  a  rejuvenation  of  the  senses,  a  perpetual 
renaissance.  The  fewness  of  objects  and 
their  isolation  on  the  great  scene  increase 
their  worth  to  the  eye,  and  in  the  simple 
life  all  trifles  gain  in  meaning  through 
receiving  more  attention;  the  pure  and 
bracing  air  invigorates  the  whole  body  in 
all  its  functions,  and  the  light  is,  in  par- 
ticular, a  stimulant  to  the  eye.  The  in- 
tensification of  the  pleasures  of  the  senses 
is  due  also  to  the  austerities  and  hardships 
of  life  in  the  waste  and  the  change  from 
suffering  to  ease.  To  the  nomad,  after 
the  rigors  of  the  sands,  heat  and  thirst  and 
glare,  all  vegetation  has  the  freshness  of 
spring-time;  the  oasis,  welcoming  his  eyes, 
is,  in  truth,  an  opening  paradise.  The 
toiling  caravan,  the  French  column, •know 
what  it  means.  The  long,  black-green 
lines  of  the  oasis  over  the  sands  are  like  the 
breaking  of  light  in  the  east;  the  sound 
of  running  water  is  a  music  that  reverber- 
ates in  all  their  nerves;  fruits  hanging  in 
cool  shadows,  flowers,  groves — it  is  la  vie, 
the  great  miracle,  again  dreaming  the 
beautiful  dream  in  the  void.  After  the 
hamada,  the  desert  route,  it  is  paradise.  It 
is  impossible  to  conceive  of  the  sensual  in- 
tensity of  this  delight,  of  its  merely  bodily 
effervescence.  The  Arabs  are  a  sensual 
race,  and  the  desert  has  double-charged 
their  joys  with  health  and  hardship;  their 
poverty  of  thought  is  partly  recompensed 
by  fulness  of  sensation.  The  oases  are 
not  gardens  in  the  European  sense;  they 
are  rude  and  arid  groves  and  orchards  and 
fields,  with  a  roughness  of  untamed  na- 
ture in  the  aspect  of  the  soil;  and  the 
desert  everywhere  is  savage  in  look,  with 
the  uncared-for  reality,  the  nakedness,  and 
the  wild  glory  of  primeval  things.  Yet  I 
have  never  known  habitually  such  deli- 
cacy and  poignancy  of  sensation.  The 
wind  does  not  merely  blow,  it  caresses; 
the  landscape  does  not  smile,  it  mirrors 
and  gives  back  delight;  odors  and  flavors 
are  penetrating;  warmth  and  moisture 
bathe  and  cool;  there  is  something  in- 
timate in  the  touch  of  life.  There  is  a  uni- 
versal caress  in  nature,  a  drawing  near — 
something  soothing,  lulling,  cadenced — 


felt  in  the  blood  and  along  the  nerves,  a 
voluplc  diffused  and  physical;  for  there  is 
a  flower  of  the  senses,  as  there  is  a  flower 
of  the  mind,  as  refined  in  its  exhalation, 
in  the  peace  of  vague  horizons,  in  wafted 
fragrances  of  the  night,  in  luminosities 
of  the  atmosphere,  in  floating  vapors  of 
morning,  in  the  dry  bed  of  the  oned  under 
the  moon,  in  the  pomegranate  blossom, 
in  the  plume  of  the  date-palm  flower, 
in  all  evanescence,  the  companionship  of 
some  little  thing  of  charm,  the  passing  of 
a  singing  voice.  The  desert  is  rich  in 
those  mysteries  of  sensation  that  remain 
in  their  own  realm  of  touch  and  eye  and 
ear,  revery  and  dream.  It  is  a  garden  of 
the  senses;  and  the  wild  flavor  of  the 
garden  gives  a  strange  poignancy  to  its 
delights. 

This  sensuality  prolongs  its  life  in  the 
higher  faculties;  it  penetrates  and  im- 
pregnates the  mental  consciousness;  mem- 
ory and  imagination  are  strongly  physical; 
the  soul-life  itself  is  deeply  sensuous.  It 
is,  in  this  primitive  psychology,  as  if  one 
should  see  the  coral  insects  building  up 
beneath  the  wave  the  reef  that  should 
emerge  on  a  clear-skied  world.  The  des- 
ert music  reveals  this  most  clearly.  Sen- 
sation, as  has  been  often  said,  enters  into 
the  arts  in  varying  degrees.  Literature 
is  the  most  disembodied  of  the  arts; 
its  images  are  most  purely  mental  and 
free  from  physical  incarnation;  then,  in 
order,  painting,  sculpture,  music  include 
greater  actuality  of  sensation  by  virtue  of 
which  aesthetic  pleasure,  as  it  arises  from 
them,  is  more  deeply  drenched  in  physical 
reality.  The  senses  are  preliminary  to  the 
intellect;  that  is  why  the  arts  precede  the 
sciences  in  human  evolution.  The  desert- 
dweller  has  no  sciences,  and  his  only  art 
is  music,  which  itself  is  in  a  primitive 
stage,  being  still  characteristically  joined 
with  the  dance  in  its  original  prehistoric 
union.  The  Arabs  sit,  banked  on  their 
benches,  apathetic,  gazing,  listening,  while 
the  monotonous  rhythm  of  the  dance 
and  the  instruments  rises,  sways,  and  ter- 
minates, and  begins  again  interminably. 
What  is  their  state?  It  is  an  obsession, 
more  or  less  profound,  of  memory  and  im- 
agination, retrosi)ecti\e  or  i)rospecti\e  ex- 
perience, felt  with  physical  vagueness, 
defined,  vixilied,  and  madt"  momentarily 
present  by  the  swaying  dancer  in  the  cmo- 


440 


On  the  Mat 


tional  nimbus  of  the  music.  It  is  the  audi- 
ence at  only  one  remo\e  from  jxirticipation 
in  the  dance,  contemplative  but  still  phys- 
ically reminiscent  of  it.  The  dances  are  of 
two  general  t}pes:  that  of  the  negroes,  a 
physical  hysteria,  full  of  violent  gesture, 
leaping,  and  loud  cries,  the  barbaric  par- 
oxysm; the  other  that  of  Arab  origin,  a 
voluptuous  cadencing  to  a  monotonously 
responsive  accompaniment.  The  desert- 
dweller  is  a  realist;  his  emotions,  his  de- 
sires have  not  transcended  the  facts  of 
life;  his  poetry,  so  far  as  it  exists,  and 
there  is  a  considerable  amount  of  it,  is  one 
of  simple  and  positive  images.  Mysticism, 
in  the  intellectual  sense,  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  senses  into  the  spirit,  does  not 
exist  for  him;  not  nearer  than  Persia  is 
the  mystic  path  which  leads  to  the  ecstasy 
of  the  soul's  union  with  the  divine,  of  the 
Bride  with  the  Bridegroom;  the  desert 
know^s  nothing  of  that  Aryan  dream.  Sen- 
sation remains  here  in  its  own  realm;  and 
its  summary  artistic  form  is  music,  itself 
so  physically  penetrating  in  its  method 
and  appeal.  The  music  of  the  desert  is  to 
me  very  attractive;  it  engages  me  with 
its  simple  and  direct  cling ;  snatches  of  car- 
olled song,  the  humble  notes  of  its  flutes, 
the  insistence  of  its  instruments  fascinate 
and  excite  me.  It  is  the  music  of  the 
senses. 

The  sensuality  of  the  Arabs  also  found 
other  climaxes,  in  love  and  war.  It  is  the 
intensity  of  their  passion  and  of  their  fight- 
ing which  has  charged  their  history,  as 
a  race,  with  its  greatest  brilliancy;  and 
at  their  points  of  highest  achievement  a 
luxurious  temperament  has  characterized 
them,  which  has  made  an  Arabian  dream 
the  synonym  for  all  strange  and  soft  de- 
lights. The  desert  in  its  degree  has  this 
mollesse,  physical  languors,  exhaustion; 
its  home  is  in  the  oasis- villages.  The  true 
nomad  contemns  the  oasis-dwellers  as  a 
softened,  debilitated,  and  corrupt  race ;  the 
life  of  the  nomad  is  purer,  hardier,  manlier ; 
he  is  the  master;  the  oasis  pays  him  trib- 
ute. The  life  of  the  senses,  however,  in 
either  form,  passes  away;  vitality  ebbs 
the  more  swiftly  because  of  its  rapid  and 
intense  play ;  pallor  falls  on  the  sensations, 
they  fade,  and  joy  is  gone.  Melancholy 
from  its  deepest  source  supervenes ;  in  the 
desert — age  in'  its  abandonment,  decay, 
and  poverty;  in  the  oasis — life  somnolent, 


effeminate,  drugged.  The  wheel  comes  full 
circle  in  the  end  for  all.  Meanwhile  the 
vision  of  life  is  whole,  and  goes  ever  on. 
Youth  is  always  there  in  its  beauty  and 
freshness.  There  is  always  love  and  fight- 
ing. Nature  does  not  lose  her  universal 
caress.  The  desert-soul  still  adores  the 
only  God  in  his  singleness.  There  is  great 
freedom.  The  route  calls.  It  is  human 
life,  brave,  picturesque,  mysterious — be- 
set by  the  sands,  but  before  it  always  the 
infinite. 

Yet,  fascinated  though  I  was,  I  was 
aware  of  some  detachment.  Sweet  w^as 
the  renaissance  of  the  senses — what  bril- 
liancy and  joy  in  their  play — ^merely  to 
look,  to  breathe,  to  be!  To  have  come 
into  one  of  the  titanic  solitudes  of  nature, 
comparable  only  to  ocean  wastes  and 
amplitudes  of  the  sky,  and  to  dwell  there, 
far  from  the  mechanic  chaos,  the  unbridled 
egotism,  the  competitive  din — what  a  re- 
covery of  the  soul  was  there,  of  human 
dignity,  of  true  being!  and  to  find  there 
a  race  still  in  a  primitive  simplicity,  un- 
burdened by  thought,  not  at  warfare  with 
its  mortal  nature,  the  two  poles  of  the  spirit 
and  the  body  married  in  one  sphere;  and 
to  feel  the  rude  shepherding  of  nature 
round  their  nomad  lives,  inured  to  hard- 
ship, but  swiftly  responsive  with  almost 
animal  vitality  to  her  rare  kindlier  moods 
and  touches — it  was  a  discovery  of  the 
early  world,  of  ancestral  primeval  ways. 
It  was  a  refreshment,  a  disburdenment,  an 
enfranchisement;  and  it  was  a  holiday  de- 
light. Yet  over  these  simplicities,  aus- 
terities, and  wild  flavors  there  still  hung  a 
moral  distance,  something  Theocritean, 
the  mood  of  the  city-dweller  before  pastoral 
charm.  To  sit  in  the  cafe  in  the  throng  of 
Arabs  wdth  the  coffee  and  the  dance,  to 
muse  and  dream  on  the  mat  alone,  to  lie 
apart  in  the  garden  and  be  content — it 
was  a  real  participation ;  but  in  the  back- 
ground behind,  in  the  shadow^  of  my  heart, 
was  the  old  European  though  eluded. 
This  life  had  the  quality  of  escapade — to 
see  things  lying  crumbled  and  fallen  with 
none  to  care,  to  be  free  of  the  eternal  sal- 
vage of  dead  shells  of  life  and  thought 
— a  world  so  little  encumbered  with  the 
heritage  of  civilization !  How  many  years 
had  I  spent,  as  it  were,  in  a  museum  of 
things  artificially  preserved  in  books,  like 
jars — in  the  laboratory  of  the  intellectual 


On  the  Mat 


441 


charnel-house!  The  scholar,  accumulat- 
ing the  endless  history  of  human  error, 
has  no  time  to  serve  truth  by  advancing 
it  in  his  own  age;  he  lives  so  much  with 
what  was  that  he  cannot  himself  be;  his 
inheritance  eats  him  up.  The  crown  of 
Western  culture  is  aj)t  to  be  an  encyclo- 
paedia. There  was  no  library  in  the  des- 
ert. And  religion — how  much  of  it  comes 
to  us  moderns  in  a  dead  form !  Surely  re- 
ligion is  a  revelation  of  the  soul,  not  to 
it.  This  is  a  doctrine  of  immanence.  If 
God  be  not  immanent  in  the  soul,  man  can 
have  no  knowledge  of  the  divine.  Relig- 
ion is  an  aura  of  the  soul,  a  materialization 
of  spiritual  consciousness,  varying  in  in- 
tensity of  light  and  tones  of  color  from 
race  to  race,  from  age  to  age,  and,  indeed, 
from  man  to  man;  it  is  the  soul's  con- 
sciousness made  visible.  It  is  not  to  me 
interesting  as  scientific  truth  is,  a  thing  of 
worth  in  the  realm  of  the  abstract,  but 
rather  as  artistic  truth  is,  a  vital  expression , 
something  lived.  What  a  reality  it  had 
here  in  the  desert-soul — its  effluence,  al- 
most its  substance,  giving  back  the  spir- 
itual image  of  nature  in  humanity,  a  con- 
densation of  the  vast  spaces,  the  vague 
horizons,  the  monotony,  the  mortal  bur- 
den, in  a  prayer!  It  is  a  new  baptism 
into  nature,  if  not  unto  God,  only  to  see 
this  aura  of  the  soul  in  the  desert.  The 
scene  in  all  its  phases — landscape  and 
men — w^as  to  me  an  evocation  of  the  long 
ago.  But  the  soul  does  not  return  upon 
its  track.  The  simple  life  is  only  for  the 
simple  soul.  The  soul  of  the  old  Euro- 
pean is  not  simple.  Yet  if  the  leopard 
could  change  his  spots,  if  one  could  lay  off 
the  burden  of  thought,  lay  staff  and  scrip 
aside,  and  end  the  eternal  quest,  nowhere 
else  could  he  better  make  the  great  refusal 
and  set  uj)  an  abiding-place  as  in  this 
nomad  world.  Its  last  word  is  resigna- 
tion ;  peace  is  its  last  desire. 

The  desert  world  is  a  dying  world.  That 
is  the  sadly  shadowing,  slowly  mount- 
ing, fatally  overwhelming  impression  that 
grows  on  the  mind  and  fills  it.  Death  is 
the  aspect  of  the  scene;  sterility,  blank- 
ness,  indifference  to  life.  Inhospitality 
is  its  universal  trait  and  feature.  It  is 
as  hostile  to  animal  and  vegetable  as 
to  human  lift — its  skeleton  lakes  with- 
out fishes,  its  drifting  \ alleys  without 
birds,  its  steppes  witliout  roving  herds. 


Its  oases  are  provisioned  with  water  and 
bastioned  with  ramparts  against  the  eter- 
nal siege  of  the  sands;  to  preserve  them 
is  like  holding  Holland  against  the  sea. 
The  mere  presence  of  man,  too  —  what 
is  human — shares  in  this  aspect  of  death. 
I  have  mentioned  the  cemeteries,  mere 
plots  of  extinction,  anonymous,  without 
dates,  leaving  nothing  of  degradation  to 
be  added  to  the  sense  of  ho|)eIessness,  fu- 
tility, and  oblivion.  The  dwelling-places 
of  the  living  are  hardly  more  raised  above 
the  soil  or  distinguishable  from  the  earth 
they  crumble  into  —  topically  seen  in 
those  ksour  of  the  south,  cracked,  with 
gap  and  rift,  dissolving  in  ageless  decay 
and  abandonment,  mere  heaps  over  the 
underground  darkness  of  passages  and 
cells — or  here  embosomed  in  a  great  si- 
lence, full  of  solitude  and  secrecy,  the  life 
of  the  palm-garden,  of  the  great  heats,  of 
the  frigid  nights;  always  and  ever>^vhere 
with  the  sense  of  an  immense  desolation, 
denudation,  and  deprivation.  The  life 
of  the  tent  is  one  of  sunshine  and  xitality 
by  comparison;  humble  and  rugged,  it  has 
no  decadence  in  its  look;  in  the  villages 
the  decadence  seems  almost  of  the  soil 
itself.  One  goes  out  into  the  desert  to 
escape  the  oppression  of  this  universal 
mortal  decay;  and  there  is  no  life  there, 
only  a  passage  of  life,  of  which  the  skel- 
eton of  the  camel  in  the  sands  is  the  epi- 
taph. 

A  dying  world,  and  a  race  submissive  to 
its  fate.  In  that  nomad  world,  where 
everything  is  passing  away,  there  is  noth- 
ing fixed  but  the  will  of  Allah.  It  is  not 
strange  to  find  fatality  the  last  word  of 
Islam.  In  the  desert  world  the  will  of 
nature  appears  with  extreme  nakedness; 
the  fortune  of  man  is  brief,  scant,  and 
unstable;  the  struggle  is  against  infinite 
odds,  a  meagre  subsistence  is  gained,  if  at 
all;  and  the  blow  of  adversity  is  sudden 
and  decisive.  Patience  everywhere  is  the 
virtue  of  the  poor,  resignation  the  best 
philoso{)hy  of  the  unfortunate,  and  defeat, 
as  well  as  victory, and  i)erhaps  more  often, 
brings  ])eace.  These  are  great  words  of 
Islam,  and  nowhere  have  they  sunk  deep- 
er into  life  than  in  the  desert-soul.  They 
are  all  forms  of  that  fatality  which  the 
desert  seems  almost  to  embody  in  nature, 
to  exercise  in  the  lives  ol  its  children,  and 
to  iinplaiit  ill  their  bosoms  asthefunda- 


442 


On  the  Mat 


mental  fact  of  being.  Fatality  is  in  the 
outer  aspect  of  things  and  exhales  from 
the  inward  course  of  life;  melancholy,  im- 
potence, immobility  accumulate  with  the 
passage  of  years;  elTortless  waiting,  indo- 
lence, prayer,  contemplation — these  are 
the  shadows  in  which  is  the  end.  This 
mood  of  the  despair  of  life  has  nowhere 
more  lulling  cadences  of  death.  The  des- 
ert is  a  magnificent  setting  for  the  scene 
— its  strong  coloring,  its  vast  expanses, 
its  unfathomable  silences;  its  desolate 
grandeurs,  its  sublime  austerities,  its  wild 
glory — godlike  indifference  to  mankind; 
its  salt  chotts,  immense  as  river  valleys, 
tufts  of  the  sand-sunken  palms — premo- 
nitions of  the  disappearance  of  life  from 
the  earth,  the  final  extinction  of  that 
vital  spark  which  was  the  wildfire  of  the 
planet,  the  thin  frost- w^ork  on  the  flaking 
rock,  the  little  momentary  breath  of  love 
and  war  and  prayer.  Here  life  takes  on 
its  true  proportions  at  the  end — all  life; 
it  is  an  incident,  a  little  thing  in  the  great 
scene.  A  dying  world,  a  dying  race,  a  dy- 
ing civilization,  truly;  but  the  old  Euro- 
pean, the  wise  pessimist  in  the  shadow, 
has  seen  much  death;  to  him  it  is  but 
another  notch  on  the  stick.  To  me,  per- 
sonally near  to  it  and  fascinated  in  my 
senses  still,  it  is  tres  humain,  exciting,  en- 
gaging; and  the  melancholy  that  pene- 
trates it  ever  more  deeply  and  mysteri- 
ously does  not  interfere  with  its  charm,  its 
blend  of  delicacy  and  hardiness,  of  spirit 
and  sense,  of  freedom  and  fate.  I  have  a 
touch  of  the  heart  of  the  desert-born.  ''  If 
love  of  country  should  perish  from  the 
earth, "  said  my  soldier  poet,  "it  would  be 
found  again  in  the  heart  of  the  Bedouin. " 
No  race  is  more  attached  to  the  soil,  or  so 
consumed  with  homesickness  for  it.  The 
Bedouin  loves  the  desert. 


II 


A  STRANGE  thing  to  me  was  the  absence 
of  any  political  state.  There  has  never 
been  a  political  state,  properly  speaking, 
in  the  desert.  Such  was  the  parcelling  of 
the  communities,  so  elementary  the  gov- 
ernmental form,  so  feeble  the  impulse  of 
poUtical  aggregation  and  cohesion,  that 
the  general  condition  might  seem  to  be 
an  anarchy.  In  the  Kabyle  villages  of  the 
mountains  and  among  the  Mzabites  of  the 


Sahara  the  assembliesof  the  elders  with  the 
election  and  change  of  headmen  present 
an  aspect  of  such  primitive  simplicity  and 
independence  that  they  might  be  thought 
freemen's  institutions  of  an  ideal  purity; 
on  the  other  hand  the  absence  of  any  po- 
litical centres  of  concentration  forbade  the 
formation  of  a  nation.  The  recognition 
of  the  tribal  blood-tie  conserved  groups, 
smaller  or  larger,  with  a  greater  or  less 
sense  of  unity;  but  feud  was  the  natural 
condition  of  these  units,  extending  to  the 
smallest  and  even  into  families,  and  in  the 
larger  world  political  history  found  only 
hordes  hastily  massing  for  temporary  ends 
and  dissolving  in  a  night,  or  empires  of 
facile  conquest  and  loose  tributary  bonds, 
of  the  nature  of  a  primacy  rather  than  a 
sovereignty,  and  without  long  continuity 
of  life.  Public  order,  with  its  correlatives, 
security  and  peace,  was  little  realized,  and, 
however  ideal  local  institutions  might 
seem  within  the  group,  it  was,  viewed 
largely,  a  barbaric  world. 

A  very  pure  democracy  in  its  primitive 
form  prevailed.  All  men  were  equal  be- 
fore Allah,  and  the  condition  of  equality 
generally  obtained  also  between  man  and 
man.  Inequality  belongs  to  civilization; 
the  absence  of  that,  and  especially  the 
lack  of  security  for  wealth  and  its  inherit- 
ance, of  an  official  class  of  state  function- 
aries and  a  clerical  hierarchy,  and  pre- 
eminently the  lack  of  knowledge,  removed 
main  sources  of  that  differentiation  which 
has  stratified  modern  society.  There  was 
a  noblesse  of  the  sword  and  also  of  religion, 
grounded  originally  on  descent  from  Mo- 
hammed or  more  generally  and  powerfully 
here  in  the  west  from  some  marabout,  but 
neither  class  was  really  separated  from  the 
people.  The  only  effective  source  of  in- 
equality was  virtii — real  ability.  Tradi- 
tion made  it  the  glory  of  the  Arab  noble 
to  dissipate  his  patrimony  in  gifts  to  his 
friends,  and  to  rely  on  the  booty  of  his 
own  hand  for  himself.  Ignorance,  be- 
sides, is  a  great  leveller,  and  poverty  is 
the  best  friend  of  fraternity;  liberty  was 
native  to  the  soil.  It  was  a  society  w^here 
all  men  had  substantially  the  same  ideas, 
customs,  and  desires,  thought  and  acted, 
lived,  in  the  same  way.  It  was  a  natural 
democracy,  and  inbred;  and  to-day  this 
trait  is  one  of  the  most  striking  and  re- 
freshing that  a  sojourn  among  its  people 


On  the  Mat 


443 


brings  to  notice,  for  it  is  a  real  democracy, 
unconscious  of  itself,  vital,  and  admirable 
in  its  human  results. 

Race-consciousness  found  historic  ex- 
pression only  in  the  religious  field.  The 
spots  where  the  faith  first  began  on  the 
soil,  the  tombs  of  great  leaders  in  the  con- 
quest, such  as  that  of  Sidi  Okba  in  the 
oasis  not  far  away,  the  white  domes  of 
the  marabouts  sown  like  village  spires 
through  all  this  land,  were  places  of  sacred 
memory,  centres  of  race-consciousness, 
and  here  took  the  function  of  integrating 
the  common  soul  of  the  race,  as,  in  other 
civilizations,  political  memorials  of  great 
public  events  and  famous  men  develop 
national  consciousness.  In  the  desert  pa- 
triotism and  faith  are  one  emotion.  The 
ideal  Mohammedan  state  is  a  pure  the- 
ocracy, in  which  the  political  and  spiritual 
powers  are  one  and  inseparable;  where 
this  condition  prevails  is  the  dar  el  Islam, 
the  land  of  Islam,  the  soil  of  the  true 
faith;  elsewhere,  w^herever  the  union  is 
imperfect  or  the  faith  must  concede  to 
the  infidel,  is  the  dar  el  harb,  or,  as  we 
should  say,  missionary  countries.  Neither 
Turkey  nor  Egypt  is  dar  el  Islam;  its  nar- 
row, though  still  vast,  realm  is  the  Libyan 
sands,  where  it  still  refuges  its  people. 
It  is  an  arresting  sight  when  religion 
goes  into  the  desert  to  be  with  God;  the 
Pilgrims  of  the  Mayflower^s  wake,  the 
Mormons  of  the  sunflower  trail  fill  the 
imagination  with  their  willingness  to  give 
up  all,  to  go  forth  and  plant  a  new  state 
sacred  to  their  idea.  It  is  always  an 
heroic  act.  Such  a  coming  out  from 
among  the  world,  such  a  going  forth  into 
the  inhospitable  waste  has  been  charac- 
teristic of  desert  history.  Solitude  is  the 
natural  home  of  orthodoxy,  of  the  fanatic 
sect  and  the  purist.  Mohammedanism 
in  its  primary  stage  was  a  particular 
religion  of  a  desert  people;  in  its  second- 
ary stage,  as  a  conquering  faith,  it  had  to 
develop  its  capacity  for  internationalism, 
its  powers  of  adaptation  to  other  breeds 
and  of  absorption  of  foreign  moods  and 
sentiments,  its  fitness  to  become  a  world 
religion;  in  itself  also  there  was  neces- 
sarily the  play  of  human  nature  involv- 
ing, as  time  went  on,  a  \ariation  into 
sects,  heresies,  innovations;  thus,  for  ex- 
ample, it  absorbed  mysticism  from  the 
extreme  East  and  whitened  the  West  with 


the  worship  of  saints.  The  faith  was 
purer  and  more  rigid  in  the  desert,  gen- 
erally speaking,  and  was  there  more  primi- 
tively marked;  there  it  was  safest  from 
contaminating  contacts;  and  there  also 
Western  civilization,  closing  round  and 
penetrating  its  realm,  finds  the  most  fa- 
natic and  obdurate  resistance. 

Race-resistance  to  the  invasion  of  the 
modern  world,  naturally  following  the 
lines  of  race-consciousness,  notwithstand- 
ing the  aid  it  received  in  the  beginning 
of  the  struggle  from  the  old  feudality  of 
the  desert,  had  its  stronghold  in  religion 
and  its  organization;  and,  specitlcally,  if 
found  its  practical  rallying-points  and 
strongest  alignment  in  the  confraternities, 
or  secret  orders,  with  their  zaoiiias,  anal- 
ogous to  mediaeval  abbeys  and  monas- 
teries, which  had  so  great  a  development 
in  North  Africa  in  the  last  century — some 
more  enlightened  in  leadership  and  ca- 
pable of  assimilating  Western  benefits  in 
some  degree,  others  stupidly  impervious 
to  the  new  influences  and  events.  These 
brotherhoods,  whose  nomadic  agents  un- 
der the  guise  of  every  humble  employment 
course  the  land  with  great  thoroughness, 
are  ideal  organizations  for  agitation,  col- 
lecting and  disseminating  news,  prepar- 
ing insurrection,  fomenting  and  perpetu- 
ating discontent  and  secret  hope;  it  is 
they  and  their  machinations  that  are  back 
of  the  Holy  War,  as  a  race  idea.  They 
are  all  hearths  of  the  faith;  but  some,  such 
as  the  Tidjaniya,  recognizing  both  the  fact 
of  French  power  and  the  reality  of  the 
benefits  it  confers,  are  committed  to  polit- 
ical submission  and  peace;  others  are  less 
placable,  and  nurse  eternal  hate  of  the  in- 
fidel, w4th  a  credulous  hope  of  expelling 
him  from  the  land;  and  one,  the  most 
irreconcilable  and  the  most  powerful,  is  an 
active  foe.  This  fraternity  is  the  Snous- 
siya,  having  its  seat  at  Djarbout,  in  the 
Libyan  desert,  where  it  has  constituted  a 
veritable  empire  of  the  sands,  a  pure  Mo- 
hammedan state;  it  has  divided  with  the 
neighboring  empire  of  the  Mahdi,  and 
with  that  of  the  Sultan  of  Morocco,  the 
proud  title  of  dar  el  Islatn.  Sidi  Snoussi, 
the  founder,  was  a  humble  talrh  of  Med- 
jaher,  in  the  province  of  Oran.  He 
preached  the  exodus,  and  led  the  recal- 
citrant and  irreconcilable  into  the  Cyrv- 
naica,  and  there  by  virtue  of  his  natural 


446 


On  the  Mat 


larger  s])hcre  which  existed  for  religion 
in  the  old  days  no  longer  exists.  The  her- 
mit is  a  holy  man  largely  because  he  has 
nothing  else  to  do  excej^t  to  be  holy;  and 
religion  tills  the  world  of  Islam  partly, 
at  least,  because  of  the  absence  of  other 
elements  in  that  j^rimitive  monotonous 
life.  The  modern  world  has  brought  with 
it  into  the  desert  a  great  variety  of  novel 
interests,  a  diversilied  life,  stimulating  cu- 
riosity and  attention  and  often  absorb- 
ing practical  participation  in  the  new 
movement  on  the  part  of  the  people  in 
trade,  enterprise,  amusement,  informa- 
tion, news.  It  appears  to  be  agreed  that 
in  the  parts  of  longest  occupancy  by  the 
French  there  has  been  a  relaxation  of  re- 
ligious practice  and  a  softening  of  fanatic 
hatred,  concurrently  with  a  corruption  of 
morals  and  degeneracy  of  racial  vigor 
where  European  contact  has  been  most 
close. 

The  final  question  is  of  the  issue.  The 
population  has  greatly  increased  under 
French  rule.  The  development  of  the 
country  in  a  material  w^ay  goes  on  apace. 
The  colonial  empire  of  France  in  Africa 
has  a  great  commercial  future.  Will  the 
native  people  in  this  new  economic  civili- 
zation be  able  to  hold  fast,  and  secure  for 
its  own  at  least  a  share  of  the  products  of 
this  great  movement,  or  will  they  be  mere- 
ly a  servile  race  in  the  service  of  French 
proprietors  and  over-lords,  or  in  a  condi- 
tion of  economic  serfage  to  vast  accu- 
mulations of  capital,  analogous  to  that 
of  industrial  w^orkers  in  our  capitalistic 
society?  Will  the  moral  decay,  incident 
to  the  change  of  civilizations,  eat  them 
up  and  destroy  them,  as  has  been  the  luck 
of  half-barbaric  peoples  elsewhere  in  their 
contact  with  the  modern  world?  In  a 
word,  is  the  Berber  people,  for  that  race  is 
here  the  general  stock  and  stamina,  capa- 
ble of  assimilating  this  civilization  and 
profiting  by  it?  These  are  questions  of  a 
far  future.  Meanwhile  the  best  opinion 
is  sharply  divided  upon  them.  Histor- 
ically, the  Berber  race  has  shown  assimila- 
tive power  racially  by  its  absorption  of 
the  foreign  bloods  that  have  crossed  it 
from  the  earliest  days :  the  northern  bar- 
barians, the  Arabs  of  the  great  invasion, 
the  negroes  of  the  south  have  all  mingled 
with  it  freely;  it  has  also  shown  power 
to  take  the  impress  of  foreign  institutions 
from  Roman  and  Christian  days  to  the 


time  of  its  Islamization.  Its  resistant 
j)ower,  its  vitality  as  a  race,  is  scarcely 
less  noticeable.  There  are  some  who  look 
to  see  real  assimilation,  even  to  the  extent 
of  a  miscegenation  of  the  various  strains 
of  foreign  blood;  there  are  others  who 
expect  at  most  only  a  hegemony  of  civili- 
zation over  a  permanently  inferior  people; 
and  there  are  still  others  who  hope  for  a 
true  assimilation  of  material  civilization, 
with  its  blessings  of  science  and  order, 
but  see  an  impassable  abyss  between  the 
old  European  and  the  soul  of  the  desert, 
inscrutable,  mysterious,  alien,  which  re- 
mains immutable  in  the  Berber  race. 


Ill 


The  old  life  of  the  desert  is  passing 
away;  the  fact  is  written  on  the  landscape, 
on  the  faces  of  the  people,  and  in  their 
hearts.  It  was  as  full  of  miseries  as  of 
grandeurs;  and  its  disappearance  is  for 
good.  What  was  admirable  in  it  was  the 
endurance  of  the  human  heart  in  the  ster- 
ile places,  and  the  mysterious  flowering 
from  it,  amid  this  desolation,  of  a  great 
faith.  The  death  of  a  religion,  no  more 
than  the  decay  of  other  institutions, 
should  perplex  or  disturb;  all  these  alike 
are  the  work  of  the  soul,  and  when  the 
soul  leaves  them  they  perish;  and  as  in 
the  revolutions  the  daily  life  of  men  goes 
on,  so  in  the  religious  changes  of  organiza- 
tion and  dogma  the  spiritual  life  of  the  soul 
continues.  The  soul  can  no  more  be  with- 
out religion  than  the  body  without  life. 
The  sense  of  the  mystery  of  its  own  being 
abides  in  the  soul,  in  however  half-con- 
scious or  imperfect  forms,  implanted  in  its 
vital  and  animating  principle,  and  shares 
with  shaping  power  in  its  thoughts,  emo- 
tions, and  will,  and  exhales  the  atmosphere 
in  which  it  realizes  its  spiritual  life:  it  is 
here  that  religion,  in  the  external  sense  of 
worship  and  dogma,  has  its  source.  The 
desert-soul  may  cast  the  old  life  like  a 
garment — faith  and  all;  but  under  these 
old  skies  and  in  these  supreme  horizons  it 
cannot  change  its  nature,  which  is,  in  a 
sense,  the  human  form  of  the  desert.  The 
flower  of  faith  will  grow  here,  and  blos- 
som in  the  wild,  in  the  future  as  in  the 
past,  for  the  desert  is  a  spiritual  place; 
and  in  this  austere  and  infinite  air  faith 
will  continue  to  be  a  religion  of  the  desert 
truly,  with  the  least  of  the  corporeal  in 


Soldiers  of  Time 


447 


its  manifestation  and  idea,  with  the  least 
of  the  defined  in  creed  and  localized  in 
place;  for  the  spiritual,  the  universal,  the 
vague  are  the  intuitions  and  language  of 
the  desert;  there  religion  is  less  a  thought 
than  a  feeling,  less  a  prayer  than  a  mood. 
I  closed  my  meditations  in  such 
thoughts  as  these,  instinctively  seeking 
amid  so  much  that  was  mortal  the  un- 
dying, in  the  decadent  the  permanent, 
in  the  transitory  the  eternal. 


IV 


The  stars  were  coming  out  in  the  sky; 
the  coolness  of  the  night  was  already  in 


the  air.  The  old  Arab  had  long  ago  de- 
parted; the  kif-smoking  youth  were  gone. 
I  was  alone  under  the  vine-trellis,  with  the 
dark  lines  of  the  palm  grove  before  me 
in  the  falling  night.  The  proi)rietor,  a 
mild-faced  and  gentle-mannered  old  Arab, 
came,  as  I  rose  to  go,  with  a  few  i)leasant 
words  and  gave  me  a  small  branch  of 
orange-flowers  and  a  spray  of  the  white 
flower  of  the  palm.  ^'Cest  le  male,'' 
he  said  with  a  smile.  And  as  I  rode  home 
over  the  silent  desert,  and  crossing  the 
bed  of  the  oiicd  looked  back  on  the  moun- 
tain wall  and  swept  with  my  gaze  the  great 
dark  waste  under  the  stars,  I  found  my- 
self repeating  his  words — ''C'est  le  mdle.'^ 


SOLDIERS    OF    TIME 
By   Barry  Benefield 


I  1.1.  us  1- RAT  I  O  N     I?Y     AlONZO     K  I  .M  H  A  I.  I. 


N  this  morning  in  May  Jo- 
hann  HafT  lay  listening  to 
the  measured  footsteps  of 
his  soldiers  of  time  in  the 
big  front  room.  No  two 
marched  together,  but  each 
had  a  gait  of  his  own ;  and  now  he  listened 
anxiously  to  hear  if  all  were  on  the  move, 
if  any  were  breaking  a  gait.  The  darkness 
thinned  and  whitened,  the  clocks  came 
further  and  further  out  of  the  grayness. 
After  a  while  there  was  a  terrific  commo- 
tion on  all  the  brown  walls,  on  the  dresser 
to  the  right  of  the  street  window,  on  the 
ancient  carved  mantel  out  beyond  the  foot 
of  the  bed.  Loud  and  low,  quick  and 
slow,  bells  and  cuckoo  whistles  and  beaten 
coils  of  wire  proclaimed  that  another 
march  had  been  done.  It  was  six  o'clock. 
"So!"  said  Johann  Haff  in  a  satisfied 
tone,  and  got  out  of  bed.  Going  to  the 
spindle-legged  l^owl  and  pitcher  stand  to 
the  right  of  the  marble  mantel,  he  poured 
a  blue  graniteware  cup  nearly  full  of  water 
and  set  it  on  a  wire  contrivance  above  a 
gas-jet  there.  Emptying  the  pitcher  into 
the  bowl,  he  spread  a  scjuare  of  red  oil- 
cloth over  the  faded  yellow  carpet  to  i)ro- 
tect  its  dingy  white  roses,  and  sponged  his 


big,  bony  frame  until  he  glowed  pink  from 
his  feet  to  his  white  head.  He  took  down 
the  heated  w^ater  from  the  gas-jet,  lathered 
his  face,  stropped  his  razor,  and  reaching 
up  pulled  May  29  from  a  large,  thick  cal- 
endar hanging  on  the  wall  by  the  side  of 
four  pasteboard  back-pieces  of  other  cal- 
endars that  had  been  emptied  of  their 
days.  May  30,  crossed  with  red,  was  star- 
ing at  him. 

For  a  moment  the  old  German  gazed 
hard  at  the  red-marked  day,  not  breath- 
ing, chilled  at  the  heart;  then  he  laid  the 
razor  and  the  sheet  of  ])aper  on  the  corner 
of  the  mantel  and  walked  slowly  o\er  to 
the  window  looking  out  on  West  127th 
Street.  The  street  was  beginning  to  stir 
with  the  life  of  the  young  morning.  Out 
of  the  doors  of  the  ancient  houses,  ])io- 
neers  of  building  in  Harlem  at  a  time  when 
the  old  road  to  the  Fort  Lee  ferry  was  its 
principal  crosstown  thoroughfare,  jieople 
were  hurrying  forth  to  work,  a  delightful 
definiteness  in  their  movements.  Some 
certain  ])lace  to  go,  some  certain  thing 
to  do!  That  appealed  to  Johann  HatT's 
methodical  German  soul.  And  \o  work  I 
He  sighed. 

Six  years  before  this  Ahiy  morning  he 


448 


Soldiers  of  Time 


had  had  a  wife  and  a  business  and  two 
hobbies;  they  had  filled  his  life  beauti- 
fully. From  time  out  of  mind  he  had  been 
the  proprietor  of  a  roomy  tobacco  store  in 
125th  Street,  where  there  were  chairs,  and 
where  a  considerable  number  of  people 
could,  and  often  did,  gather  to  smoke  and 
talk.  But  he  had  never  had  any  bargain 
sales,  had  never  offered  any  prizes,  had 
never  given  any  coupons  or  certificates. 
A  powerful  company  had  opened  a  tiny 
store,  costing  half  the  rent  of  his,  next 
door  to  him ;  and  it  had  pushed  its  trade 
by  every  device  known  to  the  deep  student 
of  the  human  purse.  For  two  months  the 
tall,  black  German  had  sat,  raging  like  a 
lion,  watching  his  old  customers  going 
into  the  new  store;  then  he  had  closed 
his  doors.  The  next  year  his  wife  had 
died. 

There  had  been  left  to  him  then  only  his 
two  hobbies — his  collection  of  clocks,  and 
a  sort  of  vicarious  flower-gardening.  For 
years  he  had  been  making  daily  visits  to 
the  botanical  greenhouses  in  Central  Park. 
The  births  and  lives  and  deaths  behind 
their  glass  walls  had  come  to  be  matters  of 
passionate  interest  to  him.  Yes,  he  had 
had  his  hobbies  left,  and  his  pride.  Patrick 
Roche,  the  Irish  undertaker  on  one  side  of 
his  old  place  in  125th  Street,  had  often 
pressed  him  to  open  another  store  in  the 
same  neighborhood,  telling  him  that  many 
of  his  former  customers  would  be  glad  to 
come  back  to  him,  that  they  were  longing 
for  a  place  where  they  could  again  stand 
around  and  talk.  But  Johann  Haff  had 
indignantly  refused;  he  had  kept  open  his 
store  for  two  whole  months  in  the  face  of 
the  newcomer,  they  had  deserted  him. 
So! 

After  his  wife's  death  he  had  found  that 
his  bank  balance  was  a  little  over  $5,000. 
He  had  moved  to  Mrs.  Sigel's  boarding- 
house,  here  in  1 2 7th  Street.  Knowing  his 
expenses  down  to  the  cent,  he  had  cal- 
culated that  his  money  would  last  him, 
unless  something  happened,  five  years, 
after  taking  out  a  small  bequest  for  Mrs. 
Sigel,  a  smaller  one  for  Katie,  her  huge 
maid  of  all  work,  and  also  the  $200  to  pay 
Patrick  Roche  for  his  last  offices.  The  rest 
of  the  money  he  had  divided  into  five  parts. 
He  might  die  in  less  than  five  years;  the 
schedule  fixed  in  his  Teutonic  mind  de- 
manded that  he  should  not  live  beyond  a 


certain  day  in  the  fifth  year,  when  his  cap- 
ital, except  for  a  possible  few  remnants, 
w^ould  be  gone.  He  had  bought  five  cal- 
endars with  numbers  a  foot  high.  On  the 
fifth  he  had  marked  that  last  day,  lest  the 
sacred  schedule  be  marred  by  an  unthink- 
ing lapse  of  a  few  days  or  weeks.  Be- 
sides, each  day's  leaf  would  be  good  for 
shaving-paper. 

The  though t]of  the  shaving-paper  made 
him  remember  that  the  lather  was  now 
drying  on  his  face  as  he  stood  there  by 
the  window  dreaming  overxhe  years.  He 
went  back  to  the  white-painted,  spindle- 
legged  stand  and  shaved,  and  went  down 
to  breakfast.  Neither  Mrs.  Sigel  nor  any 
of  her  other  five  foster  children  were  down, 
but  Katie  was  there  to  serve  him  with  her 
usual  affectionate  haste.  He  was  glad  he 
had  left  something  for  Katie. 

After  breakfast  he  climbed  back  to  his 
room  to  consider  finally  his  affairs .  Sitting 
down  at  the  bandy-legged  writing-desk  to 
the  left  of  the  window,  he  pulled  all  the 
papers  out  of  the  pigeon-holes  and  looked 
them  over.  Most  of  them  being  of  no 
consequence  now,  he  tore  them  up  and 
threw  them  into  the  waste-basket.  His 
will  was  quite  satisfactory.  His  bank- 
book showed  a  balance  of  something  over 
$500;  that  would  provide  for  the  bequests 
to  Mrs.  Sigel  and  Katie,  and  the  $200  for 
Patrick  Roche's  charges,  with  a  small  mar- 
gin for  trifling  expenses,  such  as  a  flow  of 
gas  for  several  hours.  The  schedule  de- 
manded that  it  be  by  gas. 

From  time  to  time  he  grunted  compla- 
cently, "So!"  He  was  proud  of  his 
achievement  in  having  thus  far  lived  in 
strict  accordance  with  the  schedule,  of 
having  kept  within  his  yearly  allowances 
without  skimping  or  bother;  and  he  felt 
justified  in  congratulating  himself.  And 
his  plan,  having  done  so  well  for  so  long, 
must  work  on  smoothly  and  accurately  to 
the  very  end,  carrying  out  every  detail  to 
its  proper  close. 

Hence,  there  must  be  no  sniffing  of  police 
around  the  house  to  worry  Mrs.  Sigel;  he 
wrote  a  note,  addressed  to  the  coroners, 
that  would  make  investigation  unneces- 
sary. This,  with  his  will  and  the  letter  of 
last  instructions  to  Patrick  Roche,  he  laid 
out  in  plain  view  near  the  inkstand,  closed 
the  desk-cover,  and  stood  up,  scratching 
his  head,  thinking,  like  a  man  making  ar- 


Soldiers  of  Time 


449 


rangements  for  a  trip,  lest  he  forget  some- 
thing. 

He  contemplated  the  gas-jets;  there 
were  six  of  them,  four  in  the  chandelier, 
one  on  either  side  of  the  marble  mantel 
with  its  carved  clusters  of  agglutinated 
grapes;  six — enough.  The  footbeats  of 
his  soldiers  of  time  rose  into  his  conscious- 
ness, and  he  sent  his  black  eyes  around  the 
room  after  them.  Yes,  they  must  be 
stopped  of  course,  but  he  would  wait  un- 
.til  they  had  reached  a  natural  halting- 
place. 

Sitting  down  on  the  bed,  he  watched 
them  in  anguish,  as  if  they  were  striding 
steadily  on  to  certain  death.  Presently 
the  big  room  was  clamoring  at  the  end  of 
the  march;  it  was  eight  o'clock.  Johann 
Haff  got  up  quickly  and  laid  hold  of  the 
pendulum  of  the  giant  soldier  to  the  left 
of  the  mantel,  easing  it  tenderly  to  a  proper 
place  of  rest.  He  got  the  impression  that 
the  old  clock  did  not  like  to  stand  still,  and 
he  patted  it  soothingly. 

''Na,  na,  Vilhelm,  ve  all  stob  now,"  he 
said  coaxingly. 

The  clocks  with  pendulums  were  easy  to 
handle;  those  without  were  much  more 
difficult.  Several  times,  having  taken 
down  a  round  one  from  its  hook,  and 
turned  the  winding  key  backward  until 
the  works  ceased  to  click,  and  hung  it  back 
on  the  wall,  he  was  startled  presently  to 
hear  it  ticking  stubbornly  along  again. 
These  he  conquered  by  stopping  and 
hanging  back  so  stealthily  that  there  was 
not  the  slightest  jarring  inside.  The 
round-faced  baby  clock  embedded  in  the 
block  of  green  marble  at  the  right  end  of 
the  mantel  he  brought  to  a  halt  a  dozen 
times  before  he  could  make  it  stand  still. 
But  one  must  be  patient  with  babies.  Jo- 
hann Haff  smiled  indulgently. 

After  a  while  his  ears  heard  none  of  his 
dear  familiar  footbeats  of  time,  and  the 
room  was  very  lonely.  Well,  why  not  do 
it  now?  The  old  man  sat  down  on  the 
edge  of  the  bed  and  stared  at  a  warm 
glow  of  sunlight  stealing  around  the  win- 
dow jamb.  He  noticed  that  where  the 
sun  touched  the  car])et  its  faded  yeUow 
was  a  rich  Roman  gold  and  its  monstrous 
figures  were  brilliant  while  roses.  Well, 
why  not  do  it  now?  He  kei)t  his  eyes  on 
the  white  roses. 

*'Tst!"  he  said  impatiently,  standing 


up  quickly.  "Dummkopf!  To  forged 
dem  bot'!" 

It  had  occurred  to  him  that  his  schedule 
called  for  a  special  and  formal  farewell  visit 
to  his  children  of  the  greenhouses.  Also, 
he  must  draw  out  his  bank  balance,  lest 
Mrs.  Sigel  and  Katie  and  Roche  be  put  to 
unnecessary  trouble  in  getting  what  was 
coming  to  them. 

Taking  down  his  coat  and  hat,  and  seiz- 
ing his  heavy  stick,  Johann  Hafif  tiptoed 
to  the  door,  stopping  to  look  back  at  his 
soldiers  of  time,  mutely  asking  their  par- 
dons for  having  ended  their  march  a  few 
hours  too  soon.  Locking  the  door,  he  got 
down-stairs  and  out  of  the  house  as  quietly 
as  he  could.  Squaring  back  his  broad 
shoulders,  he  strode  along  westward  to- 
ward the  subway  station,  half-whistling 
under  his  breath.  By  noon,  at  the  latest, 
he  reckoned,  he  would  be  back  home;  by 
night  he  would  have  rounded  out  the 
accomplishment  of  a  plan  that  had  grown 
precious  and  imperial  through  age.  To  his 
Teutonic  soul  it  was  gratification  merely 
to  contemplate  the  smooth  working  out  of 
a  schedule  to  the  end.  He  noticed  that  he 
was  whistling,  but  it  did  not  seem  incon- 
gruous to  him.  A  dynamite  charge  in  an 
excavation  around  in  126th  Street  rocked 
the  houses  near  him. 

Calling  at  his  bank,  far  down-town,  with 
which  he  had  dealt  ever  since  his  arrival  in 
America,  Johann  Haff  saw  this  placard 
behind  the  plate  glass  of  the  closed  door: 

Decoration  Day 
bank  closed  account  of  legal 

HOLIDAY 

He  stood  several  minutes  staring  at  the 
placard  and  beating  the  end  of  his  stick  on 
the  stone  step  furiously.  ''Damn  deir 
Decoration  Day!"  It  was  interfering 
with  his  schedule.  Though  three  checks 
for  Mrs.  Sigel  and  Katie  and  Patrick 
Roche  would  be  the  same  as  money,  the 
schedule  called  forcash.  But  checksmust 
serve  now.  He  strode  stormily  eastward, 
and  boarded  a  Third  A\enue  elevated 
train. 

Though  it  was  nearly  ele\en  o'clock  al- 
ready, Johann  HalT  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  of  leaving  the  train  at  Sixty- 
se\enth  Street  for  a  stroll  u|)  through  the 
[)ark.     He  suspected  that  he  could  not 


450 


Soldiers  of  Time 


walk  to  the  auiservaton'  at  io6th  Street, 
aiul  then  ^jet  home  l)y  noon.  He  felt 
j^uilty;    he  hurried  along  faster. 

Passing  up  the  gray  concrete  path  above 
the  menagerie,  he  stopped  to  look  at  the 
city 's  children  enjoying  their  earliest  thrill- 
ing taste  of  the  saddle  on  the  ponies  and 
donkeys  there.  A  little  boy  with  the  fire 
of  adventure  in  his  blue  eyes  crawled  over 
a  saddle  and  seized  a  donkey's  gigantic  ear 
to  get  the  feel  of  it,  and  did  so  feel  it  before 
the  attendant  and  the  terrified  nurse  cap- 
tured him.  JohannHaff  laughed  with  him 
in  joyous  comradeship. 

' '  Tst ! "  he  exclaimed  at  himself  between 
his  teeth.  He  was  wasting  time.  He  hit 
his  leg  with  his  stick,  and  hastened  on. 

They  say  the  city  man  never  sees  the 
sky.  Johann  HafT  saw  it  this  day.  It 
was  soft  and  blue  and  cool.  From  time  to 
time  he  lifted  his  eyes  and  gazed  up  at  it; 
after  a  while  he  sat  determinedly  down  on 
a  bench,  propped  his  head  against  the  back 
of  it,  and  gave  himself  wholly  up  to  the 
sky.  Out  of  the  west  came  a  regiment  of 
clouds,  out  of  the  east  came  two;  a  low 
roll  of  thunder  w^as  booming  in  the  south ; 
the  regiments  came  together. 

"So!  Moltke  knew  de  French  would 
mage  dad  move.     Id  iss  all  over  now." 

He  laughed  in  pride.  His  black  eyes  lit 
up,  his  wrinkled  face  played  above  his 
emotions,  as  in  the  blue  plains  up  there  he 
traced  the  battles  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
War  that  he  had  been  in,  the  big  guns 
growling  louder  in  the  distant  south. 
There  was  a  rattling  through  the  leaves, 
like  musketry  lire  in  a  wood;  a  bullet  of 
rain  smashed  against  his  cheek  and  ran 
down  into  his  gray  mustache;  he  leaped 
up,  stiff,  on  guard,  ferocious.  Instantly 
his  muscles  slackened,  a  smile  flashed 
across  his  brown  face,  he  moved  on  slowly. 

His  schedule  began  calling  to  him 
sternly;  he  swung  forward  faster,  keeping 
as  much  under  the  protecting  trees  as  he 
could,  shaking  his  head  at  himself  sadly, 
as  a  very  solid  old  person  to  a  very  flighty 
young  scamp. 

As  the  rain  bullets  tore  through  the 
leaves,  the  suggestion  crept  into  his  mind 
that  gas  was  an  ignominious  weapon  for  a 
man,  a  soldier,  to  use  upon  himself;  he 
had  a  pistol  at  home.  He  thought  of  that 
a  good  while  before  he  caught  himself  con- 
sidering another  violation  of  the  sacred 


schedule.  Besides,  gas  was  so  silent  and 
dry  and  clean;  there  was  Mrs.  Sigel  and 
Katie  to  think  of. 

When  the  Metropolitan  Museum  came 
in  sight  the  rain  was  still  falling,  and  he 
dashed  across  an  open  space  to  gain  its 
cover,  going  on  the  double-quick.  He 
thought  of  it  that  way.  It  did  not  occur 
to  him  to  do  anything  except  wait  until 
the  rain  was  over;  and  he  followed  several 
people  up  some  marble  stairs. 

This  was  Johann  Haff 's  first  time  there; 
for  dry  paint  and  motionless  stone,  it  had" 
always  seemed  to  him,  could  not  offer  any- 
thing warm  and  stirring.  Two  patient  old 
women  with  heavy  bundles  of  wood  came 
out  of  a  strangely  lighted  gray  picture  and 
left  something  with  him  that  was  not 
words ;  he  felt  it  after  he  had  passed  them, 
and  looked  back  fearfully.  A  girl  of  nine- 
teen or  so,  whose  walk  was  a  dance,  whose 
face  was  a  song,  came  down  out  of  a  green 
picture  and  left  something  with  him,  some- 
thing different  from  that  of  the  two  old 
women,  though  it  increased  his  vague 
uneasiness  in  the  same  way.  Scattered 
groups  of  soldiers  behind  a  rampart  in  a 
smoke- wrapped  picture  got  a  message  out 
to  him  that  was  not  words.  Johann  Haff 
fled  from  the  building  to  save  his  schedule, 
for  now  he  knew  what  was  uneasy  within 
him. 

The  summer  shower  was  nearly  over; 
but  still  a  few  tiny  drops  were  coasting 
down  the  gentle  wind,  leaping  upon  him. 
He  wondered  if  he  hadn't  better  go  back 
into  the  museum  for  a  few  minutes. 

"Tst!"  he  hissed  at  himself  irritably. 
"Es  macht  nichts  aus." 

He  went  on  northward,  feeling  that  the 
schedule  ought  to  be  mollified  now  that  he 
had  braved  the  wind  in  its  defence,  though 
the  raindrops  were  but  tapping  on  his 
derby  and  shoulders  playfully.  With  an 
effort  of  which  he  was  conscious  and 
proud,  Johann  HafT  resisted  the  terrible 
temptation  to  stand  and  watch  some  reck- 
less, radiant,  wet  boys  sailing  little  ships 
in  a  great  round  pond. 

The  rain  tapped  at  him  and  ran,  tapped 
at  him  and  ran,  and  then  came  no  more  to 
play  with  him;  he  was  too  stern.  The 
sun  flashed  across  the  park — fresh  slide  in 
a  tremendous  magic  lantern — and  up 
through  the  glistening  trees  he  saw  the 
gleaming  glass  roofs  of  the  greenhouses. 


Dnnvii  by  A  ('ouzo  Kiiiiluill. 

'I'lie  old  man  sat  down  on  the  cdKf  of  ilie  l)ed  and  stared  at  a  warm  yluw  of  snnli>;lit  stealing;  around  tlie 

window  jamb.  —  Page  449. 


Vol..  LV.— 47 


4SI 


Soldiers  of  Time 


The  after-rain  breeze  was  cool  and  clean. 
The  sky  was  blue  and  clean.  All  the  park 
was  green  and  clean.  Johann  Haff  no- 
ticed these  things,  and  steeled  himself 
against  them. 

He  chose  to  go  first  into  the  glass  house 
where  the  big  plants  live;  he  would  see 
his  little  ones  last.  At  this  noon  hour  no 
one  else  was  visiting  the  collections.  The 
shaded  aisles  under  the  towering  palms 
and  banana-trees  were  silent  except  for 
the  melancholy  dribbling  of  the  weak  wa- 
terfall above  the  goldfish  pool.  In  the 
black-bottomed  pool  the  gorgeous  ghosts 
moved  \A'ithout  a  sound.  The  schedule 
was  not  uneasy  here.  At  the  far  end  of 
the  house  orchids  swung  down  from  their 
latticed  boxes — ragged  spots  of  magnifi- 
cence against  a  dark  background.  Here 
Johann  Haff  stood  for  a  moment,  look- 
ing along  the  aisles  to  the  right  and  left, 
including  all  his  friends  in  the  farewell, 
and,  raising  his  hand  in  a  gesture  of  des- 
perate finality,  walked  slowly  back  out  of 
the  house  and  into  the  next  one. 

It  was  brighter  and  cooler  here;  he  had 
left  the  tropics.  Having  passed  the  sleep- 
ing doorkeeper  sitting  in  a  chair  with  his 
feet  on  a  cushion,  and  gone  down  the  aisle 
to  the  right,  he  found  himself  alone  with 
dear  living  things  that  he  had  watched 
coming  out  of  blackness  and  growing 
beautiful  as  they  struggled  up  into  the 
light.  Knowing  them  intimately,  he  felt 
that  they  were  reading  him,  and  was  em- 
barrassed and  constrained.  In  the  faces 
of  the  roses  he  fancied  that  he  saw  a  new 
and  alien  sadness.  The  deep  dark  eyes  of 
the  lilies  looked  at  him  reproachfully.  In 
a  great  family  of  hyacinths  he  thought  he 
saw  significance  in  the  way  they  hung 
their  little  heads.  He  reached  out  his 
hand  and  patted  at  them  gently,  tenderly, 
placatingly. 

''Na,  na,  Liebchen!  Don'd!" 
Again  he  fled  to  save  his  schedule.  He 
struck  across  the  park,  meaning  to  get  to 
the  subway  as  quickly  as  he  could  and  go 
home.  But  he  could  not  hold  his  head  up 
long,  and  when  it  was  lowered  on  his  chest 
he  was  let  down  into  foggy  thought,  and 
the  paths  in  the  park  wind  and  twist  and 
cross  mazingly;  so  that  when  finally  he 
saw  a  long,  gray  row  of  apartment  houses 
rising  above  the  green  trees  he  was  down 
near  Seventy-second  Street.     Well,  there 


was  a  subway  station  at  this  cross  street; 
he  hurried  westward  toward  Broadway. 
The  schedule,  though  disgracefully  de- 
layed, w^as,  nevertheless,  now  complete  ex- 
cept for  the  last  detail.  The  hooded  hole 
in  the  ground  was  a  welcome  sight  to  him, 
and  pushing  his  way  through  the  crowds 
on  the  sidewalk  he  ran  across  the  street 
and  down  into  it. 

From  down  Broadway  came  the  dim, 
blaring  murmur  of  a  band;  Johann  Haff 
hesitated,  stepped  back  out  on  the  con- 
crete platform  of  the  station.  Now  he 
noticed  that  the  people  on  the  sidewalks 
were  waiting,  drawn  in  taut  lines,  facing 
the  street.  The  music  was  coming  closer; 
it  was  a  march;  Johann  Haff  involunta- 
rily squared  back  his  shoulders.  Putting 
several  men  aside,  he  stood  out  in  front  of 
the  crowd  packed  around  the  subway  sta- 
tion and  strained  his  eyes  down  Broadway. 
Automobiles  and  wagons  and  boys  were 
scurrying  up  the  street — chaff  blown  be- 
fore a  great  wind. 

Down  the  sidewalks  on  both  sides  lines 
of  people  stretching  unending;  between 
the  curbs,  six  blocks  down,  a  w^ilderness  of 
horses'  legs,  little  black  sticks  weaving 
themselves  forward;  above,  patches  of 
blue,  flashes  of  red;  in  the  music,  cannon 
booming ;  rising  hum  of  applause  running 
up  through  the  spectators — double  train 
of  powder  not  exploding  yet. 

The  head  of  the  column  came  up  to 
Seventy-second  Street;  the  hum  rose  as  if 
now  it  would  explode.  Then  everything 
that  could  suddenly  went  quiet.  Except 
the  ruffled  drumming,  the  bands  were  still. 
Hoofs  dropped  patteringly  on  the  soft  as- 
phalt; multitudinous  lighter  feet  scraped 
along  in  a  gigantic  rhythm;  little  chains 
clinking,  leather  creaking,  scabbards  rat- 
tling, steel  glittering.  Police,  function- 
aries in  carriages,  youths  who  would  be 
soldiers,  these  had  now  passed,  clearing 
the  way.  Now  the  veterans.  Johann 
Haff  took  off  his  hat.  It  was  not  his  war 
parading  along  here  to-day,  but  these 
men 

''Hoch!" 

He  bellowed.  The  dynamite  charges  of 
emotion  banked  at  the  corners  here  ex- 
ploded. Stupendous  cheers  roared  through 
the  canyoned  streets.  The  gray-haired 
men  straightened  up,  stepped  forward 
faster.     It  was  helpful  to  hear  that  roar. 


Soldiers  of    1  inic 


453 


They  were  old.  They  were  already  be- 
hind time,  and  tired,  and  there  were  fifty 
blocks  more  to  go  to  reach  Grant's  tomb. 

Again  a  band  was  j)laying.  Further  up 
Broadway  the  high  hotel  windows  were 
frantic  with  flags.  The  running  fire  of 
huzzas  had  blazed  on  northward.  The 
parade  was  passing.  The  taut  lines  of 
spectators  on  the  sidewalks  here  were  al- 
ready breaking  up,  some  of  their  elements 
hurrying  on  to  get  new  places  of  vantage. 

The  parade  had  not  quite  passed — ex- 
cept one  little  man  in  a  Zouave  uniform 
with  a  huge  gun.  Cut  off  from  the  main 
column,  insignificant  atom  in  the  swirl- 
ing crowds  that  overflowed  from  the  side- 
walks, he  kept  his  eye  on  a  banner  far 
forward  and  fought  on.  The  i^eoj^le  in 
front  of  him  were  closing  up  and  thicken- 
ing into  a  moving  wall.  The  banner  was 
leaving  him  behind.  Bending  low,  he 
tried  to  run  between  the  legs  in  his  way, 
and  fell. 

Johann  Haff  had  been  coming  to  him. 
He  picked  the  Zouave  up.  In  the  babel 
of  voices  the  little  soldier  screamed  at 
him: 

"Fm  part  of  the  parade.  We're  al- 
ready behind  time  'count  of  the  rain. 
I've  f^ot  to  get  to  his  tomb  with  the  col- 
umn." 

Snatching  himself  away,  he  ran  at  the 
crowds,  shouting  in  the  high,  thin  falsetto 
of  weakness  and  desperation: 

"Lemme  by.  Don't  you  see  I'm  part 
of  the  parade?" 

Nobody  heard  him  but  Johann  Haff. 
The  little  Zouave  darted  forward,  flung 
himself  against  the  moving  wall,  fell  again 
in  a  tangle  of  heedless  legs.  Johann  Haff 
lifted  him  u]).  Time  and  time  again  he 
wrenched  himself  loose,  and  fought,  and 
fell,  and  was  lifted  to  his  feet.  Finally, 
the  big,  black  German,  having  picked  him 
up  once  more,  shoved  the  little  Zouave's 


left  arm  through  his  own  right,  holding 
it  there  a  prisoner;  and  together  they 
stormed  through  the  crowds,  together 
they  went  to  the  tomb,  and  with  the 
column. 

''Well,  we  fought  on,  didn't  we?" 
panted  the  radiant  little  veteran  at  the 
end.  He  pointed  his  gun  toward  the 
tomb.  ''He'd  'a'  done  that;  he'd  'a' 
fought  on." 

The  sight  of  the  tomb  cleared  the  way 
in  Johann  Haff's  mind  for  the  rising  of  his 
own  outraged  schedule.  His  watch  said 
it  was  three  o'clock ;  he  was  three  hours  be- 
hind time.  He  smashed  his  way  through 
the  i)ressing  throngs  and  went  eastward 
on  the  double-quick,  guilty,  seeking  to 
make  amends  by  haste. 

The  last  block  home  he  ran.  Now  he 
stood  before  the  ancient,  four-storied,  red- 
brick house.  Walking  u])  the  steps,  he 
opened  the  outside  door  and  stepj^ed  cau- 
tiously into  the  dark  hall.  He  stopped  to 
listen.  Down  in  the  basement  fat  old 
Katie  was  singing  a  German  song.  In  the 
back  })arlor  Mrs.  Sigel  was  sewing  merrily 
along  on  a  machine.  The  breath  was 
blasting  itself  out  of  Johann  HatT's  chest, 
and  he  patted  at  his  gray-bearded  mouth 
with  his  hand.  He  was  straining  his  ears 
to  make  sure  of  another  sound. 

Tipping  uj)  the  stairs,  he  unlocked  and 
eased  open  his  own  door,  and  slij)ped  in- 
side the  sunlit  room.  Except  for  the  big 
ones  with  pendulums,  all  his  valiant  sol- 
diers were  marching  steadily  on.  He  re- 
called the  rocking  dynamite  explosion  of 
the  morning.  Walking  o\er  to  the  largest 
clock,  to  the  left  of  the  mantel,  he  laid  his 
head  against  it  lovingly. 

"Den,ve  all  flght  on,  \'ilhelm,"  he  whis- 
pered.    "Ve  all  fight  on." 

He  set  the  hands  and  swung  the  ]-)endu- 
lum.  The  next  month  he  o])ened  a  to- 
bacco store. 


V..\\jtVi 


THE    FAIR    IN    THE    COW    COUNTRY 

By  W.   Herbert   Dunton 

IlT.  us  T  RATIONS      1!Y      THE      AUTHOR 


WE  pushed  forward  among  the  ea- 
ger throng  at  the  gate,  straining 
to  peer  between  or  over  the 
mass  of  hat-crowns.  I  caught  the  clatter 
of  hoofs  up  the  track  and  heard  the 
shrill,  high-pitched  cries  of  the  riders. 
The  grand  stand  was  in  an  uproar;  hats 
and  handkerchiefs  waved  madly  and 
voices  about  me  swelled  to  a  mighty  bel- 
low. The  rumble  of  hoofs  descended  on 
us  like  a  roar  of  thunder,  and,  raising  my- 
self on  my  toes,  I  caught,  for  an  instant,  a 
thrilling  impression  of  action  and  color — a 
moving  picture  of  a  dozen  girls  in  ''white  " 
Stetson  hats,  garish  silk  handkerchiefs, 
and  divided  skirts  flashing  by  in  a  volume 
of  dust  and  flying  dirt,  on  sleek,  foam- 
spattered  horses. 

The  thrill  of  the  cow-girl  race  was  over ! 

And  this  "thrill"  is  the  distinctive  fea- 
ture of  the  Western  fair — the  fair  of  the 
cow-country.  It  is  printed  in  large  red 
letters  on  posters  that  emblazon  the  stage 
stations,  the  neighboring  towns,  and  the 
bunk-houses  on  remote  ranches.    And  yet 

454 


the  cow-girl  race  at  the  larger  fairs,  in- 
teresting and  exciting  as  it  may  seem  to 
the  Eastern  tourist,  is,  perhaps,  to  the 
homesteader  and  his  family,  who  have 
journeyed  far  in  a  canvas-topped  Stude- 
baker  for  their  annual  holiday  of  recrea- 
tion and  relaxation,  a  thrill  in  a  mild 
form,  as  compared  to  the  more  dangerous 
events  to  follow. 

As  a  rule,  however,  there  is  a  sprinkling 
of  excitement  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  these  cow-country  fairs.  It  is  de- 
manded by  their  patrons — that  is  what 
they  pay  their  "two  bits"  for.  I  said  as 
much  to  my  companion,  an  old  cattle 
man,  as  we  sat  in  the  grand  stand  at 
Cheyenne,  watching  the  .preparations 
for  the  "Hitching  and  Driving  of  Wild 
Horses." 

"Yes,  I  guess  you're  right,"  he  an- 
swered slowly.  "The  boys  come  to  see 
somthin'  but  a  punkin  and  shock  o' wheat. 
Leastways,  that's  the  way  I  feel  about 
it,  'n'  I  rec'on  most  folks  feel  the  same. 
You-alls  don't  work  the  biggest  part  of 


The   Fair  in   llic  Cow   Country 


Ar^ry 


the  year  for  the  opportunity  of  comiii' 
here  to  find  out  who's  got  the  best  reaper 
or  binder  to  sell  for  the  money!  If  you're 
a  granger  you  come  to  forget  what  sech  'n 
article  of  toil  looks  like.  There's  got  to  be 
ginger  in  the  events.  You  can  see  good  ri- 
ders fan  a  bronc'  at  home  in  your  own  corral 
an'  when  you  pay  this  here  feller  at  the  gate 
you  expect  to  get  in  return  an  exhibition 
of  buckin'  above  the  ordinary  article." 


management  of  a  ''  ring  show,"  in  hunting 
horses  for  pitching,  for  exanij)le,  must  se- 
lect bronchos  whose  style  of  bucking  is 
adapted  to  a  small  arena.  This  problem 
does  not  have  to  be  confronted  at  the 
open-air  affairs  in  the  land  of  sage  and 
mesquite.  The  genuine  ''outlaw"  (a 
range  horse  that  can  never  be  ''gentled") 
is  here  entered  in  the  bucking  contests — 
an  animal  that,  not  infrequently,  fights  to 


An  Indian  dance  is  always  an  interesting  siglit  .   .   .  dancing  by  us  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  weird, 

wild  cliant  of  the  old  men. — Page  459. 


As  these  people  of  the  cow-country — or 
what  is  now  left  of  the  cow-country — dif- 
fer from  their  Eastern  cousins,  so  the 
character  of  their  fairs  differs  from  those 
held  in  the  rural  districts  of  New  England 
and  the  middle  West.  They  are  like  no 
other  in  the  United  States,  in  atmosphere, 
in  color,  and  in  the  character  of  their  at- 
tractions. 

Whether  attending  Colonel  Cody's 
show,  the  Hundred  and  One,  the  old  Mul- 
hall  or  any  of  the  "Wild  West"  produc- 
tions of  the  lesser  note,  the  unfortunate 
Easterner  who  has  never  seen  the  sage- 
brush country  or  a  cow-puncher,  save  in 
the  lime-light,  feels  undoubtedly  a  brand  of 
thrill  not  ex])erienced  at  any  other  enter- 
tainment in  the  l^^ast.  At  such  a  show, 
under  canvas  or  at  Madison  Square  Gar- 
den, there  are  events  which  cannot,  with 
safety  to  the  public,  be  staged  the  way 
they  can  be  handled  in  the  West.     The 


injure  his  rider  in  any  and  all  ways  that  it 
is  possible  for  his  wicked  nature  to  con- 
ceive. 

Whether  the  fair  be  held  at  a  small 
town,  such  as  Craig,  Colorado,  where  the 
races  and  other  contests  are  held  in  the 
main  street,  or  whether  it  be  a  more  pre- 
tentious affair  along  the  same  lines,  such 
as  the  "Round-u])"  at  Pendleton,  Ore- 
gon (now  in  its  third  year),  the  character 
of  the  entertainment  is  practically  the 
same,  varying  only  in  the  size  of  the  j)ro- 
duction  and  the  re])utation  of  its  riders 
and  outlaws.  Other  fairs  in  the  season 
just  ])assed  ha\e  come  to  the  fore,  nota- 
bly the  one  at  Salt  Lake  City,  a  four-day 
carnival,  where  twenty  thousand  dollars 
in  cash  prizes  were  distributed.  Pendle- 
ton also  was  much  imj^roved. 

Aside  from  their  nr;//i',  the  small  shows, 
north  and  south,  have  a  charm  all  their 
own.     They  are  less  tiresome  to  mind  and 


456 


'V\]C   Vd'w  in   tlie   Cow   Country 


l)otI\-  than  tlic  larucr  i)r()(lurli()ns  of  na- 
tional reputation.  Were  you  to  droi)  from 
the  train  on  one  of  these  occasions  you 
wouki,  unless  you  were  too  Eastern,  too 
new  to  the  country,  feel  immediately  at 
home.  E\-erybody  seems  to  know  e\'ery- 
body  else;  the  faces  of  all,  young  and  old, 
radiate  ha])|)iness  and  good  cheer.  The 
lioliday  spirit  of  the  occasion  permeates 


try.  On  the  outskirts  of  the  city  whole 
families  are  camped  beside  canvas- topped 
wagons,  mud-covered  and  begrimed  from 
travel.  Signs  hanging  from  the  rear  of 
automobiles,  gray  from  the  dust,  tell 
how^  their  owners  motored  from  Iowa, 
Nebraska,  or  Montana. 

The  idea  of  an  annual  "  Frontier  Days  " 
celebration  was  originated  by  T.  W.  Angier 


\ii»V\v\N 


A  few  pe(jple  pause  where  the  Indians  are  encamped. — Page  459. 


the  entire  gathering.  And  because  these 
are  small  affairs  it  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  their  events  are  of  inferior 
standard  in  comparison  with  those  offered 
at  Cheyenne  or  Pendleton. 

'^ Frontier  Days"  at  Cheyenne  is  the 
largest  Wild  West  show  in  the  world. 
It  is  held  annually,  generally  the  latter 
part  of  August,  and  continues  for  four 
days.  These  few  days  leave  with  the  vis- 
itor a  lasting  impression  of  riotous,  bril- 
liant color;  a  ceaseless  changing  film  of 
cow-punchers,  Indians,  cavalry,  moun- 
tain batteries,  and  streets  smothered  in 
bunting  and  jammed  with  an  excited  and 
hilarious  throng.  To  this  great  show 
come  people  from  all  sections  of  the  coun- 


and  was  carried  out  by  the  late  Colonel 
E.  A.  Slack,  who,  appreciating  that  the 
frontier  West  was  passing,  agitated  it  so 
persistently  that  the  interest  of  the  old- 
timers  was  aroused,  and  finally  arrange- 
ments were  made  for  the  first  celebration. 
This  show  was  a  one-day  affair  and  was 
presented  before  an  audience  composed 
almost  wholly  of  local  people,  but  it 
proved  an  instant  success,  the  cow-punch- 
ers from  neighboring  ranches  entering  with 
their  customary  enthusiasm  and  spirit  into 
the  roping  and  riding  contests.  This  was 
fifteen  years  ago.  From  a  small  one-day 
entertainment  ''Frontier  Days"  has  be- 
come a  four-day  Wild  West  fair  of  tremen- 
dous magnitude. 


i 


■^^iW-**^ 


%^ 


V 


45; 


Tlic   Fair  in  tlic  Cow  Countiy 


459 


The  buildings  are  smothered  in  l)uiU- 
ing.  You  are  wedged  in  a  crowd  as  im- 
movable as  a  sardine  in  a  tin  box,  and  \et 
through  this  throng  gay  cowbo}'s  thread 
their  way  on  wiry,  alert  cow-ponies.  Wom- 
en and  children  pass  on  sleek  little  horses, 
and  Sioux  Indians  from  North  Dakota,  re- 
splendent in  beaded  buckskin  tinery,  trot 
through  a  side  street  on  ewe-necked, 
scrawny  mustangs.      There   are  colored 


where  a  group  of  cattle  men  crowd  before 
a  window  in  which  is  displayed  a  wonder- 
ful stock  saddle,  dazzlingly  new  and  all 
ablaze  with  siher  trapj)ings.  This  is  the 
prize  saddle,  the  reward  for  the  "twister" 
who  wins  that  fickle  title,  "Champion 
Broncho  Buster  of  the  World." 

People  in  the  street  are  running.  A 
blast  of  cavalry  trumpets  at  once  drowns 
the    hubbub,    and   presently    a  military 


^ 


The  Roman  races  by  the  men  of  the  Ninth  Cavalry  are  a  fine  sight.  —  Va'^e  460. 


troopers  from  Fort  D.  A.  Russell,  spick 
and  span  in  new  uniforms  and  shining 
equipments.  A  squad  of  infantry  swings 
into  town.  A  couple  of  bands  play  mar- 
tial music  and  ragtime,  and  between  se- 
lections you  catch  the  measured  "tum, 
turn,  turn  I"  of  an  Indian  drum. 

An  Indian  dance  is  always  an  inter- 
esting sight.  Here,  nearer  his  environ- 
ment, in  the  land  where  he  once  roamed 
and  hunted  and  fought,  the  savage  and 
his  primitive  costumes  appeal  still  more 
strongly  to  one's  imagination.  As  we 
watch  those  slender,  lithe  bucks,  their 
backs  shining  like  burnished  bronze  in  the 
glare  of  the  sun,  their  ankle  bells  jingling, 
dancing  by  us  to  the  accompaniment  of 
the  weird,  wild  chant  of  the  old  men  and 
the  pound  of  the  drum,  our  minds  travel 
l)ack  to  the  scenes  that  Parkman  and  Cat- 
lin  have  given  us. 

You  spend  the  whole  forenoon  in  tlie 
heart  of  the  racket  and  jostle;    i)ausing 


band,  shrilling  out  a  popular  air,  comes 
into  view.  "It's  a  parade!"  Swinging 
around  the  corner,  rifles  aslant  and  blaz- 
ing like  blue  fire  in  the  sunlight,  march 
Uncle  Sam's  regulars.  The  colored  trooj)- 
ers  on  their  fine  big  bays,  the  Indians, 
the  mountain  batteries,  the  cow-])unchers 
and  girls,  all  go  to  make  it  a  stirring  spec- 
tacle. It  is  noon  when  this  is  o\'er,  and 
you  eat  a  hasty  lunch  and  then  ride  to 
the  track. 

Out  here,  for  a  brief  time,  the  crowd  is 
not  so  great.  A  few  ])eople  pause  where 
the  Indians  are  encamped.  Family  groujis 
are  eating  their  lunch  in  the  shade  of  the 
grand  stand,  or,  seated  in  a  zinc  automo- 
bile, are  having  their  ])ictures  taken  in  a 
tintvpe  booth.  The  crowd  from  town, 
l)ouring  from  the  cars,  automoi)iles.  and 
iiacks,  is  beginning  to  file  through  the  gates. 
As  the  band  in  the  grand  stand  starts  olT 
with  a  rollicking  waltz,  you  scurry  for  a 
seat. 


KU) 


Tlie   I^iir  in   tlie   Cow   Country 


The  nuisic  (.cases  and  a  yo'wc  hcllowiiisj; 
ihrougli  a  iiu\i^ai)hc)nc  in  llu\ju(lsj;cs' stand 
announces  that  "Cajjlain  Jack  Hardy" 
will  give  an  exhibition  of  fancy  shooting. 

Following  this  comes  the  ''Ladies'  Cow- 
pony  Race,"  and  when  this  has  Keen  run 
the  "  Stetson  Hat  Race  "  is  on.  Then  the 
''Ladies'  Relay  Race,"  the  "Branding 
Contest,"  the  ''Round-up  Wagon  Race," 
the  "Attack  on  the  Emigrant  Train,"  the 
"  Bull  Dogging  and  Riding  of  Steers,"  and 
the  "Squaw  Race." 

]\Iy  companion,  an  old  Texan,  was  an 
acquaintance  of  the  gate-keeper,  and  I 
had  a  concession  badge,  so  we  lounged  o\-er 
the  fence  close  to  the  track  and  watched 
event  after  event  through  a  film  of  dust. 

The  day  was  fine.  Regiments  of  clouds 
passed  across  the  cobalt  sky.  A  gentle 
breeze,  so  slight  that  the  flag  on  the 
judges'  stand  scarcely  moved,  swept 
across  the  sage-brush  from  the  west.  We 
watched  the  Cow-pony  Race  with  scant 
interest,  for  the  horses  that  won  were  not 
cow-ponies.  The  Indian  race  was  better, 
but  their  dance  was  nothing  exceptional. 
It  was  not  so  much  the  fact  that  it  was 
no  better  than  you  will  get  at  any  ring 
show  which  made  it  disappointing,  as  it 
was  the  spectacle  of  an  old  Sioux  buck 
pounding  solemnly  on  a  bass  drum,  the 
ordinary  band  instrument  of  a  civilized 
race.  Even  at  Cheyenne  I  was  getting  a 
tinge  of  the  show  business.  The  old  north- 
ern-plains Indian,  when  he  prepared  for 
battle,  stripped  himself  and  pony  of  all  un- 
necessary clothing  and  trappings.  Why, 
during  a  sham  battle  or  a  race,  could  not 
a  head-stall  and  stock  saddle  (the  style 
of  which  came  in  long  after  the  Wounded 
Knee  fight),  have  been  dispensed  with? 

I  had  not  journeyed  to  Cheyenne  to  see 
punchers  in  red  shirts  or  to  watch  race- 
horses get  the  prize-money  in  a  cow-pony 
race. 

The  only  laugh  I  recall  while  at  Chey- 
enne was  caused  by  the  announcement 
that  "Mrs.  Silk  Underwear"  had  won  the 
squaw  race.  But  what  the  big  shows  lack 
in  humor,  they  make  up  in  interest  and 
thrill.  In  the  Indian  race  it  is  not  the 
speed  of  the  horses  that  counts;  it  is  the 
spectacle  of  these  little,  scrawny,  off-col- 
ored ponies  and  their  bronzed,  pictur- 
esque riders,  sweeping,  well  bunched,  into 
the  stretch;  the  distinct  character  of  man 


and  mount;  the  wonderful  horseman- 
shij)-  -that  colorful  primitive  picture  as  a 
whole  that  gives  one  a  thrill.  The  same 
can  be  said  of  the  Indian  dance.  It  may 
be,  in  itself,  commonplace  to  some  of  us 
who  have  seen  the  "Eagle"  and  other  fine 
dances  on  the  reservations,  but  any  of 
these  as  a  picture  is  a  wonderful  thing  in 
color  and  motion.  It  is  the  play  of  the 
light  on  the  dark,  shiny  bodies,  and  the 
swaying  bonnets  and  dance  bustles. 

The  audience  is  appreciative.  To  a 
few  of  them  who  have  witnessed  the  rop- 
ing and  tying  contests  of  a  few  years 
back,  this  "Roping  Contest"  at  Cheyenne 
is  a  tame  exhibition.  Time  was  when  a 
man  "roped"  and  "tied"  down  alone. 
There  was  great  rivalry  among  the  crack 
ropers  and  tie-men  of  those  days.  But 
the  days  of  "busting"  have  practically 
gone.  Wyoming,  as  well  as  most  of  the 
other  cattle  States,  has  prohibited  it. 
Without  question,  the  modern  way  is  more 
humane.  The  old  way,  the  haste  with 
which  the  steer  was  roped  and  tied  in  the 
race  against  time,  necessitated  rough  han- 
dling, and  legs  were  not  unfrequently  bro- 
ken. To-day,  at  Cheyenne,  two  men  work 
together.  One  ropes  the  animal  and  one 
or  both  men  leap  to  the  ground  and  tie  a 
ribbon  about  the  creature's  neck.  The 
time  is  taken  when  the  steer  is  released. 

Occasionally  one  sees  old-timers  in  these 
contests  still.  The  men  who  enter  for 
the  races  and  riding  contests  at  the  small 
fairs  are,  to  a  man,  local  punchers,  but  if 
you  journey  from  one  large  fair  to  another 
you  will  find  among  the  participants  many 
familiar  faces.  Various  cowboys  who 
have  long  since  given  up  their  original  vo- 
cation of  "punching"  now  find  a  more 
lucrative  calling  in  working  for  the  prize- 
money  at  these  gatherings  in  the  autumn. 

The  Roman  races  by  the  men  of  the 
Ninth  Cavalry  from  Fort  D.  A.  Russell  are 
a  fine  sight.  The  sham  battle  opens  with 
a  ripping  crackle  of  machine-guns.  One 
catches  the  desultory  pop-pop  from  the 
distant  skirmish  line.  It  grows  to  a  con- 
tinuous sputter  like  fire-crackers  exploding, 
as  it  creeps  nearer,  followed  by  the  main 
body  of  the  enemy,  and  the  fight  is  on. 

It  is  all  very  interesting  and  absorbing, 
but  the  finest  spectacle  of  this  event  is  the 
grand  finale  of  the  engagement,  the  charge 
of  the  colored  troopers.     This  spectacular 


^-  i".  \<  N. 


This  spectacular  dasli  is  an  inspiring  picture 


tliiindcrin;^  down  tlie  fielii  on  a  dead  run  in  lines  as  straight 
as  arrows. 


dash  is  an  inspiring  i)icture — none  finer  at  rows.  The  cneinv  is  routed,  the  battle  is 
the  whole  fair  than  these  black  horsemen  over,  and  I  he  ambulances  carrxolT  the  dead, 
with  sabres  drawn  and  mounted  on  big.  The  crack  exhibition  by  the  military, 
handsome  bays,  thundering  down  the  field  howexer,  is  the  music  drill.  M\  iTy  mo\e, 
on  a  dead  run  in  lines  as  straight  as  ar-    every  motion  of  their  bodies  as  these  men 

40 1 


4()2 


Tlie   Fair  in   tlie  Cow  Country 


lend  and  sway  \o  the  time  of  tlie  l)and, 
denotes  the  ihseii>line  o\  I'nele  Sam's  fa- 
mous rcj^ulars.  The  ai)i)hiuse  from  the 
«^rand  stand  had  been  as  nothin,^  in  com- 
l)arison  with  the  chipping  and  cheering  at 
the  conclusion  of  this  exhibition.  The 
j)eople  jumped  to  their  feet  and  yelled 
tiiemselves  hoarse. 

The  mancTUvres  of  the  cavalry  and  in- 
fantry arouse  patriotism,  but  admiration 
for  a  man's  nerve  and  appreciation  of  dare- 
devil riding  prompt  the  applause  for  a 
good  broncho  ride.  This  is  dangerous 
business.  Only  a  small  percentage  of  the 
cow-punchers  are  genuine  "bronc'  twist- 
ers." These  few  men  at  one  time  made  a 
business  of  riding  from  ranch  to  ranch  and 
breaking  colts  at  five  dollars  per  head. 
Nowadays  the  best  of  them  go  after  the 
prize-money,  belts,  or  saddles  at  fairs. 
The  "Champion  Broncho  Buster  of  the 
World,"  the  title  bestowed  upon  the  for- 
tunate contestant  at  Cheyenne,  is  held,  as  a 
rule,  but  a  brief  period  by  one  man.  He 
no  sooner  acquires  the  honor  than  the  fol- 
lowing year  he  faces  a  score  of  opponents 
eager  to  wTest  it  from  him.  If  he  is  ex- 
ceptionally good,  he  may  hold  it  against 
all  contestants  for  three  or  four  years,  but 
rarely  longer. 

Several  men  are  injured,  some  to  the  ex- 
tent of  barring  them  forever  from  such 
contests;  a  lesser  number  are  killed  out- 
right. Not  a  few  in  time  lose  their 
"nerve,"  and  a  man's  faith  in  himself  is 
half  the  battle.  Age,  undoubtedly,  plays 
a  prominent  part  in  this  game.  A  few 
years  makes  a  great  change  in  a  rider. 

As  we  lounged  over  the  rail  at  the  Chey- 
enne track,  watching  a  group  of  lads  sad- 
dling an  unusually  "onery"  bronc',  I  dis- 
cussed these  things  with  the  old  Texan. 
Our  conversation  ceased  abruptly  as  the 
broncho  on  the  track  plunged  into  the  air, 
taking  with  him  a  couple  of  men  who 
clung  tenaciously  to  his  hackamore.  The 
saddle  shot  from  his  back,  and  the  blan- 
ket sailed  away  through  the  dust.  Al- 
most at  once  the  men  had  him  in  hand. 
He  was  "  eared,"  his  wind  was  shut  off,  his 
hackamore  was  held  in  a  vice-like  grip 
while  the  blind  was  again  adjusted.  The 
blanket  was  for  the  second  time  placed 
stealthily  and  gently  upon  his  back,  and 
then  the  saddle.  This  is  slow  business, 
demanding  patience.     As  the  cinch  was 


drawn  tight  he  bolted  into  the  air,  bawling 
and  striking.  J^ut  instantly  he  was  over- 
powered by  the  strength  of  numbers  and 
stood  stiff-legged,  body  quivering,  his  tail 
drawn  tight  between  his  hind  legs,  while  a 
lad  in  white  angora  leggins  and  gray  jer- 
sey adjusted  his  mccate  (hair  rope)  and 
swung  lightly  into  the  saddle. 

There  was  no  applause.  A  hush, 
broken  only  by  a  few  friends  calling  ad- 
vice and  good  luck  to  the  rider,  had  fallen 
over  the  crowd.  Coolly  he  settled  him- 
self firmly,  then  doffed  his  hat  and  held  it 
aloft  in  his  hand. 

''Let  'im  buck!"  he  cried. 

The  handlers  released  the  horse  and 
jumped  aside,  one  tearing  off  the  blind  in 
the  same  motion.  Instantly  the  animal 
plunged  into  the  air,  grunting  and  bawl- 
ing. His  eyes  were  living  coals  of  fire. 
I  saw  the  red  in  his  distended  nostrils. 
With  tense,  stiff  legs  aslant,  his  feet  smote 
the  earth.  Suddenly  there  came  a  crash, 
and  a  shower  of  slivers  sprinkled  the  peo- 
ple scurrying  away  from  the  fence.  A 
musician  leaped  to  the  track,  a  moving- 
picture  man  fell  over  the  fence,  and  a 
newspaper  photographer  with  a  press  gra- 
flex  did  a  quick  running  high  jump.  Ev- 
ery one  was  on  his  feet,  breathless — but 
it  was  nothing.  The  bronc'  had  simply 
pitched  through  the  fence,  and  before 
you  could  say  "Jack  Robinson"  he  had 
"swapped  ends"  and  was  back  on  the 
track  again. 

Again  and  again  he  leaped  high,  squeal- 
ing in  rage,  twisting  and  turning,  his  mus- 
cles moving  beneath  his  burnished  ebony 
skin.  The  people  yelled  their  delight. 
Heavy  boot-soles  pounded  the  grand-stand 
floor.  Hats  flew  high,  for,  as  the  horse 
went  writhing  and  leaping  down  the  course, 
leaving  a  trailing  dust  cloud  behind  him, 
we  saw  the  "twister"  sitting  his  saddle, 
apparently  with  the  ease  of  a  sailor  tread- 
ing the  pitching  deck  of  a  vessel  in  a  storm. 

Two  girl  bronc'  riders,  a  feminine  ele- 
ment in  striking  contrast  to  the  husky 
punchers,  are  more  likely  to  be  longer  re- 
membered. To  the  Eastern  visitor  these 
young  ladies  seem  strangely  out  of  place 
among  the  participants  of  this  rough 
sport.  Their  riding,  to  him,  is  nothing 
short  of  wonderful.  To  some  of  us  it  is 
disappointing  to  note  that  they  ride  with 
"hobbled"  stirrups.     Stirrups  are  "hob- 


Draivii  hy  //',   lliri>,-rt  Diinton 


Pha.uo.n  shapes  of  n.en  an.i  .-.ninials  were  slu,o,i„K  fr..,n  .Ik-  .Ins.  n,  .-vc  v  .Inc.  .i„„  a.  .h,.„Kh  Imrlc-.i  l.v  an 

explosion.  —  I'axe  4(15- 


4^'.? 


1(11 


Tlic   l\iir  in   tlie  Cow  Country 


\Ac(\"  \)\  passing  a  ihong  from  one,  he-  ahoxc  llieir  licads.     As  they  tore  by  with 

ncalh  the  horse's  holly,  to  theoppositeand  a  roar,  their  ro})es  fell,  snaring  the  ani- 

iving  securely.     We  ha\e  known  girls  in  mals  that  plunged  and  hucked.     A  great 

(I'itTerenl  sections  of  the  cow-country  who  dust  cloud  arose  and  through  this  dust 


NiV   V 


Tliese  young  ladies  seem  strangely  out  of  place  among  the 
participants  of  this  rough  sport.  —  Page  462. 


could  ride  bronchos  and  ride  them  "  slick  " 
(without  hobbles),  and  we  resent  this 
trick  played  upon  us  here. 

We  were  allowed  but  a  moment's  res- 
pite, for  the  day  was  ending.  The  sun  has 
sunk  low  in  the  west.  Long  slanting  shad- 
ows have  crept  across  the  track.  The  clos- 
ing event,  like  the  boy's  last  piece  of  pie, 
is  the  best.  For  genuine  excitement  and 
thrill  the  Wild  Horse  Race  is  the  last  word. 

I  had  scarcely  recovered  from  the  ex- 
citement of  the  bucking  contests  before 
my  attention  was  attracted  by  puncher 
yells,  and  down  the  track  came  about  a 
dozen  or  fifteen  horses  followed  by  as 
many  mounted  cowboys,  ropes  swinging 


came  the  yaps  and  yells  of  men  and  the 
grunts  and  bawling  of  horses.  It  seemed 
a  maelstrom  of  horses,  men,  and  flying 
ropes. 

The  vapor  of  dust  to  some  extent  clear- 
ing, I  saw  men  sprawled  upon  the  ground, 
tripped  by  a  taut  rope  with  a  bucking 
pony  on  the  live  end.  Scattered  riders 
were  chasing  around  the  track  after  speed- 
ier horses  than  those  they  rode.  Finally 
some  semblance  of  order  was  restored. 
All  the  horses  had  been  roped.  These  an- 
imals were  to  be  saddled  and  ridden. 
Each  rider  was  allowed  one  assistant  and, 
as  soon  as  the  horse  was  roped,  he  was 
''hackamored"    and   blindfolded.     That 


Night  and   Day 


465 


is  as  far  as  a  rider  may  proceed  until  every 
contestant  has  accomplished  the  same. 
He  may  lay  his  saddle  close  by  his  horse 
while  his  partner  ''ears''  the  unruly  ani- 
mal, but  he  is  not  allowed  to  lift  it  an 
inch  from  the  ground  till  the  judge  gives 
the  word  from  the  stand.  The  sharp  eyes 
of  the  judge  caught  a  rider  in  the  act  of 
sneaking  his  saddle  ofT  the  ground.  His 
voice  boomed  through  the  megaphone: 
''Put  that  saddle  down  I  Next  ofTence 
and  you're  barred." 

The  judge  scanned  again  and  again  the 
groups  of  men  and  horses — it  was  a  mo- 
ment of  suspense.  Then  suddenly  his 
voice  bellowed  across  the  track.  "All 
aboard  I "  Instantly  saddles  were  thrown 
upon  the  horses,  and  their  riders  cinched 
and  mounted  as  rapidly  as  possible.  A 
dust  cloud  arose  again  in  greater  volume. 
Bawling,  protesting  bronchos  were  loping 
or  pitching  up  the  track,  down  the  track, 
and  across  the  track.  In  short,  phantom 
shapes  of  men  and  animals  were  shoot- 
ing from  the  dust  in  every  direction  as 
though  hurled  by  an  explosion.  There 
was  a  crash,  and  a  litter  of  splinters 
where  a  horse  and  rider  went  through  the 
fence. 

The  first  rider  to  get  his  horse  around 
the  track  (in  the  right  direction)  and  under 


the  taj)e  wins  the  race.  But,  strictly 
speaking,  this  is  no  race.  That  phase  of 
it,  at  least  to  the  spectators,  is  unimpor- 
tant. Who  cares  who  wins!  The  thrill  is 
the  thing — the  actual  winning  of  the  race 
is  a  matter  of  luck.  Strange  to  say,  out  of 
this  jamboree  of  man  and  beast,  this  tan- 
gle of  flying  legs  and  hoofs,  ever}-  man 
emerged  unscathed. 

After  the  events  at  the  track  have  been 
brought  to  a  close  rest  and  quiet  are  by 
no  means  at  hand — unless  you  take  the 
next  train  out  of  town.  The  streets  are 
packed  with  a  hilarious  throng  of  towns- 
people and  \'isitors — cowboys,  Indians, 
merchants,  soldiers,  women,  and  children, 
— everybody  who  can  walk  or  ride  is  in  the 
streets  armed  with  "wife-beaters,"  rattlers, 
and  horns.  The  streets  blaze  with  light 
from  illuminated  signs  and  decorations. 
The  saloons  from  which  issue  cowboy 
songSy»  range  yells,  and  sounds  of  revelry 
are  crammed  with  changing  humanity. 
One  sees  many  men  of  rough  exterior  and 
unpolished  speech,  but  rowdyism  is  con- 
spicuous by  its  absence. 

I  took  the  train  out  in  the  morning.  It 
was  not  early,  but  the  town  seemed 
strangely  stilled.  "Frontier  Days"  was 
over  and  Cheyenne  was  sleeping — worn 
out,  exhausted. 


NIGHT    AND    DAY 

By  C  A.   Price 

Welcome  is  night,  for  then  you  come  to  me. 

And  hand  in  hand  we  w^alk  old  ways  again; 

Your  voice  is  in  my  ear,  your  face  is  plain 
And  full  of  joy  as  it  was  wont  to  be. 

No  thought  of  parting  or  of  any  pain 
Affrays  our  simi)le  talk;   but  quietly 
W^e  pace  the  garden  round,  we  watch  the  sea. 

The  moon-birth  or  the  sunset's  pur[)le  stain. 

But  far  more  precious  day,  for  then  I  know 
It  is  no  dream  that  made  and  keeps  you  mine 
Nor  any  longing  born  of  a  sick  heart; 
No  surer  truth  the  sun  itself  can  show, — 
There  is  no  need  of  any  mystic  sign, — 
O  child  beloved!  while  I  am,  thou  art  I 


Vol.  LV.— 48 


THE    SINGING    TEACHER 


By   Francis 


Rogers 


ROSSINI  is  often  quoted  as  saying 
that  the  three  requisites  for  success 
as  a  singer  are  voice,  voice,  and 
voice.  With  equal  truth,  no  more  and  no 
less,  the  three  requisites  for  success  as  a 
teacher  of  singing  are  ear,  ear,  and  ear. 
Just  as  no  one  can  sing  without  a  voice,  so 
no  one  can  teach  singing  without  an  ear. 
A  great  singer  must  have  a  fine  voice;  a 
great  singing  teacher  must  have  a  keen  ear. 
Up  to  the  time  of  Manuel  Garcia 
(1805-1906)  the  teaching  of  singing  was 
based,  without  apology,  on  empiricism. 
Tosi  and  Mancini,  two  of  the  most  famous 
masters  of  the  early  eighteenth  century, 
left  behind  them  treatises  on  the  training 
of  voices.  In  these  they  defined  briefly 
certain  general  principles,  on  the  observ- 
ance of  which  good  singing  must  always 
depend;  they  said  a  great  deal  about  the 
necessity  for  acquiring  good  musicianship; 
but  on  vocal  method,  in  the  modern  sense 
of  the  phrase,  they  were  comparatively 
silent.  Evidently,  they  took  for  granted 
many  things  in  matter  of  technique  that 
nowadays  are  subjects  for  exhaustive 
study,  and  have  left  us  too  much  in  the 
dark  as  to  the  secret  of  their  efficiency  as 
teachers.  From  what  they  do  not  say, 
rather  than  from  what  they  do  say,  we 
may  pretty  safely  infer  that,  in  the  devel- 
opment of  voices,  they  considered  their 
ears  their  surest  guides.  Nor  did  their 
successors,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  devise 
any  more  effective  means  to  their  ends. 
As  the  phonograph  is  only  a  recent  inven- 
tion, we  cannot  know  for  sure  how  con- 
temporary singers  compare  in  merit  with 
those  of  other  days,  but,  judging  from 
tradition  and  written  records,  as  well  as 
from  the  extremely  florid  and  difficult  vocal 
music  of  Handel  and  his  contemporaries 
and  of  Bellini  and  Rossini  and  theirs,  we 
may  assume  confidently  that  the  old  sing- 
ing masters  used  to  achieve  results  in  their 
pupils  that  are  unknown  in  our  own  day. 
About  the  middle  of  the  last  century, 
Manuel  Garcia,  a  retired  singer,  invented 
the  laryngoscope.  This  invention  was 
hailed  at  once  as  certain  to  revolutionize 
the  teaching  of  singing,  or,  at  least,  greatly 
466 


to  simplify  it,  for  now,  for  the  first  time, 
we  should  be  able  to  scrutinize  with  our 
eyes  the  mechanism  of  the  human  voice 
in  action.  What  hitherto  we  had  inferred 
only,  we  now  should  establish  by  direct 
investigation.  The  eye,  even  if  it  could 
not  altogether  replace  the  ear,  was  to  be- 
come its  highly  important  coadjutor. 
What  the  eye  showed  us  would  enable  us 
to  control  consciously  the  vocal  machin- 
ery. The  art  of  hel  canto  was  to  be  re- 
vived. The  empiricism  of  the  past,  so 
hard  to  describe  and  so  uncertain  in  its 
results,  was,  for  the  first  time,  to  be  re- 
placed by  purely  scientific  methods.  The 
vocal  millennium  was  at  hand! 

Curiously  enough,  Garcia  himself  was 
one  of  the  first  to  discover  that,  after  all, 
the  laryngoscope  could  never  teach  any- 
body how  to  sing.  His  biographer,  M.  S. 
McKinley,  says:  ''As  far  as  Garcia  was 
concerned,  the  laryngoscope  ceased  to  be 
of  any  special  use  as  soon  as  his  first  inves- 
tigations were  concluded.  By  his  exam- 
ination of  the  glottis  he  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  proving  that  all  his  theories  with 
regard  to  the  emission  of  the  voice  were 
absolutely  correct.  Beyond  that  he  did 
not  see  that  anything  further  was  to  be 
gained  except  to  satisfy  the  curiosity  of 
those  who  might  be  interested  in  seeing 
for  themselves  the  form  and  changes 
which  the  inside  of  the  larynx  assumed 
during  sinking  and  speaking." 

But  the  so-called  ''scientific"  school  of 
teaching  had  been  born  and  still  lives,  its 
professors  basing  their  methods  of  teach- 
ing on  physiology  rather  than  on  psychol- 
ogy and  aesthetics.  I  have  not  the  space 
here  to  enter  at  length  upon  the  fallacies 
and  futilities  of  "  scientific  "voice-training. 
The  weakness  of  the  whole  system  has  been 
exposed  with  thoroughness  by  Clara  Kath- 
leen Rogers,  in  "My  Voice  and  I,"  and 
David  Taylor,  in  "  The  Psychology  of  Sing- 
ing," books  that  should  be  read  and  pon- 
dered by  every  teacher  and  every  singer. 

The  attempt  to  bring  voices  to  a  state 
of  technical  perfection  by  treating  them  as 
musical  machines  of  known  construction, 
like  the  piano  or  the  flute,  must  always  be 


The  Singing  Teacher 


467 


largely  fruitless.  The  technique  of  these 
instruments  is  developed  by  direct  and 
definite  treatment;  the  human  voice,  on 
the  other  hand,  by  reason  of  its  essential 
characteristics,  can  be  trained  by  indirect 
and  inferential  methods  only.  For  in- 
stance, the  teacher  of  piano  can  establish 
how  best  to  finger  a  passage  of  piano 
music,  how  to  hold  the  hand  and  the 
wrist,  how  to  manage  the  pedals.  He 
can  describe  the  means  that  will  achieve 
a  desired  end.  Not  so  with  the  voice 
teacher.  Early  in  his  experience  he  dis- 
covers that  technical  rules  are  only  too 
often  entirely  inadequate  and  that  the 
language  of  metaphor  is  much  more  fruit- 
ful than  long  discourses  on  physiology  and 
the  revelations  of  the  laryngoscope.  What 
he  has  read  and  what  he  can  see  are  not 
nearly  so  useful  as  what  he  hears.  Quali- 
ties of  voice,  though  due  to  physiological 
causes,  are  often  describable  only  in  figura- 
tive language.  The  phrases,  ''to  sing  in 
the  mask,"  ''to  sing  on  the  breath,"  "to 
whiten,"  or  "to  cover"  the  voice  are  fa- 
miliar to  every  singer  and  are  of  suggestive 
value  in  teaching,  but  they  mean  nothing 
to  the  mere  scientist  or  the  layman. 

That  the  appUcation  of  "scientific" 
theories  has  worked  great  harm  is  in  no 
way  more  clearly  shown  than  in  the  theory 
of  registers,  so  dear  to  many  professors  of 
voice.  The  production  of  tone  at  differ- 
ent degrees  of  pitch  necessitates  altera- 
tions in  the  vocal  mechanism,  but  to  in- 
struct a  pupil,  as  is  so  often  done,  that  there 
are  just  so  many  registers  in  the  voice, 
each  of  which  has  a  definite  beginning  and 
a  definite  ending,  and  that  to  pass  from 
one  register  to  another  we  must  conscious- 
ly readjust  the  vocal  processes,  is  posi- 
tively dangerous — it  is  to  invite  the  dis- 
aster that  befell  the  centiped  when  they 
asked  him  to  describe  the  technique  of 
his  locomotion.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
every  note  in  the  voice  has  not  only  a 
register,  or  adjustment  of  resonances,  of 
its  own,  but  also  a  different  register  for 
every  variety  of  sound  it  is  capable  of. 
But  nature  will  make  these  innumerable 
adjustments  for  us,  if  we  will  only  permit 
it  to  do  so,  just  as  it  enables  the  little 
child  to  imitate  successfully  and  sponta- 
neously the  sound  made 'by  (he  pussy-cat. 

Lombardi,  the  great  contemporary  Ital- 
ian master  of  singing,  likens  the  voice  and 


its  registers  to  a  snake  climbing  a  trellis, 
the  notes  of  the  scale  being  the  rungs  of 
the  trellis.  The  snake  ascends  the  trellis, 
one  rung  at  a  time,  with  a  minimum  of 
muscular  effort  but  always  firmly  poised, 
reaches  the  top,  and  descends  on  the  other 
side  just  as  unfalteringly  and  smoothly  as 
it  ascended.  So  a  singer,  with  a  strong 
elastic  pair  of  lungs,  can,  if  there  is  no 
muscular  interference  in  his  throat  or 
head,  sing  his  scale  just  as  easily  and 
securely  as  the  snake  climbs  the  trellis. 
The  passage  from  one  register  to  another 
will  be  effected  smoothly  if  he  will  allow 
the  voice,  like  the  snake,  to  move  freely 
and  without  stiffness  of  any  sort. 

It  is  not  easy  for  us  self-conscious  Amer- 
icans to  believe  this  unself-consciousness 
altogether  possible  or  even  desirable. 
We  do  not  sing  spontaneously,  as  do  the 
Italians.  "Profuse  strains  of  unpremedi- 
tated art"  issue  but  rarely  from  American 
throats.  But  even  American  children  are 
usually  born  with  the  impulse  to  sing,  and, 
if  we  adults  would  take  the  trouble  to  en- 
courage and  develop  this  impulse,  we 
should  certainly  make  a  better  showing 
than  we  do  in  the  world  of  song. 

A  good  voice  and  the  wish  to  use  it 
form  the  embr^'o  of  a  singer,  but  until  they 
come  under  the  influence  of  a  good  teacher 
healthy  development  cannot  begin.  First 
of  all,  there  is  the  breath.  Every  human 
being  breathes  continuously  from  birth  till 
death,  but  singing  demands  a  control  of 
the  breath  much  greater  than  that  needed 
for  the  ordinary  doings  of  life.  The  singer 
is  a  professional  breather,  for  \oice  is  only 
breath  converted  into  sound-waves,  and 
the  lungs  are  the  motor  that  drives  the 
singing  machine.  The  teacher  must ,  there- 
fore, first  of  all,  show  his  pui)il  how  to 
make  the  best  possible  use  of  his  lungs. 

We  have  little  or  no  conscious  control 
over  the  larynx  and  the  vocal  cords,  which 
constitute  the  vibrator  of  the  vocal  instru- 
ment, and  any  attem])t  to  adjust  them 
voluntarily  can  only  result  in  harmful 
muscular  interference.  The  resonator, 
which  consists  of  all  the  hard  inner  sur- 
faces of  the  head  to  which  the  breath  can 
penetrate,  cannot  be  altered  in  shape  or 
size.  All  we  can  do  is  to  try  to  utilize 
e\'ery  i)orti()ii  of  it.  To  ilo  awa\'  with  all 
muscular  interference  with  the  \ocal  proc- 
esses is,  then,  the  chief  business  of  the 


4G8 


The  Singing  Teacher 


teacher  of  voice,  and  it  is  in  this  that  his 
ear  is  of  prime  importance,  for  it  is  by 
means  of  his  ear  only  that  he  is  able  to 
detect  the  defects  of  tone  due  to  muscular 
interference. 

Ear,  ear,  ear.  In  judging  of  the  merit 
of  a  singer  the  public  relies  solely  upon 
its  ear.  Technique  interests  it  but  little, 
while  a  beautiful  tone  pleases  it  immense- 
ly. The  best  technique  in  the  world  can- 
not make  an  ugly  voice  beautiful,  but  it 
can  improve  the  quality  of  any  voice,  and 
often  seems  even  to  transform  mediocrity 
into  excellence.  The  acme  of  vocal  tech- 
nique is  merely  freedom  from  all  muscular 
interference.  Keats,  better  than  any  one 
else,  has  described  beautiful  singing — 
''Singing  of  sum^mer  in  full-throated 
ease."  The  teacher  must  strive  by  every 
means  in  his  power  to  show  his  pupil  how 
to  attain  this  ''full-throated  ease." 

The  ideal  teacher  has  an  ear  trained  to 
judge  tone  unerringly,  and  will  never  ac- 
cept as  perfect  a  tone  that  fails  to  equal 
his  ideal  tone  for  the  particular  voice  he 
is  training.  Certain  deviations  from  this 
ideal  he  will  attribute  to  defective  breath- 
control  ;  certain  others  to  stiffening  of  the 
muscles  at  the  base  of  the  tongue;  and 
others  to  improper  use  of  the  resonating 
cavities  in  the  head.  To  correct  these 
deviations  he  can  sometimes  prescribe 
physiological  remedies,  which  he  can  de- 
scribe objectively;  more  often  he  must 
speak  in  terms  of  his  own  sensation,  or  in 
metaphor,  hoping  thus  to  suggest  to  the 
pupil  the  means  to  overcome  his  difficul- 
ties. 

From  the  very  first  the  teacher's  aim 
must  be  to  train  the  pupil  to  hear  in 
his  own  voice  the  blemishes  that  he,  the 
teacher,  hears,  for  only  so  can  the  pupil 
learn  to  discriminate  between  the  good 
and  the  bad  in  his  own  voice.  The  pupil 
must  form  early  the  habit  of  being  his  own 
conscientious  and  unflinching  critic.  His 
voice  is  so  intimate  a  part  of  him  that  its 
development  must  depend,  in  the  long 
run,  on  his  ability  to  listen  to  himself  ob- 
jectively. To  arrive  at  such  capacity  for 
dispassionate  self-criticism  is  a  long  jour- 
ney, not  to  be  taken  without  a  competent 
guide,  because,  owing  to  the  peculiarly 
personal  character  of  his  instrument,  the 
voice,  the  singer  never  really  arrives  at 
the  point  where  he  hears  himself  just  as 


others  hear  him.  For  his  own  sake,  there- 
fore, he  must  learn  never  to  resent  honest 
and  disinterested  criticism,  and  he  must 
never  forget  that  his  own  ear  must  become 
finally  the  supreme  judge  in  all  matters  of 
tone.  Inasmuch  as  nobody  can  tell  him; 
except  in  general  terms,  how  to  make 
beautiful  tones,  he  must  learn  through  ex- 
periment what  physical  sensations  accom- 
pany their  emission  and  reproduce  volun- 
tarily the  condition  of  "full-throated 
ease"  that  alone  renders  them  possible. 

The  intelligent  student  does  not  go  far 
in  his  art  before  discovering  that  the  phys- 
ical is  the  lesser  part  as  compared  with 
the  psychological.  The  voice  is  the  audi- 
ble expression  of  the  soul,  varying  con- 
tinually in  response  to  the  moods  and 
emotions  within.  For  this  reason  many 
of  the  student's  technical  difficulties, 
though  apparently  physical,  are  in  reality 
due  to  psychological  causes  and  not  to 
be  remedied  by  merely  physical  expe- 
dients. In  such  cases  the  perspicacious 
and  sympathetic  teacher,  who  can  detect 
through  the  voice  the  condition  of  the 
mind  behind  it,  can  be  of  inestimable  serv- 
ice to  the  pupil  in  ways  that  permit  of  no 
possible  scientific  explanation. 

Vannuccini,  the  famous  Italian  maestro 
di  canto,  always  spoke  scornfully  of  the 
teachers  that  had  dared  to  publish  written 
methods  of  singing,  saying  that  in  more 
than  fifty  years'  experience  he  had  found 
no  two  voices  that  could  be  trained  in 
exactly  the  same  way.  In  no  branch  of 
art  is  theory  of  less  value  than  in  singing. 
As  no  two  characters  are  precisely  alike, 
so  is  it  with  two  voices.  Every  voice  is 
unique  and  requires  a  particular  training. 
To  develop  in  a  pupil  a  capacious,  elastic 
pair  of  lungs,  and  to  remove  all  muscular 
stiffness  that  interferes  with  the  free  func- 
tioning of  his  vibrator  and  resonator — 
this  is,  in  a  nutshell,  all  that  the  teacher 
can  do  for  the  physical  cultivation  of  the 
pupil's  voice.  But  on  the  psychological 
side  his  scope  has  no  limits,  and  no  books 
or  hard-and-fast  theories  can  avail  him  in 
his  task.  Experience,  patience,  enthusi- 
asm, sympathetic  insight,  and  imagina- 
tion, much  more  than  scientific  knowl- 
edge, are  the  qualities  he  needs  in  order  to 
enable  the  pupil  to  express  eloquently 
through  the  medium  of  his  voice  the  mind 
and  the  soul  within. 


SIR   JOHN    CHANDOS   AND   THE    EARL   OF 

PEMBROKE 

A  BALLAD   FROM   FROISSART— A.  D.   1369 
By  E.  Sutton 

Illustration  i?y  Frank  Craig 

A  TALE  I  tell,  so  that  the  time  be  passed, 
Out  of  the  host  whose  purport  is  the  same, 
How  Youth  is  overbold,  and  Eld  at  last 
Is  master  of  the  game. 

The  Earl  of  Pembroke,  he  that  had  to  wife 
Our  King  his  daughter,  with  a  goodly  train 
Sent  to  the  Prince  to  make  strong  war  and  strife 
In  keeping  Aquitaine, 

In  Poitou  came,  whereof  it  did  befall 
One  whose  high  deeds  no  tongue  can  well  express, 
Good  Sir  John  Chandos,  was  the  seneschal. 
Three  score  and  five  I  guess 

He  was,  and  aged  thus  in  arms  and  care 
And  the  long  travail  of  time  past,  in  truth 
Still  in  the  forefront  of  the  spears  he  bare 
His  harness  like  a  youth. 

A  simple  banneret  was  good  Sir  John, 
Yet  of  a  princely  mien  he  did  not  fail, 
His  locks,  snow-white  and  silken,  thick  upon 
His  gorgerette  of  mail, 

His  one  eye  like  a  lyoun's  for  its  glance, 
Or  a  blue  glede  beneath  his  browes  hoar. 
Long  was  he,  hardy,  lean  as  is  a  lance. 
And  shouldered  like  a  door. 

Now  ill  advisers  to  the  Earl  did  say, 
*'Ride  not  with  Chandos,  for  whate'er  befall, 
He  for  his  fame  will  have  the  bruit  ahvay. 
And  you  get  none  at  all." 

*'Pardieu,  who  would  not  hold  you  well  e.xcused. 
Desiring  honour  for  yourself?"     And  so 
When  Chandos  rode  in  Anjou,  he  refused. 
And  said  he  could  not  go. 

Sir  John  returned  with  spoil,  and  as  he  fared 
Of  Louis  de  Sancerre  the  rumour  llew, 
Marshal  of  France,  that  he  had  spears  prepared 
To  harry  in  Poilbu. 

469 


470  Sir  John  Chandos  and  the  Earl  of   Pembroke 


To  fight  Sancerre  would  Pembroke  with  him  ride? 
Nay!     So  the  second  asking  made  it  plain 
That  the  young  Earl  refused  him  out  of  pride, 
Presumption  and  disdain. 

So  fell  Sir  John  in  thought  a  while,  and  then 
Said,  though  his  eye  bespoke  an  inward  blaze, 
''So  be  it  in  God's  name!"  and  let  his  men 
Depart  their  several  ways, 

And  went  to  Poitiers  home;  whereof  did  hear 
The  Earl,  and  straightway,  confident  to  win, 
Rode  forth  in  Loudonois  with  many  a  spear 
English  and  Poitevin. 

Now  Sancerre  thought  he  saw  within  his  reach 
Revenge  for  all  these  journeys  in  Anjou. 
Quoth  he,  "The  Earl  is  young,  'twere  well  to  teach 
His  Grace  a  thing  or  two." 

So  Pembroke's  meinie  homeward  drew,  a  rout 
Of  prisoners  and  richesse,  and  he  lay 
In  Purnon  at  high  noon,  and  all  about 
Was  pillage  and  great  prey. 

And  stamping  in  the  sun  the  horses  all 
Drank  at  the  well-side  in  the  village  street, 
When  lo!  a  shouting  and  a  trumpet  call, 
A  noise  of  many  feet, 

And  burst  among  them  ere  they  well  arose 
Sancerre  his  fellowship,  mid  yells  and  screams. 
And  slew  and  spared  not  those  who  ran,  or  those 
Who  fought  with  sticks  and  beams. 

Many  lay  dead  ere  ye  have  space  to  think, 
The  remnant  closed  them  with  their  arms  and  mail 
In  a  small  Templars'  lodging,  lacking  drink, 
And  stored  with  no  vitaille. 

Thereto  the  French  assailed,  and  there  befell 
A  siege  right  fierce  and  terrible.     'Tis  true 
Never  was  feeble  fortress  kept  so  well 
Or  holden  with  so  few. 

Swift  to  the  walls  they  scaling  ladders  set,  , 
And  while  with  stones  their  bascinets  were  burst, 
Swarmed  up  like  ants,  and  each  man  strove  to  get 
The  honour  to  be  first. 

But  met  them  fiercely  at  the  other  end 
The  Poitevin  and  English  knights  and  squires 
With  spears  and  swords,  who  garred  them  to  descend 
Too  fast  for*their  desires. 


.   .   .   and  straijilitway,  coiitiilent  to  win, 

Rode  forth  in  Loudonois  with  many  a  spoar 

Kiighsh  and  Puitevin. 


471 


Sir  John  Chandos  and  the   Earl  of   Pembroke  473 

Then  on  the  gate  they  tried  a  ram  or  two, 
But  the  mail  let  them  not  to  die  like  sheep. 
From  meurtrieres  like  hail   the  arrows  tlew 
To  feather  mortal  deep. 

Thus  they  endured  until  black  night  it  was. 
Then  the  young  Earl,  who  met  his  evil  hap 
Like  a  right  noble  man,  and  bare  him  as 
A  leopard  in  a  trap, 

Said  to  an  esquire,  who  took  great  delight 
To  venture  forth,  for  honour  on  him  laid, 
''Make  haste  to  Sir  John  Chandos  through  the  night, 
And  pray  him  of  his  aid." 

Now  on  the  mom,  the  English  manned  the  wall 
Like  men  who  thought  but  to  endure  the  worst. 
The  French  assailed  like  wolves,  and  they  were  all 
A-hungered  and  a-thirst. 

So  the  Earl  chose  another  squire,  and  said 
"Break  out  upon  my  courser,  take  this  ring, 
And  tell  Sir  John  that  we  are  all  but  dead, 
If  he  no  help  will  bring." 

Now  the  first  esquire  happening  upon 
A  wrong  road  in  the  dark,  it  came  to  pass 
That  he  but  did  his  errand  while  Sir  John 
Was  kneeling  down  at  mass. 

In  sooth  he  was  not  fain,  but  looking  grim 
•    Said,  ''We  could  scarcely  hear  with  all  our  pain 
This  mass  m  time  to  come,"  and  so  from  him 


e-^ 


He  turned  away  again. 

Then  after  mass  his  servants  asked  Sir  John 
Would  he  to  dinner?  and  he  answered  "Yea, 
Sith  it  is  ready,"  so  his  knights  anon 
Brought  on  a  silver  tray 

Fair  water  for  his  hands,  and  'fore  them  all, 
Servants  and  knights  and  lords  in  their  degrees, 
Hot-foot  the  second  esquire  came  in  hall 
And  fell  upon  his  knees. 

But  to  his  message  Chandos  answered  grim 
"To  come  in  season  time  doth  not  atlord." 
And  they  in  hall  sate  silent,  watching  him 
A-musing  at  the  board. 

All  at  the  second  course  he  roused;    "\'c  .saw 
Sirs,  how  the  Earl  hath  .sent  to  me  his  ring. 
He  is  of  great  lynage,  and  son-in-law 
Unto  our  lord  the  King." 


474  Sir  John   Chandos  and  the   Earl  of   Pembroke 

"Come,  let  us  ride."     And  rising  from  his  seat, 
All  followed  to  the  doorway  in  a  rout. 
Ay,  there  were  many  there  that  sat  at  meat 
Could  not  forbear  to  shout. 

And  knights  and  squires  came  running  everywhere 
With  surcoats  gay  and  pennoncels  of  pride, 
The  spears  fell  in,  the  trumpets  rang,  "Ho  there, 
Chandos  will  forth  and  ride!" 

Forth  sprang  the  coursers,  foamed  and  champing  sore. 
So  fair  a  company  ye  could  not  find, 
Red-piled,*  the  argent  banner  flew  before. 
The  highway  smoked  behind. 

Now  came  a  scout  to  Sancerre,  full  of  fears, 
"Sir,  it  hath  happened  as  we  might  have  weened. 
Cometh  John  Chandos  with  two  hundred  spears, 
And  rideth  like  the  fiend." 

"God's  name!  cannot  that  olde  stot  keep  still? 
Hell  blind  his  other  eye,  and  keep  him  so!" 
But  they  were  wearied,  so  against  their  will 
They  thought  it  best  to  go. 

So  Pembroke  knew  when  Sancerre  brake  array 
Chandos  was  near,  and  riding  forth  with  joy 
Within  a  league  he  met  him  in  the  way 
Intent  on  stern  employ. 

And  shamefaced  there  amid  his  companie 
Spake  the  young  Earl,  though  manfully  and  true, 
"Alas,  Sir  John,  well  have  you  holpeqpne 
That  did  not  so  to  you." 

"Ah,  lord,"  said  Chandos,  "with  such  words  as  these 
You  take  my  heart,  there  is  no  more  to  say. 
Ill  it  betokeneth  for  our  enemies. 

Please  God,  with  our  array, 

"And  please  your  Grace,  full  often  shall  wc  ride 
To  forays,  bushments,  and  adventures  fair, 
And  shall  discomfit  many  more  beside 
Sir  Louis  de  Sancerre." 

*  The  arms  of  Chandos,  "Argent,  a  pile  gules." 


WORSE    THAN     MARRIED 


By  Henry  and  Alice   Duer  Miller 
Illustrations  uy  E.  P.  Ottendorff 


ISS  WILBUR  sat  up  and 
wrung  the  water  out  of  her 
hair.  Most  of  us  have  looked 
about  a  dinner-table  and 
wondered  which  of  the  party 
would  make  the  pleasantest 
companion  on  a  desert  island;  Juliana  had 
done  it  often  enough,  but  now  the  comic 
touch  was  lacking.  Far  out,  hung  on  some 
unknown  reef,  the  prow  of  the  vessel  stuck 
up  black  and  tall,  almost  as  if  she  were  still 
pursuing  a  triumphant  course  landward, 
though  a  list  to  starboard  betrayed  her 
desperate  condition,  and  a  second  glance 
showed  that  the  waves  were  breaking  over 
her  stern.  The  heavy  swell  was  all  that 
was  left  of  the  storm.  The  sun  had  just 
risen  in  a  cloudless  sky,  above  a  dark-blue 
sea.  It  was  perhaps  that  bright  horizontal 
ray  which  had  waked  Miss  Wilbur.  It  had 
not  disturbed  her  rescuer,  who,  more  prov- 
ident, had  hidden  his  face  in  his  arm. 

It  seems  hardly  possible  for  a  young  lady 
to  be  dragged  from  her  berth  in  the  dead 
of  night,  hauled  to  the  decl^and  literally 
dumped  into  a  small  boat,  tooe  tossed  out 
of  the  boat  and  dragged  to  shore — all  by  a 
man  whose  face  and  name  were  equally 
unknown.  But  the  more  she  looked  at  the 
back  of  that  damp  head,  and  the  line  of 
those  shoulders,  the  less  familiar  did  they 
appear.  This  was  hardly  surprising,  for 
since  she  and  her  maid  had  taken  the 
steamer  at  Trinidad,  she  had  made  so  little 
effort  at  rapprochement  with  her  fellow 
passengers  that  she  could  hardly  call  any 
of  them  to  mind — a  great  German  from  a 
banking  house  in  Caracas;  a  sunburnt 
native  botanist  bound  for  the  Smithsonian; 
a  little  Englishman  from  the  Argentine; 
these  were  the  only  three  figures  she  could 
remember.  Who  was  this  man  ?  A  sailor  ? 
A  commercial  traveller  ?  Of  what  standing 
and  what  nationality? 

She  couglicd  presently:  "I  wish  you'd 
wake  up,"  she  said,  "and  let  me  thank  you 
for  saving  my  life." 


The  first  result  of  this  remark  was  that 
the  man  grunted  and  buried  his  nose 
deeper  in  the  sand.  Then  he  rolled  over, 
stood  up,  and  comprehensively  hitching  up 
what  remained  of  his  trousers,  he  looked 
carefully  round  the  horizon,  then  at  the 
wall  of  palm-trees  behind  them,  and  last  of 
all  at  Miss  Wilbur,  without  the  smallest 
change  of  expression. 

"Did  I  save  you?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,  don't  you  remember?  You  caught 
me  up  in  the  dark " 

"I  had  a  notion  it  was  Mrs.  Morale's 
son."  Again  his  eyes  sought  the  horizon, 
and  he  turned  to  move  away,  but  she  ar- 
rested him  with  a  question. 

"  Do  you  think  we  shall  be  rescued  ?  "  she 
said. 

He  stopped,  eyed  her,  and  again  turned 
away.  His  silence  annoyed  her.  "Why 
don't  you  answer  my  question?" 

"Because  I  thought  it  just  about  worthy 
of  some  one  who  wakes  up  a  tired  man 
to  thank  him  for  saving  her  life.  Do  I 
think  we'll  be  rescued?  That  depends  on 
whether  we  are  in  the  track  of  vessels;  and 
I  know  neither  the  track  of  vessels  nor 
where  we  are.  It  depends  on  whether  any 
of  the  other  boats  lived  through  the  night. 
But  I'll  tell  you  one  thing.  It  looks  to  me 
as  if  they  needn't  trouble  to  come  at  all,  if 
they  don't  come  soon.  I'm  going  to  hunt 
up  breakfast." 

He  disappeared  into  the  forest  of  palms, 
leaving  her  alone.  She  would  luive  liked 
to  call  him  back  and  ask  him  what  he 
thought  of  the  probabilities  of  snakes  on 
the  island.  Tact,  however,  that  civilized 
substitute  for  terror,  restrained  her.  She 
thought  him  very  peculiar.  "I  wonder  if 
he's  a  little  crazy,"  she  thought.  "I  won- 
der if  somclliing  hit  him  on  the  head." 

He  was  gone  a  long  time,  and  when  he 
returned  carried  a  bunch  of  bananas  ant! 
three  cocoanuts.  He  sloj)|)cd  short  on 
seeing  her.  "Do  you  mean  to  .^ay,"  he 
cried,  "that  you  haven't  been  drying  your 

475 


470 


Worse  Than  Married 


clothes?  What  do  you  suppose  I  stayed 
away  so  long  for?  IBut  no  matter.  Have 
your  breakfast  t'lrst." 

She  refrained  from  expressing,  at  once, 
a  profound  distaste  for  cocoanuts,  but  when 
he  cut  one  and  handed  it  to  her,  the  smell 
overcame  her  resolutions.  ''  Oh ! "  she  said, 
drawing  back,  "I  can't  bear  them." 

"Vou  will  order  something  else  on  the 
menu?" 

The  tone  was  not  agreeable,  and  Miss 
Wilbur  eyed  the  speaker.  No  wonder  she 
was  at  a  loss,  for  hitherto  her  measure  of 
men  had  been  the  people  they  knew,  the 
clothes  they  wore,  and,  more  especially, 
their  friendliness  to  herself.  In  the  present 
case,  none  of  these  were  much  help,  and 
she  decided  to  resort  to  the  simpler  means 
of  the  direct  question.  Besides,  it  had 
always  been  Juliana's  custom  to  converse 
during  her  meals  and,  peculiar  though  this 
one  appeared,  she  saw  no  reason  for  making 
it  an  exception. 

''Doesn't  it  seem  strange,"  she  began, 
"that  I  don't  even  know  your  name ?  " 

"Nathaniel  or  Spens?" 

"Oh!  Spens,  of  course,"  she  answered, 
quite  as  if  they  had  met  in  a  ballroom. 
"And  don't  you  think,"  she  went  on, 
"that  it  would  be  nice  if  we  knew  a  little 
more  about  each  other  than  just  our 
names?" 

"A  little  more?"  he  exclaimed.  "My 
idea  was  we  were  getting  near  the  too  much 
point." 

"But  I  meant  our  past  selves,  our  every- 
day selves — our  real  selves." 

"So  did  I.  I  hope  we  sha'n't  get  any 
realler.  This  is  real  enough  to  suit  me." 
He  continued  under  his  breath  to  ring  the 
changes  on  this  idea  to  his  own  intense 
satisfaction. 

Miss  Wilbur  gave  up  and  began  again. 
"I  think  it  would  be  interesting  to  tell  each 
other  a  little  of  our  lives — who  we  are,  and 
where  we  came  from.  For  instance — I'm 
willing  to  begin — I  am  a  New  Yorker.  My 
mother  died  when  I  was  sixteen,  and  I  have 
been  at  the  head  of  my  father's  house  ever 
since — he  has  retired  from  business.  We 
are  quite  free,  and  we  travel  a  great  deal.  I 
came  down  here  on  a  yacht.  You  may  ask 
why  I  left  it — well,  a  litde  difficulty  arose — 
a  situation.  The  owner,  one  of  my  best 
and  oldest  friends — "  She  paused.  As 
she  talked,  questions  had  floated  through 


her  mind.  "Does  he  take  in  the  sort  of 
person  I  am  at  home?  Does  he  realize 
how  his  toil  is  lightened  by  the  contrast  of 
my  presence  in  the  benighted  spot  ?  Does 
he  know  what  a  privilege  it  is  to  be  cast 
away  with  me?"  He  was  saying  to  him- 
self: "If  only  I  can  get  home  before  the 
first,  I'll  increase  that  quarterly  dividend." 

She  took  up  her  narrative.  ' '  The  owner, 
as  I  say,  was  one  of  my  best  and  oldest 
friends;  and  yet,  you  know " 

"And  yet  you  quarrelled  like  one  o'clock." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Miss  Wilbur.  "We  did 
not  quarrel.  It  would  have  been  better  if 
we  had." 

"Just  sulked,  you  mean?" 

This  was  more  than  she  could  bear. 
"He  wanted  to  marry  me,"  she  said  firmly. 

"Not  really!"  he  exclaimed,  and  then, 
studying  her  more  carefully,  he  added: 
"But  of  course — very  naturally.  I  am 
sure  to  some  types  of  men  you  would  be 
excessively  desirable." 

This  was  the  nearest  approach  to  a  com- 
pliment that  she  had  had  since  the  ship 
struck,  and  she  gulped  at  it  eagerly. 

"Desirable  is  not  quite  the  word,"  she 
answered.  "But  perhaps  I  should  rather 
have  you  think  of  me  as  desirable  than  not 
at  all,"  and  she  smiled  fascinatingly. 

"Great  Caesar's  ghost!"  he  exclaimed. 
"Did  I  say  I  was  thinking  of  you?  But 
there,  I  mean — I  mean — "  But  it  was 
unnecessary  Id  complete  the  sentence,  for 
Miss  Wilbur  rose,  with  what  dignity  a  tat- 
tered dressing-gown  allowed,  and  moved 
away.  He  followed  her  and  explained 
with  the  utmost  civility  where  there  was 
another  beach,  how  she  should  spread  out 
her  clothes  to  the  sun,  and  added  gravely, 
holding  up  one  finger:  "And  remember  to 
keep  in  the  shade  yourself." 

"Oh,  the  sun  never  affects  me,"  said 
Juliana. 

This  answer  plainly  tried  him,  but  with 
some  self-control  he  merely  repeated  his 
injunction  in  exactly  the  same  words. 

Miss  W^ilbur's  costume  was  not  elaborate. 
It  comprised,  all  told,  a  night-gown,  a  pink 
quilted  dressing-gown,  a  pair  of  men's 
sneakers,  and  a  bit  of  Cartier  jewelry  about 
her  throat.  She  wished  that  dressing-gown 
had  been  more  becoming.  Just  before  she 
sailed  she  had  sent  her  maid  out  to  buy 
something  warm,  and  the  pink  atrocity  had 
been  the  result.     She  had  thought  it  did  not 


Worse  Than   Married 


4 


/  / 


matter  then,  but,  now  that  she  might  have 
to  spend  the  rest  of  her  h'fe  in  it,  she  wished 
she  had  taken  the  trouble  to  choose  it  her- 
self. 

Even  if  she  had  been  completely  alone  on 
this  Caribbean  island,  she  was  too  much  a 
child  of  civilization  to  remove  all  her  clothes 
at  once.  The  process  took  time.  As  she  sat 
under  the  trees  and  waited,  she  considered 
her  position. 

Feelings  of  dislike  for,  and  dependence 
upon,  her  rescuer  grew  together  in  her 
mind.  She  did  not  say,  even  to  herself, 
that  she  was  afraid  of  him,  very  much  in 
the  same  way  in  which  she  had  once  been 
afraid  of  her  schoolmistress — afraid  of  his 
criticism  and  his  contempt,  but  she  ex- 
pressed the  same  idea  by  saying  ''he  was 
not  very  nice  to  her."  That  he  ^Svas 
rather  rude  " !  She  thought  how  differently 
any  of  the  men  she  had  left  on  the  yacht 
at  Trinidad  would  have  behaved — Alfred, 
for  instance.  It  w^ould  have  been  rather 
fun  to  have  been  cast  away  with  Alfred. 
He  would  have  been  tender  and  solicitous. 
Poor  Alfred!  She  began  to  think  it  had 
been  an  absurd  scruple  that  had  made  her 
leave  the  party.  It  had  seemed  as  if  she 
could  not  cruise  another  day  on  the  yacht 
of  a  man  she  had  refused  so  decidedly  to 
marry.  After  such  a  scene,  too!  Miss 
Wilbur  frowned  and  shook  her  head  at  the 
recollection.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  liked 
scenes. 

She  had  so  far  used  the  freedom  of 
her  life  in  eliminating  from  her  conscious- 
ness those  who  did  not  contribute  to  her 
self-esteem.  Sometimes  she  created  ad- 
miration where  it  had  not  existed.  Some- 
times, when  this  seemed  impossible,  she 
simply  withdrew.  The  latter  method  was 
obviously  out  of  the  question  on  this  little 
dot  of  an  island. 

But  the  other  ?  One  of  the  unquestioned 
facts  in  Miss  Wilbur's  life  was  her  own  ex- 
treme charm;  and  this  thought  brought 
another  to  her  mind.  The  picture  of  the 
traditional  male — the  beast  of  prey!  In 
spite  of  the  American  girl's  strange  min- 
gling of  inexperience  and  sophistication,  she 
is  not  entirely  without  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  She  remembered  his  long 
Yankee  jaw  with  relief. 

When  she  returned  she  found  he  had 
erected  four  poles  with  cross-beams  and 
was  attempting  to  thatch  it  with  banana- 


leaves,  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  low 
sibilant  whistle. 

"What's  that?"  she  asked.  He  com- 
pleted the  phrase  diminuendo  before  an- 
swering. 

"This,"  he  said,  "is  where  you  are  going 
to  sleep,  and,  if  it  doesn't  fall  in  on  you  in 
the  night,  I'll  build  another  for  myself  to- 
morrow. Look  out  where  you  step.  I'm 
drying  two  vestas  on  that  rock.  If  they 
light,  we'll  have  a  fire,  and  perhaps  some 
day  something  to  eat.  Suppose  you  go  and 
find  some  wood?" 

She  hesitated.  "  Do  you  think  there  are 
snakes  on  this  island  ?  "  she  hazarded ;  and 
oh,  with  what  enthusiasm  such  a  sugges- 
tion of  femininity  would  have  been  re- 
ceived on  the  yacht! 

"  Think  not,"  said  her  companion ;  "  but 
I'd  look  out  for  scorpions  and  centipeds 
and  things  like  that,  you  know." 

The  suggestion  did  not  increase  her  en- 
thusiasm for  her  task.  She  hung  about  a 
few  minutes  longer,  and  then  collected  a 
few  twigs  along  the  beach,  raising  them 
carefully  between  her  thumb  and  fore- 
finger. They  did  not  make  an  imposing 
pile,  as  she  felt  when  her  rescuer  came  to 
inspect  it,  looking  first  at  it  and  then  at  her, 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"I  hope  you  won't  overdo?"  he  said. 

Juliana  colored.  "Did  you  expect  me 
to  carry  great  logs  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Women 
can't  do  that  sort  of  thing." 

He  moved  away  without  answering,  and 
presently  ha'd  collected  enough  wood  for 
many  fires. 

"I'd  like  to  see  you  lay  a  fire,"  he  said. 

She  threw  some  of  the  small  sticks  to- 
gether, then  the  larger  ones,  as  she  had 
seen  the  housemaid  do  at  home.  Then, 
embarrassed  at  his  silent  observation,  she 
drew  back. 

"Of  course  I  can't  do  it,  if  you  watch 
me,"  she  exclaimed. 

"You  can't  do  it  anyhow,  because  you 
don't  know  the  principle.  The  first  thing 
a  fire  needs  is  air.  It's  done  like  this." 
He  tore  down  and  rc-crectcd  her  structure. 

If  Miss  Wilbur  had  followed  her  impulse, 
she  would  have  kicked  it  down  as  he  fin- 
ished, but  she  managed  a  line  aloofness  in- 
stead. He  did  not  appear  to  notice  her 
chin  in  the  air. 

"Yes,"  he  observed,  as  he  rose  from  his 
knees,  "it's  a  handy  thing  to  know — how  to 


47S 


Worse  Than   Married 


lay  a  fire,  and,  as  you  say,  one  is  naturally 
grateful  to  the  fellow  who  teaches  one. 
I'm  going  to  look  lor  food.  Keep  a  look- 
out for  ships." 

He  had  hardly  gone  when  he  came 
bounding  back  again,  waving  two  small 
fish  by  the  tails.  ''Got  'em,"  he  shouted. 
''Dug  out  some  ponds  this  morning,  but 
never  thought  it  would  work,  but  here  they 
are.     Now  we'll  light  the  fire." 

His  excitement  was  contagious.  She 
sprang  up,  held  the  skirt  of  her  dressing- 
gown  to  shield  the  match,  blew  the  flame, 
almost  blew  it  out.  Finally,  with  the 
help  of  both  matches  the  fire  was  lit. 

"I'm  so  hungry,"  she  said.  "Do  you 
think  they'll  taste  good?" 

He  did  not  answer.  She  could  not  but 
be  impressed  by  the  deftness  with  which 
he  split  and  boned  the  fish,  and  the  in- 
vention he  displayed  in  evolving  cooking 
utensils  out  of  shells  and  sticks. 

"You  know,"  he  said  suddenly,  "this 
fire  must  never  go  out.  This  will  be  your 
job.     Sort  of  vestal-virgin  idea." 

The  charge  made  her  nervous.  The 
responsibility  was  serious.  During  one  of 
his  absences  she  began  to  think  the  flame 
was  dying  down.  She  put  in  a  stick.  It 
blazed  too  quickly.  A  crash  followed  and 
one  of  the  fish  disappeared  into  the  fire. 

After  a  time  she  managed  to  drag  it  out, 
black  and  sandy.  She  dreaded  his  return. 
How  could  she  make  clear  to  him  that  it 
had  not  been  her  fault  ?  She  decided  on  a 
comic  manner.  Holding  it  up  by  the  tail, 
she  smiled  at  him.  "Doesn't  that  look 
delicious?"  she  asked  gayly. 

His  brow  darkened.  "All  right,  if  you 
like  them  that  way,"  he  returned. 

"Don't  you  think  the  other  is  large 
enough  for  two?" 

His  answer  was  to  remove  the  other  from 
the  fire  and  to  eat  it  himself. 

Miss  Wilbur  watched  him  to  the  end,  and 
then  she  could  contain  herself  no  longer. 
She  had  been  extremely  hungry. 

"Upon  my  word,"  she  said,  "  I've  known 
a  good  many  selfish  men,  but  I  never  before 
saw  one  who  would  not  have  taken  the 
bread  out  of  his  mouth  to  give  to  a  hungry 
woman." 

Her  rescuer  looked  at  her  unshaken. 
"You  don't  think  that  was  just  ?  "  he  inquired. 

"I  am  not  talking  of  justice,  but  of 
chivalry,"   replied   Miss  Wilbur  passion- 


ately. "Of  consideration  for  the  weak. 
You  are  physically  stronger  than  I " 

"And  I  intend  to  remain  so." 

"At  my  expense?" 

"If  you  fell  ill,  I  should  be  sorry.  If  I 
fell  ill,  you  would  die."  He  turned  away 
sharply,  but  half-way  up  to  the  beach 
thought  better  of  it  and  returned. 

"See  here,"  he  said,  "I'm  an  irritable 
man  and  a  tired  man.  This  whole  thing 
isn't  going  to  be  easy  for  either  of  us.  And 
what  do  we  find,  the  first  crack  out  of  the 
box  ?  That  you  are  not  only  incompetent, 
but  that  you  want  to  be  social  and  pleasant 
over  it.  Great  Scott!  what  folly!  Well,  if 
it's  any  satisfaction  to  you,  I  know  I'm  not 
behaving  well  either.  But  you  don't  seem 
aware  of  even  that  much,  or  of  anything, 
indeed" — he  smiled  faintly — "except  your 
own  good  looks." 

He  left  her  to  meditate. 

Battle,  murder,  and  sudden  death  are  not 
as  great  a  shock  to  some  people  as  their 
own  failure  to  please.  Miss  Wilbur,  being 
incapable  of  looking  within  for  the  cause 
of  this  phenomenon,  looked  at  her  com- 
panion. Evidently  he  was  a  peculiar,  nerv- 
ous sort  of  creature,  and,  after  all,  had  he 
been  so  successful?  He  hardly  came  up 
to  the  desert-island  standard,  set  by  the 
father  of  the  Swiss  Family  Robinson.  She 
reviewed  him  with  a  critical  eye.  He  was 
a  nice-looking  young  man  of  the  clean- 
shaven type.  He  lacked  the  great  air, 
she  told  herself,  which  was  not  surprising, 
since  eighteen  months  before  there  had 
been  nothing  whatever  to  distinguish  him 
from  any  of  the  other  shrewd  young  men 
produced  in  such  numbers  by  the  State  of 
Connecticut.  But  chance  had  waved  her 
wand,  and  it  had  fallen  to  his  lot  to  head  a 
congenial  band  of  patriots  who,  controlling 
a  group  of  trolleys,  had  parted  with  them 
at  a  barefaced  price  to  the  New  York,  New 
Haven  and  Hartford  Railway.  Since  this 
coup  he  had  rather  rested  on  his  laurels, 
spending  most  of  his  time  with  a  class- 
mate in  New  York,  where  he  had  ac- 
quired a  tailor  and  had  succeeded  in  getting 
himself  elected  to  the  directorate  of  The 
General  Fruit  Company — an  organization 
which,  as  every  Italian  vender  knows,  deals 
in  such  miscellaneous  commodities  as  ba- 
nanas, hides,  coffee,  rubber,  sugar,  copper- 
mines,  and  narrow-gauge  railroads  along 
the  Caribbean  shores,  with  an  argosy  for 


Worse  Tlian   Married 


479 


transportation  to  Spokane,  New  (Jrleans,  ter  leaked  in  llie  rain,  and  as  Miss  Wilbur 

Baltimore,  Boston,  Bristol,  or  Bordeaux.  sat  steaming  in  the  sunshine  which  imme- 

For  some  reason  his  mastery  of  the  des-  diately  succeeded  she  felt  inclined  to  at- 

ert  island  was  not  complete.     His  race's  tribute  all  her  discomforts  to  Spens.     He 

traditional  handiness  seemed  to  be  slight-  seemed   to  have  no  faculty  whatever  for 


She  was  too  iinich  a  child  of  civihzatioii  to  remove  all  her  clotiies  at  once.      As  -he  sat  iiiuicr  the  trees  ami  waiteii, 

she  considered  her  position.  —  Page  477. 


ly  in  abeyance;  perhaps  because  luck  was  evolving  things  out  of  nothing,  which,  she 

against    him,    perhaps    on    account    of   a  had  always  understood,  was  the  great  occu- 

too  pervasive  feminine  presence.     But  for  pation  of  desert-island   life.     Their   food 

whatever  reason,  things  did  not  improve,  continued  to  be  bananas  and  cocoanuts, 

Nothing  came  ashore  from  the  wreck — not  varied  by  an  occasional  I'lsh;   and,  instead 

even  when,  ^fter  a  small  gale,   it  turned  of  being  apologetic  for  such  meagre  fare, 

over  and  disappeared.     The  banana  shel-  beseemed  to  think  shcDUght  to  be  grateful. 
Vol.  LV.— 49 


ISO 


Worse  Tlian   Married 


Now  Mi>s Wilbur avald haw hccMi  grateful,  mosphere  of  the  island  was  anything  but 

if  he  had  not  rousetl  her  antagonism  by  his  cordial. 

continual  adverse  criticism  of  herself.     She  After  all,  she  used  to  say  to  herself,  why 

wished  to  show  him  that  she  could  be  critical,  should  she  labor  under  any  profound  sense 


One  of  the  fish  disappeared  into  the  fire  .   .   .   she  managed  to  drag  it  out.       Holding  it 
up  by  the  tail:   "  Doesn't  that  look  delicious?  "  she  asked  gayly.-^Page  478. 


too;  and  so  she  sniffed  at  his  fish,  and  took 
no  interest  in  his  roofing  arrangements,  and 
treated  him,  in  short,  exactly  as  the  providing 
male  should  not  be  treated.  Man  cannot 
stoop  to  ask  for  praise,  but  he  can  eternally 
sulk  if  he  does  not  get  it.     The  domestic  at- 


of  obligation?  Even  when  he  appeared  to 
be  considering  her  comfort  she  saw  an  ulte- 
rior motive.  He  came,  for  instance,  one  day, 
civilly  enough,  and  pointed  out  a  little  row 
of  white  stones  marking  off  a  portion  of 
the  island. 


Worse  Tlian   Married 


481 


"The  beach  beyond  this  line  is  ceded  to  His  tone  was  a  tritle  more  nipping  than 

you,"  he  observed  gravely.     ''No  fooling,  he  intended,  but  no  suavity  could  have  con- 

Pm  in  earnest.     Of  course  I  understand  cealed  his  meaning.     His  plan   had  been 

that  you  like  to  be  alone  sometimes.    Here  designed  not  to  please  her,  but  to  protect 


"  I  must  put  it  on  at  once,"  she  said.      "  It  fits  vou  e.\att!y,"  he  observed  with 
pieasiue.  —  Paye  4^2. 

you'll  never  be  disturbed.     When  I  annoy  himself.     No  one  before  had  ever  plotted 

you  past  bearing,  you  can  come  here."   For  to  relieve  himself  of  Miss  \\ill)ur's  com- 

a  moment  she  was  touched  by  his  kindness,  j)any.     Subterfuges  had  always  had  an  oj)- 

the  next  he  had  added:    "And  would  you  i)osite  intention.     She  had  been  clamored 

mind  allowing  me  a  similar  privilege  on  the  for   and    (juarrelled   over.     She   withdrew 

other  side  of  the  island?"  immediately  to  the  indicated  asylum. 


4S2 


Worse   Tliaii    Married 


"I'm  iu)t  accuslomcci  U)  such  j)cople," 
slic  saiil  to  luTsclf.  "lie  makes  me  feel 
(lilTereiU — horrid.  1  can't  l)e  myself."  It 
was  not  the  first  time  she  had  talked  to  her- 
self, ami  she  wondered  if  her  mind  were 
beginninij;  to  give  way  under  the  strain  of 
the  situation.    "I'd  like  to  box  his  ears  until 


He  did  not  answer,  but  moved  gloomily 
away.  l\vo  or  three  times  she  heard  him 
start  an  air  and  cut  it  short.  A  smile 
nickered  across  her  face.  So  sweet  to  her 
was  it  to  be  the  aggressor  that  she  did  not 
return  behind  the  white  stones,  but  re- 
mained, like  a  cat  at  a  rat-hole,  waiting  be- 


She  had  scarcely  reached  the  beach,  and  seen  the  vessel  now  looming  large  and  near.  —  Page  484. 


they  rang.  Until  they  rang ! "  she  repeated, 
and  felt  like  a  criminal.  Who  would  have 
supposed  she  had  such  instincts! 

For  the  tenth  time  that  day  she  caught 
together  the  sleeve  of  the  detested  dressing- 
gown.  How  shocked  Alfred  and  her  father 
would  be  to  think  a  man  lived  who  could 
treat  her  so!  but  the  thought  of  their  horror 
soothed  her  less  as  it  became  more  and 
more  unlikely  that  they  would  ever  know 
anything  about  it. 

She  stayed  behind  her  stones  until  he 
called  her  to  luncheon.  They  ate  in  silence. 
Toward  the  end  she  said  gently: 

"Would  you  mind  not  whistling  quite  so 
loud?" 

"  Certainly  not,  if  the  sound  annoys  you." 

''Oh,  it  isn't  the  sound  so  much,  only" — 
and  she  smiled  angelically — ''it  always 
seems  to  me  a  litde  fiat." 

She  had  a  great  success.     Spens  colored. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  don't  pretend  to  be 
a  musician,  but  it  has  always  been  agreed 
that  I  had  an  excellent  ear." 

"In  Green  Springs,  Connecticut?" 


side  the  fire,  to  "wMdi  Spens  would  have  to 
return  eventually.^  i-^f  ■: 

She  had  resolved  that  it  must  be  kindly 
yet  firmly  made  clear  to  him  that  he  was 
not  behaving  like  a  gentleman,  and  if,  as 
seemed  possible,  he  did  not  understand  all 
that  that  word  implied,  she  felt  quite  com- 
petent to  explain  it  to  him. 

Perhaps  the  idea  that  his  conduct  was  not 
quite  up  even  to  his  own  standards  had  al- 
ready occurred  to  him,  for  when  he  re- 
turned he  carried  a  peace-offering. 

He  stood  before  her,  holding  something 
toward  her.  "  I  notice,"  he  said,  "that  you 
go  about  in  the  sun  bareheaded.  You 
oughtn't  to  do  that,  and  so  I  have  made 
you  this,"  and  she  saw  that  the  green  mass 
in  his  hands  was  leaves  carefully  fashioned 
into  the  shape  of  a  hat. 

It  may  perhaps  be  forgiven  to  Miss  Wilbur 
that  her  heart  sank.  Nevertheless,  she  took 
the  offering,  expressing  her  gratitude  with  a 
little  too  much  volubility.  ' '  I  must  put  it  on 
at  once,"  she  said.  Green  had  never  become 
her,  but  she  placed  it  firmly  on  her  head. 


Worse   Than  Married 


483 


Spens  studied  it  critically.  "It  fits  you 
exactly,"  he  observed  with  pleasure.  "  You 
see  I  could  only  guess  at  the  size.  Isn't  it 
fortunate  that  I  guessed  so  exactly  right  I" 

She  saw  that  he  was  immensely  gratified 
and,  trying  to  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the 
thing,  she  said: 

"What  a  pity  I  can't  see  the  effect!" 

"You  can."  He  drew  his  watch  from 
his  pocket,  and  opened  the  back  of  the 
case.  "It  doesn't  keep  time  any  longer," 
he  said,  "but  it  can  still  serve  as  a  looking- 
glass,"  and  he  held  it  up. 

Now  any  one  who  has  ever  looked  at 
himself  in  the  back  of  a  watch-case  knows 
that  it  does  not  make  a  becoming  mirror; 
it  enlarges  the  tip  of  the  nose,  and  decreases 
the  size  of  the  eyes.  Juliana  had  not 
so  far  had  any  vision  of  herself.  Now,  for 
the  first  time,  in  this  unfavorable  reflec- 
tion, she  took  in  her  flattened  hair,  her  tat- 
tered dressing-gown,  and,  above  all,  the 
flapping,  intoxicated  head-gear  which  she 
had  just  received.  She  snatched  it  from  her 
head  with  a  gesture  quicker  than  thought. 

"I  believe  you  enjoy  making  me  ridicu- 
lous," she  said  passionately. 

"Nothing  could  be  more  ridiculous  than 
to  say  that,"  he  answered.  "I  wanted  to 
save  your  health,  but  if  you  prefer  sun- 
stroke to  an  unbecoming  hat — not  that  I 
thought  it  unbecoming '' 

"It  was  hideous." 

"I  can  only  say  that  I  don't  think  so." 

Miss  Wilbur  slowly  crushed  the  offend- 
ing object  and  dropped  it  into  the  fire. 
Ridiculous  or  not,  there  would  never  be 
any  question  about  that  again. 

"Of  course,"  she  observed  after  a  pause, 
"I  don't  expect  you  to  understand  how  I 
feel  about  this — how  I  feel  about  anything 
— how  any  lady  feels  about  anything." 

"Is  it  particularly  ladylike  not  to  wish 
to  wear  an  unbecoming  hat?" 

This  of  course  was  war,  and  Miss  Wilbur 
took  it  up  with  spirit.  "Unhappily,  it  is 
ladylike,"  she  answered,  "to  have  been  so 
sheltered  from  hardships  that  when  rude- 
ness and  stupidity  are  added " 

"Come,  come,"  said  Spens,  "we  each 
feel  we  have  too  good  a  case  to  spoil  by 
losing  our  tempers.  Sit  down,  and  let 
us  discuss  it  calmly.  You  first.  I  promise 
not  to  interrupt.  You  object  to  my  be- 
ing rude  and  stupid.  So  far  so  good,  but 
develop  your  idea." 
Vol.  LV.— 50 


The  tone  steadied  Juliana.  "I  don't 
complain  of  the  hardships,"  she  began. 
"I  don't  speak  of  the  lack  of  shelter  and 
food.  These  are  not  your  fault,  although," 
she  could  not  resist  adding,  "some  people 
might  have  managed  a  little  better,  I 
fancy.  What  I  complain  of  is  your  total 
lack  of  appreciation  of  what  this  situation 
means  to  me.  I  haven't  knocked  about 
the  world  like  a  man.  I've  never  been 
away  from  home  without  my  maid.  I've 
never  before  been  without  everything  that 
love  and  money  could  get  me,  and  instead 
of  pitying  me  for  this  you  do  ever}'thing  in 
your  power  to  make  it  harder.  Instead  of 
being  considerate  you  are  not  even  civil. 
No  one  could  think  you  civil — no  one  that 
I  know,  at  least.  You  do  everything  you 
can  to  make  me  feel  that  my  presence,  in- 
stead of  being  a  help  and  a  pleasure,  is  an 
unmitigated  bother." 

There  was  a  pause.  "Well,"  said 
Spens,  "since  we  are  being  so  candid,  have 
you  been  a  help?  Have  you  even  done 
your  own  share?  Certainly  not.  I  don't 
speak  of  the  things  you  can't  help — your 
burning  of  the  fish " 

"The  fish!  I  don't  see  how  you  have  the 
effrontery  to  mention  the  fish." 

"^or  of  your  upsetting  our  first  supply 
of  rain-water.  Constitutional  clumsiness 
is  something  no  one  can  help,  I  suppose. 
But  it  does  irritate  me  that  you  seem  to 
find  it  all  so  confoundedly  fascinating  in 
you.  You  seemed  to  think  it  was  cunning 
to  burn  the  fish,  and  playful  to  upset  the 
water.  In  other  words,  though  I  don't 
mind  carrying  a  dead  weight,  I'm  hanged  if 
I'll  regard  it  as  a  beauteous  burden." 

Miss  Wilbur  rose  to  her  feet.  "The 
trouble  with  you  is,"  she  said,  "that  you 
haven't  the  faintest  idea  how  a  gentleman 
behaves." 

"Well,  I'm  learning  all  right  how  a  lady 
behaves,"  he  retorted. 

After  this  it  was  impossible  to  give  any 
consistent  account  of  their  conversation. 
They  both  spoke  at  once,  phrases  such  as 
these  emerging  from  the  confusion :  "  — you 
talk  al)OUt  ladies  and  gentlemen."  "Thank 
Heaven,  I  know  something  of  men  and 
women";  " — civilized  life  and  the  people 
I  know";  " — never  been  tested  before." 
"  Do  you  think  vou've  survived  the  test  so 
well?" 

The  last  sentence  was   Miss  Wilbur's, 


484 


Worse  Than   Married 


and  under  cover  of  it  she  retreated  to  her 
own  domains.  Spens,  left  in  possession 
of  the  field,  presently  withdrew  to  the  other 
side  of  the  island. 

Here  for  two  or  three  days  he  had  had 
a  secret  from  Juliana.  He  had  invented, 
constructed,  and  was  in  process  of  per- 
fecting himself  in  a  game  with  shells  and 
cocoanuts  which  bore  a  family  resemblance 
to  both  quoits  and  hop-scotch.  He  turned 
to  it  now  to  soothe  and  distract  him.  It 
was  a  delightful  game,  and  exactly  suited 
his  purpose,  requiring  as  it  did  skill,  con- 
centration, and  agility.  He  had  just  ac- 
complished a  particularly  difficult  feat  which 
left  him  in  the  attitude  of  the  Flying  Mer- 
cury, when  his  eye  fell  upon  a  smutch  of 
smoke  on  the  horizon,  beneath  which  the 
funnel  of  a  vessel  was  already  apparent. 

Spens's  methods  of  showing  joy  were  all 
his  own.  He  threw  the  tattered  remnants 
of  his  cap  in  the  air,  and  when  it  came  down 
he  jumped  on  it  again  and  again. 

His  next  impulse  was  to  run  and  call 
Juliana,  but  he  did  not  follow  it.  Instead 
he  piled  wood  on  the  fire  until  it  w^as  a  veri- 
table column  of  flame,  and  then  with  folded 
arms  he  took  his  stand  on  the  beach. 

AA'ithin  a  few  minutes  he  became  con- 
\dnced  that  the  vessel,  a  steamer  of  moder- 
ate size,  had  sighted  his  signal.  They  were 
going  to  be  rescued.  Very  soon  he  and 
Juliana  would  be  sailing  back  to  civiliza- 
tion. He  would  be  fitted  out  by  the  ship's 
officers,  and  Juliana  would  be  very  self- 
conscious  about  appearing  in  the  steward- 
ess's clothes.  They  would  figure  in  the 
papers — a  rising  young  capitalist,  and  a 
society  girl.  Her  father  would  be  on  the 
pier.  There  would  be  explanations.  He 
himself  would  be  a  child  in  their  hands. 
A  vision  of  engraved  cards,  a  faint  smell  of 
orange-blossoms,  floated  through  his  mind. 
His  resolve  was  taken.  He  sprang  up,  ran 
through  the  palms,  and  penetrated  without 
knocking  to  where  Miss  Wilbur  was  sitting, 
with  her  back  against  a  tree.  She  glanced 
up  at  him  with  the  utmost  detestation. 

"I  thought  that  here,  at  least — "  she  be- 
gan, but  he  paid  no  attention. 

''Juliana,"  he  exclaimed  in  his  excite- 
ment, ''there  is  a  vessel  on  the  other  side 
of  the  island.     She'll  be  here  in  twenty 


minutes,  and  you  are  going  home  in  her. 
Now,  don't  make  any  mistake.  Yoti  are 
going  home.  I  stay  here.  No,  don't  say 
anything.  I've  thov^ght  it  over,  and  this  is 
the  only  way.  We  can't  both  go  home. 
Think  of  landing,  think  of  the  papers,  think 
of  introducing  me  to  that  distinguished 
bunch — the  people  you  know.  No,  no, 
you've  been  here  all  alone,  and  you're  an 
extraordinarily  clever,  capable  girl,  and 
have  managed  to  make  yourself  wonderfully 
comfortable,  considering.  No,  don't  pro- 
test. I'm  not  taking  any  risk.  Here's  a 
vessel  at  the  end  of  ten  days.  Another  may 
be  here  to-morrow.  Anyhow,  be,  sure  it's 
what  I  prefer.  A  cocoanut  and  liberty. 
Good-by.  Better  be  getting  down  to  the 
beach  to  wave." 

Miss  Wilbur  hesitated.  "At  least,"  she 
said,  "let  me  know  when  you  do  get  home." 

"I'll  telephone  from  Green  Springs. 
Now  run  along,"  and  taking  her  by  the 
shoulders,  he  turned  her  toward  the  path. 

She  had,  however,  scarcely  reached  the 
beach,  and  seen  the  vessel  now  looming 
large  and  near,  when  she  heard  a  hoarse 
whisper:  "I've  forgotten  my  tobacco."  A 
face  and  arm  gleamed  out  from  the  bush. 
He  snatched  the  pouch,  and  this  time  was 
finally  gone. 

The  keel  of  the  ship's  boat  grated  on  the 
sand,  and  a  flustered  young  officer  sprang 
out.  Juliana  was  inclined  to  make  a  mo- 
ment of  it,  but  it  was  getting  dark,  and  the 
captain,  what  with  carrying  the  mails  and 
being  well  out  of  his  course,  was  cross 
enough  as  it  was. 

"  One  of  you  men  go  up  there  and  stamp 
out  that  fire,"  he  said.  "No  use  in  bring- 
ing any  one  else  in  here." 

An  expression  of  terror  crossed  Miss 
Wilbur's  face,  and  a  cry  burst  from  her: 
"Oh,  he'll  be  so  angry."  The  officer 
caught  only  the  terror,  and,  setting  it  down 
to  natural  hysteria,  pushed  off  without 
more  ado. 

Night  fell,  and  the  stars  came  out  with 
the  startling  rapidity  of  the  tropics. 
There  was  no  wind,  but  puffs  of  salt  air 
lifted  the  fronds  of  the  palms. 

Suddenly  over  the  water  was  borne  the 
sharp  jangle  of  an  engine-room  bell,  and 
the  beat  of  a  vessel's  propellers. 


THE    GIFT    OF   GOD 

By    Edwin    Arlington    R o  13 i n s o n 

Blessed  with  a  joy  that  only  she 

Of  all  alive  shall  ever  know, 

She  w^ears  a  proud  humility 

For  what  it  was  that  willed  it  so,^ 

That  her  degree  should  be  so  great 

Among  the  favored  of  the  Lord 

That  she  may  scarcely  bear  the  weight 

Of  her  bewildering  reward. 

As  one  apart,  immune,  alone, 
Or  featured  for  the  shining  ones. 
And  like  to  none  that  she  has  known 
Of  other  women's  other  sons, — 
The  firm  fruition  of  her  need. 
He  shines  anointed;  and  he  blurs 
Her  vision,  till  it  seems  indeed 
A  sacrilege  to  call  him  hers. 

She  fears  a  little  for  so  much 
Of  what  is  best,  and  hardly  dares 
To  think  of  him  as  one  to  touch 
With  aches,  indignities,  and  cares; 
She  sees  him  rather  at  the  goal. 
Still  shining;  and  her  dream  foretells 
The  proper  shining  of  a  soul 
Where  nothing  ordinary  dwells. 

Perchance  a  canvass  of  the  town 
Would  find  him  far  from  flags  and  shouts, 
And  leave  him  only  the  renown 
Of  many  smiles  and  many  doubts; 
Perchance  the  crude  and  common  tongue 
Would  havoc  strangely  with  his  worth; 
But  she,  with  innocence  unstung, 
Would  read  his  name  around  the  earth. 

And  others,  knowing  how  this  youth 
Would  shine,  if  love  could  make  him  great, 
When  caught  and  tortured  for  the  truth 
Would  only  writhe  and  hesitate; 
While  she,  arranging  for  his  days 
What  centuries  could  not  fulfil. 
Transmutes  him  with  her  faith  and  i)raise, 
And  has  him  shining  where  she  will. 

She  crowns  him  with  her  gratefulness. 

And  says  again  that  life  is  good; 

And  should  the  gift  of  God  be  less 

In  him  than  in  her  motherhood, 

His  fame,  though  vague,  will  not  be  small. 

As  upward  through  her  dream  he  fares, 

Half  clouded  with  a  crimson  fall 

Of  roses  thrown  on   marble  stairs. 

4S5 


GREEK    FEASTS 


By   H.  G.  Dwight 

Illustrations  from  photographs  by  the  Author 


NE  of  the  most  character- 
istic things  about  Constan- 
tinople is  that  while  it  has 
become  Turkish  it  has  not 
ceased  to  be  Greek.  The 
same  is  true  of  Thrace, 
Macedonia,  and  Asia  Minor,  which  con- 
tain a  large  Turkish  population,  but  which 
still  form  a  part  of  the  Greek  world  to 
which  they  always  belonged.  The  tw^o 
races  have  indisputably  influenced  each 
other,  as  their  languages  and  certain  of 
their  customs  prove.  A  good  deal  of 
Greek  blood  now  flows,  too,  in  Turkish 
veins.  Nevertheless  there  has  been  re- 
markably little  assimilation,  after  five  hun- 
dred years,  of  one  element  by  the  other. 
They  coexist,  each  perfectly  distinct  and 
each  claiming  with  perfect  reason  the  land 
as  his  own. 

This  is  perhaps  one  cause  why  religious 
festivals  are  so  common  among  the  Greeks 
of  Turkey.  It  is  as  a  religious  community 
that  they  have  remained  separate  since 
the  conquest.  Through  their  religious  ob- 
servances they  live  what  is  left  them  of  a 
national  life  and  assert  their  claim  to  the 
great  tradition  of  their  race.  The  fact 
doubtless  has  something  to  do  with  the 
persistence  of  observances  that  elsewhere 
tend  to  disappear.  At  all  events  those 
observances  are  extremely  interesting. 
They  have  a  local  color,  for  one  thing,  of 
a  kind  that  has  become  rare  in  Europe 
and  that  scarcely  ever  existed  in  America. 
Then  they  are  reckoned  by  the  Julian 
calendar,  now  thirteen  days  behind  our 
own,  and  that  puts  them  into  a  certain 
perspective.  Their  true  perspective,  how- 
ever, reaches  much  farther  back.  Nor  is 
it  merely  that  they  compose  a  body  of 
tradition  from  which  we  of  the  West  have 
diverged  or  separated.  Our  religious  cus- 
toms and  beliefs  did  not  spring  out  of  our 
own  soil.  We  transplanted  them  in  full 
flower  from  Rome,  and  she  in  turn  had 
already  borrowed  largely  from  Greece  and 
486 


the  East.  But  in  the  Levant  such  beliefs 
and  customs  represent  a  native  growth, 
whose  roots  run  far  deeper  than  Chris- 
tianity. 

In  the  Eastern  as  in  the  Western  Church 
the  essence  of  the  religious  year  is  that 
cycle  of  observances  that  begins  wath  Ad- 
vent and  culminates  at  Easter.  It  is  rather 
curious  that  Protestantism  should  have 
disturbed  the  symbolism  of  this  drama 
by  transposing  its  climax.  Christmas 
with  the  Greeks  is  not  the  greater  feast. 
One  of  their  names  for  it,  in  fact,  is  Lit- 
tle Easter.  It  is  preceded,  however,  by  a 
fast  of  forty  days  nearly  as  strict  as  Lent. 
The  day  itself  is  purely  a  religious  festi- 
val. A  midnight  mass,  or  rather  an  early 
mass,  is  celebrated  at  one  or  two  o'clock 
on  Christmas  morning,  after  which  the 
fast  is  broken  and  people  make  each  other 
good  wishes.  They  do  not  exchange  pres- 
ents or  follow  the  usage  of  the  Christmas 
tree,  that  invention  of  Northern  barbar- 
ism, except  in  places  that  have  been 
largely  influenced  by  the  West. 

The  real  holiday  of  the  season  is  New 
Year's  Day.  This  is  called  A'l  Vassili,  or 
Saint  Basil,  whose  name-day  it  is.  There 
is  an  old  ballad  relating  to  this  venerable 
bishop  of  Cappadocia — too  long,  I  regret, 
to  translate  here — w-hich  men  and  boys  go 
about  singing  on  Saint  Basil's  eve.  The 
musicians  are  rewarded  wdth  money, 
theoretically  for  the  poor  of  the  commu- 
nity. If  it  happens  to  stick  in  the  pock- 
ets of  the  performers,  they  doubtless  re- 
gard themselves  as  representative  of  the 
brotherhood  for  whose  benefit  they  sing. 
This  custom  is  imitated  by  small  boys, 
who  go  among  the  coffee-houses  after  dark 
begging.  They  make  themselves  known 
by  lanterns  that  are  oftenest  wicker  bird- 
cages lined  wdth  colored  paper.  I  have 
also  seen  ships  and  castles  of  quite  elabo- 
rate design.  These*  curious  lanterns  are 
used  as  well  on  Christmas  and  Epiphany 
eves — which,  like  New  Year's,  are  cele- 


Greek   Feasts 


487 


bratcd  in  cosmopolitan  Constantinople 
twice  over.  Christmas,  indeed,  is  cele- 
brated three  times,  since  the  Armenians 
keep  it  at  Epiphany,  while  the  Turks,  the 
Persians,  and  the  Hebrews  each  have  a 
New  Year  of  their  own.  The  principal 
feature  of  Saint  Basil's  eve  is  the  vassi- 


tering  a  church  is  not  followed.  On  the 
first  of  every  month  e.\cei)t  January  a 
ceremony  called  the  Little  Blessin*^  takes 
place  in  the  churches,  when  water  is 
l)lessed;  and  this  ceremony  may  be  re- 
])eated  by  recjuest  in  ])ri\ate  houses.  In 
January  the  Little  Blessing  takes  place  on 


The  blessing  of  the  waters  at  Arnaontky<")i. 


lopita,  a  kind  of  flat  round  cake  or  sweet 
bread  something  like  the  Tuscan  schiac- 
ciata.  At  midnight  the  head  of  the  house 
cuts  the  pita  into  as  many  pieces  as  there 
are  members  of  the  family.  A  true  pita 
should  contain  a  coin,  and  whoever  gets 
it  is  sure  to  have  luck  during  the  new  year. 
The  next  day  people  pay  visits,  exchange 
presents,  tip  servants,  and  make  merry  as 
they  will.  They  also  go,  at  a  more  con- 
venient hour  than  on  Christmas  morning, 
to  church,  where  the  ancient  liturgy  of 
Saint  Basil  is  read. 

Epiphany,  or  the  old  English  Twelfth 
Night,  has  retained  in  the  East  a  signifi- 
cance that  it  has  lost  in  the  West.  The 
day  is  supposed  to  commemorate  the  bap- 
tism of  Christ  in  the  Jordan.  Hence  it  is 
the  day  of  the  blessing  of  waters,  whether 
of  springs,  wells,  reservoirs,  rivers,  or  the 
sea.  Holy  water  plays  a  particular  role  in 
the  Greek  Church — although  the  Roman 
custom  of  moistening  the  fingers  with  it 
before  making  the  sign  of  the  cross  on  en- 
VoL.  LV.— 51 


Epiphany  eve,  the  fifth.  But  on  Epiph- 
any itself,  as  early  in  the  morning  as 
local  custom  may  dictate,  takes  ])lace  the 
Great  Blessing.  It  is  performed  in  the 
middle  of  the  church,  on  a  dais  decorated 
with  garlands  of  bay,  and  the  im])ortant 
feature  of  the  long  ceremony  is  the  dip- 
ping of  a  cross  into  a  siher  basin  of  water. 
The  water  is  carefully  kej)!  in  bottles 
throughout  the  next  year  and  used  as  oc- 
casion may  require.  It  is  sometimes  ad- 
ministered, for  instance,  to  those  who  are 
not  thought  fit  to  take  the  full  commun- 
ion. The  outdoor  ceremony  which  follows 
this  one  is  ext  remely  pict  urescjuc.  I  n  Con- 
stantinople it  may  be  seen  in  any  of  the 
numerous  Greek  waterside  communities 
— by  those  who  care  to  get  up  early 
enough  of  a  January  morning.  One  of  the 
best  places  is  ArnaoutkycH,  a  large  Greek 
village  on  the  European  shore  of  the  Bos- 
phorus,  where  the  ceremony  is  obligingly 
postponed  till  ten  or  eleven  o'clock.  At 
the  conclusion  of  the  service  in  the  church 


48S 


Greek  Feasts 


a  i)rocession,  headed  by  clergy  in  gala 
vestments  and  accompanied  by  candles, 
incense,  banners,  and  lanterns  on  staves 
of  the  sort  one  sees  in  Italy,  marches  to 
the  waterside.  There  it  is  added  to 
bv  shixering  mortals  in  bathing  trunks 
They  beha\-e  in  a  highly  unecclesiastical 


them  paddled  back  to  shore  and  hurried 
off  to  get  warm.  The  finder  of  the  cross  is 
a  lucky  man  in  this  world  and  the  world 
to  come.  He  goes  from  house  to  house 
with  the  holy  emblem  he  has  rescued  from 
the  deep,  and  people  give  him  tips.  In 
this  way  he  collects  enough  to  restore  his 


They  are  not  so  much  the  order  of  the  day  as  the  progress  of  a  tradi- 
tional camel. — Page  490. 


manner  in  their  anxiety  to  get  the  most 
advantageous  post  on  the  quay.  The  ban- 
ners and  lanterns  make  a  screen  of  color 
on  either  side  of  the  priests,  incense  rises, 
choristers  chant,  a  bishop  in  brocade  and 
cloth-of-gold  with  a  domed  gilt  mitre 
holds  up  a  small  cross;  he  makes  the  holy 
sign  with  it,  and  tosses  it  into  the  Bos- 
phorus.  There  is  a  terrific  splash  as  the 
rivals  for  its  recovery  dive  after  it.  In 
days  gone  by  there  used  to  be  fights  no 
less  terrific  in  the  water  over  the  precious 
object.  The  last  time  I  saw  the  ceremony, 
however,  there  was  nothing  of  the  kind. 
The  cross  was  even  made  of  wood,  so  that 
there  was  no  trouble  in  finding  it.  The 
first  man  who  reached  it  piously  put  it  to 
his  lips  and  allowed  the  fellow  nearest  him 
to  do  the  same.    Then  the  half-dozen  of 


circulation  and  to  pass  a  convivial  Epiph- 
any. The  cross  is  his  to  keep,  but  he  must 
provide  a  new  one  for  the  coming  year. 

The  blessing  of  the  waters  is  firmly  be- 
lieved by  many  good  people  to  have  one 
effect  not  claimed  by  mother  church.  It 
is  supposed,  that  is,  to  exorcise  for  an- 
other year  certain  redoubtable  beings 
known  as  kallikdntzari.  The  name,  ac- 
cording to  one  of  the  latest  authorities  on 
the  subject,*  means  the  ''  good  centaurs." 
Goodness,  however,  is  not  their  distinguish- 
ing trait.  They  are  quarrelsome,  mis- 
chievous, and  destructive  monsters,  half 
man,  half  beast,  who  haunt  the  tw^elve 
nights  of  the  Christmas  season.  One  of 
the  most  efficacious  means  of  scaring  them 

*J.  C.  Lawson:  "Modern  Greek   Folklore   and   Ancient 
Greek  Religion." 


[2    ^     ^ 

Another  picturesque  feature 


is  the  dancing  by  Macedonians.  —  Page  490. 


off  is  by  firebrands,  and  I  have  wondered 
if  the  colored  lanterns  to  which  I  have  al- 
luded might  owe  their  origin  to  the  same 
idea.  Many  pious  sailors  will  not  ven- 
ture to  sea  during  the  twelve  days,  for 
fear  of  these  creatures.  The  unfurling  of 
the  sails  is  one  of  the  ceremonies  of  Epiph- 
any in  some  seaside  communities.  Sim- 
ilarly, no  one — of  a  certain  class — would 
dream  of  marrying  during  the  twelve  days, 
while  a  child  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  born 
then  is  regarded  as  likely  to  become  a  kal- 
likdntzaros  himself.  Here  a  teaching  of 
the  church  perhaps  mingles  with  the  pop- 
ular belief.  But  that  belief  is  far  older 
than  the  church,  going  back  to  Dionysus 
and  the  fauns,  satyrs,  and  sileni  who  ac- 
companied him.  In  many  ]:>arts  of  the 
Greek  world  it  is  still  the  custom  for 
men  and  boys  to  masquerade  in  furs  dur- 
ing the  twelve  days.  If  no  trace  of  the 
custom  seems  to  survive  in  Constanti- 
no{)le  it  may  be  because  the  early  fathers 
of  the  church  thundered  there  against  this 
continuance  of  the  anticjue  Dionysiac  rev- 
els, which  became  the  Brumalia  and  Satur- 
nalia of  the  Romans. 

I  should  not  say  that  no  trace  survives, 


because  carnival  is  of  course  a  lineal  de- 
scendant of  those  ancient  winter  celebra- 
tions. As  it  exists  in  Constantinople,  how- 
ever, carnival  is  for  the  most  i)art  but  a 
pale  copy  of  an  Italian  original,  imported 
perha])s  by  the  Venetians  and  Genoese. 
It  affords  none  the  less  pleasure  to  those 
who  participate  in  it  and  curiosity  of 
various  colors  to  the  members  of  the  rul- 
ing race.  I  remember  one  night  in  Pera 
overhearing  two  venerable  fezes  with  re- 
gard to  a  troop  of  maskers  that  ran  noisily 
by.  "What  is  this  play?"  inquired  one 
old  gentleman,  who  evidently  had  never 
seen  it  before  and  who  as  e\-idently  looked 
upon  it  with  disai)proval.  "Kh,"  replied 
the  other,  the  initiated  and  tlje  more  in- 
dulgent old  gentleman;  ''they  pass  the 
time !  "  The  time  they  pass  is  divided  dif- 
ferently than  with  us  of  the  West.  The 
second  Sunday  before  Lent  is  called  Apo- 
krvd,  and  is  the  day  of  farewell  to  meat. 
Which,  for  the  religious,  it  actually  is,  al- 
though the  gayeties  of  carnival  are  then 
at  their  height.  'I'he  ensuing  Sunday  is 
called  Cheese  Sunday,  because  that  amount 
of  indulgence  is  permitted  during  the  week 
that  precedes  it.     After  Cheese  Sunday, 

489 


490 


Greek   Feasts 


however,  no  man  should  toiicli  cheese,  milk, 
butter,  oil,  epj^s.  or  even  i'lsh— though  an 
exception  is  made  in  favor  of  caviare,  out  of 
which  a  delicious  Lenten  savory  is  made. 
Lent  begins  not  on  the  Wednesday  but  on 


Ash  Wednesday  to  promenade  on  the  or- 
dinarily deserted  quay  of  the  Zattere.  But 
no  masks  are  seen  on  the  Zattere  on  Ash 
Wednesday,  whereas  masks  are  the  order 
of  the  day  at  Tatavla  on  Clean  Mon- 


The  procession  at  the  Phanar. 


the  Monday,  which  is  called  Clean  Mon- 
day. In  fact  the  first  week  of  Lent  is 
called  Cleay  week .  Houses  are  then  swept 
and  garnished  and  the  fast  is  stricter  than 
at  any  time  save  Holy  week.  The  very 
pious  eat  nothing  at  all  during  the  first 
three  days  of  Lent. 

Clean  Monday,  nevertheless,  is  a  great 
holiday.  In  Constantinople  it  is  also 
called  Tatavla  Day,  because  every  one  goes 
out  to  Tatavla,  a  quarter  bordering  on 
open  country  between  Shishli  and  Has- 
skyoi.  A  somewhat  similar  custom  pre- 
vails in  Venice,  where  every  one  goes  on 


day.  They  are  not  so  much  the  order 
of  the  day,  however,  as  the  progress  of 
a  traditional  camel,  each  of  whose  legs 
is  a  man.  It  carries  a  load  of  charcoal 
and  garlic,  which  are  powerful  talismans 
against  evil,  and  it  is  led  about  by  a 
picturesquely  dressed  camel-driver  whose 
face  is  daubed  with  blue.  This  simple 
form  of  masquerading,  a  common  one  at 
Tatavla,  descends  directly  from  the  pagan 
Dionysia.  Another  picturesque  feature  of 
the  day  is  the  dancing  by  Macedonians — 
Greeks  or  Christian  Albanians.  Masquer- 
ading with  these  exiles  consists  in  tying 


Greek   Feasts 


491 


a  handkerchief  about  their  heads  in  guise 
of  a  fillet  and  in  putting  on  the  black 
or  white  Jus tanell a — with  its  accompany- 
ing accoutrements — of  their  native  hills. 
They  form  rings  in  the  middle  of  the 
crowd,  which  is  kept  back  by  one  of  their 
number  called  the  Shepherd.  Like  the 
Christmas  mummers  of  the  Greek  islands, 
he  wears  skins  and  has  a  big  bronze  sheep 
or  camel  bell  fastened  to  some  part  of  him. 
He  also  carries  a  staff  to  which  is  attached 
a  bunch  of  garlic  for  good  luck.  He  oft- 
en wears  a  mask  as  well,  or  is  otherwise 
disguised,  and  his  clowneries  give  great 
amusement.  In  the  meantime  his  com- 
panions join  hands  and  dance  around  the 
ring  to  the  tune  of  a  pipe  or  a  violin.  The 
first  two  hold  the  ends  of  a  handkerchief 
instead  of  joining  hands,  which  enables 
the  leader  to  go  through  more  compli- 
cated evolutions.  Sometimes  he  is  pre- 
ceded by  one  or  two  sword  dancers,  who 
know  how  to  make  the  most  of  their  hang- 
ing sleeves  and  plaited  skirts.  Some  of 
these  romantic  young  gentlemen  are  sin- 
gularly handsome,  which  does  not  prepare 
one  to  learn  that  they  are  butchers'  boys. 
The  Greeks  keep  no  mi-careme,  as  the 
Latins  do.  Their  longer  and  severer  fast 
continues  unbroken  till  Easter  morning — 
unless  Annunciation  Day  happens  to  fall 
in  Lent.  Then  they  are  allowed  the  in- 
dulgence of  fish.  Holy  week  is  with  them 
the  Great  Week.  Services  take  place  in  the 
churches  every  night  except  Wednesday, 
and  commemorate  the  events  of  Jerusa- 
lem in  a  more  dramatic  way  than  even  the 
Roman  Church.  The  symbolic  washing  of 
the  disciples'  feet,  however,  which  takes 
place  in  Jerusalem  on  Holy  Thursday,  is 
not  performed  in  Constantinople  except 
by  the  Armenians.  On  Good,  or  Great, 
Friday  a  cenotaph  is  erected  in  the  nave 
of  each  church,  on  which  is  laid  an  em- 
broidery or  some  other  representation  of 
the  crucifixion.  Sculpture  is  not  per- 
mitted in  the  Greek  Church,  although  on 
this  one  occasion  a  statue  has  sometimes 
been  seen.  The  faithful  flock  during  the 
day  to  the  cenotaph,  where  they  kiss  the 
embroidery  and  make  some  small  dona- 
tion. Each  one  receives  from  the  acolyte 
in  charge  a  jonquil  or  a  hyacinth.  This 
charming  custom  is  perhaps  a  relic  of  the 
Eleusinian  Mysteries,  which  Easter  super- 
seded and  with  whose  symbolism,  cele- 
VoL.  LV.— 52 


brating  as  they  did  the  myth  of  Demeter 
and  Perse[)hone,  it  has  so  much  in  com- 
mon. Spring  flowers,  at  all  events,  play  a 
part  at  Easter  quite  different  from  our 
merely  decorative  use  of  them.  Flower- 
stands  are  almost  as  common  at  church 
doors  as  candle-stands.  For  people  also 
make  the  round  of  the  icons  in  the 
churches,  lighting  votive  tapers  here  and 
there.  The  true  use  of  the  tapers,  how- 
ever, is  after  dark.  Then  a  procession 
figuring  the  entombment  of  Christ  issues 
from  the  church  with  the  image  of  the 
cenotaph  and  makes  the  circuit  of  the 
court  or,  in  purely  Greek  communities,  of 
the  surrounding  streets,  accompanied  by  a 
crowd  of  lighted  candles.  The  image  is 
finally  taken  to  the  holy  table,  where  it 
remains  for  forty  days. 

An  even  more  striking  ceremony  takes 
place  on  Saturday  night.  About  mid- 
night people  begin  to  gather  in  the 
churches,  which  are  aromatic  with  the 
flowering  bay  strewn  on  the  floor.  Every 
one  carries  a  candle  but  none  are  lighted 
— not  even  before  the  icons.  The  service 
begins  with  antiphonal  chanting.  The 
ancient  Byzantine  music  sounds  stranger 
than  ever  in  the  dim  light,  sung  by  the 
black-robed  priests  with  black  veils  over 
their  tall  black  hats.  Finally  the  celebrant , 
in  a  purple  cope  of  mourning,  withdraws 
behind  the  iconostdsion,  the  screen  that 
in  a  Greek  church  divides  the  holy  table 
from  the  chancel.  As  the  chant  proceeds 
candles  are  lighted  in  certain  chandeliers. 
Then  the  door  of  the  sanctuary  is  thrown 
open,  revealing  a  blaze  of  light  and  color 
within.  The  celebrant  comes  out  in  mag- 
nificent vestments,  holding  a  lighted  can- 
dle and  saying,  "Come  to  the  light." 
Those  nearest  him  reach  out  their  own 
tapers  to  take  the  sacred  fire,  and  from 
them  it  is  propagated  in  an  incredibly 
short  time  through  the  entire  church.  In 
the  meantime  the  priests  march  in  pro- 
cession out  of  doors,  headed  by  a  banner 
emblematic  of  the  resurrection.  And 
there,  surrounded  by  the  flickering  lights 
of  the  congregation,  the  celel)rant  chants 
the  triumi)hant  resurrection  hymn.  At 
this  point  tradition  demands  that  the 
populace  should  express  their  own  senti- 
ments by  a  volley  of  pistol  shots.  But 
since  the  reactionary  uprising  of  1901), 
when  soldiers  took  advantage  of  the  Greek 


492 


Greek  Feasts 


Easter  to  make  such  tragic  use  of  their 
own  arms,  an  attempt  has  been  made  in 
Constantinople  to  suppress  this  detail. 
I  have  been  told  that  each  shot  is  aimed 
at  Judas.  The  unfaithful  apostle,  at  all 
events,  used  to  be  burned  in  efl&gy  on 
Good  Friday  at  Therapia,  a  village  of  the 
upper  Bosphorus.  And  I  have  heard  of 
other  customs  of  a  similar  bearing. 

The  most  interesting  place  to  see  the 
ceremonies  of  Easter  is  the  patriarchal 
church  at  Phanar — or  Fener,  as  the  Turks 
call  it — on  the  Golden  Horn.  This  is  the 
Vatican  of  Constantinople.  It  has  en- 
joyed that  honor  a  comparatively  short 
time,  as  years  are  counted  in  this  part  of 
the  world.  Saint  Sophia  was,  of  course, 
the  original  cathedral  of  the  city.  After 
its  appropriation  by  the  Turks  the  pa- 
triarchate moved  five  times,  finally  being 
established  here  in  1601.  It  naturally  can 
no  longer  rank  in  splendor  with  its  Roman 
rival.  In  historic  interest,  however,  the 
Phanar  yields  nothing  to  the  Vatican. 
The  more  democratic  organization  of  the 
Eastern  Church  never  claimed  for  the 
Bishop  of  Constantinople  the  supremacy 
of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  But  the  former 
acquired  and  has  always  kept  an  obvious 
precedence  among  the  prelates  of  the  East 
by  his  residence  in  a  city  which  has  not 
ceased  during  sixteen  hundred  years  to 
be  the  capital  of  an  empire.  Throughout 
that  entire  time  an  unbroken  succession 
of  Patriarchs  have  follow^ed  each  other 
upon  the  episcopal  throne  of  Saint  John 
Chrysostom.  Joachim  III,  the  present 
incumbent  of  the  patriarchate,  is  the  two 
hundred  and  fifty-fourth  of  his  line.  The 
coming  of  the  Turks  did  not  disturb  this 
succession.  When  Mohammed  II  took  the 
city  in  1453  one  of  his  earliest  acts  was  to 
confirm  the  rights  of  the  patriarchate. 
The  Patriarch  even  took  on  a  new  dignity 
as  the  recognized  head  of  a  people  that 
no  longer  had  any  temporal  leader.  The 
schism  of  the  churches  definitively  sepa- 
rated the  sees  of  Rome  and  Constanti- 
nople, while  later  schisms,  not  doctrinal 
but  political,  have  made  the  churches  of 
Greece,  Bulgaria,  Montenegro,  Roumania, 
Russia,  and  Servia  independent  of  the 
Phanar  in  various  degrees.  But  the  Patri- 
arch is  still  primate  of  a  great  Greek  world, 
and  there  attaches  to  his  person  all  the  in- 
terest of  a  long  and  important  history. 


The  ceremonies  of  Easter  morning  at 
the  Phanar  are  not  for  every  one  to  see,  by 
reason  of  the  smallness  of  the  church.  One 
must  have  a  friend  at  court  in  order  to  ob- 
tain a  ticket  of  admission.  Even  then  one 
may  miss,  as  I  once  did  through  ignorance 
and  perhaps  through  a  lack  of  that  persist- 
ence which  should  be  the  portion  of  the 
true  tourist,  certain  characteristic  scenes 
of  the  day.  Thus  I  failed  to  witness  the 
robing  of  the  Patriarch  by  the  prelates  of 
his  court.  Neither  did  I  get  a  photograph 
of  them  all  marching  in  procession  to  the 
church,  though  I  had  moved  heaven  and 
earth — i.  e.,  a  bishop  and  an  ambassador 
— for  permission  to  do  so.  Nevertheless  I 
had  an  excellent  view  of  the  ceremony  of 
the  second  resurrection,  as  the  Easter 
morning  vespers  are  called.  The  proces- 
sion entered  the  church  led  by  small  boys 
in  white-and-gold  who  carried  a  tall  cross, 
two  gilt  exepterigha  on  staves,  symbolic  of 
the  six- winged  cherubim,  and  lighted  can- 
dles. After  them  came  choristers  singing. 
The  men  wore  a  species  of  fez  entirely 
covered  by  its  spread-out  tassel.  One  car- 
ried an  immense  yellow  candle  in  front  of 
the  officiating  clergy,  who  marched  two 
and  two  in  rich  brocaded  chasubles.  Their 
long  beards  gave  them  a  dignity  which  is 
sometimes  lacking  to  their  Western  broth- 
ers, while  the  tall  black  kalymdfhion, 
brimmed  slightly  at  the  top  with  a  true 
Greek  sense  of  outline,  is  certainly  a  more 
imposing  head-dress  than  the  biretta.  The 
Patriarch  came  next,  preceded  and  fol- 
lowed by  a  pair  of  acolytes  carrying  two 
and  three  lighted  candles  tied  together 
with  white  rosettes.  These  candles  sym- 
bolize the  two  natures  of  Christ  and  the 
Trinity;  with  them  his  Holiness  is  sup- 
posed to  dispense  his  blessing.  He  w^ore 
magnificent  vestments  of  white  satin  em- 
broidered with  blue  and  green  and  gold. 
A  large  diamond  cross  and  other  glitter- 
ing objects  hung  about  his  neck.  In  his 
hand  he  carried  a  crosier  of  silver  and  gold, 
and  on  his  head  he  wore  a  domed  crown- 
like mitre.  It  was  surmounted  by  a  cross 
of  gold,  around  it  were  ornaments  of  en- 
amel and  seed  pearls,  and  in  the  gold 
circlet  of  its  base  were  set  immense  sap- 
phires and  other  precious  stones.  The 
Patriarch  was  followed  by  members  of  the 
Russian  embassy,  of  the  Greek,  Montene- 
grin, Roumanian,  and  Servian  legations, 


Greek  Feasts 


493 


and  by  the  lay  dignitaries  of  his  own  en- 
tourage, whose  uniforms  and  decorations 
added  what  they  could  to  the  splendor  of 
the  occasion.  These  personages  took  their 
places  in  the  body  of  the  nave — standing, 
as  is  always  the  custom  in  the  Greek 
Church — while  the  clergy  went  behind  the 
screen  of  the  sanctuary.  The  Patriarch, 
after  swinging  a  silver  censer  through 
the  church,  took  his  place  at  the  right  of 
the  chancel  on  a  high  canopied  throne  of 
carv^ed  wood  inlaid  with  ivory.  He  made 
a  wonderful  picture  there  with  his  fine 
profile  and  long  white  beard  and  gorgeous 
vestments.  On  a  lower  and  smaller  throne 
at  his  right  sat  the  Grand  Logothete.  The 
Grand  Logothete  happens  at  present  to 
be  a  preternaturally  small  man,  and  time 
has  greatly  diminished  his  dignities.  The 
glitter  of  his  decorations,  however,  and 
the  antiquity  of  his  ofl&ce  make  him  what 
compensation  they  can.  His  office  is  an  in- 
heritance of  Byzantine  times,  when  he 
was  a  minister  of  state.  Now  he  is  the 
official  representative  of  the  Patriarch  at 
the  Sublime  Porte  and  accompanies  him 
to  the  palace  when  his  Holiness  has  audi- 
ence of  the  Sultan. 

No  rite,  I  suppose,  surpasses  that  of  the 
Greek  Church  in  splendor.  The  carved 
and  gilded  iconostasis,  the  icons  set  about 
with  gold,  the  multitude  of  candles,  pre- 
cious lamps,  and  chandeliers,  the  rich  vest- 
ments, the  clouds  of  incense,  make  an 
overpowering  appeal  to  the  senses.  To  the 
Western  eye,  however,  there  is  too  much 
gilt  and  blaze  for  perfect  taste,  there  are 
too  many  objects  in  proportion  to  the 
space  they  fill.  And  certainly  to  the  West- 
ern ear  the  Byzantine  chant,  however  in- 
teresting on  acount  of  its  descent  from 
the  antique  Greek  modes,  lacks  the  charm 
of  the  Gregorian  or  of  the  beautiful  Rus- 
sian choral.  At  a  point  of  the  service  the 
Gospels  were  read  by  different  voices  in 
a  number  of  different  languages.  I  recog- 
nized Latin  and  Slavic  among  them. 
Finally  the  Patriarch  withdrew  in  the 
same  state  as  he  entered.  On  his  way  to 
his  own  apartments  he  paused  on  an  open 
gallery  and  made  an  address  to  the  crowd 
in  the  court  that  had  been  unable  to  get 
into  the  church.  Then  he  held  in  the  great 
saloon  of  his  palace  a  levee  of  those  who 
had  been  in  the  church,  and  each  of  them 
was  presented  with  gayly  decorated  Easter 


eggs  and  with  a  cake  called  a  Isurek.  These 
dainties  are  the  universal  evidence  of  the 
Greek  Easter — these  and  the  salutation 
"  Christ  is  risen,"  to  which  answer  is  made 
by  lips  the  least  sanctimonious, ''  In  truth, 
he  is  risen."  Holy  Thursday  is  the  tra- 
ditional day  for  dyeing  eggs.  On  Holy  Sat- 
urday the  Patriarch  sends  an  ornamental 
basket  of  eggs  and  tsurek  to  the  Sultan. 
Tsiirek,  or  chorek  as  it  is  more  legitimately 
called  in  Turkish,  is  like  the  Easter  cake 
of  northern  Italy.  It  is  a  sort  of  big 
brioche  made  in  three  strands  braided  to- 
gether. 

Easter  Monday  is  in  some  ways  a  great- 
er feast  than  Easter  itself.  In  Constanti- 
nople the  Christian  population  is  so  large 
that  when  the  Greeks  and  Armenians  stop 
work  their  fellow  citizens  find  it  easy  to 
follow  suit.  The  Phanar  is  a  favorite  place 
of  resort  throughout  the  Easter  holidays, 
an  open  space  between  the  patriarchate 
and  the  Golden  Horn  being  turned  into  a 
large  and  lively  fair.  The  traditional  place 
for  the  celebration  of  the  day,  however,  is 
in  the  open  spaces  of  the  Taxim,  on  the 
heights  of  Pera.  The  old  travellers  all 
have  a  chapter  about  the  festivities  which 
used  to  take  place  there,  and  remnants  of 
them  may  still  be  seen.  The  Armenians 
gather  chiefly  in  a  disused  cemetery  of 
their  cult,  where  the  tomb  of  a  certain 
Saint  Kevork  is  honored  at  this  season 
and  where  peasants  from  Asia  Minor  may 
sometimes  be  seen  dancing  among  the 
graves.  A  larger  and  noisier  congregation 
assembles  at  the  upper  edge  of  the  parade- 
ground  across  the  street.  Not  a  little 
color  is  given  to  it  by  Greeks  from  the 
region  of  Trebizond,  who  sometimes  are 
not  Greeks  at  all,  but  Laz,  and  who  often 
wear  the  hood  of  that  mysterious  people 
knotted  around  their  heads.  They  have  a 
strange  dance  which  they  continue  hour 
after  hour  to  the  tune  of  a  little  violin 
hanging  from  the  player's  hand.  They 
hold  each  other's  fingers  in  the  air,  and  as 
they  dance  they  keep  up  a  quivering  in 
their  thighs,  which  they  vary  by  crouch- 
ing to  their  heels  and  throwing  out  first 
one  leg  and  then  the  other  with  a  shout. 
An  even  more  positive  touch  of  color  is 
given  to  the  scene  by  the  Kourds — or 
Kiirts,  as  they  pronounce  their  own  name. 
They  set  up  a  tent,  in  front  of  which  a 
space  is  partially  enclosed  by  screens  of 


494 


Greek  Feasts 


the  same  material.  I  remember  seeing 
one  such  canvas  that  was  lined  with  a 
vivid  yellow  pattern  on  a  red  ground. 
There  swarthy  Kourds  in  gayly  embroid- 
ered jackets  or  waistcoats  gather  to  smoke, 
to  drink  tea,  and  to  dance  in  their  own 
more  sedate  way,  while  gypsies  pipe  unto 
them  and  pound  a  big  drum.  I  once  asked 
one  of  the  dancers  how  it  was  that  he,  be- 
ing no  Christian,  made  merry  at  Easter 
time.  ''Eh,"  he  answered,  ''there  is  no 
work.  Also,  since  the  constitution  we  are 
all  one,  and  if  one  nation  rejoices,  the 
others  rejoice  with  it.  Now  all  that  re- 
mains," he  went  on,  "is  that  there  should 
be  no  rich  and  no  poor,  and  that  w^e  should 
all  have  money  together."  Interesting  as 
I  found  this  socialistic  opinion  in  the 
mouth  of  a  Kourdish  hamal,  I  could  not 
help  remembering  how  it  had  been  put 
into  execution  in  1896,  when  the  Kourds 
massacred  the  Armenian  hamals  and 
wrested  from  the  survivors  the  profitable 
guild  of  the  street  porters.  It  was  then 
that  the  Easter  glory  departed  from  the 
Taxim.  But  the  place  had  already  been 
overtaken  by  the  growing  city,  while  in- 
creasing facilities  of  communication  now 
daily  enlarge  the  radius  of  the  holiday- 
maker. 

One  assembly  of  Easter  week  which  still 
is  to  be  seen  in  something  of  its  pristine 
glory  is  the  fair  of  Baloukli.  This  takes 
place  on  the  Friday  and  lasts  through 
Sunday.  The  scene  of  it  is  the  monastery 
of  Baloukli,  outside  the  land  walls  of 
Stamboul.  It  is  rather  curious  that  the 
Turkish  name  of  so  ancient  a  place  should 
have  superseded  even  among  the  Greeks 
its  original  appellation.  The  Byzantine 
emperors  had  a  villa  there  and  several  of 
them  built  churches  in  the  vicinity.  The 
name  Baloukli,  however,  which  might  be 
translated  as  the  Fishy  Place,  comes  from 
the  legend  every  one  knows  of  the  Greek 
monk  who  was  frying  fish  when  news 
was  brought  him  that  the  Turks  had 
taken  the  city.  He  refused  to  believe  it, 
saying  he  would  do  so  if  his  fish  jumped 
out  of  the  frying-pan — not  into  the  fire, 
but  into  the  spring  beside  him.  Which 
they  promptly  did.  Since  when  the  life- 
giving  spring,  as  it  is  called,  has  been  pop- 
ulated by  fish  that  look  as  if  they  were 
half-fried.  The  thing  on  Baloukli  Day  is 
to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  the  pool  of  these 


miraculous  fish,  to  drink  of  the  w^ater  in 
which  they  swim,  to  wash  one's  hands  and 
face  and  hair  in  it,  and  to  take  some  of  it 
away  in  a  bottle.  The  spring  is  at  one  end 
of  a  dark  chapel  half  underground,  into 
which  the  crowd  squeezes  in  batches. 
After  receiving  the  benefits  of  the  holy 
water  you  kiss  the  icons  in  the  chapel.  A 
priest  in  an  embroidered  stole,  who  holds 
a  small  cross  in  his  hand,  will  then  make 
the  holy  sign  with  it  upon  your  person 
and  offer  you  the  cross  and  his  hand  as 
well  to  kiss,  in  return  for  which  you  drop 
a  coin  into  the  slot  of  a  big  box  beside 
him.  Candles  are  also  to  be  had  for  burn- 
ing at  the  various  icons.  The  greater 
number  of  these,  however,  are  in  the  mon- 
astery church  hard  by.  And  so  many  can- 
dles burn  before  them  that  attendants  go 
about  every  few  minutes,  blow  out  the 
candles,  and  throw  them  into  a  box,  to 
make  room  for  new  candles.  There  are 
also  priests  to  whom  you  tell  your  name, 
which  they  add  to  a  long  list,  and  in  re- 
turn for  the  coin  you  leave  behind  you 
they  pray  for  blessing  upon  the  name. 
All  this  is  interesting  to  watch,  by  reason 
of  the  great  variety  of  the  pilgrims  and 
the  unconscious  lingering  of  paganism  in 
their  faith ;  and  while  there  is  a  hard  com- 
mercial side  to  it  all,  you  must  remember 
that  a  hospital  and  other  charitable  in- 
stitutions largely  profit  thereby. 

There  are  also  interesting  things  to 
watch  outside  the  monastery  gate.  Tem- 
porary coffee-houses  and  eating-places  are 
established  there  in  abundance,  and  the 
hum  of  festivity  that  arises  from  them 
may  be  heard  afar  among  the  cypresses 
of  the  surrounding  Turkish  cemetery.  I 
must  add  that  spirituous  liquors  are  dis- 
pensed wuth  some  freedom ;  for  the  Greek 
does  not  share  the  hesitation  of  his  Turk- 
ish brother  in  such  matters,  and  he  con- 
siders it  well-nigh  a  Christian  duty  to  im- 
bibe at  Easter.  To  imbibe  too  much  at 
that  season,  as  at  New  Year's  and  one  or 
two  other  great  feasts,  is  by  no  means 
held  to  impair  a  man's  reputation  for 
sobriety.  It  is  surprising,  how^ever,  how 
soberly  the  pleasures  of  the  day  are  in 
general  taken.  As  you  sit  at  a  table  ab- 
sorbing your  own  modest  refreshment 
you  are  even  struck  by  a  certain  stolidity 
in  those  about  you.  Perhaps  it  is  partly 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  crowd  is  not 


Greek   Feasts 


495 


purely  Greek.  Armenians  are  there,  Bul- 
garians, Albanians,  Turks  too.  Then 
many  of  the  pilgrims  are  peasants  come  in 
ox-carts  from  outlying  villages  and  daz- 
zled a  little  by  this  urban  press.  They  lis- 
ten in  pure  delight  to  the  music  that  pours 
from  a  hundred  instruments.  The  crown- 
ing glory  of  such  an  occasion  is  to  have  a 
musician  sit  at  the  table  with  you,  pref- 
erably a  hand-organ  man  or  a  gypsy  with 
his  pipe.  Gy])sy  women 
go  about  telling  fortunes. 
"  You  are  going  to  have 
great  calamities,"  utters 
one  darkly  when  you  re- 
fuse to  hear  your  fate. 
"  Is  that  the  way  to  get 
a  piaster  out  of  me?" 
you  ask.  ''But  after- 
ward you  will  become 
very  rich,"  she  conde- 
scends to  add.  Other 
gypsies  carry  miniature 
marionette  shows  on 
their  backs  in  glass  cases. 
Wandering  musicians 
tempt  you  to  employ 
their  arts.  Venders  of 
unimaginable  swxets 
pick  their  w^ay  among 
the  tables.  Beggars  ex- 
hibit horrible  deformi- 
ties and  make  artful 
speeches.  ''  May  you  enjoy  your  youth !" 
is  one.  "  May  you  know  no  bitternesses !" 
exclaims  another  with  meaning  emphasis. 
"May  God  forgive  your  dead,"  utters  a 
third.  ''The  world  I  hear  but  the  world 
I  do  not  see,"  cries  a  blind  man  melodra- 
matically. "Little  eyes  I  have  none." 
Diminutives  are  much  in  favor  among  this 
gentry.  And  every  two  minutes  some  one 
comes  with  a  platter  or  with  a  brass  casket 
sealed  with  a  big  red  seal  and  says,  "  Your 
assistance,"  adding  "for  the  church,"  or 
"for  the  school,"  or  "for  the  hospital,"  if 
you  seem  to  fail  to  take  in  what  is  expected 
of  you.  Your  assistance  need  not  be  very 
heavy,  however,  and  you  feel  that  you  owe 
something  in  return  for  the  j)leasures  of 
the  occasion. 

Beyond  the  circle  of  eating-places 
stretches  an  o])en  field  which  is  the  scene 
of  the  more  active  enjoyment  of  the  day. 
There  the  boat-swings  beloved  of  Constan- 
tinople children  are  installed,  together  with 
Vol.  LV.-53 


achiin  III,  ecumenical  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople. 


merry-go-rounds,  weights  which  one  sends 
to  the  top  of  a  pole  by  means  of  a  ham- 
mer blow,  and  many  another  world-wide 
device  for  [)arting  the  holiday-maker  and 
his  money.  One  novel  variant  is  an  in- 
clined wire,  down  which  boys  slide  hang- 
ing from  a  pulley.  Dancing  is  the  faxor- 
ite  recreation  of  the  men.  When  they 
happen  to  be  Bulgars  of  Macedonia  they 
join  hands  and  circle  about  one  of  their 
number  who  plays  the 
bagpipe.  Every  few 
steps  the  leader  stops 
and,  steadied  by  the  man 
who  holds  the  other  end 
of  his  handkerchief,  in- 
dulges in  posturings  ex- 
pressive of  supreme 
enjoyment.  The  pas- 
chaliatico  of  the  Greeks  is 
less  curious  but  more 
graceful.  After  watch- 
ing the  other  dances, 
picturesque  as  they  are, 
one  seems  to  come  back 
with  it  to  the  old  Greek 
sense  of  measure.  And 
it  is  danced  with  a  light- 
someness  which  is  less 
evident  with  other  races. 
The  men  put  their  hands 
on  each  other's  shoulders 
and  circle  in  a  sort  of 
barn-dance  step  to  the  strains  of  a  lan- 
terna.    Of  which  more  anon. 

The  feast  of  Our  Lady  of  the  Fishes  is 
one  of  the  greatest  popular  festivals  in 
Constantinople.  By  no  means,  however, 
is  it  the  only  one  of  its  kind.  The  cult  of 
holy  wells  forms  a  chapter  by  itself  in  the 
observances  of  the  Greek  Church.  This 
cult  has  an  exceptional  interest  for  those 
who  have  been  touched  by  the  classic  in- 
fluence, as  offering  one  of  the  most  visible 
points  at  which  Christianity  turned  to  its 
own  use  the  customs  of  ])aganism.  A  holy 
well,  an  ayasma  as  the  Greeks  call  it,  is 
nothing  more  or  less  than  the  sacred 
fount  of  anti(|uily.  Did  not  Horace  cel- 
ebrate such  a  one  in  his  ode  to  the  ions 
Bandiisio'?  As  a  matter  of  fact  a  belief  in 
naiads  still  persists  among  Greek  j)eas- 
ants.  And  you  can  pay  a  lady  no  greater 
C()mi)liment  than  to  tell  her  that  she  looks, 
or  even  that  she  cooks,  like  a  nercid. 
I'\)r  under  that  comi)rehensive  name  the 


-190 


Greek   rVasts 


nymphs  are  now  known.  But  as  guardians 
of  sacred  founts  they.  Hke  some  of  the 
greater  divinities,  ha\e  been  baptized  with 
Christian  names.  There  is  an  infinity  of 
such  springs  in  and  about  Constantinople. 
Comparati\ely  few  of  them  are  so  well 
housed  as  the  aydsma  of  Baloukli.  Some 
of  them  are  scarcely  to  be  recognized 
from  any  profane  rill  in  the  open  country, 
while  others  are  in  Turkish  hands  and 
accessible  only  on  the  day  of  the  saint  to 
which  they  are  dedicated.  On  that  day, 
and  in  the  case  of  an  aydsma  of  some  re- 
pute on  the  days  before  and  after — unless 
the  nearest  Sunday  determine  otherwise — 
is  celebrated  the  paniyiri  of  the  patron  of 
the  spring.  Paniyiri,  or  panayir,  has  the 
same  origin  as  our  word  panegyric.  For 
the  reading  of  the  saint's  panegyric  is 
one  of  the  religious  exercises  of  the  day. 
Which,  like  the  early  Christian  agape 
and  the  contemporary  Italian  festa,  is  an- 
other survival  of  an  older  faith.  But  re- 
ligious exercises  are  not  the  essential  part 
of  a  paniyiri  to  most  of  those  who  take 
part  in  one.  Nor  need  a  paniyiri  neces- 
sarily take  place  at  a  holy  well.  The  num- 
ber of  them  that  do  take  place  is  quite 
fabulous.  Still,  as  the  joy  of  life  was  dis- 
covered in  Greece,  who  shall  blame  the 
Greeks  of  to-day  for  finding  so  many  oc- 
casions to  manifest  it?  And  it  is  natural 
that  these  occasions  should  oftenest  arise 
during  the  clement  half  of  the  year,  when 
the  greater  feasts  of  the  church  are  done. 
One  of  the  earliest  ''panegyrics"  of  the 
season  is  that  of  At  Sardnda,  which  is 
held  on  the  9th/22d  of  March.  At  Sa- 
rdnda  means  Saint  Forty  to  many  good 
people,  although  others  designate  thereby 
the  Forty  Martyrs  of  Sebaste — now  the 
Turkish  city  of  Sivas.  There  is  a  spring 
dedicated  to  these  worthies  on  the  out- 
skirts of  Pera,  between  the  place  called 
The  Stones  and  the  palace  of  Dolma  Bagh- 
cheh.  I  find  it  difficult  to  share  the  popu- 
lar belief  that  the  forty  martyrs  of  Sivas 
ever  had  anything  to  do  with  this  site.  It 
is  true  that  the  pious  Empress  Pulcheria 
dug  them  up  in  the  fifth  century  and 
transported  them  with  great  pomp  to  the 
church  she  built  for  them  on  the  farther 
side  of  the  Golden  Horn.  It  is  also  true 
that  their  church  was  demolished  shortly 
before  the  Turkish  conquest,  and  its  mar- 
bles used  in  fortifying  the  Golden  Gate. 


But  why  should  a  Turkish  tomb  on  the 
hillside  above  the  aydsma  be  venerated 
by  the  Greeks  as  the  last  resting-place  of 
"Saint  Forty"?  Has  it  anything  to  do 
with  the  fact  that  the  forty  martyrs  are 
commemorated  at  the  vernal  equinox, 
which  happens  to  be  the  New  Year  of  the 
Persians  and  which  the  Turks  also  ob- 
serve? 

Being  ignorant  of  all  these  matters,  my 
attention  was  drawn  quite  by  accident 
to  the  tomb  in  question,  by  some  women 
who  were  tying  rags  to  the  grille  of  a  win- 
dow. The  act  is  common  enough  in  the 
Levant,  among  Christians  and, Moham- 
medans alike.  It  signifies  a  wish  on  the 
part  of  the  person  who  ties  the  rag,  which 
should  be  torn  from  his  own  clothing. 
More  specifically  it  is  sometimes  supposed 
to  bind  to  the  bar  any  malady  with  which 
he  may  happen  to  be  afflicted.  Near  this 
grille  was  a  doorway  through  which  I  saw 
people  coming  and  going.  I  therefore 
decided  to  investigate.  Having  paid  ten 
paras  for  that  privilege  to  a  little  old 
Turk  with  a  long  white  beard,  I  found 
myself  in  a  typical  Turkish  tiirbeh.  In  the 
centre  stood  a  ridged  and  turbaned  cata- 
falque, while  Arabic  inscriptions  adorned 
the  walls.  I  asked  the  hoja  in  attendance 
who  might  be  buried  there.  He  told  me 
that  the  Greeks  consider  the  tomb  to  be 
that  of  Saint  Forty,  while  the  Turks  honor 
there  the  memory  of  a  certain  holy  Ah- 
met. I  would  willingly  have  known  more 
about  this  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  of  a 
saint;  but  others  pressed  behind  me  and 
the  hoja  asked  if  I  were  not  going  to  cir- 
culate. He  also  indicated  the  left  side  of 
the  catafalque  as  the  place  for  me  to 
begin.  I  accordingly  walked  somewhat 
leisurely  around  the  room.  When  I  came 
back  to  the  hoja  he  surprised  me  not  a  lit- 
tle by  throwing  a  huge  string  of  wooden 
beads  over  my  head,  obliging  me  to  step 
clear  of  them.  He  then  directed  me  to  cir- 
culate twice  more.  Which  I  did  with  more 
intelligence,  he  muttering  some  manner  of 
invocation  the  while.  The  third  time  I 
was  considerably  delayed  by  a  Greek  lady 
with  two  little  boys  who  carried  toy  bal- 
loons. The  little  boys  and  their  balloon 
strings  got  tangled  in  the  string  of  the  big 
wooden  beads,  and  one  of  the  balloons 
broke  away  to  the  ceiling,  occasioning 
fearful  sounds  of  lamentation  in  the  holy 


I'he  Phaiiar  is  a  favorite  place  of  resort  throughout  tiie  Faster  holidays.  —  l*a^e  493. 


j)lace.  The  hoja  kept  his  temper  admira- 
ably,  however.  He  was  not  too  put  out  to 
inform  me  that  I  owed  him  a  piaster  for 
the  service  he  had  rendered  me.  I  begged 
his  pardon  for  troubling  to  remind  me, 
saying  that  I  was  a  stranger.  He  poHtely 
answered  that  one  must  always  learn  a 
first  time,  adding  that  a  piaster  would  not 
make  me  poor  nor  him  rich.  I  reserved 
my  opinion  on  the  latter  ])()int  when  I  saw 
how  many  of  them  he  took  in.  At  the 
foot  of  the  catafalque  a  Turkish  boy  was 
selling  tapers.  I  bought  one,  as  it  were  an 
Athenian  sacrificing  to  the  unknown  god, 
lighted  it,  and  stuck  it  into  the  basin  of 
sand  set  for  the  purpose.  That  done  I 
considered  myself  free  to  admire  the  more 
profane  ])art  of  the  panayir. 

Part  of  it  covered  the  adjoining  slopes, 
where  ])eaceably  inclined  spectators,  in- 
cluding Turkish  women  not  a  few,  might 
also  contemplate  the  blossoming  i)each- 
trees  that  added  their  color  to  the  oc- 
casion and  the  farther  i)an()rama  of  lios- 
l)horusan(l  Marmora.  Hut  the  crux  of  the 
proceedings  was  in  a  small  hollow  bi'low 
the  tomb.     I  tnust  confess  that   I  shrank 


from  joining  the  press  of  the  faithful  about 
the  grotto  of  the  sacred  fount.  I  con- 
tented myself  with  ho\cring  on  their  out- 
skirts. A  black  grou])  of  ])riestly  cylin- 
ders marked  the  densest  i)artof  the  crowd, 
and  near  them  a  sheaf  of  candles  burned 
strangely  in  the  clear  spring  sunlight.  A 
big  refreshment  tent  was  t)itched  not  too 
far  away  to  recei\e  the  oxerflow  of  devo- 
tion, reaching  out  canvas  arms  to  make 
further  space  for  tables  and  chairs.  The 
faded  green  common  to  Turkish  tents  was 
lined  with  dark  red,  appli(|ued  to  which 
were  panels  of  white  fiower-pots  and 
fiowers.  I  wondered  if  the  tent  man  wit- 
tingly repeated  this  note  of  the  day.  For 
flowers  were  everywhere  in  e\  idence.  Li- 
lacs, tulii)s,  hyacinths,  joncjuils,  \iolels, 
and  narcissi  were  on  sale  under  big  green 
canvas  umbrellas  at  the  edge  of  the  hol- 
low, while  every  other  i)ilgrim  who  came 
away  from  the  uydsnia  carried  a  l)otlle 
of  the  holy  water  in  one  hand  and  a  sj)ring 
flower  in  the  other. 

Interesting  as  is  the  piuiayir  of  the 
forty  martyrs,  it  does  not  rank  with  the 
later  and  greater  spring  festixal  of  Saint 

407 


The  Kourds 


set  up  a  tent,  in  front  of  which  a  space  is  partially  enclosed.  —Page  493. 


George.  This  also  has  Turkish  affiliations, 
at  least  in  Constantinople  and  Macedonia. 
Both  races  count  Saint  George's  Day, 
April  23 /May  6,  the  official  beginning 
of  summer — of  the  good  time,  as  modern 
Greek  pleasantly  puts  it.  The  Turks, 
however,  dedicate  the  day  to  one  Hidr 
Elyess.  But  it  is  not  too  difficult  to  relate 
this  somewhat  vague  personage  to  our 
more  familiar  friend  Elijah,  who  in  his 
character  of  Saint  Elias  shares  with  Saint 
George  the  mantle  of  Apollo.  Nor  is  the 
heavenly  charioteer  the  only  one  of  the 
Olympians  whose  cult  survives  to-day 
among  their  faithful  people.  The  Hebrew 
prophet  would  doubtless  have  been  much 
astonished  to  learn  that  he  was  to  be  the 
heir  of  a  Greek  god.  He  owes  it  partly  to 
the  similarity  of  his  name  to  the  Greek 
word  for  sun  and  partly  to  the  chariot  of 
fire  that  carried  him  out  of  the  world.  As 
for ''  the  infamous  George  of  Cappadocia," 
as  Gibbon  denominates  the  patron  saint 
of  our  ancestral  island,  his  part  in  the 
heritage  of  Apollo  is  due  to  his  drag- 
on, cousin-german  to  the  python  of  the 
Far  Darter.  The  sanctuaries  of  these  two 
498 


Christian  legatees  of  Olympus  have  re- 
placed those  of  Apollo  on  all  hilltops, 
while  their  name-days  are  those  when  men 
feasted  of  old  the  return  and  the  midsum- 
mer splendor  of  the  sun. 

The  place  among  places  to  celebrate 
Saint  George's  Day  is  Prinkipo.  That  de- 
licious island  deserves  a  book  to  itself. 
Indeed,  I  believe  several  have  been  writ- 
ten about  it.  One  of  them  is  by  a  polit- 
ical luminary  of  our  own  firmament  who 
flamed  for  a  moment  across  the  Byzantine 
horizon  and  whose  counterfeit  present- 
ment, in  a  bronze  happily  less  enduring 
than  might  be,  hails  the  motormen  of 
Astor  Place,  New  York.  Sunset  Cox's 
work  bears  the  ingratiating  title  of  "The 
Pleasures  of  Prinkipo ;  or,  The  Diversions 
of  a  Diplomat" — if  that  is  the  order  of 
the  alternatives.  The  pleasures  of  Prin- 
kipo are  many  as  its  red  and  white  sage 
roses;  but  none  of  them  are  more  char- 
acteristic than  to  climb  the  Sacred  Way 
through  olive  and  cypress  and  pine  to 
the  little  monastery  crowning  the  higher 
hill  of  the  island  and  to  take  part  in  the 
ceremonies  of  rejoicing  over  the  return 


Greek  Feasts 


499 


of  the  sun.  This  is  a  paniyiri  much  fre- 
quented by  the  people  of  the  Marmora, 
who  come  in  their  fishin^^-boats  from  dis- 
tant villages  of  the  marble  sea.  Their 
costumes  become  annually  more  corrupt, 
I  am  pained  to  state; 
but  there  are  still  visi- 
ble among  them  ladies 
in  print,  sometimes 
even  in  rich  velvet , 
trousers  of  a  fulness, 
wearing  no  hat  but  a 
painted  muslin  hand- 
kerchief over  the  hair 
and  adorned  with  dow- 
ries in  the  form  of  strung 
gold  coins.  They  do  not 
all  come  to  make  merry. 
Among  them  are  not  a 
few  ill  or  deformed,  who 
hope  a  miracle  from 
good  Saint  George. 
You  may  see  them  lying 
pale  and  full  of  faith  on 
the  strewn  bay  of  the 
little  church.  They  are 
allowed  to  pass  the 
night  there,  in  order  to 
absorb  the  virtue  of  the 
holy  place.  I  have  even 
known  of  a  sick  child's 
clothes  being  left  in  the 
church  a  year  in  hope 
of  saving  its  life. 

But  these  are  only  in- 
cidents in  the  general 
tide  of  merrymaking. 
Eating  and  drinking, 
music  and  dance,  go  on 
without  interruption  for 
three  days  and  three 
nights.  The  music  is 
made  in  many  ways,  of  which  the  least  pop- 
ular is  certainly  not  the  way  of  the  Imi- 
terna.  The  lanterna  is  a  kind  of  hand- 
organ,  a  hand-i)iano  rather,  of  Italian 
origin  but  with  an  accent  and  an  inter- 
spersing of  bells  peculiar  to  Constanti- 
nople. It  should  attract  the  eye  as  well 
as  the  car,  usually  by  means  of  the  ])or- 
trait  of  some  beauteous  being  set  about 
with  a  garland  of  artificial  flowers.  And 
it  is  engineered  by  two  young  gentle- 
men in  fezes  of  an  extremely  dark  red,  in 
short  black  jackets  or  in  bouffant  shirt- 
sleeves of  some  magnificent  i)rint,  with 


a  waistcoat  more  double-breasted  than 
you  ever  saw  and  preferably  worn  unbut- 
toned; also  in  red  or  white  girdles,  in 
trousers  that  flare  toward  the  iKjttom  like 
a  sailor's,  and  in  shoes  or  slip[)ers  that 


Fringes  of  culored  paper  are  strung  from  liou>e  to  house. —Page  500. 


should  have  no  counter.  Otherwise  the 
rules  demand  that  the  counter  be  turned 
under  the  wearer's  heel.  Thus  accoutred 
he  bears  his  lanlcrna  on  his  back  from  pa- 
tron to  patron  and  from  one  panayif  to 
another.  His  companion  carries  a  camp- 
stool,  whereon  to  rest  his  instrument  while 
turning  the  handle  hour  in  and  hour  out. 
I  happen,  myself,  to  be  not  a  little  subject 
to  the  spell  of  music.  I  have  trembled 
before  IMt/.ner,  Kiieisel,  and  Se\cik  (|uar- 
tets  and  1  have  touched  inlinity  under 
the  subtlest  bows  and  batons  of  my  time. 
Yet  I  must  confess  that  I  am  able  to  listen 


,"■)()( ) 


Greek   Feasts 


to  a  lantcnia  without  displeasure.  On  one 
occasion  I  listened  to  many  of  them,  ac- 
companied by  i)ii)es,  drums, gramophones, 
and  wandering  \iolins,  for  the  whole  of  a 
Mav  night  on  Saint  George's  hilltop  in 
Prinkipo.  What  is  more,  I  understood  in 
myself  how  the  Dionysiac  frenzy  was  fed 
by  the  cymbals  of  the  maenads,  and  I  re- 
sented ail  the  inhibitions  of  a  New  Eng- 
land origin  that  kept  me  from  joining  the 
dancers.  Some  of  them  were  the  Laz  por- 
ters of  the  island,  whose  exhausting  meas- 
ure was  more  appropriate  to  such  an  orgy 
than  to  Easter  Monday.  Others  were 
women ,  for  once.  But  they  kept  demure- 
ly to  themselves,  apparently  untouched  by 
any  corybantic  fury.  The  same  could  not 
be  said  of  their  men,  whose  dancing  was  not 
always  decent.  They  wTre  bareheaded,  or 
wore  a  handkerchief  twisted  about  their 
hair  like  a  fillet,  and  among  them  were 
faces  that  might  have  looked  out  of  an 
Attic  frieze.  It  gave  one  the  strangest 
sense  of  the  continuity  of  things.  In  the 
lower  darkness  a  few  faint  lights  were 
scattered.  One  wondered  how,  to  them, 
must  seem  the  glare  and  clangor  of  this 
island  hilltop,  ordinarily  so  silent  and  de- 
serted. The  music  went  up  to  the  quiet 
stars,  the  revellers  danced  unwearying,  a 
half-eaten  moon  slowly  lighted  the  dark 
sea,  a  spring  air  moved  among  the  pines, 
and  then  a  grayness  came  into  the  east, 
near  the  Bithynian  Olympus,  and  at  last 
the  god  of  hilltops  rode  into  a  cloud- 
barred  sky. 

The  second  feast  of  Apollo  takes  place 
at  midsummer,  namely  on  Saint  Elias's 
Day  (July  20/August  2).  Arnaoutkyoi  is 
where  it  may  be  most  profitably  admired. 
Arnaoutkyoi,  Albanian  Village,  is  the  Turk- 
ish name  of  a  thriving  suburb  which  the 
Greeks  call  Great  Current,  from  the  race 
of  the  Bosphorus  past  its  long  point.  It 
perhaps  requires  a  fanatical  eye  to  dis- 
cover anything  Apollonic  in  that  lively 
settlement.  No  one  will  gainsay,  how- 
ever, that  the  joy  of  life  is  visible  and 
audible  enough  in  Arnaoutkyoi  during 
the  first  three  days  of  August.  There  also 
is  a  sacred  way,  leading  out  of  an  odorif- 
erous ravine  to  a  high  place  and  a  grove 
whither  all  men  gather  in  the  heat  of  the 
day  to  partake  of  the  water  of  a  holy  well. 
But  waters  less  sanctified  begin  to  flow 
more  freely  as  night  draws  on,  along  the 


cool  quay  and  in  the  purlieus  thereof. 
Eringes  of  colored  paper  are  strung  from 
house  to  house,  flags  hang  out  of  win- 
dows or  across  the  street,  wine-shops  are 
splendid  with  banners,  rugs,  and  garlands 
of  bay,  and  you  may  be  sure  that  the 
sound  of  the  lanterna  is  not  unheard  in 
the  land.  The  perfection  of  festivity  is 
to  attach  one  of  these  inspiriting  instru- 
ments to  your  person  for  the  night.  The 
thing  may  be  done  for  a  dollar  or  two. 
You  then  take  a  table  at  a  cafe  and  order 
with  your  refreshments  a  candle,  which 
you  light  and  cause  to  stand  with  a  little 
of  its  own  grease.  In  the  meantime  per- 
haps you  buy  as  many  numbers  as  your 
means  will  allow  out  of  a  bag  offered  you 
by  a  young  gentleman  with  a  watermelon 
under  his  arm,  hoping  to  find  among  them 
the  mystic  number  that  will  make  the  mel- 
on your  own.  But  you  never  do.  When 
your  candle  has  burned  out — or  even  be- 
fore, if  you  be  so  prodigal — you  move  on 
with  your  lanterna  to  another  cafe.  And 
so  wears  the  short  summer  night  away. 

To  the  sorrow  of  those  who  employ 
Greek  labor,  but  to  the  joy  of  him  who 
dabbles  in  Greek  folklore,  paniyiria  in- 
crease in  frequency  as  summer  draws  to 
a  close.  The  picturesque  village  of  Can- 
diUi,  opposite  Arnaoutkyoi — and  any 
church  dedicated  to  the  Metamorphosis — 
is  the  scene  of  an  interesting  one  on  Trans- 
figuration Day  (August  6/19).  No  good 
Greek  eats  grapes  till  after  the  Transfigu- 
ration. At  the  mass  of  that  morning  bas- 
kets of  grapes  are  blessed  by  the  priests 
and  afterward  passed  around  the  church. 
I  know  not  whether  some  remnant  of  a 
bacchic  rite  be  in  this  solemnity.  It  so 
happens  that  the  delicious  chaoush  grapes 
of  Constantinople,  which  have  spoiled  me 
for  all  others  that  I  know,  ripen  about  that 
time.  But  as  the  blessing  of  the  waters 
drives  away  the  kallikdntzari,  so  the  bless- 
ing of  the  grapes  puts  an  end  to  the  evil 
influence  of  the  thrymais.  The  thrymais 
are  probably  descended  from  the  dryads  of 
old.  Only  they  now  haunt  the  water,  in- 
stead of  the  trees,  and  their  influence  is 
baleful  during  the  first  days  of  August. 
Clothes  washed  then  are  sure  to  rot,  while 
the  fate  of  him  so  bold  as  to  bathe  during 
those  days  is  to  break  out  into  sores. 

The  next  great  feast  is  that  of  the 
Assumption,  which  is  preceded  by  a  fort- 


Greek   Feasts 


501 


night's  fast.  Those  who  would  sec  its 
panegyric  celebrated  with  due  circum- 
stance should  row  on  the  28th  of  August 
to  Yenikeuy  and  admire  the  ])lane-shaded 
avenue  of  that  fashionable  village,  deco- 
rated in  honor  of  the  occasion  and  mu- 
sical with  mastic  glasses  and  other  in- 
struments of  sound.  A  greater  panayir, 
however,  takes  place  a  month  later  in  the 
pleasant  meadows  of  Gyok  Sou,  known  to 
Europe  as  the  Sweet  Waters  of  Asia.  Two 
feasts  indeed,  the  Nativity  of  the  Virgin 
and  the  Exaltation  of  the  Cross  (Sep- 
tember 8/21  and  14/27),  then  combine 
to  make  a  week  of  rejoicing.  There  is 
nothing  to  be  seen  at  Gyok  Sou  that  may 
not  be  seen  at  other  fetes  of  the  same 
kind.  I  do  recollect,  though,  a  dance  of 
Anatolian  peasants  in  a  ring,  who  held 
each  other  first  l)y  the  little  fmger,  then 
by  the  hand,  then  by  the  elbow,  and  lastly 
by  the  shoulder.  And  the  amphorae  of  the 
local  pottery  works  in  which  people  carry 
away  their  holy  w^ater  give  the  rites  of  the 
aydsma  a  classic  air.  But  this  panayir  has 
an  ampler  setting  than  the  others,  in  its 
green  river  valley  dotted  with  great  trees. 
And  it  enjoys  an  added  importance  be- 
cause it  is  to  all  practical  purposes  the 
last  of  the  season.  No  one  can  count  on 
being  able  to  make  merry  out  of  doors  on 
Saint  Demetrius'  Day  (October  26 /No- 
vember 8).  Saint  Demetrius  is  as  inter- 
esting a  personality  as  Saint  George.  He 
also  is  an  heir  of  divinity,  for  on  him, 
curiously  enough,  have  devolved  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  the  goddess  Demeter.  He 
is  the  patron  of  husbandmen,  who  dis- 
charge laborers  and  lease  fields  on  his  day. 
Among  working  peoi)le  his  is  a  favorite 
season  for  matrimony.  I  know  not  how  it 
is  that  some  sailors  will  not  go  to  sea  after 
A'i  thimitri,  until  the  waters  have  been 
blessed  at  Epiphany.  Perhaj)s  it  is  that  he 
marks  for  Greeks  and  Turks  alike  the  be- 
ginning of  winter,  being  known  to  the  lat- 
ter as  Kassim.  This  division  of  the  seasons 
is  clearly  connected  with  the  Pelasgian 
myth  of  Demeter.  The  feast  of  her  suc- 
cessor I  have  never  found  ])articularly 
interesting,  at  least  as  it  is  celebrated  at 
Kourou  Cheshmeh.  I  always  remember 
it,  however,  for  an  altar  festooned  about 
with  a  battered  sculpture  of  rams'  heads 


grapes,  and  indistinguishable  garlands. 
Very  likely  no  sacrifice  to  Demeter  was 
ever  laid  on  that  old  marble,  as  it  pleases 
me  to  imagine.  But  it  stands  half  buried 
in  the  earth  near  the  mosque  of  the  vil- 
lage, a  curiously  vivid  symbol  of  the  con- 
trasts and  survivals  that  are  so  much  of 
the  interest  of  Constantinople. 

These  paniyiria  are  only  a  few  of  an 
inexhaustible  list,  for  every  church  and 
spring  has  its  own.  I  have  not  even  men- 
tioned certain  famous  ones  that  are  not 
easily  visited.  Of  this  category,  though 
less  famous  than  the  fairs  of  Darija,  Pyr- 
gos,  or  Silivri,  is  the  feast  of  the  Panayia 
Mavromolitissa.  This  madonna  in  the 
church  of  Arnaoutkyoi  is  a  black  icon  re- 
puted to  have  been  found  in  the  fields  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Black  Sea.  Every  year 
on  the  5th  of  September  she  is  carried  back 
in  a  cortege  of  iishing-boats — weeping,  it 
is  said — by  priests  and  well-wishers  who 
hold  a  picnic  panayir  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  Cyanean  Rocks.  I  have  not  spoken, 
either,  of  Ascension  Day,  which  it  is 
proper  to  celebrate  by  taking  your  first 
sea  bath.  Or  of  Saint  John's  Day,  known 
by  its  bonfires  and  divinations.  The 
Greeks  often  burn  in  the  fires  of  Saint 
John  one  or  two  effigies  which  are  said  to 
represent  Judas,  though  Herod  and  Sa- 
lome should  rather  perish  on  that  oc- 
casion. Then  there  is  May  Day,  when 
young  men  and  maidens  get  up  early  in 
the  morning,  as  they  do  in  Italy,  and  go 
out  into  the  fields  to  sing,  to  dance,  to 
drink  milk,  to  ])ick  flowers,  and  to  make 
wreaths  which  the  swain  hangs  up  on  the 
door-post  of  the  lady  of  his  heart.  And 
equally  characteristic,  in  a  ditTerent  way. 
are  the  days  when  men  eat  and  drink  in 
honor  of  their  dead.  No  one,  I  suppose, 
tries  any  longer  to  prove  that  the  modern 
Greek  is  one  with  his  classic  ancestor. 
Yet  he  remains  curiously  faithful  to  the 
customs  of  ancient  Greece.  Whereby  he 
affords  us  an  interesting  glimpse  into  the 
processes  of  evolution.  In  him  the  an- 
tique and  the  modern  world  come  to- 
gether and  we  see  for  ourselves,  more 
clearly  than  on  the  alien  soil  of  the  West, 
how  strangely  habit  is  rooted  in  the  heart 
of  man,  and  how  the  forms  of  Christianity 
are  those  of  the  paganism  that  preceded  it. 


"Carranibos!     Thees  messaage,  it  is  expect!" — Page  510. 


SPARKS    OF   THE    WIRELESS 

By  Walter  S.   Hiatt 

Illustrations    by    L.    A.    Shafer 


THE  youths  of  the  world  are  running 
away  to  sea  again. 
But  yesterday  the  sea  had  lost  its 
romance,  had  become  a  place  of  prosaic 
traveUing  from  an  icy  port  to  a  hot  one, 
with  the  tying  up  at  the  coal-blackened 
dock  the  most  fanciful  adventure  of  the 
voyage.  The  pirates,  alas,  had  gone  to 
work.  There  was  naught  left  of  the  won- 
drous days  of  old  but  the  yarns  found  in 
502 


the  pages  of  ''The  Pilot,"  "  Peter  Simple," 
"Treasure  Island."  The  American  lad 
had  quit  the  sea  these  thirty  years.  It  had 
hardly  kept  a  place  in  his  dreams;  and  the 
word  was  being  passed  that  the  white  lad 
the  world  around  was  forgetting  the  sea. 
Lo!  a  tiny  dot,  a  dash  or  two,  cuts 
through  the  air,  over  the  sea,  and  all  is 
changed — once  more  as  it  should  be.  To 
the  sea  was  thus  reclaimed  enchanted, 


Sparks  of  tlie  Wireless 


503 


wandering  fancy,  and  to-day  thousands 
of  American,  English,  German,  French, 
and  ItaHan  youths  are  again  treading  the 
hea\ing  deck  on  the  high  sea. 

The  new  lad  aboard  ship  is  Sparks.     He 
may  be  nineteen  and  lay  claim 
to  one  and  twenty;  he  may 
have  hoped  to  begin  life  as  an 
Indian-fighter. 

But  Wireless  has  made  of 
him  a  spanking  shii)'s  oi)erator, 
one  who  dreams  of  ether  waves 
and  transmitters,  condensers, 
transformers,  and  anchor  spark 
gaps;  an  operator  who  can,  if 
need  there  be,  speak  a  lan- 
guage for  any  tongue,  play  a 
tune  on  his  antenna  that  will 
ride  out  the  most  terrible  of 
gales,  bring  succor  to  the  weak- 
est ship,  snatch  its  prey  from 
the  wildest  sea. 

Sparks  is  not  tied  down  in 
restive  captivity  to  one  port  or 
ship.  His  power  is  only  short  of 
divine.  He  may  leap  over  the 
sea  and  the  mountains,  where 
he  listeth.  If  there  are  no 
messages  to  send  for  captain 
or  passenger,  if  the  steady 
brightness  of  the  stars  bloom- 
ing above  and  the  regular  roar 
of  the  waves  broken  under  the 
bow  make  the  watch  to  drag, 
he  may  call  up  a  friend  hun- 
dreds of  miles  to  leeward,  ask 
the  latest  news  from  home, 
make  plans  to  meet  at  port  six 
months  hence  and  have  a  jolly 
lark  ashore,  when  confidences 
can  be  exchanged  without 
every  gossiper  afloat  and  every 
amateur  on  land  listening  in. 

A  fellow  doesn't  mind  telling 
the  whole  world  about  the  per- 
secutions of  the  skip])er  and 
the  bad  bunking  and  worse 
food  on  board — but  there  are  some  things 
to  be  kept  sacred.  Girls?  Of  course 
not! 

If  i)erchance  Sparks  is  ploughing  Pacific 
waters,  say  on  a  tramp  bound  around  the 


the  station  on  the  island  of  Juan  Fer- 
nandez, off  the  coast  of  Chile,  and  ask 
after  I\()bins(3n  Crusoe's  goats,  his  vine- 
clad  fort,  his  boats,  and  all  the  rest  so 
plainly  set  down  on  printed  page. 


"You  lack  manners,  sir,"  shouted  Cameron  wlien  he  got  to 
the  dock.  —  Page  505. 


Truly  what  a  wonderful  life  leads  Sparks 
and  truly  what  a  wonderful  fellow  he  is! 

A  right  bold  sea-dog  is  Sparks  and  he 
leads  the  captain  a  satl  life.  Is  it  Sparks 
Horn,  laden  deep  with  grain  and  no  port  or  is  it  the  captain  who  commands  the  ship? 
to  make  in  the  ten  thousand  miles  this  "Why,  sir,  Fm  growing  old  before  my 
side  of  Dunkirk,  he  may  break  the  mo-  time,  what  with  reports  and  owner's  com- 
notony  of  marmalade  and  toast,  scowling  plaints,  cargo  that  shifts,  logs  that  read 
skipper  and  raging  waves,  by  calling  up    awry,"  grumbled  one  Old  Man.     **And 


504 


Sparks  of  the  Wireless 


now  1  ha\  c  this  U)  look  after.  A  fellow 
comes  aboard  my  sliip  and  by  the  swag- 
ger of  him  I'm  but  an  air  wave." 

It  is  when  skippers  are  in  such  frame 
of  mind  that  poor  Sparks  learns  why  so 
many  other  boys  quit  going  to  sea  in  the 
good  old  days. 

Because  a  fellow  happens  to  be  in  a 
hurn',  to  forget  that  the  skipper  is  a  high 
and  mighty  person,  and  asks  him  offhand, 
"I  say,  captain,  do  you  want  to  send  out 
any  dope  to-night?"  that  is  no  reason  to 
set  you  to  pacing  the  deck  in  a  disgraceful 
rope  ring  for  an  hour,  with  an  added  quar- 
ter each  time  you  touch  a  ventilator  or 
the  rail.     I  should  say  not! 

Then,  there  are  times'  when  no  self- 
respecting  fellow  can  hold  his  tongue. 
Take  the  case  of  Cameron.  He  showed 
the  Old  Alan  of  the  Iroquois  how  to  re- 
spect a  Wireless  operator.     Cameron  is 


known  from  Point  Barrow  to  the  ice 
barriers  of  the  Antarctic  as  a  competent 
operator.  The  night  he  left  that  old  tub 
in  Seattle,  she  had  taken  on  a  whole  deck- 
load  of  sheep.  Sheep  were  even  stowed 
about  the  Wireless  cabin.  There  was  a 
holy  stench,  let  me  tell  you.  Cameron 
wasn't  to  blame. 

So  he  up  and  tells  the  Old  Man  that 
them  sheep  has  got  to  come  from  around 
his  cabin.  Did  not  his  contract  call  for 
a  first-class  berth?  Well,  the  Iroquois  was 
just  about  to  cast  off  her  lines,  ready  for 
sea.  "The  tide  is  making,  sir,"  the  first 
was  bellowing  from  the  fo'c's'le  head  when 
Cameron  went  to  the  bridge. 

''If  you're  not  suited  aboard  my  ship, 
Mr.  Cameron,"  says  the  Old  Man,  "why, 
you  can  take  your  things  and  go  ashore 
and  confound  you!"  But  he  was  that 
put  out,  he  went  to  Cameron's  cabin  and 


Gayly  kicked  up  his  heels,  tossed  poor  Sparks  to  earth,  and  bent  his  way  homeward.— Page 


507- 


S}:)ark.s  of  tlic  Wireless 


505 


helped  him  get  his  things  ashore.  He  after- 
ward bragged  he  threw  Cameron,  "his 
umbrella,  his  valise,  coats,  pants,  and  col- 
lars, all  in  a  heap,  right  over  the  side 
upon  the  dock."  Anyway,  it 
was  not  what  you  would  call  a 
friendly  parting. 

*'You  lack  manners,  sir," 
shouted  Cameron  when  he  got  to 
the  dock.  Those  were  his  very 
words.  My!  how  mad  they 
made  that  skipper! 

It  must  be  that  skippers  are 
jealous.  When  they  are  about  to 
wreck  their  ships,  it  is  always  the 
Wireless  men  that  save  them. 
Then  the  passengers  and  the 
newspapers  tell  how  Sparks 
acted  like  a  hero.  That's  the 
way  it  is. 

Take  the  eighty  passengers  of 
the  Camitio.  They  know  how  to 
appreciate  fellows  like  Cameron. 
After  clearing  from  Portland,  ten 
miles  off  Astoria  she  ran  into  a 
stiff  southerly  gale  which  w-as 
soon  banging  away  at  the  rate  of 
eighty  miles  an  hour,  and  God 
help  the  vessel  in  its  path !  Waves 
piled  up,  swept  the  battened 
decks,  wTecked  and  carried  away 
the  winches  and  all  the  tackle  for- 
ward. The  passengers  gathered 
in  the  saloon,  praying  and  weep- 
ing, while  the  storm  raged.  The 
steady  plunging  forward  of  the  shij),  lifting 
her  heels  out  of  water,  kept  the  screw  spin- 
ning in  vacant  air  so  viciously  it  fmally 
broke  short  off  and  dropped  to  the  bottom. 

Then  the  despised  Sparks  was  told  to 
call  for  help,  to  send  out  the  S.O.S.  of  dis- 
tress. With  the  ship  drifting  and  the 
waves  breaking  over  broadside,  when  it 
was  worth  your  life  to  go  on  deck,  Sparks 
repaired  his  disabled  antenna ;  he  braved 
each  bolt  of  lightning,  apt  to  dart  down 
his  wires  to  the  head-phones  and  strike 
him  senseless  at  the  key. 

Finally,  forth  into  the  air  sputtered  the 
call  that  brought  thcWatson.  The  C  amino 
was  towed  into  San  Francisco  harbor,  with 
every  soul  safe  on  board.  You  bet  those 
passengers  were  glad.  They  voted  Sparks 
the  ablest  seaman  of  the  lot  and  his  an- 
tenna wires,  stretched  from  masthead  to 
masthead,  the  handsomest  part  of  the 
ship. 


It's  in  such  times  as  this  that  Si)arks 
loves  to  go  to  sea.  F\en  the  Old  .\Ian  is 
then  his  friend.  Though  the  brave  cap- 
tain may  ije  broken-hearted  at  the  thought 


What  letters  tliey  are  that  these  mothers  get  I     How  their 
hearts  tremble  at  the  reading! — Page  50S. 

of  losing  his  commission  for  not  having 
done  more  than  human  could  do,  he  is 
sure  to  speak  a  good  word  for  Sparks  at 
the  company  offices. 

The  running  aw' ay  of  Sparks  to  sea ,  how- 
ever, is  not  done  to-day  as  formerh'.  If 
bred  on  this  side  of  the  water,  he  cannot 
jump  over  the  back-yard  fence  and  make 
for  the  nearest  ship.  He  must  quiet  the 
fever  in  his  veins,  still  the  cjuick  heart-beat 
that  brings  the  sparkle  to  the  eye  and  the 
bloom  to  the  cheek,  until  he  has  passed 
certain  school  examinations.  Hut  such  a 
school ! 

The  uninitiated  peeping  in  would  mis- 
take the  scholars  for  ai)|)rentice  divers, 
arrayed  as  they  are  with  helmet-like  head- 
pieces. A  glimpse  re\eals  the  yearning  of 
these  youth  to  become  operators.  The 
generators  and  dynamos,  booming  and 
cracking  as  they  feed  the  wires  with  the 


506 


Sparks  of  the  Wireless 


electric  currents  that  jkiss  into  the  etlicr 
as  pebbles  in  a  pool.  \vi)ul(l  alone  capture 
the  )'outhful  imagination. 

Then,  there  are  other  bewildering  pieces 
of  api)aratus — telegra]:)h-keys,  switches, 
tuners,  automatic  message-stampers,  cir- 
cuit diagrams — on  the  walls  maps  of  the 
wt)rld  si)lashed  with  red  dots  of  wireless 
stations,  charts  to  show  the  position  of  all 
shi])s  at  sea. 

Since  the  passage  of  laws  by  nations  re- 
quiring two  o}3erators  aboard  passenger- 
shijis,  to  take  watch  and  watch  about,  a 
dozen  schools  have  been  established  to 
train  operators.  These  schools  are  in  Ger- 
many, in  France,  in  England.  In  the 
United  States  there  are  no  less  than  half  a 
dozen.  Some  of  these  schools  arc  main- 
tained by  the  commercial  companies  sup- 
plying ships  with  equipment  and  men. 
The  United  States  Navy  maintains  one  at 
Brooklyn,  another  at  San  Francisco,  and 
in  both  government  licenses  are  granted 
to  any  amateur  or  professional  operator, 
after  a  rigid  examination. 

Wireless  is  a  veritable  disease  with  the 
American  student.  Some  of  them,  long 
before  entering  these  schools,  work  at 
all  sorts  of  jobs,  whitewashing  neighbors' 
fences,  carrying  coals,  running  errands, 
to  get  money  to  build  their  own  amateur 
stations.  In  cities,  where  landlords  are 
captious  and  refuse  to  let  antenna  wires 
mingle  w4th  clothes-lines  on  the  roofs, 
the  boys  not  infrequently  use  brass  bed- 
steads in  the  attics  as  antennae. 

So  going  to  a  wireless  school  is  dearer 
than  play  to  them.  Mother  may  have 
intended  Sparks  for  a  minister,  father  for 
a  drug  clerk,  and  uncle  for  a  grocery  man; 
but  no  bond  can  bind  such  a  heart's  desire. 
It  is  students  of  such  fervor  that  are  sought 
to  enlist  in  the  navy  or  sign  contracts  with 
the  commercial  companies. 

At  the  school  there  is  constant  practice 
in  distress  signalling.  The  ship  in  distress 
is  by  rule  entirely  in  charge  of  the  situa- 
tion and  must  not  be  interfered  with, 
not  spoken  to  unless  in  reply  to  messages. 
Thus,  the  Sparks  in  distress  sends  out: 
"S.O.S.,  K.P.N.,"  the  last  three  letters 
being  his  ship  letter.  He  collects  his  an- 
swers, selects  the  ship  nearest,  tells  others 
to  stand  by  and  others  to  proceed.  This 
team  work  is  exacting,  sometimes  excit- 
ing to  distraction. 

One  day  a  new  Sparks  related  this  awful 


tale  of  woe:  *'We  have  sunk  by  the  head. 
All  on  board  lost." 

''Send  us  a  letter  about  it,  then,"  an- 
swered a  facetious  operator. 

After  two  or  three  months  at  the  school, 
attending  lectures  on  electromagnetism, 
wireless  engineering,  learning  the  Conti- 
nental code,  the  repair  of  equipment  under 
difficulties.  Sparks  goes  up  for  his  license. 
The  examination  is  in  deadly  earnest,  too. 
He  must  know  as  much  about  Wireless  as 
captains  and  pilots  of  ship  navigation.  A 
not  unimportant  requirement  of  the  license 
is  secrecy  in  respect  to  all  messages.  Once 
the  license  is  granted,  if  he  elects  the  mer- 
chant-ship trade,  he  signs  on  witH  a  com- 
mercial company  at  a  beginner's  salary  of 
thirty  dollars  a  month  and  all  found. 

Then  it's  ho!  and  away  for  the  wide 
ports  of  romance.  He  goes  as  assistant  to 
a  chief  Sparks,  to  be  sure,  but  he  goes. 
He  explores  all  the  mysteries  of  the  ship, 
of  the  seas,  and  the  islands  and  lands  bor- 
dering thereupon.  The  sea  becomes  his 
home,  with  the  land  as  an  excuse  for  stop- 
ping now  and  again.  He  learns  how  to 
walk  with  a  tremendous  roll,  to  speak 
lightly  of  mountain  waves,  to  smoke  black 
cigars  of  Havana,  the  lighter  ones  of  Su- 
matra, to  drink  Madeira  wines,  to  eat 
green  cocoanuts  and  bananas  and  yet  live; 
he  learns  to  forget,  too,  the  dusty  front 
of  Marseilles,  the  lonely,  dreary  weeks 
around  the  Cape.  War,  famine,  luxury, 
shipwreck,  are  all  taken  in  good  part. 

There  was  the  investigating  Sparks 
who  went  ashore  to  see  the  sights  at  Tam- 
pico.  The  "  static  "  of  the  atmosphere  was 
such  that  he  could  not  talk  with  friends  at 
sea,  the  ship  was  no  place  to  stop,  what 
with  the  heat,  the  mess  made  by  the  load- 
ing of  sugar,  the  noise  of  the  winches,  and 
the  bustle  of  getting  her  ready  for  sea. 
Going  ashore.  Sparks  net  a  mate  who  told 
him  he  should  ride  up-country  to  visit  the 
grave  of  a  dead  patriot  and  buried  hero. 

Sparks  went  to  a  livery  man.  Did  he 
have  a  nice  mount?  Did  he?  He  had  the 
swiftest,  the  gentlest,  the  most  docile  don- 
key ever  bred  outside  of  Spain.  So  Sparks 
mounted  and  plunged  inland,  until  he 
reached  the  graveside,  hidden  by  coarse 
grass,  overrun  with  ants  and  scorpions  and 
beetles.  He  reverently  began  to  copy  the 
inscription  in  his  note-book :  ''Que  sea  su 
JUEZ  Dios"  (Let  God  be  his  judge). 


Sparks  of  tlie  Wireless 


507 


While  Sparks  was  stooping,  bctlcr  to 
read  the  rest,  the  swiftest,  f];entlest  don- 
key, possibly  beinfT  of  a  different  political 
faith  from  the  patriot,  gayly  kicked  up  his 
heels,  tossed  poor  Sparks  to  earth,  and 


trafhc-manager's  office,  whence  operators 
meet  and  are  assigned  to  ships. 

"Hello!  Jenkins.  So  you're  the  man 
I've  been  talking  to  these  three  years  and 
ne\er  yet  set  eyes  upon.     That's  a  great 


*«^^ 


You  let  one  such  put  on  your  ear-phones,  you  liuide  lier  hand  at  the  sending  key.  —  Page  511. 


bent  his  way  homeward.  Sparks,  failing 
of  finding  another  mount,  reached  the  city 
next  morning,  footsore  and  worn,  to  find 
that  his  shi})  had  sailed  without  him.  Did 
he  rail  at  the  heartless  skipi)er?  Not  he. 
''Let  God  be  his  judge,"  he  declared  sen- 
tentiously  and  set  about  seeking,  without 
too  much  concern,  a  berth  on  a  ship  bound 
for  New  York,  there  to  report  for  another 
ship  at  the  home  office. 

The  spirit  of  voyages  never-ending,  of 
adventures  impossible,  hovers  about  the 


yarn  you  told  me  down  in  the  Caribbean 
about  the  Kingston  negro  who  got  a 
shock  walking  under  the  antenna  with  a 
steel  cane.  ..." 

''Well:  well:  well:  .\n(l  this  is  the 
sport  T  landed  in  the  business.  I  hear 
you  handed  it  to  the  Old  Man  when  he 
asked  you  to  call  up  the  I)o)i  Juan  dc 
Austria  and  beg  the  loan  of  the  key  to  the 
keelson.  What  was  your  answer?  I  re- 
member now.  You  told  him  you  were  busy 
frying  flying-fish  on  your  antenna  for  sup- 
per, and  when  you  got  that  little  job  fin- 


508 


Sj)arks  of  llic  Wireless 


isliecl.  you  intended  to  find  out  what  be- 
taiiic  of  the  waste  ether  dots.  I  guess  he 
found  you  weren't  so  green,  at  that.  .  .  ." 
"Boys:  look  at  the  bulletin-board! 
'  The  next  operator  reported  at  this  office 
for  swearing  anywhere  within  three  hun- 
dred miles  of  the  port  of  New  York  will 
be  severely  dealt  with.  All  improper  con- 
versation among  operators  must  cease.' 
Listen  to  this:  Please  note  that  the  s/s 
Kinifia,  call  letters  S.F.N. ,  of  the  Re- 
deriaktiebolaget  Lulea-Ofoten,  has  been 
equipped  with  wireless  apparatus,  to  be 
operated  by  the  Societe  Anonyme  Inter- 
nationale de  Telegraphic  Sans  Fil.' 
Here's  more  of  the  same:  'Please  note 
that  the  call  letter  of  the  s/s  Bahia  Cas- 
tillo of  the  Hamburg  sud-Amerikanische 
Dampschiflfahrts  Gesellschaft  is  D.B.K.' 
They  hand  us  stuff  like  this  to  remember 
and  then  they  wonder  why  fellows  get 
mad  and  let  off  steam.  ..." 

"  When  I  was  at  Calcutta,  I  did  a  good 
turn  for  an  old  fakir  and  he  took  a  shine 
to  me.  He  said  he'd  let  me  know  when 
he  died.  That  was  three  years  ago  and, 
will  you  believe  me,  this  voyage  home,  a 
thousand  miles  at  sea,  he  rung  a  bell — the 
astral  bell! — right  in  my  cabin,  and  told 
me  he  was  dying.  He  knew  the  code  all 
right.  .  .  .  Well,  if  you  fellows  won't  be- 
lieve me  .  .  .  It's  true.  No  ghost  story 
at  all.  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  the  lad  at  Fame  Point  died.  They 
said  he  had  heart  trouble.  /  believe  it 
was  pure  homesickness,  that's  what  I  be- 
lieve. .  .  ." 

"  He  was  always  a  queer  sort.  When  he 
got  the  message  of  his  mother's  death,  he 
wrote  it  right  out  and  started  to  deliver  it 
to  a  passenger.  He  didn't  know  it  was 
for  him,  couldn't  believe  it.  You  see,  his 
mother  had  just  been  planning  to  have 
him  stop  ashore  at  home  with  her  for  a 
spell  around  Christmas-time.  He  had 
not  been  home  for  a  year  and  more.  ..." 

While  the  chatter  is  running  along  in 
this  wise,  a  lad  comes  tramping  in,  the 
fresh  mists  of  the  sea  still  clinging  about 
his  face.  His  ship,  the  Santa  Rosalia,  has 
come  to  port,  via  Seattle,  the  Straits  of 
Magellan,  Buenos  Ayres,  Bordeaux,  and 
Liverpool.  She  is  going  into  dry  dock  for 
two  or  three  weeks.  So  he  is  packed  off 
to  take  a  passenger-ship  to  Bermuda. 
" Glory  be! "  he  shouts,  in  full  joy.  This 
is  the  first  time  he  has  had  a  passenger- 


ship  for  a  year.  He  makes  for  his  cabin 
on  the  freighter,  expresses  some  French 
laces  and  curio  to  mother  and  sister,  packs 
up,  and  goes  to  his  new  ship — is  off  for  flir- 
tations on  the  sly,  to  answer  foolish  ques- 
tions in  pretty  mouths  about  Wireless. 

A  strapping  man  comes  in  from  the 
navy-yard.  He  is  almost  nineteen,  has 
just  passed  his  license  examination,  and 
is  yearning  for  a  ship.  He  can  speak 
French,  so  he  is  assigned  to  the  Themis- 
tocles,  sailing  on  the  morrow  for  Grecian 
ports,  to  carry  volunteers  to  the  war.  He 
rushes  home  to  pack. 

"To  the  war,  mother!  Think  of  the 
fun  I'll  have!"  What  mother  thinks  is 
something  quite  different.  But  these 
mothers  are  brave.  She  slips,  unawares,  a 
little  book  of  prayers  among  his  things, 
sees  that  he  has  plenty  of  clean  clothes, 
kisses  her  boy,  and  makes  him  promise  to 
be  good.  "And  do  write  me  often,  son," 
she  begs  on  the  door-step.  What  letters 
they  are  that  these  mothers  get!  How 
their  hearts  tremble  at  the  reading 

"  Well,  we  got  there  and  put  guns  on  our 
ship  and  they  made  me  a  naval  operator. 
We  had  a  fight  and  they  run  us  ashore  but 
I  sent  a  wireless  and  one  of  our  ships  came 
and  chased  them  away.  Another  time 
the  Turks  got  us  and  put  irons  on  me  and 
I  thought  they  were  going  to  shoot  us 
but  they  didn't  because  we  got  exchanged 
and  now  I  am  back  on  another  ship.  So 
everything  is  all  right.  You  needn't 
worry  about  me  though  I  do  wish  I  had 
some  more  clean  clothes.  ..." 

It's  only  when  you  go  to  war  that  a  fel- 
low takes  a  chance.  Of  course.  The  sea  is 
safe  if  you  are  in  a  safe  ship.  All  the 
Sparkses  afloat  write  this  assurance  home 
to  mother  from  every  port.  They  leave 
untold  the  stories  of  the  brawlers  who  lie 
in  wait  at  dark  corners,  in  the  foul  alley- 
ways, who  strip  men  of  the  ship  and  throw 
their  bodies  into  the  quiet  river.  They 
forget  about  the  collision,  the  blow  amid- 
ships some  foggy  night,  when  a  ship  goes 
to  the  bottom  like  a  rock. 

Take  the  case  of  the  steamer  Narrung. 
Sparks  had  to  leave  mother  the  very  day 
before  Christmas.  It  was  the  fault  of  the 
Old  Man,  who  hurried  the  longshoremen 
in  loading  her.  But  he  got  paid  back  for 
it.  After  she  left  Tilbury  dock^  bound  for 
the  Cape  and  Australia,  she  had  head 


Sometimes  Sparks  quits  going  to  sea  for  aiKJther  reason  yet. — Page  511. 


winds  in  the  Channel  and  worse  ones  out- 
side. In  the  Bay  of  Biscay  the  green  seas 
began  sweeping  the  ship  from  stem  to 
stern.  Twenty  miles  off  Ushant,  all  hands 
thought  she  would  founder,  surely. 

It  was  a  time  to  pick  your  own  burying- 
ground,  with  a  shroud  of  brine.  Her  iron 
decks  forward  ripped  up  and  crumpled 
back  before  the  force  of  those  waves  like 
so  much  tinfoil.  Truly  an  honest  man's 
weather.  There  was  no  turning  her  about 
in  the  teeth  of  that  gale.  The  Old  Man 
told  Sparks  to  send  out  his  S.O.S.  It  was 
freezing  cold,  so  cold  that  he  had  to  hold 
one  hand  to  steady  the  other.  The  ship 
was  pitching  so  that  his  wave  metres  \'aried 
every  thirty  seconds.  But  he  got  his  aux- 
iliary set  working  and  shoved  out  that  mes- 
sage just  the  same.  The  Bavaria  and  the 
Negada  answered  and  this  gave  the  Old 
Fussy  his  nerve  back.  He'd  rather  drown 
and  go  to  the  })ottom  than  i)ay  salvage.  So 
he  began  turning  that  ship  about.  Before 
that  gale  and  those  waves  breaking  over, 
the  Naming  reeled  so  the  lookout  came 
just  short  of  dropping  from  the  crow's-nesl. 


There  was  an  hour  and  twenty  minutes  of 
this  work  and  she  was  got  about  at  last. 
She  proceeded  to  Gravesend  harbor. 

Sparks  had  been  on  duty  and  without 
sleep  for  fifty  hours  or  such  matter,  but  he 
rolled  over  the  side  and  went  home  to  spend 
New  Year's  with  mother — which  was  al- 
most as  good  as  Christmas,  being  unex- 
l)ected.  He  told  mother  the  captain  caught 
cold,  or  forgot  his  watch,  or  gave  some 
other  good  reason  for  putting  back.  Why 
worry  dear  mother? 

The  iron,  never-say-die  spirit  of  the 
Seven  Seas  i)erforce  creeps  into  the  blood 
of  Sparks.  It  is  a  world  of  give  and  take, 
oftener  taking  than  giving,  and  one  must 
learn  its  ways.  Thus,  when  the  o| aerators 
on  Sable  Island  saw  the  line  ship  liric  cast 
ashore  by  a  wild  March  tempest,  one  of 
their  number  beat  thn)ugh  the  breakers 
aboard  of  her  with  a  small  wireless  out  lit 

she  having  none — to  transmit  the  mes- 
sages that  might  yet  save  her. 

He  braved  the  waves  breaking  over  her, 
worked  like  a  fury,  clambered  to  the  masts. 

509 


510 


Sparks  of  tlie  Wireless 


slruni,'  liis  antenna,  antl  l)ctj;an  scndin.^  the 
messages  to  tlic  Aberdeen,  the  Bridgwater, 
and  the  .SV(//.  whicli  came  and  stood  by, 
waiting  a  chance  to  salvage  the  s\\\\),  or  at 
least  save  her  three  thousand  nine  hundred 
tons  of  i^retty  Argentine  maize.  A  night 
and  a  day  this  Sparks  worked,  until  the 
pounding  broke  the  Eric  in  twain  and  he 
had  to  make  a  rare  race  back  to  shore. 

Upon  the  straightaway  dangers  of  the 
sea  are  often  i)iled  the  devious  ones  of 
man.  Si)arks  may  be  set  aboard  a  ship  to 
help  save  her,  in  time  of  distress,  because, 
being  old  and  leaky  and  unseaworthy,  with 
a  weak  hull  or  a  too  heavy  engine  in  her, 
her  owners  are  ashamed  to  even  ask  for  in- 
surance. Such  vessels  are  often  used  in 
trading,  about  which  no  questions  should, 
in  all  fairness,  be  asked.  It  may  be  to  the 
slave  coasts  or  again  in  sly  filibustering 
expeditions,  when  arms  are  needed  by 
one  band  of  patriots  to  quell  the  ardor  of 
another  such  band.  In  this  latter  fall, 
Sparks  is  useful  in  transmitting  code 
messages  to  a  friendly  Sparks  ashore. 

A  certain  Sparks  wears  a  sparkling  dia- 
mond as  a  souvenir  of  a  certain  voyage  in 
a  certain  wooden  tub,  full  of  leaks  and 
daylight.  She  left  New  York  to  carry 
vegetables  to  the  starving  city  of  Bruns- 
wick, Ga.  The  vegetables  were  done  up  in 
coffin-like  cases,  safely  stowed  away  in  the 
hold  from  the  observation  of  a  Spanish 
crew  that  came  aboard  at  the  hour  of  sail- 
ing. It  was  a  long  voyage  down  the  coast 
and  so  confusing  that  the  captain  brought 
up  in  the  islands  near  Progresso. 

Sparks  was  awakened  from  the  fitful 
slumber  of  a  seething  tropic  night  and 
asked  to  get  in  touch  with  the  Sparks 
ashore.  This  he  did.  At  dawn  a  swar- 
thy band  of  little  soldiers  and  politicians 
swarmed  aboard.  Some  of  them  came 
and  smoked  cigarettes  with  Sparks  and  ex- 
amined ' '  this  thing  wire. ' '  El  general  bus- 
tled into  the  wireless  cabin,  while  hatches 
were  being  broken  open  below  and  arms 
distributed.  He  wanted  a  message  sent. 
The  fate  of  a  nation  hung  by  it.  Sparks 
could  not  get  his  instrument  to  work. 

El  general  danced  up  and  down.  "  Car- 
rambos!  Thees  messaage,  it  is  expect!" 
Sparks  located  the  trouble.  The  tiny  car- 
bon silicon  detector  had  been  broken  by 
the  curious  visitors.  As  he  started  to  ex- 
plain this  to  el  general,  he  noted  that  the 
little  brown  man  wore  a  huge  flat  diamond 


in  his  cravat.  Sj^arks  demanded  it.  The 
diamond  was  carbon  too.  El  general  gave 
up  the  diamond  and  Sparks  was  able  to 
send  and  receive  in  good  order.  ''  You  one 
great  mans!  I  you  have  saved! "  cried  the 
general.  Sparks  also  saved  the  diamond. 
Later  he  asked  the  operator  on  shore  when 
the  general  would  return  for  his  jewelry. 
"Keep  it,"  was  the  answer.  "His  soul  is 
at  rest.    He  will  never  claim  it." 

The  other  Sparkses  wink  slyly  when  this 
yarn  is  told.  Can  it  be  possible  that  the 
ancient  and  honored  fibbing  habit  of  Jack 
Tar  is  inevitably  connected  with  the  sea? 

Odd  are  the  tales  cast  up  by  the  ether 
sea.  A  laborer  on  Swan  Island  in  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  one  of  the  banana  chain  to  the 
tropics,  had  his  foot  crushed  in  a  tram- 
car  accident.  A  surgical  operation  was 
necessary,  but  surgeon  there  was  none. 
The  Sparks  of  the  island  wireless  station 
had  an  idea.  He  sent  out  a  distress  call, 
far  and  wide,  which  was  answered  by  the 
Ward  Line  steamer  Esperanza,  four  hun- 
dred and  twenty  miles  away. 

He  explained  his  case.  Could  the  ship's 
doctor  help!  The  captain  and  the  ship's 
doctor  held  a  consultation.  It  would  be  a 
pity  for  the  ship  to  turn  from  her  course 
and  lose  thousands  of  dollars  by  the  delay. 
The  losing  of  a  man's  life  would  also  be  a 
pity.  "Let  me  handle  the  case  by  wire- 
less," volunteered  the  doctor.  So  he  sat 
himself  down  in  the  wireless  cabin  and  sent 
a  call  for  all  details  of  the  case.  Then,  mes- 
sage by  message,  he  directed  the  way  to 
deaden  the  pain,  the  amputation  of  the 
foot,  each  stroke  of  the  knife,  the  binding 
of  the  arteries  to  prevent  loss  of  blood,  the 
washing  of  the  wound  with  antiseptics. 
When  the  operation  was  over,  he  kept  in 
touch,  by  wireless  relay  from  ship  to  ship, 
with  his  patient  until  danger  of  blood- 
poisoning  was  by. 

The  Crusoe-like  life  of  Sparks  ashore  in 
these  out-of-the-way  corners  of  the  world 
lacks  the  changing  joys  and  vicissitudes 
of  Ralph  Rover  afloat.  A  daily  diet  of 
flaming  sunsets  and  sunrises,  of  blue  seas 
and  resplendent  luxuriance  of  vegetation, 
has  not  the  compensations  of  even  fam- 
ine and  shipwreck.  In  the  sombre  north- 
ern stations  the  life  of  Sparks  is  dreary 
to  a  detail.  Sometimes  restlessness  gets  a 
strangle-hold. 

It  was  under  such  urgence  that  a  mes- 


Sparks  of  the  Wireless 


511 


sage  of  distress  was  sent  out  by  a  Sparks 
from  the  station  at  Estevan  Point,  British 
Columbia.  To  a  vessel  answering,  he 
stated  that  his  wife  and  children  were 
down  with  the  fever  and  that  he  needed 
quinine.  When  the  vessel  came  off  shore 
and  sent  out  a  boat.  Sparks  kept  the  crew 
overtime — just  talking.  As  he  could  not 
produce  the  sick  family,  the  wrothy  cap- 
tain reported  the  matter  and  Sparks  lost 
his  job.  But  what  cared  he?  A  wan- 
derer born,  he  wandered  to  the  Fiji  Island 
station,  then  to  New  Zealand,  and  finally 
back  to  the  Pacific  coast. 

The  operator  at  Katella,  Fox  Island, 
Alaska,  it  is  related,  rather  than  face  a 
winter  alone,  contrived  to  keep  sixty  men 
marooned  on  the  island  for  a  spell.  The 
men  were  there  working  for  a  contem- 
plated railroad  when  the  winter  fell  too 
soon,  so  they  could  not  leave  overland. 
Sparks  was  glad  of  their  company,  so  glad 
that  he  did  not  send  out  a  distress  mes- 
sage to  bring  help  for  them  until  famine 
threatened  the  party.  His  reluctant  S.O.S. 
brought  the  old  steamer  Portland, 

Then  Sparks  wrote  in  his  log,  *'Left 
alone  for  the  winter,"  an  act  which  re- 
quired as  much  grim  courage  as  that  of 
the  captain  who  seals  his  log  with  the  loss 
of  his  ship  as  the  last  entry. 

Sparks  meets  with  real  adventures  now 
and  then,  just  like  those  of  the  fellows  on 
a  lively  shore,  in  this  wandering  about  the 
world:  adventures  of  the  heart,  adventures 
that  lead  somewhere,  that  are  not  at  once 
swallowed  up  in  unfathomable  air  or  track- 
less waste  of  water.  If  you  are  the  Sparks 
of  a  tramp  ship,  you  visit  Oporto,  Barce- 
lona, Palermo,  Antwerp,  Callao,  Montreal, 
Galveston — all  the  queer  names  in  the  ge- 
ography are  down  as  your  ports  of  call. 

Always  curious  maidens  of  wondrous 
beauty  come  aboard  to  see  the  wireless 
wonder.  You  let  one  such  put  on  your  ear- 
phones, you  guide  her  hand  at  the  sending 
key.  How  good  and  sweet  she  seems,  how 
her  presence  adorns  and  purifies  that  staid, 
dingy  old  craft !  You  are  invited  ashore  to 
church,  to  dinner.  There  are  songs  at  the 
piano,  the  air  is  all  sentiment.  She  seems 
yet  more  good  and  sweet.  You  tell  her  so 
— and  there  you  are! 

Such  matters  fall  out  even  more  fre- 
quently at  sea  aboard  the  passenger-ships. 
Vol.  LV.— 54 


Mothers  and  giggling  daughters  come 
trooping  merrily  along  the  boat-deck,  or 
the  wider,  roomier  sun-deck.  "  Oh !  here's 
the  wireless  room.  Simply  wonderful, 
isn't  it?  May  we  come  in?  Thanks. 
What  a  lot  of  wire  you  need  to  send  a  wire- 
less message!  How  far  are  we  from  land? 
Two  miles  straight  down — isn't  that  a 
good  joke!  So  that  line  aft  really  doesn't 
steady  the  ship?  How  curious!  Just  a 
fishing-line,  and  the  fish  are  not  biting 
to-day,  because  it's  Friday." 

While  they  race  along  in  this  vein,  you 
note  the  quiet,  brown-eyed  one  by  the 
door  who  doesn't  ask  a  single  question. 
She's  the  kind  of  a  girl  that  makes  your 
heart  jump.  When  the  others  leave,  you 
manage  to  ask  her  if  she  really  would  not 
like  to  stay  and  watch  the  "VNireless  work. 
You  exchange  names,  you  \\Tite  each  other 
after  the  voyage  is  over.  Finally,  you 
decide  to  give  up  this  wandering  over  the 
seas  like  a  sodden  derelict.  You  get  a  job 
ashore  and  settle  down  and  live  like  other 
fellows. 

Sometimes  Sparks  quits  going  to  sea 
for  another  reason  yet.  These  common- 
place happenings  at  sea,  called  adventures 
by  landsmen,  take  a  more  serious  turn  at 
times,  have  an  import  altogether  uncalcu- 
lated.  A  ship  grounds  in  a  thick  fog  on 
some  desolate  rock,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Ohio  in  Finlayson  Channel. 

You  keep  the  antenna  cracking  out 
your  S.O.S.  till  the  deck  is  awash,  till  help 
comes.  Then,  in  the  confusion  of  oaths 
and  cries,  of  rushing  to  and  fro,  of  frantic, 
animal-like  struggles  for  safety,  as  you  are 
about  to  take  the  last  boat,  you  see  a  help- 
less mother  or  a  dazed  man. 

You  stay  to  lend  a  hand,  there  is  a 
slight,  staggering,  pitching  motion  of  a  ship 
in  her  last  agonies;  waves  leap  and  dance 
about  you;  then  a  dull,  sucking  roar.  .  .  . 

Later  mother  and  sweetheart  come  to 
bury  you,  so  they  say — as  Eccles  of  the 
Ohio  at  Altamonte,  or  Phillips  of  the  Ti- 
tanic at  Godalming — where  the  water 
flows  and  the  grass  is  green;  perchance  a 
fountained  monument  is  raised  in  some 
Battery  Park  to  your  undying  fame. 

You  are  then  gone — as  say  mother  and 
sweetheart — free  to  wander  at  large,  fur- 
ther, in  the  more  mysterious  ports  of  the 
ether  ocean. 


ARTIST    AND    PUBLIC 
By  Kenyon  Cox 


N  the  history  of  art,  as  in 
the  history  of  politics  and 
in  the  history  of  econom- 
ics, our  modern  epoch  is 
marked  off  from  all  preced- 
ing epochs  by  one  great 
event,  the  French  Revolution.  Frago- 
nard,  who  survived  that  revolution  to  lose 
himself  in  a  new  and  strange  world,  is  the 
last  of  the  old  masters;  David,  some  six- 
teen years  his  junior,  is  the  first  of  the 
moderns.  Now,  if  we  look  for  the  most 
fundamental  distinction  between  our  mod- 
ern art  and  the  art  of  past  times,  I  believe 
we  shall  find  it  to  be  this :  the  art  of  the 
past  was  produced  for  a  public  that 
wanted  it  and  understood  it,  by  artists 
who  understood  and  sympathized  with 
their  public;  the  art  of  our  time  has  been, 
for  the  most  part,  produced  for  a  public 
that  did  not  want  it  and  misunderstood 
it,  by  artists  who  disliked  and  despised 
the  public  for  which  they  worked.  When 
artist  and  public  were  united,  art  was 
homogeneous  and  continuous.  Since  the 
divorce  of  artist  and  public,  art  has  been 
chaotic  and  convulsive. 

That  this  divorce  between  the  artist 
and  his  public — this  dislocation  of  the 
right  and  natural  relations  between  them 
— has  taken  place,  is  certain.  The  causes 
of  it  are  many  and  deep-lying  in  our  mod- 
ern civilization,  and  I  can  point  out  only 
a  few  of  the  more  obvious  ones. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  emergence  of  a 
new  public.  The  art  of  past  ages  had 
been  distinctively  an  aristocratic  art,  cre- 
ated for  kings  and  princes,  for  the  free  cit- 
izens of  slave-holding  republics,  for  the 
spiritual  and  intellectual  aristocracy  of 
the  church,  or  for  a  luxurious  and  frivo- 
lous nobility.  As  the  aim  of  the  Revolu- 
tion was  the  destruction  of  aristocratic 
privilege,  it  is  not  surprising  that  a  revo- 
lutionary, like  David,  should  have  felt  it 
necessary  to  destroy  the  traditions  of  an 
art  created  for  the  aristocracy.  In  his 
own  art  of  painting  he  succeeded  so  thor- 
oughly that  the  painters  of  the  next  gen- 
512 


eration  found  themselves  with  no  tradi- 
tions at  all.  They  had  not  only  to  work 
for  a  public  of  enriched  bourgeois  or  pro- 
letai*ians  who  had  never  cared  for  art,  but 
they  had  to  create  over  again  the  art  with 
which-  they  endeavored  to  interest  this 
public.  How  could  they  succeed?  The 
rift  between  artist  and  public  had  begun, 
and  it  has  been  widening  ever  since. 

If  the  people  had  had  little  to  do  with 
the  major  arts  of  painting  and  sculpture, 
there  had  yet  been,  all  through  the  mid- 
dle ages  and  the  Renaissance,  a  truly  pop- 
ular art — an  art  of  furniture-making,  of 
wood-carving,  of  forging,  of  pottery.  Ev- 
ery craftsman  was  an  artist  in  his  de- 
gree, and  every  artist  was  but  a  craftsman 
of  a  superior  sort.  Our  machine-making, 
industrial  civilization,  intent  upon  mate- 
rial progress  and  the  satisfaction  of  mate- 
rial wants,  has  destroyed  this  popular  art; 
and  at  the  same  time  that  the  artist  lost 
his  patronage  from  above  he  lost  his  sup- 
port from  below.  He  has  become  a  su- 
perior person,  a  sort  of  demi-gentleman, 
but  he  has  no  longer  a  splendid  nobility 
to  employ  him  or  a  world  of  artist-arti- 
sans to  surround  him  and  understand  him. 

And  to  the  modern  artist,  so  isolated, 
with  no  tradition  behind  him,  no  direction 
from  above  and  no  support  from  below, 
the  art  of  all  times  and  all  countries  has 
become  familiar  through  modern  means  of 
communication  and  modern  processes  of 
reproduction.  Having  no  compelling  rea- 
son for  doing  one  thing  rather  than  an- 
other, or  for  choosing  one  or  another  way 
of  doing  things,  he  is  shown  a  thousand 
things  that  he  may  do  and  a  thousand  ways 
of  doing  them.  Not  clearly  knowing  his 
own  mind  he  hears  the  clash  and  rever- 
beration of  a  thousand  other  minds,  and 
having  no  certainties  he  must  listen  to 
countless  theories. 

Mr.  Vedder  has  spoken  of  a  certain 
''home-made"  character  which  he  con- 
siders the  greatest  defect  of  his  art,  the 
character  of  an  art  belonging  to  no  dis- 
tinctive school  and  having  no  definite  re- 


Artist  and   Public 


513 


lation  to  the  time  and  country  in  which  it 
is  produced.  But  it  is  not  Mr.  Vedder's 
art  alone  that  is  home-made.  It  is  pre- 
cisely the  characteristic  note  of  our  mod- 
ern art  that  all  of  it  that  is  good  for  any- 
thing is  home-made  or  self-made.  Each 
artist  has  had  to  create  his  art  as  best  he 
could  out  of  his  own  temperament  and  his 
own  experience — has  sat  in  his  corner  like 
a  spider,  spinning  his  web  from  his  own 
bowels.  If  the  art  so  created  was  essen- 
tially fine  and  noble  the  public  has  at  last 
found  it  out,  but  only  after  years  of  neg- 
lect has  embittered  the  existence  and  par- 
tially crippled  the  powers  of  its  creator. 
And  so,  to  our  modern  imagination,  the 
neglected  and  misunderstood  genius  has 
become  the  very  type  of  the  great  artist, 
and  we  have  allowed  our  belief  in  him  to 
color  and  distort  our  vision  of  the  history 
of  art.  We  have  come  to  look  upon  the 
great  artists  of  all  times  as  an  unhappy 
race  struggling  against  the  inappreciation 
of  a  stupid  public,  starving  in  garrets  and 
waiting  long  for  tardy  recognition. 

The  very  reverse  of  this  is  true.  With 
the  exception  of  Rembrandt,  who  him- 
self lived  in  a  time  of  political  revolution 
and  of  the  emergence  to  power  of  a 
burgher  class,  you  will  scarce  find  an  un- 
appreciated genius  in  the  whole  history  of 
art  until  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  great  masters  of  the  Re- 
naissance, from  Giotto  to  Veronese,  were 
men  of  their  time,  sharing  and  interpreting 
the  ideals  of  those  around  them,  and  were 
recognized  and  patronized  as  such.  Rem- 
brandt's greatest  contemporary,  Rubens, 
was  painter  in  ordinary  to  half  the  courts 
of  Europe,  and  Velasquez  was  the  friend 
and  comj^anion  of  his  king.  Watteau 
and  Boucher  and  Fragonard  painted  for 
the  frivolous  nobility  of  the  eighteenth 
century  just  what  that  nobility  wanted, 
and  even  the  precursors  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, sober  and  honest  Chardin,  Greuze 
the  sentimental,  had  no  difficulty  in 
making  themselves  understood,  until  the 
revolutionist  David  became  dictator  to 
the  art  of  Europe  and  swept  them  into  the 
rubbish  heap  with  the  rest. 

It  is  not  until  the  beginning  of  what  is 
known  as  the  Romantic  movement,  un- 
der the  Restoration,  that  the  misunder- 
stood i)ainter  of  genius  (lefmilcly  appears. 
Millet,    Corot,    Rousseau,    were    trying. 


with  magnificent  powers  and  perfect  sin- 
gle-mindedness,  to  restore  the  art  of  paint- 
ing which  the  Revolution  had  destroyed. 
They  were  men  of  the  utmost  nobility 
and  simplicity  of  character,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  the  gloomy,  fantastic,  vain,  and 
egotistical  person  that  we  ha\'e  come  to 
accept  as  the  type  of  una[)preciated  gen- 
ius; they  were  classically  minded  and  con- 
servative, worshii)pers  of  the  great  art  of 
the  past;  but  they  were  without  a  public 
and  they  suffered  bitter  discouragement 
and  long  neglect.  Upon  their  experience 
is  founded  that  legend  of  the  unpopularity 
of  all  great  artists  which  has  grown  to  as- 
tonishing proportions. 

Accepting  this  legend,  and  believing 
that  all  great  artists  are  misunderstood, 
the  artist  has  come  to  cherish  a  scorn  of 
the  public  for  which  he  works  and  to  pre- 
tend a  greater  scorn  than  he  feels.  He 
cannot  believe  himself  great  unless  he  is 
misunderstood,  and  he  hugs  his  unpopu- 
larity to  himself  as  a  sign  of  genius  and 
arrives  at  that  sublime  affectation  which 
answers  praise  of  his  work  with  an  excla- 
mation of  dismay:  ''  Is  it  as  bad  as  that?  " 
He  invents  new  excesses  and  eccentricities 
to  insure  misunderstanding,  and  pro- 
claims the  doctrine  that,  as  anything  great 
must  be  incomprehensible,  so  anything 
incomprehensible  must  be  great.  And 
the  public  has  taken  him,  at  least  par- 
tially, at  his  word.  He  may  or  may  not 
be  great,  but  he  is  certainly  incompre- 
hensible and  probably  a  little  mad. 
Until  he  succeeds  the  public  looks  upon 
the  artist  as  a  more  or  less  harmless  luna- 
tic. When  he  succeeds  it  is  willing  to  ex- 
alt him  into  a  kind  of  god,  and  to  worship 
his  eccentricities  as  a  part  of  his  divinity. 
So  we  arrive  at  a  belief  in  the  insanity 
of  genius.  What  would  Raj^hael  have 
thought  of  such  a  notion,  or  that  con- 
summate man  of  the  world,  Titian?  What 
would  the  serene  and  mighty  Veronese 
have  thought  of  it,  or  the  cool,  clear-see- 
ing Velasquez?  How  his  Excellency  the 
Ambassador  of  his  Most  Catholic  Maj- 
esty, glorious  Peter  Paul  Ruben^,  would 
have  laughed  I 

It  is  this  lack  of  sympathy  and  under- 
standing between  the  artist  and  his  public 
— this  fatal  isolation  of  the  artist — that 
is  the  cause  of  nearly  all  the  shortcomings 
of  modern  art;  of  the  weakness  of  what 


614 


Artist  and  Public 


is  known  as  official  or  academic  art  no 
less  than  of  the  extravagance  of  the  art  of 
oi)position.  The  artist,  being  no  longer  a 
craftsman,  working  to  order,  but  a  kind  of 
poet,  expressing  in  lonehness  his  personal 
emotions,  has  lost  his  natural  means  of 
support.  Governments,  feeling  a  respon- 
sibility for  the  cultivation  of  art  which 
was  quite  unnecessary  in  the  days  when 
art  was  spontaneously  produced  in  answer 
to  a  natural  demand,  have  tried  to  put  an 
artificial  support  in  its  place.  That  the 
artist  may  show  his  wares  and  make  him- 
self known,  they  have  created  exhibitions; 
that  he  may  be  encouraged  they  have  in- 
stituted medals  and  prizes;  that  he  may 
not  starve  they  have  made  government 
purchases.  And  these  well-meant  efforts 
have  resulted  in  the  creation  of  pictures 
which  have  no  other  purpose  than  to  hang 
in  exhibitions,  to  win  medals,  and  to  be 
purchased  by  the  government  and  hung 
in  those  more  permanent  exhibitions 
which  we  call  museums.  For  this  pur- 
pose it  is  not  necessary  that  a  picture 
should  have  great  beauty  or  great  sin- 
cerity. It  is  necessary  that  it  should  be 
large  in  order  to  attract  attention,  and 
sufficiently  well  drawn  and  executed  to 
seem  to  deserve  recognition.  And  so  was 
evolved  the  salon-picture,  a  thing  created 
for  no  man's  pleasure,  not  even  the  art- 
ist's; a  thing  which  is  neither  the  decora- 
tion of  a  public  building  nor  the  possible 
ornament  of  a  private  house;  a  thing, 
which,  after  it  has  served  its  temporary 
purpose,  is  rolled  up  and  stored  in  a  loft, 
or  placed  in  a  gallery  where  its  essential 
emptiness  becomes  more  and  more  evi- 
dent as  time  goes  on.  Such  government- 
encouraged  art  had  at  least  the  merit  of  a 
well-sustained  and  fairly  high  level  of  ac- 
complishment in  the  more  obvious  ele- 
ments of  painting.  But  as  exhibitions 
became  larger  and  larger  and  the  compe- 
tition engendered  by  them  grew  fiercer 
it  became  increasingly  difficult  to  attract 
attention  by  mere  academic  merit.  So 
the  painters  began  to  search  for  sensa- 
tionalism of  subject,  and  the  typical  salon- 
picture,  no  longer  decorously  pompous, 
began  to  deal  in  blood  and  horror  and 
sensuality.  It  was  Regnault  who  began 
this  sensation  hunt,  but  it  has  been  car- 
ried much  farther  since  his  day  than  he 
can  have  dreamed  of,  and  the  modern 


salon-picture  is  not  only  tiresome  but  de- 
testable. 

The  salon-picture,  in  its  merits  and  its 
faults,  is  peculiarly  French,  but  the  mod- 
ern exhibition  has  sins  to  answer  for  in 
other  countries  than  France.  In  Eng- 
land it  has  been  responsible  for  a  great 
deal  of  sentimentality  and  anecdotage 
which  has  served  to  attract  the  attention 
of  a  public  that  could  not  be  roused  to 
interest  in  mere  painting.  Everywhere, 
even  in  this  country  where  exhibitions  are 
relatively  small  and  ill-attended,  it  has 
caused  a  certain  stridency  and  blatancy,  a 
keying  up  to  exhibition  pitch,  a  neglect  of 
finer  qualities  for  the  sake  of  immediate 
effectiveness. 

Under  our  modern  conditions  the  ex- 
hibition has  become  a  necessity  and  it 
would  be  impossible  for  our  artists  to  live 
or  to  attain  a  reputation  without  it.  The 
giving  of  medals  and  prizes  and  the  pur- 
chase of  works  of  art  by  the  State  may 
be  of  more  doubtful  utility,  though  such 
efforts  at  the  encouragement  of  art  prob- 
ably do  more  good  than  harm.  But  there 
is  one  form  of  government  patronage  that 
is  almost  wholly  beneficial,  and  that  the 
only  form  of  it  which  we  have  in  this 
country — the  awarding  of  commissions 
for  the  decoration  of  public  buildings. 
The  painter  of  mural  decorations  is  in  the 
old  historical  position,  in  sound  and  natu- 
ral relations  to  the  public.  He  is  doing 
something  which  is  wanted  and,  if  he  con- 
tinues to  receive  commissions,  he  may 
fairly  assume  that  he  is  doing  it  in  a  way 
that  is  satisfactory.  With  the  decorative 
or  monumental  sculptor  he  is  almost  alone 
among  modern  artists  in  being  relieved  of 
the  necessity  of  producing  something  in 
the  isolation  of  his  studio  and  waiting  to 
see  if  any  one  will  care  for  it;  of  trying, 
against  the  grain,  to  produce  something 
that  he  thinks  may  appeal  to  the  public 
because  it  does  not  appeal  to  himself;  or 
of  attempting  to  bamboozle  the  public 
into  buying  what  neither  he  nor  the  public 
really  cares  for.  If  he  does  his  best  he 
may  feel  that  he  is  as  fairly  earning  his 
livelihood  as  his  fellow  workmen  the 
blacksmith  and  the  stonecutter,  and  is  as 
little  dependent  as  they  upon  either  char- 
ity or  humbug.  The  best  that  govern- 
ment has  done  for  art  in  France  is  the 
commissioning   of   the   great   decorative 


Artist  and   Public 


515 


paintings  of  Baudry  and  Puvis.  In  this 
country,  also,  governments,  national, 
State,  or  municipal,  are  patronizing  art  in 
the  best  possible  way,  and  in  making 
buildings  splendid  for  the  people  are  af- 
fording opportunity  for  the  creation  of  a 
truly  popular  art. 

Without  any  artificial  aid  from  the  gov- 
ernment the  illustrator  has  a  wide  popular 
support  and  works  for  the  public  in  a  nor- 
mal way;  and,  therefore,  illustration  has 
been  one  of  the  healthiest  and  most  vig- 
orous forms  of  modern  art.  The  portrait- 
painter,  too,  is  producing  something  he 
knows  to  be  wanted,  and,  though  his  art 
has  had  to  iight  against  the  competition 
of  the  photograph,  and  has  been  partially 
vulgarized  by  the  struggle  of  the  exhibi- 
tions, it  has  yet  remained,  upon  the  whole, 
comprehensible  and  human ;  so  that  much 
of  the  soundest  art  of  the  past  century  has 
gone  into  portraiture.  It  is  the  painters  of 
pictures,  landscape  or  genre,  who  have 
most  suffered  from  the  misunderstand- 
ing between  artist  and  public.  Without 
guidance  some  of  them  have  hewed  a  path 
to  deserved  success.  Others  have  wan- 
dered into  strange  byways  and  no-thor- 
oughfares. 

The  nineteenth  century  is  strewn  with 
the  wrecks  of  such  misunderstood  and 
misunderstanding  artists,  but  it  was  about 
the  sixties  when  their  searching  for  a  way 
began  to  lead  them  in  certain  clearly 
marked  directions.  There  are  three  paths, 
in  especial,  which  have  been  followed  since 
then  by  adventurous  spirits:  the  paths 
of  asstheticism,  of  scientific  naturalism, 
and  of  pure  self-expression;  the  paths  of 
Whistler,  of  Monet,  and  of  Cezanne. 

Whistler  was  an  artist  of  refined  and 
delicate  talent  with  great  weaknesses 
both  in  temperament  and  training;  being 
also  a  very  clever  man  and  a  brilliant  con- 
troversialist he  proceeded  to  erect  a  the- 
ory which  should  prove  his  weaknesses  to 
be  so  many  virtues,  and  he  nearly  suc- 
ceeded in  convincing  the  world  of  its  va- 
lidity. Finding  the  representation  of  na- 
ture very  difhcult,  he  decided  that  art 
should  not  concern  itself  with  representa- 
tion but  only  with  the  creation  of  "ar- 
rangements" and '' symphonies."  Having 
no  interest  in  the  subject  of  pictures,  he 
proclaimed  that  ])ictures  should  have  no 
subjects  and  that  any  interest  in  the  sub- 


ject is  vulgar.  As  he  was  a  cosmopolitan, 
with  no  local  ties,  he  maintained  that  art 
had  never  been  national;  and  as  he  was 
out  of  sympathy  with  his  time  he  taught 
that  "  art  happens  "  and  that  "  there  never 
was  an  artistic  period."  According  to 
the  Whistlerian  gospel  the  artist  not  only 
has  now  no  point  of  contact  with  the 
public,  but  he  should  not  have  and  never 
has  had  any.  He  has  never  been  a  man 
among  other  men,  but  has  been  a  dreamer 
''who  sat  at  home  with  the  women"  and 
made  pretty  patterns  of  line  and  color  be- 
cause they  pleased  him.  And  the  only 
business  of  the  public  is  to  accept  "in  si- 
lence" what  he  chooses  to  give  them. 

This  kind  of  rootless  art  he  practised. 
Some  of  the  patterns  he  produced  are  de- 
lightful, but  they  are  without  imagination, 
without  passion,  A\'ithout  joy  in  the  mate- 
rial and  visible  world — the  dainty  diver- 
sions of  a  dilletante.  One  is  glad  that  so 
gracefully  slender  an  art  should  exist,  but 
if  it  has  seemed  great  art  to  us  it  is  be- 
cause our  age  is  so  poor  in  anything  bet- 
ter— to  rank  its  creator  with  the  abound- 
ing masters  of  the  past  is  an  absurdity. 

In  their  efforts  to  escape  from  the  dead- 
alive  art  of  the  salon-picture,  Monet  and 
the  Impressionists  took  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent course.  The  gallery  painter's  per- 
functory treatment  of  subject  bored  them, 
and  they  abandoned  subject  almost  as  en- 
tirely as  Whistler  had  done.  The  sound, 
if  tame,  drawing  and  the  mediocre  paint- 
ing of  what  they  called  official  art  re- 
volted them  as  it  revolted  Whistler;  but 
while  he  nearly  suppressed  representation 
they  could  see  in  art  nothing  but  repre- 
sentation. They  wanted  to  make  that 
representation  truer,  and  they  tried  to 
work  a  revolution  in  art  by  the  scientific 
analysis  of  light  and  the  invention  of  a  new- 
method  of  laying  on  paint.  Instead  of 
joining  in  Whistler's  search  for  pure  pat- 
tern they  fixed  their  attention  on  facts 
alone,  or  rather  on  one  aspect  of  the  facts, 
and  in  their  occupation  w  ith  light  and  the 
manner  of  representing  it  they  abantloneii 
form  almost  as  comi)letely  as  they  had 
abandoned  significance  and  beauty. 

So  it  hapi)cncd  that  Monet  could  de- 
vote some  twenty  can\ases  to  the  study 
of  the  effects  of  light,  at  different  hours  of 
the  (lay,  upon  two  straw-stacks  in  his 
farmyard.     It  was  admirable  practice,  no 


51G 


Artist  and   Public 


doubt,  and  neither  scientific  analysis  nor 
the  study  of  technical  methods  is  to  be 
despised;  but  the  interest  of  the  public, 
after  all,  is  in  what  an  artist  does,  not  in 
how  he  learns  to  do  it.  The  twenty  can- 
vases together  formed  a  sort  of  demon- 
stration of  the  possibilities  of  different 
kinds  of  lighting.  Any  one  of  them, 
taken  singly,  is  but  a  portrait  of  two 
straw-stacks,  and  the  world  will  not  per- 
manently or  deeply  care  about  those 
straw-stacks.  The  study  of  light  is,  in 
itself,  no  more  an  exercise  of  the  artistic 
faculties  than  the  study  of  anatomy  or 
the  study  of  perspective;  and  while  Im- 
pressionism has  put  a  keener  edge  upon 
some  of  the  tools  of  the  artist  it  has  in- 
evitably failed  to  produce  a  school  of  art. 

After  Impressionism,  w^hat?  We  have 
no  name  for  it  but  Post-Impressionism. 
Such  men  as  Cezanne,  Gauguin,  Van 
Gogh,  recognized  the  sterility  of  Impres- 
sionism and  of  a  narrow  aestheticism, 
w^hile  they  shared  the  hatred  of  the  aes- 
thetes and  the  Impressionists  for  the  cur- 
rent art  of  the  salons.  No  more  than  the 
aesthetes  or  the  Impressionists  were  they 
conscious  of  any  social  or  universal  ideals 
that  demanded  expression.  The  aesthetes 
had  a  doctrine;  the  Impressionists  had  a 
method  and  a  technic.  The  Post-Im- 
pressionists had  nothing,  and  were  driven 
to  the  attempt  at  pure  self-expression — to 
the  exaltation  of  the  great  god  Whim. 
They  had  no  training,  they  recognized  no 
traditions,  they  spoke  to  no  public.  Each 
was  to  express,  as  he  thought  best,  what- 
ever he  happened  to  feel  or  to  think,  and 
to  invent,  as  he  went  along,  the  language 
in  which  he  should  express  it.  I  think 
some  of  these  men  had  the  elements  of 
genius  in  them,  and  might  have  done 
good  work;  but  their  task  was  a  heart- 
breaking and  a  hopeless  one.  An  art 
cannot  be  improvised,  and  an  artist  must 
have  some  other  guide  than  unregulated 
emotion.  The  path  they  entered  upon 
had  been  immemorially  marked  "  no  pass- 
ing": for  many  of  them  the  end  of  it  was 
suicide  or  the  madhouse. 

But  whatever  the  aberrations  of  these, 
the  true  Post-Impressionists — whatever 
the  ughness,  the  eccentricity,  or  the  moral 
dinginess  into  which  they  were  betrayed 
— I  believe  them  to  have  been  in  the 
main,  honest,  if  unbalanced  and  ill-regu- 


lated minds.  Whatever  their  errors  they 
paid  the  price  of  them  in  poverty,  in  neg- 
lect, in  death.  With  those  who  pretend 
to  be  their  descendants,  to-day,  the  case  is 
different;  they  are  not  paying  for  their 
eccentricity  or  their  madness,  they  are 
making  it  pay. 

The  enormous  engine  of  modern  pub- 
licity has  been  discovered  by  these  men. 
They  have  learned  to  advertise,  and  they 
have  found  that  morbidity,  eccentricity, 
indecency,  extremes  of  every  kind  and  of 
any  degree,  are  capital  advertisement.  If 
one  cannot  create  a  sound  and  living  art 
one  can  at  least  make  something  odd 
enough  to  be  talked  about;  if  one  cannot 
achieve  enduring  fame  one  may  make  sure 
of  a  flaming  notoriety.  And,  as  a  money- 
maker, present  notoriety  is  worth  more 
than  future  fame,  for  the  speculative 
dealer  is  at  hand.  His  interest  is  in 
''quick  returns"  and  he  has  no  wash  to 
wait  until  you  are  famous — or  dead — be- 
fore he  can  sell  anything  you  do.  His 
process  is  to  buy  anything  he  thinks 
he  can  ''boom,"  to  "boom"  it  as  furi- 
ously as  possible,  and  to  sell  it  before  the 
"boom"  collapses.  Then  he  will  exploit 
something  else,  and  there's  the  rub.  Once 
you  have  entered  this  mad  race  for  no- 
toriety there  is  no  drawing  out  of  it. 
The  same  sensation  will  not  attract  at- 
tention a  second  time;  you  must  be  novel 
at  any  cost.  You  must  exaggerate  your 
exaggerations  and  out-Herod  Herod,  for 
others  have  learned  how  easy  the  game  is 
to  play,  and  are  at  your  heels.  It  is  no 
longer  a  matter  of  misunderstanding  and 
being  misunderstood  by  the  public ;  it  is  a 
matter  of  deliberately  flouting  and  outrag- 
ing the  public — of  assuming  incomprehen- 
sibility and  antagonism  to  popular  feeling 
as  signs  of  greatness.  And  so  is  founded 
what  Frederic  Harrison  has  called  the 
"  Shock-your-grandmother  school." 

It  is  with  profound  regret  that  one 
must  name  as  the  founder  of  this  school 
an  artist  of  real  power  who  has  produced 
much  admirable  work — Auguste  Rodin. 
At  the  age  of  thirty-seven  he  attained  a 
sudden  and  resounding  notoriety,  and 
from  that  time  he  has  been  the  most 
talked-of  artist  in  Europe.  He  was  a  con- 
summate modeller,  a  magnificent  work- 
man, but  he  had  always  grave  faults  and 
striking  mannerisms.     These  faults  and 


Artist  and   Public 


or 


mannerisms  he  has  latterly  pushed  to 
greater  and  greater  extremes  while  neg- 
lecting his  great  gift,  each  work  being 
more  chaotic  and  fragmentary  in  compo- 
sition, more  hideous  in  type,  more  af- 
fected and  emptier  in  execution,  until  he 
has  produced  marvels  of  mushiness  and 
incoherence  hitherto  undreamed  of,  and 
has  set  up  as  public  monuments  fantas- 
tically mutilated  figures  with  broken  legs 
or  heads  knocked  off.  Now,  in  his  old 
age,  he  is  producing  shoals  of  drawings  the 
most  extraordinary  of  which  few  are  per- 
mitted to  see.  Some  selected  specimens 
of  them  hang  in  a  long  row  in  the  Metro- 
politan Museum,  and  I  assure  you,  upon 
my  word  as  a  life-long  student  of  drawing, 
they  are  ciuite  as  ugly  and  as  silly  as  they 
look.  There  is  not  a  touch  in  them  that 
has  any  truth  to  nature,  not  a  line  that 
has  real  beauty  or  expressiveness.  They 
represent  the  human  figure  with  the  struc- 
ture of  a  jellyfish  and  the  movement  of  a 
Dutch  doll;  the  human  face  wdth  an  ex- 
pression I  prefer  not  to  characterize.  If 
they  be  not  the  symptoms  of  mental  de- 
cay they  can  be  nothing  but  the  means  of 
a  gigantic  mystification. 

With  Henri  Matisse  we  have  not  to  de- 
plore the  deliquescence  of  a  great  talent, 
for  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  he  ever 
had  any.  It  is  true  that  his  admirers  will 
assure  you  he  could  once  draw  and  paint 
as  everybody  does;  what  he  could  not  do 
w^as  to  paint  enough  better  than  every- 
body does  to  make  his  mark  in  the  world; 
and  he  was  a  quite  undistinguished  person 
until  he  found  a  way  to  produce  some 
effect  upon  his  grandmother  the  public 
by  shocking  her  into  attention.  His 
method  is  to  choose  the  ugliest  models  to 
be  found;  to  put  them  into  the  most  gro- 
tesque and  indecent  postures  imagina- 
ble; to  draw  them  in  the  manner  of  a  sav- 
age or  a  depraved  child,  or  a  worse  manner 
if  that  be  possible;  to  surround  his  figures 
with  blue  outlines  half  an  inch  wide;  and 
to  paint  them  in  crude  and  staring  colors, 
brutally  laid  on  in  flat  masses.  Then, 
when  his  grandmother  begins  to  ''sit  up," 
she  is  told  with  a  grave  face  that  this  is  a 
reaction  from  naturalism,  a  revival  of 
a])stract  line  and  color,  a  subjective  art 
which  is  not  the  representation  of  nature 
but  the  expression  of  the  artist's  soul. 
No  wonder  she  gasps  and  stares! 


It  seemed,  two  or  three  years  ago,  that 
the  limit  of  mystification  had  been 
reached — that  this  comedy  of  errors 
could  not  be  carried  further;  but  human 
ingenuity  is  inexhaustible,  and  we  now 
have  whole  schools,  Cubists,  Futurists, 
and  the  like,  who  joyously  vie  with  each 
other  in  the  creation  of  incredible  pictures 
and  of  irreconcilable  and  incomprehensi- 
ble theories.  The  public  is  inclined  to 
lump  them  all  together  and,  so  far  as 
their  work  is  concerned,  the  public  is  not 
far  wrong;  yet  in  theory  Cubism  and  Fu- 
turism are  diametrically  opposed  to  each 
other.  It  is  not  easy  to  get  any  clear  con- 
ception of  the  doctrines  of  these  schools, 
but,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  understand 
them — and  I  have  taken  some  pains  to  do 
so — they  are  something  like  this: 

Cubism  is  static;  Futurism  is  kinetic. 
Cubism  deals  with  bulk;  Futurism  deals 
with  motion.  The  Cubist,  by  a  kind  of 
extension  of  Mr.  Berenson's  doctrine  of 
''tactile  values,'^  assumes  that  the  only 
character  of  objects  which  is  of  impor- 
tance to  the  artist  is  their  bulk  and  solidity 
— what  he  calls  their  ''volumes."  Now 
the  form  in  which  volume  is  most  easily  ap- 
prehended is  the  cube;  do  we  not  measure 
by  it  and  speak  of  the  cubic  contents  of 
anything?  The  inference  is  easy:  reduce 
all  objects  to  forms  which  can  be  bounded 
by  planes  and  defined  by  straight  lines 
and  angles;  make  their  cubic  contents 
measurable  to  the  eye;  transform  draw- 
ing into  a  burlesque  of  solid  geometry; 
and  you  have,  at  once,  attained  to  the 
highest  art.  The  Futurist,  on  the  other 
hand,  maintains  that  we  know  nothing 
but  that  things  are  in  flux.  Form,  solid- 
ity, weight,  are  illusions.  Nothing  exists 
but  motion.  E\erything  is  changing 
every  moment,  and  if  anything  were  still 
we  ourselves  are  changing.  It  is,  there- 
fore, absurd  to  give  fixed  boundaries  to 
anything  or  to  admit  of  any  fixed  rela- 
tions in  space.  If  you  are  trying  to 
record  your  impression  of  a  face  it  is  cer- 
tain that  by  the  time  you  have  done  one 
eye  the  other  eye  will  no  longer  be  where 
it  was — it  may  be  at  the  other  side  of  the 
room.  You  must  cut  nature  into  small 
l)its  and  shufile  them  alx)ut  wildly  if  you 
are  to  reproduce  what  we  really  see. 

Whate\er  its  extravagance,  Cubism  re- 
mains a  form  of  grai)hic  art.     However 


518 


Artist  and   Public 


pedantic  and  ridiculous  its  transformation 
of  drawing,  it  yet  recognizes  the  existence 
of  drawing.  Therefore,  to  the  Futurist, 
Cubism  is  reactionary.  What  difTerence 
does  it  make,  he  asks,  whether  you  draw 
a  head  round  or  square?  Why  draw  a 
head  at  all?  The  Futurist  denies  the 
fundamental  postulates  of  the  art  of 
painting.  Painting  has  always,  and  by 
definition,  represented  upon  a  surface  ob- 
jects supposed  to  lie  beyond  it  and  to  be 
seen  through  it.  Futurism  pretends  to 
place  the  spectator  inside  the  picture  and 
to  represent  things  around  him  or  behind 
him  as  w^ell  as  those  in  front  of  him. 
Painting  has  always  assumed,  the  single 
moment  of  Adsion,  and,  though  it  has 
sometimes  placed  more  than  one  picture 
on  the  same  canvas,  it  has  treated  each 
picture  as  seen  at  a  specific  instant  of 
time.  Futurism  attempts  systematically 
to  combine  the  past  and  the  future  with 
the  present,  as  if  all  the  pictures  in  a 
cinematograph  film  w^ere  to  be  printed 
one  over  the  other;  to  paint  no  instant 
but  to  represent  the  movement  of  time. 
It  aims  at  nothing  less  than  the  abroga- 
tion of  all  recognized  laws,  the  total  de- 
struction of  all  that  has  hitherto  passed 
for  art. 

Do  you  recall  the  story  of  the  man  who 
tried  to  count  a  litter  of  pigs,  but  gave  it 
up  because  one  little  pig  ran  about  so  fast 
that  he  could  not  be  counted?  One  finds 
oneself  in  somewhat  the  same  predicament 
when  one  tries  to  describe  these  ''new 
movements  "  in  art.  The  movement  is  so 
rapid  and  the  men  shift  their  ground  so 
quickly  that  there  is  no  telling  where  to 
find  them.  You  have  no  sooner  arrived 
at  some  notion  of  the  difference  between 
Cubism  and  Futurism  than  you  find  your 
Cubist  doing  things  that  are  both  Cubist 
and  Futurist,  or  neither  Cubist  nor  Fu- 
turist, according  as  you  look  at  them. 
You  find  things  made  up  of  geometrical 
figures  to  give  volume,  yet  with  all  the 
parts  many  times  repeated  to  give  mo- 
tion. You  find  things  that  have  neither 
bulk  nor  motion  but  look  like  nothing  so 
much  as  a  box  of  Chinese  tangrams  scat- 
tered on  a  table.  Finally,  you  have  as- 
semblages of  Hues  that  do  not  draw  any- 
thing, even  cubes  or  triangles ;  and  we  are 
assured  that  there  is  now  a  newest  school 
of  all,  called  Orphism,  which,  finding  still 


some  vestiges  of  intelligibility  in  any  as- 
semblage of  lines,  reduces  everything  to 
shapeless  blotches.  Probably  the  first  of 
Orphic  pictures  was  that  produced  by  the 
quite  authentic  donkey  who  was  induced 
to  smear  a  canvas  by  lashing  a  tail  duly 
dipped  in  paint.  It  was  given  a  title  as 
Orphic  as  the  painting,  was  accepted  by  a 
jury  anxious  to  find  new  forms  of  talent, 
and  was  hung  in  the  Salon  d^Automne. 

In  all  this  welter  of  preposterous  theo- 
ries there  is  but  one  thing  constant — one 
thing  on  which  all  these  theorists  are 
agreed.  It  is  that  all  this  strange  stuff  is 
symbolic,  and  shadows  forth  the  impres- 
sions and  emotions  of  the  artist;  repre- 
sents, not  nature,  but  his  feeling  about 
nature;  is  the  expression  of  his  mind  or, 
as  they  prefer  to  call  it,  his  soul.  It  may 
be  so.  All  art  is  symbolic;  images  are 
symbols;  words  are  symbols;  all  commu- 
nication is  by  symbols.  But  if  a  symbol 
is  to  serve  any  purpose  of  communication 
between  one  mind  and  another  it  must  be 
a  symbol  accepted  and  understood  by  both 
minds.  If  an  artist  is  to  choose  his  sym- 
bols to  suit  himself,  and  to  make  them 
mean  anything  he  chooses,  who  is  to  say 
what  he  means  or  whether  he  means  any- 
thing? If  a  man  were  to  rise  and  recite 
with  a  solemn  voice  words  like  "Ajakan 
maradak  tecor  sosthendi,"  would  you 
know  what  he  meant?  If  he  wished  you 
to  believe  that  these  symbols  express  the 
feeling  of  awe  caused  by  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  starry  heavens,  he  would  have 
to  tell  you  so  in  your  own  language;  and 
even  then  you  would  only  have  his  word 
for  it.  He  may  have  meant  them  to  ex- 
press that,  but  do  they?  The  apologists 
of  the  new  schools  are  continually  telling 
us  that  we  must  give  the  necessary  time 
and  thought  to  learn  the  language  of  these 
men  before  we  condemn  them.  Why 
should  we?  Why  should  they  not  learn 
the  universal  language  of  art?  It  is  they 
who  are  trying  to  say  something.  When 
they  have  learned  to  speak  that  language, 
and  have  convinced  us  that  they  have 
something  to  say  in  it  which  is  worth 
listening  to,  then,  and  not  till  then,  we 
may  consent  to  such  slight  modification 
of  it  as  may  fit  it  more  closely  to  their 
thought. 

If  these  gentlemen  really  believe  that 
their  capriciously  chosen  symbols  are  fit 


Artist  and  Public 


519 


vehicles  for  communication  with  others, 
why  do  they  fall  back  on  that  old,  old 
symbol,  the  written  word?  Why  do  they 
introduce,  in  the  ver^-  midst  of  a  design 
in  which  everything  else  is  dislocated,  a 
name  or  a  word  in  clear  Roman  letters? 
Or  why  do  they  give  their  pictures  titles, 
and,  lest  you  should  neglect  to  look  in  the 
catalogue,  print  the  title  quite  carefully 
and  legibly  in  the  corner  of  the  picture 
itself?  They  know  that  they  must  set 
you  to  hunting  for  their  announced  sub- 
ject or  you  would  not  look  twice  at  their 
puzzles. 

Now,  there  is  only  one  word  for  this  de- 
nial of  all  law,  this  insurrection  against 
all  custom  and  tradition,  this  assertion  of 
individual  license  without  discipline  and 
without  restraint;  and  that  word  is 
*' anarchy."  And,  as  we  know,  theoretic 
anarchy,  though  it  may  not  always  lead 
to  actual  violence,  is  a  doctrine  of  destruc- 
tion. It  is  so  in  art,  and  these  artistic 
anarchists  are  found  proclaiming  that  the 
public  will  never  understand  or  accept 
their  art  while  anything  remains  of  the  art 
of  the  past,  and  demanding  that  there- 
fore the  art  of  the  past  shall  be  destroyed. 
It  is  actual,  physical  destruction  of  pic- 
tures and  statues  that  they  call  for,  and  in 
Italy,  that  great  treasury  of  the  world's 
art,  has  been  raised  the  sinister  cry: 
*'Burn  the  museums!"  They  have  not 
yet  taken  to  the  torch,  but  if  they  were 
sincere  they  would  do  it;  for  their  doctrine 
calls  for  nothing  less  than  the  reduction  of 
mankind  to  a  state  of  primitive  savagery 
that  it  may  begin  again  at  the  beginning. 

Fortunately,  they  are  not  sincere. 
There  may  be  among  them  those  who 
honestly  believe  in  that  exaltation  of  the 
individual  and  that  revolt  against  all  law 
which  is  the  danger  of  our  age.  But,  for 
the  most  part,  if  they  have  broken  from 
the  fold  and  'Mike  sheep  have  gone 
astray"  they  have  shown  a  very  sheep- 
like disposition  to  follow  the  bell-wether. 
They  are  fond  of  quoting  a  saying  of  Van 
Gogh's  that  *'one  must  be  either  a  revo- 
lutionist or  a  plagiary";  but  can  any  one 
tell  these  revolutionists  apart?  Can  any 
one  distinguish  among  them  such  defmite 
and  logically  developed  personalities  as 
mark  even  schoolmen  and  *' plagiarists" 
like  Meissonier  and  Gerome?  If  any  one 
of  these  men  stood  alone,  one  might  be- 


lieve his  eccentricities  to  be  the  mark  of 
an  extreme  individuality;  one  cannot  be- 
lieve it  when  one  finds  the  same  eccentric- 
ities in  twenty  of  them. 

No,  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  unham- 
pered personal  development  that  young 
artists  are  joining  these  new  schools;  it  is 
because  they  are  offered  a  short  cut  to  a 
kind  of  success.  As  there  are  no  more 
laws  and  no  more  standards,  there  is  noth- 
ing to  learn.  The  merest  student  is  at 
once  set  upon  a  level  with  the  most  ex- 
perienced of  his  instructors,  and  boys  and 
girls  in  their  teens  are  hailed  as  masters. 
Art  is  at  last  made  easy,  and  there  are  no 
longer  any  pupils,  for  all  have  become 
teachers.  To  borrow  Doctor  Johnson's 
phrase,  "many  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren" could  produce  art  after  this  fash- 
ion; and  they  do. 

So  right  are  the  practitioners  of  this 
puerile  art  in  their  proclaimed  belief  that 
the  public  will  never  accept  it  while  any- 
thing else  exists,  that  one  might  be  willing 
to  treat  it  with  the  silent  contempt  it  de- 
serves were  it  not  for  the  efforts  of  certain 
critics  and  writers  for  the  press  to  con- 
vince us  that  it  ought  to  be  accepted. 
Some  of  these  men  seem  to  be  intimidated 
by  the  blunders  of  the  past.  Knowing 
that  contemporary  criticism  has  damned 
almost  every  true  artist  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  they  are  determined  not  to  be 
caught  napping;  and  they  join  in  shouts 
of  applause  as  each  new  harlequin  steps 
upon  the  stage.  They  forget  that  it  is  as 
dangerous  to  praise  ignorantly  as  to  blame 
unjustly,  and  that  the  railer  at  genius, 
though  he  may  seem  more  malevolent, 
will  scarce  appear  so  ridiculous  to  pos- 
terity as  the  dupe  of  the  mountebank. 
Others  of  them  are,  no  doubt,  honest  vic- 
tims of  that  illusion  of  progress  to  which 
we  are  all  more  or  less  subject — to  that  in- 
grained belief  that  all  evolution  is  upward 
and  that  the  latest  thing  must  necessarily 
be  the  best.  They  forget  that  the  same 
process  which  has  relieved  man  of  his  tail 
has  deprived  the  snake  of  his  legs  and  the 
kiwi  of  his  wings.  They  forget  that  art 
has  never  been  and  cannot  be  continu- 
ously progressive;  that  it  is  only  the  sci- 
ences connected  with  art  that  are  capable 
of  l)r()grcss;an(l  that  thc'TIcnria(lc"isnot 
a  greater  poem  than  the^DivineGomctly" 
because  Voltaire  has  learned  the  falsity  of 


520 


Her   r^riend, 


Sergeant 


John 


the  Ptolemaic  astronomy.  Finally,  these 
writers,  like  other  people,  desire  to  seem 
knowing  and  clever;  and  if  you  appear  to 
admire  \astly  what  no  one  else  under- 
stands you  pass  for  a  clever  man. 

I  have  looked  through  a  good  deal  of 
the  writings  of  these  "up-to-date"  critics 
in  the  effort  to  find  something  like  an  in- 
telligible argument  or  a  definite  state- 
ment of  belief.  I  have  found  nothing  but 
the  continual  repetition  of  the  assumption 
that  these  new  movements,  in  all  their 
varieties,  are  "  living  "  and  "  vital."  I  can 
find  no  grounds  stated  for  this  assumption 
and  can  suppose  only  that  what  is  chang- 
ing with  great  rapidity  is  conceived  to  be 
alive;  yet  I  know  nothing  more  produc- 
tive of  rapid  changes  than  putrefaction. 

Do  not  be  deceived.  This  is  not  vital 
art,  it  is  decadent  and  corrupt.  True  art 
has  always  been  the  expression  by  the  art- 
ist of  the  ideals  of  his  time  and  of  the 
world  in  which  he  lived — ideals  which 
were  his  own  because  he  was  a  part  of  that 
world.  A  living  and  healthy  art  never 
has  existed  and  never  can  exist  except 
through  the  mutual  understanding  and 
co-operation  of  the  artist  and  his  public. 
Art  is  made  for  man  and  has  a  social 
function  to  perform.     We  have  a  right 


to  "demand  that  it  shall  be  both  human 
and  humane;  that  it  shall  show  some  sym- 
pathy in  the  artist  with  our  thoughts  and 
our  feelings;  that  it  shall  interpret  our 
ideals  to  us  in  that  universal  language 
which  has  grown  up  in  the  course  of  ages. 
We  have  a  right  to  reject  with  pity  or  with 
scorn  the  stammerings  of  incompetence, 
the  babble  of  lunacy,  or  the  vaporing  of  im- 
posture. But  mutual  understanding  im- 
plies a  duty  on  the  part  of  the  public  as 
well  as  on  the  part  of  the  artist,  and  we 
must  give  as  well  as  take.  We  must  be  at 
the  pains  to  learn  something  of  the  lan- 
guage of  art  in  which  we  bid  the  artist 
speak.  If  we  would  have  beauty  from 
him  we  must  sympathize  with  his  aspira- 
tion for  beauty.  Above  all,  if  we  would 
have  him  interpret  for  us  our  ideals  we 
must  have  ideals  worthy  of  such  interpre- 
tation. Without  this  co-operation  on  our 
part  we  may  have  a  better  art  than  we 
deserve,  for  noble  artists  will  be  born,  and 
they  will  give  us  an  art  noble  in  its  es- 
sence, however  mutilated  and  shorn  of  its 
effectiveness  by  our  neglect.  It  is  only 
by  being  worthy  of  it  that  we  may  hope 
to  have  an  art  we  can  be  proud  of — an  art 
lofty  in  its  inspiration,  consummate  in  its 
achievement,  disciplined  in  its  strength. 


HER    FRIEND,    SERGEANT   JOHN 

By  Wolcott  LeClear  Beard 

Illustrations    by    F.C.     Yohn 


RIZZLED  and  gaunt,  Ser- 
geant John  Macnamara 
stood  well  within  the 
freight-shed  where  the  deep 
shadows  rendered  his 
speckless  khaki  uniform, 
with  the  gray  subsistence  chevrons  on  its 
sleeves,  all  but  invisible  to  any  one  glan- 
cing in  from  the  withering  glare  outside. 
San  Pablo,  a  typical  town  of  the  Mexi- 
can border,  seemed  to  have  drawn  its 
soiled  skirts  away  from  the  little  corru- 
gated-iron mission  church  as  though  in 
disapproval.  For  the  "tin  chapel,"  as  it 
was  irreverently  called,  squatted  in  the 
dust  by  itself,  and  a  scant  six  yards  from 


the  freight-house.  It  was  upon  this  tiny 
church  that  the  eyes  of  the  old  sergeant 
were  fixed. 

Few  spots,  in  or  about  the  town,  ordina- 
rily were  less  frequented  than  San  Pablo's 
only  house  of  worship,  but  now  the  place 
was  unprecedentedly  filled.  Ambulances, 
Dougherty  wagons,  and  saddled  horses 
from  the  army  post,  ten  miles  away,  stood 
under  its  shed.  Around  its  doors  lounged 
a  few  languidly  interested  spectators, 
Mexican  and  feminine  to  a  unit.  From 
within  came  the  sound  of  the  post  chap- 
lain's voice  as  it  droned  through  the 
prayers  of  the  marriage  service. 

Then  the  voice  ceased,  to  be  replaced 


Her  Friend,  Sergeant  John 


521 


by  the  sound  of  a  reed  organ,  suffering 
from  an  impediment  in  its  s])eech,  upon 
which  somebody  was  playing  the  Lohen- 
grin wedding  march.  There  was  a  flut- 
tering stir  and  a  hum  of  conversation. 
With  a  clack  and  a  linal  wheeze,  the 
organ  stopped  as  the  wedding  party,  con- 
sisting of  officers  and  their  womenkind, 
came  pouring  out  into  the  porch,  to  hold 
an  impromptu  reception  there. 

The  bride's  answers  to  the  noisy  well- 
wishing  of  those  who  crowded  about  her 
seemed  absent,  and  were  expressed  in  mono- 
syllables. Standing,  as  she  was,  on  a  step, 
her  handsome,  strong  face,  tanned  by  out- 
door sports,  could  be  seen  above  the  others. 
She  was  frowning,  and  her  eyes  wandered 
here  and  there  in  evident  search  of  some- 
thing w^hich  she  could  not  at  once  discern. 

The  old  sergeant  knew  that  it  was  he 
whom  her  eyes  sought.  For  an  instant 
his  face  lighted  with  joy,  and  involunta- 
rily he  came  forward,  so  that  he  stood 
framed  in  the  shadowed  doorway.  See- 
ing him  there,  she  smiled,  as  she  might 
have  smiled  upon  her  father  had  he  been 
living,  and  beckoned. 

Sergeant  John  lifted  his  campaign  hat 
in  response;  then,  as  her  husband  at- 
tracted her  attention  to  some  one  who 
spoke  to  her,  drifted  back  into  the  freight- 
shed  and  out  by  another  door,  so  passing 
from  her  sight.  He  knew  that  he  could 
not  for  long  keep  from  showing  the  great 
sadness  that  he  felt,  and  sadness  had  no 
place  near  her  at  such  a  time. 

The  rails  of  the  main  line  had  begun  to 
click,  and  a  black  speck  which  appeared 
between  them  seemed  to  force  them  apart 
where  the  distance  had  pinched  them  to- 
gether. A  minute  or  two  later  the  train 
stopped,  screaming  against  its  brakes. 

It  was  made  up,  for  the  most  part,  of 
tank  and  freight  cars,  intended  to  carry 
water,  food,  and  ammunition  to  new-made 
camps  along  the  Mexican  border.  But 
next  the  caboose  there  was  a  "tourist" 
sleeper,  loudly  vocal  with  the  songs  of  re- 
cruits on  the  way  to  join  their  commands, 
and  to  the  forward  end  of  the  train  a  pri- 
vate car  had  been  attached.  Into  this  the 
bridal  pair  was  escorted  by  their  chatter- 
ing friends,  as  Sergeant  John  could  hear, 
but  not  see. 

For,  when  the  train  was  slowing  up,  he 
had  swung  himself  into  a  freight-car, where 


he  made  a  couch  from  some  cases  of  canned 
corned  beef,  covered  with  his  blankets  and 
overcoat,  and  there  settled  himself  for  the 
coming  journey. 

Never  of  a  gregarious  nature,  he  now 
was  especially  anxious  to  be  alone.  The 
scheme  of  his  universe  had  been  torn  apart 
and  its  elements  scattered.  He  must 
think  it  all  out,  and  by  himself.  No  one 
could  help  him. 

It  was  the  wedding  that  had  brought  all 
this  about.  For  the  bride  was  !Miss  Alice 
— his  Miss  Alice. 

Captain  Leaming,  her  father  and 
Sergeant  Macnamara's  first  troop  com- 
mander, had  been  revered  by  him  above 
all  other  men.  They  had  gone  up  in  the 
service  together,  these  two,  each  in  his 
own  way.  Almost  of  an  age,  they  had 
become  very  interdependent,  as  the  years 
went  by;  trusted  and  trusting.  The  ser- 
geant had  known  Alice  since  and  before 
the  time  when  she  had  been  left  a  tiny, 
motherless  baby.  He  had  loved  her  as 
did  her  own  father,  and  with  an  additional 
love,  like  that  of  an  adoring  dog.  He  had 
even  been  known  to  neglect  certain  mili- 
tary duties  when  their  performance  would 
have  conflicted  with  what  he  chose  to  con- 
sider as  her  welfare.  Nothing  else  on 
earth  could  have  made  him  do  that. 

But  now  everything  had  changed.  Ser- 
geant John  had  gone  into  the  "chow"  de- 
partment. The  cavalry  never  had  been 
the  same  after  Captain — then  Colonel — 
Leaming  had  died.  Now  ^liss  Alice  was 
married,  and  to  Captain  Lionel  Crosslett. 
That  was  the  thing  so  hard  to  bear — to 
Captain  Lionel  Crosslett. 

Sergeant  John  wanted  to  be  fair.  Very 
hard  indeed  he  tried  to  analyze,  dispas- 
sionately and  without  prejudice,  his  rea- 
sons for  so  intensely  disliking  this  man, 
and  to  give  due  weight  to  his  merits. 

Captain  Crosslett,  despite  his  service, 
his  commission,  and  the  uniform  he  wore, 
was  and  always  must  remain  essentially  a 
civilian.  Never  would  he  be  able  to  fath- 
om the  hearts  of  his  men.  Never  could  he 
either  feel  or  inspire  that  strong  alTection 
which  may,  and  frequently  does,  exist  be- 
tween the  officer  and  his  enlisted  com- 
rade. He  could  not  even  understand  it. 
He  was  not  built  that  way.  That  was  the 
worst  that  could  be  said. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  man  undeniably 


522 


Her  Friend,  Sergeant  John 


was  fj^ood-lookins:.  He  was  no  fool;  his 
mind  was  e\en  brilliant.  The  sergeant 
could  not  but  own  that  in  civil  life,  where 
he  belonged,  the  man  might  have  been  tol- 
erable enough — to  civilians.  As  it  was  he 
generally  managed  to  secure  the  liking  of 
women. 

In  short,  the  old  non-commissioned  of- 
ficer found  that  his  attempt  to  formulate 
adequate  cause  for  his  disHke  was  a  failure. 
He  could  only  feel  it;  as  did  the  entire  en- 
listed force  and  many  of  the  officers. 

So  Sergeant  John  gave  up  the  attempt, 
and  instead  devoted  his  whole  mind  to  ex- 
pressing his  opinion  of  a  man  who  would 
willingly  take  his  bride  for  her  honeymoon 
to  such  a  camp  as  the  one  to  which  they 
were  bound.  Unconsciously  he  uttered 
this  opinion  in  time  with  a  monotonous 
sort  of  jig,  pounded  out  by  a  flat  wheel, 
to  which  the  cactus-dotted  desert  went 
dancing  by.  It  took  him  some  time,  and 
afforded  him  much  relief,  of  a  sort. 

Then,  just  as  he  had  finished,  the  train 
came  to  a  bumping  halt.  There  were 
shouts  and  a  blast  of  the  whistle.  A  very 
young  sergeant  of  infantry,  who  yet  was 
the  ranking  non-commissioned  officer  in 
charge  of  the  recruits  in  the  rear  car, 
dropped  to  the  ground  and  hurried  for- 
ward, yelling  questions  as  he  went. 

Somebody  answered  these  questions. 
Old  Sergeant  John  was  too  far  away  to  hear 
more  than  a  word  or  two  of  the  answers. 
But  those  words  made  him  buckle  on  a  car- 
tridge-belt that  he  had  laid  aside  and  feel 
to  make  sure  that  the  heavy,  blued  pistol 
was  resting  lightly  in  its  holster.  Then 
he  hailed  the  young  infantry  sergeant,  who 
was  returning  in  an  undecided  sort  of  way 
to  the  place  whence  he  had  come. 

"What'll  be  wrong,  Marrtin?"  he 
asked.     "  Thim  Mexikins?  " 

Sergeant  Martin  stopped,  frowning  per- 
plexedly, and  glad  to  have  the  opportu- 
nity of  obtaining  expert  advice.  An  ord- 
nance sergeant  from  the  car  behind  came 
forward  to  listen. 

"The  rails  is  pulled  up  just  beyond 
our  cowketcher,"  the  young  man  said. 
*'We  seen  it  only  jus'  in  time.  The 
Greasers  done  it,  of  course.  What'd  I 
better  do?" 

"Do!"  repeated  Sergeant  John.  "Do 
what  yer  arf'cers  tells  ye.     What  else?" 

"But  there  ain't  none,"  objected  the 


youngster.  "  He  missed  the  train,  I  guess. 
Anyhow,  he  was  lef  behind." 

None  of  the  three  thought  of  Captain 
Lionel  Crosslett,  there  in  that  private  car. 
No  slight  was  intended;  the  fact  of  his 
bearing  a  commission  never  crossed  their 
minds  at  this  time,  which  seemed  likely  to 
become  one  of  stress.  Yet  all  of  the  three, 
each  in  his  differing  degree,  were  disci- 
plined men. 

The  two  older  non-commissioned  offi- 
cers glanced  at  each  other  meaningly,  and 
Sergeant  John  had  turned  pale  under  his 
tan.  They  both  knew  the  sort  of  men  who 
had  taken  up  those  rails — offscourings  of 
Sonora,  they  were  outlawed  at  home  and 
posing  as  rebels  or  bandits  as  expediency 
dictated.  Governments  were  nothing  to 
them;  on  either  side  of  the  border  they 
would  be  hanged  promptly  and  deserved- 
ly, if  caught.  It  was  to  suppress  the  in- 
cursions of  such  bands  into  the  United 
States  that  the  border  camps  were  main- 
tained. 

The  three  sergeants  could  see  nothing  of 
what  went  on  at  the  head  of  the  long  train. 
It  lay  in  a  cut  around  a  sharp  curve.  Why 
didn't  it  back  out  of  such  a  bad  position 
and  on  to  the  open  plain?  That  is  what 
the  old  sergeant  wanted  to  know.  Then, 
as  though  in  answer  to  his  unspoken  ques- 
tion, a  man — one  of  the  train-hands — 
came  running  up  from  the  rear. 

"All  right?"  called  some  one. 

"They've  lifted  the  rails  behind  us, 
too,"  the  train-hand  replied.  "  I  can't  see 
hide  nor  hair  of  the  rails  nor  the  men  what 
took  'em — they  ain't  nowhere!" 

The  young  sergeant's  jaw  dropped. 
Old  Macnamara  turned  on  him  sharply. 

"  Get  thim  rookies  out  av  thot  cyar  an' 
inta  loine!"  he  rasped.  "Quick,  now! 
Hear?" 

"There  ain't  a  ca'tridge  in  th'  bunch, 
an' — "  Sergeant  Martin  began. 

"Dowhatye're  towld,  an'  do  ut  quick!" 
roared  Sergeant  John. 

He  had  not  the  slightest  right  to  give  a 
command  of  any  sort,  but  Martin  obeyed. 
Pouring  from  their  car,  excited  and  expect- 
ant, the  recruits  formed .  Already  the  ord- 
nance sergeant  was  busy — also  without 
authority — in  the  car  he  had  left,  and  in  a 
moment  two  sweating  corporals  were  serv- 
ing out  clips  of  cartridges  and  running 
back  for  fresh  armfuls. 


;_,      cs 


Vol.  1.V.-55 


523 


524 


Her  Friend,  Ser^^eant  John 


Toward  the  head  of  the  train,  where  lay 
the  ''honeymoon  special,"  as  Sergeant 
John  had  nientally  named  the pri\ate  car, 
men  already  were  hurrying,  all  armed  with 
the  heavy  army  six-shooter — department 
men,  like  the  old  sergeant  himself,  and 
civilian  clerks,  for  the  most  part,  with  a 
heavy  sprinkling  of  train-hands. 

At  a  run  which  many  a  younger  man 
might  well  have  envied,  Sergeant  John 
started  to  join  them.  Even  as  he  did  so 
there  came  a  chorus  of  shrill,  Mexican 
yells,  punctuated  by  the  sound  of  shots — 
the  sharp  crack  of  high-power  rifles,  and 
heavier  reports  made  by  the  black  powder 
burned  in  the  pistols. 

Hearing  this,  the  sergeant  ran  faster 
still ;  then  stopped  as  though  he  had  run 
against  a  physical  barrier,  as  he  heard  his 
name  called  from  he  knew  not  where.  But 
there  was  no  mistaking  the  voice.  The 
call  came  again. 

"  Sergeant  John !  Here — over  here!  Oh, 
Sergeant  Johnnie — come!" 

Then  Sergeant  John  saw  her — and  him. 
They  were  standing  on  the  edge  of  the 
curved  cut  in  which  the  train  had  stopped. 
Though  his  arm  had  been  thrown  around 
her  w^aist,  yet  she  seemed  the  protector — 
he  the  protected.  Running  to  the  edge  of 
the  bank,  Sergeant  John  held  out  his  arms 
to  her,  as  he  had  done  so  many  times  when 
she  was  a  child — and  not  very  long  before, 
as  he  reckoned  time. 

"Joomp!"  he  commanded. 

A  little  spirt  of  dust  flew  up  from  the 
ground,  close  by  her  feet,  and  the  rifle-ball 
which  had  caused  it  went  singing  away 
into  space,  as  a  glanced  bullet  will.  But 
the  eyes  of  Miss  Alice  were  on  her  hus- 
band, and  she  paid  no  heed  either  to  it  or 
the  command. 

"Help  him  down!"  she  demanded. 
''He's  ill— can't  you  see?" 

Then  for  the  first  time  Sergeant  John 
glanced  at  the  bridegroom.  His  face  was 
white,  and  not  with  a  healthy  pallor,  but 
with  the  ghastly  white  of  a  fish-belly.  He 
swayed  as  he  stood,  and  his  knees  seemed 
hardly  able  to  support  him. 

Two  more  bullets  sung  by  with  their 
high-pitched,  hornet-like  note.  With  an 
effort  Captain  Crosslett  gathered  his 
strength,  and  swinging  his  wife  over  the 
edge  of  the  bank,  dropped  her  and  fol- 
lowed.   Still  on  her  feet  and  balancing 


herself  with  her  arms,  she  slid  to  the  bot- 
tom, a  miniature  avalanche  of  sand  fol- 
lowing her.  Her  husband  fell  into  the 
ditch  like  a  half-empty  sack  and  lay  there, 
a  mere  huddle  of  clothes.  She  bent  over 
him,  but  he  weakly  pushed  her  away. 

"Sergeant,"  he  gasped,  "take  her — 
quick — and  put  her  in  a  safe  spot,  if  there 
is  one.     I'm  all  right." 

Sergeant  John  nodded,  and  without 
waiting  for  her  consent  lifted  her  in  his 
arms.  For  the  moment  there  was  no 
safer  spot  than  that  upon  which  they 
were,  but  it  would  not  be  safe  for  long,  he 
knew.  Running  to  the  car  he  had  left,  he 
placed  her  in  it  and  vaulted  after.  Then 
he  laid  her  in  a  little  alleyway  formed  by 
boxes  of  tinned  stufT. 

"  Will  ye  stay  here, now?  "hedemanded. 

"Send  him  to  me!"  she  begged.  "He's 
not  fit  to  be  out  there.  And  anyway  he's 
not  in  charge  of  those  recruits — they're  in- 
fantrymen." 

"He'sth'  only  arf'cer  we  have,  darlint," 
he  said,  in  gentle  reproof. 

Another  bullet  whined  through  one  open 
door  and  out  of  the  opposite  one.  Drop- 
ping her  face  on  her  hands  as  she  lay  on 
the  old  sergeant's  blankets,  Alice  began 
to  cry  softly,  but  with  great,  shuddering 
sobs  which  racked  her  strong  young  body 
almost  as  though  they  would  tear  it  apart. 
A  keen  pang  of  resentment  shot  through 
the  old  man's  heart  at  the  thought  of 
Lionel  Crosslett  having  won  such  love 
from  this  woman — when  there  were  so 
many  others  in  the  world. 

Then  he  took  himself  severely  to  task. 
Probably  it  was  her  sobs  which  caused 
him  to  do  this;  he  never,  even  in  her  child- 
hood days,  could  resist  those.  And,  after 
all,  she  could  not  be  blamed.  The  man 
was  her  husband,  wedded  not  three  hours 
before.  He  was  ill,  too,  and,  in  spite  of 
that,  trying  to  do  his  duty. 

"  Annyhow,  'twill  be  no  more  than  a  bit 
av  a  skirmish,"  he  ventured,  with  awk- 
ward sympathy.  She  raised  her  head  an- 
grily. 

"What  do  I  care  whether  it's  a  little 
battle  or  a  big  one ! "  she  cried.  "  It's  war 
— and  men  are  killed  in  war!  I  hate  it — 
hate  it!  I  never  dreamed  until  now  that  I 
could  hate  so!" 

She  dropped  her  face  once  more  and 
lay  there  trembling,  though  her  sobs  were 


Her  F'riencl,  Sergeant  John 


525 


stilled.     At  that  moment  the  voice  of  Ser- 
geant Martin  barked  out  crisp  commands. 

''Load!" 

The  breech-blocks  snapped  and  rattled. 


"Go  to  him,  Sergeant  Johnniel  Go  to 
him!  Take  care  of  him  and  bring  him 
back  to  me  I"  she  cried.  ''Bring  him  back 
safe  to  me!     I  shall  die  if  you  don't — I'll 


She  clasped  one  of  his  arms  in  both  her  liaiids.      "  Go  to  him,  Sergeant  Johnnie  ! 

Go  to  him  !  " 


"As  skirmishers — on  centre  squad — 
forward — double  time — march!''' 

The  recruits  yelled  as  they  sprang  for- 
ward. Turning  very  quickly,  Sergeant 
John  would  have  left  the  car,  but  his  Miss 
Alice  was  quicker  still.  Flinging  herself 
upward,  she  clasped  one  of  his  arms  in 
both  her  hands. 


go  and  die  out  there — with  him  I   So  prom- 
ise me — now  I" 

Sergeant  John  looked  at  her  in  amaze- 
ment. This  was  a  new  Miss  Alice.  Never 
had  he  known  her  in  this  guise.  Never 
had  he  dreamed  that  any  voice  could  ex- 
press the  agonized,  vibrant  earnestness 
that  hers  had  done.     But  she  had  com- 


520 


Her  Friend,  Sergeant  John 


manded.  Far  might  it  be  from  him  to 
begin  at  tliis  hite  day  to  deny  due  obedi- 
ence. With  ckimsy  tenderness  he  tried  to 
unchisp  her  hands. 

'•  I'\iith.  I'll  do  me  best,  honey,"  he  said. 
Her  hands  fell  away  instantly,  and  he 
leaped  to  the  ground. 

The  bullets  were  coming  more  thickly 
now,  for  already  the  skirmish-line  had 
reached  the  top  of  the  bank.  Behind 
them  Captain  Crosslett  scrambled  weakly 
in  a  vain  attempt  to  overtake  the  men  and 
gain  his  place  at  their  head.  But  he  did 
gain  the  crest  of  the  bank  and  passed  be- 
yond it. 

''Th'  capt'in  is  wake,"  said  Sergeant 
John,  trotting  alongside.  "Will  he  take 
me  arrm?" 

''Thanks,  sergeant — no,"  panted  the 
officer.  'I'm  all— right.  I'll— be— able 
to " 

The  crashing  blast  of  a  volley  came  from 
the  far  side  of  a  little  rise,  a  mere  wrinkle 
in  the  desert's  hot,  dry  face.  The  swift, 
irregular  rattle  of  shots  fired  at  will  fol- 
lowed it.  The  air  became  resonant  with 
the  venomous  song  of  the  bullets. 

The  skirmish-line  stopped,  hesitated, 
and  stood  fast.  Mexicans  are  vile  shots 
as  a  class,  yet  three  of  the  recruits 
dropped,  one  of  them  screaming  horridly. 
Despite  the  efforts  of  the  non-commis- 
sioned officers  to  stop  them,  their  com- 
rades began  to  fire  wildly,  though  noth- 
ing of  the  enemy,  save  now  and  then  the 
pointed  crown  of  a  sombrero,  could  be 
seen. 

They  were  good  boys,  those  recruits, 
thought  Sergeant  John,  otherwise  they 
would  not  stand  as  they  were  doing.  He 
hated  those  men  behind  the  sand-hill  with 
a  personal  and  deadly  hatred.  Picking 
up  the  rifle  dropped  by  one  of  the  wounded 
he  fired  at  a  head  which  appeared  for  an 
instant,  and  the  head  vanished,  leaving 
its  heavy  sombrero  to  roll  down  until  it 
settled,  nearly  half-way  to  the  line  of  the 
Americans.  This  heartened  the  inexperi- 
enced boys,  as  little  things  sometimes  will. 
They  laughed. 

"Now's  th'  toime,  Marrtin!"  shouted 
old  Sergeant  John.  "  Give  'em  th'  bay'nit ! 
Lave  our  lads  git  a  lick  at  thim — they'll 
niver  stand  th'  cowld  steel!" 

As  he  turned,  in  order  to  speak,  his  eye 
fell  once  more  upon  Miss  Alice's  husband, 


and  his  promise  to  her,  for  the  moment 
forgotten,  recurred  to  his  mind. 

The  man  was  ill;  there  could  be  no 
doubt  as  to  that.  Ghastly  though  his 
face  had  been  before,  now  it  was  terrible. 
Dripping  with  sweat,  drawn,  and  unspeak- 
ably haggard,  it  was  the  face  of  one  who 
has  been  through  torments  such  as  men 
fear  in  the  hereafter.  And  then,  with  a 
sickening  sense  of  pity.  Sergeant  John  rec- 
ognized the  disease.  He  had  seen  it  once 
before  and  only  once,  for  it  is  not  common, 
fortunately.  But  having  seen  it,  one  does 
not  forget. 

For  it  was  fear  that  he  saw^not  cow- 
ardice— fear.  The  awful,  uncontrollable 
fear  innocently  implanted  by  a  mother  in 
the  mind  of  her  unborn  child,  there  to  re- 
main, probably  unsuspected  by  the  child 
itself,  until  circumstances  bring  it  forth. 
So,  to  the  satisfaction  of  Sergeant  John, 
his  old  repugnance  now  had  explained  it- 
self. At  the  same  time  it  vanished,  for 
the  sergeant  saw  that  the  husband  of  Miss 
Alice  was  fighting,with  the  whole  strength 
of  his  being,  for  the  manhood  which  should 
have  been  his  birthright. 

Martin  had  not  ordered  the  charge  so 
warmly  recommended  by  Sergeant  John. 
The  recruits  were  untried,  and  he  had  hes- 
itated until  the  psychological  moment  had 
passed.  But,  driven  by  desperation,  the 
Mexican  bandits  had  taken  the  offensive. 
With  shrill  screams  of  self-encouragement 
they  sprang  to  their  feet  and  came  rushing 
down  the  gentle  slope.  In  their  surprise 
the  recruits  gave  back.  It  was  only  for  a 
moment,  to  be  sure,  before  their  non-com- 
missioned officers  had  steadied  them  again. 
But  for  poor  Crosslett  that  moment  was 
too  much.     Shrieking,  he  turned  and  fled. 

With  devout  thanks  to  the  powers  that 
rule  such  things.  Sergeant  John  realized 
that  none  but  he  had  seen  this  act.  He 
was  thinking  only  of  Miss  Alice  now,  and 
thinking  with  a  swiftness  until  then  un- 
known even  to  his  quick,  Celtic  mind. 

Well  the  old  sergeant  knew  what  the 
realization  of  this  terrible  weakness  would 
mean  to  this  new-wed  wife — a  soldier's 
daughter,  born  and  bred  in  the  service. 
Better  by  far  her  lifelong  mourning  for  a 
first  and  perfect  love  than  that  this  should 
occur.  Yet  that  realization  was  reaching 
her  as  fast  as  a  fear-crazed  man  could  run. 

It  was  a  matter  of  seconds  now.      Ser- 


Her  Friend,  Sergeant  Jolin 


o2/ 


geant  John  threw  the  rifle  to  his  shoulder, 
and  almost  of  their  own  accord  the  sights 
ranged  themselves  into  line  with  the  head 
of  the  fleeing  man.  Then  another  thought 
stayed  the  tightening  grip  of  his  trigger- 
hand. 

It  was  not  a  new  thought,  but  he  had 
forgotten  it — that  in  civil  life  this  man 


He  stopped  all  chance  of  possibly  fatal 
bleeding  by  means  of  an  improvised  tour- 
ni(|uet  made  of  a  bandanna  and  the  clean- 
ing rod.  He  had  flnished  his  task  and 
was  rising  when  he  was  struck  in  the  back 
with  a  blow  like  one  which  a  club  might 
ha\e  made.  Sergeant  John  knew  what 
it  was.     He  had  felt  bullets  before. 


*5t/VH^' 


So  the  muzzle  dropped  a  little  and  the  rifle  spoke. 


still  could  find  his  place;  that  he  would 
give  happiness  to  the  woman  who  loved 
him;  that  he  might  live  respected,  and 
at  his  death  be  mourned  decently  by  others 
as  well  as  she.  And  all  of  this  was,  after 
all,  what  a  woman  lived  for. 

So  the  muzzle  dro])])ed  a  little  and  the 
rifle  spoke.  The  husband  of  Miss  Alice 
went  headlong  with  a  bullet  neatly  placed 
through  the  exact  centre  of  a  knee-joint. 

The  man  w^as  senseless  when  Sergeant 
John  reached  him.  There  was  blood  on 
his  head,  but  that  did  not  matter;  it 
had  struck  on  a  jagged  fragment  of  "  mal- 
pai"  rock  as  he  fell.  It  was  the  bullet 
wound  to  which  the  sergeant  gave  his  at- 
tention. 


"Lungs,"  he  said  thickly  to  himself. 
''Still  ther's  enough  o'  me  left  so's  I  can 
finish  ut.  So  she'll  not  foind  out — an' 
most  loike he'll  not  remimber- glory  bel" 

Drawing  his  [)istol  Sergeant  John  tired 
a  shot  into  the  sand,  glanced  furtively 
around  to  see  that  he  was  not  observed, 
and  then  ])lacing  the  weapon  in  Crosslett's 
hand,  closed  his  Angers  around  it.  He 
felt  no  ])ain,  but  he  was  very  weary  when 
he  had  done  ibis.  It  had  j^roved  to  be 
une.\])ecte(lly  hard  work.  So  he  lay  down, 
his  head  pillowed  on  his  arm.  The  sound 
of  the  si)uttering  shots  grew  fainter,  and 
linally  ceased  as  a  rocking  sea  of  oblivit)n 
seemed  to  bear  him  gently  and  restfully 
away. 


Draitni  by  F.  C.   Yohii. 

It  was  very  hard  for  him  to  speak  now,  his  breath  was  so  short. — Page  529. 

528 


Her  Friend,   Ser^^eant  John 


529 


Then,  how  lon^];  afterward  he  had  no 
idea,  he  felt  a  sharp  prick  in  his  arm,  and 
heard  the  voice  of  the  old  post  surgeon. 

''He'll  probably  recognize  you,  Alice," 
the  doctor  was  saying.  "  Don't  count  on 
it,  though.  And,  anyway,  it'll  only  be  for 
a  minute  or  two — merely  forcing  the  last 
rally." 

Perfectly  well  Sergeant  John  understood 
what  was  said.  He  had  heard  that  sort  of 
thing  many  times  before  when  standing 
by  the  recumbent  form  of  some  comrade. 
And  now  it  was  his  turn.  Well,  it  was 
about  time,  he  supposed.  But  he  was 
glad  that  he  could  feel  a  little  new  strength 
flowing  through  his  veins,  beginning  at 
that  i)rick  in  his  arm,  for  he  still  had  his 
task  to  finish. 

Something  warm  and  wet,  coming  from 
above,  fell  upon  his  cheek  and  was  quickly 
wiped  away.  Opening  his  eyes,  he  saw 
the  face  of  Miss  Alice,  as  she  bent  over 
him.  He  tried  to  speak,  but  could  not  be- 
cause his  lips  were  so  dry.  She  held  a  glass 
to  them.     He  drank  and  w^as  refreshed. 

''Don't  stop  here,  darlint,"  he  begged 
huskily.     "Thim  Mexikins " 

"They've  gone — all  gone,"  she  has- 
tened to  reassure  him.  "Three  troops 
came  from  the  post.  But  you  mustn't 
talk,  Sergeant  Johnnie;   it'll  hurt  you." 

"Nothin'U  hurrt  me  now.  How's  th' 
capt'in?" 

She  did  not  answer  at  once.  She  could 
not  trust  her  voice.  So  the  doctor  re- 
plied in  her  stead. 

"He'll  be  all  right.  Have  to  retire, 
though,  I  fear.  Stiff  leg,"  he  said,  and 
very  gruffly,  for  he  was  deeply  moved. 


"And  I'm  glad — glad  that  he'll  have  to 
leave!"  Miss  Alice  broke  forth  passion- 
ately. '*  I  couldn't  stand  the  army — after 
this.  \'()u  saved  him  for  me.  Sergeant 
Johnnie.  I  can't  thank  you  in  words  for 
a  thing  like  that,     liut " 

Here  her  treacherous  voice  became 
choked  and  Sergeant  John  took  prompt 
advantage  of  the  opportunity  to  speak. 

''Did  he  tell  ye  thot — about  me  savin' 
him?"  he  asked  eagerly. 

"No.  He  couldn't.  He  can't  remem- 
ber anything  that  hapj)ened,  just  at  that 
time.  Nothing  until  a  little  while  ago, 
since  his  head  was  hurt." 

Sergeant  John  smiled.  This  was  as  it 
should  be — as  he  hoped  it  might  be.  Res- 
olutely he  gathered  his  little  remaining 
strength. 

''  'Twas  him — what — thried  t'  save — 
me,"  he  gasped.  "He  tuk  me  gun — an' 
— got  the  man  what — shot  me." 

It  was  very  hard  for  him  to  speak 
now,  his  breath  was  so  short.  But  it  was 
worth  the  effort,  he  thought,  when  he  saw 
the  look  of  happy  pride  in  the  face  of  his 
Miss  Alice.  So  much  there  was  that 
some  of  it  actually  seemed  reflected  in  his 
own. 

"It  was  like  him  to  do  that,"  she  man- 
aged to  say. 

"It  was,"  he  agreed.  "He's  a — brave 
man.  An'  now — good-by.  Miss  Alice — 
darlint.     I'll  be  goin' " 

He  did  not  finish.  A  little  shudder 
passed  over  him,  and  then,  with  a  lie  on 
his  lips  and  a  great  joy  in  his  heart.  Ser- 
geant John  had  fared  forth  into  the  great 
unknown. 


k'jt't:'. 


7^  r-pY^-V^}^ 


!^^ 


\^: 


LINKS   UPON   READING  A 
GARDEN  ANNUAL 

By  Mildred   Howells 

Decoration    hv    the    Autiior 


What  do  I  care  if  snows  drift  deep 
And  chill  the  north  wind  blow^s, 

When,  in  the  sheltered  room  I  keep, 
A  glorious  garden  grows? 

Free-flowering  Ramblers  climb  and  cling 
Immune  from  Bug  and  Blight, 

W^hile  from  the  floor  Show  Pansies  spring, 
As  big  as  saucers,  quite. 

Larkspurs  and  Phlox  their  standards  rear 
So  thick  with  flowers  no  room 

Is  left  for  leaves,  and  through  the  year 
Display  Continuous  Bloom. 


530 


'THE   POINT  OF   VIEW 


I 


rhe  Business  of 
Vlarriage 


AM  at  a  loss  to  understand  why  people 
hold  Miss  Austen's  novels  at  so  high  a 
rate,"  wrote  Emerson  in  1861,  ''which 
seem  to  me  vulgar  in  tone,  sterile  in  artistic 
invention,  imprisoned  in  the  wretched  con- 
ventions of  English  society,  without  genius, 
wit,  or  knowledge  of  the  world. 
Never  was  life  so  pinched  and  nar- 
row. The  one  problem  in  the  mind 
of  the  writer  in  both  the  stories  I  have  read, 
*  Persuasion'  and  'Pride  and  Prejudice,'  is 
marriageableness."  Now,  this  criticism, 
although  less  interested,  is  as  acidulous  as 
that  of  Charlotte  Bronte  in  her  letter  to 
George  Lewes:  "I  had  not  seen  'Pride  and 
Prejudice'  till  I  read  that  sentence  of  yours, 
and  then  I  got  the  book.  And  what  did  I 
find?  An  accurate,  daguerreotyped  portrait 
of  a  commonplace  face;  a  carefully  fenced, 
highly  cultivated  garden  with  neat  borders 
and  delicate  flowers;  but  no  glance  of  a 
bright,  vivid  physiognomy,  no  open  coun- 
try, no  fresh  air,  nd*blue  hill,  no  bonny  beck. 
I  should  hardly  like  to  live  w^ith  her  ladies 
and  gentlemen  in  their  elegant  but  confined 
houses."  So  the  authors  of  " Solitude"  and 
of  "Jane  Eyre"  on  the  author  of  "North- 
anger  Abbey."  While  the  essayist  chides 
Jane  for  her  vulgarity,  the  novelist  berates 
her  for  not  portraying  women  with  open 
country  and  blue  hills  in  their  vivid  physi- 
ognomies. Miss  Austen  could  have  written 
a  much  better  letter  exposing  the  crudities 
and  unrealities  of  Miss  Bronte's  fictions — 
had  she  ever  taken  it  into  her  head  to  do  so. 
We  have  her  novels  and  the  recently  pub- 
lished "Life  and  Letters,"  by  way  of  evi- 
dence on  this  point.  But  there  is  no  need  of 
belittling  "Jane  Eyre" — that  makes  good 
speed  on  the  road  leading  to  oblivion  with 
no  help  of  ours.  Who  can  read — or  who,  at 
least,  re-reads — Bronte  to-day?  Miss  Aus- 
ten's work  is,  as  Emerson  found  it,  con- 
cerned with  a  restricted  order  of  life;  but  it 
is  life.  The  other  lady's — but  why  persist? 
Yet  one  has  mixed  emotions  in  re-reading 
Jane  Austen  in  1914.  I  have  tried  the  ex- 
periment (so  far  as  "Pride  and  Prejudice" 
goes)  only  last  week;  and  I  read  the  book 
at  a  country  house  in  Pennsylvania  where 
Vol.  LV.— 56 


I  was  "resting"  in  a  very  literal  sense.  My 
amusements — sleeping,  eating,  drinking  tea 
with  the  neighbors,  sitting  before  the  fire 
with  the  terrier  and  a  pipe,  a  little  driving 
and  riding — brought  me  into  something  like 
the  simplicity  of  Jane  Austen's  own  Hamp- 
shire. True,  there  were  the  newspapers — 
the  telephone.  But  I  myself  used  neither; 
I  was  resting.  And  I  tried  to  imagine  I  was 
living  the  life  of  the  Bennet-Binglcy-Lucas 
countryside  in  Hertfordshire,  living  the 
simple  life,  as  Mr.  Bennet  hinted  at  it  in 
asking:  "For  what  do  we  live,  but  to  make 
sport  for  our  neighbors,  and  laugh  at  them 
in  our  turn?" 

Of  course  it  is  the  attitude  toward  mar- 
riage that  strikes  the  most  different  note 
of  all.  I  remember  Samuel  Butler  writing 
somewhere  of  the  practice  parents  occasion- 
ally use  in  asking  a  young  man.  Are  his 
intentions  "honorable"?  Many  a  young 
man  might  better  inquire,  he  continues, 
w^hen  he  innocently  accepts  the  hospitality 
of  a  matron  with  daughters,  "Are  your  in- 
tentions honorable,  madam?"  That  con- 
ceit would  have  appealed  to  Jane  Austen, 
too;  had  it  occurred  to  her  she  would  surely 
have  set  it  down  in  one  or  more  of  her 
novels.  Yet  the  idea  would  have  shocked 
Mrs.  Bennet  and  Lady  Lucas  beyond  belief. 
What  could  be  more  "honorable"  than  to 
steer  a  young  man  safely  toward  marriage 
with  a  fairly  proficient  young  woman  of 
virtue  who,  though  she  may  bring  no  dower, 
can  play  on  the  parlor  "instrument"?  It  is 
still  done,  in  this  year  of  grace;  in  Jane 
Austen's  day  it  was  an  impeccably  normal 
proceeding.  Mothers  not  only  did,  but  must 
arrange  these  matrimonial  events.  Other- 
wise, their  bringing  undowered  daughters 
into  the  world  was  cruelty  indeed.  Consider 
Charlotte  Lucas's  state  of  mind  in  captur- 
ing William  Collins,  the  reverend  cousin  of 
Elizabeth  Bennet  whom  that  sprightly  spirit 
presumed  to  turn  down  cold! 

"The  lady  felt  no  inclination  to  trille  with 
his  happiness.  The  stupidity  with  which 
he  was  favored  by  nature  must  guard  his 
courtship  from  any  charm  that  could  make 
a  woman  wish  for  its  continuance;  and  Miss 

531 


532 


Tlic   Point  of  View 


Lucas,  who  accepted  him  solely  from  the 
pure  and  disinterested  desire  of  an  estab- 
lishment, cared  not  how  soon  that  establish- 
ment was  gained.  .  .  .  Her  reflections  were 
in  general  satisfactory.  Mr.  Collins,  to  be 
sure,  was  neither  sensible  nor  agreeable; 
his  society  was  irksome,  and  his  attachment 
to  her  must  be  imaginary.  Btit  still  he 
lioiild  he  her  husband.  Without  thinking 
highly  either  of  men  or  of  matrimony,  mar- 
riage had  always  been  her  object;  it  was 
the  only  honorable  provision  for  w^ell- 
educated  young  women  of  small  fortune, 
and,  however  uncertain  of  giving  happiness, 
must  be  their  pleasantest  preservative  from 
want.  This  preservative  she  had  now  ob- 
tained; and  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven, 
without  having  ever  been  handsome,  she 
felt  all  the  good  luck  of  it." 

Here  is  satire — yet  the  author  is  much 
less  satirical,  much  more  nearly  repertorial, 
than  one  might  carelessly  suppose.  And 
certainly  ''well-educated  young  women  of 
small  fortune"  are  fortunate  to-day  in  hav- 
ing vouchsafed  several  other  "preserva- 
tives against  want"  than  the  protection  of 
William  Collinses.  Moreover,  it  was  not 
only  the  fiscal  aspect  of  the  case  that  tended 
to  produce  these  stodgy  unions.  Marriage 
w'as  one  way  of  ending  a  boresome  desoeuvre- 
ment — or,  rather,  substituting  a  different 
and  more  respectable  order  of  ennui.  To- 
day "well-educated  young  women,"  who 
find  themselves  placed  like  Charlotte  Lucas, 
can  take  up  what  they  vaguely  call  "social 
work."  They  are  to  be  congratulated  upon 
the  fact  that  they  escape  perjury,  at  least, 
in  entering  on  this  career. 

But  chiefly  it  is  the  bachelor  who  is  to 
be  congratulated.  Of  course,  he  is  still 
fair  game.  He  is  still  likely  to  find  that 
the  "advanced"  young  female  who  has  wel- 
comed him  into  disinterested  and  "intel- 
lectual" good-fellowship  ends  by  regarding 
him  as  her  own  property — quite  as  if  she 
were  of  the  bourgeoisie  instead  of  following 
the  convention-free,  earn-your-own-living 
and  live-your-own-life  career  of  our  big 
cities.  He  is  still  appraised  by  the  mothers 
of  those  of  his  girl  friends  who  are  still  old- 
fashioned  enough  to  live  at  home;  he  is 
encouraged  by  these  mothers  (or  discour- 
aged, as  the  case  may  be) ;  he  may  even  dis- 
cover that  the  girl's  father  has  been  making 
discreet  inquiries  about  him  down-town, 
with  a  view  to  sizing  up  his  prospects.    But 


we  are  a  good  ways  removed  from  the  un- 
complica4ed  state  of  society  reflected  in 
Jane  Austen's  novels — when  it  was  "a  truth 
universally  acknowledged,  that  a  single  man 
in  possession  of  a  good  fortune  must  be 
in  want  of  a  wife" — so  much  so,  indeed, 
"that  he  is  regarded  as  the  rightful  prop- 
erty" of  one  of  his  neighbor's  daughters. 
I  wonder  if  the  type  of  Lovelace  was  not 
fairly  directly  developed  by  the  schemings 
and  plottings  of  eighteenth-century  mater- 
nity? The  attractive  young  bachelor  felt 
himself  preyed  upon  by  matrons  richer  in 
daughters  than  in  dots.  "Very  well,  then," 
said  the  young  rake  to  himself, ""  they  regard 
me  as  fair  game — why  should  /  not  regard 
the  fair  as  my  game?" 

All  is  freer  to-day — for  maid  and  bachelor 
alike.  We  try  to  conceal  the  fact  that  man 
is  the  marrying  animal,  and  make  believe 
that  dancing  and  dinner-parties  and  the 
way  of  a  maid  with  a  man  all  stand  on  their 
own  legs,  and  have  no  ulterior  purposes. 
But  under  all  the  disguises,  peeping  through 
every  subterfuge,  the  fact  is  there:  Man  is 
the  marrying  animal;  man  proposes,  but 
mother  or  maid  disposes.  .  .  .  Progress  we 
make,  but  human  nature  is  human  nature 
still.  And,  sitting  before  the  fire,  I  pull  the 
terrier's  ears  and  reflect  that  Jane  Austen, 
living  to-day,  would  see  through  many  of 
our  modern  make-believes,  and  that  she 
would  write  another  "Pride  and  Prejudice"; 
and  that  in  it  Elizabeth  Bennet  would  as 
surely  say:  "I  dearly  love  a  laugh." 


SUN-WORSHIPPERS,  I  believe,  look 
upon  each  rising  of  the  luminary  as  a 
fresh  miracle,  attributable  to  their 
own  piety  and  prayers.  Most  of  us  get,  now 
and  then,  a  sense  of  the  miraculous  in  com- 
mon life;  Tennyson  from  his  flower  in  the 
crannied  wall;  Kipling  from  almost 
any  mechanical  device.  To  me  the  pe°soa 
great  commonplace  miracle  is  the 
making  of  a  new  friend — making,  that  is,  in 
the  instantaneous  indubitable  manner  in 
which  it  ought  to  be  done.  A  great  deal  of 
attention  before  and  since  the  days  of  Juliet 
has  been  devoted  to  love  at  first  sight,  but 
friendship  at  first  sight — in  a  w^ay  a  more 
remarkable  phenomenon — has  been  strange- 
ly passed  over.  Yet  never  do  I  feel  more 
convinced  of  immortality,  never  am  I  more 
aware  of  spirits  directly  communicating  (or 


The   Point  of  View 


533 


rather  of  that  thing  for  which  the  nineteenth 
century,  afraid  of  the  Theistic  suggestion  of 
the  word  soul,  invented  the  term  "person- 
ahty")  than  I  am  when  I  behold  a  total 
stranger,  and  know  without  word  or  gesture 
that  we  are  going  to  be  friends. 

Not  only  do  we  know  that  we  are  going 
to  be  friends,  but  we  can  sometimes  tell 
what  kind  of  friends  we  shall  be.  The 
mother  of  a  large  family  tells  me  that  the 
instant  her. baby  is  put  into  her  arms  a 
definite  spiritual  relation  is  established  be- 
tween them,  which,  different  for  each  of  her 
children,  lasts  for  the  rest  of  her  life. 

So  between  grown-ups,  we  know,  or  we 
often  could  know,  if  we  tried  to  see,  the 
form  our  new  friendship  is  to  assume,  the 
qualities  within  us  which  are  to  be  most 
nourished,  and  the  parts  of  our  nature  which 
will  be  visited  least. 

Perhaps  these  evidences  of  the  way  in 
which  spirit  can  speak  to  spirit  are  even 
more  marked  in  those  cases,  in  history,  for 
instance,  where  our  own  egotism  is  not  in 
play.  We  have  all  heard  of  historical  per- 
sonages whose  names  seem  to  be  famous 
principally  because  of  the  extraordinary 
personal  power  that  they  exercised  over 
their  contemporaries.  John  Nicholson  was 
such  a  man.  Many  young  Englishmen  who 
went  out  to  India  in  the  first  half  of  the 
last  century  had  careers  as  active  as  his. 
What  makes  us  remember  him  so  peculiarly 
vividly  is  the  importance  that  the  men  of 
his  time  attached  to  his  advice  and  co- 
operation, or  even  to  seeing  him.  In  the 
memoirs  and  the  histories  and  the  private 
letters  of  the  day,  one  fact  will  always  be 
recorded — the  writer's  first  meeting  w^ith 
Nicholson.  We  have  a  great  mass  of  testi- 
mony, beginning  w^ith  the  native's  worship 
of  *'Nikalseyn"  and  ending  with  l.ord 
Roberts's  account  of  him,  to  convince  us  of 
the  high  power  of  this  man's  personality. 

Saint  Paul  must  have  had  the  same  power. 
Even  those  of  us  not  wholly  in  sympathy 
with  the  contributions  made  to  the  church's 
doctrine  by  him,  and  by  his  follower.  Saint 
Augustine,  can  feel  no  doubt  that  his  was  a 
spirit  that  won  instant  recognition  from  the 
most  unlikely  audiences.  His  story,  par- 
ticularly after  his  last  return  to  Jerusalem, 
is  the  story  of  the  triumph  of  a  strong  self- 
confident  nature  over  men  who  obviously 
had  all  the  material  advantages  of  the  situ- 
ation  in    their   own   hands.  •   The   Roman 


chief-captain  who  rescued  him  from  the 
mob,  Felix  Agrippa,  the  master  of  the  ship- 
wrecked vessel,  the  islanders  of  Melita,  all 
yielded,  and  yielded  without  question,  to 
Paul's  suggestions  or  commands.  Such  a 
psychological  view,  however,  is  so  far  from 
the  mind  of  the  devout  author  that  we  must 
re-read  the  story  carefully  to  see  the  truth. 


IT  happens  to  be  in  to-day's  paper,  but 
it  might  be  in  any  day's  paper,  and  par- 
ticularly in  the  reports  of  the  divorce 
courts,  as  it  is  in  this  instance.  There  are 
cases,  many  of  them,  in  which,  domestic  un- 
happiness  having  transpired  into  litigation, 
the  trodden  worm  will  turn  and 


"  Lessening  Your 
Denominator" 


submit  a  counter-aftidavit  which 
is  likely  to  carry  strange  illumina- 
tion. Said  the  trodden  worm  immediately 
in  question:  "To  judge  from  the  affidavits 
I  have  been  guilty  of  everything  under  the 
sun.  I  plead  guilty  to  but  one  crime,  and 
that  is  the  heinous  one  of  being  unable  to 
supply  my  wife  with  autos,  theatres,  late 
suppers,  and  everything  in  that  line  that 
goes  to  make  a  New  York  woman  happy." 

The  pathos  of  this  is  perhaps  weakened 
by  the  explicit  expression  of  it  which  follows 
in  the  mercenary  rhetoric  of  the  worm's  law- 
yer and  affidavit-maker:  ''Hopes  for  the 
future,  which  I  had  when  I  first  got  mar- 
ried, have  long  since  been  shattered."  After 
the  previous  revelation  that  might  perfectly 
have  been  left  to  go  without  saying.  And 
speaking  largely,  why  "  New  York  woman  "? 
The  aggregate  of  money  thrown  away  in  the 
manners  described  is  necessarily  greater  in 
New  York  than  in  other  cities,  purely  by 
dint  of  the  magnitude  of  the  "metropolis." 
But  the  per  capita  expenditure  upon  foolish- 
ness is  probably  no  greater  than  in  other 
cities,  and  certainly  the  tendency  to  extrava- 
gant and  silly  expenditure  is  no  greater. 
Silly  woman  of  New  Haven,  Atlanta,  Osh- 
kosh,  Peoria,  of  thee  the  fable  is  narrated, 
as  the  divorce  records  of  those  communities 
amply  prove.  It  was  in  fact  a  Minnea[)ol- 
itan  philosopher  and  "magnate"  who  said: 
"The  high  cost  of  living — you  mean  the 
cost  of  high  living." 

One  would  wish  for  a  course  of  the  phi- 
losophers to  be  inculcated  upon  silly  women, 
if  silly  women  ever  listened  to  philoso- 
phers. For  the  root  of  the  matter  is  that 
silly  women  insist  upon  expenditures  which 


534 


The  Point  of  View 


ruin  or  craze  or  deprave  their  husbands,  as 
the  case  may  be,  not  because  they  enjoy 
them,  but  because  other  people  do  them 
who  may  or  may  not  be  able  to  afford  them. 
"As  well  be  out  of  the  world  as  out  of  the 
fashion"  is  a  damnable  saying  which  is  in 
the  mouths  of  many  well-meaning  women, 
and  the  application  of  which  has  tragical 
results.  Here  the  good  Emerson  would  help 
the  silly  woman,  had  she  the  grace  to  lis- 
ten to  him.  "It  is  the  office  and  right  of 
the  intellect  to  make  and  not  take  its  esti- 
mate." She  might  plead  that  the  saying 
is  not  addressed  to  her,  she  having,  by 
hypothesis,  "pas  de  quoi."  But  only  con- 
sider what  a  Moloch  fashion  is  in  the  one 
article  of  clothes,  which  is  doubtless  the 
article  in  which  fashion-following  and  its 
parasites  of  millinery  and  mantua-making 
levy  their  heaviest  toll  upon  suffering  hu- 
manity. "Fashion,"  for  example,  meaning 
these  parasites  who  live  and  thrive  by  it,  de- 
crees that  no  woman  shall  appear  in  1914  in 
anything  which  she  might  have  worn  in  1913. 
As  interpreted  by  the  parasites,  this  means 
that  all  the  expenditure  of  last  year  on 
clothes  shall  go  to  the  scrap-heap  or  the  rag- 
bag this  year.  In  turn  this  means  the  de- 
struction of  what  Ruskin  calls  "lovely  and 
fantastic  dressing."  For  not  only  is  each 
successive  "style"  apt  to  be  uglier  and  more 
defiant  of  the  facts  of  human  anatomy  than 
its  predecessor,  but  in  the  case  of  all  but  a 
very  few  of  the  very  rich,  it  means  that  the 
victims  of  the  quick  changes,  instead  of  buy- 
ing rich  and  durable  fabrics  as  they  might 
if  the  changes  were  more  gradual,  are  fain 
to  content  themselves  with  cheap  and  sleazy 
imitations  of  the  real  thing.     To  mere  man, 


even  fashionable  man,  an  evening  coat  is  a 
thing  of  several  years  and  a  frock  coat  of  a 
lustrum.  Were  it  so  with  woman,  how  much 
better  dressed  our  dear  sisters — and  other 
kindred — would  be.  And  to  think  that  if 
fifty  women  of  "light  and  leading" — lead- 
ing of  fashions  among  other  things — in  the 
great  cities  of  the  United  States  got  together 
and  "  highly  resolved,"  they  might  put  a  stop 
to  this  monstrous,  extravagant,  and  tragical 
nonsense,  by  simply  declaring  that  they 
would  not  follow  the  quick  changes  of  the 
dressmakers  and  the  milliners,  but  would 
give  a  stability  to  the  fashions  for  women 
approaching  that  of  the  fashions 'for  men. 
In  truth,  it  is  "following  a  multitude 
to  do  evil"  that  is  responsible  for  so  many 
of  the  domestic  wrecks  which  are  mainly 
submerged,  but  of  which  one  occasionally 
emerges  to  the  surface,  like  that  which 
forms  the  text  of  these  remarks.  One  re- 
verts to  the  notion  of  the  society  of  an 
army  post,  where  a  number  of  refined  per- 
sons are  all  poor  together,  where  there  is  no 
competition  in  expenditure,  and  where  there 
is  as  much  enjoyment  as  can  be  had  in  civil- 
ian circles  for  ten  times  the  money.  It  is 
enough  to  make  one  wish  that  the  income 
tax  were  far  more  drastic.  There  is  a  phi- 
losopher, Carlyle,  to  whom  Matthew  Arnold 
denied  the  title  upon  the  ground  of  his  ab- 
juration of  happiness  as  "our  being's  end 
and  aim."  But  there  is  equal  sense  and 
value  in  the  maxim  of  "Sartor  Resartus"  to 
those  who  concur  in  the  abjuration  and  to 
those  who  reject  it.  "The  Fraction  of  Life 
can  be  increased  in  value  not  so  much  by 
increasing  your  Numerator  as  by  lessening 
your  Denominator." 


THE    FIELD    OF    ART 


CONSTANTIN  MEUNIER- 
APPRECIATION 


-AN 


S 


CULPTURE,"  says  Maurice  Maeter- 
linck, "should  be  the  most  peremp- 
tory   of    all    arts.      It    should    only 


moved  from  all  sculptural  coiuejjtion  to  be 
thought  of  as  a  model. 

Meunier  before  portraying  miners  and 
carriers,  puddlers  and  blacksmiths,  was 
their  friend:    he  knew  their  ditlicult  life  be- 


express  moments  extremely  rare  and  abso-  fore  analyzing  their  character;  hemadehim- 
lute,  unspeakably  beautiful,  of  life,  of  form,  self  familiar  with  their  thoughts,  with  their 
of  the  joys  and  the  sorrows  of  humanity,     hopes  and  with  their  sadness,  before  under- 


All  sculptured  move- 
ment which  is  not  of  a 
high  standard  is  a  per- 
manent crime,  inexcusa- 
ble. In  our  day,  Rodin 
and  Meunier,  the  one  in 
the  world  of  Passion,  the 
other  in  that  of  Labor, 
are  the  only  sculptors 
who  have  succeeded  in 
seizing  these  moments, 
these  sublime  move- 
ments." 

The  great  collection  of 
sculpture  and  paintings 
by  the  late  Constantin 
Meunier,  which  has  been 
brought  to  this  country 
by  the  Director  of  the 
Albright  Art  Gallery, 
Buffalo,  and  which  was 
opened  there  in  Novem- 
ber, is  thoroughly  repre- 
sentative of  the  artist 
and  will  reveal  to  the 
American  public  the 
grandeur  and  impor- 
tance of  the  work  of  the 
Belgian    master.     There 


The  Ancestor. 


taking  to  reproduce  their 
outline,  or  to  portray 
with  painful  exactitude 
their  attitudes.  He  was 
contented  to  live  among 
these  children  of  toil,  ac- 
companying them  by  the 
light  of  their  dim  lam[)s 
through  the  subterrane- 
an passages  of  the  mines. 
Often  he  stopped  to  gaze 
with  sympathetic  eyes  at 
the  old  blind  horses  be- 
longing to  the  mine,  see- 
ing in  them  the  dramatic 
symbol  of  the  destiny  of 
those  who  worked  with 
them. 

iMeunier,  like  ^lillet, 
derived  his  inspiration 
from  the  men  and 
women  who  work  with 
their  hands.  It  is  be- 
cause he  sought  this  type 
that  the  works  of  the 
two  masters  bear  such  an 
incontestable  likeness. 
The  insight  of  the  Bel- 
gian artist  into  the  char- 


are  many  great  painters  in  this  century,  but  acter  of  the   types  which  he  portrayed   is 

few  great  sculptors.     One  can  easily  count  most  profound.     Though  brutally  truthful, 

those  who  bring  to  the  art  of  the  sculptor  his  art  expresses  the  nobility  of  labor  in  a 

the  interest  of  a  new  vision,  the  form  of  a  way  that  recalls  the  work  of  the  great  Barbi- 

new  feeling.      'Fhe  art  of  Meunier  was  born  zon    master.     Millet    painteil    the    laborer, 

of  an  instinctive  sympathy  for  the  laborer,  but    C\)nstantin  Meunier  has  given  him  to 

Many  sculptors  have  been   born  of  the  sculpture;  has  made  him  known  to  the  world 

people,  but  with  the  exception  of  Meunier  through    his    realistic    productions,   immor- 

they  have  never  felt  the  desire  to  glorify  talized  him  in  bronze  and  in  stone, 
the  class  of  the  humble  in  the  different  do-         Meunier  is  the  reverse  of  a  psychologist, 

mains   of    their    industrial    activity.      This  One  could  better  class  his  work  as  social- 

probably  was  due  to  the  strength  of  Ihe  tra-  istic.      The  laborer  is  to  him   without   jht- 

dition  that  the  poor  laborer  is  tot)  far  re-  sonality.  without  peculiarity,  without  name. 
Vol.  LV.— 57  535 


The  Harvest. 


The  figures  resemble  each  other  in  the 
structure  of  the  body,  in  the  shape  of  the 
head,  and  in  the  features.  After  a  short 
time  they  become  confused  in  the  remem- 
brance and  resolve  themselves  into  one,  be- 
cause the  difference  of  age  and  dress  is  but 
slightly  indicated.  When  Meunier  individ- 
ualizes his  personages,  he  does  it  only  to 
accentuate  their  especial  trade  or  labor. 
One  recognizes  at  once  the  difference  be- 
tween the  blacksmith  and  the  glass-worker, 
the  miner  and  the  lighterman. 

The  work  of  Meunier  appears  to  us  to  de- 
pict the  definite  picture  of  generations  of 
labor  up  to  the  present  time.  It  is  the  per- 
fect presentation  of  the  eternal  struggle  of 
man  against  unconscious  power,  a  gigantic 
drama,  which  is  of  all  time,  but  which  in 
our  time  is,  perhaps,  seen  under  an  aspect 
even  more  tragic  than  in  past  epochs.  This 
double  character  of  eternity  and  actuality 
gives  to  his  work  a  strength  of  emotion  and 
a  representative  value  quite  unique.  It  is 
always  hazardous  and  a  little  useless  to  try 
to  foresee  the  admiration  of  the  future,  but 
surely  there  is  no  temerity  in  predicting  that 
Meunier  will  appear  to  future  generations 
as  the  most  characteristic  sculptor  of  his 
time,  and  as  having  had  the  originality  of 
loving  not  only  his  ennobling  work  but  the 
simple  subjects  of  his  choice.  In  spite  of 
536 


his  realism,  Meunier  sometimes  reaches  to 
such  grandeur  in  form,  to  such  ideality  in 
sentiment,  that  he  carries  us  back  to  the 
most  brilliant  epochs  in  art.  His  feeling 
for  the  typical  and  the  generic  in  some  of  his 
compositions  recalls  to  us  the  sublime  ab- 
straction of  Michael  Angelo. 

One  has  the  sensation  that  the  powerful 
gesture  of  the  "Burden  Bearer,"  the  bold, 
energetic,  and  reserved  attitude  of  the 
''Lighterman,"  are  as  symbolical  as  is  the 
divine  grace  of  "The  Victory  of  Samo- 
thrace"  or  the  quiet  strength  and  self-con- 
fidence of  the  figures  in  the  Parthenon. 
Emotion  that  is  not  theatrical  but  profound 
is  the  result  of  such  a  conscientious  concep- 
tion of  art.  It  seizes  us  before  each  of 
Meunier's  works,  notably  in  the  presence  of 
"La  Glebe"  (The  Soil),  "Le  Grisou"  (The 
Fire-damp),  and  above  all  "The  Head  of 
Christ."  The  heroic  bust  of  a  dying  miner 
with  its  tragic  pathos  reminds  one  of  "The 
Dying  Alexander,"  but  is  made  actual  by  the 
sympathetic  realism  of  the  modern  master. 
It  represents  the  deep  spirituality  which  dis- 
tinguishes Meunier's  work  in  general  togeth- 
er with  high  sculptural  achievement. 

Meunier's  great  monument — not  quite 
completed  at  the  time  of  his  death — con- 
sists of  four  reliefs  arranged  in  an  archi- 
tectural setting  and  forming  a  half-circle, 


Industry. 


with  five  figures  modelled  in  the  round 
placed  in  front  of  the  panels  separating  the 
reliefs  and  at  the  two  ends  of  the  semi- 
circle. The  four  reliefs  carved  in  stone  rep- 
resent four  phases  of  modern  industry — 
agriculture,  manufacture,  mining,  and 
commerce.  Agriculture  is  symbolized  by 
reapers  binding  sheaves,  manufacture  by  a 
group  of  glass-workers,  mining  by  men  at 
work  underground,  and  commerce  by  the 
unloading  of  a  ship's  cargo.  Thus  air  and 
fire,  earth  and  water,  are  made  the  back- 
ground for  the  forms  of  labor  appropriate 
to  each.  The  workmen  are  represented  half 
nude  and  the  play  of  their  hard  muscles  un- 
der the  skin  is  closely  differentiated  to  show 
the  degree  to  which  the  different  tasks  bring 
into  use  the  different  parts  of  the  body. 
In  this  instance,  as  in  many  others, 
Meunier  produced  more  than  one  version  of 
the  same  subject,  and  his  true  feeling  for  the 
exigencies  of  his  plan  led  him  in  each  case 
toward  a  more  monumental  treatment  with 
less  of  the  pictorial  quality  in  the  work  final- 
ly destined  for  the  monument  to  "Labor." 
He  relinquished  the  charming  delicacies  of 
light  and  shade  and  the  subtly  retreating 
I)lanes  for  a  large  and  bold  sim[)licily  that 
nevertheless  suggests  richness  of  substance 
and  a  sensitive  relation  between  the  differ- 
ent figures  and  their  background.     "The 


Sower"  is  a  statue  of  heroic  size,  the  original 
of  which  is  placed  on  the  pinnacle  of  the 
monument  to  "Labor."  With  triumphant 
gesture,  he  is  supposed  to  sow  the  ripe  grain 
which  will  nourish  the  generations  of  the 
future.  The  statue  is  the  symbol  of  the 
productiveness  of  work.  The  bronze  figures 
that  are  placed  in  front  of  the  panels  are 
also  heroically  conceived,  and  executed  with 
great  force  and  breadth  of  handling. 

The  statue  of  "  Maternity,"  which  was 
made  for  the  foot  of  the  monument  of 
"  Work,"  is  supposed  to  represent  the  mother 
of  men.  It  is  also  the  symbol  of  the  family  of 
the  workman  and  the  perpetuity  of  the  hu- 
man race.  It  is  the  mother  and  the  children 
who  should  profit  by  the  wheat  sown  by  the 
intense  labor  of  the  workman.  In  this  beau- 
tiful group  the  limbs  of  the  mother  out- 
stretched with  magnificent  freedom,  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  mass  formed  by  the  three 
figures — all  combine  to  produce  an  impres- 
sion of  dignity  and  repose,  and  suggest  the 
nobility  and  splendor  of  the  Elgin  marbles. 
The  workman  resting  is  a  statue  and  is  one 
of  the  figures  at  the  corner  of  the  monu- 
ment of  "Work"  between  "The  Harvest" 
and  "The  T\)rt."  Majestic  in  his  prodigious 
strength  this  laborer  is  seated,  his  hammer 
lying  across  his  knee,  his  hand  ready  to  seize 
the  implement  to  strike.    Curiously  classic  is 

537 


53S 


Tlie  Field  of  Art 


"The  Ancestor."  the  figure  of  the  old  man 
seated  with  his  hands  in  his  lap,  his  naked 
shoulders  and  chest  furrowed  with  deep 
wrinkles,  his  emaciated  throat  showing  the 
flaccid  tendons,  his  neck  narrow,  his  brow 
devoid  of  the  marks  of  thought,  his  feet 
and  hands  large. 

One  of  Meunier's  canvases,  his  master- 
piece, represents  two   miners,  one  of  them 
with  his  shoulder  pressed  against  the  wall  at 
the  opening  of  the  mine,  the  other  seated 
near  him  with  naked 
arms,   holding  his 
powerful  lower  jaw 
in  his  hand.    They 
are  silent  and  are 
looking  far  off  at  the 
smoky  landscape ;  an 
infinite  resignation 
is  seen  in  their  fixed 
gaze  and  a  majestic 
strength  is  suggested 
by  their  strong  limbs 
in  repose.      Their 
heavily  built  bodies 
are  drawn  against  a 
sooty  sky.     In  the 
voluntary    silence 
one  feels  a  hatred  not 
yet   awakened,   and 
back  of  this  extreme 
severity  broods  al- 
ready a  savage  en- 
ergy.    They  are  like 
two  modern  descend- 
ants of  the  prophets 
and  sibyls  of  the  Sis- 
tine  Chapel,  seeming 
to   predict   in   their 
melancholy  tran- 
quillity the  danger  of  the  time  to  come.     In 
another  of  his  large  canvases  one  finds  repre- 
sented a  laborer  overcome  by  fatigue;  he  is 
seated  on  the  ground,   his  lips  apart,   his 
hands  falling  in  stupid  repose.     This  is  a 
startling  and  not  easily  forgotten  painting 
of  animal  exhaustion.    But  when  Meunier 
simplifies,  there  is  simplicity. 

Constantin  Meunier  was  born  on  the 
1 2th  of  April,  1 83 1,  in  Etterbek,  at  that 
time  a  suburb  of  the  city  of  Brussels. 
From  childhood  he  was  acquainted  with 
poverty,  his  mother  and  sister  having  to 
support  the  family  after  his  father's  early 
death.  His  first  artistic  training  was  re- 
ceived in  a  modelling  class  in  the  Brussels 
Academy,  where  his  elder  brother  placed 


Maternity, 


him  at  an  early  age,  and  at  sixteen  he 
entered  the  studio  of  the  sculptor  Fraikin, 
where  he  acquired  a  certain  skill  of  hand, 
but  received  none  of  the  impulse  toward 
realism  which  afterward  was  to  result  in  the 
monument  to  "Labor."  Later  he  joined 
a  group  of  young  men  who,  sharing  the 
expenses  of  a  studio,  were  working  inde- 
pendently, and  here  he  found  himself.  At 
first  Meunier  painted,  not  believing  that 
he  could  realize  his  ideals  through  a  sculp- 
tor's medium;  but 
under  the  influence 
of  a  friend,  Charles 
de  Groux,  who  was 
poor,  he  looked  on 
the  dark  side  of  pov- 
erty and  labor,  and, 
finding  in  this  friend 
a  sympathetic  soul, 
began  to  paint 
pictures  in  which  a 
strong  religious 
feeling  and  an  in- 
tense interest  in  the 
drama  of  life  were 
combined. 

His  first  studies  of 
the  laboring  classes 
in  Belgium  were 
made  among  the 
workers  of  a  glass- 
factory;  later  he  be- 
came familiar  with 
the  region  where  Bel- 
gian coal-miners  are 
found,  then  he  fell 
wholly  under  the 
spell  of  the  energy 
and  force  expressed 
by  hard  physical  labor.  At  this  moment  he 
turned  again  to  sculpture  as  the  form  of  ex- 
pression best  suited  to  his  new  material.  He 
had  started,  and  intended  to  work  his  way  to 
the  ideal  of  the  realists,  by  the  aid  of  paint 
and  canvas,  but  form  was  what  really  ap- 
pealed to  him,  and,  having  filled  his  mind 
with  vital  impressions,  he  began  to  model 
with  instinctive  faith  in  the  sculptor's  me- 
dium as  the  natural  interpreter  of  labor. 

Meunier  saw  his  opportunity.  He  will 
live  in  years  to  come  because  he  understood 
the  touching  splendor  of  his  heroes  and 
translated  them  with  truth  because  he  loved 
them  well. 

Cornelia  Bentley  Sage, 
Director  of  the  Albright  Art  Gallery. 


ScRiBNER's  Magazine 


VOL.  LV 


MAY,   1914 


NO.  5 


A   HUNTER-NATURALIST   IN   THE 
BRAZILIAN    WILDERNESS* 

[SECOND   ARTICLE] 

BY  THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

A    JAGUAR-HUNT    ON    THE    TAQUARY 

Illustrations    from    i'iiotograpiis    by   Kermit   Roosevelt  and   others 


THE  morning  after  our  arrival  at  Co- 
rumba  I  asked  Colonel  Rondon  to 
inspect  our  outfit;  for  his  experi- 
ence of  what  is  necessary  in  tropical  trav- 
elling, gained  through  a  quarter  of  a 
century  of  arduous  exploration  in  the  wil- 
derness, is  unrivalled.  It  was  Fiala  who 
had  assembled  our  food-tents,  cooking- 
utensils,  and  supplies  of  all  kinds,  and  he 
and  Sigg,  during  their  stay  in  Corumba, 
had  been  putting  everything  in  shape  for 
our  start.  Colonel  Rondon  at  the  end  of 
his  inspection  said  he  had  nothing  what- 
ever to  suggest;  that  it  was  extraordinary 
that  Fiala,  without  personal  knowledge  of 
the  tropics,  could  have  gathered  the  things 
most  necessary,  with  the  minimum  of  bulk 
and  maximum  of  usefulness. 

Miller  had  made  a  special  study  of 
the  piranhas,  which  swarmed  at  one  of  the 
camps  he  and  Cherrie  had  made  in  the 
Chaco.  So  numerous  were  they  that  the 
members  of  the  party  had  to  be  exceed- 
ingly careful  in  dipping  up  water.  Miller 
did  not  find  that  they  were  cannibals 
toward  their  own  kind;  they  were  "can- 
nibals" only  in.  the  sense  of  eating  the 
flesh  of  men.  When  dead  piranhas,  and 
even  when  mortally  injured  piranhas, 
with  the  blood  flowing,  were  thrown  in 

*  Copyri,ijht,  1914,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York, 
U.  S.  A.  All  ri'^hts  reserved,  incltidiiiK  that  of  traiislatimi 
into  ftjreign  languages,  including  the  Scandinavian. 


among  the  ravenous  living,  they  were  left 
unmolested.  Moreover,  it  was  Miller's 
experience,  the  direct  contrary  of  what 
we  had  been  told,  that  splashing  and 
a  commotion  in  the  water  attracted  the 
piranhas,  whereas  they  rarely  attacked 
anything  that  was  motionless  unless  it 
was  bloody.  Dead  birds  and  mammals, 
thrown  whole  and  unskinned  into  the 
water  were  permitted  to  float  off  unmo- 
lested, whereas  the  skinned  carcass  of  a 
good-sized  monkey  was  at  once  seized, 
pulled  under  the  water,  and  completely 
devoured  by  the  blood-crazy  fish.  A  man 
who  had  dro})|)ed  something  of  value 
waded  in  after  it  to  above  the  knees,  but 
went  very  slowly  and  quietly,  avoiding 
every  possibility  of  disturbance,  and  not 
venturing  to  put  his  hands  into  the  water. 
But  nobody  could  bathe,  and  even  the 
slightest  disturbance  in  the  water,  such  as 
that  made  by  scrubbing  the  hands  \ig- 
orously  with  soaj),  immediately  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  savage  little  creatures, 
who  darted  to  the  j->lace,  e\i(lently  hoping 
to  find  some  animal  in  diflicultics.  Once, 
while  Miller  and  some  Indians  were  at- 
tempting to  launch  a  boat,  and  were  mak- 
ing a  great  commotion  in  the  water,  a 
piranha  attacked  a  naked  Indian  who 
i)elongc(l  to  the  party  and  mutilated  him 
as  he  struggled  and  splashed,  waist-deep 


Si'KclAL    Notice. —  These    articles    are    fully    i)rotected    under  the  f.)|iyright  law,   which  imposes  a  severe  penalty  for 

infringement. 


Copyright,  1914,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.     All  rights  reserved. 
Printed  in  New  York 


Vol.  LV.— 58 


539 


540 


A    1  Iiintcr-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


in  the  stream.  Men  not  making  a  splash- 
ing and  struggling  are  rarely  attacked; 
but  if  one  is  attacked  by  any  chance,  the 
blood  in  the  water  maddens  the  piranhas, 
and  they  assail  the  man  with  frightful  fe- 
rocity. 

AtCorumba  the  weather  was  hot.  In 
the  patio  of  the  comfortable  little  hotel 
we  heard  the  cicadas;  but  I  did  not  hear 
the  extraordinary  screaming  whistle  of  the 
locomotive  cicada,  which  I  had  heard  in 
the  gardens  of  the  house  in  wdiich  I  stayed 
at  Asuncion.  This  was  as  remarkable  a 
sound  as  any  animal  sound  to  which  I 
have  ever  listened,  except  only  the  ba- 
trachian-like  wailing  of  the  tree  hyrax 
in  East  Africa;  and  like  the  East  African 
mammal  this  South  American  insect  has 
a  voice,  or  rather  utters  a  sound  which,  so 
far  as  it  resembles  any  other  animal  sound, 
at  the  beginning  remotely  suggests  ba- 
trachian  affinities.  The  locomotive-whis- 
tle part  of  the  utterance,  however,  resem- 
bles nothing  so  much  as  a  small  steam 
siren ;  w^hen  first  heard  it  seems  impossible 
that  it  can  be  produced  by  an  insect. 

On  December  17  Colonel  Rondon  and 
several  members  of  our  party  started  on 
a  shallow  river  steamer  for  the  ranch  of 
Senhor  de  Barros,  ''Las  Palmeiras,"  on 
the  Rio  Taquary.  We  went  down  the 
Paraguay  for  a  few  miles,  and  then  up  the 
Taquary.  It  was  a  beautiful  trip.  The 
shallow  river  —  we  were  aground  several 
times — wound  through  a  vast,  marshy 
plain,  with  occasional  spots  of  higher 
ground  on  which  trees  grew.  There  were 
many  water  birds.  Darters  swarmed. 
But  the  conspicuous  and  attractive  bird 
was  the  stately  jabiru  stork.  Flocks  of 
these  storks  whitened  the  marches  and 
lined  the  river-banks.  They  were  not 
shy,  for  such  big  birds;  before  flying  they 
have  to  run  a  few  paces  and  then  launch 
themselves  on  the  air.  Once,  at  noon,  a 
couple  soared  round  overhead  in  wide 
rings,  rising  higher  and  higher.  On  an- 
other occasion,  late  in  the  day,  a  flock 
passed  by,  gleaming  white  with  black 
points  in  the  long  afternoon  lights,  and 
with  them  were  spoonbills,  showing  rosy 
amid  their  snowy  companions.  Caymans, 
always  called  jacares,  swarmed;  and  we 
killed  scores  of  the  noxious  creatures. 
They  were  singularly  indifferent  to  our 
approach  and  to  the  sound  of  the  shots. 
Sometimes  they  ran  into  the  water  erect 


on  their  legs,  looking  like  miniatures  of 
the  monsters  of  the  ]:)rime.  One  showed 
by  its  behavior  how  little  an  ordinary  shot 
pains  or  affects  these  dull-nerved,  cold- 
blooded creatures.  As  it  lay  on  a  sand- 
bank, it  was  hit  with  a  long  22  bullet.  It 
slid  into  the  water  but  found  itself  in  the 
midst  of  a  school  of  fish.  It  at  once  for- 
got everything  except  its  greedy  appetite, 
and  began  catching  the  fish.  It  seized 
fish  after  fish,  holding  its  head  above 
water  as  soon  as  its  jaws  had  closed  on  a 
fish;  and  a  second  bullet  killed  it.  Some 
of  the  crocodiles  when  shot  performed 
most  extraordinary  antics.  Our  weapons, 
by  the  way,  were  good,  except  Miller's 
shot-gun.  The  outfit  fm*nished  by  the 
American  museum  was  excellent — except 
in  guns  and  cartridges;  this. gun  was  so 
bad  that  Miller  had  to  use  Fiala's  gun  or 
else  my  Fox  1 2-bore. 

In  the  late  afternoon  we  secured  a  more 
interesting  creature  than  the  jacares.  Ker- 
mit  had  charge  of  two  hounds  which  we 
owed  to  the  courtesy  of  one  of  our  Ar- 
gentine friends.  They  were  biggish,  non- 
descript animals,  obviously  good  fighters, 
and  they  speedily  developed  the  utmost 
affection  for  all  the  members  of  the  expedi- 
tion, but  especially  for  Kermit,  who  took 
care  of  them.  One  we  named  "  Shenzi,'* 
the  name  given  the  wild  bush  natives 
by  the  Swahili,  the  semicivilized  African 
porters.  He  was  good-natured,  rough, 
and  stupid — hence  his  name.  The  other 
was  called  by  a  native  name,  "Trigueiro." 
The  chance  now  came  to  try  them.  We 
were  steaming  between  long  stretches  of 
coarse  grass,  about  three  feet  high,  when 
we  spied  from  the  deck  a  black  object, 
very  conspicuous  against  the  vivid  green. 
It  was  a  giant  anteater,  or  Tamandua  ban- 
deira,  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  crea- 
tures of  the  latter-day  world.  It  is  about 
the  size  of  a  rather  small  black  bear.  It 
has  a  very  long,  narrow,  toothless  snout, 
with  a  tongue  it  can  project  a  couple  of 
feet;  it  is  covered  with  coarse,  black  hair, 
save  for  a  couple  of  white  stripes;  it  has 
a  long  bushy  tail  and  very  powerful  claws 
on  its  fore  feet.  It  walks  on  the  sides 
of  its  fore  feet  with  these  claws  curved  in 
under  the  foot.  The  claws  are  used  in 
digging  out  anthills;  but  the  beast  has 
courage,  and  in  a  grapple  is  a  rather  un- 
pleasant enemy,  in  spite  of  its  toothless 
mouth,  for  it  can  strike  a  formidable  blow 


A  Jaguar- Hunt  on  the  Taquary 


541 


with  these  claws.  It  sometimes  hugs  a  and  sheds  and  corrals.  Several  of  the 
foe,  gripping  him  tight;  but  its  ordinary  peons  or  gauchos  had  come  to  meet  us. 
method  of  defending  itself  is  to  strike  with  After  dark  they  kindled  fires,  and  sat  be- 
lts long,  stout,  curved  claws,  which,  driven  side  them  singing  songs  in  a  strange  minor 


Col.  Roosevelt's  Route 
is  shown  thus:  ^— ^— 


Map  showing  route  of  Colonel  Roosevelt. 


by  its  muscular  forearm,  can  rip  open  man 
or  beast.  Several  of  our  companions  had 
had  dogs  killed  by  these  anteaters;  and  we 
came  across  one  man  with  a  very  ugly 
scar  down  his  back,  where  he  had  been  hit 
by  one,  which  charged  him  when  he  came 
up  to  kill  it  at  close  quarters. 

As  soon  as  we  saw  the  giant  tamandua 
we  pushed  off  in  a  rowboat,  and  landed 
only  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  distant 
from  our  clumsy  quarry.  The  tamandua 
throughout  most  of  its  habitat  rarely 
leaves  the  forest,  and  it  is  a  helpless  ani- 
mal in  the  open  plain.  The  two  dogs  ran 
ahead,  followed  by  Colonel  Rondon  and 
Kermit,  with  me  behind  carrying  the 
rifle.  In  a  minute  or  two  the  hounds 
overtook  the  cantering,  shuffling  creature, 
and  promptly  began  a  fight  with  it;  the 
combatants  were  so  mixed  up  that  I  had 
to  wait  another  minute  or  so  before  I 
could  fire  without  risk  of  hitting  a  dog. 
We  carried  our  prize  back  to  the  bank  and 
hoisted  it  aboard  the  steamer.  The  sun 
was  just  about  to  set,  behind  dim  moun- 
tains, many  miles  distant  across  the 
marsh. 

Soon  afterward  we  reached  one  of  the 
stations  of  the  huge  ranch  we  were  about 
to  visit,  and  hauled  up  alongside  the  bank 
for  the  night.     There  was  a  hmding-phice, 


key  and  strumming  guitars.  The  red 
firelight  flickered  over  their  wild  figures 
as  they  squatted  away  from  the  blaze, 
where  the  light  and  the  shadow  met.  It 
was  still  and  hot.  There  were  mosquitoes, 
of  course,  and  other  insects  of  all  kinds 
swarmed  round  every  light ;  but  the  steam- 
boat was  comfortable,  and  we  passed  a 
pleasant  night. 

At  sunrise  we  were  off  for  the  ''fa- 
zenda,"  the  ranch  of  M.  de  Barros.  The 
baggage  went  in  an  ox-cart — which  had 
to  make  two  trips,  so  that  all  of  my  be- 
longings reached  the  ranch  a  day  later 
than  I  did.  We  rode  small,  tough  ranch 
horses.  The  distance  was  some  twenty 
miles.  The  whole  country  was  marsh, 
varied  by  stretches  of  higher  ground ;  and, 
although  they  rose  only  three  or  four  feet 
above  the  marsh,  they  were  covered  with 
thick  jungle,  largely  palmetto  scrub,  or 
else  with  open  palm  forest.  For  three  or 
four  miles  we  splashed  through  the  marsh, 
now  and  then  crossing  boggy  p(K)Is  where 
the  little  horses  labored  hard  not  to  mire 
down.  Our  dusky  guide  was  clad  in  a 
shirt,  trousers,  and  fringed  leather  a])ron. 
and  wore  spurs  on  his  bare  feet;  he  had  a 
r()i)e  for  a  bridle,  and  two  or  three  toes 
of  each  foot  were  thrust  into  little  iron 
stirrups. 


542 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the  Brazilian  Wilderness 


The  pools  in  the  marsh  were  drying. 
They  were  tilled  with  tish,  most  of  them 
dead  or  dying;  and  the  birds  had  gathered 
to  the  banquet.  The  most  notable  dinner- 
guests  were  the  great  jabiru  storks;  the 
stately  creatures  dotted  the  marsh.  But 
ibis  and  herons  abounded;  the  former  ut- 
tered queer,  querulous  cries  when  they 
disco \ered  our  presence.  The  spurred 
lapwings  were  as  noisy  as  they  always  are. 
The  ibis  and  plover  did  not  pay  any  heed 
to  the  tish;  but  the  black  carrion  vultures 
feasted  on  them  in  the  mud;  and  in  the 
pools  that  were  not  dry  small  alligators, 
the  jacare-tinga,  were  feasting  also.  In 
many  places  the  stench  from  the  dead  fish 
was  unpleasant. 

Then  for  miles  we  rode  through  a 
beautiful  open  forest  of  tall,  slender  ca- 
randa  palms,  with  other  trees  scattered 
among  them.  Green  paraquets  with  black 
heads  chattered  as  they  flew ;  noisy  green 
and  red  parrots  climbed  among  the  palms; 
and  huge  macaws,  some  entirely  blue, 
others  almost  entirely  red,  screamed  loud- 
ly as  they  perched  in  the  trees  or  took  wing 
at  our  approach.  If  one  was  wounded  its 
cries  kept  its  companions  circling  around 
overhead.  The  naturalists  found  the  bird 
fauna  totally  different  from  that  which 
they  had  been  collecting  in  the  hill  coun- 
try near  Corumba,  seventy  or  eighty  mxiles 
distant ;  and  birds  swarmed,  both  spe- 
cies and  individuals.  South  America  has 
the  most  extensive  and  most  varied  avi- 
fauna of  all  the  continents.  On  the  other 
hand,  its  mammalian  fauna,  although 
very  interesting,  is  rather  poor  in  num- 
ber of  species  and  individuals  and  in  the 
size  of  the  beasts.  It  possesses  more  mam- 
mals that  are  unique  and  distinctive  in 
type  than  does  any  other  continent  save 
Australia;  and  they  are  of  higher  and 
much  more  varied  types  than  in  Australia. 
But  there  is  nothing  approaching  the  maj- 
esty, beauty,  and  swarming  mass  of  the 
mammalian  life  of  Africa  and,  in  a  less 
degree,  of  tropical  Asia;  indeed,  it  does 
not  even  approach  the  mammalian  life 
of  North  America  and  northern  Eurasia, 
poor  though  this  is  compared  with  the 
seething  vitality  of  tropical  life  in  the  Old 
World.  Until  a  geologically  recent  period, 
a  period  extending  into  that  which  saw 
man  spread  over  the  world  in  substan- 
tially the  physical  and  cultural  stage  of 
many  existing  savages,   South  America 


possessed  a  varied  and  striking  fauna 
of  enormous  beasts  —  sabre- tooth  tigers, 
enormous  lions,  mastodons,  horses  of 
many  kinds,  camel-like  pachyderms,  giant 
ground-sloths,  mylodons  the  size  of  the 
rhinoceros,  and  many,  many  other  strange 
and  wonderful  creatures.  From  some 
cause,  concerning  the  nature  of  which  we 
cannot  at  present  even  hazard  a  guess, 
this  vast  and  giant  fauna  vanished  com- 
pletely, the  tremendous  catastrophe  (the 
duration  of  which  is  unknown)  not  being 
consummated  until  within  a  few  thousand, 
or  a  few  score  thousand  years.  When  the 
white  man  reached  South  America  he 
found  the  same  weak  and  impoverished 
mammalian  fauna  that  exists  practically 
unchanged  to-day.  Elsewhere  civilized 
man  has  been  even  more  destructive  than 
his  very  destructive  uncivilized  brothers 
of  the  magnificent  mammalian  life  of  the 
wilderness;  for  ages  he  has  been  rooting 
out  the  higher  forms  of  beast  life  in  Eu- 
rope, Asia,  and  North  Africa;  and  in  our 
own  day  he  has  repeated  the  feat,  on  a 
very  large  scale,  in  the  rest  of  Africa  and 
in  North  America.  But  in  South  Amer- 
ica, although  he  is  in  places  responsible  for 
the  wanton  slaughter  of  the  most  inter- 
esting and  the  largest,  or  the  most  beau- 
tiful birds,  his  advent  has  meant  a  posi- 
tive enrichment  of  the  wild  mammalian 
fauna.  None  of  the  native  grass-eating 
mammals,  the  graminivores,  approach 
in  size  and  beauty  the  herds  of  wild  or 
half-wild  cattle  and  horses,  or  so  add  to 
the  interest  of  the  landscape.  There 
is  every  reason  why  the  good  people  of 
South  America  should  weaken,  as  w^e  of 
North  America,  very  late  in  the  day, 
are  beginning  to  waken ;  and  as  the  peo- 
ples of  northern  Europe — not  southern 
Europe^ — have  already  partially  wakened, 
to  the  duty  of  preserving  from  impover- 
ishment and  extinction  the  wuld  life  w^hich 
is  an  asset  of  such  interest  and  value  in 
our  several  lands;  but  the  case  against 
civilized  man  in  this  matter  is  grew- 
somely  heavy  anyhow^,  when  the  plain 
truth  is  told,  and  it  is  harmed  by  exagger- 
ation. 

After  five  or  six  hours'  travelling 
through  this  country  of  marsh  and  of  palm 
forest  we  reached  the  ranch  for  which  we 
were  heading.  In  the  neighborhood  stood 
giant  fig-trees,  singly  or  in  groups,  with 
dense,  dark -green  foliage.     Ponds,  over- 


A  Jaguar-Hunt  on  the   Taquary 


54.'] 


grown  with  water  plants,  lay  aljout;  wet 
meadow,  and  dryer  pasture-land,  open  or 
dotted  with  palms  and  varied  with  tree 
jungle,  stretched  for  many  miles  on  every 
hand.     There  are  some  thirtv  thousand 


catching  flies.  The  fourth  end  of  the 
Cjuadrangle  was  formed  by  a  corral  and 
a  big  wooden  scaffolding  on  which  hung 
hides  and  strips  of  drying  meat.  Ex- 
traordinarv  to  relate  there  were  no  mos- 


head  of  cattle  on  the  ranch,  besides  herds    quitocs  at  the  ranch;  why  I  cannot  say,  as 


of  horses  and  droves  of 
swine,  and  a  few  flocks 
of  sheep  and  goats.  The 
home  buildings  of  the 
ranch  stood  in  a  quad- 
rangle, surrounded  by  a 
fence  or  low  stockade. 
One  end  of  the  quad- 
rangle was  formed  by 
the  ranch-house  itself, 
one  story  high,  with 
whitewashed  walls  and 
red-tiled  roof.  Inside, 
the  rooms  w^ere  bare, 
with  clean  whitewashed 
walls  and  palm-trunk 
rafters.  There  were 
solid  wooden  shutters 
on  the  unglazed  win- 
dows. We  slept  in  ham- 
mocks or  on  cots,  and 
we  feasted  royally  on 
delicious  native  Bra- 
zilian dishes.  On  an- 
other side  of  the  quad- 
rangle stood  another 
long,  low  white  building 
with  a  red-tiled  roof; 
this  held  the  kitchen 
and  the  living-rooms  of  the  upper-grade 
peons,  the  headmen,  the  cook,  and  jaguar- 
hunters,  with  their  families:  dark-skinned 
men,  their  wives  showing  varied  strains 
of  white,  Indian,  and  negro  blood.  The 
children  tumbled  merrily  in  the  dust,  and 
were  fondly  tended  ])y  their  mothers. 
Opposite  the  kitchen  stood  a  row  of  build- 
ings, some  whitewashed  daub  and  wattle, 
with  tin  roofs,  others  of  erect  i^alm-logs 
with  palm-leaf  thatch.  These  were  the 
saddle-room,  storehouse,  chicken-house, 
and  stable.  The  chicken-house  was  al- 
lotted to  Kermit  and  Miller  for  the 
l)rej)aration  of  the  si)ecimens;  and  there 
they  worked  industriously.  With  a  big 
skin,  like  that  of  the  giant  anteater,  Ihey 
had  to  sc|uat  on  the  ground;  while  the 
ducklings  and  wee  chickens  scuflled  not 
only  round  the  skin  but  all  over  it,  grab- 
bing the  shreds  and  scra|)s  of  meat  and 
Vol.  LV.— 59 


Fro)H  a  fihotoi^raph  /ly  1  dniu  A'.  .S,tni\>i 

A  South  American  jabirii. 
In  the  New  York  Zoological  Park. 


they  ought  to  swarm  in 
these  vast  ''i)antanals," 
or  swamps.  Therefore, 
in  spite  of  the  heat,  it 
was  \'ery  pleasant. 
Near  by  stood  other 
buildings:  sheds,  and 
thatched  huts  of  palm- 
logs  in  which  the  ordi- 
nary peons  lived,  and 
big  corrals.  In  the 
quadrangle  were  flam- 
boyant trees,  with  their 
masses  of  brilliant  red 
flowers  and  delicately 
cut,  vivid-green  foliage. 
Noisy  o  \'  e  n  -  b  i  r  d  s 
haunted  these  trees.  In 
a  high  ])alm  in  the  gar- 
den a  family  of  green 
])araquets  had  taken  up 
their  abode  and  were 
])rei)aring  to  build  nests. 
They  chattered  inces- 
santly both  when  they 
flew  and  when  they  sat 
or  crawled  among  the 
branches.  Ibis  and 
plo\'er,  crying  and  wail- 
ing, passed  immediately  overhead.  Ja- 
canas  frequented  the  ponds  near  by;  the 
peons,  with  a  familiarity  which  to  us 
seems  sacrilegious,  but  to  them  was  entire- 
ly inoffensive  and  matter  of  course,  called 
them  ''the  Jesus  Christ  birds,"  because 
they  walked  on  the  water.  There  was  a 
wealth  of  strange  bird  life  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. There  were  large  papyrus-marshes, 
the  ])apyrus  not  being  a  fifth,  perhaps  not 
a  tenth,  as  high  as  in  Africa.  In  these 
swamps  were  many  blackbirds.  vSome 
uttered  notes  that  reminded  me  of  our 
own  redwings.  Others,  with  crimson 
heads  and  necks  and  thighs,  fairly  blazed; 
often  a  dozen  s:it  together  on  a  swaying 
pai)yrus-stein  which  their  weight  bent 
o\er.  'Hiere  were  all  kinds  of  extraordi- 
nary bird-nests  in  the  trees.  There  is  still 
need  for  the  work  of  the  collector  in  South 
America.     lUit  1  l)elie\e  that  alreadv,  so 


544 


A    I  lunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


far  as  l)ir(ls  arc  concerned,  there  is  inli- 
nitcl\-  nu)rc  need  for  the  work  of  the  care- 
ful t)hser\er,  wlio  to  the  i)o\ver  of  appre- 
ciation and  observation  adds  the  power  of 
vivid,  truthful,  <///</  inlcrcstiii!^  narration — 
which  means, as  scientists  no  less  than  his- 
torians should  note,  that  training  in  the 
writing  of  good  English  is  indispensable  to 


From  a  photograph  by  Kertnit  Roosevelt. 

Nips  with  the  marsh  deer. 

any  learned  man  who  expects  to  make  his 
learning  count  for  what  it  ought  to  count 
in  the  effect  on  his  fellow  men.  The  out- 
door naturalist,  the  faunal  naturalist,  who 
devotes  himself  primarily  to  a  study  of 
the  habits  and  of  the  life  histories  of 
birds,  beasts,  fish,  and  reptiles,  and  who 
can  portray  truthfully  and  vividly  what 
he  has  seen,  could  do  work  of  more  useful- 
ness than  any  mere  collector,  in  this  upper 
Paraguay  country.  The  work  of  the  col- 
lector is  indispensable;  but  it  is  only  a 
small  part  of  the  work  that  ought  to  be 
done;  and  after  collecting  has  reached  a 
certain  point  the  work  of  the  field  observer 


with  the  gift  for  recording  what  he  has 
seen  becomes  of  far  more  importance. 

The  long  days  spent  riding  through  the 
swamp,  the  "pantanal,"  were  pleasant 
and  interesting.  Several  times  we  saw 
the  Tamandua  bandeira,  the  giant  ant- 
bear.  Kermit  shot  one,  because  the  nat- 
uralists eagerly  wished  for  a  second  spec- 
imen ;  afterward  we  were 
relieved  of  all  necessity 
to  molest  the  strange, 
out-of-date  creatures. 
It  was  a  surprise  to  us  to 
find  them  habitually 
frequenting  the  open 
marsh.  They  were  al- 
ways on  muddy  ground, 
and  in  the  papyrus- 
swamp  we  found  them 
in  several  inches  of  wa- 
ter. The  stomach  is 
thick-walled,  like  a  giz- 
zard; the  stomachs  of 
those  we  shot  contained 
adult  and  larval  ants, 
chiefly  termites,  to- 
gether with  plenty  of 
black  mould  and  frag- 
ments of  leaves,  both 
green  and  dry.  Doubt- 
less the  earth  and  the 
vegetable  matter  had 
merely  been  taken  in- 
cidentally, adhering  to 
the  viscid  tongue  when 
it  was  thrust  into  the 
ant  masses.  Out  in  the 
open  marsh  the  taman- 
dua could  neither  avoid 
observation,  nor  fight 
effectively,  nor  make 
good  its  escape  by 
flight.  It  was  curious  to  see  one,  lumber- 
ing off  at  a  rocking  canter,  the  big  burly 
tail  held  aloft.  One,  while  fighting  the 
dogs,  suddenly  threw  itself  on  its  back, 
evidently  hoping  to  grasp  a  dog  with  its 
paws;  and  it  now  and  then  reared,  in 
order  to  strike  at  its  assailants.  In  one 
patch  of  thick  jungle  we  saw  a  black 
howler  monkey  sitting  motionless  in  a 
tree-top.  We  also  saw  the  swamp  deer, 
about  the  size  of  our  blacktail.  It  is  a 
real  swamp  animal,  for  we  found  it  often 
in  the  papyrus-swamps,  and  out  in  the 
open  marsh,  knee-deep  in  the  waters, 
among  the  aquatic  plants. 


/■rot/i  a  jiiu'i,'^'  iij" 


Nips  returning  to  ihe/azenda  (ranch)  with  the  marsh  deer  on  the  saddle. 


The  tough  little  horses  bore  us  well 
through  the  marsh.  Often  in  crossing 
bayous  and  ponds  the  water  rose  almost 
to  their  backs;  but  they  splashed  and 
waded  and  if  necessary  swam  through. 
The  dogs  were  a  wild-looking  set.  Some 
were  of  distinctly  wolhsh  appearance. 
These,  we  were  assured,  were  descended 
in  ])art  from  the  big  red  wolf  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, a  tall,  lank  animal,  with  much 
smaller  teeth  than  a  big  northern  wolf. 
The  domestic  dog  is  undoul^tedly  de- 
scended from  at  least  a  dozen  different 
species  of  wild  dogs,  wolves,  and  jackals, 
some  of  them  ])robably  belonging  to  what- 
ever style,  different  genera.  The  degree 
of  fecundity  or  lack  of  fecundity  between 
different  species  varies  in  extraordinary 
and  inexplicable  fashion  in  different  fam- 
ilies of  mammals.    In  the  horse  family,  for 


instance,  the  species  are  not  fertile  inter  sc; 
whereas  among  the  oxen,  species  seem- 
ingly at  least  as  widely  separated  as  the 
horse,  ass,  and  zebra — species  such  as  the 
domestic  ox,  bison,  yak,  and  gaur — breed 
freely  together  and  their  offspring  are  fer- 
tile; the  lion  and  tiger  also  breed  together, 
and  })roduce  offspring  which  will  breed 
with  either  ])arent  stock;  and  tame  dogs 
in  different  c|uarters  of  the  world,  al- 
though all  of  them  fertile  inter  se,  are  in 
many  cases  obviously  blood  kin  to  the 
neighboring  wild  wolf-like  or  jackal-like 
creatures  which  are  specifically,  and  p()S- 
sibly  even  generically,  distinct  from  one 
another.  The  big  red  wolf  of  the  South 
American  i)lains  is  not  closely  related  to 
the  northern  wolves;  and  it  was  to  me  un- 
e\i)ected  to  find  it  interbreeding  with  t)r- 
dinary  domestic  dogs. 

545 


54G 


A    Iluntcr-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


In  the  evenings  after  dinner  we  sat  in 
the  bare  raneh  (lininir-room,  or  out  under 
the  trees  in  tlie  liot  (hirkness,  and  talked 
of  many  tilings:  natural  history  with  the 
naturalists,  and  all  kinds  of  other  subjects 
both  with  them  and  with  our  Brazilian 
friends.  Colonel  Rondon  is  not  simply 
"an  oiTicer  and  a  gentleman"  in  the  sense 
that  is  honorably  true  of  the  best  army 
officers  in  every  good  military  service. 
He  is  also  a  peculiarly  hardy  and  compe- 
tent explorer,  a  good  held  naturalist  and 
scientific  man,  a  student  and  a  philosopher. 
With  him  the  conversation  ranged  from 
jaguar-hunting  and  the  perils  of  explora- 
tion in  the  "matto  grosso,"  the  great 
wilderness,  to  Indian  anthropology,  to  the 
dangers  of  a  purely  materialistic  indus- 
trial civilization,  and  to  Positivist  moral- 
ity. The  colonel's  Positivism  was  in  very 
fact  to  him  a  religion  of  humanity,  a  creed 
which  bade  him  be  just  and  kindly  and 
useful  to  his  fellow  men,  to  live  his  life 
bravely,  and  no  less  bravely  to  face  death, 
without  reference  to  what  he  believed,  or 
did  not  believe,  or  to  what  the  unknown 
hereafter  might  hold  for  him. 

The  native  hunters  who  accompanied 
us  were  swarthy  men  of  mixed  blood. 
They  were  barefooted  and  scantily  clad, 
and  each  carried  a  long,  clumsy  spifear  and 
a  keen  machete  in  the  use  of  which  he  was 
an  expert.  Now  and  then,  in  thick  jun- 
gle, we  had  to  cut  out  a  path,  and  it  was 
interesting  to  see  one  of  them,  although 
cumbered  by  his  unwieldy  spear,  han- 
dling his  half-broken  little  horse  with  com- 
plete ease  while  he  hacked  at  limbs  and 
branches.  Of  the  two  ordinarily  with  us 
one  was  much  the  younger;  and  whenever 
we  came  to  an  unusually  doubtful-looking 
ford  or  piece  of  boggy  ground  the  elder 
man  always  sent  the  younger  one  on  and 
sat  on  the  bank  until  he  saw  what  befell 
the  experimenter.  In  that  rather  pre- 
posterous book  of  our  youth,  the  '^  Swiss 
Family  Robinson,"  mention  is  made  of  a 
tame  monkey  called  Nips,  which  was  used 
to  test  all  edible-looking  things  as  to  the 
healthfulness  of  which  the  adventurers 
felt  doubtful;  and  because  of  the  obvious 
resemblance  of  function  we  christened 
this  younger  hunter  Nips.  Our  guides 
were  not  only  hunters  but  cattle-herders. 
The  coarse  dead  grass  is  burned  to  make 
room  for  the  green  young  grass  on  which 


the  cattle  thrive.  Every  now  and  then 
one  of  the  men,  as  he  rode  ahead  of  us, 
without  leaving  the  saddle,  would  drop  a 
lighted  match  into  a  tussock  of  tall  dead 
bla.des;  and  even  as  we  who  were  behind 
rode  by  tongues  of  hot  flame  would  be 
shooting  up  and  a  local  prairie  fire  would 
have  started.  Kermit  took  Nips  off  with 
him  for  a  solitary  hunt  one  day.  He  shot 
two  of  the  big  marsh  deer,  a  buck  and  a 
doe,  and  preserved  them  as  museum  speci- 
mens. They  were  in  the  papyrus  growth, 
but  their  stomachs  contained  only  the 
fine  marsh  grass  which  grows  in  the  water 
and  on  the  land  along  the  edges  of  the 
swamps;  the  papyrus  was  use'd  only  for 
cover,  not  for  food.  The  buck  had  two 
big  scent-glands  beside  the  nostrils;  in  the 
doe  these  were  rudimentary.  On  this  day 
Kermit  also  came  across  a  herd  of  the  big, 
fierce  white-lipped  peccary;  at  the  sound 
of  their  grunting  Nips  promptly  spurred 
his  horse  and  took  to  his  heels,  explaining 
that  the  peccaries  would  charge  them, 
hamstring  the  horses,  and  kill  the  riders. 
Kermit  went  into  the  jungle  after  the 
truculent  little  wild  hogs  on  foot  and  fol- 
lowed them  for  an  hour,  but  never  was 
able  to  catch  sight  of  them. 

In  the  afternoon  of  this  same  day  one  of 
the  jaguar-hunters — merely  ranch  hands, 
who  knew  something  of  the  chase  of  the 
jaguar — who  had  been  searching  for 
tracks,  rode  in  with  the  information  that 
he  had  found  fresh  sign  at  a  spot  in  the 
swamp  about  nine  miles  distant.  Next 
morning  we  rose  at  two,  and  had  started  on 
our  jaguar-hunt  at  three.  Colonel  Ron- 
don, Kermit,  and  I,  with  the  two  trailers  or 
jaguar-hunters,  made  up  the  party,  each 
on  a  weedy,  undersized  marsh  pony,  ac- 
customed to  traversing  the  vast  stretches 
of  morass ;  and  we  were  accompanied  by  a 
brown  boy,  with  saddle-bags  holding  our 
lunch,  who  rode  a  long-horned  trotting 
steer  which  he  managed  by  a  string 
through  its  nostril  and  lip.  The  two 
trailers  carried  each  a  long  clumsy  spear. 
We  had  a  rather  poor  pack.  Besides  our 
own  two  dogs,  neither  of  which  was  used 
to  jaguar-hunting,  there  were  the  ranch 
dogs,  which  were  well-nigh  worthless,  and 
then  two  jaguar  hounds  borrowed  for  the 
occasion  from  a  ranch  six  or  eight  leagues 
distant.  These  were  the  only  hounds  on 
which  we  could  place  any  trust,  and  they 


A   Jaguar-Hunt  on  tlie   Taquary 


547 


were  led  in  leashes  by  the  two  trailers. 
One  was  a  white  bitch,  the  other,  the  best 
one  we  had,  was  a  gelded  black  dog.  They 
were  lean,  half-starved  creatures  with 
])rick  ears  and  a  look  of  furtive  wildncss. 


and  the  plovers  shrieked  as  they  wheeled 
in  the  air.  We  waded  across  bayous  and 
ponds,  where  white  lilies  floated  on  the 
water  and  thronging  lilac-flowers  splashed 
the  green  marsh  with  color. 


From  a  photograph  by  Edivin  K.  Sa?tbor7i. 


A  South  American  jaguar. 
In  the  New  York  Zuolo^ical  Park. 


As  our  shabby  little  horses  shuffled 
away  from  the  ranch-house  the  stars  were 
brilliant  and  the  southern  cross  hung  well 
up  in  the  heavens,  tilted  to  the  right. 
The  landscape  was  spectral  in  the  light  of 
the  waning  moon.  At  the  first  shallow 
ford,  as  horses  and  dogs  splashed  across, 
an  alligator,  the  jacare-tinga,  some  five 
feet  long,  floated  unconcernedly  among 
the  splashing  hoofs  and  paws;  evidently 
at  night  it  did  not  fear  us.  Hour  after 
hour  we  shogged  along.  Then  the  night 
grew  ghostly  with  the  first  dim  gray  of 
the  dawn.  The  sky  had  become  overcast. 
The  sun  rose  red  and  angry  through 
l^roken  clouds;  his  disk  flamed  behind 
the  tall,  slender  columns  of  the  ])alms, 
and  lit  the  waste  fields  of  ])ap\Tus.  The 
black  monkeys  howled  mournfully.  The 
birds  awoke.  Macaws,  parrots,  paraquets 
screamed  at  us  and  chattered  at  us  as  we 
rode  by.     Ibis  called  with  wailing  voices, 


At  last,  on  the  edge  of  a  patch  of  jungle, 
in  wet  ground,  we  came  on  fresh  jaguar 
tracks.  Both  the  jaguar  hounds  chal- 
lenged the  sign.  They  were  unleashed 
and  galloj^ed  along  the  trail,  while  the 
other  dogs  noisily  accompanied  them. 
The  hunt  led  right  through  the  marsh. 
Evidently  the  jaguar  had  not  the  least 
distaste  for  water.  Probably  it  had  been 
hunting  for  capybaras  or  tapirs,  and  it 
had  gone  straight  through  ponds  and  long, 
winding,  narrow  ditches  or  bayous,  where 
it  must  now  and  then  ha\e  had  to  swim 
for  a  stroke  or  two.  It  had  also  wandered 
through  the  island-like  stretches  of  tree- 
co\ered  land,  the  trees  at  this  point  being 
mostly  palms  and  tarumans;  the  taruman 
is  almost  as  big  as  a  li\e-oak,  with  glossy 
foliage  and  a  fruit  like  an  olixe.  The 
pace  quickened,  the  motli'v  pack  burst 
into  yelling  and  howling;  and  then  a  sud- 
den (|uickening  of  the  note  showed  that 


h'roin  a  J>hoC0£7-t}j>/i  by  Ker?Hit  Roosevelt. 


Colonel  Roosevelt  and  the  first  jaguar. 


the  game  had  either  climbed  a  tree  or 
turned  to  bay  in  a  thicket.  The  former 
proved  to  be  the  case.  The  dogs  had  en- 
tered a  patch  of  tall  tree  jungle,  and  as  we 
cantered  up  through  the  marsh  we  saw 
the  jaguar  high  up  among  the  forked 
limbs  of  a  taruman-tree.  It  was  a  beau- 
tiful picture — the  spotted  coat  of  the  big, 
lithe,  formidable  cat  fairly  shone  as  it 
snarled  defiance  at  the  pack  below.  I  did 
not  trust  the  pack;  the  dogs  were  not 
stanch,  and  if  the  jaguar  came  down  and 
started  I  feared  we  might  lose  it.  So  I 
fired  at  once,  from  a  distance  of  seventy 
yards.  I  was  using  my  favorite  rifle,  the 
little  Springfield  with  which  I  have  killed 
most  kinds  of  African  game,  from  the  lion 
and  elephant  down;  the  bullets  were  the 
sharp,  pointed  kind,  with  the  end  of 
naked  lead.  At  the  shot  the  jaguar  fell 
like  a  sack  of  sand  through  the  branches, 
and  although  it  staggered  to  its  feet  it 
went  but  a  score  of  yards  before  it  sank 
down,  and  when  I  came  up  it  was  dead 
548 


under  the  palms,  with  three  or  four  of 
the  bolder  dogs  riving  at  it. 

The  jaguar  is  the  king  of  South  Amer- 
ican game,  ranking  on  an  equality  with 
the  noblest  beasts  of  the  chase  of  North 
America,  and  behind  only  the  huge  and 
fierce  creatures  which  stand  at  the  head  of 
the  big  game  of  Africa  and  Asia.  This 
one  was  an  adult  female.  It  was  heavier 
and  more  powerful  than  a  full-grown  male 
cougar,  or  African  panther,  or  leopard. 
It  was  a  big,  powerfully  built  creature, 
giving  the  same  effect  of  strength  that  a 
tiger  or  lion  does,  and  that  the  lithe  leop- 
ards and  pumas  do  not.  Its  flesh,  by  the 
way,  proved  good  eating,  when  we  had  it 
for  supper,  although  it  was  not  cooked  in 
the  way  it  ought  to  have  been.  I  tried  it 
because  I  had  found  cougars  such  good 
eating;  I  have  always  regretted  that  in 
Africa  I  did  not  try  lion's  flesh,  which  I  am 
sure  must  be  excellent. 

Next  day  came  Kermit's  turn.  We  had 
the  miscellaneous  pack  with  us,  all  much 


/  >\iin  It  photograph  by  Key)iut  Kooscvclt. 


Culcjnel  Rondoii  and  the  second  jaguar. 


enjoying  themselves;  but,  although  they 
could  help  in  a  jaguar-hunt  to  the  extent 
of  giving  tongue  and  following  the  chase 
for  half  a  mile,  cowing  the  quarry  by  their 
clamor,  they  were  not  sufficiently  stanch 
to  be  of  use  if  there  was  any  difficulty 
in  the  hunt.  The  only  two  dogs  we 
could  trust  were  the  two  borrowed  jaguar 
hounds.  With  my  jaguar  the  white  bitch 
had  been  our  stand-by;  this  was  the 
black  dog's  day.  About  ten  in  the  morn- 
ing we  came  to  a  long,  deep,  winding  bay- 
ou. On  the  opposite  bank  stood  a  capy- 
bara,  looking  like  a  l)lunt-nose(l  pig,  its 
wet  hide  shining  black.  I  killed  it,  and 
it  slid  into  the  water.  Then  I  found  that 
the  bayou  extended  for  a  mile  or  two  in 
each  direction,  and  the  two  hunter-guides 
said  they  did  not  wish  to  swim  across  for 
fear  of  the  piranhas.  Just  at  this  mo- 
ment we  came  across  fresh  jaguar  tracks. 
It  was  hot,  we  had  been  travelling  for  fi\e 
hours,  and  the  dogs  were  much  exhausted. 
The  black  hound  in  particular  was  nearly 


done  up.  We  had  to  throw  water  over 
him ;  then,  as  he  snuffed  the  scent,  he  chal- 
lenged loudly.  Evidently  the  big  cat  was 
not  far  distant.  Soon  we  found  where 
it  had  swum  across  the  bayou.  Piranhas 
or  no  piranhas,  we  now  intended  to  get 
across;  and  we  tried  to  force  our  horses  in 
at  what  seemed  a  likely  si)ot.  The  matted 
growth  of  water  plants,  with  their  leath- 
ery, slippery  stems,  formed  an  unpleasant 
barrier,  as  the  water  was  swimming-deep 
for  the  horses.  The  latter  were  \ery  un- 
willing to  attempt  the  passage.  Kermit 
finally  forced  his  horse  through  the  tangled 
mass,  swimming,  plunging,  and  struggling. 
He  left  a  lane  of  clear  water,  through  which 
we  swam  after  him.  The  dogs  splashed 
and  swam  behind  us.  On  the  other  bank 
they  struck  the  fresh  trail  and  followed  it 
at  a  run.  It  led  into  a  long  l)elt  of  tim- 
ber, chielly  comjmsed  of  low-growing 
nacury  i)alms,  with  long,  drooping,  niany- 
fronded  branches.  In  silhouette  they  sug- 
gest coarse  bamboos;  the  nuts  hang  in  big 

549 


nno 


A    Iluiitcr-Naturalist  in  the  Brazilian  Wilderness 


clusters  and  look  like  bunches  of  small, 
unrijK'  bananas.  Amonj^  the  lower  jxilms 
were  scattered  some  bii,^  ordinary  trees. 
We  cantered  along  outside  the  timber 
belt,  listenintj;  to  the  dogs  within;  and  in 
a  moment  a  burst  of  }'elling  clamor  from 
the  pack  told  that  the  jaguar  was  afoot. 
These  few  minutes  are  the  really  exciting 
moments  in  the  chase,  with  hounds,  of 
any  big  cat  that  will  tree.  -:-'rhe  furious 
baying  of  the  pack,  the  shouts' and  cheers 
of  encouragement  from  the  galloping 
horsemen,  the  wilderness  surroundings, 
the  knowledge  of  what  the  quarry  is — all 
combine  to  make  the  moment  one  of  fierce 
and  thrilling  excitement.  Besides,  in  this 
case  there  was  the  possibility  the  jaguar 
might  come  to  bay  on  the  ground,  in 
which  event  there  w'ould  be  a  slight  ele- 
ment of  risk,  as  it  might  need  straight 
shooting  to  stop  a  charge.  However, 
about  as  soon  as  the  long-drawn  howling 
and  eager  yelping  showed  that  the  jaguar 
had  been  overtaken,  we  saw  him,  a  huge 
male,  up  in  the  branches  of  a  great  fig-tree. 
A  bullet  behind  the  shoulder,  from  Ker- 
mit's  405  Winchester,  brought  him  dead 
to  the  ground.  He  was  heavier  than  the 
very  big  male  horse-killing  cougar  I  shot 
in  Colorado,  whose  skull  Hart  Merriam 
reported  as  the  biggest  he  had  ever  seen; 
he  was  very  nearly  double  the  weight  of 
any  of  the  male  African  leopards  we  shot; 
he  was  nearly  or  quite  the  weight  of  the 
smallest  of  the  adult  African  lionesses  we 
shot  while  in  Africa.  He  had  the  big  bones, 
the  stout  frame,  and  the  lieavy  muscular 
build  of  a  small  lion;  he  was  not  lithe  and 
slender  and  long  like  a  cougar  or  leopard ; 
the  tail,  as  with  all  jaguars,  was  short, 
while  the  girth  of  the  body  was  great; 
his  coat  was  beautiful,  with  a  satiny  gloss, 
and  the  dark-brown  spots  on  the  gold  of 
his  back,  head,  and  sides,  were  hardly  as 
conspicuous  as  the  black  of  the  equally 
well-marked  spots  against  his  white  belly. 
This  was  a  well-known  jaguar.  He  had 
occasionally  indulged  in  cattle-killing;  on 
one  occasion  during  the  floods  he  had 
taken  up  his  abode  near  the  ranch-house 
and  had  killed  a  couple  of  cows  and  a 
young  steer.  The  hunters  had  followed 
him,  but  he  had  made  his  escape,  and  for 
the  time  being  had  abandoned  the  neigh- 
borhood. In  these  marshes  each  jaguar 
had  a  wide  irregular  range  and  travelled 


a  good  deal,  perhai:)s  only  passing  a  day 
or  two  in  a  given  locality,  perhaps  spend- 
ing a  week  where  game  was  plentiful. 
Jaguars  love  the  water.  They  drink 
greedily  and  swim  freely.  In  this  coun- 
try they  rambled  through  the  night  across 
,the  marshes  and  prowled  along  the  edges 
of  the  ponds  and  bayous,  catching  the 
capybaras  and  the  caymans;  for  these 
small  pond  caymans,  the  jacare-tinga, 
form  part  of  their  habitual  food,  and  a  big 
jaguar  when  hungry  will  attack  and  kill 
large  caymans  and  crocodiles  if  he  can  get 
them  a  few  yards  from  the  water.  On 
these  marshes  the  jaguars  also  followed 
the  peccary  herds;  it  is  said' that  they 
always  strike  the  hindmost  of  a  band  of 
the  fierce  little  wild  pigs.  Elsewhere  they 
often  prey  on  the  tapir.  If  in  timber, 
however,  the  jaguar  must  kill  it  at  once, 
for  the  squat,  thick-skinned,  wedge- 
shaped  tapir  has  no  respect  for  timber,  as 
Colonel  Rondon  phrased  it,  and  rushes 
with  such  blind,  headlong  speed  through 
and  among  branches  and  trunks  that  if 
not  immediately  killed  it  brushes  the 
jaguar  off,  the  claws  leaving  long  raking 
scars  in  the  tough  hide.  The  jaguar  will 
not  meddle  with  a  big  bull;  and  is  cau- 
tious about  attacking  a  herd  accompanied 
by  a  bull;  but  it  will  at  times,  where  wild 
game  is  scarce,  kill  every  other  domestic 
animal.  It  is  a  thirsty  brute,  and  if  it 
kills  far  from  water  will  often  drag  its 
victim  a  long  distance  toward  a  pond  or 
stream;  Colonel  Rondon  had  once  come 
across  a  horse  which  a  jaguar  had  thus 
killed  and  dragged  for  over  a  mile. 
Jaguars  also  stalk  and  kill  the  deer;  in  this 
neighborhood  they  seemed  to  be  less  ha- 
bitual deer-hunters  than  the  cougars; 
whether  this  is  generally  the  case  I  cannot 
say.  They  have  been  known  to  pounce 
on  and  devour  good-sized  anacondas. 

In  this  particular  neighborhood  the  or- 
dinary jaguars  molested  the  cattle  and 
horses  hardly  at  all  except  now  and  then 
to  kill  calves.  It  was  only  occasionally 
that  under  special  circumstances  some  old 
male  took  to  cattle-killing.  There  were 
plenty  of  capybaras  and  deer,  and  evi- 
dently the  big  spotted  cats  preferred  the 
easier  prey  when  it  was  available;  exactly 
as  in  Africa  we  found  the  lions  living  ex- 
clusively on  zebra  and  antelope,  and  not 
molesting  the  bufifalo  and  domestic  cattle, 


A   Jaguar-liunt  on   the  Taquary 


551 


which  in  other  parts  of  Africa   furnish  hunters  of  Africa  when  they  spoke  of  the 

their    ahiiost    e.\clusi\e    l)rey.     In    some  lion  and  rhinoceros.     Until  the  habit  of 

other  neighborhoods,  not  far  distant,  our  scientific  accuracy  in  obserxation  and  rec- 

hosts  informed  us  that  the  jaguars  lived  ord  is  achieved  and  until  s])ecimens  are 

almost  exclusively  on  horses  and  cattle,  preserved    and    carefully  compared,   en- 


t'ro>n  a  photograph  by  Key}nit  Roosevelt. 


Where  the  second  jaguar  went  to  bay. 


They  also  told  us  that  the  cougars  had 
the  same  habits  as  the  jaguars  except  that 
they  did  not  prey  on  such  big  animals. 
The  cougars  on  this  ranch  never  molested 
the  foals,  a  fact  which  astonished  me,  as 
in  the  Rockies  they  are  the  worst  enemies 
of  foals.  It  was  interesting  to  fmd  that 
my  hosts,  and  the  mixed-blood  hunters 
and  ranch  workers,  combined  special 
knowledge  of  many  of  the  habits  of  these 
big  cats  with  a  curious  ignorance  of  other 
matters  concerning  them  and  a  readiness 
to  believe  fables  about  them.  This  was 
])recisely  what  I  had  found  to  be  the 
case  with  the  old-time  North  American 
hunters  in  discussing  the  puma,  bear,  and 
wolf,    and   with    the   English    and    Boer 


tirely  truthful  men,  at  home  in  the  wil- 
derness, will  whole-heartedly  accept,  and 
re[)eat  as  matters  of  gospel  faith,  theories 
which  split  the  grizzly  and  black  bears  cf 
each  locality  in  the  United  States,  antl  tl:e 
lions  and  black  rhinos  of  South  Africa,  or 
the  jaguars  and  i)umas  of  any  portion  of 
South  America,  into  several  ditTerent 
sj)ecies,  all  with  widely  dilTerent  habits. 
They  will,  moreoN'er,  describe  these  imag- 
inary habits  with  such  sincerity  and  mi- 
nuteness that  they  deceive  most  listeners; 
and  the  result  sometimes  is  that  an  t)ther- 
wise  good  naturalist  will  perpetuate  these 
fables,  as  Hudson  did  when  he  wrote  of  the 
l)uma.  Hudson  was  a  capital  ()l)server 
and  writer  wiien  he  dealt  with   the  ordi- 


A    I  luntcr-NaturaHst  in   the   Brazilian   Wilderness 


nary  birds  and  mammals  of  the  well-set- 
tled'districts  near  Buenos  Aires  and  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Rio  Negro;  but  he  knew 
nothing  of  the  wilderness.  This  is  no  re- 
flection on  liim;  his  books  are  great  favor- 


drink  it  threatened  them  and  frightened 
them;  and  then  Colonel  Rondon  and  Ker- 
mit  called  me  to  watch  it.  It  lay  on  the 
surface  of  the  water  only  a  few  feet  dis- 
tant from  us  and  threatened  us;  we  threw 


hro7H  a  pliotograpli  by  Kenint  Kooseiicl t . 

The  brown  boy  on  the  long-horned  trotting  steer,  which  he  managed  by  a  string  through  its  nostril  and  lip. 


ites  of  mine,  and  are  to  a  large  degree 
models  of  what  such  books  should  be;  I 
only  wish  that  there  were  hundreds  of 
such  writers  and  observers  who  would  give 
us  similar  books  for  all  parts  of  America. 
But  it  is  a  mistake  to  accept  him  as  an 
authority  on  that  concerning  which  he 
was  ignorant. 

An  interesting  incident  occurred  on  the 
day  we  killed  our  first  jaguar.  We  took 
our  lunch  beside  a  small  but  deep  and 
obviously  permanent  pond.  I  went  to 
the  edge  to  dip  up  some  water,  and  some- 
thing growled  or  bellowed  at  me  only  a 
few  feet  away.  It  was  a  jacare-tinga  or 
small  cayman  about  five  feet  long.  I  paid 
no  heed  to  it  at  the  moment.  But  shortly 
afterward  when  our  horses  went  down  to 


cakes  of  mud  at  it,  whereupon  it  clashed 
its  jaws  and  made  short  rushes  at  us,  and 
when  we  threw  sticks  it  seized  them  and 
crunched  them.  We  could  not  drive  it 
away.  Why  it  should  have  shown  such 
truculence  and  heedlessness  I  cannot 
imagine,  unless  perhaps  it  was  a  female, 
with  eggs  near  by.  In  another  little  pond 
a  jacare-tinga  showed  no  less  anger  when 
another  of  my  companions  approached. 
It  bellowed,  opened  its  jaws,  and  lashed 
its  tail.  Yet  these  pond  jacares  never 
actually  molested  even  our  dogs  in  the 
ponds,  far  less  us  on  our  horses. 

This  same  day  others  of  our  party  had 
an  interesting  experience  with  the  crea- 
tures in  another  pond.  One  of  them  was 
Commander  Da  Cunha  (of  the  Brazilian 


A   Jaguar-Hunt  on  the  Taquary 


553 


navy),  a  capital  sportsman  and  delightful 
companion.  They  found  a  deepish  pond 
a  hundred  yards  or  so  long  and  thirty  or 
forty  across.  It  was  tenanted  by  the 
small   caymans  and  by  capybaras — the 


teeth  cutting  out  chunks  of  tough  hide 
and  flesh.  Evidently  they  did  not  molest 
either  cayman  or  capybara  while  it  was 
un wounded;  but  blood  excited  them  to 
frenzy.    Their  habits  are  in  some  ways  in- 


/■'row  a  photograph  by  Harper. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  and  Kermit  returning  from  the  jaguar-hunt. 


largest  known  rodent,  a  huge  aquatic 
guinea-pig,  the  size  of  a  small  sheep.  It 
also  swarmed  with  piranhas,  the  ravenous 
fish  of  which  I  have  so  often  spoken.  Un- 
doubtedly the  caymans  were  subsisting 
largely  on  these  piranhas.  But  the  tables 
were  readily  turned  if  any  caymans  were 
injured.  When  a  capybara  was  shot  and 
Slink  in  the  water,  the  piranhas  at  once  at- 
tacked it,  and  had  eaten  half  the  carcass 
ten  minutes  later.  Jkit  much  more  ex- 
traordinary was  the  fact  that  when  a  cay- 
man about  five  feet  long  was  wounded  the 
piranhas  attacked  and  tore  it,  and  actually 
drove  it  out  on  the  bank  to  face  its  human 
foes.  The  lish  first  attacked  the  wound; 
then,  as  the  blood  maddened  them,  they 
attacked  all  the  soft  parts,  their  terrible 


explicable.  We  saw  men  frequently  bath- 
ing unmolested;  but  there  are  places 
where  this  is  never  safe,  and  in  any  place 
if  a  school  of  the  fish  api)ear  swimmers  are 
in  deadly  peril,  and  a  wounded  man  or 
beast  is  also  in  grave  danger  if  piranhas 
are  in  the  neighborhood.  Ordinarily  it 
ap]K\irs  that  an  unwounded  man  is  at- 
tacked only  by  accident — such  accidents 
are  rare;  l)ul  they  happen  with  suflicicnt 
frecjuency  to  justify  much  caution  in  en- 
tering water  where  piranhas  abound. 

We  frecjuently  came  across  ponds  ten- 
anted by  numbers  of  capybaras.  The  huge, 
])ig-like  rodents  are  said  to  be  shy  else- 
where. Here  they  were  tame.  The  wa- 
ter was  their  home  and  refuge.  They 
usually  went  ashore  to  feed  on  the  grass, 


554 


A    Munter-Natnralist  in  the   Brazilian   Wilderness 


and  made  well-beaten  trails  in  the  marsh 
immediately  around  the  water;  l)ut  they 
must  have  travelled  these  at  ni«^ht,  for  we 
never  saw  them  more  than  a  few  feet  away 
from  the  water  in  the  daytime.  Even  at 
midday  we  often  came  on  them  standing 
beside'a  bayou  or  pond.  The  dogs  would 
rush  wildly  at  such  a  standing  beast, 
which  would  wait  until  they  were  only 
a  few  yards  off  and  then  dash  into  an.d 
under  the  water.  The  dogs  would  also 
run  full-tilt  into  the  water,  and  it  was  then 
really  funny  to  see  their  surprise  and  dis- 
appointment at  the  sudden  and  complete 
disappearance  of  their  quarry.  Often  a 
capybara  would  stand  or  sit  on  its 
haunches  in  the  water,  with  only  its  blunt, 
short-eared  head  above  the  surface,  quite 
heedless  of  our  presence.  But  if  alarmed 
it  would  dive,  for  capybaras  swim  with 
equal  facility  on  or  below  the  surface;  and 
if  they  wish  to  hide  they  rise  gently  among 
the  rushes  or  water-lily  leaves  with  only 
their  nostrils  exposed.  In  these  waters 
the  capybaras  and  small  caymans  paid  no 
attention  to  one  another,  swimming  and 
resting  in  close  proximity.  They  both 
had  the  same  enemy,  the  jaguar.  The 
capybara  is  a  game  animal  only  in  the 
sense  that  a  hare  or  rabbit  is.  The  flesh 
is  good  to  eat,  and  its  amphibious  habits 
and  queer  nature  and  surroundings  make 
it  interesting.  In  some  of  the  ponds  the 
water  had  about  gone,  and  the  capybaras 
had  become  for  the  time  being  beasts  of  the 
marsh  and  the  mud;  although  they  could 
always  find  little  slimy  pools,  under  a  mass 
of  w^ater-lilies,  in  which  to  lie  and  hide. 

Our  whole  stay  on  this  ranch  was  de- 
lightful. On  the  long  rides  we  always 
saw  something  of  interest,  and  often  it 
was  something  entirely  new  to  us.  Early 
one  morning  we  came  across  two  arma- 
dillos— the  big,  nine-banded  armadillo. 
We  were  riding  with  the  pack,  through  a 
dry,  sandy  pasture  country,  dotted  with 
clumps  of  palms,  round  the  trunks  of 
which  grew  a  dense  jungle  of  thorns  and 
Spanish  bayonets.  The  armadillos  were 
feeding  in  an  open  space  between  two  of 
these  jungle  clumps  which  were  about  a 
hundred  yards  apart.  One  was  on  all 
fours;  the  other  was  in  a  squatting  po- 
sition, with  its  fore  legs  off  the  ground. 
Their  long  ears  were  very  prominent. 
The  dogs  raced  at  them.     I  had  always 


suj^posed  that  armadillos  merely  shuffled 
along,  and  curled  up  for  protection  when 
menaced;  and  1  was  almost  as  surprised  as 
if  I  had  seen  a  turtle  gallop  when  these  two 
armadillos  bounded  off  at  a  run,  going  as 
fast  as  rabbits.  One  headed  back  for  the 
nearest  patch  of  jungle,  which  it  reached. 
The  other  ran  at  full  speed — and  ran 
really  fast,  too — until  it  nearly  reached 
the  other  patch,  a  hundred  yards  distant, 
the  dogs  in  full  cry  immediately  behind  it. 
Then  it  suddenly  changed  its  mind, 
wheeled  in  its  tracks,  and  came  back  like 
a  bullet  right  through  the  pack.  Dog 
after  dog  tried  to  seize  it  or  stop  it  and 
turned  to  pursue  it;  but  its  wedge-shaped 
snout  and  armored  body,  joined  to  the 
speed  at  which  it  was  galloping,  enabled  it 
to  drive  straight  ahead  through  its  pursu- 
ers, not  one  of  which  could  halt  it  or  grasp 
it,  and  it  reached  in  safety  its  thorny  haven 
of  refuge.  It  had  run  at  speed  about  a 
hundred  and  fifty  yards.  I  was  much  im- 
pressed by  this  unexpected  exhibition;  evi- 
dently this  species  of  armadillo  only  curls 
up  as  a  last  resort,  and  ordinarily  trusts  to 
its  speed,  and  to  the  protection  its  build 
and  its  armor  give  it  while  running,  in  or- 
der to  reach  its  burrow  or  other  place  of 
safety.  Twice,  while  laying  railway  tracks 
near  Sao  Paulo,  Kermit  had  accidentally 
dug  up  armadillos  with  a  steam-shovel. 

There  are  big  anthills,  some  of  them 
of  huge  dimensions,  scattered  through 
the  country.  Sometimes  they  were  built 
against  the  stems  of  trees.  We  did  not 
here  come  across  any  of  the  poisonous  or 
biting  ants  which,  when  sufficiently  nu- 
merous, render  certain  districts  uninhab- 
itable. They  are  ordinarily  not  very  nu- 
merous; they  kill  nestling  birds,  and  at 
once  destroy  any  big  animal  unable  to  get 
out  of  their  way.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  nestlings  in  their  nests  are  in  some 
way  immune  from  the  attack  of  these  ants. 
The  experiments  of  our  naturalists  tended 
to  show  that  this  was  not  the  case.  They 
plundered  any  nest  they  came  across  and 
could  get  at. 

Once  we  saw  a  small  herd  of  peccaries, 
one  a  sow  followed  by  three  little  pigs — 
they  are  said  only  to  have  two  young,  but 
we  saw  three,  although  of  course  it  is  pos- 
sible one  belonged  to  another  sow.  The 
herd  galloped  into  a  mass  of  thorny  cover 
the  hounds  could  not  penetrate;  and  when 


555 


I 


From  a  pliotog; 


Fazenda  Las  Palineiras  on  the  Rio  Taquary 


they  were  in  safety  we  heard  them  utter, 
from  the  depths  of  the  jungle,  a  curious 
moaning  sound. 

On  one  ride  we  passed  a  clump  of  palms 
which  were  fairly  ablaze  with  bird  color. 
There  were  magnificent  hyacinth  macaws ; 
green  parrots  with  red  splashes;  toucans 
with  varied  plumage,  black,  white,  red, 
yellow;  green  jacmars;  flaming  orioles  and 
both  blue  and  dark-red  tanagers.  It 
was  an  extraordinary  collection.  All  were 
noisy.  Perhaps  there  was  a  snake  that  had 
drawn  them  by  its  presence;  but  we  could 
find  no  snake.  The  assembly  dispersed  as 
we  rode  up;  the  huge  blue  macaws  de- 
parted in  pairs,  uttering  their  hoarse  "  ar- 
rah-h,  ar-rah-h."  It  has  been  said  that 
parrots  in  the  wilderness  are  only  noisy  on 
the  wing.  They  are  certainly  noisy  on 
the  wing;  and  those  that  we  saw  were 
quiet  while  they  were  feeding,  but  or- 
dinarily when  they  were  perched  among 
the  branches,  and  especially  when,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  little  paraquets  near  the 
house,  they  were  gathering  materials  for 
nest-building,  they  were  just  as  noisy  as 
while  flying. 

The  water  birds  were  always  a  delight. 
We  shot  merely  the  two  or  three  speci- 
mens the  naturahsts  needed  for  the  mu- 
seum. I  killed  a  wood-ibis  on  the  wing 
with  the  handy  little  Springfield;  and  then 
lost  all  the  credit  I  had  gained  by  a  series 
556 


of  inexcusable  misses,  at  long  range,  be- 
fore I  finally  killed  a  jabiru.  Kermit  shot 
a  jabiru  with  the  Liiger  automatic.  The 
great  splendid  birds,  standing  about  as 
tall  as  a  man,  show  fight  when  wounded, 
and  advance  against  their  assailants,  clat- 
tering their  formidable  bills.  One  day 
we  found  the  nest  of  a  jabiru  in  a  mighty 
fig-tree,  on  the  edge  of  a  patch  of  jungle. 
It  was  a  big  platform  of  sticks,  placed  on 
a  horizontal  branch.  There  were  four 
half-grown  young  standing  on  it.  We 
passed  it  in  the  morning,  when  both  par- 
ents were  also  perched  alongside;  the  sky 
was  then  overcast,  and  it  was  not  possi- 
ble to  photograph  it  with  the  small  cam- 
era. In  the  early  afternoon  when  we 
again  passed  it  the  sun  was  out,  and  we 
tried  to  get  photographs.  But  one  par- 
ent bird  was  present  at  this  time.  It 
showed  no  fear.  I  noticed  that,  as  it 
stood  on  a  branch  near  the  nest,  its  bill 
was  slightly  open.  It  was  very  hot,  and 
I  suppose  it  had  opened  its  bill  just  as  a 
hen  opens  her  bill  in  hot  weather.  As 
we  rode  away  the  old  bird  and  the  four 
young  birds  were  standing  motionless, 
and  with  gliding  flight  the  other  old  bird 
was  returning  to  the  nest.  It  is  hard  to 
give  an  adequate  idea  of  the  wealth  of 
bird  life  in  these  marshes.  A  naturalist 
could  with  the  utmost  advantage  spend 
six  months  on  such  a  ranch  as  that  we 


A   Jaguar-Hunt  on  the  Tacjuary 


557 


visited.  He  would  have  to  do  some  col- 
lecting];, but  only  a  little.  Exhausti\e  ob- 
servation in  the  tield  is  what  is  now  most 
needed.  Most  of  this  wonderful  and 
harmless  bird  life  should  be  protected  by 
law;  and  the  mammals  should  receive 
reasonable  })rotection.  The  books  now 
most  needed  are  those  dealing  with  the 
life  histories  of  wild  creatures. 

Near  the  ranch-house,  walking  famil- 
iarly among  the  cattle,  we  saw  the  big, 
deep-billed  Ani  blackbirds.  They  feed 
on  the  insects  disturbed  by  the  hoofs  of 
the  cattle,  and  often  cling  to  them  and 
pick  off  the  ticks.  It  was  the  end  of  the 
nesting  season,  and  we  did  not  find  their 
curious  communal  nests,  in  which  half  a 
dozen  females  lay  their  eggs  indiscrim- 
inately. The  common  ibises  in  the  ponds 
near  by — which  usually  went  in  pairs,  in- 
stead of  in  flocks  like  the  wood-ibis — 
were  very  tame,  and  so  were  the  night 
heron,  and  all  the  small  herons.  In  fly- 
ing, the  ibises  and  storks  stretch  the  neck 


straight  in  front  of  them.  The  Jabiru — a 
splendid  bird  on  the  wing — also  stretches 
his  neck  out  in  front,  but  there  appears  to 
be  a  slight  downward  cur\e  at  the  base  of 
the  neck,  which  may  be  due  merely  to  the 
craw.  The  big  slender  herons,  on  the 
contrary,  bend  the  long  neck  back  in  a 
beautiful  curve,  so  that  the  head  is  nearly 
between  the  shoulders.  One  day  I  saw 
what  I  at  first  thought  was  a  small  yellow- 
bellied  kingfisher  hovering  over  a  pond, 
and  finally  i)lunging  down  to  the  surface  cf 
the  water  after  a  school  of  tiny  young  fish ; 
but  it  proved  to  be  a  bien-te-vi  king-bird. 
Curved-bill  woodhavers,  birds  the  size  and 
somewhat  the  coloration  of  veeries,  but 
with  long,  slender  sickle-bills,  were  com- 
mon in  the  little  garden  back  of  the  house; 
their  habits  were  those  of  creep.ers,  and 
they  scrambled  with  agility  up,  along,  and 
under  the  trunks  and  branches;  and  along 
the  posts  and  rails  of  the  fence,  thrusting 
the  bill  into  crevices  for  insects.  The 
oven-birds,  which  had  the  carriage  and 


J-'rom  It  pltutoj^raplt  by  Harper. 


K(i|)in>;  bulls  at  the  I.us  i'alinciras  ranch. 


558 


A    1  luntLT-Naturalist  in  tlie   Brazilian   Wilderness 


somewhat  the  look  of  wood-thrushes,  I  am 
sure  would  prove  (lcH,L,dilful  friends  on  a 
close  acquaintance;  I  hey  are  \ery  individ- 
ual, not  only  in  the  extraordinary  domed 
mud  nests  they  build,  but  in  all  their  ways, 
in  their  bright  alertness,  their  interest 
in  and  curiosity  about  whatever  goes  on, 
their  rather  jerky  quickness  of  movement, 
and  their  loud  and  varied  calls.  With  a 
little  encouragement  they  become  tame 
and  familiar.  The  paraquets  were  too 
noisy,  but  otherwise  were  most  attractive 
little  birds,  as  they  flew  to  and  fro  and 
scrambled  about  in  the  top  of  the  palm 
behind  the  house.  There  was  one  showy 
kind  of  king-bird  or  tyrant  flycatcher,  lus- 
trous black  with  a  white  head. 

One  afternoon  several  score  cattle  were 
driven  into  a  big  square  corral  near  the 
house,  in  order  to  brand  the  calves  and  a 
number  of  unbranded  yearlings  and  two- 
year-olds.  A  special  element  of  excite- 
ment was  added  by  the  presence  of  a 
dozen  big  bulls  which  were  to  be  turned 
into  draught  oxen.  The  agility,  nerve,  and 
prowess  of  the  ranch  workmen,  the  herd- 
ers or  gauchos,  were  noteworthy.  The 
dark-skinned  men  were  obviously  mainly 
of  Indian  and  negro  descent,  although 
some  of  them  also  showed  a  strong  strain 
of  white  blood.  They  wore  the  usual 
shirt,  trousers,  and  fringed  leather  aprons, 
with  Jim-crow  hats.  Their  bare  feet 
must  have  been  literally  as  tough  as  horn ; 
for  when  one  of  them  roped  a  big  bull  he 
would  brace  himself,  bending  back  until 
he  was  almost  sitting  down  and  digging 
his  heels  into  the  ground,  and  the  gallop- 
ing beast  would  be  stopped  short  and 
whirled  completely  round  when  the  rope 
tautened.  The  maddened  bulls,  and  an 
occasional  steer  or  cow,  charged  again  and 
again  with  furious  wrath;  but  two  or 
three  ropes  would  settle  on  the  doomed 
beast,  and  down  it  would  go;  and  when  it 
was  released  and  rose  and  charged  once 
more,  with  greater  fury  than  ever,  the 
men,  shouting  with  laughter,  would  leap 
up  the  sides  of  the  heavy  stockade. 

We  stayed  at  the  ranch  until  a  couple 
of  days  before  Christmas.  Hitherto  the 
weather  had  been  lovely.  The  night  be- 
fore we  left  there  was  a  torrential  tropic 
downpour.  It  was  not  unexpected,  for 
we  had  been  told  that  the  rainy  sea- 
son was  overdue.   The  following  forenoon 


the  baggage  started,  in  a  couple  of  two- 
wheeled  ox-carts,  for  the  landing  where 
the  steamboat  awaited  us.  Each  cart 
was  drawn  by  eight  oxen.  The  huge 
wheels  were  nearly  eight  feet  high.  Early 
in  the  afternoon  we  followed  on  horseback, 
and  overtook  the  carts  as  darkness  fell, 
just  before  we  reached  the  landing  on  the 
river's  bank.  The  last  few  miles,  after 
the  final  reaches  of  higher,  tree-clad 
ground  had  been  passed,  were  across  a 
level  plain  of  tall  ground  on  which  the 
water  stood,  sometimes  only  up  to  the 
ankles  of  a  man  on  foot,  sometimes  as 
high  as  his  waist.  Directly  in  front  of  us, 
many  leagues  distant,  rose  the  bold  moun- 
tains that  lie  west  of  Corumba.  Behind 
them  the  sun  was  setting  and  kindled  the 
overcast  heavens  with  lurid  splendor. 
Then  the  last  rose  tints  faded  from  the 
sky,  the  horses  plodded  wearily  through 
the  water;  on  every  side  stretched  the 
marsh,  vast,  lonely,  desolate  in  the  gray  of 
the  half-light.  We  overtook  the  ox-carts. 
The  cattle  strained  in  the  yokes;  the 
drivers  wading  alongside  cracked  their 
whips  and  uttered  strange  cries;  the  carts 
rocked  and  swayed  as  the  huge  wheels 
churned  through  the  mud  and  water.  As 
the  last  light  faded  we  reached  the  small 
patches  of  dry  land  at  the  landing,  where 
the  flat-bottomed  side-wheel  steamboat 
was  moored  to  the  bank.  The  tired  horses 
and  oxen  were  turned  loose  to  graze.  Wa- 
ter stood  in  the  corrals,  but  the  open  shed 
was  on  dry  ground.  Under  it  the  half- 
clad,  wild-looking  ox-drivers  and  horse 
herders  slung  their  hammocks;  and  close 
by  they  lit  a  fire  and  roasted,  or  scorched, 
slabs  and  legs  of  mutton,  spitted  on  sticks 
and  propped  above  the  smouldering  flame. 
Next  morning,  with  real  regret,  we 
waved  good-by  to  our  dusky  attendants, 
as  they  stood  on  the  bank,  grouped  around 
a  little  fire,  beside  the  big  empty  ox-carts. 
A  dozen  miles  down-stream  a  rowboat 
fitted  for  a  spritsail  put  oE  from  the  bank. 
The  owner,  a  countryman  from  a  small 
ranch,  asked  for  a  tow  to  Corumba,  which 
we  gave.  He  had  with  him  in  the  boat  his 
comely  brown  wife — who  was  smoking  a 
very  large  cigar — their  two  children,  a 
young  man,  and  a  couple  of  trunks  and 
various  other  belongings.  On  Christmas 
eve  we  reached  Corumba,  and  rejoined  the 
other  members  of  the  expedition. 


TRIPOLI 


BY  G.  E.  WOODBERRY 


BSALOM   ENGLAND,    a 

tall  grizzled  Arab  and  sea- 
pilot,  saluted  me  on  the 
deck.  The  combination  of 
names,  race,  and  occupa- 
tion might  have  seemed  pe- 
culiar to  me  once,  but  I  was  proof  against 
any  African  vagary.  He  was  a  land-pilot 
now,  and  took  charge  of  me  and  mine.  I 
did  not  lose  my  liberty,  but  I  had  un- 
knowingly parted  with  all  responsibility 
for  myself;  thereafter,  except  in  consular 
guard  or  barred  in  my  hotel,  I  was  under 
his  incessant  watch  and  ward.  I  even 
began  to  have  some  value  in  my  own 
eyes,  seeing  at  what  a  price  I  was  rated, 
and  could  easily  have  fancied  myself  a 
disguised  sold  an  with  an  inseparable  fol- 
lower. He  treated  me  as  something  be- 
tween a  son  and  a  sheik.  But  at  the  mo- 
ment to  my  unforeseeing  eyes  he  was  only 
a  dark,  respectful  Arab,  with  a  weather- 
worn and  open-air  look,  black  with  many 
summers,  a  strong  type  of  a  fine  race,  and 
with  a  terrible  cough  that  shook  him. 

We  passed  the  Turkish  officials  and  sank 
like  a  bubble  in  the  variety  and  vivacity 
of  the  land,  always  so  noticeable  when 
one  comes  from  the  sea.  It  was  pleasant 
to  be  in  a  city  once  more:  there  were  noise 
and  movement  and  things  to  look  at;  and 
almost  at  once  the  gray  mass  of  a  mag- 
nificent ruined  arch,  half-buried  in  the 
street,  lifted  its  dark  and  heavy  stones, 
bossed  with  obliterated  faces  and  grimy 
sculpture,  among  the  paltry  buildings;  a 
grocery  shop  with  its  bright  fruits  and 
lettered  boxes  seemed  to  have  nested  like 
a  swallow  in  its  lower  stories.  It  looked 
like  a  worn  old  ocean  rock  in  that  incon- 
gruous tide  of  people  and  trade — once  the 
proud  arch  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  A  few 
moments  brought  us  to  what  elsewhere 
would  have  been  an  obscure  hotel,  but  was 
here  the  chief  hostelry, — a  house  with  an 
interior  court  as  usual,  a  few  chambers 
opening  on  dilapidated  galleries  in  a  double 
tier,  and  rude  stairs  leading  uj).  Seyd,  a 
Fezzan  negro  boy,  showed  me  to  a  lumbled 
Vol.  LV.— 6o 


room.  It  was  an  unpromising  outlook 
even  for  a  brief  sojourn.  I  went  at  once  to 
the  French  consul .  The  other  powers  have 
consuls,  except  that  America  at  that  time 
had  none;  but  owing  to  the  old  position 
of  France  as  the  protector  of  all  Cath- 
olics, her  representative  is  pre-eminent 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Mohammedans — he  is 
"the  consul."  The  consulate  was  a  very 
fine  old  Arab  house;  a  magnificent  drago- 
man with  negro  guards  received  me  in  the 
great  silent  court  and  led  me  up  the  broad 
stone  stairway  to  the  large  and  beautiful 
rooms  where  I  was  to  feel  myself  so  pleas- 
antly at  home.  Then  Absalom  and  I  fared 
forth. 

I  found  myself  in  a  true  African  street 
with  a  new  trait.  It  is  astonishing  what 
originality  crops  out  in  the  bare  and  sim- 
ple things  of  this  land;  one  thinks  he 
has  seen  all,  and  by  some  slight  shift  of 
the  lights  something  new  emerges  and  is 
magically  touched — the  real  and  common 
made  mysterious,  the  daily  and  usual  made 
visionary,  the  familiar  unfamiliar  once 
more.  It  was  a  narrow  street,  vaulted 
from  side  to  side,  and  its  fresh  atmosphere 
was  bathed  in  that  cool  obscurity  which 
in  this  land  of  fierce  and  burning  rays  is 
like  balm  to  the  eyes;  and,  besides,  this 
street  was  painted  blue,  which  was  to 
add  a  caress  to  the  softness  of  the  light. 
This  was  the  slight  and  magical  touch. 
A  stream  of  passers  went  down  and  up 
the  centre  of  the  blueness;  the  little  shops 
on  either  side  strung  along  their  bright 
and  curious  merchandise  of  the  museum 
and  the  fair;  and  the  shadowy,  azure- 
toned  perspectives  framed  each  figure 
as  it  came  near,  with  flowing  robe  or  dark 
haik  and  burdens  borne  on  head  and 
shoulder.  The  place  had  an  atmosphere 
all  its  own,  that  stays  in  the  memory  like 
perfume.  I  loved  to  loiter  there  after- 
ward, but  then  we  had  a  goal;  and  we 
came  at  last  by  flights  of  steps  to  the 
market  or  the  great  space  near  the  sea.  I 
had  seen  the  people  by  the  beach  from 
the  steamer  and  wondered  at  their  num- 
ber;  and  that  was  why  1  had  come. 

It  was  by  far  the  greatest  market  1  ever 

SS9 


5(')0 


Tripoli 


saw.  It  was  truly  metropolitan.  I  went 
among  the  plotted  squares  of  merchan- 
dise and  rows  of  goods  spread  out  in  great 
heaps  and  little  jMles.  and  along  by  the 
small  tents  islanding  their  foreign  treas- 
ures. To  tell  and  name  it  all  would  be  to 
inventory  a  civilization:  cloths  and  finery 
and  trinkets;  grains  in  sacks,  amid  which 
I  wandered  nibbling  hard  kernels  of 
strange  savors,  trying  unknown  nuts  and 
dried  fruits;  utensils,  strange-cornered 
knives  with  curves  of  murder,  straight, 
broad  blades;  slippers  and  caps;  what 
seemed  to  me  droves  of  cows — it  w^as  so 
long  since  I  had  seen  cows — camels  and 
donkeys;  vegetables, — bulbs,  pods,  and 
heads;  things  to  eat,  bobbing  in  pots  and 
kettles ;  leathers,  hides,  straws.  It  was  an 
improvised  exposition — everything  that 
the  desert  hand  produces  or  manufactures 
of  the  pastoral  kind  or  that  the  desert 
heart  has  learned  to  desire  of  migratory 
commerce  brought  from  far  away.  The 
grass  market  especially  attracted  me  with 
its  heaped-up  bales  of  halfa,  where  camels 
were  unloading  llie  unwieldy  and  enor- 
mous burdens  balanced  across  their  backs; 
and  so  did  the  Soudanese  corner,  with  odd 
straw  work,  deep-colored  gourds,  and  skin 
bottles. 

But  the  stage  was  the  least  part  of  the 
scene;  in  this  play  the  crowd  was  the 
thing.  There  w^ere  familiar  traits,  but  in 
its  wholeness  it  w^as  a  new  crowd.  I 
scanned  them  as  an  explorer  looks  at  an 
unknown  tribe  from  the  hills.  There  was 
nothing  here  of  Tunisian  softness,  mild  af- 
fability and  elegance,  not  the  simple  and 
peaceful  countenances  seen  in  the  Zibans, 
nor  the  amiable  cheer  and  brusque  energy 
of  the  Kabyles,  nor  the  blond  beauty  of 
the  Chaouias,  nor  even  the  forbidding  face 
of  the  Moor;  here  w^as  a  different  temper 
— the  spirit  of  the  horde,  the  fierte  of  the 
desert,  the  rudeness  of  nature,  borne  with 
an  independence  of  mien,  a  freedom  of 
gait,  unblenching  eyes:  true  desert-dwell- 
ers. I  think  I  never  felt  the  full  meaning 
and  flavor  of  the  word  "autochthonous" 
before.  They  were  the  soil  made  man. 
There  was  also,  beyond  the  tough  fibre  and 
wild  grace  of  the  free  life,  another  impres- 
sion, which  owed  perhaps  as  much  to  the 
feeling  of  the  stranger  there  as  to  anything 
expHcit  in  the  crowd — a  sense  of  some- 
thing fierce  and  hard,  an  instinct  of  hos- 


tility, of  disdain,  the  egotism  of  an  alien 
faith  master  on  its  own  fanatic  soil. 

This  crowd,  which  fascinated  me  by  its 
vitality  and  temper  of  life,  was  clad  in 
every  variety  of  burnoose  and  haik  and 
head-gear;  here  and  there  was  a  crude 
outbreak  of  color,  as  if  some  one  had  spilt, 
and  soiled,  aniline  dyes  at  random,  but 
the  general  effect  was  sober — brown  earth 
colors,  mixed  blacks  and  grays,  dingy 
whites,  a  workaday  world.  There  were 
many  negroes.  I  had  already  added  much 
to  my  knowledge  of  negro  types,  but 
here  I  annexed,  as  it  were,  new*  kingdoms 
of  physiognomy.  These  men  were  strange 
as  the  tropics:  some  amazingly  long- 
waisted,  some  Herculean  in  measure  or 
extraordinarily  lean  and  bulbous  in  the 
shoulders — new  species  of  human  heads. 
Arabs  and  Berbers,  mingled  with  the 
mixed  blood  of  half  a  continent,  made  the 
bulk;  and  here  and  there  stood  some 
richer  personages,  heavily  robed,  superbly 
turbaned,  merchants  from  Ghadames  and 
from  further  off,  where  the  desert  routes 
spread  fanwise  from  the  Soudan  to  Tim- 
buctoo,  opening  on  the  whole  breadth  of 
equatorial  Africa,  Lake  Tchad,  and  the 
Niger.  For  Tripoli  has  been  for  long 
centuries  a  sea-metropolis — it  is  now"  the 
last  sea-metropolis — of  the  native  desert- 
world;  hither  still  comes  the  raw  wealth 
of  Africa,  wdth  all  the  old  train  and  con- 
comitants of  caravan,  traders,  and  robber 
instincts ;  and  here  are  most  variously  and 
numerously  gathered  the  representatives 
of  the  untamed  tribes.  It  is  the  last  Medi- 
terranean home  of  the  predatory,  migra- 
tory, old  free  desert  life.  This  market,  I 
knew,  was  the  direct  descendant  of  one 
of  the  world's  oldest  trading-posts,  for  the 
early  Phoenician  merchants  established  a 
commercial  station  here,  as  they  coasted 
along  exploring  the  unknown  world;  it 
was  on  this  beach  they  landed,  no  doubt; 
that  was  long  ago.  This  market  was  the 
child  of  that  old  trading-post.  It  w^as  a 
wonderful  scene  there,  under  the  crum- 
bling walls  in  the  blazing  sun  by  the  quiet 
sea. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  I  drove  out  into 
the  oasis,  which  is  a  suburb  on  the  south- 
east of  the  city.  We  were  soon  in  the 
midst  of  it  and  passing  along  by  the  fa- 
miliar scene  of  palm  groves,  with  fruit- 
trees  and  vegetables  and  silent  roads.    It 


Tripoli 


561 


was  a  more  open  country  than  usual,  and 
there  was  an  abundance  of  gardens  with 
houses  in  them ;  it  had  more  the  character 
of  suburban  villa  life,  a  place  of  retirement 
from  the  city,  than  any  oasis  I  had  seen. 
The  soil  had  much  red  in  it,  and  this  gave 
a  strong  ground-color  over  which  the 
greens  rose  darkly  on  the  blue.  The  tall 
wells — the  gucrhas — were  a  common  fea- 
ture in  the  gardens,  for  the  oasis  is  watered 
in  the  old  way  by  means  of  a  pulley- 
arrangement  between  two  high  standards 
over  which  runs  a  rope  worked  by  a  mule 
or  camel  or  other  beast  of  all  work,  which 
tramped  to  and  fro  beneath  as  the  goat- 
skin bucket  rose  and  fell.  I  visited  some 
of  these  gardens,  picked  oranges,  and  wan- 
dered about  and  talked  with  the  laborers. 
We  came  out  on  the  desert  sharp  as  the 
line  of  a  sea  beach,  cut  by  the  palms; 
there  was  a  fort  or  two  on  the  edge,  and  the 
hard- barren  waste  swept  away  with  t-he 
tinali-ty  of  an  ocean  toward  the  tar  distant 
mountain  range  southward.  Two  Turkish 
officers  rode  up  from  the  route;  they  were 
line  figures,  splendidly  horsed,  and  looked 
very  real.  On  the  way  back  we  saw  many 
Turkish  soldiers,  sturdy,  capable  men, 
badly  clothed  but  military  in  every  way. 
I  was  more  interested  in  the  groups  and 
solitary  figures  returning  from  the  market 
to  their  homes,  the  Bedouins  with  sticks  in 
their  hands  or  over  their  shoulders.  How 
they  walked  I  What  an  erectness  in  their 
heads!  What  an  elan  in  their  stride  for- 
ward! Strangely  enough,  they  reminded 
me  of  the  virgins  of  the  Erechtheum,  the 
caryatides.  I  have  never  elsewhere  seen 
such  a  pose.  How  like  in  color  to  earth, 
too,  with  their  browns  and  grays  on  the 
strong  tones  of  the  roads  they  walked 
along!  It  was  the  clearness  before  twi- 
light, and  all  the  lines  of  the  landscape 
were  lowered  and  strong  in  the  level  rays; 
the  palmy  roads,  the  soldiers,  the  Bed- 
ouins made  a  picture  fuller  of  life  than 
one  usually  sees  in  an  oasis.  One  felt  the 
neighborhood  of  the  city. 

When  I  went  out  at  night  the  streets 
were  dark;  lamps  here  and  there  gave  a 
feeble  light,  stores  were  open,  there  were 
groups  about.  The  cafes  I  dropped  into 
were  not  full,  unless  small,  and  were  all 
very  quiet.  There  were  long  bubl  Ic  pipes 
to  be  had,  and  silent  Arabs  smoking  them ; 
but  I  contented  myself  with  colTee.     It 


was  not  interesting,  and  I  went  to  the 
Italian-Greek  theatre.  This  was  a  small 
hall,  but  of  considerable  size,  and  full  of 
Sicilians  and  Greeks.  They  were  a  hardy- 
looking  company,  not  to  say  rough.  On 
the  stage  a  girl  was  being  tied  to  a  tree  by 
some  Turks;  it  was  a  pantomime,  and  the 
plot  went  on  and  the  daring  rescue  was 
effected  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  audi- 
ence. While  the  stage  was  being  prepared 
anew,  there  was  the  sound  of  a  row  at  the 
door.  Instantly  on  either  side  of  me 
there  was  a  movement  and  thrust  of  those 
hard  faces  and  strong  shoulders,  like  the 
lift  of  a  dark  wave  at  sea;  it  reminded 
me  of  a  mass-play  at  football  in  the  old 
game,  only  it  was  bigger,  darker,  tense:  it 
was  fighting  blood,  always  keyed  for  sud- 
den alarm  and  instantly  ready  en  masse. 
The  little  crowd,  serried  head  over  head, 
paused  a  moment,  as  an  Arab  came  for- 
ward and  made  a  short  speech,  explain- 
ing the  trouble.  The  men  fell  back  to 
their  seats.  The  play  was  going  on  now 
• — it  was  a  variety  performance — with 
two  girls  singing  songs,  and  the  rescued 
maiden  of  the  pantomime  came  down  to 
collect  pennies.  It  was  curious  to  see  the 
changing  expression  on  the  faces  of  those 
men  and  boys.  They  had  been  hard  faces, 
with  Sicilian  sombreness  in  repose,  rugged 
with  life,  with  something  dark  and  gloomy 
in  them;  now  they  broke  into  smiles, 
their  eyes  shone  and  laughed,  as  she  passed 
among  them,  they  were  glad  to  have  her 
speak  to  them — it  was  sunshine  breaking 
out  over  a  rough  and  stormy  sea.  There 
was  a  dance  now;  and  so  the  scenes  went 
on  till  I  came  away  and  Absalom  j^ilotcd 
me  through  the  dark  and  deserted  ways 
to  the  hotel.  It  was  closed  of  course,  but 
I  was  not  i)repared  for  what  followed. 
There  was  a  great  undoing  of  bars  and 
turning  of  locks,  and  I  stepped  in  over  the 
body  of  a  slcej^ing  negro  and  waited  till  his 
companion  did  up  the  fastenings.  They 
seemed  to  me  sulTicienl  for  a  fortress;  and, 
not  content  with  that,  these  two  negroes 
slept  all  night  on  the  floor  next  the  door. 
It  was  like  a  niedianal  "[uard-room. 


II 


We  were  finishing  our  late  nooning  at 
the  cafe  which  pleased  me  best  near  the 
little  park  with  the  old   Roman   statues 


502 


Tripoli 


by  the  scu  where  the  handful  of  resident 
E'uro[)eans  liked  to  take  the  air  at  eve- 
ning. I  was  engaged  in  my  favorite  occu- 
pation of  regarding  the  street.  The  little 
room  was  crowded  with  natives  seated 
close,  quietly  gaming  or  doing  nothing; 
Turkish  officers  rolled  by  in  carriages; 
there  was  continuous  passing;  a  half- 
dozen  gamins  played  in  the  street,  the 
most  eager-faced,  the  most  lithe-motioned 
of  boys,  the  most  snapping-eyed  Jewish 
bootblacks,  quite  beyond  the  nimble  Bis- 
kris  of  Algiers  reputed  to  be  the  kings  of 
the  profession  in  the  Mediterranean;  on 
the  other  side  of  the  street  a  flower-seller 
was,  as  always,  binding  up  violets  inter- 
minably in  his  lean  hands.  It  was  a  pleas- 
ant scene;  but  I  lazily  consented  when 
Absalom  suggested  that  we  drive  out  to 
the  Jewish  village.  We  crossed  the  street 
to  the  cab-stand.  I  am  not  good  at  bar- 
gaining, and  I  am  impatient  at  the  farce 
or  tragedy,  as  the  case  may  be,  of  a  guide 
beating  down  a  cabman ;  but  my  feelings 
toward  Absalom  were  different.  I  frank- 
ly admired  him  as  he  stood  in  his  plain 
dignity,  perfectly  motionless,  with  a  long- 
stemmed  rose  at  his  lips,  a  beautiful  half- 
blown  dark  bloom  with  the  curves  of 
a  shell  in  its  frail,  firm  petals;  and  when 
the  figure  had  dropped  deftly  and  almost 
noiselessly  from  fifteen  francs  to  six,  "it 
is  just,"  said  Absalom,  and  seated  me  in 
the  carriage  with  the  double  harness. 

We  passed  into  the  pleasant  vistas  of 
the  oasis,  rolling  over  the  red  roads  with 
the  tumbled  earth  walls  and  by  the  deep- 
retire4  houses  and  the  orange  gardens,  and 
the  air  was  full  of  the  fresh  balm  of  spring. 
It  was  a  smiling,  green,  and  blossoming 
world,  and  it  was  good  to  be  alive.  I 
knew  it  was  just  such  a  world  that  such 
villages  are  in,  and  this  one  was  native  to 
the  oasis  and  partook  of  its  qualities;  but 
it  seemed  to  take  only  the  rudest  and 
roughest  of  them,  and  to  carry  them 
down.  It  was  a  disheartening  sight.  I 
had  never  seen  so  wretched  a  Jewish 
village.  The  houses,  the  people,  were  of 
the  poorest ;  and  not  in  an  ordinary  way. 
The  village  was  a  fantasy  of  poverty,  a 
diablerie.  The  faces  and  forms,  attitudes, 
occupations  of  the  people,  their  mere  ag- 
gregation, depressed  me  in  a  sinister  way. 
Some  of  them  were  sharpening  sickles  on 
old  bones;  and  others,  women  with  ear- 


rings, were  working  at  some  primitive 
industry  with  their  toes,  using  them  as 
if  they  were  fingers.  The  little  place  was 
thronged  and  busy  as  an  ant-hill ;  but  the 
signs  of  wretched  life  were  everywhere, 
and  most  in  the  bodies  of  these  poor 
creatures.  I  was  glad  to  be  again  in  the 
garden  and  grove  of  the  roadside  and 
amid  the  wholesomeness  of  nature,  as  we 
drove  off  to  the  centre  of  the  oasis. 

There  we  found  a  great  house,  that 
seemed  to  be  of  some  public  nature,  built 
on  the  top  of  a  high  bare  hill.  It  belonged 
to  a  pashaw,  and  its  roof  commanded  the 
whole  view  of  the  oasis  and  its  surround- 
ings. It  was  somewhat  like  a  rambling 
summer  hotel  in  aspect.  We  were  ad- 
mitted as  if  there  w^ere  nothing  uncom- 
mon in  our  visit,  and  I  mounted  to  the 
roof  and  saw  the  wdde  prospect — the  white 
city  and  blue  sea  behind,  the  ring  of  the 
palmerai  about,  the  gray  desert  beyond — 
and  on  coming  down  was  taken  to  a  large 
and  rather  empty  room  with  a  balcony. 
There  Absalom  told  me  that  the  pashaw, 
who  seemed  to  be  the  city  governor, 
would  be  pleased  if  I  would  lend  him  my 
carriage,  as  he  had  an  unexpected  call  to 
go  to  town.  Shortly  after  the  pashaw 
came  in.  It  was  evident  that  Absalom 
regarded  him  as  a  very  great  man.  He 
shook  hands  with  me,  and  was  gravely 
courteous;  but  he  understood  very  little 
French,  and  real  conversation  was  out  of 
the  question.  He  ordered  coffee,  gave  me 
cigarettes,  and  took  me  out  on  the  bal- 
cony, pointing  out  the  desert  mountain 
range,  Djebel  Ghariane,  of  which  there 
was  a  fine  view,  and  other  features.  We 
drank  our  coffee,  and  after  perhaps  tw^en- 
ty  minutes  of  polite  entertainment  he 
took  my  card,  shook  hands  in  a  friendly 
spirit,  and  bade  me  good-by  with  an  au 
revoir.  I  sat  alone  looking  out  from  the 
balcony  toward  those  distant  mountains 
over  the  great  desert,  smoking  the  cig- 
arettes he  had  left  me,  and  thinking  of 
that  vast  hinterland  of  fanatic  Islam  be- 
fore my  eyes,  so  jealously  guarded  from 
exploration,  where  the  fires  of  hatred 
against  the  Christian  nations  are  sys- 
tematically fed,  while  a  victorious  prose- 
lytism  is  sweeping  through  the  central 
negro  tribes,  reclaiming  them  from  fetish 
worship  to  "  the  only  God."  The  carriage 
was  not  gone  long.     We  drove  back  at 


Tripoli 


5(33 


once,  and  I  found  the  flower-seller  by 
the  cab-stand  still  twining  those  endless 
bunches  of  violets,  and  jonquils,  and  nar- 
cissi, in  the  sinking  sun. 

That  evening  we  spent  at  the  Turkish 
theatre.  It  was  better  furnished  than  the 
Sicilian.  Palms  decorated  one  side  of  the 
stage,  and  large  flags  draped  the  back. 
The  centre  was  occupied  by  a  group  of 
three  women  of  whom  the  one  in  the  mid- 
dle was  plainly  the  prima  donna.  She  was 
a  striking  figure,  tall,  and  in  her  dress, 
attitude,  and  expression,  of  the  music-hall 
Cleopatra  type.  A  high  gilt  crown  rested 
on  her  abundant  black  hair ;  her  eyebrows 
were  straight,  the  eyes  liquid,  roving,  and 
full  of  fire,  the  mouth  and  other  features 
large,  the  throat  beautiful  and  firm;  a 
white  veil  descended  from  the  crown  on 
either  side,  ornaments  w'ere  on  her  arms 
and  feet,  she  wore  a  flashing  girdle,  but 
the  effect  of  her  person  was  not  dissipated 
in  jewels  or  color;  her  figure  remained 
statuesque,  linear,  and  so  much  so  that 
there  seemed  to  me  something  almost 
hieratic  in  her  pose,  as  she  stood  there, 
with  the  crown  and  the  veil,  motionless, 
the  whole  semi-barbaric  form  finely  re- 
lieved on  the  broad  stripe  of  the  beautiful 
flag  behind.  This  was  when  she  was  in  re- 
pose; when  she  sang  or  danced,  the  effect 
was  quite  different.  I  was  not  her  only 
admirer.  There  were  a  hundred  or  more 
men  in  the  hall — no  Europeans.  They 
were  smoking,  talking,  moving  about  in 
their  seats  freely,  with  an  indolent  cafe 
manner,  and  the  performance  went  on 
with  long  w^aits.  The  lady  of  the  stage 
was  a  favorite;  men  threw  cigarettes  to 
her,  and  engaged  her  in  conversation  from 
the  floor,  and  she  would  fling  back  a  sen- 
tence to  them.  There  was  one  admirer 
beyond  all  the  rest.  He  sat  in  the  centre 
near  the  stage,  a  splendidly  appointed 
youth  from  Alexandria,  garbed  in  the  rich- 
est red,  with  a  princely  elegance  and  mien, 
a  gallant ;  cigarettes  were  not  for  him — he 
stood  w\)  and  threw  kisses  with  both  hands 
vociferously  and  numerously;  he  left  no 
doubt  as  to  his  sentiments.  Once  or  twice 
he  attempted  to  rush  the  stage,  but  was 
restrained.  He  would  go  out,  and  come 
back  loaded  with  flowers  for  ammunition. 
He  had  a  negro  rival  off  to  the  left,  also 
finely  ap[)arelled,  but  no  match  in  that  re- 
gard for  the  Alexandrian  red,  though  he 


held  his  own  in  the  attention  of  both  the 
audience  and  the  queen  of  the  stage. 
Meanwhile  the  numbers  of  the  perform- 
ance lazily  succeeded  one  another;  there 
was  music  on  the  zithern  and  mandolin, 
the  tambour  was  heard — songs,  dances, 
other  girls.  It  was  all  perfectly  blameless; 
and,  indeed,  in  my  judgment,  the  Arabs 
have  a  stronger  sense  of  public  decorum 
than  the  northern  barbarians  at  their  play. 
I  saw  the  entertainment  out,  and  went  to 
my  castle. 


Ill 


A  DRIVE  in  the  oasis  was  always  worth 
having,  the  sky  was  the  purest  blue,  it 
was  brisk  desert  air  in  the  nostrils,  and 
notwithstanding  my  misadventure  with 
the  Jewish  village  I  yielded  to  Absalom's 
programme  and  went  to  see  how  the  ne- 
groes fared  at  their  own  rendezvous.  It 
was  a  lesson  to  me  not  to  prejudge  even 
a  trifling  adventure  in  a  new  land.  The 
sight  was  piquant.  The  village  was  a 
little  collection  of  conical  roofed  huts  with 
brush  fences  round  each  one;  a  few  palms 
feathered  the  sky  over  it,  and  groves  of 
them  made  the  horizon-lines,  except  where 
the  sparkling  sea  stretched  off  beneath  the 
bluff.  The  place  was  alive  with  women 
and  children  in  striped  burnooses  and  non- 
descript folds,  whose  rough  edges  and 
nutty  colors  seemed  to  belong  to  the  com- 
plexions and  stiff  hair,  of  all  varieties  of 
turn,  that  one  saw  on  every  side.  They 
were  very  poor  people,  of  course,  but  their 
miserable  state  did  not  make  so  harsh  an 
impression  as  in  the  case  of  the  Jewish  \  il- 
lage;  there  was  a  happy  light  in  their 
faces  and  a  fitness  in  the  environment  of 
hut  and  brush  under  the  palms  in  the  sun 
which  made  the  scene  a  part  of  nature. 
It  was  a  bit  of  equatorial  Africa  trans- 
planted and  set  down  here — a  Soudanese 
village  in  its  native  aspect,  even  to  that 
touch  of  grimace,  as  of  human  nature 
laughing  at  itself,  which  negroes  have  in 
their  wild  slate.  I  had  a  flash  of  such  an 
experience  at  Gabes;  in  the  oasis,  just 
below  the  beautiful  sweep  of  the  cascades, 
there  suddenly  sprang  up  before  me  in  the 
bush  a  young  negress,  as  wonderfully  clad 
as  unclad.  It  was  as  if  a  picture  in  my 
geograi)hy  had  come  to  life.  1  might  have 
been  in  a  jungle  on  the  banks  of  the  Niger. 


r)ti4 


Tripoli 


It  was  the  same  here;  the  degrees  of  hiti- 
tude  seemed  to  ha\e got  mixed;  the  scene 
belonged  much  farther  south  under  a 
tropic  sky,  and  I  lingered  about  it  with 
interest  and  curiosity. 

Then  I  turned  to  the  market  close  by 
— not  a  great  market  like  that  of  the  city, 
but  the  oasis  market.  It  did  not  cover 
a  large  space,  but  was  prettily  situated, 
and  banked  at  one  side  by  a  fine  palm 
grove,  which  gave  it  character  and  coun- 
try peace.  There  were  two  or  three 
hundred  people  there,  scattered  among 
the  usual  squares  of  goods  and  vegeta- 
bles, variegated  with  straw  work,  skin 
bottles,  and  Soudanese  helmets;  but  there 
was  an  uncommon  number  of  animals — 
camels  and  cows,  sheep  and  goats.  There 
was  slaughtering  going  on  near  the  palm 
grove.  It  seemed  that  the  purchaser 
picked  out  the  particular  sheep  he  pre- 
ferred, and  it  was  made  mutton  before  his 
eyes.  It  reminded  me  of  Greek  Easter 
days.  The  scene,  however,  was  by  no 
means  sanguinary;  it  was  a  country  fair 
amid  the  quiet  palms  asleep  in  the  blue 
— the  life  of  the  people  in  their  own  land 
in  their  ancestral  ways. 


IV 


,  The  consul  had  made  me  his  friend  by 
incessant  kindness.  He  had  at  the  start 
insisted  on  my  taking  my  first  meal  in 
Tripoli  with  him,  and  since  then  I  had 
lived  almost  as  much  at  his  table  as  at  the 
hotel,  which  was  a  blessing,  not  to  say  a 
charity.  He  was  a  scholarly  gentleman, 
long  resident  in  the  Levant,  and  familiar 
with  the  Moslem  world,  though  his  ap- 
pointment to  Tripoli  was  of  recent  date. 
It  was  to  this  last  fact,  perhaps,  that  I 
owed  the  rarest  of  my  privileges,  an  invi- 
tation to  visit  the  mosques  in  his  company. 
Tripoli  is  a  stronghold  of  fanaticism  and 
the  mosques  are  jealously  closed  to  the  in- 
fidel; permission  to  visit  them  is  seldom 
given,  and  if  formally  granted  is  generally 
made  nugatory  in  some  underhand  way; 
for  a  person  in  my  unoflEicial  station  such  a 
visit  would  be  unexampled.  The  consul, 
however,  had  never  himself  seen  them, 
and  he  suggested  that  this  would  be  an 
opportunity  for  me.  His  application  was 
at  once  honored,  and  the  next  morning 
the  chief  of  police  called  and  we  set  out 


at  once,  preceded  by  the  consular  cavas  or 
dragoman,  himself  no  mean  figure  corpo- 
really, brilliant  in  his  Algerian  uniform  and 
bearing  before  him  the  formidable  and 
highly  ornamented  staff  of  his  office. 

We  went  first  to  the  Gurgy  Mosque, 
which  is  considered  the  finest  of  all.  I 
wondered  if  the  key  would  be  lost,  which 
is  the  usual  subterfuge;  but  the  guardian 
was  quickly  found,  and  turned  the  lock. 
My  account  of  the  mosques  must  be 
meagre;  the  occasion  allowed  of  only  a 
coup  d'ml,  it  was  impossible  to  take  notes 
on  the  spot,  and  one  could  examine  in 
detail  only  near  objects  in  passing.  I  can 
give  only  an  impression,  not  a  description. 
All  mosques  are  much  alike  in  plan  and 
arrangement.  There  is  a  plain,  open  hall 
with  the  great  vacant  floor-space  for 
prayer,  the  ornamented  mihrab  or  niche 
in  the  wall  show^ing  the  direction  of  Mecca 
toward  which  all  turn,  with  brazen  candle- 
sticks or  hanging  silver  lamps,  and  by  its 
side  and  at  a  little  distance  the  high  pulpit 
with  a  steep  stairway  for  the  preacher  or 
leader;  there  may  be  also  a  closed  box  on 
the  floor,  or  sometimes  elevated,  for  the 
Sultan  or  his  representative,  and  a  latticed 
space  for  women.  These  are  perma- 
nent features.  The  mosques  differ  much, 
however,  in  size,  ornamentation,  and  as- 
pect, and  in  the  entourage  of  the  main 
room,  its  approaches,  courts,  and  depend- 
encies. The  interior  of  the  Gurgy  Mosque 
was  square,  finely  decorated,  beautifully 
wrought.  Intersecting  arches,  resting  on 
rows  of  columns,  divided  it  into  several 
naves  with  many  domes.  The  walls  were 
tiled,  and  an  unusual  look  of  elaborate 
finish  was  given  to  the  general  effect  by 
the  fact  that  all  the  surfaces  were  en- 
tirely covered,  nothing  being  left  bare; 
to  the  color  tones  of  the  tiles  were  added 
on  all  sides  the  lights  of  the  highly  wrought 
stucco  incrustation,  cool  marbles,  and  the 
dark,  rich  contrasts  of  beautifully  carved 
wood.  The  capitals  of  the  columns,  done 
in  stucco,  were  each  different.  Texts  of 
the  Koran,  illuminated  in  a  fine  script  on 
a  broad  band  at  the  base  of  the  domes, 
gave  another  element  to  the  decoration. 
It  was  a  beautiful  mosque,  and  I  remem- 
ber it  as  one  of  the  few  I  have  seen  which 
were  perfectly  finished;  there  was  nothing 
ruinous  or  aged  oi*  bare  about  it,  and  it 
was  completed— a  lovely  interior  in  which 


Tripoli 


565 


the  simple  elements  of  beauty  employed 
in  this  art  were  admirably  blended.  We 
especially  admired  the  carved  woodwork 
here.  Our  stay,  however,  was  but  of  a 
few  moments'  duration,  and  we  saw  only 
this  interior. 

We  passed  on  to  the  ]\Iosque  of  Dragut, 
the  pirate,  the  same  who  built  the  Tower 
of  Christian  Skulls  at  Djerba  by  the  sea- 
shore. It  was  quite  different,  a  plain  old 
mosque  with  old  columns,  and  seemed  to 
belong  to  old  times.  In  a  low  chamber 
to  one  side  was  Dragut's  tomb.  It  was 
covered  with  green  cloth,  and  at  the  four 
corners  colored  banners  hung  over  it; 
other  tombs  stood  about  it  in  the  chapel, 
princes  of  Islam,  and  the  usual  maps  of 
Mecca  and  the  tomb  of  the  prophet  were 
on  the  walls,  and  some  cherished  objects  of 
historic  or  personal  reverence  were  here 
and  there;  all  about  were  the  great  can- 
dles and  the  turban-topped  small  columns 
of  the  dead.  It  was  a  place  of  profound 
peace.  This  impression  was  deepened  still 
more  as  we  passed  out  into  the  adjoining 
courts  with  their  low  crypt-like  columns, 
white-washed,  heavy,  and  sombre.  Here 
the  commissary,  or  chief,  who  had  us  in 
charge,  an  amiable-faced  Turk  with  a  gray 
grizzled  beard,  pointed  out  the  tomb  of 
the  English  captain,  as  it  is  known,  a  rene- 
gade Heutenant  of  Dragut,  who  sleeps  in 
a  beautiful  niche  nigh  his  old  commander. 
Farther  on  beneath  an  immense  broad  old 
lig-tree  in  the  court  were  other  tombs, 
with  the  turbaned  end-slabs  of  different 
styles  and  heights — a  little  company  shut 
in  this  quiet  close  of  death.  A  great  si- 
lence and  peacefulness  reigned  there,  alike 
about  the  ancient  fig-tree  without  and  in 
the  bannered  chamber  within.  I  could 
not  help  thinking  what  a  place  of  repose 
the  great  pirate  had  found  out  for  himself 
and  his  companions  in  his  death.  I  went 
out  touched  more  than  commonly  with 
that  sense  of  deep  calm  which  a  mosque 
always,  half-mysteriously,  awakes  in  me. 

Of  the  third  mosque,  which  I  did  not 
identify,  but  suppose  to  have  been  that 
of  Mahmat,  we  had  barely  a  passing 
glimpse,  looking  down  from  a  gallery  upon 
a  large  carpeted  floor — there  were  many 
carpets — but  it  seemed  to  offer  nothing  of 
special  interest.  The  fourth,  however,  El 
Nakr,  the  Mosque  of  the  Camel,  was  after 
my  own  heart.    It  is  the  most  ancient,  as 


indeed  one  would  expect  from  the  name, 
that  of  Dragut  being  next  in  age,  and  has 
the  special  sanctity  that  attaches  to  a  tra- 
ditional religious  spot.  I  su})pose  it  was 
here  that  the  faith  began  on  the  soil.  We 
entered  first  into  one  of  those  low-col- 
umned crypt-like  courts;  two  tall  palms 
were  growing  in  it,  with  a  little  patch  of 
bright-green  barley  beneath.  The  artistic 
etlect  of  this  simple  scene  of  nature  framed 
in  the  seclusion  of  the  gray  old  walls,  with 
its  bit  of  sky  above,  the  sunshine  and  the 
unbroken  peace,  as  it  fell  on  my  eyes,  was 
indescribable;  of  a  thousand  scenes  it  im- 
[)rinted  itself  on  my  memory  as  a  thing 
seen  once  and  seen  forever — one  of  those 
pictures  that  are  only  painted  by  the  soul 
for  itself.  We  passed  within.  It  was  an 
old  plain  mosque,  with  low  columns  and 
an  ancient  look,  all  without  elegance  or 
ornament.  It  was  in  the  same  spirit  as 
that  of  Dragut,  but  with  still  more  of  aus- 
terity and  impressiveness.  This  was  the 
stern  old  faith,  which  could  dispense  with 
all  but  God.  It  touched  the  Puritan  sen- 
timent in  me  to  the  cjuick.  This  was  Is- 
lam in  its  spirituality.  Here  there  was  the 
solitary  desert  soul  in  its  true  devotion, 
that  sought  only  room  for  God — the  same 
room  as  on  the  desert  sands  or  on  moun- 
tain-tops. There  was  nothing  else  in  the 
mosque — only  the  barley  under  the  palms 
by  the  cryi^t-like  cloister,  the  low-col- 
umned austerity  within.  I  felt  the  har- 
mony of  the  two — they  were  different 
chords,  but  one  music  of  the  desert  silence. 
It  was  only  when  we  came  out  from  this 
sanctuary  that  I  noticed  any  resentment 
among  the  people.  As  we  walked  down 
by  the  row  of  men  standing  about  the 
entrance,  scowling  faces  and  fire-flashing 
eyes  were  bent  on  us  on  all  sides,  but  there 
was  no  other  demonstration,  and  we 
passed  through  the  crowd  in  that  silent 
glare  of  hate.  It  is  a  curious  sensation  to 
feel  oneself  an  object  of  hatred  to  a  crowd, 
and  this  was  my  first  experience  of  it, 
though  of  course  one  notices  the  hostile 
look  of  individuals  in  Mohammedan  coun- 
tries. It  was  disagreeable;  and  I  half- 
blamed  myself  for  having  violated  a  preju- 
dice which  was  perfectly  natural  for  these 
men.  We  were  out  of  the  press  in  a  few 
moments,  and  soon  reached  the  last 
moscjue  that  it  was  thought  worth  while 
to  visit,  that  of  Ahmed  Pashaw.     It  was 


5(>G 


Tripoli 


large,  of  the  same  decorated  type  as  the 
tirst.    There  were  the  same  old  marble  col- 
umns, the  beautifully  ornamented  mihrab, 
the  pulpit,  the  Sultan's  box,  a  brown  lat- 
ticed  gallery;    bright   mats   lay  on   the 
floor,  the  blue  and  green  tiles  shone  cool 
on  the  walls,  moulded  stucco  and  carved 
wood  tilled  the  spaces,  there  being  one 
unusually  tine   ceiling  in   carved  w^ood; 
and  there  were  Koranic  texts.    The  cres- 
cent was  abundantly  used  in  the  decora- 
tion.   It  was  all  very  beautiful  and  char- 
acteristic, full  of  restful  tones,  of  harmony 
and  repose.    As  we  passed  toward  an  inner 
door  leading  to  the  cemetery  of  the  mosque, 
we  noticed  inscriptions  to  the  dead  on  the 
wall,  and  one  was  pointed  out  of  a  pious 
man  who  went  straight  to  Paradise.    Out- 
side beyond  the  tall  minaret  were  the 
tombs  of  the  faithful  w^ho  were  buried  here, 
with  the  turban-topped  slabs  as  usual. 
The  guardian,  who  seemed  a  very  old  man, 
with  true  Arab  gentleness  urged  me  re- 
peatedly and  cordially  to  climb  the  min- 
aret, but  I  refrained,  disliking  to  detain 
my  companions.    We  passed  out  from  this 
beautiful  inner  close  into  the  street,  and 
turned  to  the  consulate  where  we  talked 
over  our  morning's  walk. 

It  was  no  small  part  of  my  pleasure  in 
Tripoli  that  I  owed  to  my  friend's  hospi- 
tality, which  gave  me  the  graces  and  com- 
fort of  civilization  in  so  rude  a  place  as  the 
ordinary  traveller  necessarily  finds  such  a 
country.  The  boys  of  the  oasis,  in  other 
parts  of  Africa,  had  given  me  the  wine  of 
the  date-palm  fresh  from  the  tree;  here 
I  drank  it  a  little  fermented,  an  exotic 
drink  piquing  the  curiosity,  and  was  the 
more  glad  to  renew  my  memory  of  a  long 
forgotten  rosso  spumante  and  to  make  al- 
together new^  acquaintance  with  pleasant 
wines  of  Touraine.  What  conversations 
we  had  over  these  and  on  the  quiet  terrace 
by  the  garden,  ranging  through  French 
African  territory  and  the  Levant,  touch- 
ing on  Persian  poets !  and  my  host  showed 
me  many  beautiful  things.  It  is  in  this 
atmosphere  of  scholarly  talk  and  friendly 
kindness  that  I  remember  the  morning 
walk  among  the  mosques  of  Tripoli. 

V 

The  British  consul,  who  had  also  shown 
me  attention,  arranged  for  me  to  visit  the 
Turkish  school  of  arts  and  crafts.    Hassan 


Bey,  who  seemed  to  be  an  aide  of  the  Vali, 
waited  on  us  one  morning  at  the  consulate, 
and  we  set  out  to  walk  to  the  school.  Has- 
san Bey  was  an  exile  from  Daghestan,  of 
a  fine  military  figure,  middle-aged,  thick- 
set, wdth  a  pleasant  countenance;  his 
gray  whiskers  became  his  energetic  face; 
he  had  a  look  of  power,  and  the  grave 
authority  of  character.  He  wore  a  sword ; 
his  sleeves  and  gold  braid  gave  distinction 
to  his  person ;  and  he  carried  lightly,  like 
a  cane,  the  short,  twisted  whip  of  stiff 
bull's  hide  that  one  occasionally  sees  on 
these  coasts.  I  have  seldom  seen  so  manly 
a  figure,  rugged  and  strong,  and  stamped 
by  nature  for  rule;  and  his  politeness  was 
complete  and  charming,  with  an  accent  of 
strength  and  breeding  that  put  it  out  of 
the  category  of  mere  grace  of  manners.  He 
interested  me  profoundly  by  his  person- 
ality, an  entirely  new^  type  in  my  experi- 
ence, and  as  the  walk  was  somewhat  long 
I  had  an  opportunity  to  observe  him. 

The  director  of  the  school  received  us 
cordially,  gave  us  coffee  and  cigarettes, 
and  showed  us  through  the  buildings, 
which  were  rather  extensive.  The  school 
is  endowed  with  some  lands,  and  its  in- 
come is  supplemented  by  voluntary  funds 
and  a  subsidy  from  the  government.  It 
receives  upward  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
pupils,  from  the  age  of  twelve  years,  and 
completely  supports  them  during  the 
course,  w^hich  is  seven  years  in  length. 
Some  literary  instruction  is  given,  such  as 
geography  and  secondary  branches;  but 
the  main  end  of  the  school  is  technical 
training  in  the  arts  and  crafts.  There  was 
a  carpet  and  silk-weaving  department,  a 
tailor-shop,  a  shoe-shop,  carpentry,  a 
foundry  and  blacksmithing,  a  refectory 
and  store-rooms.  The  shops  were  rather 
empty,  and  the  students  whom  I  saw  were 
few^  and  of  all  ages;  the  rest  may  have 
been  at  their  books.  The  foundry  and  the 
carpenter-shop  were  the  busiest  and  most 
occupied;  there  were  many  heavy  pieces 
of  machinery  of  modern  make,  and  the 
department  seemed  properly  provided  for 
and  in  competent  management ;  work  was 
going  on  in  both  these  rooms,  which  I 
watched  with  great  interest.  I  w^as  told 
that  the  furniture  of  the  Ottoman  Bank 
was  made  here,  and  apparently  orders  of 
various  kinds,  as,  for  example,  for  w^heels, 
were  regularly  received. 

The  foundation  clearly  enough  was  only 


Tripoli 


567 


a  beginning,  and  the  provision  inadequate 
to  the  scale;  but  it  was  a  serious  and  ad- 
mirable attempt  to  plant  the  mechanical 
arts  in  the  country  in  their  modern  form 
and  development,  and  to  foster  industry 
in  the  simple  crafts.  The  idea  was  there 
and  in  operation,  however  the  means  to 
realize  it  might  seem  small  in  my  Ameri- 
can eyes,  used  to  great  industrial  riches  in 
such  things;  and  I  was  much  impressed, 
not  only  by  the  facts,  but  by  the  spirit  of 
the  thing  and  those  who  had  it  in  charge. 
The  products  seemed  excellent,  so  far  as 
I  could  judge  of  the  various  things  shown 
me.  I  followed  the  example  of  the  consul 
in  buying  a  small  bolt  of  strong  silk  in  a 
beautiful  design  of  brilliant  colored  stripes, 
and  I  should  ha\e  been  glad  to  have  taken 
more  in  other  varieties.  I  was  rather 
surprised  when  at  the  end  Hassan  Bey 
suggested  my  going  into  the  girls'  carpet- 
school.  We  entered,  paused  a  moment 
at  the  schoolroom  door  that  some  no- 
tice might  be  given,  and  on  going  into  the 
room  I  saw  that  all  the  girls,  who  were 
young,  were  standing  with  their  faces 
turned  to  the  wall.  We  remained  only 
long  enough  to  see  the  nature  of  the  work 
and  its  arrangement,  and  for  a  word  with 
the  teacher;  but  the  scene,  with  the  young 
girlish  profiles  along  the  sides,  was  pictur- 
esque. There  is  one  other  carpet-school 
for  girls  in  another  city.  We  spent  per- 
haps two  hours  in  this  inspection  and 
walked  leisurely  back  to  town,  where  I 
parted  with  Hassan  Bey  with  sincere  ad- 
miration. 

In  the  afternoon  I  went  with  Absalom 
to  visit  a  school  I  had  heard  of  in  the  Jew- 
ish quarter,  a  pious  foundation,  the  be- 
quest of  a  wealthy  Jew,  for  the  education 
of  poor  boys.  There  were  about  five  hun- 
dred of  them  there,  bright-eyed,  intelli- 
gent, intent,  as  Jewish  boys  in  their  con- 
dition usually  are.  The  buildings  were 
excellent,  properly  furnished,  with  the 
substantial  and  prosperous  look  of  a  well- 
administered  educational  enterprise.  I 
visited  several  rooms,  saw  the  boys  at 
their  desks  and  classes,  heard  some  exer- 
cises, and  talked  with  the  professor  in 
charge.  I  noticed  a  tennis-court  on  the 
ground.  Altogether  I  was  more  than  fa- 
vorably imj)ressed  by  what  T  saw,  and  the 
mere  presence  here  of  a  well-organized 
charity  school  on  such  a  scale  was  an  en- 
couraging sign.     It  was  surprising  to  nie 


to  fmd  this  establishment  and  the  techni- 
cal school  at  Tripoli,  where  I  had  certain- 
ly not  anticipated  seeing  anything  of  the 
sort,  nor  was  this  my  only  surprise.  I  had 
thought  of  Tripoli  as  a  semi-barbarous 
country  almost  detached  from  civiliza- 
tion, a  focus  for  Moslem  fanaticism,  a 
place  for  Turkish  exiles,  a  last  foothold  of 
the  slave-trader,  and  such  it  truly  was; 
but  it  did  not  })resent  the  aspect  of  neglect 
and  decay  that  I  had  imagined  as  con- 
comitant with  this.  The  old  gates  of  the 
city  had  recently  been  removed;  outside 
the  walls  there  was  a  good  deal  of  new 
building  going  on,  which  was  a  sign  of 
safer  and  more  settled  life  as  well  as  of  a 
kind  of  prosperity;  the  roads  were  excel- 
lent, and  in  a  Turkish  dependency  that  is 
noticeable ;  in  some  places  new  pavements 
had  been  laid.  In  other  words,  there  was 
evidence  of  enterprise  and  public  works, 
of  modern  life  and  vitality;  and  this 
impression  was  much  strengthened  by 
my  experience  of  the  two  schools.  It  is 
true  that  I  never  lost  the  sense  of  that 
strangely  conglomerate  crowd  that  passed 
through  the  streets,  that  mixed  and  fa- 
natic people.  I  indulged  no  illusions  with 
respect  to  the  populace  eii  masse.  The 
state  of  things,  however,  seemed  to  me 
by  no  means  so  bad,  with  these  stirrings 
of  civilization,  of  betterment,  of  a  modern 
spirit  in  the  city,  and  I  was  frankly  sur- 
prised by  it. 

My  surprise  melted  away  some  months 
later  when,  on  opening  my  morning  paper 
in  America  to  read  of  the  Turkish  re\o- 
lution,  I  saw  that  the  Vali  of  Tripoli  was 
among  the  first  of  the  exiles  to  sail  for 
Constantinople;  and  I  observed  that, 
later,  he  had  an  active  part  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Young  Turks.  He  and  Has- 
san Bey  had  been  doing  in  Tripoli  what 
they  had  been  exiled  for  wishing  to  do  on 
the  Bosphorus.    Then  I  understood. 


VI 


It  was  night.  Absalom  and  I  were  in 
the  Arab  c|uarter,  on  our  way  to  see  some 
Soudanese  dancing.  There  were  few 
passers  in  the  deep-shadowed,  silent,  blind 
streets  that  grew  darker  and  seemed  more 
mysterious  as  we  penetrated  dee]HT  into 
the  district.  We  had  gone  a  considerable 
distance.  From  time  to  time  a  man  would 
meet  us,  and  then  another.     We  seemed 


568 


Tripoli 


to  be  going  from  precinct  to  precinct 
under  some  sort  of  escort.  I  noticed  that 
Absalom  had  many  hesitations;  once  or 
twice  he  refused  to  go  farther,  and  there 
was  something  resembhng  an  altercation; 
then  he  stoi)ped  decisively,  and  would  not 
budge  until  some  one  whom  he  desired 
should  come  in  person.  We  stood,  a  group 
of  four  or  five,  waiting  in  the  obscure  pas- 
sageway for  some  ten  minutes.  At  last 
the  man  came,  a  tall  Arab,  with  a  look  of 
rude  strength  and  superiority.  He  was 
the  chief,  and  we  walked  on  with  him  in 
that  dark  network  of  corners  and  alleys. 
I  was  beginning  to  think  it  a  long  dis- 
tance, when  w^e  turned  under  a  heavy 
gateway  into  a  dark  open  court,  as  large 
as  a  small  city  square,  with  houses  round 
it  like  tenements.  A  kerosene  lamp  in  a 
glass  cage  flared  dimly  on  one  side,  and 
there  were  a  few  figures  round  the  court; 
but  the  scene  soon  took  on  a  livelier  as- 
pect. 

The  chief  began  collecting  his  men  in 
the  centre,  and  numbers  of  people  emerged 
from  the  houses  and  sat  on  the  edges  near 
the  w^alls  of  the  houses.  They  were  a 
rough-looking  crowd,  evidently  very  poor 
and  badly  clothed,  and  there  were  many 
that  made  a  wild  appearance  squatting 
there  in  the  darkness.  Two  policemen, 
attracted  by  the  commotion,  came  in,  and 
a  street  lamp  was  transferred  into  the 
court.  There  was  now  quite  a  gathering 
in  the  centre,  where  a  fire  had  been  built 
by  which  three  men  were  seated;  some 
sort  of  incense  was  thrown'  into  it,  and  a 
light  smoke  with  a  pungent  odor  began 
to  be  lightly  diffused  through  the  court. 
There  must  have  been  as  many  as  seventy 
in  the  crowd  round  the  fire,  and  at  least 
a  couple  of  hundred  spectators  crouched 
about  the  sides;  it  was  more  of  an  exhi- 
bition than  I  had  expected,  and  from  the 
corner  where  I  sat  with  Absalom  and  two 
or  three  attendants  the  scene  began  to  be 
weird.  Then  the  drum  beat  in  the  middle ; 
the  men,  all  of  whom  had  clappers,  lifted 
them  in  the  air,  falling  into  line,  and  im- 
mediately one  of  those  wild,  savage  chants 
shrilled  forth,  rising  and  rising  to  an  acute 
cry  and  falling  monotonously  down,  in- 
creasing in  volume  and  mingling  with  the 
noise  of  the  sharp  clappers  and  the  drum 
— an  infernal  din.  The  chant  of  the  Ais- 
saouas,  that  I  had  heard  in  the  desert, 
was  "mellow  music  matched  with  this." 


And,  from  the  first  moment,  it  never 
stopped;  it  was  ear-piercing  as  it  rever- 
berated in  the  closed  court,  and  at  first  it 
was  confusing. 

The  dance  began  with  a  procession  in 
double  file  round  the  fire,  with  the  three 
men  seated  by  the  smoky  flame.  It  was  a 
slow  walk  timed  to  the  rhythm  of  the 
voices  and  the  clappers,  gradually  increas- 
ing in  speed  and  becoming  a  jump,  with 
violent  gesticulation,  twisting,  and  long 
reaching  of  the  arms  and  legs,  while  the 
human  cry  grew  shriller  and  more  vibrant 
and  rapid  in  the  emotional  crisis  of  the 
excitement.  Round  and  round  they  went, 
and  from  time  to  time  the  line  would 
break  into  parts,  as  the  men  turned  to  the 
centre  just  before  me.  There  were  three 
persons  who  seemed  to  be  leaders:  one, 
whom  I  named  the  Hadji  because  he 
answered  to  my  idea  of  that  word,  another 
dervish-like,  and  a  black  man.  The  der- 
vish interested  me  most.  He  was  the  head 
of  his  group,  and  as  he  came  between  me 
and  the  fire,  standing  well  forward  from 
his  band  and  well  in  toward  the  fire,  he 
would  whirl,  and  then  reverse,  whirling  in 
the  opposite  direction;  and — he  and  the 
procession  moving  forward  all  the  time — 
he  would  fall  limply  forward  toward  his 
men  almost  to  the  ground,  recover,  and 
fling  himself  backward,  rising  high  with 
his  clappers  spread  far  over  his  head.  It 
was  a  diabolical  posture;  and,  as  he  stood 
so,  his  leaping  followers  bowed  down  to 
him,  kneeling  almost  to  the  ground  but 
not  touching  it,  and  flinging  themselves 
erect  far  back  with  arms  spread.  I  won- 
dered how  they  kept  their  balance  in 
that  dancing  prostration.  Then  the  group 
would  pass  on,  and  the  next  come  into 
play — the  Hadji,  the  black  man — with 
the  same  ceremony,  but  without  the  w^hirl- 
ing.  Round  and  round  they  went  inter- 
minably; the  chant  rose  and  fell,  the  march 
slackened  and  quickened,  and  every  few 
moments  there  was  this  spasmodic  rite  of 
the  salutation  and  prostration  at  the  height 
of  the  dance. 

The  ring  of  spectators,  crouched  and 
huddled  round  the  court,  sat  in  the  im- 
perturbable silence  and  apathy  of  such 
audiences.  The  edges  of  the  scene  w^re 
an  obscure  mass  of  serried,  half-seen  forms 
under  the  house  walls,  filling  the  space 
rather  closely;  the  smoke  of  the  incense, 
with  which  the  fire  was  fed,  hung  in  the 


Tripoli 


5G9 


air,  and  Absalom  said  it  was  good  for  my 
eyes;  the  only  light  was  the  blaze  of  the 
flame  upon  the  dark  moving  forms  in 
the  middle,  and  the  two  street  lamps  over 
them,  and  the  night-sky  above.  It  was 
an  unearthly  scene,  with  those  strange 
figures  and  heavy  shadows;  and  the  fear- 
ful din  made  it  demonic.  I  do  not  know 
what  the  dance  was,  its  name  or  origin; 
but  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  devil-worship,  a 
relic  of  the  old  African  forest,  a  rite  of  the 
primitive  paganism  and  savage  cults  of 
the  early  world.  The  three  dark  men  by 
the  fire  with  the  drum,  the  grotesque  fan- 
tastic ritual  of  the  bowing  and  kneeling 
procession,  the  atmosphere  of  physical 
hysteria  and  muscular  intoxication,  the 
monotonous  shrill  cry  in  which  the  emo- 
tional excitement  mounted — here  were 
traits  of  the  prehistoric  horde,  of  a  sav- 
agery still  alive  and  vibrant  in  these  dan- 
cing figures.  It  was  as  if  I  were  assisting 
at  a  worship  of  the  Evil  One  in  a  remote 
and  barbarous  past. 

After  a  while  I  began  to  take  notice  of 
particular  individuals  in  the  dancing  mass.  ■ 
I  was  specially  attracted  by  three  who 
seemed  uncommonly  strong  and  tireless 
and  made  a  group  by  themselves.  They 
were  poorly  but  distinctively  clad.  One 
was  in  black,  with  loose  arm-sleeves  show- 
ing his  bare  skin  to  the  breast;  one  was  in 
white,  with  an  over-haik  of  black  divided 
down  the  back,  which  streamed  out;  the 
third,  who  w^as  very  tall  and  lank,  one  of 
the  tallest  figures  there,  was  in  blue,  faded 
and  worn;  and,  as  they  danced,  of  course 
the  folds  of  these  garments  spread  out  on 
the  air,  showing  their  bare  legs  in  free 
motion.  Their  heads  were  closely  covered 
with  white,  except  the  mouth  and  eyes 
— not  merely  covered,  but  wrapped.  I 
turned  to  Absalom,  and  said/'Touaregs." 
He  looked  at  them,  as  I  picked  them 
out  for  him,  and  said,  "Si,  signor,"  for 
he  always  spoke  to  me  in  Italian.  I  had 
wished  much  to  see  some  Touaregs,  and, 
though  I  had  seen  men  with  covered  faces, 
I  had  never  been  quite  sure.  They  are  the 
finest  race  of  the  desert,  first  in  all  manly 
savage  traits,  bandits  of  the  sands,  com- 
plete and  natural  robbers,  fierce  fanatics, 
death-dealers — the  most  feared  of  all  the 
tribes.  They  cover  their  faces  thus  to  j)r()- 
tect  them  from  the  sand,  for  they  are  pure 
desert  men.  I  smiled  to  think  that  at  my 
first  meeting  with  the  terrible  Touaregs 


I  found  three  of  them  dancing  for  my 
amusement;  but  I  looked  at  them  with 
the  keenest  interest.  They  were  certainly 
superb  in  muscular  strength.  At  the  end 
of  an  hour  they  showed  no  weariness;  and 
there  was  a  vigor  in  their  motions,  an 
elasticity  and  endurance  that  easily  distin- 
guished them  from  the  others.  I  watched 
them  long.  They  were  perfectly  tireless, 
and  the  dance  called  for  constant  violent 
muscular  effort.  I  shall  never  forget  that 
group,  whose  garb  itself,  thin  and  open, 
had  a  riding  look,  and  especially  the  man 
in  the  blue  garment,  with  long,  gaunt  arms 
and  legs,  who  fell  forward  and  rebounded 
with  a  spring  of  iron. 

There  were  some  changes  in  the  method 
and  order  of  the  motions,  but  the  dances 
for  the  most  part  w^ere  merely  new  arrange- 
ments of  the  same  jumping  and  kneeling 
performance.  I  sat  in  the  awful  din  of  it 
for  two  hours,  interested  in  many  things, 
and  rather  pleased,  I  confess,  at  being 
alone  in  such  a  company.  One  gets  nearer 
to  them  so  in  feeling;  with  a  companion 
of  the  same  race,  even  though  unknown, 
one  stays  with  his  race.  I  left  the  dance 
still  in  the  full  tide  of  vehemence  and 
glory  of  uproar,  overhung  by  the  light 
pungent  smoke  and  dissonance,  with  the 
obscurely  crouching  throng  in  the  low 
shadows,  and  as  we  lost  the  sound  of  it  in 
the  deep  silence  of  the  dark  lanes,  where 
we  met  no  one,  I  think  the  night  of  an 
Arab  city  never  seemed  so  still.  A  man 
with  a  lantern  went  ahead  to  light  the 
way,  which  was  black  with  darkness;  Ab- 
salom and  the  headman  went  with  me, 
and  a  negro  followed  behind.  They  at- 
tended me  to  the  door  of  the  hotel,  and 
it  was  a  striking  night  scene  as  I  stood  in 
the  hallway,  the  negro  guards  roused  from 
their  straw  mats  looking  on,  and  shook 
hands  with  the  strong-faced,  rough-garbed 
headman  who  had  had  me  in  his  protec- 


tion that  night. 


VTI 


I  WENT  out  for  a  last  drive  with  the 
British  consul  toward  the  oasis  of  dergar- 
ish  which  lies  westward  ol  the  city,  a  new 
direction  for  me.  He  was  familiar  with 
the  Mediterranean;  and,  the  talk  fall- 
ing on  the  classical  background  of  North 
Africa,  I  told  him  of  my  search  for  the 
lotus  at   Djerha.     Me  avowed  his  belief 


570 


Tripoli 


that  much  of  the  Greek  mythic  past  had 
its  local  habitation  on  these  coasts,  and 
gave  me  a  striking  and  quite  unexpected 
instance.  I  had  supposed  that  Lethe  was 
an  underground  stream  and  approached 
only  by  the  ghosts  of  the  dead.  He  as- 
sured me  that  it  was  situated  not  very 
far  from  Benghazi,  where  he  had  been  con- 
sul, and  made  an  excellent  table  water.  It 
is  a  large  fountain  or  underground  lake  in 
a  cave;  he  had  been  on  it  in  a  boat  with  a 
friend,  and  it  was  said  that  fumes  from 
the  water  would  oppress  the  passenger 
with  drowsiness.  I  heard  this  with  great 
interest,  and  like  to  remember  that  I  can 
obtain  a  cup  of  Lethe,  should  I  desire 
it,  this  side  the  infernal  world.  My  friend 
added  his  belief  that  partial  oblivion  can 
be  found  comparatively  widely  diffused 
in  North  Africa,  not  being  dependent  on 
either  Lethe  or  the  lotus.  This  tradition  of 
drowsiness  which  attaches  to  these  coasts 
in  old  days  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  qual- 
ity of  the  air,  which  is  soporific.  Con- 
tinued residence  causes  a  loss  of  memory, 
not  that  one  forgets  his  early  days,  home, 
and  children,  like  the  lotus-eaters,  but 
one  grows  uncertain  about  recent  events 
and  the  mind  becomes  hazy  as  to  whether 
one  has  or  has  not  done  this  or  that;  to 
such  a  degree  is  this  true  that  my  friend 
advised  a  return  to  the  north  at  least  once 
in  two  years  to  allow  the  memory  to  re- 
cover its  normal  force.  With  such  talk, 
which  was  quite  seriously  said,  though  it 
has  its  humorous  side,  and  which  faith- 
fully reflects  the  African  atmosphere,  we 
whiled  away  the  time,  conversing  too  of 
the  American  excavations  at  Benghazi  and 
the  bells  of  Derna  that  rang  the  Italian 
priest  to  his  death — for  the  Arabs  dislike 
bells — and  the  thousand  and  one  topics 
on  which  a  traveller  is  always  prepared  to 
receive  information.  I  had  been  so  long 
alone  that  those  talks  at  Tripoli  were  al- 
most as  much  of  a  rarity  as  the  scenes; 
they  are  an  essential  part  of  my  memory 
of  the  voyage. 

Our  destination  was  not  the  oasis,  but 
some  caverns  on  a  height  above  it.  The 
day  was  brilliant  and  a  noble  desert  view 
stretched  round  us  from  the  eminence. 
The  blue  sea  sparkled  not  far  away,  an 
horizon-stripe  up  and  down  the  coast  as 
far  as  one  could  see;  the  splendid  dark- 
green  mass  of  the  oasis  lay  just  below 
us  in  the  valley,  and  between  us  and  it 


the  desert  plain  undulated  with  the  long 
slopes  of  a  rolling  prairie,  spotted  with 
cattle  and  a  few  Arab  groups;  inland  the 
sands  swept  on  to  the  line  of  mountains 
low  on  the  far  horizon.  The  mass  of  rock 
above  us  was  picturesque  and  solitary. 
The  gem  of  the  view,  however,  was  Tripoli 
eastward.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had 
truly  seen  the  city  from  outside — just  such 
a  Moslem  city  as  one  dreams  of,  a  white 
city,  small  and  beautiful,  snowy  pure  in 
the  liquid  air.  I  was  surprised  at  its 
beauty.  We  explored  the  cave.  It  was 
of  a  sort  of  stratified  pumice-stone,  and 
partly  filled  up  with  sand.  It  had  been 
at  some  time  a  troglodyte  dwelling,  and 
chambers  had  been  hollowed  in  it.  There 
are  many  troglodytes,  or  cave-dwellers, 
still  living  in  this  primitive  manner  in 
rock-hewn  chambers  in  North  Africa. 
There  are  villages  of  them  in  the  moun- 
tains back  of  Biskra,  and  especially  in  the 
southeastern  corner  of  Tunisia  opposite 
Djerba,  and  they  are  found  in  the  low 
range  of  the  Djebel  Ghariane  that  I  w'as 
looking  on  in  the  distance.  This  cavern 
that  we  were  exploring  was  one  of  their 
prehistoric  haunts,  a  natural  fortress  and 
place  of  refuge  for  a  small  group  of  fam- 
ilies in  the  wild  waste. 

The  drive  back  was  uncommonly  beau- 
tiful, very  African  in  color,  and  increasing 
in  atmospheric  charm  as  we  neared  the 
city  in  the  clarity  of  the  sunset  light.  The 
coast  view  was  especially  lovely.  The 
blue  sea  made  the  offing,  along  which  a 
line  of  scattered  palms,  continuous  but 
thin  enough  to  give  its  full  value  to  each 
dark-green  tuft  in  the  blue  air  and  to 
many  a  single  columnar  stem  beneath,  ran 
like  a  screen,  not  too  far  from  the  road w^ ay ; 
and  the  strong  foreground  was  that  red- 
brown  earth,  with  the  sunset  light  begin- 
ning on  it.  The  beautiful  white  city  lay 
ahead  of  us.  The  quality  of  the  atmos- 
phere was  remarkable.  The  trees  were 
very  light,  and  seemed  to  float  in  the  sky, 
like  goldfish  in  a  globe;  and  as  the  sunset 
grew,  the  diffused  rose  through  the  palms 
on  the  other  side  seemed  almost  a  new  sky. 
It  was  my  last  evening  in  TripoH. 

VIII 

I  HAD  loitered  for  the  last  time  in  the 
street  of  the  blueness,  and  lingered  in  the 
souks  of  the  Djerba  merchants  and  es- 


Tripoli 


571 


pecially  in  the  little  shop  of  a  mild-man- 
nered Soudanese  dealer,  where  I  gathered 
up  the  curious  objects  that  had  been 
slov;ly  collecting  there  for  me  to  serve  as 
mementoes — things  of  gourd  and  hide,  of 
skin  and  straw,  a  few  ostrich-plumes.  I 
had  photographed  the  baker's  shop,  and 
stopped  at  the  intersection  of  the  four 
corners  to  look  once  more  at  the  ever- 
passing  ligures  of  the  inscrutable  and  con- 
glomerate crowd,  the  float  of  the  desert 
life,  I  had  called  on  my  friend  and  kind 
adviser  at  the  French  consulate,  and  my 
British  host,  to  both  of  whom  I  owed  so 
much  of  the  pleasure  and  variety  of  my 
traveller's  sojourn.  In  one  respect  it  was 
unique  in  my  wanderings.  I  had  never 
seen  so  many  strata  of  culture,  so  many 
diverse  kinds  and  stages  of  human  life,  in 
one  place.  I  had  had  a  last  talk  with 
Seyd,  the  boy  from  Fezzan,  and  with  the 
negro  guards  of  the  gate  and  the  boys  at 
the  door  who  were  eager  rivals  for  my 
morning  favors.  Now  it  was  over,  and  I 
stood  on  the  deck  with  Absalom.  I  was 
sorry  to  part  with  him.  What  a  faithful 
watch  he  had  kept!  No  matter  at  what 
hour  I  stepped  out  into  the  street,  he  was 
there,  seated  by  the  wall;  wherever  I  left 
my  consular  friends,  in  some  mysterious 
way  he  was  instantly  there  in  the  street 
at  my  side.  He  had  tempted  me  to  a 
longer  stay  with  lures  of  hunting  in  the 
desert  where  he  calmly  explained  he  would 
watch  with  a  gun  while  I  slept,  and  then 
I  would  watch,  though  there  would  be 
two  others  with  us,  but  it  would  be  better 
if  one  or  the  other  of  us  were  always  awake, 
for  one  did  not  know  what  might  be  in 
the  desert ;  and  he  had  planned  a  voyage 
to  Lebda,  the  city  of  Septimius  Severus — 
it  might  be  a  rough  voyage  in  a  boat  none 
too  good,  but  was  not  he  a  pilot?  He  had 
brought  me  one  day  all  his  pilot  papers; 
there  were  hundreds  of  them,  each  with 
the  name  of  the  craft  and  the  signature 
of  the  captain  whose  ways  he  had  safely 
guided  on  this  dangerous  coast  in  the 
years  gone  by.  But  my  voyage  in  North 
Africa  was  linished;  it  was  done;  the 
much  that  I  had  left  unseen,  and  I  re- 
alized how  much  that  was — for  wherever 
one  goes,  new  horizons  are  always  rising 
with  their  magical  drawing  of  the  un- 
known— all  that  was  for  "another  time." 
So,  knowing  the  end  had  come,  he  took 
both  my  hands  in  l)oth  his  for  our  warm 


addio,  bent    his  head,  and   went  slowly 
down  the  ship's  side. 

I  watched  the  scene,  as  we  drew  away. 
The  central  mass  of  the  fort  stood  in 
shadow,  and  the  sunset  light  streamed 
over  the  eastern  side  of  the  city,  the  beach 
and  bluffs;  slender  minarets  islanded  the 
sky;  the  blue  crescent  of  the  bay  lay 
broad  beneath;  the  oasis  rose  over  the 
banked  earth,  and  stretched  inland,  and 
the  high  horizon-line  was  plumed  with 
tall  single  palms,  tufting  the  long  sky.  I 
watched  it  long,  till  the  beautiful  city  in 
the  fair  evening  light  lessened  and  nar- 
rowed to  a  gleam,  and  at  the  end  it  was 
like  the  white  crest  of  a  wave  that  sank 
and  was  seen  no  more. 


IX 


I  WENT  on  deck.  It  was  a  May  night 
with  a  fresh  cold  wind.  There  was  a 
bright  star  over  the  crescent  moon  which 
hung  well  down  the  west,  and  all  the 
heavens  were  bright,  but  not  too  bright. 
I  leaned  on  the  rounds  of  a  rope  ladder  of 
the  rigging  by  the  ship's  side  aft,  and  was 
alone;  it  was  cold,  and  the  passengers 
were  few.  I  noticed  on  the  horizon  a  dark 
shadow  half-risen  from  the  waters  and 
mounting  toward  the  moon;  it  rose  rap- 
idly, and  grew  black  as  it  neared  the  light 
above.  It  was  like  a  high  arch,  or  cas- 
cade of  gloom,  broadening  its  skirts  as  it 
fell  on  the  horizon.  The  moon  was  its 
apex,  and  seemed  about  to  enter  it.  The 
scene  was  fantastic  in  the  extreme,  un- 
earthly, a  scene  of  Poe's  imagination;  the 
moon  hung  as  if  at  the  entrance  of  an  un- 
known region  into  which  it  was  about  to 
descend.  But  there  was  no  further  change. 
The  moon  crested  the  arch;  the  single 
star  burned  brilliantly  directly  above  and 
between  the  horns  of  the  crescent  and  at 
some  distance  aloft.  I  watched  the  strange 
spectacle;  the  moon  and  the  broad-skirted 
curtain  of  black  gloom,  pouring  from  it  on 
the  waters  just  in  the  line  of  its  bright 
track  over  the  sea,  sank  slowly  down  to- 
gether. The  moon  reddened  as  it  neared 
the  horizon-line,  and  when  the  crescent  at 
last  rested  on  the  sea,  and  the  shadow 
had  been  wholly  absorbed  in  the  moon's 
track,  there  was  another  Poes(|ue  etTect ; 
the  horned  nu)on  was  like  a  ship  of  tlanu- 
— not  a  ship  on  fire,  but  a  ship  of  flame — 
sailing   on    the   horizon.      Tliat    i)icture, 


l)<  1 


Tripoli 


though  it  could  have  been  but  for  a  few 
moments,  seemed  to  last  long,  and  sank 
dying  in  a  red  glow  slowly.  I  remember 
recalling  the  lines: 

"  The  moon  of  Mahomet 
Arose,  and  it  shall  set. " 

What  followed  was  so  singular  that  it 
may  be  best  to  record  it  in  nearly  the 
exact  words  of  my  rough  notes,  made  early 
the  next  morning,  off  Malta. 

"The  strange  thing  was  that  the  star, 
still  somewhat  high  in  the  west,  grow- 
ing brighter,  took  the  track  of  the  moon. 
I  mean  the  moon's  path  of  light  on  the 
water  became  the  star's  path,  as  plain  but 
whiter;  one  passed  and  the  other  was  there 
imperceptibly;  one  became  the  other.  It 
reminded  me  of  one  faith  changing  into 
another,  from  a  higher  heavenly  source. 
I  stayed  because  the  star  was  so  beautiful 
— the  most  beautiful -star  I  ever  saw,  ex- 
cept perhaps  the  star  off  Cyprus.  It  grew 
larger  and  more  radiant,  with  many,  many 
points,  and  became  a  bunch,  as  it  were,  of 
jackstraw  rays,  one  crossing  another,  all 
straight;  and  then,  as  I  looked,  a  strange 
thing  happened.  • 

"I  saw  what  might  have  been  spirits  in 
the  star,  as  in  a  picture.  The  star  lost 
shape,  and  became  only  the  setting  of 
these  forms  of  light,  perfect  human  fig- 
ures. At  first  there  were  two,  one  older 
and  one  younger,  like  a  saint  with  Tobias 
or  Virgin  with  the  young  St.- John;  then 
there  were  many  others,  not  at  the  same 
time,  but  successively.  Some  were  con- 
stantly repeated;  the  Byzantine  throned 
figure  hieratic,  the  high-winged  angel  tall, 
the  young  angel  seated  and  writing,  the 
standing  figure,  prophetic,  blessing,  with 
high  hands.  There  were  scenes  as  well 
as  figures:  desert  scenes  as  of  Arabs — ef- 
fects of  the  white  and  dark,  like  turbaned 
and  robed  figures  together;  the  Magian 
scene;  mixed  moving  groups,  sometimes 
turned  away  from  me.  The  figures  often 
moved  with  regard  to  each  other,  and 
trembled  on  my  own  eye  singly.  When 
the  star  approached  the  horizon,  there 
were  figures  that  seemed  to  walk  toward 
me  on  the  sea,  all  white  and  radiant — 
single  figures  always.  There  were  in  all 
three  sorts:  Byzantine,  with  crown  or 
palanquin  above,  and  the  throne;  Italian 
groups  and  lines;   and  Moslem.     There 


was  nothing  distinctively  Greek  except 
seated  figures. 

"This  continued  till  the  star  set,  per- 
haps an  hour.  I  would  look  off  from  the 
star  to  the  other  stars  and  to  the  sea;  but 
as  soon  as  my  eyes  went  back  to  the  star, 
there  were  the  changing  figures  still  to  be 
seen;  One  did  not  see  the  star,  but  the 
figures;  not  framed  in  a  star  or  in  a  round 
orb,  but  on  a  shapeless  background;  one 
saw  only  figures  of  light  as  if  '  the  heavens 
were  opened.'  And  when  the  star  set  and 
was  gone,  another  planet  above,  also  very 
bright,  as  I  looked,  opened  in  the  same 
way,  with  similar  figures.  There  I  saw  a 
form  with  Michel- Angelo-like  limbs,  seated 
on  the  orb  with  loose  posture,  like  the 
spirit  of  the  star,  and  then  a  tall  throned 
figure  with  the  crown  over  it.  I  did  not 
at  any  time  see  any  features — only  forms, 
very  distinct  in  limbs  and  modelling  of 
figure,  but  too. distant  for  features.  It 
was  an  hour  or  more,  and  I  still  saw  them 
in  the  new  star  when  I  turned  away  to  go 
below.  My  eyes  were  tired.  I  was  not 
at  all  excited — quite  steady,  and  observ- 
ing and  experimenting;  for  I  had  never 
known  anything  similar  to  this.  The  vi- 
sions were  constant,  without  any  inter- 
val, though  changing.  It  was  like  look- 
ing into  a  room  through  a  window,  or  out 
of  a  room  upon  a  landscape. 

"  It  was  wonderfully  spiritual  and  beau- 
tiful. The  figures  were  all  noble  and  beau- 
tiful, especially  in  line,. and  occupied  w^ith 
something,  like  living  forms.  They  were 
white,  but  not  with  white  clothing,  except 
the  Moslem  figures,  sometimes ;  but  white 
as  of  some  substance  of  light — the  faces 
sometimes  dark,  and  there  w^re  shadows 
marking  relations  of  the  figures,  but  not 
shadows  thrown  by  the  figures.  I  made 
no  effort  to  shape  them;  they  came;  they 
were  of  themselves. 

"I  thought  this  was  what  Blake  saw; 
what  the  shepherds  saw;  what  all  orientals 
saw  when  the  heavens  were  'opened'  — 
what  Jacob  saw,  perhaps.  What  struck 
me  was  that  the  star  was  no  longer  a 
star,  but  shapeless,  and  only  a  means  of 
seeing.  It  was  a  most  remarkable  ex- 
perience." 

Africa  was  always  a  land  of  magic; 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  night  as  if  the 
spirit  of  the  land  were  bidding  me,  who 
had  so  loved  it,  farewell. 


THE    LIGHT    CAVALRY    OF    THE    SEAS 


By    D.    Pratt    Mannix 

Lieutenant-Commander  I'.  S.  Navy 

Illustrations    hy    L.  A.   Shafer 


gjHE  torpedo  flotilla  of  the 
Atlantic  fleet  as  now  or- 
ganized consists  of  twenty- 
five  destroyers  divided  into 
five  divisions  of  five  boats 
each.  Their  duties  are  al- 
most precisely  the  same  as  those  per- 
formed by  the  cavalry  of  a  land  army. 
Just  as  the  mounted  men  are  the  ''eyes  of 
the  army"  so  are  the  destroyers  the  "eyes 
of  the  fleet." 

The  general  characteristics  of  these  ves- 
sels are  as  follows:  length,  300  feet;  beam, 
26  feet;  displacement,  850  tons.  They 
draw  about  ten  feet  of  water,  and  each 
boat  carries  four  officers  and  a  hundred 
men.  Their  armamert  consists  of  three 
double  torpedo  tubes  and  five  semi-auto- 
matic three-inch  guns.  Armor  protec- 
tion they  have  none,  depending  on  their 
high  speed  (about  thirty  knots  or  thirty- 
four  statute  miles  an  hour)  and  the  fact 
that  most  of  their  work  is  done  at  night. 
As  the  name  implies,  torpedo-boat  des- 
troyers were  originally  built  to  combat 
the  smaller  torpedo-boat,  which  had  be- 
come such  a  serious  menace  to  the  battle- 
ships and  large  cruisers  that  search-lights 
and  rapid-fire  guns  could  not  be  depended 
upon  for  protection.  Gradually,  however, 
the  duties  of  the  destroyer  were  extended 
until  they  included  all  that  was  formerly 
done  by  the  torpedo-boat  and  much  be- 
sides. The  mere  fact  that  a  modern  des- 
troyer is  three  or  four  times  as  large  as 
one  of  the  earlier  boats  renders  it  so  much 
more  seaworthy  and  capable  of  carrying 
so  much  more  fuel  that  the  radius  of  ac- 
tion of  torpedo-craft  has  been  enormously 
increased,  and  they  have  become  more 
and  more  dangerous  to  an  enemy's  fleet. 
The  duties  of  a  modern  flotilla  may  be 
tabulated  in  this  way: 

(i)  Scouting.  This  comprises  locating 
and  reporting  the  position  of  the  enemy 
and  keeping  in  touch  with  him  as  long  as 
may  be  necessary. 


(2)  Protection  of  one's  own  fleet  from 
night  attacks  of  the  enemy's  destroyers. 
This  includes  not  only  locating  and  re- 
porting the  position  of  the  hostile  torpedo- 
craft,  but,  if  necessary,  attacking  them 
with  your  guns  and  sinking  or  driving 
them  away  before  they  can  force  home  an 
attack  against  your  battle-ships. 

(3)  Attacking  the  battle-ships  of  the 
enemy  with  your  torpedoes.  This  is,  of 
course,  the  paramount  duty  of  every  ves- 
sel in  the  flotilla. 

(4)  In  addition  to  the  above  "regular" 
duties,  destroyers  are  frequently  used  in 
what  might  be  called  "gunboat  work": 
patrolling  the  enemy's  coast;  running  u[) 
his  rivers  where  the  big  ships  cannot  go; 
overtaking  and  capturing  his  merchant- 
vessels  and  firing  on  troops  and  field-bat- 
teries ashore.  In  the  recent  Turco-Ital- 
ian  War,  although  the  Turkish  navy 
remained  at  anchor  most  of  the  time,  the 
Italian  destroyers  were  constantly  en- 
gaged, blockading,  landing  troops,  and 
even  attacking  fortified  towns. 

In  scouting,  many  different  systems 
may  be  used.  Most  of  these  are  confiden- 
tial and  cannot  be  divulged,  but  a  general 
idea  of  the  problem  that  confronts  the  flo- 
tilla may  readily  be  given.  Suppose  a 
hostile  fleet  is  making  preparations  to 
leave  Europe,  with  theevident  intention  of 
attacking  some  point  on  our  coast-line,  or, 
as  would  be  more  probable,  of  seizing 
some  island  in  the  West  Indies,  establish- 
ing a  base  there,  and  directing  oi)erations 
against  either  the  Panama  Canal  or  the 
mainland.  As  long  as  that  fleet  is  in  or 
near  Europe  we  can  follow  its  movements 
from  day  to  day.  That  is  what  our  diplo- 
matic agents  and  secret-service  men  are 
for,  and  they  would  cable,  in  cipher  of 
course,  detailed  reports,  not  only  of  the 
fleet's  location  but  of  the  number  and 
types  of  vessels  composing  it,  the  amount 
of  ammunition  and  proxisions  on  board, 
the  state  of  discipline  of  the  crews,  and 

573 


lit 


4 


The   Light  Cavah-y  of  the  Seas 


everythinj]^  that  could  possibly  be  of  as- 
sistance to  us  in  preparing  to  defend  our- 
selves. 

Now,  suppose  the  hostile  fleet  weigh 
their  anchors,  and,  steaming  past  the  rock 
of  Gibraltar,  head  out  to  sea.  In  a  few 
hours  they  are  out  of  sight;  they  can  steer 
any  course  they  wish  and  travel  at  any 
speed  up  to  their  maximum.  It  will 
not  be  many  days  before  the  people  of 
our  country  will  be  asking  themselves: 
"  Where  are  they?  When  will  they  appear 
off  our  coasts,  and  what  will  be  their  first 
point  of  attack?" 

We  have  certain  facts  to  help  us.  No 
modern  ship  can  keep  the  seas  for  months 
at  a  time  as  did  the  fleets  of  a  hundred 
years  ago.  They  must  coal.  We  know 
the  coal  capacity  and  also,  roughly,  the 
coal-consumption  at  various  speeds  of  all 
foreign  war-ships  just  as  they  know  ours. 
Hence  we  are  certain  that  after  a  compar- 
atively short  time  at  sea  the  enemy  must 
put  in  somewhere  to  refill  his  bunkers.  If, 
however,  they  take  their  colliers  with 
them,  as  a  large  fleet  would  undoubtedly 
do,  even  this  becomes  uncertain,  as  it  is 
not  impossible,  in  smooth  weather,  to  coal 
at  sea.  Should  such  a  force  evade  our 
battle-ships  and  effect  a  landing  either 
in  the  West  Indies  or  on  the  mainland 
they  might  do  untold  damage  before  they 
were  overcome  and  their  ships  destroyed. 
Most  of  the  school  histories  carefully  slur 
over  the  fact  that  a  few  thousand  British 
soldiers  and  sailors,  under  General  Ross 
and  Admiral  Cockburn,  marched  to  Wash- 
ington, burned  the  national  capitol,  and 
escaped  to  their  ships  with  trifling  losses. 

It  is  the  destroyers'  duty  to  locate  the 
enemy  as  soon  as  possible  and  notify  our 
fleet  of  dreadnaughts  so  that  they  can  at- 
tack before  he  succeeds  in  landing  his 
forces.  His  position,  within  certain  wide 
limits  of  latitude  and  longitude,  can  gen- 
erally be  established  by  reports  from  mer- 
chant-ships who  have  seen  him  and  ports 
where  he  has  stopped  for  coal  or  repairs. 
This  gives  us  a  ''  scouting  area,"  which  the 
flotilla  must  carefully  patrol  by  day  and 
night. 

The  simplest  type  of  such  a  patrol  is  to 
form  the  boats  in  a  line  with  wide  inter- 
vals between  them,  just  as  a  skirmish-line 
is  formed  ashore.  These  intervals  should 
be  as  large  as  possible,  but  not  so  great 


that  an  enemy's  vessel  could  slip  through 
without  being  seen  by  at  least  one  of  the 
destroyers.  On  a  clear  day  they  might 
be  twenty  miles  apart;  a  division  of  five 
could  then  cover  a  hundred  miles  of  the 
ocean. 

The  boats  being  in  position,  at  a  certain 
hour  previously  designated  they  start 
steaming  toward  the  enemy,  all  making 
exactly  the  same  speed  in  order  to  keep 
their  proper  station  or  ''dress"  in  the 
scouting-line.  Lookouts  on  the  bridges 
carefully  watch  for  any  sign  of  smoke  on 
the  horizon,  which  is  usually  the  first  indi- 
cation of  the  presence  of  a  stranger.  Any- 
thing seen  must  immediately  be  inves- 
tigated, and,  if  necessary,  reported  by 
wireless  to  the  battle-ships  either  directly 
or,  if  they  be  far  distant,  through  a  chain 
of  vessels  w^hich  relay  the  message  along 
until  it  reaches  the  admiral.  Should  the 
stranger  be  harmless  he  is  allowed  to  pro- 
ceed, but  if  he  prove  to  be  one  of  the 
enemy's  scouts,  his  location  is  at  once  sent 
broadcast  by  the  wireless  of  the  destroyer 
discovering  him,  and  every  effort  is  made 
to  find  the  hostile  battle-ships,  which  are 
probably  not  far  from  their  scout.  When 
contact  is  made  with  the  big  ships  a 
general  wireless  call  is  sent  out  for  all 
destroyers  to  assemble  in  that  vicinity. 
Here  they  wait,  taking  advantage  of  their 
superior  speed  to  keep  just  outside  the 
range  of  the  big  guns,  until  night  falls, 
when  they  may  either  attack  or  continue 
"tracking"  the  enemy,  being  careful  not 
to  lose  touch  for  a  moment  and  sending 
repeated  reports  to  their  admiral  of  what 
he  is  doing. 

Of  course,  the  hostile  fleet  w^ill  make 
every  effort  to  keep  these  reports  from 
getting  through  by  ''interfering"  with 
their  own  wireless,  and  the  best  method  of 
avoiding  this  interference  is  being  con- 
stantly studied  by  all  navies.  One  of  the 
amazing  examples  of  inefficiency  shown 
by  the  Russian  fleet  w^hich  was  destroyed 
by  Togo  in  the  Sea  of  Japan,  was  their 
permitting  the  Japanese  scouts  who  w'ere 
following  them  and  reporting  their  move- 
ments to  "  talk"  at  will  without  making  an 
effort  to  mix  up  the  messages  by  using 
their  own  wireless. 

If  the  enemy  has  not  been  discovered 
until  he  is  very  near  our  coast  it  will  be 
necessary  to  attack  as  soon  as  darkness 


Vol.  LV.— 6i 


575 


r)7() 


The  LiglU  Cavalry  of  the  Seas 


makes  success  possible.  The  destroyers 
assemble  by  (li\isions  and  with  all  lights 
extinguished  dash  at  full  speed  upon  the 
head  and  flanks  of  his  column,  getting  as 
close  as  possible  before  discharging  their 
torpedoes,  and  then  swinging  out  into  the 
darkness  again  to  make  another  attempt, 
I)ro\ided  they  are  not  sunk  in  the  first. 

There  is  only  one  possible  protection  for 
a  fleet  against  such  an  attack,  and  that 
is  to  oppose  destroyers  with  destroyers. 
This  is  done  by  forming  a  "  screen  "  of  tor- 
pedo-craft around  the  large  ships.  This 
screen,  which  consists  simply  of  a  big  cir- 
cle completely  surrounding  the  main  fleet 
of  battle-ships,  keeps  careful  watch,  and 
the  moment  any  of  the  opposing  destroy- 
ers attempt  to  break  through  and  get  at 
the  battle-ships  the  vessels  of  the  screen 
illuminate  the  attacking  boats  with  their 
search-lights  and  open  fire  on  them  with 
their  guns,  making  every  effort  to  keep 
their  line  from  being  broken.  Service  in 
the  screen  in  time  of  war  is  the  most 
dangerous  possible,  as  the  gunners  on  the 
big  ships  have  a  decided  inclination  to 
shoot  at  anything  that  looks  like  a  des- 
troyer, particularly  during  the  excitement 
and  confusion  of  a  night  attack  when,  if 
they  wait  too  long  to  determine  whether 
she  be  friend  or  foe,  the  answer  may  be  a 
torpedo  under  the  armor-belt.  During 
the  Russo-Japanese  War  all  our  destroy- 
ers on  the  Asiatic  station  were  painted 
white  instead  of  the  usual  dark  gray,  to 
prevent  any  possible  mistakes  being  made 
either  by  Russians  or  Japanese. 

All  these  exercises  are  held  in  time  of 
peace,  so  that  our  flotilla  may  be  efficient 
in  war,  even  to  the  firing  of  actual  torpe- 
does at  battle-ships  during  night  attacks. 
The  usual  explosive,  or  war  head,  is  re- 
moved and  an  ''exercise"  or  collapsible 
head  substituted.  If  a  battle-ship  be  hit 
the  head  of  the  torpedo  is  mashed  in,  but 
that  is  all  the  damage  done,  and  the  vessel 
attacked  is  never  in  any  real  danger.  The 
illustration  [p.  578]  shows  the  head  of  a 
torpedo  of  the  destroyer  Jarvis  after  one 
of  the  night  attacks  made  off  the  Cuban 
coast  last  winter.  In  this  attack  the  di- 
vision of  five  boats  to  which  the  Jarvis  be- 
longed ran  at  full  speed  with  all  lights  ex- 
tinguished across  the  bows  of  an  advancing 
column  of  battle-ships,  discharging  their 
torpedoes  in  succession  as  they  passed  the 


line.  The  Jarvis\s  shot  struck  the  second 
ship  in  the  column  on  the  starboard  side 
forw^ard,  and  would  have  seriously  dam- 
aged her  had  there  been  an  explosive 
charge  in  the  torpedo. 

During  these  manoeuvres  the  destroyers 
keep  very  close  together  and  run  at  high 
speed;  hence  it  requires  great  coolness  and 
quick  action  on  the  part  of  their  officers 
to  avoid  collisions  as  the  nights  are  fre- 
quently so  dark  that  the  boat  ahead  is  in- 
visible when  only  a  few  yards  away.  The 
boats  themselves  are  of  such  light  con- 
struction that  any  collision  at  the  high 
speeds  they  habitually  use  is  always  most 
serious  and  generally  involves  loss  of  life. 
Only  a  few  months  ago  a  German  des- 
troyer was  cut  in  two  during  manoeuvres 
in  the  North  Sea,  and  nearly  all  her  offi- 
cers and  men  were  drowned.  The  only 
light  carried  by  the  boats  in  these  exer- 
cises is  one  directly  over  the  stern.  As 
they  manoeuvred  habitually  in  a  column 
or  "single  file,"  the  screened  stern  light 
of  each  boat  serves  as  a  guide  for  the  boat 
behind  her,  enabling  the  leader  to  make 
any  changes  of  direction  that  may  be  nec- 
essary. As  the  lights  do  not  show  from 
ahead,  they  are  entirely  invisible  to  the 
enemy. 

Sometimes  the  flotilla  is  divided,  half 
the  boats  serving  on  one  side  and  half  on 
the  other.  This  greatly  increases  the 
danger  of  the  manoeuvres,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  when  two  destroyers  without 
lights  are  each  making  twenty-five  knots 
and  are  heading  toward  each  other  they 
are  actually  approaching  at  the  rate  of 
fifty  knots  an  hour,  or  express-train  speed. 
Many  of  the  captains  make  it  a  rule  to 
have  life-preservers  served  out  to  their 
crews  before  going  out  for  any  night  work. 

Various  clever  ruses  have  been  used  by 
the  boats  in  their  operations  against  the 
big  ships.  On  one  occasion  a  division  of 
destroyers  got  within  a  few  hundred 
yards  of  several  battle-ships  without  dis- 
covery, by  the  following  stratagem.  In- 
stead of  turning  out  all  their  lights  the 
leading  boats  hoisted  two  white  lanterns 
in  a  vertical  line  on  her  foremast.  This 
is  the  signal  that  all  tugs  carry  while  en- 
gaged in  towing  other  vessels.  The  boats 
behind  her  turned  on  their  regular  red  and 
green  side-lights  and  were  careful  to  keep 
in  exactly  the  same  relative  positions.  As 


Drnivn  hy  L.  A.  Slin/er. 

'I'he  vessels  of  tlie  screen  illuminate  tiie  attacking  boats  with  tiieir  search-lights  and  open  tire  on  them 


577 


r)7s 


Tlie   Lisfbt  Cavalry  of  the  Seas 


tlu"  ni.LilU  was  \cry  dark  and  their  outlines 
could  not  be  seen  by  an  observer  two  hun- 
dred yards  away,  they  looked  exactly  like 
a  peaceful  tug  engaged  in  towing  a  line  of 
barges,  and  in  this  guise  they  ran  in  very 
close  to  the  big  ships,  whose  crews  were 
straining  their  eyes  looking  for  vessels 
without  lights. 

The  introduction  of  oil  fuel  was  a  great 
impro\'ement,  as  it  makes  sudden  changes 


Head  of  a  torpedo  of  the  destroyer  Jarvis  that  struck 
a  ship  durhig  manoeuvres. 


in  speed  possible.  You  may  be  steaming 
along  at  fifteen  knots  and  if  you  want  to 
make  twenty-five  all  you  have  to  do  is 
send  the  order  to  the  engine-room.  With 
a  coal-burner  considerable  time  was  re- 
quired, as  fires  had  to  be  built  up  and 
other  preparations  made.  Oil  fuel  also 
renders  unnecessary  the  dirty  and  un- 
pleasant work  of  coaling  ship.  Now  we 
simply  run  alongside  the  oil  vessel,  con- 
nect up  the  hose,  start  the  pumps,  and 
all  hands  go  to  dinner  except  a  man  to  see 
that  the  tanks  don't  overflow. 

The  popular  idea  of  a  modern  naval 
combat  is  two  fleets  miles  apart  firing  at 
each  other  with  their  big  guns.  This  by 
no  means  applies  to  the  torpedo-craft. 
While  their  paramount  duty  is  to  attack 


the  big  ships  of  the  enemy  they  not  infre- 
(juently  get  mixed  up  in  very  lively  scrim- 
mages with  each  other.  The  Russo-Jap- 
anese War  abounds  in  such  incidents. 
In  at  least  two  cases  boarding  and  hand- 
to-hand  fighting  were  resorted  to.  In  one 
of  these,  the  famous  case  of  the  Ryshitelni, 
the  Russian  destroyer  of  that  name  ran 
into  Chefoo  Harbor,  where  she  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  Japanese  boat  whose  oflicers 
and  men  boarded  her,  and,  after  a  rough- 
and-tumble  fight  on  her  decks,  during  the 
progress  of  which  the  captains  of  the  two 
boats  rolled  overboard  clasped  in  each 
other's  arms  and  continued  fighting  in  the 
water,  the  Russian  was  seized  and  towed 
out  of  the  harbor,  in  absolute  defiance  of 
the  fact  that  China  was  a  neutral  country. 

In  the  second  case  a  Russian  boat  was 
boarded  in  the  open  sea  off  Port  Arthur 
and  her  crew  either  killed  or  driven  below. 
In  still  another  instance,  during  opera- 
tions at  night,  a  Russian  boat  joined  a  di- 
vision of  Japanese  destroyers,  thinking 
they  were  friends;  all  night  long  they 
cruised  together,  but  at  daylight  recog- 
nition was  mutual,  and  the  Russian  was 
promptly  sunk  by  the  combined  fire  of  her 
foes. 

The  officers  of  the  U.  S.  S.  Wisconsin, 
lying  at  anchor  off  Shanghai  one  sum- 
mer's day  in  1904,  witnessed  a  spectacle 
that  none  of  them  will  ever  forget.  A 
great  armored  cruiser  came  dashing  in  at 
full  speed  from  seaward.  Four  of  her 
five  stacks  were  standing;  where  the  fifth 
had  been  was  a  gaping  hole  in  her  decks 
from  which  smoke  and  flames  rose  mast- 
head high,  a  veritable  floating  volcano. 
Close  at  her  heels,  like  hounds  after  a  stag, 
sped  two  hostile  destroyers.  It  was  the 
Askold  escaping  from  the  disaster  of 
August  10. 

Earlier  wars  provide  many  examples  of 
dashing  torpedo  work.  In  the  conflict 
between  China  and  Japan  in  1894-5  the 
Japanese  boats  distinguished  themselves 
both  at  Port  Arthur  and  at  Wei-hai-wei. 
In  the  capture  of  the  famous  fortress, 
later  wrested  from  the  Russians,  the  des- 
troyers ran  close  inshore,  where  they 
could  not  be  reached  by  the  fire  from  the 
big  coast  cannon,  and  enfiladed  the  Chi- 
nese trenches  with  their  machine  guns, 
greatly  assisting  the  soldiers,  who  were  as- 
saulting the  fortress  from  the  rear.    After 


Sometimes  the  flotilla  is  divided,  half  the  boats  servinj;  on  one  side  and  half  on  the  other.  —  Page  576. 


the  disastrous  battle  of  the  Yalu  the  Chi- 
nese fleet  took  refuge  in  Wei-hai-wei  har- 
bor, anchoring  close  inshore  under  the 
guns  of  the  forts.  Here  they  were  at- 
tacked early  in  February  by  seven  tor- 
pedo-boats. One  of  the  battle-ships  was 
so  badly  damaged  that  she  was  hauled 
into  shallow  water  and  abandoned.  The 
boats  made  the  attack  under  a  heavy  rifle 
fire  and  were  struck  repeatedly,  but  little 
damage  was  done.  Two  of  them  were  hit 
by  small-calibre  shell,  exi)l()ding  the  boiler 
of  one  and  so  badly  wrecking  her  that  she 
had  to  be  abandoned.  A  second  shell 
burst  in  the  fire-room  of  another  of  the 
boats  with  very  little  damage.  In  run- 
ning out  of  the  harbor  after  the  attack  a 
third  boat  ran  aground  while  rounding 
the  end  of  a  long  boom  that  had  been  laid 
across  the  entrance  to  prevent  their  get- 
ting inside.  It  is  related  of  the  officers  and 
crew  of  this  destroyer  that,  after  making 
every  effort  to  get  atloat  again  and  finding 


it  impossible,  as  they  had  struck  the  bot- 
tom while  running  at  full  speed,  all  hands 
turned  in  and  had  a  good  sleep  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  they  were  under 
the  very  muzzles  of  the  Chinese  guns. 

In  a  second  attack  five  boats  took  part : 
three  of  these  managed  to  squeeze  around 
the  end  of  the  boom ;  the  other  two  headed 
directly  for  the  obstruction,  and  went  "full 
speed  ahead."  Their  momentum  was 
so  great  that  they  jum])ed  the  boom  like 
horses  going  over  a  hurdle  and  landed 
safely  on  the  other  side,  with  the  enemy's 
ships  directly  in  front  of  them.  The  Chi- 
nese threw  their  search-lights  on  the  at- 
tacking boats  and  opened  a  tremendous 
fire  with  their  guns,  l)ut  they  were  so  ex- 
cited that  all  their  shots  went  high  and 
not  one  of  the  destroyers  was  hit.  The 
Japanese  promi)tly  let  drive  with  their 
torpedoes  and  succeeded  in  sinking  three 
large  ships. 

'I'hese    operations    were    conducted    in 

579 


5S0 


The   Liglit  Cavalry  of  tlie  Seas 


North  China  in  the  dead  of  winter.  The 
hardships  sulTered  by  officers  and  men 
were  simply  incredible.  On  many  morn- 
ings they  were  obliged  to  chop  their  boats 
out  of  the  ice  before  they  could  get  under 
way,  and  on  at  least  one  occasion  a  des- 
troyer failed  to  fire  her  torpedoes,  because 
the  tubes  were  so  clogged  wdth  ice  and 
snow  that  they  could  not  be  used. 

In  the  Chilian  Revolution  of  1891  a 
rebel  battle-ship  was  attacked  by  two  gov- 
ernment torpedo-boats  while  at  anchor  in 
Caldera  Bay.  The  Chihans  knew  noth- 
ing at  all  about  the  mechanism  of  torpe- 
does, but  managed  to  get  hold  of  a  French 
ex-man-of-war's  man  who,  very  obliging- 
ly, adjusted  their  torpedoes  and  put  them 
in  w^orking  order.  The  two  boats  then  en- 
tered the  harbor,  keeping  a  bright  lookout 
for  the  enemy.  Immediately  upon  sight- 
ing the  hostile  battle-ship  the  first  des- 
troyer ran  at  her  and  fired  three  torpe- 
does, all  of  which  missed  the  mark.  The 
large  ship  opened  a  tremendous  fire  with 
all  her  guns.  The  second  boat  meanwhile 
had  been  entirely  unobserved  by  the 
enemy;  she  came  up  on  the  other  side  to 
wdthin  a  hundred  and  fifty  yards  and  fired 
a  torpedo  which  missed;  she  then  fired  a 
second  which  hit  the  large  vessel  amid- 
ships, sinking  her  and  drowning  eleven 
officers  and  one  hundred  and  seventy-one 
men.  Not  a  man  was  hurt  on  board  the 
destroyers  and  the  boats  themselves  were 
very  little  damaged. 

In  a  second  revolution,  that  of  Brazil  in 
1894,  four  government  boats  decided  to 
attack  a  rebel  battle-ship  at  anchor  in 
Saint  Catherine  Bay.  They  had  intended 
attacking  simultaneously  but  got  sepa- 
rated while  entering  the  bay,  and  only 
one  of  them  discovered  the  enemy.  She 
suddenly  sighted  the  battle-ship  off  her 
starboard  bow  and  was  promptly  greeted 
by  a  heavy  gun-fire.  The  captain  went 
full-speed  toward  the  big  ship  and  gave 
the  order  to  fire  the  bow  torpedo,  but 
through  some  mistake  it  had  already  been 
fired  and  the  shot  was  lost.  Very  angry 
at  this,  he  swung  his  ship  around  the  bat- 
tle-ship's stern  and  gave  orders  to  fire  the 
second  torpedo,  but  nothing  happened. 
The  second  officer  then  ran  aft  and  fired 
the  torpedo  himself.  A  tremendous  ex- 
plosion followed,  and  shortly  afterward 
the  battle-ship  sank  in  the  shallow  waters 


of  the  bay.  The  destroyer  was  hit  thirty- 
eight  times  by  one-inch  shell,  but  only  one 
man  was  hurt,  and  the  boat  itself  only 
slightly  damaged. 

Without  question  service  on  a  destroyer 
involves  more  hardships  than  any  other 
kind  of  naval  work.  Many  officers,  in- 
cluding the  writer,  have  gone  to  sea  for 
years  in  the  larger  vessels  without  ever 
feeling  even  slightly  uncomfortable,  yet, 
since  joining  the  flotilla  they  have  on  fre- 
quent occasions  been  violently  and  un- 
blushingly  seasick.  It  is  a  common  say- 
ing with  us  that  a  man  doesn't  know  what 
"seagoing"  really  is  until  he  has  tried  it 
on  a  torpedo-boat.  It  makes  one  appre- 
ciate the  tremendous  hardships  that  Co- 
lumbus, Cabot,  and  the  other  early  nav- 
igators must  have  endured  when  they 
crossed  the  Atlantic  in  their  cockle-shells. 

Last  winter  the  entire  Atlantic  fleet 
cruised  from  Guantanamo,  Cuba,  to  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama  in  order  to  give  offi- 
cers and  men  an  opportunity  of  seeing  the 
canal  before  the  water  was  let  in.  The 
usual  cruising  speed  of  the  destroyers, 
when  by  themselves,  is  twenty  knots,  but, 
as  it  was  advisable  for  all  units  of  the  fleet 
to  arrive  at  the  same  hour,  we  were 
obliged  to  steam  at  the  same  speed  as  the 
battle-ships,  or  twelve  knots,  the  result 
being  that  all  the  way  across  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  we  rolled  between  thirty  and  forty 
degrees  on  a  side  and  there  was  not  a  mo- 
ment's cessation  of  this  rolling.  We  an- 
chored in  Colon  Harbor  at  six  o'clock  one 
evening,  and  all  that  night,  even  with  our 
anchors  down,  the  rolling  continued,  as 
there  was  a  heavy  swell  coming  in  from 
the  Gulf,  and  the  breakwater,  which  is  to 
protect  the  harbor,  was  not  completed. 
Early  the  next  morning  we  ran  up  the  old 
French  canal,  went  alongside  the  dock, 
and  all  hands  from  captain  to  cabin  boy 
turned  in  and  had  their  first  sleep  in  four 
days. 

As  an  example  of  destroyer  work  I 
would  like  to  tell  you  of  our  experience  on 
the  Jarvis  last  spring.  The  Jarvis  had  to 
come  north  from  Cuba  before  the  other 
boats,  in  order  to  hold  certain  steaming 
trials.  During  the  early  evening  we  had 
been  manoeuvring  with  the  fleet,  but 
about  eleven  o'clock  orders  w^re  received 
to  "proceed  on  duty  assigned."  Course 
was  set  for  Cape  May  si  on  the  eastern  end 


Drawn  by  L.  A.  SJtafcr. 

All  day  we  labored  through  it,  and  late  in  tlic  afternoon  sighted  \Vailing'>  Island.  —  Page  582. 


5S, 


A  destroyer  at  sea. 


of  Cuba  and  orders  given  to  make  twenty 
knots'  speed.  As  everything  was  running 
smoothly,  I  went  below  to  get  a  few  hours' 
sleep;  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  I 
awoke  to  find  the  ship  was  rolling  and 
pitching  very  heavily.  She  would  go 
flying  up  in  the  air,  pause  for  an  instant, 
and  then  descend  with  dizzy  suddenness, 
landing  on  top  of  a  wave  with  a  crash  that 
made  her  quiver  from  stem  to  stern.  It 
wasn't  unlike  coming  down  in  an  express 
elevator  and  being  stopped  too  quickly. 
Realizing  that  we  were  no  longer  in  the  lee 
of  Cuba,  I  jumped  out  of  my  bunk,  but 
hardly  had  my  feet  touched  the  deck  when 
I  was  thrown  the  entire  length  of  the  room 
flat  on  the  floor,  and  the  next  instant  the 
heavy  swivel  desk-chair  came  down  on  top 
of  me  cutting  a  gash  eight  inches  long  in 
one  shin ;  struggling  to  my  feet  I  was  im- 
mediately taken  with  violent  seasickness 
but  managed  to  get  my  clothes  on  and 
climbed  up  on  the  bridge.  Here  I  found 
that  after  passing  Maysi  our  change  of 
course  to  the  north  had  brought  wind  and 
sea  directly  ahead,  and  the  ship  was  re- 
ceiving tremendous  blows  from  the  high 
waves  as  she  forced  her  way  through 
them.  Speed  was  reduced  to  fifteen  knots, 
but  just  as  the  change  was  made  an 
enormous  green  sea  came  over  the  bridge, 
drenching  us  to  the  skin  and  smashing  the 
glass  in  the  binnacle  and  the  top  of  the 
chart-board. 
All  day  we  labored  through  it,  and  late 
582 


in  the  afternoon  sighted  Watling's  Island 
(which,  by  the  way,  was  the  first  land 
seen  by  Columbus  in  1492)  and,  passing 
through  the  Crooked  Island  Passage,  set 
course  for  Cape  Hatteras.  The  weather 
kept  getting  worse  all  the  time :  seas  con- 
stantly swept  the  forecastle;  several  of 
the  hatch-covers  were  forced  open  and 
water  came  in  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
ship  had  to  be  headed  off  and  volunteers 
sent  to  close  and  secure  the  hatches. 

For  three  days  neither  sun  nor  stars  had 
been  visible ;  hence  we  were  by  no  means 
certain  of  where  we  were,  as  no  observa- 
tions could  be  taken.  Finally,  our  dead 
reckoning  showed  that  we  should  be  with- 
in fifty  miles  of  the  Diamond  Shoals  Light 
Vessel,  which  is  just  off  Cape  Hatteras. 
From  the  appearance  of  the  water  we 
could  tell  that  it  was  rapidly  getting  shal- 
lower, and,  as  there  are  some  very  danger- 
ous shoals  off  Hatteras,  with  only  a  few 
feet  of  water  on  them,  we  were  very  anx- 
ious to  know  our  exact  position. 

There  is  only  one  way  of  ascertaining  a 
ship's  position  in  thick  weather  at  sea, 
and  that  is  by  taking  soundings.  Orders 
were  given  to  start  the  sounding-machine. 
This  machine  is  a  heavy  steel  reel  on 
which  is  wound  about  five  hundred 
fathoms  of  strong  wire  with  a  lead  on  the 
end.  The  men  sent  aft  returned  and 
reported  that  the  sounding-machine  had 
been  washed  overboard.  Its  steel  legs, 
riveted  to  the  deck,  were  still  there,  but 


Muniicrn 


583 


were  broken  off  short  by  the  force  of  the 
waves.  The  shij)  was  then  stopped  and 
an  effort  made  to  find  the  depth  of  water 
by  lowering  a  long  line  with  a  weight  on 
the  end.  We  kept  drifting  to  leeward  so 
fast  that  the  line  stood  out  straight  from 
the  ship's  side  and  no  sounding  could  he 
taken. 

Meanwhile  darkness  was  rapidly  ap- 
proaching and  our  position  was  becoming 
more  and  more  dangerous.  Just  then  the 
sun  showed  itself  for  about  three  seconds, 
and,  snatching  a  sextant,  I  managed  to 
take  a  very  doubtful  altitude,  which 
placed  us  fifty  miles  beyond  our  dead- 
reckoning  position.  Hardly  had  this  dis- 
covery been  made  when  a  sharp-eyed 
quartermaster  pointed  to  a  dim  object, 
well  on  the  port  hand,  and  heading  for  it 
we  discovered,  to  our  extreme  relief,  that 
it  was  Diamond  Shoals  Light  Vessel. 

This  fixed  our  position  absolutely,  and 
we  headed  up  the  coast  for  the  entrance 
to   Chesapeake   Bay.      Hardly  had   we 


droj)ped  the  light  vessel  astern  when  a  ter- 
rific downj)()ur  of  rain  commenced  drench- 
ing us  to  the  skin,  and  entirely  obliterat- 
ing all  the  shore  lights  and  other  aids  to 
navigation.  It  was  bitterly  cold  and  I 
had  to  decide  between  wearing  a  sweater 
drenched  with  ice-water  or  wearing  no 
sweater  at  all.  I  decided  on  the  ice-water. 
All  around  us  we  could  hear  whistles  and 
fog-bells  getting  louder  and  louder  as  we 
aj^proached  the  entrance  of  the  bay.  Fi- 
nally I  decided  that  further  i)r()gress  would 
be  foolhardy,  and  we  let  go  the  anchor, 
veered  to  sixty  fathoms,  and  rolled  out  the 
night,  bitterly  cold  and  drenched  to  the 
skin.  With  the  rising  sun  we  discovered 
that  we  were  directly  in  the  entrance  to 
Chesapeake  Bay,  and  at  six  o'clock  got 
under  way  and  proceeded  to  the  Norfolk 
Navy  Yard.  For  four  days  we  had  not 
taken  off  our  clothes  or  sat  down  to  a  meal. 
There  was  no  report  ever  made  of  this 
trip,  for  there  was  nothing  to  report.  It 
was  "all  in  the  day's  work." 


By 


MUNNERN 


Georgia  Wood   Pangborn 


I  L  L  U  S  1'  R  A  'V  ION     I!  Y     F  I.  O  R  E  N  C  F.     E  .      S  T  O  R  E  R 


ER  name  had  been  given 
her  with  distinctness  and 
precision,  on  a  wild  mid- 
night when  there  was  sharp 
trouble  in  his  mouth. 
Nothing  to  worry  about. 
Teeth  have  to  come,  you  know.  Any 
parent,  however  weakling,  can  summon 
sufficient  philosophy  to  bear  that  for  them. 
Only — they  do  stay  awake  so,  and  make 
everybody  else  do  it  with  them.  She  was 
sleeping,  but  lightly,  while  somebody  else 
"had  him,"  and  the  summons,  stern  yet 
appealing,  rung  through  the  house  for  the 
first  time. 
^^  M miner n  .^" 

And  she  had  answered  to  her  name  thus 
coined  out  of  his  need  like  a  hound 
whistled  to  heel. 

Ancient  history  now!  Words  had  fol- 
lowed thick  and  fast,  tripping  each  other 


up  into  strange,  elfin  tangles;  big  ones 
and  little  ones,  some  clear  as  diamonds, 
some  with  blurred  rainbow  edges — a 
wild,  hurrying  multitude.  But  "Mun- 
nern"  stayed.  That  was  her  fault.  She 
had  clung  to  it  foolishly,  making  no 
effort  to  transmute  it  into  the  correct 
"mother."  Munnern  she  was  still,  and 
likely  to  remain  even  when  the  little  voice 
that  had  named  her  should  be  heavy  and 
deep  with  an  amazing  vocabulary. 

Hea\'y  and  deej) — that  xoicel  A  man's 
even  step  upon  the  floor  instead  of  that 
light,  clattering  hurry,  with  the  danger  of 
a  bump  as  its  goal !  Can  the  unborn  sum- 
mers hold  such  miracles  as  that  /  A  man  I 
\'et  exactly  this  thing  does  happen  to 
little  boys — theoretically.  She  knew  the 
scientific  fact — like  interstellar  distances, 
or  the  age  of  mountains,  not  as  a  thing 
the  mind  could  really  grasp. 


5S4 


Munncrn 


She  also  calmly  knew  that  a  little  !)()>' 
so  perfect  wouUl  he  a  bi^  man  so  perfect. 
His  questions  proved  that.  Only  an  ex- 
traordinary brain  could  contri\e  them. 

"Who  took  care  of  the  hrst  baby?"  he 
in(iuires  one  day,  solicitously,  and  she, 
truthful  soul,  strives  to  answer  in  terms 
of  protoplasm  and  the  ])ithecanthropus, 
to  his  apparent  satisfaction.  But  when 
she  has  labored  to  make  him  understand 
what  the  stars  are,  and  how  not  even  the 
biggest  and  wisest  man  in  all  the  world 
can  aspire  to  reach  them,  the  calculating, 
thoughtful  eye  which  he  turns  heaven- 
ward, and  the  critical  solemnity  with 
which  he  considers  that  his  w^orld  is  a 
round  thing  with  nothing  to  support  it 
any  more  than  one  of  his  soap-bubbles — 
she  feels  oddly  self-reproachful,  as  though 
she  ought  to  have  been  more  careful  in 
the  choice  of  his  environment.  Unsup- 
ported worlds  I  One  should  have  managed 
better  than  that. 

Such  a  very  little  boy!  Perhaps — not 
quite — just  a  shade — other  children  in 
contrast  had  such  a — coarse  look.  Can  it 
be  that  they  are  stronger?  If  he  is  to  be 
big  in  body  as  well  as  in  brain,  maybe 
.  .  .  some  difference  in  diet;  some  slight 
thing  may  be  needed.  But  there  is  no 
hurry;  no  hurry  at  all.  We  will  give 
him  an  extra  nip  of  cold  water  in  his  bath, 
add  a  half-ounce  to  his  portion  of  beef 
juice,  get  him  a  little  sleeping-suit  so  that 
he  can  sleep  in  outdoor  winter  air:  a 
number  of  things  can  be  done  before  we 
bother  one  of  those  specialists,  who  would 
only  laugh  at  us  for  the  worrying  parents 
that  w^e  are.  The  boy  is  all  right.  Sound 
as  a  dollar.  He  is  only  of  finer  clay  than 
other  children.  .  .  . 

"  Small  herbs  have  grace,  great  weeds  do  grow 
apace." 

That  is  ail.  Still,  it  would  do  no  harm 
to  take  him  in  some  pleasant  day.  Ex- 
cept that  he  hasn't  been  vaccinated  yet, 
and  these  public  conveyances 

The  effect  of  even  slight  worry  upon 
the  mind  is  strange.  One  day  he  had 
been  singularly  naughty.  ''Where  is  my 
little  boy?  "  she  had  besought  of  him,  with 
tears.  And  on  the  night  that  followed 
this  naughty  day  there  came  a  dream  of 
which  she  had  nearly  died  before  she 
could  wake.     She  reached  his  crib  with 


stumbling  haste.  His  face  was  serene  in 
the  night  light.  Was  the  perfect  cheek 
too  red?  The  hand — was  it  too  hot  and 
dry?  He  oi)ened  his  eyes.  They  were 
calm;  the  fearful  presence  of  that  dream 
had  not  touched  him. 

"1  want  to  come  into  the  big  bed,"  he 
commanded.  She  took  him  thankfully, 
though  it  was  a  practice  to  be  sternly  dis- 
couraged— and  he  slept  at  once,  his  short 
arm  across  her  throat  protectingly.  But 
her  own  eyes  did  not  close  until  morning. 
Such  dreams  should  not  be  allowed! 
What  are  the  good  angels  about  to  let 
them  get  by? 

And  in  the  morning — you  would  not 
have  said  that  he  was  ill  in  the  morn- 
ing. Nor  in  the  afternoon.  He  was  not 
naughty  hke  yesterday,  but  clinging  and 
quiet,  and  wanting  to  be  kissed  a  good 
deal.  Perhaps  he  has  taken  cold.  The 
lips  are  hot  and  he  is  not  hungry.  The 
family  doctor  is  reassuring.  But  somehow 
his  remedies  do  not  reach  the  trouble,  and 
if  a  little  boy  cannot  eat  .  .  . 

And  now  the  lights  burn  all  night,  night 
after  night — how  many?  Why,  a  life- 
time, isn't  it?  Now  and  then  she  sleeps 
heavily,  for  a  few  minutes,  throwing  her- 
self limply  across  the  foot  of  the  bed — he 
has  the  big  bed  for  himself  now — to  be 
roused  by  a  fretful  little  voice — "I  want 
to  sit  in  your  lap,"  or  ''Read!" — and  Mr. 
Jeremy  Fisher  is  read  for  the  hundredth 
time,  and  the  Tailor  of  Gloucester  for  the 
two  hundredth. 

A  cross  and  weary  little  voice,  yet  when 
it  had  been  Grossest,  a  sudden  reaching  up 
of  bony  arms  and  a  hot  kiss. 

Then  came  the  night  when  she  knew 
in  her  heart  that  if  the  boy  were  ever  to 
be  a  man  he  must  go — and  go  quickly — to 
more  skilful  hands  than  her  own.  The 
family  doctor  has  already  talked  with  the 
specialist  over  the  wire;  they  have  con- 
spired, they  will  have  him,  and  the  manner 
of  that  wise  old  warrior,  always  charged 
with  the  kind  serenity  which  is  the  most 
wonderful  anodyne  these  country  doctors 
carry  in  their  arsenal — his  manner  has 
been  so  kind  and  reassuring — so  very — 
that  if  she  had  not  been  a  wise  Munnern 
she  might  have  been  reassured.  But  she 
would  have  preferred  him  to  be  cross. 

"Won't  it  be  the  same  if  we  have  a 
trained  nurse  here?"     But  they  say,  No, 


Dra"ii<n  hy  l'\oy,-iii.  ,■  /•'..  Slo>,  >■. 
He  set  hor  a  task  culuniig  uiic  <■>{  liis  engines. 


'Iht-y  wi>rkcil  ill  silence. 


I  lis  henil  rc>tcd  ai;ainst  licr. 


l^% 


580 


Munncrn 


il  will  not  be  tlio  same  at  all.  They  aj)- 
pear  to  think  the  (hingcr  lies  in  herself. 
He  must  be  completely  away  from  her 
anxiety.  Doctors  don't  like  mothers. 
They  make  that  \)\\x\n\ 

The  arran«j:ements  arc  made  by  tele- 
phone.    "Is  there  a  room  at  Mrs. 's 

sanatorium?  "  There  is  one,  fortunately, 
vacant  this  afternoon.  Time-tables,  then, 
and  now  order  the  carriage.  We  have 
delayed  so  long;  let  things  be  done 
quickly  now  I 

''Can  you  have  him  dressed  by  ten 
o'clock?  "  Yes,  she  can  have  him  dressed. 
He  objects.  Seems  to  think  they  are  ex- 
pecting too  much  of  him. 

''I  don't  want  to  walk." 

They  explain  it  as  a  pleasure-trip.  He 
has  so  often  wanted  to  ride  on  the  cars; 
well,  he  is  to  do  that  to-day  for  the  first 
time.  But  he  shakes  his  head:  ''Not 
to-day." 

There  is  mud  on  the  knees  of  his  leg- 
gings. The  clean  suit  taken  from  the 
drawer  is  discovered  to  be  innocent  of 
buttons.  Is  it  the  mud,  reminiscent  of 
his  last  out-door  romp,  that  makes  her 
heart  beat  in  that  odd  thick  way? 

"The  carriage  is  here " 

At  that  he  rouses.  He  will  assist  with 
the  baggage.  When  one  travels  one  car- 
ries things.  He  is  not  equal  to  a  suit- 
case, but  he  will  take  her  hand-bag,  and 
take  it  he  does,  and  never  lets  go  during 
all  the  long  hours  of  that  journey.  The 
hand  clasped  upon  it  shows  every  bone, 
but  never  loosens  its  grasp. 

She  has  been  dreading  the  jostling  of 
the  crowds.  But  there  is  no  jostling,  none 
of  the  little  roughnesses.  Even  in  the 
dingy  waiting-room  she  notices  a  dif- 
ference. Not  curiosity  or  staring,  but  a 
deft  making  w^ay,  quick  and  civil  answers 
when  questions  are  necessary,  a  stepping 
back  to  give  precedence.  Their  little 
party  is  an  important  one.  The  small 
pale  face  wins  for  them  the  right  of  way. 

One  word  of  encouragement  for  him 
thus  far  has  been  "engines."  "You  are 
going,"  they  have  told  him,  "upon  the 
truly  cars.  Perhaps  you  will  see  the 
engineer  himself.  Maybe  the  fireman, 
too.  Most  certainly  the  conductor."  He 
seems  to  think  it  a  pity  that  such  joys 
cannot  be  postponed  until  a  day  when  he 
can  appreciate  them  better;  yet  he  smiles. 


and  there  is  a  spark  of  the  old  enthusi- 
asm. It  is  six  months  since  he  himself  de- 
termined to  be  an  engineer  some  day,  yet 
he  has  never  swerved  from  that  decision. 
Probably  there  never  was  a  Christmas 
more  exclusively  devoted  to  engines  than 
the  one  just  past. 

For  a  little  while  they  exchange  looks 
of  congratulation  over  his  head.  He 
seems  really  to  like  it.  At  least  he  makes 
no  complaint.  The  rumble  may  send  him 
to  sleep — he  needs  sleep  so  much! 

If  only  he  had  not  been  looking  out 
when  they  passed  another  train — the  sud- 
den noise  and  the  swiftness.   - 

She  feels  the  leap  of  his  body,  but  he 
makes  no  sound.  He  only  stares  rigidly 
at  the  new  fear.  The  white  smoke  flying 
past,  who  knows  what  shapes  it  takes  to 
a  brain  already  distraught?  Imagination 
sleeps  in  the  small  brain  of  a  child  like  a 
jinnee  in  a  bottle;  a  word  can  loose  it,  in 
monstrous  shapes  of  horror  or  loveliness. 

The  swift  dark  interval  of  a  tunnel — 
white  smoke,  crashing  eclipse,  huge  smoke 
— and  again  darkness;  it  is  primeval 
chaos  and  a  whirhng  of  angry  gods.  He 
calls  feebly:  "Munn^n^.''"  She  can  barely 
hear  it  through  the  noise.  She  tries  to 
turn  his  face  to  the  warm  oblivion  of  her 
bosom,  but  his  neck  is  rigid.  She  bends 
her  ear  close  to  his  moving  lips. 

"I  want  it  to  stop,"  he  entreats.  "It 
mustn  '/be  dark  any  more ! "  A  royal  com- 
mand like  King  Canute's. 

Alas,  his  dear  engines!  Are  they  like 
this,  then?  He  has  lorded  it  over  them  so 
on  his  nursery  floor!  In  his  scrap-book 
he  has  pasted  cut-out  pictures  of  engines, 
with  portraits  of  engineers  and  firemen 
and  train-despatchers.  Perhaps  if  he 
could  realize  the  engineer  out  front — look- 
ing out  of  his  cab  all  the  way,  keeping 
everything  safe — she  reminds  him  of  this. 

But  no.  The  world  is  larger  than  he 
thought,  engineers  and  their  cars  not  a 
thing  for  very  little  boys.  The  unstable 
world  is  topsy-turvy,  as  one  would  expect 
of  a  thing  with  no  solid  foundation,  and 
his  dear  engines  have  played  him  false. 

The  train  stops  upon  a  trestle  overlook- 
ing a  hundred  or  so  of  the  behemoths, 
snuffling  and  gliding.  Surely  it  will  please 
him  to  look  down  on  these.  Yet  he  re- 
gards them  but  wanly.  Is  it  only  the  day 
that  makes  things  seem  so  wrong?     He 


Munnern 


5S7 


had  tried  to  make  them  understand  that 
this  was  no  time  to  be  making  a  joyous 
trip  to  New  York.  When  the  cars  start 
again  he  hides  his  head  against  her  breast, 
quivering  and  silent. 

Will  the  journey  never  end?  She  be- 
gins to  find  her  own  terror  now  in  the 
driving  smoke.  It  is  she  now  who  shrinks 
at  the  tunnels,  the  noise.  And  there  is 
an  odd  pain  in  the  pulses?  A  thrill,  like 
an  electric  current.  .  .  . 

But  one's  brain  is  calm  and  reasonable. 
No  one  could  say  ''a  hysterical  woman." 
Yet,  through  and  through  and  through 
again — the  dagger  upon  her  wrists,  while 
time  and  train  rush  together  with  her  and 
the  boy. 

Flying  shapes  in  the  huge  smoke — 
giant  threats  in  the  quick  darknesses. 
What  are  these  that  look  in  at  her  as  they 
speed  past  the  window — women;  women 
with  children  in  their  arms,  all  of  them! 
''We  were  in  a  besieged  city,"  they  say, 
''our  children  starved.  .  .  ." 

And  another:  "We  lived  until  the  city 
was  taken — by  barbarous  men.  ..." 

"Our  children  lie  with  us  in  the  pit  of 
Cawnpore.  ..." 

"You  tremble — you!  Bearing  him  to 
safety  and  recovery!  Once,  the  mercena- 
ries of  Herod  came  .  .  .  /^^w  Rachel  wept!" 

After  these  a  vast  gray  legion — a  con- 
tinual mist  of  pale  amorphous  faces:  "We 
are  those  poor  whose  level  is  the  sea-floor 
of  life.  Our  children  come  and  go  without 
joy.  We  are  the  mothers  of  the  defective 
— of  criminals — whose  daughters  walk  the 
streets.  .  .  .  Oh,  fortunate  woman!  Be 
ashamed  of  your  fear!" 

Yet,  so  far  from  being  ashamed  of  the 
littleness  of  her  cause  for  sorrow,  it  is 
as  if  her  heart  opened  wide  to  all  these 
others.  They  rush  in,  and  there  is  room 
for  all,  but  her  own  is  in  no  wise  displaced. 
It  is  knit  with  them  into  the  fabric  of  the 
world's  sorrow.  .  .  . 

And  what  is  this  new  pain,  physical, 
actual,  right  under  the  pressure  of  his  lax 
body? 

A  dull  ache.  Oh,  yes,  she  remembers 
to  have  read  of  it — "My  Hunt  After  the 
Captain."  His  son  was  reported  killed. 
.  .  .  The  descrii)tion  is  accurate:  "Dull 
ache  in  that  obscurely  sensitive  region, 
somewhere  below  the  heart,  where  the  ner\- 
ous  centre  called  the  sc7m-lu)iar  ganglion 
Vol.  LV.— 62 


lies,  unconscious  of  itself  until  a  great  grief 
or  a  mastering  anxiety  reaches  it.  .  .  ." 

Hunting  for  a  grown-up  son  through 
hospitals  in  war-time:  that  is  anxiety,  if 
you  like!  Merely  taking  a  little  boy  to  a 
sanatorium — why,  that  should  be  nothing 
at  all!  Nevertheless,  the  semi-lunar  gan- 
glion is  not  to  be  comforted.  ''  Mastering 
anxiety!" 

He  doesn't  mind  the  ferry  so  much. 
The  sea-gulls  gain  a  wintry  smile.  Only 
he  must  be  assured  that  there  is  to  be  no 
more  of  that  dreadful  quick  darkness — 
no  more  tunnels.  They  swear  to  him  by 
all  truth  that  the  boat  will  not  go  through 
any  tunnels,  and  point  out  the  lovely 
Brobdingnagian  city,  a  towering  silhouette 
through  a  mist  of  gray  and  gold. 

New  York?  Very  good,  if  there  are  to 
be  no  more  tunnels  on  the  other  side. 
No;  no  more  tunnels;   not  any  at  all. 

"And  when  we  go  home  again  there 
mustn't  be  any " 

"  Well — there  is  another  way  of  getting 
back " 

"And  not  any  autos!"  It  has  just  oc- 
curred to  him  that  on  a  day  of  abounding 
misfortune  an  auto  may  be  included. 
They  have  been  speaking  to  each  other  of 
taxi-cabs,  but  he  understands. 

"Not  any  auto  of  any  kind  at  all!" 

So  they  apologize  to  the  person  in  blue 
and  brass.  "Isn't  there  a  hansom  some- 
where?    The  boy  is  auto-shy " 

Not  even  this  potentate  lift?  an  eye- 
brow at  the  royal  commands.  It  has  been 
so  all  along,  she  thinks;  a  deference,  as  if 
some  invisible  messengerpreceded : "  Right 
of  way!" 

The  old  hackman  hurries  them  into  his 
ancient  mouldy  cab.  A  glance  at  his  face 
shows  that  this  is  something  more  to  him 
than  a  fare;  that  he  has  known  something 
about  children  in  his  day. 

Such  a  broken-down  atTair!  It  gi\es 
the  impression  of  being  tied  with  strings  — 
suggesting  infirmity  beyond  cure,  and  a 
wheel  bumps  strangely,  but  at  least  the 
boy  can  see  the  horse.  There  is  no  hated 
whir  and  jump  to  i)ro\e  iiis  i)arents 
traitors. 

An  old  house — very  clean.  The  women 
in  blue  and  white  look  at  him  with  critical 
interest.  Here  at  last  he  is  no  longer  royal 
— no  longer  the  centre  of  the  solar  system. 
He  is  a  "case." 


588 


Munnern 


"Doesn't  look  nearly  so  bad  as  little 
Annie  did,"  one  says  to  another.  The 
word  "malnutrition''  is  mentioned.  Ah 
me  I  Thei)rayerful  pains  that  have  gone  to 
the  fashioning  of  his  fare!  They  look  at 
each  other  intelligently  when  she  mentions 
this  fact,  and  smile  forbearingly.  "Too 
much  pains,  perhaps,"  says  the  head  nurse 
])olitely.  If  they  only  knew!  She  tells 
them  how  bright  he  is,  how  good,  and 
when  well — how  beautiful.  She  touches 
his  hair.     It  is  harsh  and  dry. 

"You  don't  mind  if  we  cut  it,  do  you? 
He'll  be  so  much  more  comfortable." 

Has  he  been  uncomfortable  with  it, 
then?  She  had  not  thought;  it  was  so 
pretty.  But  it  is  no  longer  pretty;  even 
she  can  see  that. 

"By  all  means." 

"Then,"  comes  haughtily  from  threat- 
ened royalty,  "mother  must  cut  it." 

He  has  been  told  that  he  is  to  stay  there 
until  he  is  well,  yet  he  has  not  quite  under- 
stood. He  looks  about  the  room  with  sus- 
picion, at  the  women  in  blue  and  white,  at 
the  high,  white  beds,  and  delivers  his  ulti- 
matum: "I  will  not  go  to  bed  in  this 
house!" 

It  is  not  a  challenge,  but  a  statement  of 
fact. 

"When  are  we  going  home?" 

"When  you  are  well,  my  darling." 

"  I  am  well  now.  I  will  not  undress.  I 
will  go  home  to-night." 

Not  an  appeal.  It  is  quite  settled: 
"To-night!" 

But  before  the  debate  can  proceed  far — 
the  doctor.  And  a  wild  storm  with  the 
stethoscope  as  its  centre.  .  .  .  Poor  King 
Canute!  The  stethoscope  retires  at  last, 
victorious. 

"Well,  mother"— that  is  the  doctor's 
way  with  the  fluttered  multitude  that  crowd 
his  path — a  world  of  understanding  he  puts 
into  the  word — "we  can  make  this  boy 
well.  But" — there  is  something  threaten- 
ing in  his  kindness,  something  military — 
"you  must  let  us  have  him,  you  know." 

"Have  him?"  What  does  the  man 
mean?  That  is  what  she  has  brought  him 
in  for;  that  they  may  "have  him,"  for  a 
few  days.  Then  she  will  take  him  back. 
She  will  learn  how  to  do  things  for  him, 
get  new  ideas  about  his  diet.  Then  she 
will  take  him  home.  Something  of  this 
idea  she  gives  to  the  physician.     She  is  to 


stay  at  a  near-by  hotel  and  spend  most  of 
her  time  with  him. 

The  physician  and  nurse  exchange 
glances  of  sympathy — for  each  other. 
They  have  been  through  all  that  so  many 
times.  It  will  take  a  great  deal  of  ex- 
plaining. They  will  talk  it  over  with  her 
to-morrow,  they  say.     She  is  content. 

"It  is  nothing  that  can't  be  put  right. 
We  wdll  make  him  strong  and  well.  ..." 
The  word  '' malnutrition"  is  mentioned 
again,  this  time  with  a  note  of  final  au- 
thority. And  he  is  gone,  curt  and  kind — 
to  other  mothers,  no  doubt.  .  .  . 

And  now — oh,  oh,  little  King  Canute! 
The  tide  boils  up  at  the  foot  of  his  throne. 
She  must  leave  him.  .  .  .  No  use  to  ex- 
plain to  him.  A  kiss  and  a  hug — he  is  too 
weak  to  fully  express  his  mind.  .  .  . 

She  hurries.  She  hears  him  cry — but 
she  is  a  fine,  brave  woman — no  nerves — 
none  at  all.     She  goes — to  the  hotel. 

"You  get  a  good  night's  rest,"  they 
have  been  telling  her.  "What  you  need 
is  sleep." 

It  is  a  pleasant  room.  She  sits  alone 
and  stares  at  a  simpering  Gainsborough. 
On  the  other  wall  minces  "The  Dancing 
Lesson."  Really,  as  she  reviews  the  past 
week  she  is  proud  of  herself.  She  must 
be  a  remarkably  strong  woman  to  bear 
so  much  and  not  be  ill.  Tired,  of  course; 
very  tired.  .  .  .  How  he  did  cry!  .  .  .  She 
will  eat  a  good  dinner.  Surely.  Yet — 
the  tray  seems  singularly  uninviting.  .  .  . 
The  ganglion  is  still  busy.  .  .  .  "Stupid, 
unreasoning  brain,  common  to  man  and 
beast,  which  aches  in  the  supreme  mo- 
ments of  life,  as  when  the  dam  loses 
her  young  ones  or  the  wild  horse  is  las- 
soed. .  .  ." 

A  good  night's  sleep.  She  wakes  every 
hour  to  give  him  medicine,  see  how  he  is 
.  .  .  a  good  night's  rest!  At  two  o'clock 
she  reads  advertisements  of  little  boys' 
suits  in  the  last  evening's  paper.  This  will 
be  a  good  opportunity  for  shopping.  .  .  . 
At  last  the  windows  are  gray. 

She  eyes  the  telephone.  One  must  let 
the  nurses  eat  their  breakfasts,  no  doubt 
— and  then:  "How  is  he?" 

"Coming  on  very  nicely  indeed.  But 
I  should  not  advise  your  seeing  him  this 
morning.     Not  for  the  best  results." 

What  are  they  concealing?  Not  see 
him  this  morning? 


Munnern 


589 


She  must  be  ingratiating,  must  cajole, 
must  flatter.  One  does  not  become  haughty 
toward  the  holders  of  hostages.  Her  voice 
is  silk  and  honey  as  she  expresses  her 
confidence  in  the  woman  at  the  other  end 
of  the  wire.  She  ends  with:  ''But  of 
course  you  won't  object  to  my  peeping 
at  him  through  the  crack  in  the  door?'' 

A  sound  like  a  suppressed  exclamation, 
then  quick  and  firm  refusal. 

"No.  It  has  been  tried  in  other  cases, 
and  is  not  a  success.  No.  I  don't  allow 
peeping  through  cracks.'' 

Oh,  of  course!  Munnern  understands. 
There  are  foolish,  hysterical  women  with 
whom  it  would  never  do.  They  would 
see  him  and  forget  their  promise,  and  rush 
in  upon  him  with  wild  kisses. 

She  carefully  explains  to  the  gray-eyed 
woman  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire  how 
different  she  is  from  those  other  mothers, 
upon  whom  the  gray-eyed  one's  opinion 
has  been  based.  She  assures  her  that  she 
would  leave  the  crack  as  she  found  it  and 
depart.  Strange!  The  woman  cannot 
see  that  difference  between  her  and  other 
women.  Any  superiority  of  strength  of 
mind  has  passed  quite  unnoticed. 

Very  well;  there  is  still  the  doctor. 
He  must  have  observed  it.  Was  she  not 
steady  yesterday?  Did  she  whimper? 
Did  she  tell  them  about  how  the  semi- 
lunar ganglion  was  behaving?  Or  the  pain 
in  her  wrists? 

It  is  rather  early,  perhaps,  to  talk  to  so 
busy  a  doctor  as  this  one.  She  feels  a 
pang  of  sympathy  as  she  calls  him  from 
his  breakfast.  But  it  is  an  important 
matter.  What  is  a  hungry  doctor  and  his 
coffee  compared  to  a  mother  who  is  being 
kept  from  her  boy  by  a  gray-eyed  woman 
in  blue  and  white? 

Still — he  needn't  have  been — no — not 
savage,  but 

"  It  would  be  most  undesirable  for  you 
to  see  him  if  we  are  to  get  the  best  re- 
sults."    (''Best  results,"  again.) 

"But " 

"  If  I  can't  have  him  absolutely,  I  don't 
care  to  handle  the  case." 

"How  long,  then?" 

"Two  months,  at  the  very  least." 

Two  months!  Two  years — two  cen- 
turies! She  had  never  dreamed  of  its 
being  o\er  a  week.  She  hastens  to  ex- 
plain how  \'ery  much  better  she  can  do  for 


him  at  home.  She  lays  bare  her  own 
wisdom,  comparing  herself  favorably  with 
trained  nurses.  The  wire  tingles  with  im- 
patient contempt. 

"When  you  brought  him  in  you  were 
under  the  impression  that  he  was  mori- 
bund. Why  do  you  object  now  to  two 
months'  recovery?" 

She  had  been  under  the  impression  that 
he  was — why,  no — not  that.  One  does  not 
use  such  words  even  in  one's  own  con- 
sciousness. She  had  been  frig^  tened — 
but  she  had  not  admitted  the  sha  e  of  her 
fear.  The  physician,  piercing  hei  reserve, 
had  read  the  thought  and  named  it  as  he 
would  make  any  other  diagnosis. 

"There's  not  the  slightest  cause  for 
worry,"  snaps  the  wire.     "Good-by." 

She  turns  away  with  an  odd  smile.  She 
does  not  resent  his  brusc^ueness.  It  comes 
to  her  that  she  would  be  sorry  if  he  found 
it  necessary  to  speak  gently.  Think!  It 
may  be  that  the  next  mother  he  speaks  to 
— though  he  soften  his  voice  never  so, 
may  drop  at  his  feet  like  a  stone.  It  is  for 
the  sake  of  those  other  mothers  to  whom 
he  must  be  gently,  that  he  cuts  short  the 
needless  inquiries  of  people  who  are  really 
very  fortunate — like  herself.  Think  what 
he  sees  in  the  hospitals  and  be  ashamed  of 
your  importunities!  She  thinks  of  his 
temper  with  a  happy  smile,  and  treats  her- 
self to  a  better  breakfast  than  she  has  had 
for  many  days.  .  .  . 

"  You  may  see  him  to-morrow  for  fifteen 
minutes,"  thus  the  gray-eyed  woman  over 
the  wire.    "  After  that,  not  for  two  weeks." 

She  is  humbled  now.  She  has  been 
made  to  understand.  They  have  tamed 
her.  She  is  submissive.  See  how  Puss 
follows  you  with  her  great  yellow  eyes 
when  you  bear  away  one  of  her  kittens! 
She  makes  no  objection.  It  is  the  law  of 
the  giants — and  she  trusts  them  (with 
reservations).  At  least  she  knows  her 
powerlessness.  She  purrs,  and  fawns,  and 
submits. 

To-morrow,  then — for  fifteen  minutes. 
That  is  very  kind. 

"  When  you  brought  him  i)i  you  thought 


She  uses  the  physician's  dread  phrase  to 
whip  herself  into  acquiescence. 

He  was  sitting  up  in  bed  with  his  treas- 
ures al)out  him,  at  work  upon  a  new  book 


m) 


Manner  11 


of  engines,  coloring  them  with  his  colored 
pencils.  He  did  not  smile  as  she  entered. 
If  she  hadn't  known  his  ways  she  would 
have  thought  him  indifTerent  to  her. 
But  she  knew.  It  was  his  mask  of  reserve. 
His  shingled  hair  gave  him  an  oddly 
mature  look,  for  it  had  been  done  by  skil- 
ful masculine  hands,  not  nibbled  by  a 
Munnern's  scissors.  That  and  his  thin- 
ness had  added  years  to  his  small  face, 
and  something  else — was  it  the  writing 
of  sorrow  and  pain?  So  little!  Had  it 
been  a  man's-size  trouble — her  desertion 
of  him,  and  the  physical  wretchedness? 

She  felt  again  the  insecurity. of  the  en- 
vironment to  which  she  had  brought  him. 
Unsupported  worlds  .  .  .  parents  who 
are  toppled  over  at  a  breath,  who  possess 
no  weapon  at  all  against  dreadful  things 
happening  to  little  boys  .  .  .  mothers 
whose  best  efforts  only  plunge  them  into 
a  dreadful  thing  called  malnutrition? 

He  regarded  her  intently  for  a  moment, 
then  set  her  a  task  coloring  one  of  his 
engines.  She  might  put  on  the  red,  he 
said.  A  mark  of  favor,  red  being  a 
pleasant  color  to  apply. 

They  worked  in  silence,  he  directing 
with  his  finger.  His  head  rested  against 
her.  Evidently  he  w^as  w^onderfully  im- 
proved. Yet  he  was  scheduled  to  be  in 
bed  for  two  weeks  yet !  If  he  had  been  at 
home,  she  acknowledged  with  humility, 
she  would  have  known  no  better  than  to 
let  him  up.  To  what  unsteady  hands  had 
this  imperial  vase  been  intrusted  for  nearly 
four  years !  Shall  she  ever  dare  to  receive 
him  back  again?  Let  him  stay  with  these 
people  who  know.  Oh,  let  him  stay !  She 
has  done  so  ill  by  him! 

The  engine  was  colored.  The  fifteen 
minutes  were  up.  Not  again  for  two 
weeks.  She  kissed  the  short  hair  and 
rose.  He  looked  at  her  wildly — oh — the 
terrible  under  lip!  It  is  trembling — it 
comes  out! 

*'  If  you  cry  they  won't  let  me  come  so 


often,"  she  whispers.  The  intelligence  of 
a  conspirator  flashes  into  his  eyes,  but — 
can  he?  He  understands,  but  has  he 
power  to  control  himself? 

The  tiny  face  trembles  like  a  reflection 
in  troubled  water.  Slowly — like  the  clos- 
ing of  a  man's  fist,  it  strengthens,  stiffens. 
Very  pale,  he  turns  to  the  nurse,  and  shows 
her  how  to  go  on  with  the  coloring.  She 
may  use  the  green,  he  says,  in  a  steady 
voice.  He  does  not  look  again  at  Mun- 
nern. 

No  hysterical  farewells,  woman!  You 
commanded  the  man,  now  he  commands 
you. 

She  went  out  with  backward  looks,  but 
he  did  not  glance  tow^ard  her.  He  was  too 
busy.  Yet  when  she  was  outside  the  door 
there  came  a  steady  silver  note:  "  Good- 
by!"  Not  even  a  tremor?  Yes — but  so 
veiled  that  only  she  could  have  detected 
it. 

She  stood  in  the  hall  a  moment  and 
strangely  exulted.  She  understood  at 
last  how  it  was  that  little  boys  grew  up 
into  men.  She  had  an  instant's  vague 
vision  of  a  being  tall  and  splendid,  deep- 
voiced  (a  singing  voice,  too),  deep-chested, 
wise,  good,  strong  above  all  other  men — 
such  a  creature  as  perhaps  never  lived  ex- 
cept in  the  imagination  of  young  girls  and 
mothers. 

Down  the  narrow  dark  stairs  the  vision 
went  with  her.  She  leaned  upon  its  arm, 
tired,  old,  and  very  happy:  ''This  is  my 
son!" 

Two  months!  That  will  be  the  end  of 
April.  There  will  be  the  first  blush  of 
young  green  in  the  grass,  crocuses,  a  soft- 
ness in  the  air,  red  maple  flowers  on  the 
branch  across  his  window,  bluebirds, 
meadow-larks,  little  chickens  to  watch. 
He  wall  even  be  able  to  make  mud  pies. 
It  will  be  the  allegorical  return  of  spring. 
A  rush  of  almost  unbearable  joy  and  eager 
life! 

He  will  come  back  with  the  spring.  .  .  . 


A    NEW    FIELD    FOR    MOUNTAINEERING 


By  Elizabeth   Parker 

Illustrations  from  rHoro(iRAPHS 


A  NAD  A 'S  mountain  coun- 
try extends  from  the  foot- 
hills of  the  Rockies  east  to 
the  Pacific  coast  west, 
roughly  some  six  hundred 
miles;  and  from  the  forty- 
ninth  parallel  to  as  far  north  as  a  man 
can  win  by  land.  The  greater  area  of 
this  country  is  strictly  alpine  in  char- 
acter, many  extensive  sections  still  virgin 
ground;  and  it  is  likely  that,  in  spite  of  in- 
creasing mountaineering  activities,  there 
will  be  many  maiden  peaks  fifty  years 
hence.  Within  the  last  five  years  new  re- 
gions, hitherto  unknown  save  to  trappers, 
hunters,  or  prospectors,  who  said  nothing, 
have  been  discovered  that  rival  the  Swiss 
Alps.  In  the  northern  Selkirks,  dominated 
by  Mount  Sir  Sandford,  are  many  splendid 
snow  mountains  still  virgin.  This  region 
hes  within  the  Big  Bend  of  the  Columbia 
River  north,  famous  as  a  w  aterway  in  the 
history  of  the  great  rival  fur  companies, 
and  is  exceedingly  difficult  of  access — the 
most  difficult  of  any  in  the  Selkirks  so  far 
exploited.  In  the  southern  Selkirks,  near 
the  source  of  the  Columbia  and  easily 
accessible,  are  groups  of  glacier  moun- 
tains that  were  unheeded  until  Earl  Grey 
caught  a  glimpse  of  them  from  a  pass 
leading  tow'ard  the  Columbia  valley,  and 
j^ronounced  them  very  like  and  equal  to 
the  Swiss  Alps.  Since  then  certain  Cana- 
dian and  American  climbers  are  thrall  to 
this  region,  but  it  is  not  otherwise  known. 
Another  unsuspected  glacier  terrain,  ac- 
cessible by  water,  was  found  within  forty 
miles  north  of  Vancouver  City;  and  still 
another  on  Vancouver  Island,  which  was 
j)romptly  set  a])art  and  named  Strath- 
cona  Park  by  the  British  Columbia  gov- 
ernment. 

Meanwhile  climbers  from  the  world  oxer 
had  been  climbing  in  every  glacier-bear- 
ing range  contiguous  to  the  C.  P.  K.,  an 
occasional  i)arty  going  north  as  far  as 
the  Columbia  ice-lield,  which,  they  were 


fond  of  telling,  covers  two  hundred  square 
miles  at  a  mean  elevation  of  10,000  feet 
above  sea.  As  far,  and  farther,  they 
went  to  the  Athabasca  Pass  north  of 
Columbia's  Big  Bend,  to  Mounts  Brown 
and  Hooker,  whose  fabulous  heights  com- 
puted by  David  Douglas,  the  botanist, 
in  1827,  to  be  16,000  and  17,000  feet, 
were  reduced  in  1893  to  a  sober  9,000  and 
7,000  by  Professor  A.  P.  Coleman,  of  To- 
ronto. Between  the  Athabasca  and  the 
Kicking  Horse  Pass  of  the  C.  P.  R.  occa- 
sional climbers  from  England  and  the 
United  States  explored  and  climbed,  and 
still  explore;  but  they  have  left  hundreds 
of  peaks  untouched  and  nameless,  nor  have 
they  given  any  definite  name  to  this  at- 
tractive mountaineering  field  lying  along 
the  summit  range  of  the  Rocky  Mountain 
system  for  o\'er  one  hundred  miles. 

Again,  owing  to  the  advent  of  the 
Grand  Trunk  Pacific  Railway,  which 
enters  the  Rockies  by  the  Athabasca  val- 
ley east  and  already  provides  a  daily  serv- 
ice as  far  as  Tete  Jaune  Cache,  fifty- 
three  miles  west  of  Yellowhead  Pass,  an 
ice-bound  world  north  that  rivals  and 
perhaps  transcends  every  other  field  has 
been  made  accessible.  Yellowhead  Pass 
is  on  the  Continental  Divide,  the  tor- 
tuous line  of  water-parting  that  marks  the 
boundary  between  Alberta  and  British 
Columbia.  The  outstanding  low  passes, 
between  3,000  and  5,000  feet  high,  which 
have  served  as  highways  across  the  sum- 
mit range  for  romantic  fur  comj")anies  of 
the  past  and  prosaic  railways  of  the  pres- 
ent are:  the  Kicking  Horse,  Howse,  Atha- 
basca, Yellowhead,  and  an  unnamed  pass 
farther  north,  traversed  by  Sir  Alexander 
Mackenzie  of  the  Northwest  Eur  Com- 
j)any  in  the  first  oxcrland  journey  from 
ocean  to  ocean  in  1703.  The  N'ellowhead 
is  two  hundred  miles  north  of  the  Kicking 
Horse,  and  was  first  surveyed  in  1871  as 
a  i)robal)le  route  for  the  Canadian  Pacific 
Railway.       Northward   the    Continental 

591 


r)f)2 


A   New   Field  for  Mountaineering 


Divide  makes  amazing  turns,  sometimes 
doubling  on  itself;  and  this  is  why  you 
must  cross  it  twice  in  making  the  circuit 
of  the  great  mountain  Massif,  whose  peak 
(13,068  feet)  is  the  highest  yet  measured 
in  the  Canadian  Rockies. 

Mount  Robson  had  its  name  fifty  years 
ago.  when  Lord  Milton  and  Dr.  Cheadle 
saw  it  from  the  junction  of  the  Grand 
Fork  and  Fraser  valleys,  ten  miles  away 
as  the  crow  flies.  In  their  book,  ''The 
Northwest  Passage  by  Land,"  they  placed 
its  altitude  indefinitely,  from  10,000  to 
15,000  feet  above  sea.  Who  was  its 
namesake  is  not  known — the  most  prob- 
able tale  of  three  is  that  a  hunter  named 
Robson  was  in  charge  of  a  detachment  of 
men  sent  into  that  country  by  the  North- 
west Fur  Company  before  its  amalgama- 
tion with  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  in 
1 82 1 .  Oddly  enough,  for  over  forty  years 
after  Milton  and  Cheadle  nothing  was 
heard  of  Mount  Robson,  although  ex- 
plorers and  geologists  passed  along  the 
upper  Fraser  valley,  and  no  white  man 
Aisited  it,  although  engineers  were  sur- 
veying there  for  three  transcontinental 
railways. 

When  the  Alpine  Club  of  Canada  was 
organized  in  1906,  its  first  president,  Mr. 
A.  O.  Wheeler,  suggested  to  Professor 
Coleman  that  he  undertake  the  conquest 
of  the  mountain.  At  that  time  this 
meant  an  expedition  by  pack-train  from 
Laggan  on  the  C.  P.  R.,  by  bad  trails 
and  swift  torrents  for  three  hundred 
crooked  miles  to  the  upper  Fraser  valley, 
whence  new  trails  had  to  be  cut ;  or  from 
the  eastern  foot-hills  north  by  the  Atha- 
basca River  over  bad  roads  and  trails  and 
much  muskeg  for  one  hundred  miles  to 
the  same  valley,  where  it  runs  westward, 
south  of  the  mountain.  Dr.  Coleman  and 
his  party  made  expeditions  in  1907  and 
1908,  trying  each  route  and  spending  the 
greater  part  of  each  short  season  of  two 
months  in  getting  to  and  from  the  moun- 
tain, but  making  plucky  attempts  to 
climb  it.  His  were  the  first  geological  in- 
vestigations, and  his  party  were  first-foot 
on  the  mountain.  Mr.  A.  L.  Mumm  and 
a  party  from  the  English  Alpine  Club 
spent  the  summer  of  1908  and  several  suc- 
ceeding summers  exploring  there,  mak- 
ing unsuccessful  attempts  to  reach  the 
top.     The  great  hindrance  was  weather, 


Mount  Robson  being  the  rendezvous  for 
all  the  storms  within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles. 
However,  in  1909,  Mr.  G.  B.  Kinney,  who 
had  been  with  Dr.  Coleman  in  the  expedi- 
tions mentioned,  went  in  early  by  himself 
and  climbed  the  mountain,  taking  with 
him  on  the  ascent  a  young  fellow,  Donald 
Phillips,  w^ho  had  never  before  climbed. 
With  one  ice-axe  between  them,  and  thir- 
ty-five feet  of  packers'  rope,  they  made  the 
attack  again  and  again,  sleeping  on  cliffs 
at  10,500  feet;  and  after  many  attempts 
in  very  indifferent  weather,  and  finally  in 
storm,  they  succeeded,  making  the  most 
dangerous  climb  ever  made  in  Ca-nada,  the 
upper  reaches  being  by  a  route  that  guides 
and  experienced  men  condemn. 

Two  years  later,  when  the  Grand 
Trunk  Pacific  Railway  was  well  into  the 
mountains,  and  its  ''tote  road"  built 
beyond  Yellowhead  Pass,  Mr.  Wheeler 
carried  an  expedition  to  Mount  Robson, 
and  made  a  photo-topographical  survey. 
With  him  there  collaborated  a  party 
sent  out  by  the  Smithsonian  Institution 
of  Washington,  who  returned  with  those 
spoils  of  fossil  and  flora  and  fauna  dear  to 
the  heart  of  science.  A  circuit  was  made 
of  the  Rainbow  group  of  mountains,  of 
which  Mount  Robson  is  the  dominating 
mass,  Mr.  Wheeler's  map  coming  later  as 
a  boon  to  both  climbers  and  geologists; 
and  when  Dr.  Walcott  followed  him  into 
that  country  to  study  the  structure  of  the 
group,  he  found  it  a  strikingly  accurate 
guide,  even  in  detail.  The  area  of  the 
Robson  massif  is  about  thirty  square 
miles,  and  the  circuit  about  eighty  miles. 
The  encompassing  valleys  are,  starting 
from  the  south  —  a  portion  of  the  up- 
per Fraser,  the  Moose  (east  and  west 
branches),  Calumet  Creek,  the  Upper 
Smoky,  and  Grand  Fork,  which  joins  the 
Fraser  near  the  railway.  All  the  valleys 
are  of  supreme  interest  by  reason  of  forests 
and  lakes  and  flowering  alps,  and  a  great 
variety  of  glaciers.  The  Divide  is  crossed 
at  Moose  Pass,  between  the  head  waters 
of  Moose  River  and  Calumet  Creek;  and 
again  at  Robson  Pass,  between  the  head 
waters  of  the  Smoky  and  Grand  Fork 
rivers. 

From  the  junction  of  the  Grand  Fork 
and  Fraser  there  is  a  splendid  view  of 
the  southwest  face  of  the  mountain  (Mil- 
ton and  Cheadle's  view),  w^hich  on  this 


I 
I 


593 


594 


A  New 


Field  for  Mountaineering 


side  rises  above  the  valley  in  two  miles  of 

rock  too  steep  for  snow  to  lie  save  in 

places  on  the  highest  parts,  the  summit 

itself  being  crowned  with  ice  and  snow. 

A  long  shoulder  runs  southward.    This  is 

to  be  the  site  of  a  large  summer  hotel, 

railway  companies  knowing  well  how  to 

turn  nature  to  uses  of  utility — "useful  as 

is  nature  to   attract   the   tourist  foot." 

The  valleys  of  the  Moose  and  the  Grand 

Fork   rise   2,000  or  3,000  feet  to   their 

heads,  so  that  on  its  north  and  northeast 

side,  which  is  superbly  clad  with  ice  and 

snow,  Robson  Peak  is  scarcely  8,000  feet 

above  the  valley.     To  be  precise,  it  is 

7,538   feet    above   Robson    Pass,    where 

every  expedition  has  camped.    The  great 

Robson  Glacier,  flowing  in  a  semicircle 

live  miles  from  its  neve,  ends  in  two  lobes 

at  the  pass,  and  is  the  original  source  of 

the  Grand  Fork  and  Smoky  Rivers.     A 

medial   moraine   is    beginning   to   form, 

and  is  distinctly  marked.    Its  subglacial 

streams  play  a  fickle,  curious  trick.     In 

certain  years,  for  no  rhyme  or  reason  (if 

Dr.  Walcott  or  Dr.  Coleman  know,  they 

do  not  tell)  nearly  all  the  streams  from  the 

eastern  lobe  turn  to  join  those  of  the 

western  lobe,  which  feed  the  Grand  Fork, 

and  so  to  the  Pacific,  instead  of  flowing 

into  the  Smoky  and  on  to  the  Arctic 

Ocean.     He  who  runs  may  read  where 

these  streams  ran,  perhaps  a  year  ago. 

The  terminal  moraines  are  ridges  of  fifty 

feet  and  more  in  height,   and  produce 

trees  according  to  their  ages,  from  one 

hundred  to  two  hundred  years  old ;  w^hile 

those  growing  out  of  the  thin  meadow  on 

the  pass  are  over  four  hundred  years  old. 

Here  is  a  palpable  chapter  in  the  story  of 

the  earth,  as  charming  as  the  wild  park 

itself — for   Robson   Pass   is   a   beautiful 

park.    But  the  whole  mountain  with  its 

solid  horizontal  lines  is  an  open  book,  even 

to  the  dilletante  geologist. 

Half  a  mile  east  and  a  little  lower  down 
than  Robson  Pass,  which  is  5,530  feet 
high,  lies  Adolphus  Lake,  of  an  exquisite 
turquoise  blue,  set  in  forest  and  now  fed 
by  clear  streams  mainly.  At  the  present 
time  the  stream  running  into  it  from  Rob- 
son Glacier  scarcely  affects  its  lovely 
color.  It  is  about  half  a  mile  long.  Half 
the  distance  west,  and  slightly  lower  still, 
is  Berg  Lake,  twice  the  size  and  of  a  more 
muddy  blue,  owing  to  its  larger  share  of 


nourishment  from  three  glaciers.  It  lies 
close  to  the  mountain,  and  into  it  steeply 
descends  Tumbling  Glacier,  a  cascade  of 
splendidly  seracked,  blue  ice,  5,000  feet 
from  its  source  under  hanging  glaciers 
above.  Its  avalanches  disturb  the  water, 
throwing  spray,  sometimes  for  half  an 
hour,  as  high  as  an  Atlantic  surf.  It  is 
the  most  spectacular  scene  in  all  the 
mountain  landscape  about.  Icebergs  sail 
on  the  lake  all  summer,  some  showing 
twenty  feet  above  the  water,  which  means 
that  sixty  feet  are  beneath  it.  Between 
Tumbling  Glacier  and  Robson  Glacier 
rises  out  of  the  massif  Mount  Rearguard 
(9,000  feet),  well  wooded  on  its  lower 
slopes,  and  the  habitat  of  mountain  goat. 
Last  summer  all  the  goat  in  the  vicinity 
retired  to  Mount  Rearguard,  from  whose 
high  pastures  they  regarded  the  human 
visitors  below  with  a  sense  of  safety  and 
perhaps  w^onder.  It  was  very  pleasant,  in 
the  long  northern  afterglow,  to  watch 
them  feeding  or  lying  at  ease  on  some  high, 
narrow  shelf. 

Fully  fifteen  glaciers  and  snow-fields, 
near  and  far,  can  be  seen  from  Rob- 
son Pass;  those  on  Mount  Robson  and 
its  satellites  being  the  most  impressive. 
Robson  Glacier,  which  half-encircles  Rear- 
guard, flows  from  a  snow-filled  cirque 
four  miles  wide,  enclosed  by  Mounts 
Ptarmigan,  Lynx,  Resplendent,  Robson's 
Peak,  the  Helmet,  and  Rearguard.  It 
is  of  the  piedmont  type,  being  nourished 
by  the  hanging  glaciers  and  snows  above. 
These  snow-covered  glaciers  are  of  ex- 
ceeding whiteness,  and  the  peaks  that 
bear  them  rise  out  of  the  cirque,  which  is 
known  as  the  Robson  amphitheatre.  The 
Helmet  (11,160  feet),  snow-crowned  and 
shapely,  looks  like  a  small  mountain  in 
the  presence.  I  say  the  presence,  for  so 
does  Mount  Robson  prevail  over  nature 
and  man,  as  if  the  mountain  had  a  dis- 
tinct being.  Which,  indeed,  the  wise 
poets  know.  The  Helmet  is  the  only 
peak  still  virgin.  Mount  Resplendent 
(11,173  feet),  beautiful  in  the  purity  of 
its  perpetual  white  mantle,  and  heav- 
ily w^eighted  with  snow  cornices,  Lynx 
Mount,  700  feet  lower,  and  unnamed  sum- 
mits between,  are  all  overshadowed  by 
the  massive  preponderant  peak.  Pick- 
ing your  way  among  crevasses  you  may 
travel  up  the  Robson  Glacier  to  the  am- 


A   New  Field  for  Mountaineering 


59.- 


phitheatre  in  an  hour  of  fast  ^oing,  and  splendent  ser\es  as  a  window  for  one 
stand  at  the  entrance  of  the  snow-cirque  view.  It  is  possil)le  that  the  Alpine  Club 
nourished   by    higher   snows.      Climbing    of  Canada  will  ha\e  a  camp  in  this  valley 


/■>o»t  a  plioto)^iaplt  by  llaymo>i. 

At  close  range.     The  snout  (tongue)  of  Tumbling  Cilacler  and  l'>erg  Lake. 


Mount  Resplendent  or  its  neighbors  you 
may  look  down  into  Resplendent  valley, 
loveliest  of  alpine  valleys  for  high  \'erdure 
and  bloom  and  for  serried  forest,  the 
w^est  branch  of  Moose  River  flowing 
through,  and  Lake  Lazuli,  a  typical  al- 
])ine  tarn,  lying  low  in  the  midst.  A  fis- 
sure in  a  fantastic  cornice  on  Mount  Re- 
VoL.  LV.— 63 


before  long.  On  the  circjue  immediately 
below  Mount  Resj)lendent  stands  a  (juaint 
tower  of  rock  some  500  feet  above  the 
ice,  named  the  Ivxtinguisher  from  its 
likeness  to  the  conical  cap  once  used  to 
])ut  out  the  candle.  Turning  north  from 
the  cir(|ue,  you  cross  Snowbird  Pass  to 
Reef  Neve,  and  down  Coleman  Glacier, 


ij'^ii  by  F.  ir,  Freebo7-ii. 

Icebergs  in  Berg  Lake. 


reaching  the  Smoky  by  a  tributary;  and, 
following  a  new  trail,  turn  west  again 
up  Calumet  Creek  to  Moose  Pass.  Cal- 
umet valley  presents  seven  or  eight  glaciers, 
much  broken  with  seracs  and  crevasses. 
Only  two  mountains  above  them  have 
been  chmbed — Calumet  Peak  and  an  un- 
named one.  The  lack  of  names  is  a  great 
drawback.  From  the  summits  of  these 
two  peaks  you  look  on  an  ice  world  north, 
where  Mount  Bess  and  Mount  Chown, 
both  white  mountains,  alone  have  names. 
596 


Many  fine  snow-mountains  appear,  one  of 
enormous  size  some  eighty  miles  away, 
which  rivals  Mount  Robson.  It  is  prob- 
ably lower,  the  passes  and  valleys  get- 
ting lower  as  the  mountains  trend  north. 
No  white  man  has  been  known  to  visit 
it,  though  it  has  excited  the  interest  of 
skilled  mountaineers  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  Phillips,  the  young  outfitter  and 
hunter  who  began  his  career  by  cUmb- 
ing  Mount  Robson  with  Mr.  Kinney,  was 
trapping  within  ten  miles  of  it  last  win- 


A  typical  crevasse  on  the  Robson  Glacier. 


ter.  He  has  developed  a  remarkable  ca- 
pacity for  mountain  topoj^jraphy,  and  is 
a  dependable,  intelligent  man,  who  could, 
in  the  terminology  of  that  country, "  pack  " 
any  prospective  climber  to  the  base  of 
the  mountain.  They  call  him  "Curly" 
Phillips,  from  his  masses  of  curly  hair.  He 
is  one  of  a  fme  set  of  outfitters,  an  old- 
fashioned  type  hap])ily  not  extinct  in  the 
northern  Rockies.  There  arc,  notably,  the 
Otto  brothers,  and  John  Yates,  and  Fred 
Stephens,   true   men  of   the   mountains, 


guides  and  hosts  of  the  valleys  and  passes, 
men  whom  their  patrons  delight  in  for 
their  integrity,  intelligence,  humor,  and 
l)icturesc{ue  si)eech.  They  ha\e  tales  to 
tell  around  the  camp-fire,  and  you  may 
say  of  them  that  they  gi\e  ])oint  to  cer- 
tain words  not  generally  in  use  at  the 
ingle-nook  in  the  town.  Still,  "heartily 
know  "  there  are  no  half-godson  the  hearth 
in  the  forest.  These  are  as  truly  children 
of  the  open  air  as  the  beloxed  Ste\enson  or 
Borrow  himself,  or  any  poetic  \agabond  of 

597 


Camp  of  the  Alpine  Club  of  Canada  on  Robson  Pass. 
Mount  Robson,  the  Helmet,  Tumbling  Glacier.     Slopes  of  Rearguard  in  extreme  left  where  goats  pastured. 


them  all.  Had  Stevenson  camped  in  the 
Rockies  with  Stephens,  English  literature 
had  gained  by  more  than  an  essay. 

Now  that  the  railway  crosses  the  Yel- 
lowhead  Pass  and  traverses  a  portion  of 
the  upper  Fraser  valley,  and  that  trails 
have  been  blazed  from  '^  the  steel "  twenty- 
five  miles  to  Moose  Pass,  this  unexplored 
group  of  snow-mountains  will  be  compara- 
tively easy  of  access.  Another  group  that 
offers  hardships  of  discovery  is  the  Cari- 
bou Range,  a  series  of  beautifully  shaped 
mountains  rising  west  of  the  Fraser,  where 
the  dense  forests  of  British  Columbia  are 
the  great  barrier.  Like  the  Selkirks  far- 
ther south,  they  are  of  Archaean  rock 
heavily  timbered  and  weighted  with  glac- 
iers. There  is  no  record  of  any  man, 
white  or  red,  having  penetrated  the  long 
reaches  of  fallen  timber,  devil 's-club,  and 
other  thick  shrubbery  under  its  close,  liv- 
ing forest. 

It  fell  to  the  Alpine  Club  of  Canada 

last  summer  to  accomplish  considerable 

exploratory  chmbing  on  Mount  Robson 

and  on  the  peaks  and  glaciers  contiguous. 

598 


This  club  is  not  an  exclusive  one,  such 
as  the  American  Alpine  Club,  which  keeps 
to  a  limited  membership;  nor  such  as 
that  great  and  famous  club,  now  nearly 
sixty  years  old,  which  is  the  mother  of  or- 
ganized mountaineering.  Although  there 
are  many  scores  of  alpine  clubs  in  the 
world,  the  oldest  one  retains  its  privilege 
and  right  to  be  known  by  the  third 
article  alone.  It  is  not  the  English  Al- 
pine Club,  nor  the  Alpine  Club  of  Eng- 
land, but  ''The"  Alpine  Club,  my  mas- 
ters. Its  little  dull-brown  button,  bearing 
the  dull-brown  letters  ''A.  C."  and  noth- 
ing more,  is  therefore  not  so  shy  and 
diffident  as  it  looks;  and,  moreover,  it  is 
a  symbol  that  climbers  in  all  lands  covet 
earnestly  in  the  apostle's  way. 

That  alpine  club  is  also  a  social  club. 
The  Alpine  Club  of  Canada  is  quite  other, 
being  a  national  club  of  a  democratic  sort, 
with  a  determined  purpose  in  its  eye 
of  making  mountaineers  out  of  young' 
Canadians.  Only  eight  years  old,  it  has 
now  eight  hundred  members  of  different 
grades,  England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  Italy, 


I-yo)n  a  />iu>/jj^ra/h  />y  l!ar>>io>:. 

Robson  CJlaciiT,  frcjin  Mount  Miimm,  showiiii^  Muuiit  I.ynx  (left)  and  unnamed  peaks, 
lixtreme  iiL;ht — slopes  of  Mount  Keartjuard  where  ijoats  jiastured. 


India,  and  South  Africa,  and  nineteen 
States  of  the  United  States,  as  well  as 
Canada,  l^eing  represented  in  its  member- 
ship. So  many  are  the  American  mem- 
bers that  by  courtesy  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
are  unfurled  on  its  club-house  in  Banff 
every  Fourth  of  July. 

Two  clauses  alone  in  the  constitution  in- 
dicate the  national  character  of  the  club, 
while  setting  forth  the  reason  of  its  exist- 
ence: the  education  of  Canadians  to  an 
appreciation  of  their  mountain  heritage; 
the  encouragement  of  the  mountain  craft 
and  the  opening  of  new  (mountain)  re- 
gions as  national  i:)laygrounds.  When  it 
was  born  in  1906  in  the  city  of  Winnipeg, 
there  were  scarcely  half  a  dozen  skilled 
climbers  in  Canada,  and  they  were  men. 
To-day  a  large  number  of  members,  in- 
cluding ladies,  show  remarkable  skill  on 
both  ice  and  rock.  And  these  are  not 
persons  of  large  means  who  can  go,  when 
they  will,  to  the  mountains  and  engage 
guides  and  packers  for  as  many  weeks  or 
months  as  they  choose.  On  the  other 
hand,  thcN'  belong  mostly  to  those  intel- 


lectual professions  so  inadequately  paid 
and  so  necessary  to  the  ])rogress  of  the 
world.  It  is  entirely  owing  to  the  A.  C.  C. 
that  most  of  these  can  go  at  all  to  the  high 
sanctuaries  that  are  still  undisturbed  by 
the  tread  of  the  rabble,  that  remain  unde- 
filed'by  the  tin  cans  and  other  odious  signs 
of  an  invading  irreverent  multitude  with 
money  in  its  pocket.  Every  summer 
since  its  inception  a  camp  accommodat- 
ing from  one  hundred  to  two  hundretl  per- 
sons has  been  held  in  some  strategic  }:)lace, 
when  novices  qualify  for  acti\'e  member- 
ship by  climbing  to  an  altitude  of  2,500 
feet  above  timber-line  on  a  glacier-hung 
mountain.  Every  year  fifty  or  sixty  have 
thus  learned  to  climb,  under  professional 
Swiss  guides  and  comj)etent  mountaineers, 
while  old  members  make  more  dilTicult  as- 
cents and  ex])editions.  The  camp  is  under 
the  super\ision  of  the  director  of  the  club, 
Mr.  A.  ().  Wheeler,  who  is  an  honorary 
member  of  "  The  Ali)ine  Club,"  and  an  act- 
ive member  of  the  American  Ali)ine  Club. 
Pack-trains,  outfitters,  cooks,  and  Swiss 
guides   are   employed;     there   are   "chief 

599 


GOO 


A   New  r^ielcl  for  Moiintainccrinor 


mountaineers"  and  a  corps  of  boy  scouts; 
there  are  punctilious  rules  for  climbs  and 
expeditions,  for  the  daily  life  of  the  com- 
munity; and,  in  short,  everything  neces- 
sary for  the  safety  and  comfort  of  the 
company.  But  the  punctilio  is  not  too 
punctilious;  the  ordinary  members  have 


lips,  who  blazed  and  built  it,  achieved  at 
least  one  wonderful  engineering  feat  in  a 
steep  log  bridge  ninety  feet  across  a  gap, 
under  which  the  rock  slopes  at  an  angle  of 
sixty  degrees  to  the  river  300  feet  below. 
The  bridge  was  necessary  to  avoid  a  very 
steep  and  troublesome  ascent  in  the  trail, 


From  a  photograph  by  Har>no>i, 


East  Face,  Mount  Robson.     Mount  Helmet  to  the  right. 
View  from  point  at  10,000  feet. 


nothing  to  do  but  tramp,  explore,  and  en- 
joy themselves  with  mountain  study  and 
the  sublimest  of  all  sports  invented  by  man. 
In  this  thing  the  club  has  been  a  good  suc- 
cess, making  progress  far  beyond  the  ex- 
pectations of  the  founders  in  awakening 
Canadians  to  a  sense  of  the  aesthetic  and 
ethical  value  of  that  sport  and  of  the  im- 
mense field  for  its  exercise  in  their  own 
land. 

In  1913  the  club  held  the  second  camp 
of  the  season  (for  active  members  only) 
on  Robson  Pass.  Of  the  sixty-odd  mem- 
bers who  were  first-foot  over  the  new  trail 
from  the  railway,  seventeen  were  Ameri- 
cans. A  pack-train  of  forty  horses  carried 
the  tents,  the  grub  (which  is  Rocky  Moun- 
tain English),  and  the  personal  impedi- 
menta; the  company  itself,  like  true 
cliinbers  and  pilgrims,  tramping  up  the 
trail  which  rises  nearly  3,000  feet  in  the 
course  of  its  sixteen  miles.     "  Curly  "  Phil- 


and  to  enable  horses  to  get  into  the  Valley 
of  the  Falls,  a  stretch  of  flowering  mead- 
ows and  park  lands  running  between 
Mount  Robson  and  Mount  Whitehorn, 
and  so  called  from  some  twoscore  water- 
falls shining  like  silver  or  foaming  white 
down  vertical  purple  cliffs  on  either  side. 
It  is  about  five  miles  long,  and  forms  a  por- 
tion of  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Grand 
Fork  valley. 

That  trail  was  an  interesting  bridle-path 
to  one  elderly  pilgrim  who  was  bidden  to 
ride — to  ride  behind  a  pack-train  of  twen- 
ty horses — and  who  had  the  pleasure  of 
watching  every  pack  fastened  upon  every 
pack-saddle  with  the  ''diamond  hitch." 
This  is  an  exact  and  occult  process  of  se- 
curing the  pack  to  the  bronco's  back,  and 
is  so  named  from  a  diamond  figure  formed 
by  the  rope  on  top  of  the  pack  when  com- 
pleted. The  pack  remains  both  firm  and 
easy  during  travel  and,  by  a  deft  turn  of 


A  New  Field  for  Mountaineering 


601 


the  packer's  fingers,  is  unbound  in  ii  mo-  })y  variations  of  a  stentorian,  reverberat- 
ment  at  the  end  of  the  journey.  In  the  ing,  unspellable  shout,  a  mixture  of  Cree 
early  days  as  much  as  one  hundred  dol-    and    Chinese    and   hog  Latin,   perfectly 


I 


I 


1- i\>in  a  />hotOj^itiph  by  ll,irnion. 

Top  of  Mount  Resplendent,  altitude  11,171  feet,  showing  tracks  of  many  climbers. 


lars  was  paid  to  learn  the  trick,  which 
came  from  Mexico.  Had  the  beloved 
Stevenson,  traveUing  with  a  donkey  in  the 
Cevennes,  been  initiated  into  its  myster- 
ies, there  had  been  no  comi)hiint  of  "  hold- 
ing a  pack  upon  a  pack-saddle  against  a 
gale  out  of  the  freezing  north."  Otto 
kept  the  pack-train  going  and  on  the  trail 


understood  by  the  horses.  One  of  us 
thought  of  Stevenson's  tame  and  unavail- 
ing "])ro()tI"  and  how  he  would  ha\e  de- 
lighted in  this  bronco-driver — and  in 
this  trail.  To  tell  the  truth,  Otto's  horses 
were  not  pure  broncos,  but  a  better 
breed,  good-looking  and  well  shod. 

Though  rain  poured  for  hours,  we  did 


From  a  photcigrapJi  by  F.  IV.  Freel/orn. 

Director  A.  O.  Wheeler  and  two  women  climbers. 


not  heed  it  under  the  high  cedar,  hemlock, 
and  Douglas  fir,  and  kept  travelling  as 
fast  as  hills  and  torrents  and  packs  would 
permit.  For  the  pilgrims  ahead  were  wet 
and  weary,  and  needing  their  "dunnage." 
Beyond  Lake  Kinney,  a  forest-framed 
green  lake  about  a  mile  long,  just  as  we 
entered  the  high  Valley  of  the  Falls,  the 
sun  came  out  and  dispersed  the  low  clouds 
in  a  glory  of  shining  mists;  and  we  found 
ourselves  in  the  midst  of  an  entrancing 
alpine  panorama.  A  few  hours  later  we 
602 


were  skirting  the  wooded  margin  of  Berg 
Lake,  in  time  to  see  a  plunging  avalanche 
change  its  placid  water  into  wild  breakers 
from  shore  to  shore.  And  so  to  Robson 
Pass,  where  the  white  tents  and  gay  flags 
were  set  picturesquely  among  the  trees. 

The  packs  were  soon  loosened  and  the 
patient  horses  roUing  on  the  turf,  while 
an  early  dinner  was  served  in  a  fly- 
tent,  the  camp's  commodious  dining-room. 
The  serving  Chinamen  who  had  followed 
close  on  the  heels  of  the  horses  confided 


Under  the  seracs.     Robsoii  Glacier. 


their  unanimous  opinion  of  this  enterprise 
to  one  of  us.  And  it  was  of  a  i)iece  with 
the  judgment  of  many  famous  critics  of 
the  early  British  cHmbers,  Ruskin's,  to  wit, 
about  turning  the  Alps  into  "soaped  poles 
in  a  bear  garden" — though  Ruskin  after- 
ward repented  and  joined  the  Alpine  Club: 
*' Mount  Lobson  no  good  climb.  Too 
much  high.     Kxerybody  cla/y." 

The  camp  lasted  for  fourteen  days,  and 
ten  of  them  were  days  of  queen's  weather; 
no  pioneer  had  ever  known  such  a  i)ro- 


cession  of  sunny  days.  Expeditions  and 
climbs  tilled  every  day,  shine  or  rain. 
Auxiliary  camps  were  placed  at  the  junc- 
tion of  the  Smoky  and  Calumet  Creeks, 
four  miles  east  of  Robson  Pass,  and  on  the 
Alps  below  Moose  Pass,  four  miles  farther. 
In  this  way  ample  time  was  allowed  for 
exploring  new  neves  and  ice-falls  and  alps. 
Mount  Rcsi)lcn(lent  was  a  favorite  climb, 
not  dithcult  nor  yet  mere  drutlgery,  al- 
though you  are  climbing  altogether  on 
snow.     'HuMc  is  a  place  down  the  Smoky 

O03 


cm 


A   New  Field  for  Mountaineering 


\  alley  where  you  see  Mount  Resplendent 
alone,  a  beautiful  pure  cone  rising  above 
the  foreground  of  green  forest  and  meet- 
ing the  blue  sky  in  snow.  Mount  Rob- 
son  shut  away  from  \'iew,  this  might 
be  the  great  prize  of  the  neighborhood. 
All  wanted  to  make  that  peak  (11,173  feet) 


peaks  between  it  and  the  peak  which  gives 
the  range  its  name  made  good  sport  for 
unambitious  climbers,  and  mirth  enough 
when  Mr.  Mumm's  old  Swiss  guide  fell 
through  snow  into  a  crevasse.  The  rope 
is  necessary  on  every  most  innocent-look- 
ing snow-mountain  in  all  that  district. 


J'yi»)i  ti  />hotoj^ya/>h  l>y  Dr.  Stoin:. 

A.  C.  C.  detraining,  Jul\'  27,  191; 


their  own.  Four  ropes  of  five  persons 
each  would  reach  the  summit  in  seven 
hours,  the  steeper  places  involving  step- 
cutting;  but  a  score  of  glissades  made 
quick  sport  of  the  descent,  one  party  com- 
ing down  as  far  as  the  Extinguisher  in 
an  hour  and  a  half.  Here  a  halt  would 
be  made  for  afternoon  tea.  It  was  merry 
climbing,  but  strenuous  enough  to  suit 
the  bold  chmber  who  scorns  the  easiest 
route  to  any  summit:  seracs  and  cornices 
and  crevasses  and  ice-walls  there  were  to 
his  joy,  and  enlarging  views  as  he  paused 
from  climbing. 

Mount  Mumm,  at  the  end  of  the  White- 
horn  Range  and  scarcely  4,000  feet  above 
Robson  Pass,  with  the  fine  Mural  Glacier 
and  ice-fall  on  its  thither  side,  was  one  of 
the  easiest  climbs — at  first  through  timber, 
then  flowering  alps  and  rock.  Its  alps 
were  a  joy  to  see,  a  riot  of  color,  scores  of 
species  growing  there  in  all  the  mountain 
flowers.  It  is  so  in  all  the  high  meadows 
above  the  trees  when  summer  reaches  the 
last  grass.  The  great,  gloomy  mountains, 
as  Hugo  prettily  reminds  us,  are  mar- 
vellous growers  of  gardens.  ''They  avail 
themselves  of  the  dawn  and  the  dew  bet- 
ter than  all  your  low  valleys  can  do  it." 

Mount  Mumm  and  several  unnamed 


Mount  Whitehorn  is  a  pointed  rock 
peak  (11,101  feet)  rising  out  of  surround- 
ing glaciers  beyond  tremendous  rock  ram- 
parts reaching  to  the  Valley  of  the  Falls. 
It  is  next  in  difficulty  to  Mount  Robson, 
and  was  climbed  from  a  base  camp  in  that 
valley.  One  ascent  included  a  traverse 
of  the  mountain  over  ice  and  snow,  and 
travel  by  the  long  northern  twilight  and 
starlight  over  snow-bridges  on  a  much- 
crevassed  flowing  glacier  to  the  rocks, 
where  the  party  of  six  men  and  four 
ladies,  led  by  Konrad  Kain,  the  club's 
Austrian  guide,  dozed  till  dawn.  They 
had  started  at  6  a.  m.  in  rain,  and  had  not 
reached  the  pointed  summit  until  4  p.  m. 
(the  last  rope  at  5  p.  m.),  and  Konrad  had 
said:  "Ladies  and  zhentlemen,  it  will 
be  too  long  to  go  down  the  same  way.  I 
will  find  you  a  quicker  way."  And  so  it 
was  that  they  bivouacked  on  the  rock  at 
9,000  feet,  the  ladies  creeping  into  crevices, 
thrusting  their  feet  into  rucksacks  and 
keeping  warm  by  conversation.  One  of 
them  said  it  was  not  nearly  so  uncomfort- 
able as  it  sounded  in  the  telling.  Besides, 
the  night  was  beautiful — and  had  they  not 
been  travelling  on  a  glacier  by  starlight? 
In  the  morning  they  ate  breakfast  and 
raced  down  rock  and  scree,  reaching  their 


A   New   Field  for  Mountaineerlno; 

o 


G05 


camp  in  the  valley  by  g  a.  m.,  feeling  fit  as 
fiddles  after  being  out  twenty-seven  hours. 
Whitehorn,  like  Robson,  is  a  mountain- 
eer's mountain. 

The  main  object  of  the  camp  was  to  ex- 
plore Robson  Peak,  and  to  discover  some 
feasible  route,  some  right  way,  to  the  top, 


the  am{)hitheatre.  Next  morning  they 
started  at  4.15,  crossed  the  glacier  and 
snow-field  of  the  cirque,  and  ascended 
the  Dome  (10,098  feet,  an  outlier  of  Rob- 
son Peak)  on  account  of  a  rock  ridge 
which  would  shorten  the  route;  thence 
over  glacier  to  an  ugly  bergschrund.  Here 


J-'yoiii  (t  photograph  by  K.  C.  II '.  Lett. 

Part  of  trestle  bridge  on  R(jbsun  Trails. 


which  would  be  recorded  for  the  benefit 
of  all  comers  in  the  future.  It  is  and  will 
ever  be  a  dangerous  mountain,  to  be  held 
in  profound  respect  by  men  skilled  in 
mountain  craft.  "  There  is  plenty  gamble 
with  your  neck  on  Robson,"  soberly  re- 
marked Konrad,  who  made  a  traverse  of 
the  mountain  after  careful  study  of  every 
side  from  the  valleys  below,  and  who 
found  it  much  more  difficult  than  the 
inspection  prophesied.  The  traverse  was 
the  first  of  the  three  attempts  made  dur- 
ing camp;  it  was  by  far  the  most  bril- 
liant achievement  in  the  annals  of  the 
Canadian  Rockies,  and  will  no  doubt  rank 
with  more  than  one  famous  feat  in  Swit- 
zerland. The  two  later  expeditions  failed 
of  the  summit  by  three  hundred  feet  or 
so,  but  both  were  fruitful  in  leading  to  a 
knowledge  of  that  right  way  up  the  south- 
western face  of  the  mountain;  and  both 
were  thrilling  climbs. 

The  first  party  consisted  of  Mr.  W.  W. 
Foster,  a  deputy  minister  in  the  British 
Columbia  cabinet;  Mr.  A.  H.  Mac- 
Carthy,  late  of  the  United  States  Navy, 
and  Konrad.  They  left  camp  at  Rob- 
son Pass  on  the  evening  of  July  30  and 
slept  at  an  elevation  of  6,500  feet  on  the 
morainal  ice  under  the  Extinguisher  in 


Konrad  cut  one  hundred  and  five  ste])S  in 
a  wall  of  solid  ice.  From  the  bergschrund 
to  the  top  of  the  mountain  is  2,000  feet 
of  the  hardest  and  most  risky  climbing 
on  that  side  of  the  mountain.  The  arete 
being  a  long,  knife-edged  pitch,  steps 
were  cut  in  the  hard  snow  below  the  ^(\%'^ 
proper.  Altogether,  up  and  down  the 
mountain,  Konrad  cut  six  hundred  steps 
in  ice  and  nearly  one  thousand  in  snow. 
At  2.30  p.  M.  the  final  dome,  above  which 
towers  the  real  summit  unseen  from  be- 
low, was  reached.  This  dome  is  a  mass 
of  ice  and,  owing  to  the  continuous  fine 
weather,  the  clear  ice  showed  through  the 
snow.  The  ascent  here  was  very  slow, 
by  an  almost  upright  ice-couloir,  where 
cutting  was  extremely  difiicull  and  peril- 
ous, owing  to  the  pitch.  As  higher  ele- 
vations were  reached  and  masses  of  ice 
passed,  the  ])eak  rose  higher  and  higher 
above  lesser  domes  hitherto  concealing  it. 
A  freezing  wind  was  blowing,  and  rope 
and  clothes  were  frozen  stitT.  Finally, 
Konrad  turned  and  said:  "Zhentlemen, 
I  will  take  you  no  farder."  For  a  moment 
consternation  seized  Mr.  Foster  and  he 
wondered  if  Konrad's  gay  courage  hatl  at 
last  given  way,  when  the  guide  moved  to 
let  the  two  step  on  the  summit  of  the 


Fro^n  a  photograph  by  Harmon. 

Mount  Whitehorn  (ii,ioi  feet),  from  Berg  Lake. 


snow-cap.  They  remained  on  top  less 
than  fifteen  minutes,  there  being  no  cairn 
to  build  and  the  descent  now  becoming 
the  great  problem.  Telling  the  tale  at 
camp-fire,  Mr.  Foster  described  the  moun- 
tains stretching  below  them  for  one  hun- 
dred miles  in  the  clear  distance  as  a  rough, 
white  prairie  with  little  peaks  upstanding. 
When  the  tale  was  finished,  Curly  Phil- 
lips, who  had  listened  eagerly,  went  up  to 
Mr.  Foster  and  said:  "We  didn't  get 
up  that  last  dome."  And  when  I  asked 
606 


him  how  high  it  would  be,  he  said  ''Be- 
tween sixty  and  seventy  feet."  This 
quite  artless  and  spontaneous  statement 
is  not  repeated  in  the  mood  of  the  hair- 
splitter,  but  merely  to  illustrate  the  in- 
genuousness of  Phillips,  who,  in  telling 
his  own  story,  would  giggle  ever  so  little 
over  his  own  terror  on  the  narrow  ledges 
and  almost  vertical  slopes  of  new  snow. 
"The  rest  of  you  may  tackle  Mount  Rob- 
son  as  often  as  you  Hke,  but  not  me! 
Not  for  ten  million  dollars!"     And  yet 


hro>n  It  phuto^nipli  by  Harition. 

Climbing  a  spur  on  une  of  the  Robsoii  peaks. 


Phillips  has  developed  into  a  good  moun- 
tain craftsman. 

Knowinj^  that  descent  by  the  route  he 
had  so  laboriously  cut  would  mean  a  ni<^ht 
on  the  ice  at  high  altitude,  Konrad  de- 
cided to  try  a  glacier  on  the  southwest 
face,  by  which  he  could  get  to  rock  for 
a  bivouac.  This  meant  more  cutting  of 
steps  down  the  ice-sl()j)e  to  a  glacier 
which  they  followed  till  it  fell  al)ru|)lly 
away,  and  they  crossed  over  to  the  rock, 
making  such  good  progress  that  by  9.30 


they  made  their  bed  on  an  exposed  shelf 
eight  feet  wide  at  an  altitude  of  g,ooo 
feel,  and  hard  by  a  couloir  down  which 
broken  ice  crashed  at  inlcr\als  all  night. 
Building  a  little  wall  on  the  edge  of  the 
ledge,  taking  otT  boots,  wrapping  feet  in 
])uttees,  and  roping  together  by  the  arms, 
they  lay  with  heads  to  the  mountain 
and  feet  to  immeasurable  space  until 
morning,  when  they  breakfasted  on  a  half- 
sandwich  each,  and  resumed  the  descent. 
Many  futile  chinmeys  and   ridges  were 

()07 


Kuiirad's  route  of  ascent  across  cirque  and        A      Bivouac  on  ice  at  base  of  Extinguisher. 
up  the  dome  to  sliouldcr. 

Diagram  of  Robson  amphitlieatre  from  Lynx,  centre  station. 


tried  ere  the  downward  route  was  picked 
out,  but  once  they  had  reached  a  buttress 
overlooking  Lake  Kinney  the  descent  was 
as  good  as  accomplished.  At  12.30  p.  m., 
August  3,  they  stood  on  the  shore  of 
Lake  Kinney,  having  spent  thirty  hours 
on  the  traverse  from  the  first  bivouac  at 
the  Extinguisher.  They  had  no  water 
for  eight  hours,  had  fasted  twelve  hours, 
and,  save  for  the  bivouac  on  the  ledge, 
had  been  going  steadily.     The  weather 


31,  and  we  looked  for  them  to  return  by 
way  of  the  Extinguisher  and  down  the 
long  and  somewhat  level  Robson  Glacier. 
I  had  strayed  down  toward  Berg  Lake  to 
watch  for  breaking  blue  avalanches  and 
the  splendors  of  sudden  spray,  and  who 
should  come  up  the  delta  but  these  three! 
I  was  tremendously  excited — no,  I  was 
deeply  moved — when,  with  that  "  high  im- 
perious verbal  economy"  which  is  Na- 
ture's gift  to  the  conqueror,  they  told  of 
their  exploit.  I  instinctively 
shook  hands  in  the  very 
mood,  I  do  beheve,  of  that 
ritual  belonging  only  to  the 
moment  of  solemn  triumph 
on  lofty  and  long-defiant 
mountain  peaks.  The  three 
hurried  up  the  pass  to  camp, 
and  I  hurried  to  invade  the 
kitchen  and  make  speedy 
soup  with  "Oxo"  and  peas, 
hot  water  and  corn  flour.  We 
all  were  eager  to  minister  to 
the  heroes  with  our  own 
hands,  and  hovered  on  the 
edge  of  that  substantial,  un- 
aesthetic  tea.  Konrad  was 
very  modest  indeed,  though 
they  gave  him  all  the  kudos. 
Next  evening  he  was  in  good 
form  and  by  request  told  the 
company  at  camp-fire  how  he 
had  been  clear  and  sunny  throughout,  once  played  the  ''zhentleman"  in  the 
At  4.30  p.  M.  they  marched  into  camp  on  Tyrol  and  hired  a  guide.  It  was  a  dramat- 
Robson  Pass,  much  battered  of  face  but  ic  tale,  told  in  broken  English,  full  of  hu- 
brisk  of  leg.  We  had  no  sign  from  them  mor  and  piquant  philosophy.  For  Konrad 
smce  they  left  in  the  afterglow  on  July  is  both  philosopher  and  raconteur. 
608 


000   Kinney's  route 
^—    Konrad's  traverse 
9       Berg  Lake. 


.-._   Walter's  route. 
^      Bivouacs. 
C      Robson  Pass. 


b    Where  Konrad  crossed. 
X.    Lake  Kinney. 
d     Lake  Adolphus. 


Diagram  of  Mount  Robson,  Lake  Kinney,  and  Valley  of  Grand  Fork, 
showing  routes  and  passes. 


FroDt  a  photograph  by  Uitriiioji. 

South-southwest  side  of  Mount  Robson,  rising  10,000  feet  above  the  valley. 
The  small  three-cornered  glacier  on  the  left  is  Avalanche  I'an. 


The  second  attempt  was  made  on  the 
west  ridge,  from  a  camp  in  the  Valley  of 
the  Falls,  the  party  consisting  of  Mr.  B.  S. 
Dariing,  Vancouver,  and  Mr.  H.  H.  Prou- 
ty,  of  the  "Mazamas"  (Portland),  led  by 
Walter  Schauffelberger,  another  Austrian 
guide  with  less  experience 
thanKonrad.  From  the 
camp  in  the  valley  they 
packed  blankets,  food,  and 
fire-wood  to  a  camp  at 
8,475  ^^^t  in  altitude,  close 
by  Avalanche  Fan,  a  small 
fan-shaped  glacier  fed  by  av- 
alanches. Hard  climbing 
began  west  of  this  glacier,  the 
])arty  working  up  ledge  by 
ledge  on  the  yellow  bands 
seen  from  the  railway,  thence 
on  the  slate-colored  rock,  to 
a  place  about  12,800  feet, 
where  two  ridges  met,  and 
they  came  to  a  slope  of  hard 
ice  heavily  corniced  on  both 
sides.  These  wind-moulded 
cornices  displayed  huge,  capricious  shapes 
of  an  unearthly  Ijeauty,  hundreds  of  them 
shining  like  diamonds  in  the  sun,  white 
wings,  monks'  cowls,  penguins,  "archan- 
gels."    The  slope  of  about  sixty  degrees 


necessitated  such  short  strokes  of  the  ice- 
axe  that  fifty  stei)s  per  hour  was  the  best 
possible.  They  had  been  thirteen  hours 
and  fifteen  minutes  on  the  arete,  much 
time  being  spent  exploring  the  route,  and 
it  was  now  6.15  p.  m.     With  only  about 


Route  of  the  third  party  on  Mount  k-h^.h,  mi-wim. 
toward  Lake  Kinney. 

This  will  W  ihe  stotk  route. 


three  hundred  feet  to  climl),  they  turned 
reluctantly  back.  Storm  clouds  were 
gathering  on  the  summit  and  sweei)ing 
up  the  sloi)e  on  which  they  stood.  Snow 
began  to  fall,  it  was  bitterly  cold,  and 

609 


01 0 


A   New  Field  for  Mountaineering 


e\cn  the  rope  was  frozen  like  a  wire 
hawser.  They  made  as  much  haste  down- 
ward as  possible,  and  darkness  forced  a 
bivouac  in  falling  snow  at  ii,ooo  feet  on 
the  crest  of  a  ridge  not  ten  feet  wide, 
where  they  protected  themselves  from 
the  gale  by  building  a  wall  of  flat,  loose 
limestones.  What  with  snow,  hail,  light- 
ning, and  thunder  they  passed  a  lively 
night.  At  5  a.  m.  they  pulled  their  feet 
out  of  the  slush  in  their  rucksacks  made 
by  drifting  snow  and  natural  w^armth,  and 
started  slowly  down  through  white  mist, 
exploring  for  a  safe  route,  and  finding 
it  in  a  long  snow-couloir  w^hich  brought 
them  to  the  yellow  bands  of  rock.  The 
couloir  was  deeply  scored  by  an  avalanche 
trough,  down  which  the  fresh  snow  was 
pouring  in  a  steady  stream,  but  it  was 
safe  and  speedy;  and  they  reverted  to 
the  arete  and  reached  their  high  camp 
below  the  mist  in  eight  hours  from  the 
bivouac.  Thence  it  was  easy  going.  They 
were  climbing  every  minute  of  daylight, 
halting-  only  to  eat,  but  they  ate  fre- 
quently, and  were  in  good  condition. 

This  route  will  appeal  to  all  cragsmen, 
as  there  are  real  problems  to  solve  through- 
out the  whole  five  thousand  feet  of  the 
ridge.  The  special  points  of  danger  now 
are:  the  impossibility  of  obtaining  proper 
belays  on  narrow  places  as  difficult  as  an 
ice-slope,  and  the  swing  of  the  rope  send- 
ing down  masses  of  the  loose  stone  which 
fitters  the  ridges  and  chimneys.  Much 
climbing  will  clear  away  this  accumula- 
tion of  ages,  and  the  mountain  will  be 
equipped  with  belaying-spikes  and  wire 
ropes;  also,  a  hut  will  be  built  at  an  al- 
titude of  some  eight  thousand  feet.  There 
is  scarcely  any  cutting  on  this  route  until 
you  reach  the  summit  slopes;  only  eighty 
steps  were  cut  by  this  party.  Mount  Rob- 
son  will  no  doubt  be  climbed  again  and 
again  on  its  magnificent  white  northeast 
face,  but  the  continuous  avalanches  of  ice 
in  the  afternoon  forbid  descent  that  way, 
and  a  traverse  will  always  be  necessary. 

The  third  attempt,  most  thrilling  of 
all,  was  by  Mr.  Darling  and  Mr.  Mac- 
Carthy,  with  Konrad  and  Walter.  A 
sudden  and  violent  blizzard  struck  them 
within  five  hundred  feet  of  the  top,  and 
they  made  a  perilous  retreat.     No  man 


knows  the  high  alps  until  he  knows  them 
in  storm,  says  Sir  Martin  Conway;  and 
a  greater  than  he,  that  most  brilliant 
mountaineering  genius  that  ever  lived, 
A.  F.  Mummery,  of  glorious  memory,  de- 
clared that  no  school  of  danger  had  such 
an  educative  and  purifying  power  as  this 
school.  ''It  is  worth  much,"  he  cries, 
''for  a  man  to  know  that  he  is  not  clean 
gone  to  flesh-pots  and  effeminacy."  Well, 
north,  south,  east,  west,  there  is  no  avoid- 
ing the  crown  of  ice  on  Robson  Peak,  and 
this  difficult  mountain  will  never  be  "an 
easy  climb  for  a  lady,"  nor  yet  for  a 
mountaineer. 

The  railway  company  proposes  to  build 
a  chalet  on  Robson  Pass,  large  enough 
for  a  limited  number  of  visitors.  It 
will  overlook  Berg  Lake  and  Tumbling 
Glacier;  but,  for  that  matter,  every  win- 
dow in  it  must  be  vis-a-vis  with  some 
sight  of  mountain  splendor.  Meanwhile, 
those  who  love  a  bed  of  balsam  boughs 
on  alpine  turf,  with  the  tent-door  open 
to  the  stars  and  white  snows,  may  find 
this  glorious  situation  safe  for  a  season 
or  two  more.  Even  Wordsworth,  who 
believed  that  mountains  and  streams  and 
the  whole  world  of  beauty  were  best 
loved  and  understood  by  the  common 
people,  protested — or  his  muse  protested 
for  him — "These  tourists.  Heaven  pre- 
serve us!"  The  much  scorned  and  ridi- 
culed tourist,  who  has  his  rights,  will  one 
day  seize  and  occupy  Robson  Pass,  but 
the  mountain-lover  will  still  possess  it  as 
he  alone  can.  He  will  find  the  delicately 
blue  butterflies  flitting  on  the  "dry" 
glaciers  and  the  humming-birds  flying 
among  the  blossoms  on  the  green  alps 
above,  and  every  lovely  living  thing  in 
the  old  haunts  of  snow  or  rock  or  forest 
or  stream.  Dawn  with  its  rosy  glow  on 
the  high  snows  will  be  his;  noon  with 
its  masses  of  cumulus,  sunset,  and  the 
northern  afterglow;  moonlight,  starlight, 
all  that  strange  rapturous  beauty  which 
is  of  the  high  alps  and  the  high  alps  only. 
"Gone  are  they,  but  I  have  them  in  my 
soul,"  as  Browning's  Luigi  would  say. 
Truly,  Nature  never  did  betray  the  heart 
that  loved  her,  but  in  beauty  ministers  and 
heals  even  when  demanding  her  sacrifice 
of  toil. 


A    GENTLEMAN    OF    THE    OLD    SCHOOL 

SOME   REMINISCENCES  OF    CHARLES   KING 
By  Gertrude   King  Schuyler 


FEW  anecdotes  of  the  late 
Charles  King,  casually  re- 
lated by  one  of  his  daugh- 
ters, seemed  so  well  worth 
preserving  that  she  con- 
sented to  make  some  memo- 
randa of  our  conversations.  These  notes 
I  have  put  together  in  the  form  of  a  more 
or  less  connected  narrative. 

Evelyn  Schuyler  Schaeffer, 

When  my  grandfather,  Rufus  King,  re- 
turned home  after  his  second  mission  to 
England,  he  bought  a  place  at  Jamaica, 
Long  Island,  where  he  always  lived  after 
that  and  where  he  died.  My  Uncle  John 
inherited  the  place,  and  to  this  day  the 
Kings  are  taken  back  to  be  buried  in  the 
churchyard.  The  old  farmers  at  Oyster 
Bay  used  to  tell  me  that  they  could  re- 
member seeing  my  grandfather  wdth  his 
five  sons  riding  all  over  the  country — and 
splendid  horsemen  they  were.* 

However,  my  father,  Charles  King,  was 
born  in  New  York,  and  it  was  always  his 
home,  with  the  exception  of  ten  years  spent 
in  Elizabeth,  New  Jersey,  where  he  had  quite 
a  large  place,  called  Cherry  Lawn.  He  left 
Elizabeth  to  go  to  the  president's  house  at 
Columbia  College.  My  father  was  born 
March  i6,  1789,  and  passed  his  early  child- 
hood inEngland,  where  his  father  wasUnited 
States  minister.  He  was  sent  to  Harrow 
with  his  elder  brother  in  1797,  and  when 
their  parents  returned  to  America  they  left 
the  boys  there.  King  George  protested,  say- 
ing: ''All  a  mistake,  Mr.  King.  Boys  should 
be  educated  in  the  country  where  they  be- 
long." When,  as  a  young  man,  my  father 
was  presented  to  the  King  and  Queen,  they 
remembered  him  at  once  and  the  King  said: 
"You  were  the  little  boy  who  was  left  at 
Harrow  when  your  father  went  home." 

*The  5ve  sons  were  John  Alsop,  at  one  time  governor  of 
the  State  of  New  York;  Charles;  James  Gore,  the  well-known 
banker  in  New  York;  Edward,  who  practised  law  in  Cincin- 
nati; and  Frederick,  a  physician.  John  and  James  were  mem- 
bers of  Congress  at  the  same  time,  from  1849  to  1851. 

Vol.  LV.— 64 


Lord  Byron  was  one  of  their  schoolmates 
and  Uncle  John  was  bottle-holder  to  him 
in  one  of  his  schoolboy  fights.  The  other 
boys  despised  Byron  as  a  poet,  because  he 
could  not  write  Greek  and  Latin  verses. 
Sir  Robert  Peel  wrote  all  that  the  boys 
asked  him  to  write  for  them;  and  in  fact 
did  everything  they  wanted  him  to  do. 
It  was  Peel  this  and  Peel  that,  all  the 
time. 

The  tw^o  boys  were  left  at  Harrow  only 
a  few"  years,  and  were  then  sent  to  a  branch 
of  the  Ecole  Polytechnique  in  Paris.  There 
they  had  for  schoolfellows  Tascher  de  la 
Pagerie  and  many  more  of  the  Empress 
Josephine's  young  relations.  Old  Mr. 
Gamble  from  North  or  South  Carolina  told 
me  that  he  was  in  Paris  at  the  time  and 
was  so  proud  of  the  two  young  Americans 
who  were  taking  all  the  prizes.  Uncle  John 
and  my  father  were  immensely  pleased  be- 
cause Josephine  was  to  give  the  prizes  and 
was  to  crown  them  and  kiss  them  on  each 
cheek,  but  she  was  ill  and  could  not  come, 
and  a  snuffy  old  senator  did  it,  instead, 
w^hich  they  did  not  like  at  all.  It  was  just 
before  the  campaign  of  Austerlitz.  All  their 
young  companions  were  going  olT  to  fight, 
and  my  father  had  every  intention  of  going 
too,  but  their  guardian  got  wind  of  it,  and 
the  American  minister  in  Paris  (Mr. 
Adams,  I  think)  put  a  stop  to  it.  They 
saw  the  grand  review  before  the  army 
started.  He  was  in  Paris  again  when  it 
was  occupied  by  the  allies  and  knew  some 
of  Wellington's  aides  very  well.  He  was 
invited  to  the  grand  ball  given  by  Welling- 
ton on  July  31,  1815,  and  was  told  to  bring 
any  other  young  Americans.  They  all 
refused,  saying  that  they  would  not  go  and 

be  taken  for  d d  Englishmen.     He  said 

thathewasnotgoingtobe  taken  forad d 

Englishman  cither,  but  that  he  was  going 
to  the  ball.  So  he  had  a  very  small  gilt 
American  eagle  made  and  fastened  to  a 
little  black  cockade  which  he  pinned  to  the 
lapel  of  his  coat,  went  to  the  ball,  and  en- 

611 


012 


A   Gentleman  of  the  Old  School 


joyed  himself  extremely.  The  cockade 
with  the  eaj^le  still  exists. 

The  morning  after  Ney  was  shot  he  went 
to  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  to  see  the 
place.  He  found  nobody  there  to  tell  him 
anything,  except  a  deaf  and  dumb  boy, 
who  went  througli  it  all  in  pantomime, 
placing  himself  against  the  wall  in  the 
exact  spot.  He  knew  INIadame  Recamier 
and  Madame  de  Stael  and  heard  the  former 
say  that  she  would  give  her  beauty  for  the 
other's  cleverness.  He  was  on  intimate 
terms  with  Madame  de  Staei'sson;  so  much 
so  that  when  she  received  the  news  of  his 
having  been  killed  in  a  duel  she  sent  for 
mv  father  and  talked  to  him — always  with 
the  little  green  twig  in  her  hand. 

It  was  during  this  period  of  his  life  that 
the  Dartmoor  affair  took  place,  and  he  was 
a  member  of  the  commission  appointed  to 
go  to  England  to  investigate  the  matter. 
Some  of  our  men  who  were  in  prison  at 
Dartmoor  had  been  fired  upon  while  trying 
to  escape;  but  the  commissioners  found 
that  the  prisoners  had  been  on  parole,  and 
that  under  the  circumstances  the  English 
were  quite  right.  As  the  feeling  in  America 
was  at  that  time  naturally  very  strong  against 
England,  there  was  a  perfect  howl  of  in- 
dignation when  this  report  was  returned, 
and  my  father's  share  in  it  was  always 
brought  up  against  him. 

Some  years  before  this,  when  he  was  only 
about  nineteen,  he  had  been  sent  to  Am- 
sterdam, to  the  Hopes,  to  learn  banking. 
He  remained  wdth  them  for  a  year  and 
then  returned  to  New  York,  and  in  1810, 
when  barely  twenty-one,  he  married  Miss 
Eliza  Gracie,  daughter  of  Archibald  Gra- 
de, of  New  York.  It  was  probably  about 
that  time  that  he  became  a  member  of  the 
banking-house  of  Archibald  Gracie  & 
Sons,  he  and  William  Gracie  being  the 
"  Sons."  His  second  stay  abroad,  of  which 
I  have  spoken,  was  on  account  of  his  wife's 
health. 

He  was  always  to  the  fore  in  everything 
that  was  going  on  in  New  York.  One  of 
the  things  I  remember  hearing  about  him 
was  that  at  the  time  of  the  great  fire  he  pro- 
posed blowing  up  some  houses,  and  having 
received  permission  to  get  the  gunpowder 
from  Governor's  Island,  he  went  for  it  and 
returned  with  it  in  a  small  open  boat, 
and  it  was  the  means  of  stopping  the  fire. 
He  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Assem- 


blies, and  used  to  be  called  the  Pink,  be- 
cause he  was  so  handsome  and  elegant. 
The  soul  of  hospitality,  generous,  large- 
minded,  and  never  bearing  malice  himself, 
he  never  expected  to  find  it  in  others.  I 
can  remember  in  much  later  days  how  he 
would  sometimes  be  telling  of  a  pleasant 
conversation  with  some  one  and  would  sud- 
denly break  off  in  the  middle  with:  ''Bless 
my  soul,  so-and-so  wasn't  on  speaking 
terms  with  me.  I  forgot  all  about  it — just 
went  up  to  him.  I  thought  he  looked  rather 
funny."  And  that  would  be  the  end  of  it. 
He  was  always  keenly  interested  in  politics 
and  in  all  public  questions  wherever  he 
might  be.  Within  my  own  remembrance, 
when  we  were  living  in  Elizabeth  and  after- 
ward at  Oyster  Bay,  all  the  torchlight  pro- 
cessions used  to  come  to  our  house,  and  he 
w^ould  go  out  and  make  a  little  speech,  and 
then  treat  them  all  to  lemonade  and  cake, 
or  some  similar  mild  refreshment.  Prettv 
nearly  all  the  French  w^ho  came  to  New  York 
came  to  him,  from  Lafayette  down,  and  I 
quite  well  remember  the  beautiful  gold- 
faced  watch  which  was  given  him  by  the 
French  in  New  York  as  a  mark  of  their  es- 
teem. 

My  father's  first  wife  died  young,  leaving 
seven  children.  I  do  not  know  whether 
the  banking-house  failed  before  or  after  her 
death;  I  only  know  that  it  was  an  honora- 
ble failure.  In  October,  1826,  he  married 
my  mother,  Henrietta  Liston  Low.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  Nicholas  Low,  of  New 
York,  who  was  a  great  friend  of  both  my 
grandfather  King  and  Mr.  Gracie.  The 
three  families  were  very  intimate.  As 
there  were,  in  the  course  of  time,  six  of  us 
younger  children,  we  were  an  enormous 
family,  but  I  must  say,  a  united  one. 
When  my  father  and  my  Uncles  John  and 
James  were  young  men,  they  agreed  among 
themselves  that,  if  in  a  discussion,  any  one 
of  the  three  should  become  at  all  warm,  the 
other  two  would  immediately  drop  the 
subject.  Consequently,  they  never  had  a 
quarrel,  and  were  the  most  devoted  broth- 
ers. They  all  had  large  families  who  were 
more  like  brothers  and  sisters  than  cousins. 
My  father  and  mother  never  allowed  us  to 
grumble  or  be  cross.  "  The  family  is  much 
too  large  to  be  put  about  by  the  ill  humors 
of  any  one  member  of  it.  If  cross,  go 
awav  until  vou  can  recover  yourself;  if  ill, 
go  to  bed  and  we  will  send  for  the  doctor." 


A  Gentleman  of  the  Old  School 


613 


He  was  half  a  doctor  himself,  so  tender  and 
gentle  if  any  of  us  really  were  ill.  We  were 
never  allowed  to  indulge  in  rough  jokes. 
^"Jeii  de  main,  jeu  de  vilaiu,^'  he  always 
said.  Neither  were  we  permitted  to  say 
that  we  were  afraid,  or  that  we  could  not 
do  a  thing.  He  said  that  no  such  words 
as  jear  or  caw'/  existed  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. 

My  own  recollections  begin  with  the 
Elizabeth  days  and  our  life  at  Cherry 
Lawn.  Well  do  I  remember  old  Saint 
John's  Church,  all  painted  white,  with  the 
memorial  tablets  around  the  walls;  and  the 
choir  in  the  gallery  at  the  foot  of  the  church. 
And  then  the  gray  dove  in  a  gray  cloud,  so 
pretty  and  soft,  which  Air.  Edwards  painted 
on  the  bare  white  wall  behind  the  altar,  but 
which  was  washed  out  because  somebody 
considered  it  too  high-church.  The  same 
somebody  also  objected  to  flowers  for  the 
same  reason;  which  reminds  me  of  a  story 
my  mother  told  us  of  Dr.  Hawkes,  of  New 
York,  standing  up  in  the  chancel  and  an- 
nouncing: "There  will  be  no  flowers  used 
in  decorating  the  church  because  a  weak 
brother — and  a  very  weak  brother  he  must 
be — has  objected."  In  the  side  aisles  of 
Saint  John's  were  four  square  pews.  We 
had  one  with  a  window  looking  into  the  Sun- 
day-school behind,  and  didn't  that  window- 
ledge  make  a  fine  place  to  play  railroad, 
with  all  the  available  prayer-books  for 
cars!  On  coming  into  church  my  father 
always  stood  for  a  moment  holding  his  hat 
against  the  wall,  and  said  his  prayers  into 
it,  as  they  say.  He  and  my  mother  sat 
side  by  side,  the  rest  very  much  according 
to  their  ages,  the  very  littlest  with  them, 
and  the  other  small  ones  on  a  lower  seat 
with  their  backs  to  the  chancel.  The  pew 
was  so  large  that  there  were  two  benches 
facing  the  chancel,  one  in  front  of  the  other, 
and  also  one  or  two  side  places.  Mr. 
Moore  was  our  rector,  good  old  man,  with 
I  don't  know  how  many  children.  The 
youngest  was  called  Grant  Moore,  which 
the  parishioners  thought  superfluous.  On 
one  Sunday  in  the  month  all  the  children 
of  the  church  used  to  he  asseml)led  around 
the  chancel  at  the  afternoon  service  to  1)e 
catechized  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  con- 
gregation. It  was  a  most  terrible  ordeal, 
especially  when  it  came  to  your  duty  to- 
ward man,  and  the  last  answer  of  all — im- 
possible to  rememl^er! 


We  had  a  rockaway  and  two  old  horses, 
Jack  and  Tom,  who  did  all  the  ploughing 
and  all  the  going  back  and  forth,  and  were 
borrowed  for  all  the  funerals.  We  had  a 
yellow  Cherokee  pony,  Billy  by  name,  who 
was  perfectly  gentle  and  equally  obstinate. 
When  four  or  five  of  us  got  on  him  at  once 
he  would  stop  in  some  nice,  soft,  grassy 
place  and  dump  us.  We  had  a  donkey, 
too — also  obstinate — nice  gray  Jennie,  with 
a  small  brown  son,  Neddy.  We  used  to 
be  out  in  all  weathers  and  take  the  most 
delightful  walks,  my  small  sister  always 
coming  between  me  and  any  stray  geese 
who  might  be  in  the  road,  saying  in  the 
most  important  way:  ''I  thuppose  I  mutht 
drive  the  geethe  away  from  Gert,"  and  then 
I  would  be  ashamed  of  being  such  a  sneak, 
as  she  was  smaller  than  I — but  I  let  her 
come  between  me  and  the  geese  all  the 
same!  She  was  always  perfectly  fearless, 
could  even  then  climb  like  a  cat,  and  as  she 
grew  older  could  swim  like  a  fish  and  sail 
a  boat  as  well  as  any  boy.* 

But  the  great  event  in  our  young  lives 
was  the  dancing-class.  The  old  French- 
man, Chariaud,  who  taught  three  genera- 
tions, was  our  teacher.  We  had  a  lesson 
on  Friday  evening,  and  another  early  Satur- 
day morning,  so  that  he  might  get  back  to 
town  for  more  classes.  He  played  the  vio- 
lin himself,  and  I  can  see  him  now,  with  his 
violin  under  his  chin,  leading  us  in  the 
grand  march  and  then  stepping  off  to  one 
side  to  look  after  the  children  who  were  be- 
hind. The  Spanish  dance,  the  schottische, 
the  polka-redowa,  were  the  dances,  after 
we  had  got  through  the  first  position,  the 
second  position,  and  so  on.  Such  a  happy 
carriage-load  of  children  as  used  to  be  taken 
down  to  the  early  morning  class,  all  in  our 
nice  little  calicoes  and  ginghams,  made  with 
low  necks  and  short  sleeves,  with  our  ])anta- 
lets,  nicely  tucked,  coming  down  to  our 
ankles,  our  very  full  skirts  almost  up  to  our 
knees,  and  our  hair  well  curled!  I  had 
thirty-two  ringlets,  and  had  to  stand  on  a 
chair  for  an  hour  to  have  them  done.  It 
was  no  joke  to  dress  a  child  in  those  days — 
or  indeed  for  a  cliild  to  l)e  dressed.  I  can 
see  mv  mother  making  our  little  l)lue 
dresses;  I  can  hear  tlie  ])eac()ck  stjuawk  in 
the  big  weeping  willow  behind  the  nursery. 
Our  nurse  was  Elise,  a  French  Protestant, 
who  remained  with  us  as  our  maid  after  we 

♦The  little  sister  is  now  Miulame  Waddington. 


G14 


A   Gentleman  of  the  Old  School 


were  grown  uj),  until  many  years  later  we 
j)cnsioned  her  otT. 

I  remember  another  old  Frenchman,  M. 
Bacquet,  who  had  a  school,  and  classes  in 
French  for  outsiders.  I  have  a  vivid  recol- 
lection of  the  green-bound  phrase-book, 
and  the  ''Recueil  Choisi";  and  we  had 
Telemaque — "Calypso  ne  pouvait  se  con- 
soler"—and  Gray's  "Elegy,"  which  my  sis- 
ter alwavs  had  to  learn  for  a  punishment. 
Peter  Parley  was  our  delight,  and  how 
beautifully  we  painted  Mrs.  Schuyler  burn- 
ing the  corn  and  Columbus's  three  ships! 
Our  lessons  with  our  English  governess 
always  began  with  a  chapter  of  Girdle- 
stone's  "Commentaries  on  the  Bible,"  after 
we  had  had  family  prayers  read  down-stairs 
out  of  a  beautiful  old  square  prayer-book. 
^liss  Edwards,  our  governess,  always  had 
her  sewing  while  she  was  teaching  us,  and 
I  can  hear  her  now,  stroking  the  gathers, 
and  can  feel  the  "thimble  pies"  on  top  of 
my  head  which  she  used  to  give  us  when  we 
were  naughty.  What  a  dance  we  must  have 
led  her,  poor  young  thing,  only  fifteen  when 
she  came  to  usl  But  she  was  a  capital 
teacher;  we  were  all  thoroughly  grounded. 
And  we  always  had  quantities  of  books 
about.  We  were  very  carefully  taught  to 
sew,  too,  and  to  fold  letters,  as  it  was  before 
the  time  of  envelopes. 

In  the  library  was  a  large  round  table 
with  small  drawers  all  around  it  and  a 
leather  cover  fitted  into  the  top.  There  we 
always  sat  in  the  evening,  one  of  the  elder 
sisters  generally  reading  aloud  for  an  hour. 
"Ferdinand  and  Isabella"  I  remember,  for 
one  thing.  At  nine  o'clock  precisely  my 
mother  would  put  up  her  work  and  say  that 
she  was  going  into  French  society  for  an 
hour,  and  would  then  bury  herself  in  "Les 
Trois  Mousquetaires."  At  one  time  her 
little  old  cottage  piano  which  she  had  had 
when  a  girl  was  in  the  dining-room  back 
of  the  library,  and  those  who  wanted  to 
play  and  sing  could  go  off  there.  The 
rooms  did  not  communicate,  fortunately 
for  the  readers.  I  remember  the  old  music 
books  with  their  pink  and  blue  leaves: 
"Those  Evening  Bells,"  "By  the  Banks  of 
Guadalquivir,"  etc.  But  the  joy  of  the 
house  was  the  large  drawing-room,  up  one 
step,  with  large  doors;  and  there  such  mys- 
terious packages  used  to  arrive  for  days  and 
weeks  before  Christmas,  the  doors  being 
kept  constantly  locked.     But  there  were 


side-lights,  very  pretty  ones,  and  through 
them  we  peered  and  saw  the  mysterious 
packages.  And  what  glee  when  the  mar- 
ried sons  and  daughters  began  to  arrive 
with  all  their  children  and  were  packed  into 
a  house  already  as  full  as  an  egg!  Early 
on  Christmas  morning  we  all  raced  down 
to  the  drawing-room,  where  we  found  the 
doors  at  last  thrown  open,  an  enormous 
Christmas  log  burning  on  the  hearth,  and 
the  children's  presents  arranged  around  the 
room.  There  were  always  two  great  boxes 
of  Stewart's  candy — one  of  broken  candy, 
one  of  sugar-plums. 

My  father  and  mother  were  the  iife  and 
soul  of  everything.  She  was  to  the  full  as 
entertaining  as  he,  and  nothing  was  ever 
any  fun  to  him  unless  she  was  with  him. 
No  matter  how  he  might  be  occupied,  if 
she  came  into  the  room  he  put  everything 
down  to  ask  her  what  she  had  been  doing — 
smiling  at  her  and  twirling  his  eye-glasses 
around  his  finger.  Every  day,  when  he 
came  home  from  his  office  we  ran  half-way 
to  the  station  to  meet  him,  and  fell  upon 
him  to  search  his  pockets  for  the  trifles 
which  he  always  brought  us.  We  all  doted 
on  him  always,  and  were  enchanted  with 
everything  he  did,  either  in  public  or  pri- 
vate— were  so  proud  whenever  he  made  a 
speech.  He  used  to  say,  "  I  never  saw  such 
foolish  children,"  but  he  was  pleased  all 
the  same.  One  of  my  nieces  writes  to  me: 
"I  remember  the  happy  days  when  my  be- 
loved grandfather  was  the  centre  around 
whom  we  all  revolved.  He  was  to  me  al- 
ways the  handsomest,  cleverest,  and  dearest 
man  in  the  world,  as  well  as  the  most  dis- 
tinguished, and  so  good  to  every  one  of  his 
grandchildren.  I  think  of  him  at  Cherry 
Lawn,  where  he  lived  so happily,surrounded 
by  his  children,  grandchildren,  and  count- 
less dogs,  and  how  happy  he  was  when  he 
got  us  all  in  the  big  carriage  and  down  into 
the  town,  picking  up  every  one  he  saw  that 
looked  tired  or  old." 

My  father's  ever-ready  hospitality  added 
an  element  of  the  unexpected  to  the  family 
life.  On  one  occasion,  when  he  had  gone 
to  a  political  meeting  and  had  already  in- 
vited I  don't  know  how  many  people  to 
lunch,  my  mother  asked  one  of  my  cous- 
ins how  many  more  his  Uncle  Charles  had 
asked : 

"I  don't  quite  know.  Aunt  Henrietta,  but 
the  last  people  I  heard  him  invite  were  a 


A   Gentleman  of  the  Old  School 


615 


deputation  of  thirty  gentlemen  on  horse- 
back, with  their  horses." 

Upon  which  my  mother  had  everything 
cooked  that  she  could  lay  her  hands  on,  had 
all  the  available  chairs  brought  down,  did 
everything  possible,  and  then  put  on  her 
bonnet  and  walked  out  of  the  house,  saying 
that  she  was  ashamed  to  stay  and  see  the 
fiasco.  But  there  was  no  fiasco — plenty  to 
eat,  plenty  of  chairs,  and  all  most  success- 
ful. 

General  Scott,  who  then  lived  in  Eliza- 
beth, had  a  habit  of  spending  every  Sunday 
afternoon  with  my  father,  and  I  well  remem- 
ber those  summer  days  when  they  sat  in  the 
large  hall  near  the  open  door,  and  I  used  to 
plant  my  little  chair  between  my  father's 
knees  and  listen,  fascinated,  while  they 
talked  about  the  Mexican  War.  The  gen- 
eral and  his  wife  were  never  in  love  with 
each  other  except  when  apart.  She  ad- 
mired him  immensely  for  all  that  he  was, 
and  he  greatly  relished  her  wit,  and  they 
wrote  long  letters  to  one  another.  They 
had  four  beautiful  daughters,  to  whom  he 
gave  Roman  names,  while  she  gave  them 
what  she  considered  Christian  names.  He 
called  them  Virginia,  Cornelia,  Camilla, 
and  Marcella.  I  can  only  remember  her 
name  for  Camilla,  which  was  Adeline.  He 
would  say:  ''  Camilla  does  so  and  so."  To 
which  she  would  reply:  "Yes,  Adeline  al- 
ways does."  He  was  very  particular  about 
pronunciation.  One  of  his  aides  of  whom 
he  was  very  fond  once  said  before  him, 
''Cheek  by  jole.^'  "Cheek  by  jowl,  cap- 
tain Pegram,"  he  corrected.  "H-O-W-L, 
howl." 

"Cheek  by  jole,  general,"  retorted  the 
captain.     "B-O-W-L,  bowl." 

My  niece  reminds  me  of  the  games  of 
whist,  when  the  general  "frightened  us  all 
except  grandpa  by  his  violent  temper  when 
his  partner  played  the  wrong  card,  till  at 
last  he  had  to  play  dummy,  for  no  one  would 
play  with  him,  he  abused  them  so." 

When  we  lived  in  Elizabeth  my  father 
was  editing  The  American,  which,  althougli 
it  attained  a  very  high  standard  morally 
and  intellectually,  was  not  a  financial  suc- 
cess. After  he  gave  it  up  he  was  associated 
with  General  Watson  Wel)b  in  The  Courier 
and  Enquirer,  but  that  venture  was  no  more 
successful  than  the  other.  In  financial 
matters,  as  in  everything  else  in  his  life,  he 
was  as  trusting  as  a  child — too  abs(ilutely 


straightforward  and  honorable  himself  to 
suspect  that  anyone  else  could  be  different. 
It  was  after  the  last  newspaper  venture  that 
he  was  made  president  of  Columbia  Col- 
lege. He  was  from  the  first  enthusiastic- 
ally interested  in  his  work  there,  full  of 
plans  and  ideas  for  the  college,  wishing  to 
make  it  the  great  university  which  it  has 
since  become.  Socially,  of  course,  he  was 
as  prominent  as  ever.  I  remember  that 
he  was  always  much  in  request  to  preside 
at  public  dinners  and  to  make  speeches  on 
all  sorts  of  occasions — which  he  did  ex- 
tremely well.  One  day,  many  years  after, 
while  walking  about  the  Acropolis  at 
Athens,  Mr.  Abram  Hewitt  told  me  that 
he  remembered  my  father's  address  at  the 
opening  of  the  Croton  Reservoir  as  a  model 
of  what  such  an  address  should  be;  and 
that  when  he,  himself,  was  to  speak  at  the 
opening  of  the  new  reservoir,  he  made  a 
great  effort  to  get  my  father's  speech,  in 
order  to  read  it  over  before  preparing  his 
own. 

When  I  recall  the  men  who  came  to  the 
house  either  as  intimate  friends,  or  as  oc- 
casional visitors,  such  names  as  Washing- 
ton Irving,  Ogden Hoffman,  Reverdy  John- 
son, Edward  Everett,  Daniel  Webster,  and 
Thackeray  rise  to  my  mind,  with  many, 
many  others;  but  with  the  thoughtlessness 
of  youth  I  took  them  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  my  memories  of  them  are  more  or  less 
vague.  Circumstances,  as  well  as  his  own 
talents  and  character,  placed  my  father  in 
a  position  to  witness  and  take  part  in  many 
of  the  most  interesting  events  of  his  time, 
and  he  naturally  made  the  most  of  every 
opportunity.  Unfortunately,  few  records 
of  his  life  have  been  preserved.  He  did 
not  have,  to  any  great  extent,  the  letter- 
writing  habit,  and  his  diary,  which  must 
have  contained  much  that  was  interesting, 
was  lost  after  his  death. 

When  we  went  to  live  in  Xew  York  tlie 
college  was  at  the  foot  of  Park  Place  on 
Church  Street.  As 'the  President's  house 
was  not  large  enough  for  us,  we  had  also 
the  top  story  of  Professor  Drisler's  house, 
with  a  door  cut  through  to  connect  it  with 
ours.  We  must  have  driven  Professor 
Drisler  wild  with  our  antics  over  his  head. 
When  the  noise  became  unendurable  we 
used  to  hear  raj)pings  from  below,  as  a  hint 
to  be  ({uiet.  \Vlien  the  college  was  moved 
up  into  the  old  Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum 


C16 


A  Gentleman  of  the  Old  School 


on  Forty-ninth  Street,  we  had  an  apart- 
ment in'  the  building — not  an  apartment 
all  on  one  floor,  but  a  perpendicular  slice  of 
the  building  arranged  as  a  house,  with  its 
own  system  of  staircases  and — what  was 
very  pleasant — a  fine  broad  piazza.  After 
some  years  these  rooms  were  all  needed  for 
the  college,  and  we  went  and  lived  for  two 
years  in  "a  furnished  house  on  Fourteenth 
Street,  while  they  built  a  president's  house; 
but  we  had  not  lived  in  it  very  long  when 
mv  father  resigned.  Many  were  the  pranks 
that  were  played  up  there  in  the  college. 
We  were  a  lively  family,  and  w^e  amused 
ourselves  extremely.  We  had  two  pianos 
in  the  house,  and  how  they  did  go,  both  at 
once,  my  mother  standing  between  and 
beating  time.  When  my  brocher  Cornelius's 
eldest  boy — a  little  fellow  in  a  white  frock 
— was  living  with  us,  the  entire  family, 
headed  by  my  father  and  mother,  danced 
the  Lancers  with  him  every  night  before  he 
went  to  bed. 

We  always  attended  Grace  Church, 
where  we  owned  the  Low  pew — a  family 
inheritance;  and  one  of  my  most  vivid 
memories  is  of  the  beautiful  music.  How 
many  memories  are  bound  up  with  Grace 
Church!  For  very  many  years  all  of  the 
family  have  been  buried  from  there  and 
taken  from  there  to  Jamaica — my  father 
and  mother,  brothers  and  sisters.  I  think 
that  my  cousin,  Mrs.  Henry  Van  Rensse- 
laer's funeral  was  the  last  one  where  long 
white  scarfs  were  given  and  worn.  All 
our  collars  and  cuffs  used  to  be  made  out 
of  the  funeral  linen,  which  was  the  per- 
quisite of  each  pall-bearer. 

We  never  thought  of  going  away  for  the 
whole  summer — nobody  did  in  those  days. 
A  month  or  six  w^eks  was  our  longest  ab- 
sence from  home.  We  went  two  summers 
to  College  Point,  where  were  also  a  num- 
ber of  our  relations  and  intimate  friends. 
Such  a  colony  as  it  was,  all  with  boats,  all 
with  pianos,  and  Johnny  Schuyler  and  my 
nephew  Rufus  with  banjos!  We  lived  on 
and  in  the  water,  the  boys  putting  on 
life-preservers  with  umbrellas  fastened  to 
them,  and  with  a  plate  of  luncheon  and 
a  book,  floating  about  comfortably.  We 
generally  ran  aground  somewhere  when  we 
went  out  in  the  boat  and  over  the  bovs 
would  tumble  and  pull  or  push  her  off;  or 
we  would  get  becalmed;  but  nobody  cared. 
We  were  all  young  and  happy,  and  nobody 


younger  than  my  father.  It  was  "  Father!" 
''Grandpal"  "Uncle  Charles  1"  all  the  time. 
If  any  of  the  boys  wanted  to  go  out  in  a 
particularly  crank  boat  when  there  was  a 
bit  of  a  breeze  it  was  always  he  whom  they 
begged  to  go  with  them.  One  warm  day 
w^hen  he  was  sitting  in  his  slippers  on  the 
piazza,  one  of  the  young  nephews  proposed 
a  sail  in  the  Skipjack,  rather  a  crank  boat — 
and  rather  a  breeze.  Off  they  went,  just 
as  they  were,  slippers  and  all.  A  sudden 
gust  struck  them,  and  over  they  went.  But 
the  boat  rested  nicely  on  her  sail,  and  as  she 
went  over  my  father  climbed  up  to  the  dry 
part  and  did  not  even  wet  his  feef .  While 
they  were  waiting  for  a  boat  to  come  out 
to  them  the  Sound  steamer  came  along, 
and  there  was  a  shout  from  some  of  his 
students  who  happened  to  be  on  board  and 
recognized  their  president  in  the  gentleman 
sitting  at  his  ease  on  an  overturned  boat  in 
the  middle  of  the  Sound.  They  wanted  to 
take  him  off,  but  he  said  he  was  doing  very 
well  and  would  wait  for  the  boat  which 
was  on  its  way  to  him. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  pleasant  life  of 
city  and  country  came  the  war  and  those 
terrible  days.  My  father  longed  to  go,  and 
could  hardly  get  over  it  that  he  should  be 
too  old,  but  he  was  then  seventy-one.  He 
always  expressed  the  keenest  envy  of  Gen- 
eral Wads  worth,  that  fine  old  soldier,  a  few 
years  his  junior.  He  did  all  he  could,  how- 
ever, encouraging  and  cheering  those  who 
did  go  with  his  inspiring  words.  He  was 
not  badly  represented  by  three  sons  and  two 
grandsons;  and  of  course  many  of  his  stu- 
dents went.  We  all  remember  him  in  so 
many  aspects  of  enthusiastic  devotion  to 
the  flag — running  from  the  dinner-table  to 
see  the  Massachusetts  regiment  marching 
by  to  the  tune  of  ''John  Brown's  Body," 
and  standing  bareheaded  on  the  steps, 
waving  a  dinner  napkin  and  cheering; 
calling  his  grandson  into  his  library  to  say 
good-by  to  him,  and  laying  his  hand  ten- 
derly on  the  boy's  shoulder,  as  he  said:  *'I 
want  you,  my  boy,  to  remember  you  have 
a  great  name  in  trust.  Be  careful  not  to 
tarnish  it."  Adding,  with  an  irrepressible 
interest  in  a  sensation  which  in  all  his  varied 
life  he  had  never  experienced — the  sensa- 
tion of  a  man  in  battle — ''I  want  you  to 
write  to  me  after  your  first  battle  and  tell 
me  honestly  if  you  were  afraid  under  fire. 
Don't  be  ashamed  to  tell  me — I  want  to 


A  Gentleman  of  the   Old  School 


017 


know  exactly  how  you  feel."  Later  he 
presented  the  flag  to  the  first  colored  regi- 
ment raised  in  New  York,  and  the  scene 
was  painted  for  the  Union  League  Clulj 
and  his  words  of  presentation  engrossed 
on  parchment. 

During  the  riots  in  New  York  we  were 
at  Newport.  My  father  wanted  my  Uncle 
John  to  go  back  with  him  at  once  to  ride 
through  the  streets  with  the  mayor  and 
show  a  bold  front — but  it  could  not  be  done. 
After  the  rioters  had  burned  the  Colored 
Orphan  Asylum  they  came  on  to  attack  the 
president's  house,  as  my  father  was  known 
to  be  a  friend  to  the  negroes.  My  brother 
William  was  there  alone,  and  he  said  he 
could  never  forget  the  regular  tramp,  tramp, 
as  they  approached  the  house.  They  were 
on  the  point  of  burning  it  when  the  priest 
from  the  little  Roman  Catholic  church 
near  where  the  cathedral  now  stands  ap- 
peared and  harangued  them,  telling  them 
that  the  president's  family  were  very  kind 
to  all  the  poor  in  the  neighborhood.  He 
induced  them  to  disperse.  Had  they  burned 
our  house  the  whole  college  would  have 
gone. 

It  seemed  as  if  all  the  war  news  came  at 
night,  just  as  everybody  had  gone  to  bed. 
When  we  heard  the  extras  called  every  one 
would  fly  down-stairs  and  open  their  doors 
in  any  sort  of  dress  or  undress  to  get  the 
papers;  and  windows  would  be  opened  all 
up  and  down  the  street  for  the  news.  This 
was  when  we  were  in  Fourteenth  Street. 
We  were  not  left  without  our  personal  share 
of  sorrow.  My  youngest  brother,  Augus- 
tus, the  pride  of  the  family,  contracted  ma- 
laria while  in  camp  at  Washington,  and  died 
when  he  was  barely  twenty-one  years  old; 
my  brother  Cornelius  was  wounded  in  the 
battle  of  the  Wilderness;  and  other  ill- 
nesses and  deaths  were  bound  up  in  these. 
My  father  never  got  over  it. 

Hitherto  he  had  been  singularly  young  in 
feeling.  My  niece  writes:  'T  remember 
very  distinctly  one  day  sitting  in  the  front 
parlor,  with  the  large  mirror  on  the  side. 
Grandma  was  sitting  there  also,  when 
grandpa  came  in,  and  after  speaking  to 
her  in  the  tender,  courteous  way  he  always 
had  with  her,  he  walked  to  the  mirror,  and 
stood  for  some  time  looking  at  himself  and 
smiling.  Then  he  turned  and  said:  'lam 
trying  to  realize  that  I  am  an  old  man.  I 
don't  feel  old,  but  one  of  the  students,  as  I 


])assed  said :  "  There  goes  the  old  president"; 
and  I  was  quite  startled  at  the  word.'  Of 
course  we  were  indignant  and  assured  him 
he  wasn't  an  old  man,  but  he  spoke  of  it 
.several  times  afterward,  never  sadly,  but 
with  cheerful  resignation.  Certainly  he 
didn't  seem  old  when  he  showed  the  French 
princes  how  to  take  a  short  cut  over  a  fence, 
when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  reviewing  the  army. 
They  were  all  four  on  horseback.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln and  his  staff  went  through  a  gate,  and 
the  French  princes  followed,  but  grand[)a 
took  his  horse  over  the  fence  like  a  boy.  He 
told  of  it  afterward  with  such  glee." 

But  when  he  was  seventy-five  he  decided 
to  give  up  his  position  in  the  college.  The 
war  and  its  consequences  had  agedhim,and, 
although  he  still  retained  wonderful  buoy- 
ancy, he  felt  that  it  was  as  good  a  time  as 
any  to  resign.  After  his  resignation,  which 
took  effect  in  the  summer  of  1864,  we 
rented  a  house  at  Oyster  Bay,  where  we 
remained  for  a  year.  After  the  fall  of  Rich- 
mond my  father,  feeling  that  the  war  was 
practically  over,  consented  to  take  us 
abroad,  and  we  sailed  from  New  York  in 
June,  1865,  on  a  French  steamer.  Al- 
though we  sailed  on  a  Friday,  it  brought  us 
no  bad  luck.  On  the  contrary,  we  picked 
up  some  shipwrecked  people  from  an  emi- 
grant ship,  which  had  caught  fire  while 
being  fumigated.  In  the  first  small  boat 
there  were,  as  some  one  called  out,  the  cap- 
tain, a  woman,  a  pig,  and  some  other  peo- 
ple. In  the  second  was  the  woman's  baby, 
which  she  had  thought  lost.  Great  was 
the  excitement,  everybody  giving  clothes, 
helping  in  every  way.  The  baby  had  never 
been  baptized;  all  said  it  must  be  done, 
and  my  father  was  dc})utcd^to  do  it,  there 
being  no  clergyman  on  board.  Decks  were 
cleared,  an  altar  and  font  im]irovised,  sail- 
ors all  piped  up,  passengers  assembled,  and 
the  baby  boy  was  christened  Bocande  (the 
name  of  our  captain),  followed  by  the  name 
of  our  ship,  which  I  do  not  remember. 
Then  the  captain,  who  was  the  godfather, 
disappeared  for  a  few  moments  and  returned 
with  a  box  of  drai^ccs,  the  sweets  which  are 
always  given  at  French  and  Italian  diristcn- 
ings. 

We  landed  at  Brest  and  went  on  to 
Paris,  and  from  there  to  Cologne,  up  tlie 
Rhine,  and  to  Homburg,  for  my  father's 
gout,  and  then  back  to  Paris  to  clothe  our 
large  family  before  going  to  Rome  for  the 


618 


A   Gentleman  of  the  Old  School 


winter.  Travelling  with  my  father  was  al- 
ways a  delight,  but  I  am  aghast  when  I  re- 
member that  at  the  age  of  seventy-six  he 
started  out  in  charge  of  this  large  party, 
consisting  of  his  wife,  four  daughters,  a 
small  grandson,  an  old  friend,  Dr.  Chet- 
woode,  and  our  old  Elise,  who  was  rather  a 
hel])less  person  in  travelling,  and  with  feel- 
ings to  be  considered!  At  Paris,  however, 
we  got  a  man  servant,  who  relieved  him 
from  some  of  his  cares. 

We  went  to  Rome  by  slow  stages — an  en- 
chanting journey — never  travelling  at  night, 
never  starting  very  early  in  the  morning. 
At  Nice  we  secured  a  large  vehicle,  some- 
thing like  an  omnibus,  only  more  comforta- 
ble, in  which  we  w^nt  as  far  as  Genoa.  Our 
luggage  was  piled  so  high  on  top  that  in  one 
case  we  could  not  go  through  the  gates  of  a 
town,  but  had  to  make  a  detour.  From 
Genoa  we  went  on,  by  steamer,  diligence, 
and  rail,  until  at  last  we  reached  Rome. 
My  brother  Rufus,  my  father's  eldest  son, 
was  at  that  time  the  American  minister  at 
Rome — the  last  minister  sent  by  the  United 
States  to  the  Pope.  It  seems  that  during 
one  of  his  interviews  Pio  Nono  asked  him 
whether  he  received  good  news  from  Amer- 
ica, expecting,  of  course,  an  answer  relating 
to  public  events.  "Oh,  yes,  your  Holi- 
ness," answered  my  brother  with  enthusi- 
asm. ''Such  excellent  news!  My  father 
is  coming!"  Much  to  the  Pope's  amuse- 
ment. 

We  all  lived  together  in  the  Palazzo  Sal- 
viati,  in  an  apartment  large  enough  to  ac- 
commodate the  Chancellerie,  the  double 
family,  and  also  the  American  chapel,  as 
no  Protestant  services  w^re  allowed,  ex- 
cept in  the  embassies  and  legations.  The 
Salviatis  were  all  that  was  most  black  and 
religious,  and  did  not  more  than  half-like 
the  stream  of  carriages  in  front  of  their  big 
doors  on  a  Sunday  morning,  the  string  of 
people  going  up  the  great  stairs  to  a  Prot- 
estant service,  and  the  crowds  of  young 
Italians  who  used  to  flock  about  the  en- 
trance to  see  the  pretty  American  girls.  Dr. 
Lyman,  afterward  Bishop  of  North  Caro- 
lina, was  the  chaplain. 

Among  the  Americans  living  in  Rome  at 
that  time  were  Miss  Cushman;  the  sculp- 
tor Story,  who,  with  his  wife  and  three 
children,  had  an  apartment  at  one  end  of 
the  Palazzo  Barberini;  the  artist  Tikon 
and  his  wife,  who  were  equally  high  up  at 


the  other  end;  and  Terry,  the  artist,  who 
had  married  the  handsome  widow  of  Craw- 
ford, the  sculptor  (a  niece  of  Sam  W^ard). 
They  had  a  charming  apartment  in  the 
Palazzo  Odescalchi,  back  of  the  Salviati. 
Marion  Crawford — or  Frank,  as  he  was 
called  in  those  days — was  there,  a  hand- 
some lad.  We  were  soon  received  by  the 
Pope  in  private  audience.  We  did  not  kiss 
his  hand,  but  only  made  the  three  curtsies. 
He  and  my  father  spoke  together  in  Latin 
— the  Latin  of  Rome  and  the  Latin  of  Har- 
row. He  seemed  interested  in  the  family 
group,  and  said  that  he  did  not  often  have 
three  generations  of  a  family  presented  to 
him  at  once,  certainly  not  from  America; 
and  then  turning  to  my  brother's  daughter, 
a  girl  of  eighteen,  he  added  with  his  benign 
smile  that  he  supposed  there  would  soon  be 
a  fourth.  He  was  evidently  pleased  with 
his  joke,  for  Cardinal  Antonelli,  who  dined 
with  my  brother  not  long  after,  spoke  of  it, 
much  to  the  indignation  of  Fanny,  who 
did  not  think  it  at  all  nice  for  the  Pope  and 
his  cardinals  to  be  making  such  jokes  about 
her.  Antonelli,  of  course,  came  in  full 
canonicals,  and  my  mother  chanced  to  de- 
scribe his  dress  very  minutely  in  a  letter  to 
a  friend  in  New  York.  Not  long  after  the 
friend  happened  to  learn  from  Booth  that 
he  was  in  some  perplexity  as  to  certain  de- 
tails in  his  dress  for  Richelieu,  which  was 
soon  to  be  given.  She  produced  my  moth- 
er's letter,  and  Booth  arranged  his  costume 
from  it.  Probably  to  us  the  most  amusing 
thing  in  connection  with  Pius  the  Ninth 
was  my  mother's  extraordinary  resemblance 
to  him.  Many  persons  noticed  it,  but  it  was 
when  she  was  in  her  nightgown  and  night- 
cap that  she  was  the  living  image  of  him. 

A  great  occasion  that  winter  was  the  fa- 
mous ball  given  by  the  Princess  Borghese, 
where  the  guests  were  expected  to  come  in 
the  dress  of  their  ancestors,  in  most  cases 
copied  from  the  portraits  in  their  galleries. 
Vittoria  Colonna  was  there  as  the  Vittoria 
of  Michael  Angelo's  time;  Marc  Antonio 
Colonna  as  the  old  Admiral  Stephen  Colon- 
na; Emilio  Malatesta,  looking  excessive- 
ly handsome  as  the  Paolo  of  Francesca  da 
Rimini.  It  was  a  perfectly  beautiful  ball 
in  that  splendid  setting,  quite  apart  from 
its  historic  interest. 

The  following  spring  my  mother  was 
called  to  America  by  some  business  matters, 
and  took  one  of  my  sisters  with  her.     The 


A  Gentleman  of  the  Old  School 


G19 


rest  of  us  went  to  England  to  meet  them  on 
theirreturn,and\vhile\ve\vereall  in  London, 
staying  at  Fenton's  Hotel  in  Saint  James's 
Street,  my  father  went  to  Harrow  to  revisit 
his  old  haunts,  and  the  head  master,  Dr. 
Butler,  invited  us  all  down  for  Speech  Day. 
My  father  was  placed  on  the  platform  with 
the  other  distinguished  visitors,  and  had  a 
rousing  welcome  from  the  boys.  Hearing 
that  he  was  seventy-six  years  old,  they 
cheered  him  as  "  the  boy  of '76,"  which  made 
him  seem  indeed  old.  We  had  seats  di- 
rectly facing  the  stage,  and  next  to  me  was 
a  gentleman  who  kindly  told  me  who  every- 
body was.  I  heard  afterward  that  he  was 
Mr.  Trevelyan,  Lord  Macaulay's  nephew. 
When  we  went  down  to  luncheon,  where  we 
sat  at  long  tables,  Dr.  Butler  rose  and  said 
that  this  was  a  purely  festive  occasion 
where  politics  would  be  dropped.  Lord 
John  Russell's  ministry  had  just  gone  out 
and  party  feeling  ran  high.  When  my 
father  was  called  upon  for  a  speech  he  rose 
quietly,  with  his  hand  in  the  breast  of  his 
coat,  looking  so  handsome  with  his  curly 
gray  head.  He  had  a  tremendous  ovation 
— the  old  boy  from  America.  He  told  one 
or  two  anecdotes  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  his 
great  good  nature;  spoke  briefly  of  Byron, 
but  spoke  only  for  a  few  minutes,  everybody 
listening  most  intently.  When  he  sat  down 
a  gentleman  near  us  said,  *'I  would  not 
have  missed  that  for  fifty  pounds! "  Then 
Lord  John  Russell,  who  had  sons  there, 
rose  and  began  by  saying:  "As  the  minister 
falls,  the  father  rises,"  which  brought  out  a 
burst  of  applause.  I  was  very  much  struck 
by  the  awkward  way  in  which  most  of  the 
Englishmen  stood  while  speaking — some 
of  them  leaning  forward  with  both  hands 
on  the  table — and  by  their  hemming  and 
hawing;  such  a  contrast  to  my  father's 
erect  attitude  and  easy  way  of  speaking. 
It  was  a  beautiful  day,  and  we  all  went 
out  on  the  lawn,  and  then  my  father  took 
us  to  the  old  schoolroom  where  he  and 
Uncle  John  had  cut  their  initials  on  the  pan- 
elled wall — J.  A.  K.  and  C.  K. — and  there 
they  are  still!  Then  he  showed  us  the  yew- 
tree — Byron's  favorite  spot — and  the  place 
where  they  all  used  to  run  in  the  game  of 
his  day — hare  and  hounds;    and  told  us 


about  Uncle  John's  famous  fight  with  an 
upper-class  man,  who  was  abusing  his  fag 
to  an  extent  that  an  American  couldn't 
stand,  and  how  Uncle  John  got  the  better 
of  the  bully  of  the  school. 

We  made  a  very  pleasant  journey  on  our 
way  back  to  Rome.  My  father  had  never 
made  the  grand  tour,  but  he  was  able  to 
point  out  to  us  all  the  famous  pictures, 
which  he  had  seen  in  Paris  in  Napoleon's 
time,  and  which  he  remembered  perfectly. 
Lucerne  will  always  be  associated  in  my 
mind  with  his  affection  for  Thorwaldsen's 
Lion,  the  memorial  to  the  Swiss  Guards 
who  lost  their  lives  defending  Marie  Antoi- 
nette and  Louis  XVL  He  used  to  stand 
and  gaze  at  it  for  a  long  time  together.  It 
always  seemed  to  him  so  fine  a  thing  for  a 
man  to  die  doing  his  duty.  The  old 
French  "Fais  ce  que  tu  dois,  advienne  que 
pourra"  was  his  favorite  motto.  I  have 
seen  him  standing  in  front  of  the  monument 
to  Andreas  Hofer,  repeating  the  words  on 
it  which  so  many  others  have  repeated  dur- 
ing the  centuries  since  they  were  first  ut- 
tered: "Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria 
mori."  He  always  said  that  he  could  not 
respond  to  the  petition  in  the  Litany, 
"From  sudden  death,"  for  to  die  in  battle 
seemed  to  him  the  finest  end  that  a  man 
could  make. 

When  we  returned  to  Rome  we  took  an 
apartment  in  the  Piazza  di  Spagna.  My 
father  hunted  a  great  deal  that  winter,  tak- 
ing the  fences  and  ditches  on  the  Campa- 
gna  better  than  many  a  younger  man.  He 
went  about  a  great  deal,  enjoying  every- 
thing. There,  as  elsewhere,  from  the  time 
I  can  remember,  wherever  he  went  he  was 
made  a  prominent  figure  by  the  admiration 
and  liking  which  he  excited.  I  think  that 
my  father  and  mother  were  always  singu- 
larly independent  ])crsons — -the  independ- 
ence of  perfect  simplicity  and  lack  of  self- 
consciousness.  They  went  their  own  way 
and  lived  their  own  lives,  and  people  Hocked 
around  them.  It  was  a  happy  winter,  and 
he  seemed  unusually  well  and'  strong,  but 
in  the  spring  he  liacl  a  bad  attack  of  gout. 
\\c  spent  the  summer  at  Frascati,  in  tlie 
Palazzo  Marconi,  and  there  he  died,  on 
the  27th  of  September,  1S67. 


OCCUPATION 

By  Gordon   Hall   Gerould 


Illustrations  by  James  Montgomery  Flagg 


^ix^jiH^^^id:, 


EFORE  a  wide-topped  ma- 
hogany desk  in  his  library 
Peter  Sanders  sat  reading 
court  scandals  of  Henry  the 
Second's  reign.  He  enjoyed 
the  savor  of  them.  He  had 
found  life — most  of  it — very  like  the  picture 
that  old  Walter  Map  gave  in  his  pages  of  gos- 
sip. To  be  sure,  he  failed  to  see  how  so 
shrewd  a  person  as  Map  could  have  believed 
the  prodigies  related  in  the  book ;  but  he  rec- 
ognized a  kindred  spirit  in  the  man  who  had 
jotted  down  these  anecdotes  with  sardonic 
humor  eight  centuries  before.  As  he  sat 
with  his  head  resting  on  one  pudgy  hand, 
Mr.  Sanders  found  himself  wondering  why 
he  did  not  write  a  similar  book  out  of  his 
own  experiences.  He  had  long  been  an 
enthusiastic  reader  of  Walter  Map,  but  he 
saw  no  prospect  of  ever  using  his  knowledge 
of  the  author  save  by  way  of  imitation.  He 
felt  sure  that  his  book  would  have  great 
success,  would  be  the  literary  sensation  of 
its  year.  It  would  not  lack  scandalous  ad- 
vertisement. He  might  call  it  "Trifles  of 
the  Tables,"  which  would  correspond  close- 
ly enough  to  the  original  ''De  Nugis  Curia- 
Hum,"  and  yet  mark  the  difference  of  ma- 
terials. He  smiled  at  the  notion.  After 
some  reflection,  he  recognized  that  he  could 
never  bring  himself  actually  to  publish  his 
memoirs.  He  knew  that  they  would  sell  on 
sight,  and  he  wished  t  be  forgotten  rather 
than  remembered  by  the  world.  All  the 
same,  he  might  indulge  his  humor  by  writ- 
ing the  book,  even  though  it  never  saw  the 
light.     He  needed  occupation. 

After  an  exile  of  five  years,  Mr.  Sanders 
had  for  a  month  been  back  in  this  book- 
lined  room,  living  once  more  in  the  house 
from  which  the  representatives  of  law  and 
order  had  ousted  him  as  their  triumphal 
ending  of  a  long  campaign  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  gambling.  He  had  been  the  great- 
est of  gamblers,  and  he  had  suffered  the 
severest  of  penalties.  In  process  of  time  he 
had  grown  hardened  to  a  nomadic  life,  but 
620 


he  had  never  come  to  like  it.  Now  that 
everything  was  over,  he  owed  the  authori- 
ties no  grudge  for  their  abrupt  termination 
of  his  business  career;  he  had  come  to  feel 
too  acutely  the  disadvantages  under  which 
its  long  continuance  had  placed  him.  Be- 
sides, he  had  acquired  by  much  solitary 
thinking  certain  oddly  matched  principles 
of  conduct.  He  was  sometimes  a  little  sor- 
ry that  he  had  not  made  his  fortune  another 
way,  but  he  was  always  thankful  nowadays 
that,  at  least,  he  was  no  longer  victimizing 
the  public  by  games  of  chance.  What  he 
objected  to  in  the  treatment  he  had  received 
was  his  long  exclusion  from  his  own  house. 
That  he  regarded  as  unjust.  He  never  had 
felt  other  than  resentful  about  it,  and  he  had 
been  perhaps  even  more  bitter  these  last 
weeks  than  ever  before.  After  being  deli- 
cately and  indirectly  informed  that  he  might 
again  occupy  his  house  without  fear  of  mo- 
lestation, he  had  come  back.  For  a  time 
he  had  enjoyed  the  thought  of  settling  down 
into  old  ways;  he  had  superintended  quite 
happily  the  business  of  placing  his  more  re- 
cent purchases  of  books  in  rooms  already 
well  stocked  with  rare  and  interesting  vol- 
umes; he  had  felt  a  novel  pleasure  in  look- 
ing forward  to  an  indefinite  number  of  quiet 
months  and  years  amid  the  possessions  that 
were  his  closest  bond  with  earth.  Very 
soon,  however,  he  had  realized,  as  he  walked 
through  spacious  drawing-rooms  from 
which  every  trace  of  their  former  use  had 
vanished,  that  he  needed  more  than  his  own 
roof  above  his  own  belongings  to  make  him 
happy.  Sanders's  occupation  was  gone, 
and  with  it  had  disappeared  (by  the  malev- 
olence of  the  district  attorney)  the  habit  of 
a  permanent  domicile.  He  found  himself 
aggrieved,  disappointed,  and,  as  always, 
too  much  at  leisure. 

Had  he  not  shrunk  from  the  thought  of 
exposing  his  notorious  personality  to  public 
discussion  once  more,  he  would  have  laid 
aside  his  Latin  book  and  begun  to  set  dbwn 
his  recollections  without  further  ado — from 


Occupation 


G21 


sheer  boredom.  As  it  was,  knowing  that 
he  would  be  unwilling  to  publish  what  he 
might  write,  he  merely  played  with  the  no- 
tion while  he  turned  the  pages  of  Walter 
Map  and  refreshed  his  memory  of  this  anec- 
dote or  that.  He  thought,  however,  that  he 
might  write  his  book  some  day;  and  he  be- 
lieved that  it  would  be  an  even  more  perfect 
mirror  of  his  times  than  was  Map's,  though 
he  had  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  could 
express  his  cynical  humor  with  such  terse 
exactness  as  the  archdeacon  of  Oxford. 

Mr.  Sanders  fell  to  wondering  how  he 
should  begin;  how  he  could  parallel  Map's 
elaborate  comparison  of  the  king's  court 
with  the  classical  Inferno.  ''Eadem  est 
curia,  sed  mutata  sunt  membra,"  he  read, 
turning  to  the  opening  pages  of  his  model. 
That  would  serve  him  as  a  motto,  at  all 
events.  ''  The  gull  is  always  a  gull,  though 
his  name  changes,"  he  might  translate  it. 
Yes,  he  would  some  time  set  down  his 
''Trifles  of  the  Tables,"  if  only  to  demon- 
strate to  himself  conclusively  the  tedious 
and  unprofitable  nature  of  life.  He  knew 
that  it  was  so,  and  he  could  prove  it.  In 
spite  of  Walter  Map  and  several  thousand 
other  writers,  in  spite  of  his  own  projected 
volume  and  the  spacious  luxury  of  a  library 
in  which  the  glint  of  the  fire  played  on  much 
deep-toned  mahogany,  in  spite  of  wealth  in 
securities  and  experience,  Peter  Sanders 
was  bored. 

As  he  glanced  about  the  room  in  order 
to  focus  his  disapproval  upon  concrete 
objects,  he  noticed  the  quiet  entrance  of 
Henry,  his  valet,  his  factotum,  who  had  un- 
complainingly added  the  care  of  running  a 
large  house  with  a  small  staff  of  servants  to 
his  other  duties.  Mr.  Sanders  reflected, 
following  out  his  line  of  thought,  that  Henry 
was  perhaps  the  one  experience  in  life  sur- 
passing expectations.  Unconsciously  he 
smiled. 

"What  have  you  got  for  me  to  do  now, 
Henry?"  he  asked.  "You  can't  need 
another  vacuum  cleaner  to-day,  and  it  would 
be  unreasonable  of  you  to  make  me  buy 
any  more  labor-saving  devices  for  the  laun- 
dry until  next  week.  I  sometimes  wonder 
whether  you're  not  a  socialist  in  disguise." 

"Indeed,  sir — "  protested  Henry  in 
shocked  tones;  "but  you  must  have  your 
joke,  Mr.  Sanders.  I  am  to  say  that  Mr. 
Garmany  is  below  and  would  like  to  see  you 
if  you  are  at  liberty." 


"Show  him  up,"  answered  Mr.  Sanders 
briskly,  "And,  Henry,  you  remember 
what  Mr.  Garmany  is?  It's  been  a  long 
while  since  he  was  here." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Henry,  withdrawing  with 
discreet  and  silent  step. 

Mr.  Sanders  rose  and  walked  to  the  fire- 
place, plunging  his  hands,  as  he  went,  into 
the  pockets  of  his  velvet  jacket.  He  smiled 
with  the  pleasurable  excitement  of  again 
meeting  Garmany,  whom  he  had  not  seen 
for  three  years.  He  liked  Garmany,  and 
he  trusted  him  as  much  as  he  did  most  men. 
He  knew  that  James  Garmany  had  been  a 
hard  man  to  down  from  his  start  as  a  broad- 
shouldered  "bouncer"  in  a  Bowery  dive  to 
his  retirement  with  an  ample  fortune  from 
his  position  as  political  leader  of  an  impor- 
tant district.  He  realized  (for  Peter  San- 
ders was  not  unsophisticated  and  was  in- 
clined to  cynicism)  that  such  a  career  could 
never  have  been  made  by  a  man  who  was 
wholly  scrupulous;  but  he  had  never  even 
heard  it  rumored  that,  as  saloon-keeper  or 
politician,  Garmany  had  ever  betrayed  a 
friend.  Therefore  he  trusted  him — at  least 
as  far  as  he  could  see  him;  and  he  waited 
his  entrance  with  eagerness. 

W^ithout  much  delay  James  Garmany 
was  shown  into  the  room  by  the  attentive 
Henry.  He  was  florid:  the  most  striking 
thing  about  him  was  his  floridity.  A  few 
wisps  of  white  hair  curled  along  the  top  of 
his  ruddy  and  globular  head.  In  contrast 
to  them,  a  luxuriant  and  elaborate  mus- 
tache caught  the  beholder's  attention  and 
threw  the  emphasis  of  the  face  on  an  un- 
usually powerful  jaw.  Garmany  was,  so 
Mr.  Sanders  noticed,  a  good  deal  heavier 
than  of  old,  both  in  face  and  figure.  He 
was  dressed,  without  regard  to  taste  or  ex- 
pense, most  fashionably.  Evidently  he  was 
still  proud  of  his  looks. 

The  two  men  greeted  each  other  with  the 
warmth  of  old  comrades.  Ensconced  in 
great  lounging-chairs  before  the  fire,  with 
Henry  at  hand  to  look  after  their  comfort, 
they  soon  began  to  pick  up  the  broken 
threads  of  their  friendship.  They  had  much 
to  tell  and  much  to  hear.  Neither  one  spoke 
rapidly.  Mr.  Garmany  in  ponderous  bass 
boomed  rei)lies  to  Mr.  Sanders's  good- 
natured  ironies.  They  were  in  no  haste  to 
draw  their  reunion  to  a  close.  The  evening 
was  long,  or  could  be  extended  indolinitely, 
for  they  were  healthy  men  and  foot-loose. 


622 


Occupation 


''You've  become  a  famous  globe-trotter 
latterly,  as  I  understand,"  said  Mr.  Gar- 
many.'  "It  must  be  a  line  thing  to  be  seein' 
all  parts  of  the  world.  I've  never  got  far- 
ther than  the  old  sod  of  Ireland,  myself,  not 
to  speak  of  England,  which  I  don't.  I  re- 
fuse to  recognize  the  island  of  the  oppress- 
ors as  existin',  save  for  my  tailor  in  Lon- 
don, who  is  three  parts  Irish." 

''I've  had  more  travel  than  I  could 
stomach,"  returned  Mr.  Sanders  with  a 
rather  bitter  laugh.  "  I  never  want  to  leave 
Xew  York  again — unless  to  go  to  Green- 
wood. They  couldn't  keep  me  out  of  my 
place  there  after  I  once  got  in!" 

;Mr.  Garmany  shook  his  head  solemnly. 
"  Sanders,"  he  said,  "it  ain't  right  for  a  man 
to  talk  like  that.  You're  no  older  than  me. 
This  business  must  have  got  on  your 
nerves." 

"I  suppose  it  has,"  concurred  Mr.  San- 
ders. "  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it's  been  on  my 
nerves,  planted  on  them,  for  five  years. 
There  w^asn't  anything  to  do  but  travel — 
and  pick  up  books." 

"  You've  certainly  got  a  lot  of  them,"  Mr. 
Garmany  commented;  "more  than  you 
used  to  have.  I  don't  suppose  any  man  in 
New  York  has  a  finer  collection — and  you 
readin'  them  as  you  do !  It  was  a  shame  to 
keep  you  from  them!" 

"Yes,  I  like  them,  and  I'm  proud  of 
them,  I  suppose,"  agreed  Mr.  Sanders. 
"But  what  good  are  they  to  me,  after  all, 
Garmany?" 

Mr.  Garmany  raised  a  bejewelled  hand 
and  waved  it  solemnly  at  his  compan- 
ion. "Books  ain't  life,  Sanders,"  he  said. 
"They're  like  lobster  and  champagne — 
very  good  indeed  of  an  evenin,'  but  give 
me  beefsteak  for  breakfast.  I've  read 
some,  myself." 

Peter  Sanders  laughed.  "  I  fancy  you've 
suffered  more  from  champagne  than  books, 
Jim,  taking  your  life  through.  Now, 
haven't  you?" 

"In  the  way  of  business,  perhaps  I 
have,"  admitted  Mr.  Garmany,  "though 
you'll  remember  that  I've  never  moved  in 
the  circles  of  the  Four  Hundred,  like  your- 
self. All  the  wine  that  ever  flowed  in  my 
district  I  had  to  uncork,  myself,  if  my  mem- 
ory is  correct.  You've  had  both  cham- 
pagne and  books  in  your  life,  Sanders,  and 
look  where  I  find  you,  sittin'  here  in  your 
rags  and  needin'  medicine  for  your  stomach. 


Ah,  Peter,  my  boy,  it's  a  sad  spectacle  to  a 
decent  man  like  me!"  He  transferred  his 
cigar  to  the  other  side  of  his  mouth  with  a 
skill  born  of  long  practice,  and  tilted  it  up- 
ward to  emphasize  his  jest,  though  his  clear 
blue  eyes  g^ive  no  hint  of  a  smile. 

"I'm  thinking  of  writing  a  book,"  said 
Mr.  Sanders,  amused  and  not  unwilling  to 
hear  his  friend's  views. 

"Don't  you  do  it,  Sanders.  Take  my 
advice.  That  would  be  another  one.  Be- 
sides, what  a  man  like  you  needs  is  work." 

"I  thought  it  would  give  me  occupa- 
tion," Mr.  Sanders  put  in  tentatively, 
"whether  I  got  it  printed  or  not." 

"What  a  man  like  you  needs  is  work," 
repeated  Mr.  Garmany,  ignoring  him. 
"You're  used  to  it,  and  you  ought  to  have 
it.  Now  that  you've  had  your  vacation, 
you  ought  to  be  gettin'  into  harness  again. 
If  you  don't,  you'll  soon  find  yourself  suf- 
ferin'  from  senile  decay,  or  whatever  it  is 
they  call  it  when  fine  men  go  to  the  junk- 
heap  in  the  flower  of  their  age." 

"My  retirement  wasn't  exactly  my  own 
arrangement,  you  know,"  said  Mr.  Sanders, 
allowing  a  shade  of  bitterness  to  creep  into 
his  voice.  "I  didn't  close  up  till  I  had  to. 
But  now  I've  got  nothing  to  do — even  here 
— unless  I  write  a  book  about  my  experi- 


ences 

a  7 


Twould.  make  a  great  hit,  no  doubt," 
Mr.  Garmany  answered  imperturbably. 
"I'd  put  money  into  it.  But  'twould  get 
done.  And  then  where'd  you  be  ?  You  be 
after  havin'  to  write  another.  Business 
keeps  you  goin'.  Here's  to  business!"  He 
raised  his  glass,  but  set  it  down  again  when 
he  looked  at  his  friend. 

Mr.  Sanders's  eyes  were  glowing  within 
the  slits  to  which  he  had  narrowed  the  lids. 
"I  wish  to  Heaven  you'd  tell  me  of  one  sin- 
gle thing  I  could  do,"  he  said.  He  was 
genuinely  interested,  though  a  little  irritated 
at  the  nonchalance  with  which  his  affairs 
were  being  treated. 

"I  see  you  mean  it,"  returned  Mr.  Gar- 
many. "  I've  only  to  look  at  you  to  be  sure 
of  that,  Peter,  my  boy.  When  you  make 
yourself  look  like  a  tom-cat  after  a  mouse, 
your  friends  always  know  somethin's  goin' 
to  get  done.  If  I  hadn't  graduated  from 
the  mouse  class  some  time  ago,  I  should  be 
afraid  it  was  me.  But  I'm  only  tellin'  you 
the  truth.  You  ought  to  go  into  business 
again." 


Occupation 


623 


"That's  all  ended,"  Mr.  Sanders  re- 
marked quietly,  "and  you  know  it.  I'd  not 
go  back  to  it  if  I  could,  if  you  want  to 
know." 

Mr.  Garmany  removed  his  cigar  and 
smiled  appreciatively.  "That's  the  dif- 
ference," he  said.  "I  would,  but  I  can't 
either.  So  it's  all  one  in  the  end.  But  look 
at  me!  You  speak  as  if  there  was  only  one 
way  for  a  man  to  make  an  honest  livin'.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  I've  made  more  money 
since  I  retired,  as  they  call  it,  than  I  ever 
did  before." 

"  That's  good,"  put  in  Mr.  Sanders.  His 
face  relaxed.  He  liked  Garmany  more 
than  ever,  and  he  was  glad  to  hear  of  his 
prosperity.  "What  have  you  been  doing, 
if  you  don't  mind  telling  me?" 

"Mind  it?  It's  what  I'm  busy  doin' 
here  and  now.  I've  chiefly  been  devel- 
opin'  my  own  properties — real  estate — with 
a  flier  or  tw^o  in  mines,  though  the  last  is 
rather  a  source  of  expense — like  books — 
and  not  to  be  indulged  in  except  on  Sun- 
days and  the  Fourth  of  July."  Mr.  Gar- 
many expanded  with  good  humor. 

"  I  don't  happen  to  own  real  estate,"  Mr. 
Sanders  remarked  dryly.  "  I've  never  had 
your  opportunities,  you  must  remember, 
Jim,  for  knowing  how  the  city  would  grow. 
So  what  money  I  have  is  safely  tucked  away 
in  bonds  and  other  paper.  I  can't  develop 
my  house  advantageously,  you  know." 

"And  a  very  good  thing  it  is,  such  paper, 
to  have  in  the  family,"  said  Mr.  Garmany, 
nodding  approval  and  ignoring  the  gibe. 
"  But  I've  not  stuck  to  New  York.  Do  you 
not  own  land  elsewhere,  yourself?" 

Mr.  Sanders's  face  suddenly  grew  hard 
again.  He  remembered  that  he  was  indeed 
possessed  of  one  parcel  of  real  estate.  The 
memory  of  it  always  made  him  unhappy. 

"I  do  happen  to  have  one  .such  invest- 
ment," he  said.  "No  matter  how  I  got  it 
— the  story  wouldn't  interest  you.  I  may 
say  that  I  bought  it  unexpectedly,  but  I 
don't  expect  much  interest  on  the  money  I 
put  in.     It's  wild  land,  I  believe." 

"The  very  thing!"  exclaimed  Mr.  Gar- 
many.    "Develop  it!" 

"It's  swamp  land  in  Florida,"  Mr.  San- 
ders explained.  He  felt  disinclined  to  pur- 
sue the  subject. 

"'Twould  be  the  better  for  develop- 
ment," continued  Mr.  Garmany  oracularly. 
"You'd  encourage  the  growth  of  tropical 


fruits  and  alligators,  which  is  a  noble  work, 
and  you'd  preserve  your  youth." 

Mr.  Sanders  fell  silent,  wrapped  in  his 
own  thoughts.  For  a  minute  or  two  his 
friend  eyed  him.     Then  he  rose. 

"Havin'  prescribed  your  medicine,  I'd 
best  be  gettin'  home  and  let  it  work,"  he 
remarked.  "We're  both  busy  men,  re- 
member, and  mustn't  be  talkin'  through 
half  the  night." 

"It  was  good  of  you  to  come,  Jim,"  said 
Peter  Sanders.  "I  feel  more  at  home  for 
seeing  you;  and  I  dare  say  you  are  right — 
I  need  work!" 

"Of  course  you  do,"  returned  ^Ir.  Gar- 
many. "Haven't  I  been  sayin'  as  much? 
I'll  drop  in  and  nurse  you  when  I  can. 
Good-by." 

With  a  hearty  hand-clasp  and  a  laugh 
they  separated.  After  resigning  his  visitor 
to  the  conduct  of  Henry,  Mr.  Sanders  re- 
turned to  his  deep  chair. 

The  reflections  that  followed  him  to  bed 
that  night  haunted  him  during  the  whole  of 
the  next  day.  He  recognized  the  sound- 
ness of  Garmany's  advice:  he  needed  work, 
and  work  measurably  similar  to  the  kind  of 
activity  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed 
all  his  life.  He  might  play  with  books, 
even  play  with  the  notion  of  writing  one; 
but  he  had  been  moulded  into  the  kind  of 
person  who  had  to  deal  with  men  and 
things  when  it  came  to  real  labor.  He 
could  be  happier  in  doing  business  (or  in 
doing  his  fellow  man,  he  observed  to  him- 
self sardonically)  than  in  any  other  way. 
He  saw  little  difference  between  the  method 
of  exchange  by  which  he  had  enriched  him- 
self and  the  methods  employed  by  the  man- 
agers of  other  profitable  enterprises,  as  he 
had  observed  them;  and  he  disliked  the 
thought  of  again  soiling  his  hands  with  the 
grime  of  the  market-place.  Yet  he  sus- 
pected that  Garmany  was  right.  Perhaps 
the  mire  that  he  hated  was  necessary  to  his 
health  and  happiness.  Perhaps  his  viola- 
tions of  abstract  justice  were  flnding  their 
punishment  in  just  this  state  of  affairs.  It 
gave  him  grim  amusement  to  think  of  him- 
self as  a  soul  so  far  damned  as  to  have 
created  his  own  vexatious  but  not  quite  in- 
supportable private  hell.  He  mis^ht  j)ut  all 
this  into  his  book!  All  the  same,  he  must 
find  some  kind  of  real  occupation. 

On  the  second  morning,  when  he  came 
down  to  his  simple  breakfast  in  an  over- 


(>24 


Occupation 


elaborate  dining-room,  he  found,  as  usual, 
a  little  pile  of  letters  beside  his  plate.  Two 
or  three — perfunctory  business  communi- 
cations— he  read  and  put  aside.  Then  he 
took  up  one  that  sorted  curiously  with  his 
mood.  It  was  written  on  paper  headed 
''The  Harmsleigh  Realty  Company,"  and 
it  ran  thus: 

"Dear  Sir: 

*'I  learn  that  you  are  the  owner  of  a 
tract  of  land  in  southern  Florida,  adjoining 
the  property  held  by  the  company  of  which 
I  am  president.  We  are  planning  a  scheme 
of  development  down  there  which  may  in- 
terest you.  I  think  it  quite  possible  you 
may  agree  with  me  that  the  two  properties 
could  be  advantageously  managed  in  co- 
operation, particularly  as  I  am  led  to  sup- 
pose that  you  have  not  yet  commenced  im- 
provements on  your  land.  In  any  case  I 
should  be  glad,  with  your  permission  and 
at  any  time  suiting  your  convenience,  to 
call  upon  you  and  explain  our  plan.  When 
you  understand  what  we  have  in  mind,  you 
may  care  to  join  forces  with  us,  which  I 
think  would  be  profitable  to  you  as  well  as 
to  us. 

"Yours  respectfully, 

"Richard  B.  Harmsleigh." 

Mr.  Sanders  snorted,  but  read  the  letter 
a  second  time.  So  some  people  thought 
there  was  money  to  be  made  in  the  Ever- 
glades, which  was  the  region  where  the  land 
in  question  lay.  He  certainly  had  never 
made  anything  out  of  the  property,  and 
he  had  never  supposed  that  he  would  get 
any  return  for  the  money  he  had  foolishly 
squandered  in  a  moment  of  trustful  enthu- 
siasm. However,  there  could  be  no  harm 
in  seeing  this  man — what  was  the  name? — 
Harmsleigh.  He  wasn't  going  to  be  such 
a  fool  as  to  spend  anything  in  an  attempt 
to  recover  what  he  had  sunk  there;  but  he 
would  not  be  unwilling  to  let  anybody  else, 
who  liked  the  game,  develop  the  property 
as  much  as  he  wished.  He  wondered,  by 
the  way,  just  what  improvements  could  be 
made  that  would  transform  acres  of  semi- 
tropical  swamp  into  useful  land.  He  never 
had  seen  the  place,  naturally,  but  he  dis- 
trusted the  tales  he  had  heard  about  grow- 
ing oranges  in  the  Everglades.  He  had  be- 
lieved them  for  a  few  days  once — and  paid 
ten  thousand  dollars  for  the  experience. 


Yet  he  might  as  well  let  Harmsleigh  talk  to 
him  about  the  proposition.  He  couldn't 
suffer  anything  worse  than  an  hour  of  bore- 
dom, and  he  was  frequently  bored  with  less 
excuse. 

After  leisurely  consideration  of  the  mat- 
ter while  he  took  a  turn  in  the  park,  Mr. 
Sanders  wrote  a  note  to  Mr.  Harmsleigh, 
making  an  appointment  for  the  afternoon 
of  the  following  day.  When  he  had  des- 
patched it,  he  set  about  arranging  the  dis- 
posal of  the  last  consignment  of  his  books, 
belated  in  their  arrival  from  the  storage 
warehouse  whither  he  had  sent  them  after 
purchase  during  his  years  of  exile.  Ab- 
sorbed by  the  pleasant  task,  he  quite  for- 
got, for  the  remainder  of  the  day,  to  lament 
his  lack  of  occupation.  The  next  morn- 
ing, when  he  remembered  the  engagement, 
he  was  almost  sorry  he  had  made  it,  so  lan- 
guid was  his  interest,  so  slight  his  inclina- 
tion to  seek  an  outlet  for  his  energies  in  the 
Everglades  of  Florida. 

He  was  able,  however,  when  Mr.  Harms- 
leigh arrived  punctually  at  the  hour  set,  to 
greet  him  with  proper  courtesy.  He  didn't 
mind  talking  with  the  man.  Moreover,  he 
soon  found  that  something  of  the  glow  of 
Mr.  Harmsleigh 's  own  enthusiasm  was  be- 
ing communicated  to  himself.  He  recog- 
nized the  danger  of  such  an  attitude  of 
mind  and  put  himself  on  guard,  observing 
his  caller  through  wary  lids,  but  saying  little. 

Mr.  Harmsleigh  was  a  youngish  man 
with  an  earnest  face,  hair  so  carefully 
brushed  that  it  gave  the  impression  of  being 
permanently  arranged,  and  a  severe  sim- 
plicity of  dress.  He  appeared  to  have  but 
two  ideas  in  life:  the  astonishing  fertility  of 
the  Everglades  and  his  personal  duty  to  put 
their  teeming  wealth  within  the  reach  of 
narrow-chested  bookkeepers  and  unsuccess- 
ful professional  men.  When  he  opened  his 
wide  mouth,  a  pentecostal  stream  of  words 
issued  from  it  quite  without  effort.  When, 
for  a  moment,  he  stopped  speaking,  the 
silence  was  oratorically  impressive. 

"There,  Mr.  Sanders,"  he  said  at  length, 
"I've  told  you  what  the  Everglades  are  like 
and  what  the  future  of  the  region  is  to  be. 
I  congratulate  you,  sir,  on  holding  the  mag- 
nificent tract  of  God's  earth  that  is  yours. 
I  have  told  you  nothing  but  what  I  have 
seen  and  am  to  see.  I  have  visited  the 
country;  I  know  it,  I  may  say,  like  a — eh — 
like  the  palm  of  my  hand."     He  spread 


Occupation 


G25 


out  a  lean  hand  in  confirmation  of  his 
words. 

"Very  interesting,  what  you  tell  me," 
murmured  Mr.  Sanders.  ''I've  never  had 
your  opportunities,  and  I  was  unaware  that 
the  tract  I  own  was  so  valuable." 

"Its  potentialities  are  enormous,"  de- 
clared Mr.  Harmsleigh.  "I  should  think 
shame  to  myself  if  I  concealed  them  from 
you.  But  I  am  doing  nothing  of  the  kind. 
I  am  talking  business,  for  I  want  you  to 
join  forces  with  us.  Together  we  can  fill 
the  region  with  enthusiastic  and  successful 
orange-growers." 

"Just  how  do  I  come  in?"  inquired  Mr. 
Sanders  mildly.  "  Your  letter  didn't  make 
it  quite  clear  to  me." 

"The  matter  is  very  simple,"  explained 
Mr.  Harmsleigh.  "I  speak  for  the  com- 
pany which  bears  my  name.  We  will  take 
over  your  land,  paying  for  it  in  five-per- 
cent bonds  and  giving  you  besides  as  bonus 
a  large  amount  of  the  common  stock,  which 
will  eventually  be  very  valuable.  I  am 
talking  to  you  straight.  I  wish  to  lay  bare 
the  entire  situation.  We  need  your  land 
and  are  willing  to  pay  for  it  handsomely. 
It  is,  I  may  say,  somewhat  greater  in  extent 
than  the  adjoining  tract  now  under  our  con- 
trol. You  will  see  that  the  two  properties 
can  be  more  economically  developed  under 
a  single  management,  and  you  will  be  get- 
ting in  absolutely  on  the  ground  floor. 
Whether  or  not  you  choose  to  take  up  a  block 
of  the  preferred  stock,  which  is  now  being 
sold  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  business,  I 
can  easily  have  assigned  to  you  temporarily 
a  sufficient  number  of  shares  to  insure  due 
weight  being  given  to  your  opinions  by  the 
directorate.  I  take  it  that,  like  many  men 
of  means,  you  may  prefer  not  to  undertake 
responsibilities  as  director,  yourself?" 

Mr.  Sanders  smiled  deprecatingly.  He 
had  not  been  so  much  amused  in  a  long 
time.  "  You  needn't  be  afraid  of  ofTending 
me,"  he  remarked.  "I  quite  agree  with 
you  that  it  would  be  singularly  unwise  to 
have  my  name  associated  with  your  enter- 
prise. It  wouldn't  help  the  sale  of  stock 
among  the  godly." 

"Believe  me,  sir,"  protested  Mr.  Harms- 
leigh, "I  was  far  from  insinuating " 

"Not  very  far!"  put  in  Mr.  Sanders  good- 
humoredly.  "But  please  go  on,  and  say 
anything  you  please.  I'm  very  much  in- 
terested." 


"Quite  so!"  Mr.  Harmsleigh  continued, 
appearing  to  be  reassured.  "You  do  not 
care  to  be  a  director  of  the  company,  but 
you  would  have  a  voice  in  its  affairs.  You 
would  get,  let  us  say,  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars in  live-per-cent  bonds  of  the  company." 

"First  mortgage,  I  suppose?"  Mr.  San- 
ders spoke  suavely,  but  with  a  perceptible 
sharpness  in  his  tone. 

"  Certainly — certainly.  First-mortgage 
bonds,  bearing  interest  at  five  per  cent," 
went  on  Mr.  Harmsleigh  unperturbed,  "and 
whatever  amount  of  common  stock  the  di- 
rectors might  assign  you.  You  would  have 
the  most  absolute  protection,  even  though 
we  did  not  succeed  in  selling  one  single 
plantation." 

"U— um!"  said  Mr.  Sanders. 

"As  to  the  preferred  stock,"  pursued  Mr. 
Harmsleigh,  "  I  could  procure  for  you  an  al- 
most unlimited  number  of  shares  at  a  very 
reasonable  price,  low  enough  to  make  them 
a  gilt-edged  investment.  They  are  arranged 
for  the  convenience  of  the  small  investor — 
we  are  selling  them  at  par  at  a  dollar  a 
share.  However,  I  could  get  for  you  a 
block  of  almost  any  size  at  eighty  cents." 

"Unfortunately,"  replied  Mr.  Sanders, 
lighting  a  fresh  cigar,  "I  don't  happen  to 
have  any  money  on  hand  with  which  I  can 
speculate."  He  eyed  his  visitor  narrowly, 
wondering  what  would  be  the  effect  of  his 
rather  impolite  thrust.  He  felt  that  it  was 
time  to  bring  his  man  to  the  scratch. 

Instead  of  showing  anger  or  disturbance, 
Mr.  Harmsleigh  smiled  appreciatively. 
His  face  was  quite  transformed  when  he 
showed  his  teeth.  He  revealed  to  Peter 
Sanders  all  that  was  necessary.  "It  is 
quite  at  your  option,"  he  said.  "You  put 
up  your  land.  We  do  everything  we  can 
with  it.  Between  ourselves,  it'll  be  a  good 
thing." 

"I  rather  fancy  it  might  be  profitable," 
said  Mr.  Sanders.  "  When  do  you  wish  an 
answer  from  me?" 

"I  don't  want  to  hurry  your  decision,  of 
course,"  Mr.  Harmsleigh  replied,  "but  it 
would  be  advantageous  if  you  could  let  us 
know  within  the  next  few  days — a  week  at 
the  latest.  We  are  preparing  some  new  lit- 
erature and  wish  to  send  it  to  press  as  soon 
as  possible.  As  soon  as  you  gave  your  con- 
sent to  the  arrangement,  we  could  go  ahead 
with  that  and  .settle  u[)  the  j)apers  at  your 
convenience." 


(V2() 


Occupation 


" \'ery  well."  said  ]Mr.  Sanders.  "I  will 
give  the  matter  immediate  consideration." 
Now  that  he  had  probed  ]\Ir.  Plarmsleigh, 
he  was  fearful  of  being  bored  if  the  meeting 
were  prolonged. 

"With  your  permission,  I  might  call  on 
— this  is  Tuesday — Saturday  afternoon  or 
evening,"  suggested  Mr.  Harmsleigh  po- 
litely, "unless  I  hear  from  you  in  the  mean- 
time. Of  course,  I  shall  be  happy  to  give 
you  every  opportunity  of  investigating  the 
company  that  I  can." 

''Thank  you,"  answered  Mr.  Sanders  in 
a  tone  that  brought  the  visitor  to  his  feet 
with  a  courteous  word  of  farewell  on  his 
lips. 

There  followed  for  Peter  Sanders  days  of 
some  inward  questioning.  The  opportu- 
nity to  participate  actively  in  a  business  en- 
terprise, which  he  had  been  advised  to  seek, 
had  come  to  him  uninvited ;  but  it  had  come 
in  questionable  shape.  He  had  no  doubt 
whatever  that  he  would  be  happier  if  he 
embarked  on  the  enterprise,  and  he  had 
likewise  no  doubt  that  he  would  be  helping 
to  take  money  from  people  without  giving 
a  wholly  adequate  return.  Beneath  the  ap- 
ostolic fervor  of  Harmsleigh's  enthusiasm 
he  saw  the  wolfish  rapacity  that  would  stick 
at  nothing.  Peter  Sanders  knew  the  game. 
Though  he  felt  sure  that  Harmsleigh  be- 
lieved in  the  earthly  paradise  of  orange 
groves,  which  he  had  so  eloquently  sketched, 
Mr.  Sanders  recognized  in  him  a  greater 
love  for  minted  circles  of  gold  than  for 
spheres  of  golden-coated  fruit — or  even  for 
the  welfare  of  underpaid  clerks. 

Temptation  assailed  Peter  Sanders,  not- 
withstanding his  dislike  of  again  soiling  his 
hands  with  the  grimy  touch  of  such  market- 
places as  he  had  known  in  the  days  of  his 
own  activity.  It  was  the  more  acute  be- 
cause he  knew  the  unpleasantness  of  the 
contact,  and  knew  that  it  could  be  endured. 
Between  the  devil  of  ennui  and  the  deep  sea 
of  dishonesty  the  choice  had  to  be  made. 
After  his  solitary  meditations  of  these  latter 
years,  he  might  find  it  harder  to  be  stonily 
cynical  about  all  business  than  of  old ;  but 
he  knew  that  he  could  find  a  real  interest  in 
the  Harmsleigh  Realty  Company  and  get 
along  tolerably  with  his  conscience.  Thus 
he  turned  the  matter  over  in  his  mind,  de- 
liberated, hesitated. 

It  did  not  help  matters  greatly  that,  on 
Friday  evening,  James  Garmany  came  in  to 


nurse  his  patient.  It  could  not  have  been 
expected  of  him  that  he  should  sympathize 
with  his  friend's  difficulties,  since  he  was 
wholly  incapable  of  understanding  them. 
Once  seated  before  the  fire  in  the  library, 
he  began  his  rather  clumsy  ministrations. 

''Have  you  been  writin'  a  book  or  two, 
Peter,  my  boy,  or  have  you  gone  into  busi- 
ness and  cheered  up  ?  I  thought  it  my  duty 
to  inquire.  A  lot  can  happen  to  a  man  in  a 
week  sometimes." 

"I've  been  considering  a  business  propo- 
sition, as  a  matter  of  fact,"  responded  Mr. 
Sanders,  shrugging  his  heavy  shoulders.  "  I 
dare  say  I  shall  go  into  it.  It  isn't  a  large 
matter,  but  it  would  give  me  something  to 
think  about." 

"That's  right— that's  right!"  Mr.  Gar- 
many' s  tone  conveyed  paternal  approval. 
"Thinkin'  does  the  business.  I  suppose  I 
could  afford  to  buy  a  fancy  vest  once  in  a 
while  even  if  I  had  nothin'  in  the  world  to 
do  but  buy  it,  but  I  shouldn't  be  the  happy 
man  that  wears  it.  And  vests  come  high 
when  they're  the  real  thing."  He  indicated 
his  own  with  a  casual  thumb  by  way  of  illus- 
tration. 

"Oddly  enough,"  Mr.  Sanders  contin- 
ued, "this  little  deal  concerns  the  only  real 
estate  I  own,  barring  the  house,  of  course. 
I  was  telling  you.  I'd  like  to  have  your 
opinion  if  you  don't  mind." 

"  Sure,"  said  Mr.  Garmany.  "  My  opin- 
ions differ  from  my  lawyer's  in  two  ways 
only:  they  cost  you  nothin',  and  they're 
worth  listenin'  to.     Is  there  money  in  it?" 

"I  don't  stand  to  lose,  anyhow,"  Mr. 
Sanders  answered,  wrinkling  his  forehead. 

"Then  you  should  be  sayin'  a  prayer  of 
thanksgivin',  not  sittin'  around  askin'  ad- 
vice," commented  Mr.  Garmany  with  as- 
surance. "You  should  know  that  as  well  as 
anybody,  perhaps.  You  never  did  stand  to 
lose,  as  far  as  I  can  remember." 

"That's  precisely  where  the  shoe  pinch- 
es," returned  Mr.  Sanders  grimly.  "I 
haven't  the  reputation,  even  with  myself,  of 
being  very  squeamish.  The  only  excuse  I 
ever  made  to  myself  for  my  old  line  of  busi- 
ness was  that  everybody  else  did  the  same 
sort  of  thing  in  another  way.  Not  a  good 
excuse  altogether!  Since  I've  had  time 
to  think  it  over,  I'd  not  make  it  again.  I 
wouldn't  go  back  into  the  business — as  I 
told  you  the  other  day.  What  I  want  to 
know  is  whether  you'd  consider  this  propo- 


jWi'L;  >ii>'rr5&»>»;»<ifLA5I 


Drawn  oy  J,iiiits  Mt>h li^oiin' i y  i'tu^g. 

Mr.  Hantisleijili  smiled  appreciatively.      I  lis  face  was  quite  transformed  vslieii  he  sliowed  lus  tt-etli.  —  Page  6^5. 


Vol.  LV.— 6  = 


627 


028 


Occupation 


silion  just  as  had.  ^'ou^■c  done  a  different 
sort  oi  ihint^  in  life  anyhow." 

"Order  in  the  court!"  remarked  Mr. 
(larmany,  waving  his  cigar  with  judicial 
dignitv.  "I'll  referee  the  case,  though 
some  might  say  I  wasn't  the  proper  judge. 
What's  the  game?" 

As  briefly  as  possible,  Peter  Sanders  out- 
lined Mr.  Ilarmsleigh'sschemeforthefinan- 
cial  betterment  of  the  unsuccessful .  He  did 
not  spare  his  ironies  in  the  sketch,  nor  did 
he  attempt  to  gloss  over  with  casuistical  ar- 
gument the  part  he  was  expected  to  play. 
Quite  frankly  he  gave  his  opinion  of  Mr. 
Harmsleigh  as  a  man  who  would  need  care- 
ful watching  even  by  an  associate  who  had 
been  'Met  in  on  the  ground  floor." 

''The  only  part  I  needn't  take  in  the  busi- 
ness, you  see,"  he  ended,  "is  to  put  up 
money  to  bait  the  suckers.  I'm  encour- 
aged to  do  that;  but  I  don't  have  to,  and  I 
wouldn't.  What  is  called  the  general  pub- 
lic is  going  to  be  stung,  as  far  as  I  can  make 
out.  Naturally,  I  don't  know  anything 
about  orange-growing  in  lower  Florida,  but 
I  can  size  up  a  man." 

Mr.  Garmany  had  listened  to  the  recital 
with  utter  gravity  of  countenance,  occa- 
sionally jerking  his  cigar  sideways  by  a 
spasmodic  movement  of  the  lips.  Now  he 
removed  the  cigar,  squinted  violently,  and 
leaned  forward.  "Can  you  squeeze  the 
promoter  so  he  won't  get  away  from  you? " 
he  asked. 

"Oh!  I'm  not  afraid  of  that,"  said  Mr. 
Sanders. 

"Then  you'll  make  good  money."  Mr. 
Garmany  delivered  his  opinion  with  orac- 
ular emphasis.  "It'll  keep  your  mind  off 
the  books  and  give  you  a  man's  interest. 
I'd  not  raise  any  howl  if  I  had  the  chance, 
myself,  which  is  not  said  in  envy — you 
needin'  work  as  you  do." 

"You  wouldn't  hesitate  even  though  you 
didn't  know  whether  the  fruit  business 
could  be  made  to  pay — I  mean  by  the  fel- 
lows who  buy  ten  acres  apiece,  or  whatever 
it  is?" 

Mr.  Sanders's  tone  was  elaborately  casu- 
al, but  it  did  not  conceal  from  his  guest  the 
real  significance  of  the  question.  "Peter, 
my  boy,"  said  Mr.  Garmany,  leaning  back 
in  his  chair  again,  "if  you  weren't  on  the 
edge  of  the  same  senile  decay  of  which  I  was 
warnin'  you,  you  wouldn't  be  askin'.  No 
doubt  it's  lovely  land  down  there — nice  sum- 


mery weather  and  freedom  from  drought. 
You  don't  have  to  inquire  about  the  rep- 
tiles, nor  yet  the  mosquitoes,  which  are  also 
found  plentifully  in  Jersey,  where  many  a 
man  lives  from  choice.  You  rid  yourself  of 
the  land  and  make  it  your  business  to  watch 
Mr.  Harmless  sell  it.  'Twill  be  a  pleasant 
occupation,  and  one  suited  to  your  powers." 

Mr.  Sanders  laughed  dryly.  "Thanks," 
he  said.  "Now  what  do  you  want  to  put 
to  me?" 

'-Whether  I'd  better  be  askin'  my  friend 
Henry  for  another  drink,  or  just  do  with 
what  I've  had,"  responded  Mr.  Garmany 
promptly. 

"That's  no  question,"  Mr.  Sanders  re- 
plied, touching  a  bell. 

For  another  half-hour  they  amicably  dis- 
cussed the  gross  dishonesty  of  distillers  and 
the  perils  of  aviation. 

The  upshot  of  it  was  that  Peter  Sanders 
remained  doubtful  and  perplexed,  irritated 
with  himself  for  hesitating  over  a  decision 
and  inclined  to  ignore  his  scruples  about 
carrying  the  affair  to  its  conclusion.  He 
found  it  peculiarly  unpleasant  to  have  a  con- 
science, and  heartily  wished  that  he  pos- 
sessed James  Garmany's  happy  toughness 
of  integument.  He  was  sensitively  super- 
stitious about  his  future,  saw  no  hope  of 
escaping  unhappiness,  whatever  course  he 
pursued.  He  regarded  himself  as  branded, 
not  merely  with  public  opprobrium,  but 
equally  with  the  private  wounds  of  an  un- 
scrupulous career.  He  was  Byronic  in  his 
conviction  of  sin,  yet  considerably  amused 
at  his  own  absurdity. 

"Henry,"  he  said  that  night,  while  his 
attendant  was  preparing  him  for  bed, 
"what  should  you  say  if  a  man  told  you 
that  he  stood  between  occupation  and  dam- 
nation, but  that  he  was  probably  damned 
anyhow?" 

Henry  paused  for  a  moment  and  consid- 
ered. He  was  accustomed  to  dealing  with 
strange  problems  out  of  the  blue.  "I 
should  say,  sir,"  he  replied  gravely,  "that 
the  gentleman  needed  to  exercise  more  and 
to  smoke  fewer  cigars.  That  would  be  my 
answer,  Mr.  Sanders,  but  we  never  know 
all  the  difficulties  other  people  have." 

"Your  answer  is  right,  I've  no  doubt," 
said  Mr.  Sanders,  nodding  his  head  slowly, 
"but  so  is  your  comment.  I'm  always  giv- 
ing you  trouble,  for  example — asking  ques- 
tions and  dirtying  coats — and  I  seldom  in- 


-> 


Drawn  by  Juj \^ ...ts^oiiii-yy  /-Viixx- 

Henry  paused  fur  a  inoinent  and  considcici.      "  I  slmuld  say.  sic,"  l.c  replied  Kravelv.  "  thai  tlu-  gentleman 
needed  to  exercise  more  and  to  smoke  fewer  cij^ars."  —  I'aec  (..'8. 


629 


orjo 


Occupation 


(juire  about  your  state  of  mind,  ^'ou  don't 
look  any  too  well  to-night,  as  a  matter  of 
fact.  You'd  better  drop  things  where  they 
are  and  go  to  l)ed.     (iood  night." 

"(lood  night,  sir,"  said  Henry,  "and  I 
hopeyouwill  be  all  the  better  for  your  sleep." 
On  Saturday  morning  Mr.  Sanders 
walked  longer  than  usual  in  the  park  and 
tried  to  forget  his  difficulties.  By  vigor- 
ously concentrating  his  attention  upon  the 
sky-line,  so  changed  in  five  years  that  he 
was  not  yet  accustomed  to  its  outlines,  he 
measurably  succeeded  in  diverting  his  at- 
tention from  the  problem.  He  returned  to 
it,  however,  when  he  came  in.  As  a  result 
of  physical  exercise,  perhaps,  he  was  cynic- 
ally merr}'  at  his  own  expense.  He  recog- 
nized the  ironical  absurdity  of  his  position 
more  than  ever.  Peter  Sanders,  reputed  to 
be  the  wickedest  man  in  America,  hesitat- 
ing over  a  business  venture  for  fear  that 
somebody  unknown  would  be  cheated! 
Yet  by  afternoon,  w^hen  he  expected  a  call 
from  Mr.  Harmsleigh,  he  had  not  made  up 
his  mind  to  sell  the  land;  nor  by  dinner- 
time had  he  come  to  a  decision,  though  he 
had  heard  nothing  from  the  apostle  of 
wealth. 

In  the  library  after  dinner  he  waited  for 
Henry  to  bring  his  coffee,  with  a  growing 
conviction  that  he  would  find  it  impossible 
to  refuse  Mr.  Harmsleigh's  offer,  not  from 
choice  but  from  sheer  inability  to  decide. 
He  looked  at  Henry,  wondering  what  the 
man  would  think  if  he  knew  his  master's 
abject  and  panic-stricken  state — whether 
any  admiration  could  endure  the  exposure 
of  it.  He  was  aghast  when  Henry,  after 
deftly  setting  the  tray  at  his  elbow,  stood 
erect,  folded  his  arms,  and  spoke. 

"  May  I  make  so  bold  as  to  ask  you  some- 
thing, sir?" 

Mr.  Sanders  smiled  despairingly.  Henry 
must,  in  his  uncanny  fashion,  have  di- 
vined. ''  Of  course,"  he  said  aloud.  "  I'd 
rather  listen  to  you  than  to  most  men,  and 
I'll  try  to  tell  you  the  truth." 

The  servant  was  visibly  embarrassed. 
''Thank  you,  sir,"  he  gasped.  "You 
know,  sir,  that  I  wouldn't  trouble  you  if  I 
could  avoid  it.  But  I  must,  I'm  afraid, 
this  time.  You  see,  Mr.  Sanders,  it's  about 
my  sister's  husband." 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Peter  Sanders,  much 
relieved.  "Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for 
him?" 


"Why,  sir!"  Henry  went  on.  "As  to 
that  I  can't  really  say  till  you  know  what 
has  happened.  I've  l)een  greatly  upset, 
sir." 

"I  hope  he  hasn't  been  ill-treating  your 
sister — "  Mr.  Sanders  began. 

"  Oh,  no,  sir.  He's  as  kind  a  soul  as  ever 
drew  breath  and  very  devoted  to  his  family; 
but  he  has  been  unfortunate.  We've  al- 
ways considered  him  a  very  superior  man, 
but  he's  never  got  on  in  the  world  to  his 
mind.  Perhaps  he  is  too  ambitious.  He 
has  knocked  about  the  world  a  good  bit, 
never  sticking  long  to  one  place,  but  always 
supporting  his  family  in  comfort  until  year 
before  last.  Then  he  was  with  a  family  in 
Philadelphia,  quite  a  swell  establishment — 
begging  your  pardon  for  the  word,  sir — and 
he  heard  about  the  money  that  could  be 
made  in  Texas  by  raising  pecans — nuts,  sir, 
as  you  may  have  heard.  Fortunes  could 
be  made  in  a  few  years,  so  they  told  him." 

"And  so  he  invested,  did  he?"  said  Mr. 
Sanders,  looking  grieved. 

"Worse  than  that,  sir,"  continued  Henry. 
"He  bought  land  down  there  on  what  they 
called  the  attractive  partial  payment  plan, 
and  spent  all  the  rest  of  his  savings  in  going 
there  with  his  family.  The  company  prom- 
ised him  work,  you  see,  until  he  could  start 
his  orchard.  But  when  they  got  to  the 
place,  they  found  it  little  better  than  a  des- 
ert, if  you  will  believe  me.  There  weren't 
any  trees  about  to  speak  of,  and  the  work 
was  no  more  than  digging  ditches,  which 
wasn't  suitable,  of  course,  for  my  sister's 
husband,  who  is  a  man  of  fine  presence  and 
accustomed  to  the  best  houses.  He's  a 
proud  man,  too,  in  one  way,  and  wouldn't 
permit  my  sister  to  write  me  for  a  long  time. 
They  almost  starved,  I'm  afraid,  sir,  if  you 
will  excuse  my  saying  so;  and  the  little  girl 
was  rather  seriously  ill,  with  no  proper  food 
or  a  doctor.  They  were  quite  done  up 
when  I  got  them  back,  and  my  sister's  hus- 
band so  knocked  about  that  he  hasn't  yet 
been  able  to  secure  a  place.  The  work  was 
very  rough,  I  take  it." 

"And  you've  been  taking  care  of  them — 
for  how  many  months?  Why  in  the  name 
of  all  that's  good  haven't  you  told  me  be- 
fore?" Mr.  Sanders,  in  whom  a  mighty 
tempest  of  anger  had  been  rising  during  the 
recital  of  the  story,  got  out  of  his  chair  and 
stormed  across  the  hearth-rug.  "It's  an 
outrage!"  he  cried.     "A  damned  outrage! 


Occupation 


(331 


The  fellows  who  got  him  into  it  ought  to  I)e 
prosecuted.     Who  are  they?" 

'Tt  was  about  that  that  I  wished  to  ask 
your  advice,  Mr.  Sanders,"  responded 
Henry  mildly.  'T  thought  you  wouUl 
know  whether  it  would  be  possible  to  bring 
suit  and  recover  any  part  of  the  money 
paid  for  the  land.  Vou  will  understand, 
of  course,  sir,  that  they  never  have  got  any 
dividends  on  the  stock  they  purchased." 

''I  should  think  not  I"  fumed  Mr.  San- 
ders. '^  I  should  think  not,  indeed !  I  don't 
suppose  there's  the  least  chance  in  the 
world  of  getting  back  the  money  that  your 
brother-in-law  sunk;  but  I'm  going  to  see 
whether  the  rascally  thieves  can't  be  jailed 
for  it  all  the  same.  I'll  talk  with  my  law- 
yer in  the  morning,  and  I'll  take  you  with 
me  to  explain." 

"I'm  afraid,  sir,"  said  Henry,  ''that  we 
couldn't  afford  to  sue  if  there  wasn't  a  good 
chance  of  recovering  the  money." 

Mr.  Sanders  looked  searchingly  at  his 
faithful  servant.  He  noticed  how  singu- 
larly old  and  worn  Henry  appeared,  as  he 
stood  fondling  with  nervous  touch  his  well- 
shaven  chin.  The  master's  indignation 
tlamed  again  into  sudden  heat. 

"Henry,  you  infernal  old  idiot,"  he  said, 
"you've  spent  every  penny  you've  got,  I've 
no  doubt.  But  I  wish  you  to  understand 
that  this  is  my  game,  and  I'm  going  to  see 
it  through.  It'll  be  good  for  me.  What's 
more,  you've  got  to  let  me  take  my  turn  at 
looking  after  your  sister's  family  for  a  while. 
I've  been  battening  on  you  in  one  way,  and 
they  in  another.  It's  my  turn  now — damn 
it  I  You've  kept  me  going  more  than 
once,  Henry,  and  you  know  it  as  well  as 
I  do." 

"It's  altogether  too  good  of  you  to  say 
so,  sir,  I'm  sure,"  responded  Henry,  whose 
cadaverous  face  nevertheless  turned  red.  "  I 
didn't  mean  to  upset  you  this  way  by  telling 
you  about  my  family's  troubles — and  just 
after  dinner,  loo,  sir.  But  I'm  greatly 
obliged  to  you,  and  I  think  we  understand 
each  other,  Mr.  Sanders.     It  is  alwavs  a 


pleasure  to  do  whatever  I  can  for  your  com- 
fort and  health,  as  you  know,  sir." 

"Henry,  you're  a  good  sort,"  remarked 
Peter  Sanders  more  calmly,  ''and  we'll 
see  this  thing  through  together  as  we  have 
other  things." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Henry  simply,  and 
turned  to  go.  After  taking  a  couple  oi"  steps, 
however,  he  hesitated  and  swung  about. 
"  There  was  just  this  that  I  was  going  to  ask 
you,"  he  went  on.  "I  thought  that  now 
we  were  back  in  town  you  might  possibly 
hear  of  some  one  who  needed  a  ver}-  com- 
petent butler,  and  I  felt  sure  you  wouldn't 
mind  speaking  a  good  word  for  my  sister's 
husband.     I  can  recommend  him  heartily." 

"Of  course,  we'll  get  him  a  place  some- 
how," answered  Mr.  Sanders.  "  Don't  you 
worry  your  head  about  this  business  any 
more.  I  tell  you  I've  got  nothing  better  to 
do  than  to  look  after  it." 

"Thank you,"  said  Henry  again. 

Once  more  the  servant  started  to  go;  but- 
he  was  called  back  by  Mr.  Sanders,  who 
had  sunk  into  his  lounging-chair  and  was 
gazing  at  the  fire  with  an  odd  gleam  of 
amusement  in  his  eyes. 

"Henry,"  he  said,  "I'm  expecting  a  visit 
to-night  from  a  gentleman  named  Harms- 
leigh.  Perhaps  you  remember  him — he 
was  here  early  in  the  week.  If  he  comes, 
just  tell  him  I'm  sick  abed,  or  dying,  or  any- 
thing you  please.  Make  it  clear  to  him, 
anyhow,  that  I  can't  do  business  with  him 
and  will  kick  him  out  if  he  ever  comes  near 
the  house." 

"Yes,  Mr.  Sanders,''  replied  the  servitor, 
"I  will  make  him  understand  that  you  are 
not  accessible  to  him." 

When  Henry  was  gone,  Peter  Sanders 
groaned.  'T"m  in  for  it  now,"  he  mur- 
mured to  himself.  "This  will  give  me  oc- 
cupation for  some  time  to  come,  and  that 
fool  lawyer  will  think  me  the  most  bare- 
faced old  hypocrite  that  ever  drew  breath." 
But  his  lips  wrinkled  into  a  smile,  and  he 
began  to  whistle  in  the  most  undignified 
manner. 


Vol.  LV.— 66 


SWIMMING    BY    NIGHT 

By  Alice   Blaine   Damrosch 

It  is  night  time,  all  the  waters  round  me 

Grow  electric,  tenser,  in  the  starlight. 

See,  the  milky  way  is  full  of  splendor. 

Over  there  the  white  star  and  the  red  star 

Beckon  from  their  pinnacles  of  silence. 

All  the  larger  waves  are  tipped  with  glory, 

And  the  little  ripples  pause  and  whisper, 

As  they  touch  my  cheek  with  ghostly  fingers. 

I  will  swim  till  I  can  swim  no  longer, 

I  will  spurn  the  shore  that  blots  the  starlight 

From  my  vision,  I  will  shake  it  from  me. 

Strike  out  boldly  into  open  waters. 

I  know  sometime  that  my  strength  \\i\\  falter. 

That  I  must  turn  shoreward,  leave  my  star  search, 

Give  in  to  the  sweet,  soft,  acquiescent 

Land  breeze,  redolent  with  sleeping  hay  fields. 

How  I  hate  it,  I  would  fill  my  nostrils 

With  the  sharper,  freer  breath  of  heaven, 

Raising  up  my  head  once  in  so  often 

From  the  waters  for  great  draughts  of  glory. 

In  me  is  the  strength  of  gods,  I  battle 

With  the  waves  and  buffet  them  for  pleasure, 

I  will  beat  them,  break  them  in  my  passing, 

Feel  them  close  again  behind  my  shoulder; 

Every  muscle  has  its  strength  for  service, 

Now  I  summon  all  to  do  my  pleasure. 

Bid  them  bear  me  out  into  the  darkness. 

Far  off  where  the  startled  night  bird  circles, 

Half  awakened  by  my  silent  coming. 

Frightened  by  my  dim  arm  rising,  falling 

I  will  go,  yes  there  and  even  farther. 

I  will  seek  the  source  of  the  creation. 

Swim  with  mighty  strokes  to  the  horizon, 

Where  the  drowned  stars  and  the  stars  in  heaven 

Meet  and  mingle  in  new  constellations; 

I  will  reach  them,  dare  to  touch  them  even, 

Cleansed  and  purified  by  many  waters 

Even  I  may  breathe  upon  their  splendor. 

It  is  written  that  the  night  must  vanish. 

But  this  hour  is  mine,  I  will  not  yield  it, 

I  defy  the  dawn  to  take  it  from  me.  .  .  . 

Oh,  to  live  and  battle  thus  forever! 


632 


RAW    PROSE 


By   Katharine   Holland   Brown 

I  L  L  U  S  T  R  A  T  Id  N  S      UV      II  1 .  N  R  Y      R  A  I,  K  I  G  I  [ 


ILLIDAY,  Ward  County, 
Illinois,  is  famed  far  and 
wide  as  the  Morning  Glory 
Coal  Stove  Town.  It  is 
a  grimy,  thriving  place,  not 
far  north  of  St.  Louis.  Its 
railroad  yards  and  foundries  sprawl  along 
the  hot,  dusty  levee,  but  its  "residential 
section"  perches  haughtily  atop  the  steep 
limestone  bluffs,  well  out  of  the  smoke  and 
clamor  below.  It  is  a  new  town,  barely 
twelve  years  old,  and  its  smart  toy  churches 
and  trim  toy  bungalows,  set  in  baked  clay 
lawns,  might  have  been  dumped  from  his 
vasty  pinafore  two  minutes  ago  by  some 
Titan  baby.  Not  much  romance  there. 
Nor  can  the  foundries,  squatting  in  dingy 
ranks  along  the  Mississippi  shore,  lay 
claim  to  charm.  As  for  the  great  bluff's, 
on  whose  arched  heights  the  Piasa  spread 
its  blood-red  wings  a  century  gone,  their 
noble  ramparts  have  been  hacked  and 
seamed  by  scrapers,  and  plastered  with 
bill-boards,  and  strung  with  wires  and  ca- 
bles. But  midway  up  the  face  of  the  high- 
est bluff  runs  a  narrow  shelf,  reached  by 
a  long  flight  of  steps,  hewed  into  solid 
rock.  It  is  a  \'ery  tiny  shelf,  a  mere  wrin- 
kle on  the  great  face  of  the  bluff;  and  on  it 
there  clings,  like  a  swallow's  nest,  a  single 
tiny  shack;  just  a  heap  of  plank,  huddled 
tight  against  the  steep  rock  wall.  That 
June,  its  rough  boards  were  hid  under 
showers  of  silvery  clematis  vines,  and 
tossing  sprays  of  honeysuckle.  Hanging 
against  that  sheer  rock,  sheathed  in 
bloom,  the  little  house  had  a  quaint  air 
of  being  swung  there  by  some  breezy 
magic — a  pixy  dwelling,  blown  between 
twilight  and  dawn.  Above  and  beneath 
that  small  blossoming  foothold  of  en- 
chantment, Holliday  spreads  a  frank  and 
dismal  front,  all  jerry-built  smartness 
above,  all  noise  and  glare  below.  As 
young  Mrs.  Burton  sadly  says,  her  hus- 
band may  praise  Holliday  as  a  factory  site 
as  long  as  he  pleases,  but  there's  no  blink- 
ing the  fact  that  Holliday  is  writ  in  prose. 
Raw  prose,  at  that. 


Its  prose  bore  hard  on  Mrs.  Burton 
that  warm  morning.  She  had  just  set- 
tled herself  and  her  embroidery  on  the 
porch  for  a  long  peaceful  day  when  Lika 
called  her  to  the  telephone.  There  her 
husband's  voice  announced  disturbing 
news.  He  would  bring  a  guest  to  lunch- 
eon, a  most  portentous  guest — no  less  a 
personage  than  Mr.  Channing  of  Boston, 
chief  stockholder  in  the  Burton  Stove 
Foundry.  Matters  had  not  gone  well  with 
the  Burton  plant  that  year.  Business 
was  slack,  labor  high.  Mr.  Channing  of 
Boston  was  known  as  a  connoisseur  of 
sixteenth-century  enamels,  and,  too,  as  a 
broad-minded  investor.  Hence  the  min- 
gling of  worry  and  keen  hope  in  Mr. 
Burton's  tired  voice.  But  Mrs.  Burton 
sighed.  Just  like  John,  to  bring  home 
company  on  the  hottest  day  of  the  year. 
And  such  company!  Mrs.  Burton  looked 
out  on  her  scorched  garden,  where  a  few 
lank  geraniums  drooped  their  homesick 
heads.  She  looked  within,  at  her  crowded 
little  house,  its  stuff'y  dining-room,  its 
forlorn  cockiness,  and  shed  a  few  injured 
tears.  Then  she  called  Lika  and  set 
sulkily  to  work. 

Lika  followed  her  orders  with  dull  obe- 
dience. She  was  a  big,  fair,  sumptuous 
young  creature,  with  a  velvet  white-rose 
skin,  and  a  beautiful  grave  face,  framed  in 
thick  braids  of  wheat-gold  hair,  and  blue, 
deep  eyes,  unflinching  as  the  eyes  of  a 
child,  but  clouded  nowadays  with  dusk, 
stormy  shadows.  She  was  an  excellent 
servant.  Through  the  tirst  year  Mrs. 
Burton  had  exulted  in  her  treasure.  But 
of  late,  Lika  had  changed  amazingly. 
Not  that  she  neglected  her  work.  Rather, 
she  slaved  at  it,  with  a  sort  of  fury.  But 
all  her  hne  deftness  had  deserted  her. 
She  blundered  about  like  a  woman  sud- 
denly gone  blind.  Back  of  her  stupid- 
ity there  flashetl  and  darkened  a  sin- 
ister gleam.  To-day,  as  she  stood,  hands 
clasped,  listening  dutifully,  she  was  like 
a  creature  i)ossessed  of  some  consuming 
inward  lire.     Deep  crimson  spots  burned 


0^.4 


Raw   Prose 


in  luT  chocks;  her  blue  eyes  glittered;  her 
soft  mouth  shut  in  a  bitter  line. 

Making  ready  that  majestical  luncheon 
in  two  hot,  scurrying  hours  was  a  hideous 
task.  But  once  at  table  Mrs.  Burton's 
strained  nerves  relaxed.  Their  august 
guest  proved  a  mild  middle-aged  gentle- 
man, who  ate  largely  and  chatted  with 
urbane  enjoyment.  ]Mr.  Channing  of  Bos- 
ton was  a  connoisseur  of  other  things  be- 
sides sixteenth-century  enamels  and  stove 
foundries.  His  keen  eyes  lost  no  shade 
of  the  sordid  little  comedy  staged  before 
him:  the  scrambling,  noisy  new  town;  the 
worn,  harassed  man;  the  w^ife,  young, 
pretty,  petulant,  one  moment  chattering 
of  her  gay  acquaintance  ''in  the  East," 
then  stopping  short,  flushed  and  angrily 
chagrined,  before  some  trifling  slip  in  the 
order  of  her  table;  then  the  curious,  ail- 
but- visible  cloud  of  rancor  that  hung  be- 
tween husband  and  wife;  hostile  affec- 
tion; resentment  mixed  with  the  vague 
contempt  of  the  woman  who  feels  herself 
quite  too  fine  a  fibre  for  her  plodding  mate. 
It  was  all  very  amusing,  a  bit  pitiful, 
perhaps;  but  he  had  seen  it  all  so  often! 
Then  his  glance  swerved  from  his  hostess's 
face  to  the  face  of  the  tall  girl  standing 
behind  her  chair,  and  the  connoisseur 
in  him  felt  a  rare  thrill.  His  fine  mouth 
twitched  at  the  crisp  paradoxes  of  his  na- 
tive land.  That  this  rare  challenging 
beauty  should  stand,  like  a  young  empress 
in  chains,  at  common  little  Mrs.  Burton's 
common  little  table!  He  glanced  after 
her  as  he  lit  his  cigarette. 

"  What  an  amazing  type ! "  Very  suave- 
ly he  took  the  artist's  warrant.  ''Not 
American-born,  surely?  She  makes  me 
think  of  an  Alpine  meadowy  very  high, 
and  sunlit,  and  cold.  But  clouded  like 
an  Alpine  meadow  under  coming  storm. 
Such  a  face  of  tragedy,  for  all  its  youth! 
Like  having  Melpomene  herself  to  pass 
the  biscuit,  eh?  " 

Mrs.  Burton  frowned.  She  was  not 
just  sure  who  Melpomene  was,  anyway. 
But  her  husband  clutched  at  this  straw 
of  talk. 

"Tragic?  Urn.  There's  a  story  back 
of  that  tragic  face,  all  right.  She  came 
out  from  Sweden  two  years  ago;  brought 
along  her  old  grandmother,  a  little  warped 
old  crone,  past  ninety,  they  say.  They 
live  in  that  swallows'  nest  of  a  shack  that 
hangs  against  the  bluff,  maybe  sixty  feet 


straight  down.  You  noticed  it?  All  over 
vines  it  is,  and  looks  no  bigger  than  your 
hand.  It's  a  weird  place  to  live,  stuck  up 
on  that  shelf,  with  no  way  to  reach  it  ex- 
cept by  those  endless  rock  stairs.  But 
Lika  dotes  on  the  place.  She  goes  home 
to  the  old  woman  every  night.  Tends 
her  very  faithfully,  they  say." 

"Quite  too  faithfully."  Mrs.  Burton 
spoke  wdth  emphasis.  "Lika  is  most  un- 
reasonable! The  poor  old  soul  would 
be  far  better  off  in  a  Home.  But  Lika  just 
smiles  when  I  tell  her  so.  And  the  absurd 
way  she  indulges  her!  One  of  the  old 
woman's  whims  is  that  she  must  always 
have  a  baby  to  fuss  over.  She's  pitiably 
childish,  you  know.  So  every  day,  when 
her  noon  work  is  done,  Lika  trudges  away 
down  the  hill  to  the  Finnegan  shanty, 
'way  off  beyond  the  freight -yards,  and 
borrows  Mrs.  Finnegan's  youngest,  and 
carries  it  home,  all  the  way  up  those  steep, 
dizzy  stairs,  for  her  grandmother  to  play 
with.  Then,  right  after  supper,  she  goes 
home  again,  gets  the  baby,  and  carries  it 
down  to  its  mother.  Of  all  preposterous 
doings!" 

Mr.  Channing  smiled. 
'    "So  an  ancestress  wins  her  devotion. 
With    all    that    loveliness,    why    not    a 
lover?" 

"Well,  there  is  a  lover.  More'n  one  of 
him."  The  host  took  up  his  tale.  "The 
whole  works  went  wild  over  her  from  the 
start.  'Specially  two  of  our  best  men: 
Barney  Harrigan,  a  young  engineer  down 
at  my  own  factory — a  bully  good  engineer 
he  is,  too,  and  as  fine,  clean,  two-fisted 
a  young  husky  as  ever  trod  shoe-leather; 
and  Jim  MacLaren,  the  foreman  at  Foun- 
dry A.  MacLaren  is  the  older;  he's  a  tre- 
mendous swell  on  the  works.  Big,  swag- 
gering chap;  diamond  scarf-pin,  pockets 
full  of  ready  money,  a  bit  of  a  blow — you 
know^  the  breed.  Most  of  us  bet  on  Mac- 
Laren, and  it  was  nip  and  tuck  for  a  while, 
but  all  of  a  sudden  Lika  swung  over  to 
Barney,  and  she's  never  had  eyes  for  Mac- 
Laren since.  They  were  engaged,  right 
off  the  bat.  Happy?  Say,  it  did  you  good 
to  see  those  two  kids  strut  around  to- 
gether. They  figured  that  they  could  save 
up  enough  to  marry  in  two  years,  and  they 
thought  they  owned  the  earth.  Then,  six 
months  ago,  came  bad  news.  Francis 
Harrigan,  Barney's  kid  brother,  must  get 
into  a  shooting  scrape  dow^n  in  West  Vir- 


Raw   Prose 


G35 


ginia.  Time  of  that  wretched  Paint  Creek 
strike,  you  remember.  I  never  saw  the 
like  of  Barney's  rage.  He  went  right  up 
in  the  air.  Chucked  his  job,  and  Ht  out 
hot-foot  for  Paint  Creek,  swearing  he'd 
smash  the  jail  open,  then  smash  the  Kan- 
awha Company,  lock,  stock,  and  barrel. 
But  once  out  of  Holliday,  not  one  word 
has  come  from  him.  He's  vanished  into 
thin  air.  Yes,  of  course,  I've  made  in- 
quiries. I  was  right  fond  of  the  boy.  All 
I  could  learn  was  that  his  brother  had 
died  in  jail,  just  after  sending  for  Barney. 
But  Barney  has  disappeared  as  utterly  as 
if  he'd  stepped  off  the  edge  of  the  earth." 

'furious." 

"Worse  than  curious.  It's  no'  canny. 
Nowadays  Jim  MacLaren  is  hanging 
round  Lika  again.  Don't  believe  she 
looks  at  him,  though.  However,  he  and 
another  man  went  down  to  St.  Louis  last 
month,  and  came  back  with  a  queer  tale. 
Swore  they  saw  Barney  Harrigan  in  the 
flesh,  his  very  self.  Out  at  Hilton  Park, 
of  a  Sunday  afternoon,  they  declared,  w^ith 
a — a  woman.  Said  he  wouldn't  look  their 
way,  and  when  they  hailed  him  he  pre- 
tended not  to  know  them.  I  couldn't 
quite  swallow  that  yarn.  Barney  had 
promised  me  that  he'd  come  back  to  his 
job  the  minute  he  got  Francis  out  of  jail. 
Then,  considering  the  girl — no,  I  don't 
believe  MacLaren 's  little  story  for  a  cent. 
But  the  pity  of  it  is,  Lika  does  believe  it. 
And  it  has  clean  knocked  her  out." 

''Well,  but  she  doesn't  grieve,  really," 
Mrs.  Burton  broke  in.  "She  never  says 
one  word.  Swedes  are  so  callous!  She 
does  nothing  but  stumble  and  blunder 
around  my  house  all  day,  then  sit  in  her 
cottage  and  embroider  all  night,  making 
the  most  wonderful  flowers  and  scrolls  on 
a  great  piece  of  handwove  linen.  You 
wouldn't  think  she'd  have  the  heart  for 
fancy- w^ork!  However,  it's  marvellous 
needle-work,  though  I  can't  imagine  what 
it's  for.  But  when  I  asked  her  if  she 
didn't  want  to  make  me  some  doilies  she 
just  smiled  and  didn't  answer.  She — 
oh,  yes,  Lika,  take  the  tray.  Bring  some 
more  matches,  [)lease." 

Lika  brought  the  matches.  Her  blue 
eyes  shone  dark  as  the  sea  beneath  a  beat- 
ing wind.  Her  big,  strong  hands  were 
willing,  as  always,  yet  curiously  slow — 
slow  as  if  the  pulse  of  life  had  fallen  to 
ashes  in  that  fair,  vigorous  flesh. 


"Melpomene,  wearied,"  smiled  the 
connoisseur,  and  put  down  his  cup.  Then 
the  bland  amateur  retreated  before  the 
man  of  business,  prudent,  keen.  "As 
our  time  is  so  short,  Mr.  Burton,  perhaps 
Mrs.  Burton  will  permit  us  to  descend  to 
our  own  base  affairs?  Your  gross  out- 
put, I  understand,  has  increased  a  third 
since  you  took  over  the  plant.  But  your 
running  expenses " 

Lika  washed  her  mountain-piles  of 
dishes,  and  put  her  kitchen  in  order,  mov- 
ing slowly,  as  if  in  a  tired  dream.  She 
was  hanging  up  the  last  tea- towel  when 
there  came  a  rap  at  the  door.  She  stood, 
imperially  quiet,  and  looked  at  the  man  on 
the  threshold. 

"Good  afternoon,  ]\Iiss  Lika."  Mac- 
Laren's  broad,  handsome,  high-colored 
face  flushed  more  deeply.  He  jerked  off 
his  cap  with  a  flourish.  He  towered  be- 
fore her,  broad-shouldered,  superbly  built, 
powerful  as  one  of  his  own  dynamos. 

Lika  did  not  speak.  She  did  not  lift 
her  eyes. 

"  Good  afternoon,  I  say.  I  just  dropped 
in  to  ask  ye  to  go  with  me  to  the  Owls' 
dance  to-night.  I'll  be  pleased  to  be  your 
company." 

Lika  gave  him  an  awkward  courtesy. 

"I  tank  you.    I  do  not  wish  to  go." 

"You  don't  want  to  go?  Come  off. 
You're  foolin'.  A  pretty  girl  like  you  to 
mope  always  at  home  I" 

Lika  looked  past  him,  down  at  the 
smoky  ranks  of  factories,  the  wide  river 
below,  a  sheet  of  molten  brass  under  the 
westering  sun. 

MacLaren  frowned.  His  manner  veered 
from  gallant  to  bullying. 

"Come  now\  You  want  to  be  coaxed, 
that's  all  ails  you.  Come  on,  and  take 
the  shine  off  the  other  girls.  Right  as 
you  are  now,  kitchen  apron  and  all,  you 
could  make  'em  sing  small.    Come  along." 

Lika's  slow  mouth  framed  its  difficult 
reply. 

"I  tank  you.    I  do  not  wish  to  go." 

MacLaren's  eyes  snapped. 

"  Oho !  Guess  you're  waitin'  for  Barney 
Harrigan  to  come  back  and  ask  you. 
You  may's  well  quit  waitin'  for  Barney, 
my  beauty.  He's  got  him  another  girl, 
long  ago,  and  a  C|ueen,  mind  that.  Ain't 
1  seen  'em  together  in  St.  Louis?  Ain't 
he  turned  his  back  on  me,  the  big  sneak 


(V^C) 


Raw    Prose 


he  is.  an'  wouldn't  look  my  way?  Ain't 
he " 

His  jeering  voice  stopped  short.  He 
stared  at  the  girl  with  blank  eyes.  She  had 
not  moved  nor  sjx)ken.  Her  eyes  were 
fixed  on  the  smoke-piled  roofs,  the  wide, 
quiet  stream.  A  queer  chill  ran  through 
his  big  body.  A  man  might  as  well  be 
a  ghost,  for  all  those  blue  intent  eyes  saw 
of  him! 

"Well,  I'll  not  butt  in  any  longer." 
He  stepped  back,  with  a  baffled  jaunti- 
ness.  "Later  you  may  feel  different. 
Good  afternoon." 

Again  Lika  dipped  her  courtesy.  Ar- 
rogant and  gay,  MacLaren  strode  whis- 
tling down  the  street.  Lika  did  not  see 
nor  hear. 

She  locked  her  kitchen  and  went  away, 
down  the  long  roundabout  hill  road,  then 
up  the  long,  rough  stone  stairs  to  the 
cabin  on  the  ledge.  The  summer  wind 
waved  the  honey-suckle  sprays  like  fairy 
censers.  Under  its  green  and  flowered 
cloak  the  little  shack  was  a  lodge  of 
Elfland. 

Back  in  the  box-kitchen,  huddled  in 
her  red-plush  rocker,  sat  the  little  wispy 
grandmother.  The  Finnegan  baby,  a 
rose-leaf  armful,  cooed  and  chuckled  in 
her  lap.  As  Lika  came  in,  the  baby 
squealed  with  delight,  and  stretched  out 
imploring  fat  arms.  But  the  old  woman's 
face  darkened  wilfully. 

''I  have  had  him  such  a  little  while," 
she  whined.  "And  now  you  will  take 
him  away  from  me!" 

^'No,  no.  You  shall  keep  him  till  the 
sun  goes  down,"  Lika  promised  gently. 
She  put  their  two  rooms  in  order,  and  set 
out  their  supper.  The  old  woman  smacked 
her  lips  over  the  hot  porridge,  but  she 
kept  a  jealous  eye  on  the  baby.  When 
Lika  picked  the  little  fellow  up  and 
started  for  the  door,  she  dropped  her 
spoon  and  began  to  wail.  The  baby 
observed  her  w^ith  alarm,  then  doubled 
up  with  a  deafening  roar. 

"  You  will  take  him  away  from  me !  Al- 
ways you  will  take  him  away!" 

"  But  it  is  past  sundown.  His  mother 
is  vexed  when  we  keep  him  so  late," 
Lika  pleaded.  She  stood  helpless  before 
this  double  onslaught.  "And  the  steps 
are  steep,  grandmother.  If  I  wait  until 
darkness,  I  might  trip  and  let  him  fall. 
To-morrow  you  shall  have  him,  all  the 


long  day.  Ei,  dear  one,  grieve  not!" 
Distressed,  she  bent  and  clasped  the  little 
piteous  sobbing  creature  tenderly.  Then 
she  hurried  away.  But  half-way  down 
the  rock  stair  a  shrill  whistle  from  be- 
low halted  her. 

"  Hi,  Miss  Lika! "  At  the  foot  stood  the 
eldest  Finnegan,  megaphoning  through 
two  small  smudgy  hands.  "Maw  says 
would  youse  kindly  keep  the  kid  all  night? 
Pa's  goin'  take  us  all  to  the  movies.  All 
right.    Much  obliged!" 

Lika  went  back  swiftly,  the  baby  tossed 
high.  The  old  woman  still  sat  whimpering. 
But  at  sight  of  the  baby  she  screamed, 
and  snatched  for  him  like  a  child  for  her 
doll.  Lika  w^ent  on  about  her  work.  Be- 
hind her  the  two  voices  cooed  and  mur- 
mured, the  baby's  chuckles  answ^ering  the 
old  cracked  loving  whispers  in  soft  an- 
tiphony. 

At  last  her  tasks  were  done.  A  long 
minute  she  stood  at  the  window,  look- 
ing out  past  the  sheer  w^hite  precipice  at 
the  deepening  afterglow^  of  river  and  sky. 
Then  she  shook  down  her  mass  of  pale- 
gold  hair  and  braided  it  into  a  great 
shining  crown.  She  put  on  a  fresh  dress 
and  tied  on  a  clean  apron  crackling  with 
starch.  Then  she  went  to  her  little  trunk 
and  unlocked  it,  and  drew  out  a  bundle 
wrapped  in  white  cloth. 

She  sat  down  on  the  porch  step  and  un- 
rolled it  carefully.  It  spread  across  her 
knees  in  broad  gleaming  folds — a  great 
web  of  old  hand- wove  linen,  bleached  white 
as  frost,  half-covered  with  embroidery 
finer  than  frostwork;  roses,  fern-leaves, 
interlacing  wreath  on  wTeath,  all  white,  all 
mystic  white.  A  strange  and  sumptuous 
thing  for  that  poor  little  house  to  boast! 
And  there  was  something  almost  eerie  in 
its  very  whiteness,  something  daunting  in 
the  strange  grace  of  those  pale  fiow^ers, 
blooming  upon  their  field  of  snow' . 

Lika  stitched  away  with  flying  hands. 
The  frost-flowers  grew  under  her  touch 
like  witchery,  yet  she  seldom  looked  at 
her  w^ork.  Back  of  her,  generation  on  pa- 
tient generation,  the  w^omen  of  her  blood 
had  sat  in  their  dim  little  kitchens  through 
the  long  dim  Northland  winters,  while 
the  men  were  away  on  fishing  voyages, 
and  woven  their  delicate  stitches,  with 
never  a  downw^ard  glance.  For  their  eyes 
WTre  watching,  always — out  through  the 
narrow  windows,  out  past  the  gray  har- 


Raw   Prose 


037 


bor,  past  the  gray  tossing  horizon — for  a 
glimpse  of  home-coming  sails.  And  Lika's 
skill,  like  their  own,  was  never  skill;  in- 
stead, an  instinct  as  much  a  piece  of  her 
as  the  curve  of  her  mouth,  the  shine  of 
her  thick,  bright  hair. 

After  a  while  the  grandmother  tot- 
tered out.  She  grasped  a  fold  of  linen. 
Her  eyes  were  too  dim  to  see,  but  her 
horny  fingers  had  not  lost  their  cunning. 
Up  and  down  they  slid,  following  every 
tendril,  every  leaf.    At  last  she  spoke. 

''  It  is  too  broad  for  cloth  of  your  bridal 
gown.  It  is  too  narrow  for  the  table  of 
your  bridal  feast." 

Lika's  needle  sped  on. 

"It  is  of  the  heavy  flax,  the  Danish 
flax."  She  hummed  to  herself  an  old,  old 
round: 

''  'White  my  flax,  red  my  ring,  gold 
the  heart  of  my  betrothed ' 

"  Ah,  it  is  not  linen  of  bridal.  It  is  linen 
of  sepulture.     It  is  thy  winding-sheet!" 

Lika's  needle  flew.  The  old  woman's 
hands  slid  on,  groping.  Upon  her  wrin- 
kled face  shone  a  proud  and  wistful  re- 
membering. 

"You  will  hold  it  fast,  the  name  of  all 
our  women,"  her  little  cracked  voice  rang 
sweet  with  praise.  "Not  one  of  us  but 
has  gone  to  her  grave  wrapped  in  our  ow^n 
linen,  stiff  with  needle-work.  We  do  not 
go  shamed  and  skimped  to  our  graves." 

She  nodded,  gratified.  But  a  shrill  cry 
startled  her.  Dropping  the  linen,  she 
shuflied  indoors,  and  caught  up  the  baby 
again.  Happily  she  settled  herself  in  her 
rocker,  and  gathered  the  little  nestling 
thing  close,  with  soft  chirps  and  croon- 
ings. 

Soon  heavy  steps  came  up  the  stairs 
and  along  the  ledge.  Lika  glanced  up  ab- 
sently. 

MacLaren  was  accoutred  for  conquest. 
He  had  given  up  too  easily  that  after- 
noon. That  was  no  way  to  hold  a  woman. 
They  needed  a  firm  hand.  To-night  he 
strode,  masterly.  No  trace  of  the  flushed 
suppliant  here.  Spruce  and  handsome  in 
fine  new  clothes,  his  bold  head  flung  high, 
he  marched  down  the  ledge. 

"Evening,  Lika.  Ready  an'  waitin' 
for  me,  eh?  That's  the  girl!  We'll  be 
good  an'  early,  for  the  band  has  just  gone 
to  the  hall." 

Lika  set  another  stitch. 

"Sewin'  up  the  last  inch  of  daylight, 


hey? "laughed MacLaren.  "Quittin'time, 
now.     Come  on." 

His  big  hand  grasped  her  arm.  Lika 
looked  up. 

"I  tank  you,  Mister  MacLaren.  I  do 
not  wish  to  go." 

Something  in  that  consummate  uncon- 
cern flamed  through  the  man's  veins  like 
wild-fire. 

"Oh,  you  don't  wish  to  go.  Well,  I 
wish  different,  see?  Put  down  that  sew- 
ing-truck, and  march.  I've  taken  all 
the  slams  I  mean  to  take,  young  lady. 
March,  now." 

Gripping  her  wrist,  he  pulled  her  to  her 
feet.  The  touch  of  the  velvet-soft  flesh, 
the  white,  beautiful  face  so  close,  swept 
him  past  himself.  With  a  muttered  word, 
he  bent  to  seize  her.  She  did  not  seem  to 
draw  back.  But,  inexplicably,  she  drifted 
from  his  grasp.  He  might  as  well  have 
clasped  a  woman  of  mist. 

"What  in — "  His  grip  loosened  on  her 
arm.  Again  he  felt  that  curious  ghostly 
tremor  that  had  shaken  him  even  in  the 
broad  daylight.  He  shrank  a  step.  Then 
his  anger  flared.  He  grasped  her  shoul- 
ders and  pushed  her  back,  against  the  per- 
pendicular cliff  wall.  Where  they  stood 
the  ledge  narrowed  to  a  bare  ten  feet, 
sheer  rock  above  and  below.  He  glowered 
down  into  her  listless  face. 

"Got  you  fast  now,  miss.  Let's  have 
no  more  foolin'.  Give  us  a  kiss  and  come 
on  with  your  man." 

"I  will  not.  I  haf  no  man  now.  Go 
away.     Please." 

"Not  much  I  won't.  See?"  He  bent 
over  her,  breathing  quick. 

"Ach,  begone,  I  say."  Lika  spoke 
mildly  as  if  to  a  troublesome  animal.  As 
his  face  leaned  close,  she  set  both  power- 
ful hands  against  his  chest  and  pushed 
him  away.  Perhaps  she  did  not  realize 
her  own  strength.  Perhaps  MacLaren 's 
foot  turned  on  a  stone.  Back  he  went, 
two  uncertain  steps;  then,  with  a  gasp- 
ing scream,  he  pitched  down  over  the 
clitL 

Thirty  feet  down  a  clump  of  scrub-oak 
caught  and  held  him.  For  some  time 
he  lay  there,  groaning  and  swearing.  At 
last  he  dragged  himself  free,  and  crawled 
weakly  inch  by  inch  along  the  face  of  the 
blulT,  till  he  reached  the  rock  stairs. 
Down  them  he  crept,  and  disappeared  in 
the  thickening  dusk. 


G88 


Raw   Prose 


One  glance  over  the  bluff  had  satisfied 
Lika  that  MacLaren  was  not  badly  hurt. 
She  hung  at  the  edge,  watching,  silent. 
When  finally  he  had  limped  away,  halt- 
ing to  shake  his  fist  up  at  the  ledge,  she 
went  back  to  her  work. 

The  last  sunset  gleam  faded.  The  river 
turned  from  fiery  copper  to  sullen  murky 
gray.  She  could  no  longer  see  the  thread. 
Yet  unerringly  she  set  her  stitches,  one 
by  on^. 

Suddenly  her  body  stiffened,  taut. 
Her  eyes  flared  wide.  She  leaned  for- 
ward, trembling,  and  stared  dow^n.  Up 
the  long  stairs  came  a  dark  shape — a  man, 
hurrying,  stumbling,  all  but  spent  with 
exhaustion.  Yet  he  plunged  on,  his  lean 
tall  figure  reeling  in  desperate  haste,  his 
black  head  lifted. 

Lika  pitched  to  her  feet.  The  great 
web  fell  beside  her.  Every  drop  of  blood 
went  out  of  her  face.  Ashen,  swaying, 
she  clung  to  the  door  and  stared  and 
stared  down  at  the  man,  now  panting  up 
the  last  steps.  He  had  reached  the  ledge; 
he  was  striding  down  toward  the  shack. 
Now,  his  hot  eyes  strained  through  the 
dusk,  he  saw  her.  And  his  voice  rang 
out,  a  cry  of  utter  joy  and  passion :  "  Lika ! 
Lika!  My  girl,  my  own  girl!  Lika!  Lika! 
Lika!" 

Lika  did  not  stir.  White  as  the 
drifted  linen,  she  clung  against  the  door. 
Her  blue  eyes  blazed  upon  him.  Her 
beautiful  face  grew  hard  as  steel. 

''Lika!  Lika!"  The  man  stumbled 
close,  hungry  arms  outstretched.  He  was 
bony  and  haggard,  and  blue-lipped  with 
fatigue,  but  his  face  was  the  face  of  a 
great  eager  boy.  "Lika,  mavourneen! 
Come  to  me!  You'll  not  be  afraid,  my 
sweet.  'Tis  no  ghost  I  am,  'tis  just  Bar- 
ney, yer  own  man.    Darlin'!    Come!" 

Lika's  face  set  like  a  white  mask.  She 
tried  to  speak.  At  last  the  words  came, 
hoarse  and  broken. 

"So.  You  dare  to  come  back.  You 
dare  to  speak  me  beloved.  You  who 
mocked  me.  You  who  threw  me  away 
for  another.    Ei!    Coward!" 

The  man  stood  stock-still.  He  did  not 
even  flinch.  But  his  jaw  dropped  with  be- 
wilderment, and  his  gaunt  face  grew  paler. 
He  laid  one  big  bony  hand  on  her  arm. 

'"Tis  dreamin'  ye  are,  Lika,  darlin'," 
he  said  tenderly.  "You've  never  forgot 
yer  Barney!    'Tis  the  long  cruel  wait  has 


turned  yer  sweet  wits,  girl.  Look  at  me. 
Don't  ye  know  me,  heart's  treasure? 
Don't  ye  know  yer  own  man?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know.  I  know  who  you 
are."  Lika  laughed,  an  ugly  laugh.  Her 
eyes  lit  with  a  cruel  gleam.  "  You  are  my 
Barney.  So.  You  gave  me  your  prom- 
ise. You  put  the  ring  on  my  finger.  You 
w^ere  my  man  forever.  Eh!  Then  you 
wTnt  aw^ay,  far.  You  sent  me  not  one 
word.  You  left  me  to  tear  myself  in  lit- 
tle pieces.  You  left  me,  and  went  to  an- 
other woman.  You  have  laughed  with 
her,  you  have  held  her  in  your  arms " 

"You  lie!"  The  boy  leaped  on  her. 
He  clutched  her  shoulders,  shook  her 
fiercely.  "You  lie!  There's  niver  been 
no  other  w^oman.  There  niver  could  be — 
A — ah!"  His  furious  face  grew  tender 
again.  "It's  the  long  sorrow  has  be- 
trayed you,  dear  love.  You've  grieved 
till  your  blessed  soul  is  sick  within  you. 
Lika,  girl!    Come!" 

"No,  it  is  not  sorrow  that  has  be- 
trayed me.  But  you — you!  Have  they 
not  told  me?  Did  they  not  see  you,  two 
months  gone,  with  her,  that  stranger? 
In  the  great  park  at  St.  Louis — ei?  "  Out 
rang  her  shrill,  infuriate  laugh.  "It  was 
a  day  of  great  wind,  so  you  would  walk 
close,  to  shield  her,  as  you  have  walked 
close  with  me.  And  together  you  laughed 
and  sang,  as  you  and  I  laughed  and  sang, 
when  we  have  raced  together  through  the 
great  snow  and  the  storm.  And  at  the 
bridge  you  stopped  and  stood  together, 
and  looked  down  at  the  river " 

' '  Oh,  we  did !"  The  man  began  to  gasp. 
A  flood  of  red  poured  over  his  face.  He 
bent  and  glared  into  her  eyes.  "Oho!  A 
woman,  in  the  park — and  we  laughed  and 
sang  together!  And  MacLaren,  he  it  w^as 
that  saw  me,  and  told  you?  'Tis  strange 
that  I  don't  ricollect,  at  all.  Yet  not  so 
strange,  when  ye  mind  that  not  a  woman's 
face  have  I  seen,  nor  has  my  foot  stepped 
the  green  grass,  all  these  six  months  I've 
laid  in  prison." 

"In  prison?" 

"Yes.  In  prison.  In  Hooperstown, 
West  Virginny,  if  'twould  inthrest  ye  to 
know."  He  drew  back,  still  staring  down 
at  her  pale,  dazed  face  with  savage  eyes. 
"Down  to  the  mines  I  went,  as  well  ye 
know,  to  find  me  brother  Francis,  when 
word  came  he  w'as  hurt  an'  in  trouble. 
Well,  find  him  I  did.    Struck  down  by  a 


White  my  flax,  red  my  lins,  gold  tlie  lieart  of  my  betrothed '  "—  Page  637. 


jT^uard's  bullet,  he  was,  sick  to  death,  an'  of  buryin' me  own  hrotherl    An'tlu'Vtook 

])enned  in  that  I'llthy  jail,  like  a  mad  beast,  me  to  the  stone  house,  an'  locked  me  in, 

He  was  'most  gone  when  I  got  there.    FV  a  not  ten  steps  from  where  I'Vancis  had  lain 

wonder  they  let  me  in,  they  let  him  talk  to  an'  moaned  his  life  away.    Six  nionths  ago 

me — an'  he  died  that  night,  wid  his  poor  yisterday  it  was.    I'\ekei)t  me  tally  close, 

hand  clutchin'  mine,  an'  his  poor  head  on  An'  llure  I'xe  stayed." 

meknee.     An' next  day,  at  sundown,  three  Lika  did  not  stir.    She  hardly  seemed  to 

of  the  mines'  guard  do  be  comin'  to  the  breathe.     Her  blue  eyes  burned  darkly  on 

house  where  I'd  stayed  an'  arrestin'  me  f"r  his  face,  so  bleaclied,  so  worn  with  pain, 

disorderly  conduct.     Disorderly  conduct  "Then  all  these  nu)nlhs  you  ha\-e  lain 

Vol.  LV.— 67  ojy 


r.-io 


Raw   Prose 


in  i)risoii.    You  have  lain  in  sorrow.    You 
have  gone  alone." 

''Alone?  Oh,  no!"  His  voice  veered 
to  high  mockery.  *'Tis  yourself  knows 
better,  me  girl.  Isn't  it  yourself  has  telled 
me  how  I've  laughed  and  sung  an'  car- 
ried on  wid  a  girl  in  St.  Louis?  Me,  that 
lay  on  me  planks  night  on  night,  an'  fed 
me  starved  soul  wid  thoughts  of  you?" 

"Ah-h!"  Lika  pushed  past  him.  She 
stooped  and  gathered  the  great  web  of 
linen  into  her  arms.  It  trailed  around 
her  in  folds  as  white  as  pearl.  Even  in 
the  dusk  the  great  embroidered  blossoms 
were  faintly  visible. 

"Ah,  seel"  She  thrust  the  cloth  into 
his  hands.  ''All  the  black  winter  I  slept 
in  terror  for  you,  I  woke  in  pain.  And 
yet  I  hoped — and  hoped.  But  two  months 
gone  they  came  to  me  and  told  me — that 
they  had  seen  you  in  the  city,  with  that 
other.  That  you  would  not  speak  to 
them,  you  turned  and  passed  them  by. 
And  I  was  a  fool.  For  I  listened.  And^ 
I  believed.  And  all  the  life  went  from 
me,  and  all  the  wish  to  live." 

''Lika!    Lika " 

"Listen.  I  looked  on  her,"  she  pointed 
to  the  old  grandmother,  huddled  content 
in  the  dusk.  "  I  knew  that  soon  she  would 
go.  For  she  is  very  old,  and  very  tired. 
And  I  thought,  when  she  goes  I  will 
go  too.  Then  none  will  need  me.  So  I 
brought  out  this  linen  of  my  mother's 
weaving.    And  I  set  to  work." 

"Your  mother's  weaving?  You — 
What  do  you  mean,  girl?     Speak  out!" 

"It  is  the  custom  of  our  people.  Can 
you  not  see?    Do  you  not  understand?" 

Puzzled,  the  man  took  hold  of  the  great 
w^eb,  and  fumbled  at  the  embroidery. 
Then  he  cried  out,  with  a  scared  furious 
cry.  He  threw  the  linen  down,  with  a 
stamp  of  loathing.  Then  he  stooped  and 
seized  it  again.  His  big  hands  were 
wasted  and  nerveless  from  fever.  But 
they  shut  over  that  flowered  mass  like 
clamps  of  steel.  With  one  snatch  he 
tore  the  cere-cloth  through  from  hem  to 
hem.  He  balled  the  strips  and  threw 
them  far  over  the  bluff.  They  saw  them 
fall  slowly,  fluttering  like  torn  wings,  till 
they  dropped  from  sight  on  the  black 
river-brim. 

"Ach!"  breathed  Lika.     "Gone!" 

She  took  a  step  toward  the  man.  But 
he  was  already  stumbling  to  her.     His 


weary  arms  locked  her  close.  His  sobbing 
whisper  died  against  her  cheek.  "Lika! 
Lika!    Beloved!    Beloved!" 

It  was  a  hushed,  white  night,  full  of 
soft  winds  and  fragrant  silences.  The 
full  moon  lifted  a  broad  ivory  disk  above 
the  ragged  horizon-line.  Under  that  calm 
mellow  radiance,  Holliday's  rough  hills 
and  cluttered  hollows  lay  as  beneath  a 
deep  and  tranquil  charm.  That  pure 
glory  folded  squat  foundries  and  rusty 
dump-cars  in  the  same  enchantment  that 
once  enfolded  Helen's  ivory  battlements, 
a  certain  latticed  casement  in  Verona. 

Soon  its  broadening  light  struck  down 
upon  the  ledge  and  picked  out  every  line 
of  Lika's  tiny  shack  distinct  and  clear. 
More  than  ever  frail  and  tiny  it  seemed, 
an  hour's  lodging  for  Robin  Goodfellow. 
Yet  it  hung  there,  strong  enough  to  hold 
fast  two  wild  young  hearts,  fitly  spacious 
to  house  a  world  of  joy. 

Back  in  the  dark  little  kitchen  the  old 
woman  sat  in  her  red-plush  rocker,  the 
Finnegan  baby  cuddled  to  her  caved  old 
breast.  The  rocker  was  very  comfort- 
able ;  the  last  kernels  of  fire  were  still  red 
in  the  stove  and  their  warmth  was  grate- 
ful to  her  old  bones.  She  was  humming 
to  herself,  a  queer  little  drowsy  tune  that 
had  wandered  away,  away,  across  a  land 
all  steep  white  cliffs  and  sparkling  icy 
fiords;  a  tune  that  her  mother's  mother 
had  crooned  to  the  silky  head  on  her 
breast  when  all  Europe  crouched  and 
fawned  at  one  spurred  heel,  when  Mos- 
cow's blazing  domes  lit  the  black  night 
sky.  Her  shrivelled  hands  locked  in  jeal- 
ous delight  over  the  little  sleeping  thing  in 
her  arms.  There  was  a  quaint  content- 
ment in  her  face;  the  grave  assured  con- 
tentment of  a  creature  that  holds  fast  in 
its  two  hands  the  one  sovereign  key  to 
joy,  the  one  true  talisman. 

From  the  vine-clad  stoop  there  came, 
from  time  to  time,  low  voices.  Lika,  blun- 
dering considerably  for  sheer  ecstasy,  had 
managed  at  length  to  set  food  and  drink 
before  her  man.  Now  they  sat  together, 
Lika  on  the  step  above,  her  beautiful  head 
bent  to  meet  the  dark  adoring  face  up- 
turned to  her.  To-night  Lika's  eyes  were 
dark  calm  lakes  of  blue.  Her  strong 
splendid  body  breathed  deep  with  peace. 
And  her  soft  whisper  answered  the  pas- 
sionate whisper  at  her  knee. 


He  glowered  down  into  her  li>.ilcs!.  fate.      "  I  Jot  you  fast  now,  iiii^s. " — I'agc  (>J7. 


641 


'"«fc-^  4«-*l^  "■«»  ^itHn,^^ 


642 


Drawn  by  Henry  Raleigh. 

Lika  did  not  stir.     White  as  the  drifted  linen,  she  clung  against  the  door. — Page  638. 


Raw   Prose 


643 


"Look  at  the  river,  my  man,  all  fretted 
silver  like  grandmother's  coif  of  bridal, 
and  the  great  still  sky,  and  all  the  little 
patient  stars."  Her  hands  clasped  the 
man's  hand,  folded  it  against  her  warm 
throat,  cradled  it  close.  "Oh,  the  beauti- 
ful world,  because  it  holds  you,  beloved! 
Yet  it  has  been  as  if  I  walked  through 
burning  ashes,  through  black  evil  night. 
And  I  had  only  one  wish  left.  To  go,  to 
go  from  it  all " 

"Hush!"  The  man's  hoarse  whisper 
silenced  her.  His  covetous  arms  reached 
up  and  drew  her  down  into  his  clasp.  The 
smell  of  her  wheat-gold  hair  was  in  his 
nostrils,  the  warmth  of  her  tender  mouth 
against  his  cheek.  "Let  it  all  go,  my 
blessed.  'Tis  all  gone  anyhow,  the  pain, 
an'  the  grief,  an'  the  ugly  long  distrust. 
I've  got  ye  in  my  two  arms,  mavourneen. 
I'll  never  be  lettin'  ye  go  again.  An' 
yet — "  Suddenly  his  grasp  loosened.  His 
boyish  voice  shook.  "Yet  shame  on  me, 
to  be  snatchin'  ye,  sweet!  For  I've  naught 
to  give  ye,  Lika.  I've  no  money  left  at 
all,  I've  only  me  two  hands  to  work  f'r 
ye " 

Lika  flung  back  her  head.  She  laughed 
aloud,  a  deep  full-throated  bubbling  peal. 

"So  ye've  no  riches  to  bring  me,  my 
man?  Nothing  but  your  own  self,  be- 
loved? Nothing  but  my  whole  world. 
AchI"  Her  lovely  face  bent  close  above 
his  own;  her  lips  touched  his  forehead. 
Her  voice  poured  out,  a  deep,  sw^eet  moth- 
er-note, the  tenderest  Northland  word  of 
love.  "Ach,  so  foolish  are  you,  heart's 
treasure,  my  own  little  child!" 

Above  the  bluffs,  on  the  broad  bare  new 
avenue,  the  moon  shone  clear  upon  the 
Burton's  ornate  bungalow.  Its  light  soft- 
ened even  those  gingerbread  splendors  to 
gracious  harmony.  Burnt  turf  and  sickly 
shrubs  were  veiled  in  gentle  shadow;  even 
the  spindling  geraniums  were  mercifully 
hid  from  sight.  But  all  that  necromancy 
could  not  transform  the  outlook  for  Mrs. 
Burton's  eyes.  She  still  tingled  with  the 
grievances  of  the  day.  Its  trials  put  the 
capsheaf  on  a  prodigiously  looming  pile 
of  grievance. 

"If   only   I   had  a  fair  chance,  John, 

I  could  entertain  your  guests  j^roperly. 

But  in  this  unspeakable  town,  and  in  this 

house!     I  know  I  have  a  social  gift.     I 

Vol.  LV.— 68 


could  have  made  Mr.  Channing's  lunch- 
eon a  memorable  affair,  if  I'd  had  the 
right  china  and  silver,  and  somebody  else 
besides  that  great  lump  of  a  girl  to  serve. 
But  you  really  can't  expect " 

Mr.  Burton  smoked  on  stolidly.  Per- 
haps it  occurred  to  him  that,  had  her 
talent  been  of  such  transcendent  essence, 
she'd  have  made  that  luncheon  memor- 
able without  stage-properties.  Instead, 
he  took  her  reproaches  in  silence.  He  was 
used  to  taking  things  in  silence. 

"  It  does  seem  sometimes  as  if  I  couldn't 
endure  this  place  another  minute!"  Mrs. 
Burton's  monologue  was  tending  omi- 
nously toward  tears.  "I'm  so  utterly  sick 
and  tired  of  my  life  here.  'Holliday'! 
The  irony  of  it!  Not  a  holiday  thought 
in  all  this  hideous  town,  not  a  breath  of 
music,  not  a  gleam  of  romance  I  I  do 
think  you  might  let  me  go  back  to  New 
Rochelle  and  have  a  little  real  life  for 
once.  Anything  to  get  away  from  Holli- 
day.  Hateful  place,  it's  just  what  I've 
always  called  it,  it's  prose.    Raw  prose!" 

"Well — if  you  want  a  trip  home  so 
badly,  I  dare  say — I'll  try  to  let  you  have 
the  money  somehow."  At  last  Mr.  Bur- 
ton broke  his  silence.  His  voice  was  rather 
flat.  He  bent  and  rapped  his  pipe  on  the 
veranda  rail.  "I  suppose  you'll  have  to 
have  a  couple  of  hundred  as  a  starter.  It 
doesn't  come  very  easy  just  now."  He 
halted.  His  mouth  worked  in  a  soundless 
computation.  He'd  be  put  to  it,  all  right, 
to  let  her  have  even  two  hundred  just  at 
this  time,  for  he  was  running  mighty 
close  to  the  wind.  He  had  put  up  every- 
thing but  his  life-insurance  to  meet  last 
month's  pay-roll,  and  he  had  a  note  com- 
ing due  at  the  bank  Saturday.  And 
Mr.  Channing  had  been  heart-sickeningly 
vague  as  to  further  investment.  However, 
if  Hattie  wanted  it,  she'd  have  to  have  it, 
that  was  all. 

"Guess  I'll  manage  somehow."  His 
big,  loose-jointed  body  sagged  back  in 
the  chair.  He  drew  a  stealthy  breath, 
and  looked  at  his  wife  thn>ugh  the  airy 
haze  of  moonlight  -her  dainty  petulant 
attitude;  her  exquisite  gown;  her  pretty 
petulant,  discontented  small  face.  His 
own  face  took  on  a  curious  look,  a  little 
wistful,  a  little  grim.  "I  reckon  you're 
about  right,  Hattie.  Seems  like  nowa- 
days life's  mostly  j)rose.     Raw  prose." 


WHEN    THE    PRINCE    CAME    HOME 


By  George  T.  Marsh 

Illustrations  by  Frank  E.  Schoonover 


Q^^^jK^/ogaHE  door  of  the  trade-house 
at  Rupert  was  thrown  open, 
admitting  a  blast  of  biting 
air  and  a  flurry  of  powdery 
snow,  followed  by  the  rug- 
ged figure  of  Bruce  Cristy, 
son  of  the  factor. 

"  The  Queen  of  Sheba'spups  have  come, 
father,"  he  cried,  "  and  Michel  says  they're 
the  likeliest-looking  litter  he's  ever  seen 
at  Rupert  House." 

The  factor,  grinning  with  pleasure, 
reached  for  his  foxskin  cap.  '^  We'll  have 
a  look  at  'em.  It's  time  we  had  some 
good  dogs  at  Rupert." 

Now  the  Queen,  an  Ungava-bred  husky, 
bought  when  a  puppy  from  a  Whale  River 
Eskimo,  was  far  and  away  the  best  sled- 
dog  at  the  post,  and  the  pride  of  the  big 
Scotchman.  Massive  of  bone  and  frame, 
with  the  stamina  of  a  caribou,  she  had 
W'On,  as  a  yearling,  a  place  in  the  traces  of 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company's  winter  packet 
that  took  the  mail  north  up  the  east  coast. 
Therefore,  it  was  with  high  hope  that 
Cristy  floundered  over  the  narrow  dog- 
trail  in  the  deep  snow  to  an  unoccupied 
shack  behind  the  trade-house. 

In  the  open  door  of  the  building  stood 
two  of  the  shaggy  veterans  of  the  mail- 
teams,  peering  curiously  with  wolfish  eyes 
into  the  interior,  while  from  a  deep  throat 
within  a  low,  menacing  rumble,  like  the 
muffled  threats  of  a  September  north- 
wester gathering  on  James  Bay,  held  them 
at  the  threshold.  For  there  w^as  not  a 
slant-eyed  husky  at  Rupert  House  that 
had  not  felt  the  white  fangs  of  the  Queen, 
w^ho  long  since  had  asserted  her  sover- 
eignty by  right  of  the  power  that  lay  in 
the  lunge  and  slash  of  her  punishing  jaws. 

As  the  factor  and  his  son  entered  the 
shack,  the  growl  changed  to  a  whine  of 
recognition  from  the  great  dog,  who  lay 
on  some  old  sacking  in  the  corner,  with 
six  bUnd,  whimpering  balls  of  fur. 

"Well,  Queenie,  old  girl,  you've  sure 
644 


done  yourself  proud,"  chuckled  the  de- 
lighted Cristy,  patting  the  head  that 
sought  his  hand.  "Let's  have  a  look  at 
the  family." 

One  after  another  he  picked  up  the 
squealing  puppies,  his  practised  fingers 
sensing  the  bone  and  build  of  each  as  if 
he  were  fit  already  for  the  collar  and  traces 
of  the  winter  trails. 

"Hello!  Here's  one  that's  the  picture 
of  the  old  lady  herself,"  he  continued,  lift- 
ing a  squirming  puppy  for  inspection. 

"Look!  He's  got  the  same  white  star 
on  his  chest,  and  the  four  white  socks," 
cried  Bruce. 

"Yes,  and  in  bone  and  build  he's  the 
best  of  the  lot,"  added  his  father.  "I 
guess  we'll  name  him  Prince  right  here, 
for  he's  got  the  right  to  the  title.  Some 
day  he'll  lead  the  winter  packet  a  day 
ahead  of  time  into  Whale  River,  and 
Mackay'll  have  to  find  a  new  joke.  We'll 
have  some  sled-dogs  worth  their  white- 
fish  at  Rupert  yet,  lad." 

That  year  the  spring  came  early  to 
Rupert  Land.  The  melting  snow  of  April 
brought  to  the  huskies  a  swift  release 
from  the  winter's  thraldom  to  collar  and 
traces,  and  snow-shoes  were  discarded  by 
the  little  colony  for  the  slush-proof  seal- 
skin boot.  Then  the  ice  began  to  boom 
and  churn  and  grind  day  after  day  past 
the  post  to  the  salt  bay.  The  great  river, 
swollen  by  the  floods  from  far  Mistassini, 
crept  foot  by  foot  up  the  high  shores  until 
it  seethed  and  hissed  almost  at  the  level 
from  which,  for  two  centuries,  the  brave 
little  fort  had  hurled  a  mute  defiance  at 
the  sullen  north.  Bound  for  the  marshes 
of  the  west  coast,  long  lines  of  gray  geese, 
led  by  veteran  couriers  of  the  air,  crossed 
like  caravans  the  blue  desert  of  the  sky. 
White  hosts  of  wavies,  their  snowy  wings 
flapping  in  the  sun's  rays  like  huge  ban- 
ners, passed  high  overhead  to  their  nesting- 
places  in  nameless  arctic  islands.    In  the 


When  the   Prince  Canie   Home 


(;4:) 


wake  of  the  gray  and  the  white  squadrons 
came  the  little  brothers  of  the  air,  duck 
and  yellow-legs,  warbler  and  thrush.  And 
soon,  from  the  neighboring  forest,  piped 
the  heralds  of  soft  days  in  Ru])ert  Land. 

With  the  waxing  of  the  spring  the  sons 
and  daughters  of  the  Queen  grew  into 
hulking,  leggy  puppies,  always  in  the  way 
of  every  one,  including  themselves.  But 
reckless  indeed  of  the  safety  of  his  throat 
would  have  been  the  half-breed  who  kicked 
them  from  his  path  while  the  restless, 
narrow  eyes  of  the  Queen  kept  vigilant 
watch.  And  it  was  not  long  before  the 
puppy  with  the  white  socks  and  star- 
emblazoned  chest  began  to  realize  the 
promise  of  his  earliest  youth.  Soon  his 
fiercer  spirit,  aided  by  the  might  of  his 
sturdier  build,  brought  his  kinsmen  into 
subjection,  and  he  became  the  acknowl- 
edged leader  in  every  puppy  plot  and 
misadventure  about  the  trade-house  and 
factor's  quarters. 

It  was  the  Prince  who  was  found  un- 
der the  trade-touse  endeavoring  to  bolt 
Cristy's  best  pair  pf  sealskin  boots.  It 
was  the  Prince  who,  unobserved,  gnawed 
into  a  bag  of  flour,  and  on  appearing  be- 
fore his  family,  an  apparition  in  white,  was 
set  upon  fiercely  by  his  kinsmen  in  a  body, 
who  failed  to  recognize  him  in  his  new  role 
of  purity.  Not  until  he  had  administered 
to  them  a  sound  drubbing,  in  the  course  of 
which  activity  he  lost  his  disguise,  was  he 
readmitted  to  membership  in  the  family 
circle.  Again,  it  was  the  Prince  who,  at 
the  tender  age  of  three  months,  demon- 
strated to  the  half-wild  tom-cat  of  the 
Cristys  that  a  husky  pup  with  a  star  on 
his  chest  and  the  teeth  of  an  otter  was 
not  to  be  cuffed  with  impunity.  There- 
after, Lynx  curled  a  tail  somewhat  shorter 
than  he  formerly  wore,  and  affected  a  de- 
cided hitch  in  his  gait. 

But  though  the  Prince  soon  acquired  a 
reputation  for  a  peppery  temper  and  the 
love  of  a  brawl,  Bruce  Cristy  early  dis- 
covered that  he,  alone,  of  the  children  of 
the  Queen,  not  even  momentarily  could 
be  lured  from  the  side  of  his  master  by 
coaxing  or  bribery.  Early  he  acquired 
the  trick  of  rushing  full-tilt  at  Bruce,  in 
his  lumbering  pupj)y  gait,  yelj)ing  as  he 
ran,  only,  on  reaching  him,  to  seize  a  hand 
in  his  open  jaws,and,»raising  his  slant  eyes, 
to  wait  with  fiercely  wagging  tail  for  the 


other  hand  to  grasp  his  nose  and  roll  him 
on  his  wriggling  back. 

So  the  northern  summer  passed,  and 
with  the  first  bite  in  the  air  came  the  gray 
and  the  white  squadrons  from  the  north  to 
feed  on  the  succulent  goose-grass  of  the 
south  coast  marshes.  Under  Bruce  the 
Com{)any  Indians  manned  the  goose- boats 
and  left  for  the  annual  hunt  on  Hannah 
Bay  for  the  winter's  supply.  With  the 
exception  of  Cristy  and  some  of  the  older 
post  Crees,  Rupert  House  was  devoid  of 
men. 

It  was  a  soft,  lazy  afternoon  at  the  end 
of  September — weather  which  always  i)re- 
cedes  the  cold  storm  that  ushers  in  the 
Indian  summer  on  the  bay.  A  week  of 
the  latter  and  the  stinging  winds  would 
sweep  down  from  the  north,  bringing  the 
brant  and  the  first  flurry  of  snow.  The 
dogs  of  the  factor's  mail-teams  were 
sprawled  around  the  trade-house,  asleep 
in  the  sun.  But  sleep  this  golden  after- 
noon was  not  for  the  offspring  of  the 
Queen.  Vainly,  under  the  lead  of  the 
Prince,  master  of  sports,  they  had  romped 
from  trade-house  to  river  shore,  and  back 
to  the  spruce  forest  in  the  rear,  in  search 
of  adventure.  They  had  pawed  and 
pulled  at  the  inert  anatomy  of  the  Queen, 
only  to  be  met  with  dire  threats  of  chas- 
tisement in  the  form  of  low  growls  and 
lazy  exposure  of  white  canines  as  her  head 
fell  again  in  sleep.  At  last,  in  despera- 
tion, the  hulking  Prince  picked  up  a 
bleached  caribou  shin-bone,  and  shaking 
it  as  he  would  a  rabbit,  challenged  his 
comrades  to  take  it. 

With  yelps  of  delight  the  pursuit  began. 
Pell-mell  around  the  trade-house  went  the 
])ack  at  the  heels  of  the  big  puppy.  Back 
again  they  came,  scraml)ling  over  each 
other  in  wild  confusion  as  they  slid  down 
the  steep  river  bank  in  full  cry.  Then  up 
again  and  o\er  to  the  forest  raced  the 
scjuealing  huskies,  hard  in  pursuit  of  one 
too  fleet  to  be  overtaken.  Soon,  out  of 
the  forest  galloped  the  Prince,  and  headed 
for  the  trade-house.  Arriving  there,  he 
stopped  and  allowed  his  nearest  pursuers 
to  come  almost  within  reach,  then,  shaking 
his  bone  in  (heir  faces,  he  fled  uj)  the  river 
shore  toward  the  mission  and  the  cabins  of 
the  f)ost  Indians  a  few  hundred  yards  ofl". 

Tlie  pui)|)y  had  not  covered  half  the 
distance  when  from  the  grass  back  of  the 


(ill'. 


When   the    Prince  Came   Home 


mission-house  rose  a  l)ig  white  husky, 
openini^  his  red  mouth  in  a  wide  yawn  as 
he  stretched.  For  a  moment  he  surveyed 
the  authors  of  the  bedlam  which  had 
wakened  him;  then,  with  ears  erect  and 
hair  on  neck  bristhng,  began  to  walk 
slowly  through  the  long  grass  toward  the 
oncoming  j^uppies.  Farther  aw^ay,  near 
the  Indian  shacks,  other  huskies  rose, 
shook  themselves,  and  turned  in  quest  of 
the  cause  of  this  ruthless  interference  with 
their  slumbers. 

When  the  Prince  and  his  pursuers  had 
covered  half  the  distance  to  the  mission- 
house,  the  white  sentinel  watching  them 
threw  back  his  head  and  roused  the  post 
with  the  long-drawn  call  to  arms  of  the 
half-wild  descendants  of  the  timber- 
wolves. 

The  challenge  of  the  w^hite  husky 
stopped  the  romping  puppies  in  their 
tracks.  Young  as  they  were,  they  al- 
ready knew  the  meaning  of  the  slogan. 
Sensing  the  peril  into  which  their  heedless 
crossing  of  the  post  dead-line  had  placed 
them,  they  turned  and  fled  for  the  safety 
of  the  trade-house.  At  the  same  time 
the  Prince,  far  in  front  of  his  pursuing 
comrades,  stopped,  dropped  his  bone,  and, 
with  ears  pricked  and  hair  on  neck  and 
back  stiflfly  erect,  stood  for  an  instant 
watching  the  white  husky,  who,  as  he 
trotted  tow'ard  him,  repeated  the  long 
howl  of  battle. 

Immediately  from  the  Indian  shacks 
came  the  answer  of  the  supporting  col- 
umns. Then  realizing  the  fate  in  store 
for  a  half-grown  husky  from  the  factor's 
quarters,  caught  alone  near  the  mission- 
house,  he  lifted  his  head  with  a  yelp  of 
defiance  and  turned  back.  But  the  delay 
due  to  this  momentary  act  of  bravado  cost 
him  dear.  As  they  raced,  the  white  dog, 
followed  at  a  distance  by  his  comrades, 
gained  on  the  puppy  at  every  bound. 
Now  he  crossed  the  frontier,  but  the  trade- 
house  still  lay  two  hundred  yards  away. 
On  came  the  big  husky,  yelping  as  he  ran, 
until  hardly  a  hundred  feet  separated 
them.  Then,  aware  of  the  hopelessness 
of  his  attempt  to  escape,  the  puppy  gave 
poignant  proof  of  the  blood  royal  that 
raced  in  his  veins.  Suddenly  swerving,  he 
checked  himself,  and,  crouching  with  head 
lowered  and  feet  braced  widely  apart,  the 
fighting  rage  of  a  hundred  wolfish  forebears 


blazing  in  his  narrow  eyes,  he  awaited  the 
rush  of  the  white  husky  with  a  snarl. 

The  big  dog,  surprised  at  being  met  jaw- 
to-jaw  by  his  quarry,  whom  he  antici- 
pated pulling  down  from  behind,  and  un- 
able to  stop  himself,  leaped  as  he  reached 
the  puppy,  while  the  Prince,  springing  for- 
w^ard  at  the  same  instant,  slashed  with  his 
sharp  teeth  a  deep  gash  in  the  white  body 
as  it  passed  over  him.  Gathering  himself 
like  a  flash,  the  big  dog  turned  and 
jumped  back,  sinking  his  long  fangs  into 
the  shoulder  of  the  infuriated  son  of  the 
Queen.  But  no  yelp  of  fear  or  pain  left 
the  throat  of  the  puppy  as  he  closed  in 
what  would  have  been  a  death-grapple 
with  his  heavier  and  more  skilful  adver- 
sary, had  not,  at  the  instant  that  the 
white  husky's  superior  weight  bore  him 
down,  a  gray  streak  shot  through  the  air 
from  behind,  and  a  great  slate-gray  body 
catapulted  into  the  white  one,  rolling  it 
over  and  over,  w^hile  punishing  fangs 
slashed  again  and  again  into  the  white 
shoulders  and  chest,  seeking  the  throat. 
Then,  over  the  three,  like  tides  on  a  reef, 
the  yelping  pack  from  the  Cree  cabins 
and  the  sled-dogs  of  the  mail-teams, 
hurrying  to  support  the  Queen,  met.  In- 
stantly there  arose  over  Rupert  House  the 
wild  din  of  two-score  huskies,  mad  with 
the  lust  for  blood,  battling  to  the  death. 

Leaving  the  white  husky  gasping  out 
his  life  through  a  ripped  throat,  the  Queen, 
infuriated  with  the  sight  of  the  blood  of 
her  own  body  welling  from  the  wounds  of 
her  puppy,  stood  over  him,  fighting  like  a 
demon.  Lunging,  slashing  right  and  left 
with  her  knifelike  fangs,  she  battled  with 
her  comrades  against  overwhelming  odds, 
for  the  life  of  her  son.  But,  though  the 
dogs  of  the  mail-teams  were  far  outnum- 
bered, they  were  picked  animals,  chosen 
for  strength  and  endurance,  veterans  of  a 
score  of  similar  frays,  and  fighting  to- 
gether, as  is  their  custom,  they  were  more 
than  holding  their  ow^n,  when  the  big  fac- 
tor, striking  right  and  left  with  an  axe- 
helve  in  each  hand,  sprang  into  the  middle 
of  the  yelping,  blood-smeared  riot  of  en- 
raged huskies.  Yet  not  until  reinforced 
by  the  Crees  left  at  the  post,  and  after  a 
merciless  use  of  the  club,  did  Cristy  finally 
separate  the  maddened  brutes  and  stop 
the  fight.  Snarling  their  smothered  rage 
as  they  limped,  at  times  stopping  to  lick 


•I 


t 


% 


.■^ 


F'riiice,  springinK  forward  at  tlie  same  instant,  slashed  with  his  sharp  treth  a  ilte|)  yash  in  thf  white  lioily  as  it 

passed  over  him.  —  l'a>;e  (140. 


ihcir  wounds,  slowly  the  dogs  of  the  Crccs 
were  driven  to  their  cjuarters.  And  be- 
hind them  in  the  grass  they  left  the  stiff- 
ening bodies  of  ti\e  of  their  number  that 
never  again  would  mingle  in  fur-post  brawl. 
'I'he  battle  ()\er,  Cristy  turned  anxious- 
ly to  the  (^)ueen,  who  lay,  oblixious  to  her 
own  wounds,  beside  the  lim|)  body  of  lu-r 
son,  washing  with  her  healing  tongue  the 
ugly  slashes  in  cliest  and  shoulder. 
Vol.  LV.— 09 


"How  did  this  thing  start,  .\ntoine?  I 
wouldn't  lose  this  l)U))j)V  iov  a  do/.en 
blaek-fox  skins,"  he  asked  his  half-l)reed 
clerk  as  he  carried  the  torn  body  of  tl^.e 
I'rince  to  the  trade-house. 

"  I''irst  tarn  I  hear  de  husky  shout,  I 
look  and  I  see  de  white  dog  diase  de 
Prin(e  |)U|).  De  oders  run,  but  de  pup  he 
stoj)  and  mak'  tight.  Den  de  (Jueen,  she 
tra\el  lak  timber-wolf  for  de  white  husky. 

647 


048 


When  tlic   Prince  Came   Home 


Dat  Prince,  he  ver'  cross  for  a  i)ui).  T 
link  he  mak'  some  beeg  fight  w'en  he 
grow  up;   pull  de  sled  lak  bull-moose." 

"So  it  was  the  Queen  who  killed  the 
white  husky?" 

'^\h-hahl  She  keel  heem  lak  he  was 
snow-shoe  rabbit." 

When  they  had  washed  and  dressed  the 
wounds  of  the  Prince,  they  placed  him  on 
the  sacking  in  the  shack  where  he  had 
come  into  the  world.  There  the  Queen, 
hurt  but  superficially,  kept  guard  night 
and  day.  Then  the  goose-boats  returned 
from  the  Bay  with  their  feathered  freight 
of  gray  geese,  wavy,  and  brant. 

On  hearing  the  news,  Bruce  hurried  to 
his  hurt  puppy.  In  the  doorway  of  the 
shack  stood  the  Queen,  who  put  her  great 
paws  on  his  chest  in  an  endeavor  to  lick 
his  face;  then  led  him  to  the  sacking  in 
the  corner  of  the  room.  At  the  sound  of 
Bruce's  voice,  the  fevered  puppy  raised 
his  head  with  a  feeble  yelp,  struggling  to 
get  to  his  feet,  but  his  bandaged  chest  and 
shoulders  held  him  helpless,  so  he  lay  with 
wrinkling  nose  extended  toward  his  mas- 
ter, his  bushy  tail  beating  the  floor. 

The  stalwart  young  Scot,  with  more 
than  a  suspicion  of  mist  in  his  eyes,  kneel- 
ing, pressed  his  bronzed  face  against  that 
of  the  overjoyed  puppy. 

"So  they  chewed  up  my  Prince  pup, 
did  they?"  he  whispered  into  a  pointed 
ear.  "Well,  they  got  what  they  de- 
served. He  fought  the  white  husky  with 
the  red  eyes,  didn't  he?  Yes,  he  did. 
Another  year  and  they  won't  bother  this 
pup  much,  I  guess  not." 

Under  the  careful  nursing  of  Bruce 
the  wounds  of  the  Prince  soon  healed, 
but  the  November  snows  had  whitened 
the  wastes  of  Rupert  Land  before  he  had 
regained  his  strength,  and  the  winter  was 
far  advanced  when  his  chest  could  bear 
the  pull  and  drag  of  his  first  collar  and 
harness. 

With  June  returned  the  red  fur-hunters 
from  the  upper  Rupert  and  Nottaway 
river  country  to  trade  at  the  post.  Te- 
pees now  dotted  the  cleared  ground,  while 
bark  canoes  like  mushrooms  covered  the 
shore;  and  the  buoys  of  nets  set  for  the 
whitefish  that  came  in  with  the  flood-tide, 
floated  in  lines  on  the  river's  surface. 
Rupert  House  had  suddenly  wakened  with 


life  and  color.  By  day  the  swarthy  chil- 
dren of  the  forest  traded  their  winter's 
hunt  of  fur  for  the  supplies  of  the  Great 
Company,  or  lounged  around  the  trade- 
house,  smoking  and  exchanging  the  gossip 
of  the  north.  At  twilight  the  laughter  of 
women  and  the  voices  of  children  at  play 
filled  the  air,  for  the  dread  moons  of  the 
long  snow,  with  their  cold  and  famine, 
were  passed  and  the  days  of  plenty  at 
hand. 

One  evening  two  French  half-breeds, 
lean  from  privation,  with  clothes  and  moc- 
casins worn  to  ribbons,  turned  a  shattered 
Peterborough  canoe  into  the  post.  The 
strangers  said  that  in  the  previous  summer 
they  had  crossed  the  Height  of  Land  from 
the  Lake  St.  John  country,  by  way  of  the 
Roberval  River  and  the  Sinking  Lakes, 
on  the  Labrador  border,  where  they  had 
trapped  their  furs.  It  was  the  most  val- 
uable winter's  hunt  that  two  men  had 
brought  to  the  post  in  the  memory  of  the 
oldest  Indian,  and  the  suspicions  of  Cristy 
were  aroused. 

Part  of  their  furs  the  breeds  traded  for 
a  canoe,  provisions,  and  ammunition,  but 
refused  to  barter  the  foxskins.  This  con- 
vinced the  factor  that  they  intended  to 
return  to  Lake  St.  John,  where  the  free 
traders  would  pay  them  cash. 

One  morning  Rupert  House  waked  to 
find  the  strangers  gone.  That  night  when 
Bruce  fed  the  sled-dogs,  the  Prince  was 
missing.  Then  he  knew  that  the  husky 
had  been  taken  from  Rupert  in  the  canoe 
of  the  half-breeds. 

Quickly  the  post  was  aroused.  Gather- 
ing his  best  voyageurs  in  the  trade-room, 
Cristy  addressed  them  in  Cree. 

"The  last  sleep  the  strangers  from  the 
south  left  Rupert  House.  With  them 
they  took  the  light  of  my  eyes.  And  the 
heart  of  my  son  is  sad.  They  journeyed 
far  to  trade  their  furs  at  the  Big  Water. 
This  they  did  because  they  feared  the 
heavy  hands  of  the  fathers  at  Ottawa,  for 
they  have  broken  the  law.  To-night  a 
canoe  takes  the  river  trail  to  Mistassini, 
another  follows  the  coast  to  Moose,  and 
a  third  journeys  up  the  Big  Water  to  East 
Main  Fort,  to  bring  back  these  men  and 
the  dog,  which  I  prize.  There  is  much 
flour  and  tea  for  the  canoe  that  brings 
back  the  dog,  and  the  Company  debt  of 
the  crew  shall  be  forgotten." 


When  the   Prince  Came  Home 


049 


The  voyageurs  launched   the  canoes,  sence  of    her  son,   in   a   long,   mournful 

with  supplies  for  the  pursuit,  and  disap-  howl, 

peared  in  the  dusk.  Early  in  August  a  packet  from  Moose 

Far  into  the  night  the  factor  and  his  son  Factory,    with   government    despatches 


»  C  -u 


The  v(iyaKeurs  launched  the  canni-s,  with  supplies  for  the  pursuit,  and  disappeared  in  the  dusk. 


sat  Speculating  as  to  how  the  thieves  had  from  Ottawa,  told  the  story.     The  posts 

managed  to  overpower  the  great   l)Ui)i)y  on    the   east   coast    were   ordered   to  ar- 

and  si)irit  him  away  without  arousing  the  rest  two   French   half-breeds,  accused  oi 

cam]);    while  at  intervals,  outside,  where  the   murder,  on   the  upper  Roherval,  of 

the  dogs  slept  in  the  grass,  the  (U-fp  throat  a  .Montagnais,  and  the  wouniling  of  sev- 

of  the  Queen  voiced  her  grief  at  the  ah-  eral  t)thers,   in   a  successful   attempt   to 


()r)0 


When  the   Prince  Came   Home 


rob  a  party  of  lrapi)ers  of  their  winter's 
hunt. 

riien  the  fur  l)rigade  arrived  from  Mis- 
tassini,  and  with  it  Michel  and  his  tat- 
tered vovageurs.  They  had  searched  the 
length  of  the  Rupert  and  the  Marten 
Lakes  trail  to  the  south,  but  only  once  had 
found  signs  of  the  dog  and  the  fleeing 
thieves.  The  factor  at  Mistassini  wrote 
that  he  was  crippled  with  rheumatism,  and 
asked  for  an  assistant. 

''Well,  here'swhere  you  get  your  chance 
to  see  some  of  the  Height  of  Land  coun- 
try," said  his  father,  handing  Bruce  the 
letter. 

Three  days  later  Bruce  Cristy  bade  his 
family  good-by,  and  started  with  the  re- 
turning fur  brigade  for  the  great  lake 
in  whose  half-mythical  waters  the  white 
man's  paddle  has  seldom  dipped.  Step- 
ping into  a  birch-bark  manned  by  four 
Crees,  he  placed  his  Winchester  in  its  skin 
case  at  his  feet,  and  turned  grimly  to  his 
father,  who  stood  on  the  shore. 

"If  they  are  hunting  in  the  Mistassini 
country  this  winter  and  we  don't  get  them, 
it  won't  be  because  I  have  hugged  the  fire 
at  the  post;  and  if  I'm  ever  within  rifle- 
shot and  don't  burn  some  powder,  it 
won't  be  because  I've  forgotten  my  dog." 

"  Good-by,  lad!  Take  care  of  yourself ! 
We'll  see  you  in  the  summer,"  called  his 
father  as  the  stalwart  youth  seized  his 
paddle  and  gave  the  signal  to  start. 

The  five  blades,  driven  by  the  toil- 
hardened  backs  and  shoulders  of  the  crew, 
churned  the  water  in  the  wake  of  the 
brigade,  and  the  long  craft,  followed  by 
cries  of ''  Bo'-jo' !  Bo'-jo' ! "  from  the  little 
group  of  Crees  on  the  shore,  shot  forward 
on  its  three-hundred-mile  journey. 

On  arriving  at  Mistassini  in  September, 
Bruce  found  the  factor  Craig  unable  to 
walk,  so  he  took  active  charge  of  the  post. 
While  most  of  the  Crees  were  as  yet  in 
their  summer  camps  on  the  lakes,  curing 
fish  for  the  winter,  he  sent  canoes  warning 
them  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  for  the  rene- 
gades from  Lake  St.  John,  and  promised  a 
reward  for  the  dog.  But  the  couriers  re- 
turned with  no  news  of  the  Prince. 

In  October  the  stinging  winds  brought 
the  snow  to  the  lonely  post  far  on  the 
Height  of  Land,  and  the  thoroughfares 
began  to  close  with  the  early  ice.  Then 
for  a   month   the  little  settlement  was 


marooned  in  the  snow-swept  solitudes, 
while  the  ice  was  making  on  the  wide  lakes 
and  swift  rivers,  strong  enough  for  men 
and  dog-teams  to  travel.  With  the  com- 
ing of  the  freezing  November  moon  Bruce 
Cristy  left  the  post  with  two  dog-teams 
for  the  Sinking  Lakes.  Christmas  found 
him  still  in  the  forests  of  the  Labrador 
border,  travelling  from  camp  to  camp  of 
the  Cree  and  Montagnais  trappers  who 
traded  at  Mistassini,  searching  for  news 
of  two  half-breed  strangers,  and  a  big 
husky  with  star-emblazoned  chest.  Fi- 
nally, disheartened  after  two  months' 
fruitless  wandering,  he  turned  back  on 
the  Mistassini  trail. 

It  was  a  bitter  January  day  on  the 
wind-harried  level  of  the  great  lake,  with 
the  air  filled  with  powdery  snow  that  cut 
the  faces  of  the  men  like  whip-lashes. 
Gradually  the  travelled  trail,  ice-hardened 
at  Christmas  by  the  friction  of  many  feet 
and  runners,  filled  with  drift,  and  the 
brisk  trot  of  the  dogs  slowed  to  a  walk  as 
the  light  waned  and  the  early  dusk  crept 
out  from  the  deeply  shadowed  spruce 
shores.  Jean,  the  French  Cree  driver  at 
the  gee-pole  of  the  slowly  moving  sled, 
was  searching  the  neighboring  forest  for 
a  place  to  camp,  while  behind  him  walked 
Cristy,  occupied  with  his  thoughts. 

Suddenly  the  lead  dog  yelped,  starting 
the  team  forward  on  a  trot.  Looking  up, 
Bruce  saw  a  dog-team  far  ahead  on  the 
trail. 

"  It  must  be  our  boys,"  he  said.  "  Stir 
up  those  huskies,  Jean.  Peter  may  have 
some  news." 

The  driver  cracked  his  whip  at  the 
leader's  ears,  and  the  pursuit  began. 
From  the  first  they  gained  rapidly.  Soon 
hardly  a  mile  separated  the  teams.  Then 
catching  a  side  view  where  the  trail  turned 
at  right  angles  to  round  a  point  of  the 
shore,  Cristy's  heart  leaped,  for  the  sled 
ahead,  on  which  the  driver  rode,  was 
drawn  by  a  lone  husky. 

Bruce  gripped  the  arm  of  the  Cree. 
"There's  only  one  dog  on  that  sled,  Jean! 
Come  on!"  Springing  in  front  of  the 
team,  he  ran  up  the  trail. 

At  Cristy's  approach  the  huddled  figure 
on  the  sled  gave  no  sign.  At  intervals  an 
arm  rose  and  fell,  lashing  the  dog  forward 
to  the  unequal  task.  Hardly  a  rifle-shot 
separated  them  when  the  exhausted  dog, 


"Good  old  Prince!      Duii't  yuu  remember  me,  boy?" 


after  repeated  attempts  to  drag  the  sled 
through  a  drift,  lay  down  on  the  trail. 
Again  the  whip  rose  and  fell,  rose  and  fell, 
but  the  husky  did  not  move.  Slowly  the 
driver  got  up  from  the  sled,  and  reeling 
forward  struck  the  dog  savagely  on  the 
head  with  the  butt  of  the  whip,  then,  car- 
ried off  his  balance  by  the  blow,  fell  head- 
long to  the  snow  at  the  dog's  side.  Like 
a  flash  the  husky  turned,  and  before  the 
man  could  regain  his  feet  lunged  at  his 
throat,  forcing  him,  struggling,  backward 
upon  the  trail.  Once,  twice,  three  times 
the  fangs  of  the  maddened  brute  tore  at 
the  throat  of  the  heli)less  driver.  Then, 
while  the  infuriated  beast  still  worried 
the  crumi)le(l  I'lgure  in  the  snow,  liruce 
reached  them. 

The  gaunt  husky,  baring  his  while  fangs 
with  a  snarl,  turned  from  the  lifeless  body. 
Raising  h.is  massive  head,  across  which, 


from  nose  to  ears,  ran  great  welts  left  by 
the  dog-whip,  he  glared  with  narrow, 
blood-shot  eyes  at  the  new  enemy.  And 
on  the  shaggy  chest  the  frozen  ooze  from 
a  harness-sore  stained  with  a  crimson 
smear  a  large  white  star. 

''Prince!  Prince  I  l)t)n"t  you  know 
me,  boy?"  cried  his  master,  dropping  his 
fur  mittens,  and  reaching  out  with  palms 
ui)ward  toward  the  angered  dog,  whose 
blood  was  still  hot  with  the  rage  of  battle. 

The  husky,  expecting  a  blow  from  a  dog- 
whi]),  and  receiving  no  attack,  stood  for  an 
instant  confused.  Hut  the  approach  of 
the yeli)ing  team  again  aroused  his  lighting 
blood,  and  he  faced  around  in  his  traces 
to  defend  himself,  hair  on  back  bristling. 

''Good  old  Prince!  Don't  you  remem- 
ber me,  l)oy?  Don't  you  remember  the 
Queen,  the  (^)ueen.  your  old  mother, 
Prince?" 

651 


652 


Wlien  the  Prince  Came  Home 


Gradually,  as  Bruce  repeated  the  words 
once  so  familiar  to  the  wanderer,  the  bared 
fangs  were  covered.  The  ]x^inted  ears  of 
the  husky  laid  back  against  the  skull, 
slowly  righted  themselves  as  the  soothing 
tones  of  the  \oice  he  once  loved  stirred 
the  ghosts  of  vague  memories  of  other 
days,  blurred  by  months  of  cruelty  and 
starvation. 

As  his  lost  master  continued  to  talk,  the 
doi:^  thrust  forward  his  bruised  muzzle  and, 
with  ears  pricked,  sniffed  at  Bruce's  hand. 

''Good  old  Prince!  We've  found  him 
at  last! "  Bruce  continued,  his  fingers  now 
touching  the  extended  nose  of  the  puzzled 
dog.  Then  with  a  long  whiff  memory  re- 
turned, and  the  husky  recognized  the  be- 
loved hand  of  his  master  of  the  happy  days. 

With  a  yelp,  the  starved  Prince,  fore 
feet  uplifted,  threw  himself  at  Bruce.  A 
pair  of  strong  arms  circled  the  shaggy 
neck,  and  a  wind-burnt  face  sought  the 
scarred  head,  while  into  a  furry  ear,  amid 
whines  of  delight,  were  poured  the  things 
a  man  says  only  to  his  dog. 

A  slash  of  the  knife  freed  the  Prince 
from  the  harness.  Kneeling  on  his  snow- 
shoes,  Cristy  ran  his  fingers  over  the 
lumps  and  bruises  on  the  great  emaciated 
body  that  told  the  story  of  long  months 
of  slavery  under  brutal  masters.  Finding 
no  broken  bones,  he  turned  to  the  dead 
man  in  the  snow  who  had  paid  so  dearly 
for  every  welt.  For  a  moment,  as  Bruce 
gazed  at  the  face,  distorted  in  death,  with 
glazed,  sunken  eyes  staring  sightless  into 
the  bitter  night,  pity  held  him;  until  the 
touch  of  a  battered  nose  seeking  his  hand 
again  hardened  his  heart. 

"When  their  grub  gave  out,"  said 
Bruce,  "I  suppose  he  knifed  the  other 
one  and  started  for  the  post." 

They  buried  the  murderer  in  the  deep 
snow  of  the  shore  and  left  him  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  his  kind,  the  furred 
assassins  of  the  forest.  Then  they  made 
camp  and  fed  the  famished  dog. 

When  the  Prince  had  regained  his 
strength,  back  at  the  post,  Bruce  decided 
not  to  wait  until  the  thoroughfares 
cleared  for  canoe  travel  in  May,  but  to 
leave  for  home  on  the  first  crust. 

So  one  March  afternoon  found  the 
Prince  leading  the  dog-team  slowly  over 
the  lump  ice  marking  the  long  stretch  of 
the  Kettle  Rapids,  far  down  the  Rupert 


River.  Whirlpools,  shoots,  and  cross- 
currents, defying  the  inexorable  cold  long 
after  the  swift  river  closes  elsewhere,  keep 
the  Rupert  House  trail  broken  here  until 
January.  Then,  succumbing  to  the  fierce 
temperature  of  the  midwinter  nights,  the 
rapids  freeze  throughout  their  length  in 
irregular  mounds  and  ridges. 

For  an  hour  they  had  been  hugging  the 
shore,  avoiding  the  treacherous  footing  of 
midstream.  At  last,  on  turning  a  bend, 
the  white  shell  of  the  Rupert  again 
stretched  level  before  them. 

With  a  cheery  "Marche,  Prince!" 
Cristy  broke  into  the  snow-shoe  swing, 
half-walk,  half-trot,  which  eats  up  the 
miles  as  does  no  gait  on  bare  ground.  In 
answer  to  the  command,  the  willing  leader 
started  the  team  at  a  fast  trot.  Out  into 
mid-river,  where  the  going  was  good  on 
the  hard  crust,  swung  Cristy,  followed  by 
his  dogs.  Then,  as  they  left  the  foot  of 
the  rapids,  without  warning  the  ice  sank 
under  them,  plunging  driver  and  yelping 
dogs  into  the  water. 

With  a  few  powerful  strokes  Cristy 
fought  his  way  to  the  sound  ice.  Behind 
him,  the  Prince  and  the  second  dog  strug- 
gled desperately  against  the  drag  of  the 
sinking  sled,  holding  the  rear  dogs  under. 
Supporting  himself  with  one  arm,  Bruce 
called  to  the  panting  husky,  straining 
every  nerve  to  reach  his  master.  "  Come 
on.  Prince!  Come  on,  Prince!"  he  cried, 
working  desperately  with  numbed  fingers 
to  get  at  his  knife.  Then  the  swift  current 
carried  sled  and  helpless  huskies  down- 
stream under  the  struggling  Prince,  mo- 
mentarily easing  the  strain  on  the  traces 
which  bound  him  to  them,  and  he  reached 
and  got  his  fore  feet  on  the  ice  at  his  mas- 
ter's side.  At  the  same  instant  Cristy 
freed  his  knife  from  its  sheath.  And  as 
sled  and  drowning  dogs  were  sucked  under 
the  ice,  and  the  nails  of  the  Prince's 
clinging  fore  feet  slipped  slowly  toward 
the  edge,  while  the  doomed  dog  voiced 
his  despair  in  a  smothered  whine,  the 
traces  were  slashed. 

Freed  from  the  deadly  weight,  with  a 
heave  of  his  shoulders  the  husky  raised 
himself  half  out  of  water,  when  the  body 
of  his  master  at  his  side  furnished  a  foot- 
hold for  a  hind  leg,  and  the  dog  was  out. 

Stiffening  under  the  paralyzing  chill  and 
hampered  by  skin  capote  and  snow-shoes, 


The  thick  back  of  the  great  husky  bowed  slowly  into  an  arc,  ami  the  freezing  man  was  drai;ged  to  safety. 


Cristy  was  weakening  rapidly,  when  the  slowly  into  an  arc,  and  the  free/insj;  man 

Prince,  sensing  his  master's  ])eril,  braced  was  dragged  to  safety, 

himself  at  the  slippery  edge  of  the  firm  The  dazed  Cristy  got  to  his  feet  and 

ice  and  seized  an  arm  in  his  strong  teeth,  staggered  to  the  shore,  wliere  he  stood  for 

Then  as  he  strained  for  a  foothold,  with  a  while  staring  heli)lessly  at  the  grave  of 

fore  legs   ])lante(l    wide   apart   and   nails  his  faithful  huskies.     At  length  lie  turned 

])iting  (k'e|)  into  the  treacherous  surface,  to  the  dog  at   his  side,  who  held  in  his 

the  tliick  back  uf  the  great  husky  bowed  hall-oi)en  jaws  his  master's  unmittened 


On  came  the  strange  pair,  stricken  voyageur  and  faithful  dog  — Page  656. 


hand,  begging  with  beating  tail  for  recog- 
nition. 

Silently  the  man  knelt  and,  seizing  in  his 
arms  the  shaggy  neck,  crushed  his  face 
against  the  great  head. 

"We're  square  now,  boy.  I  won't  for- 
get and  you  won't  forget,"  he  said 
hoarsely,  as  the  happy  Prince  sat  motion- 
654 


less.  ''But  we're  a  hundred  miles  from 
home,  boy,  and  not  an  ounce  of  grub,  or  a 
blanket,  and  the  wind's  risin',  and  it'll  go 
twenty  below  before  daylight.  It's  travel 
day  and  night  for  us  if  we  ever  see  Rupert 
again,  and  there'll  be  no  whitefish  and 
tea  and  bannocks  on  the  way." 

For  answer,  a  cold  nose  and  a  hot  red 


When  the   Prince  Came  Home 


055 


tongue  sought  the  man's  face,  while  the 
shivering  Cristy  threw  off  his  ice-caked 
capote  and  squeezed  the  water  as  best 
he  could  from  his  freezing  clothes. 

Then  man  and  dog,  side  by  side,  started 
down  the  desolate  river  guarded  by  the 
pitiless  hills,  in  the  race  against  cold  and 
starvation.  Somewhere  below,  he  knew 
there  was  an  old  Company  cache.  The 
bitter  wind,  drawing  up-stream  between 
the  ridges,  was  strengthening.  No  man 
might  face  its  stinging  drive  that  night 
and  save  his  face  and  hands.  Already  the 
blood  was  leaving  his  fingers  in  the  fro- 
zen mittens.  So  he  hurried  to  make  the 
cache  before  the  dusk. 

White  mile  after  mile  the  man  and  dog 
left  behind  them,  but  no  sign  of  the  cache. 
Cristy  wondered  if  he  had  passed  it,  buried 
in  the  snow.  It  had  been  there  in  the  fall, 
not  far  below  the  Kettle  Rapids,  and  he 
must  find  it  soon.  He  was  travelling  head 
down  to  avoid  the  sting  of  the  wind,  but 
his  fingers  might  go  at  any  time,  and  he 
thought  of  what  that  would  mean. 

Finally,  he, decided  to  plunge  into  the 
first  timbered  hollow  and  make  camp. 
What  a  mocker^'  that  would  be  for  man 
and  dog — without  food!  Still,  a  roaring 
fire  would  help.  But  without  an  axe? 
Unless  he  found  down  timber,  he  couldn't 
hope  for  much  of  a  fire  without  an  axe, 
and  the  night  would  be  bitter.  The  heart 
of  the  half-frozen  youth  sank.  He  thought 
of  the  family  at  Rupert  that  would  not 
know  his  fate  until  the  spring  canoe  from 
Mistassini  reached  the  post  with  the  news 
that  he  had  left  the  lake  in  March.  Or 
possibly  the  sled  with  the  dogs  would  be 
washed  ashore  and  found  by  the  Nemiskau 
Crees  oh  their  way  to  the  sirring  trade. 
So  he  mused  as  his  snow-shoes  crunched 
the  brittle  crust. 

Then  he  pulled  himself  together.  ^Icn 
had  travelled  in  the  north  farther  without 
food,  and  in  midwinter,  too,  when  the 
wind  was  worse,  and  the  nights  forty  and 
fifty  below.  Out  of  the  wind  it  wouldn't 
be  so  bad.  A  thaw  was  due  any  time,  and 
the  wind  never  blows  long  in  March  in 
the  north.  But  they  must  get  into  the 
first  thick  spruce  soon,  or —  Then, 
half  l)uried  in  the  snow  on  the  shore,  he 
saw  the  cache. 

"Come  on,  Ijoy!"  he  cried,  and  shortly 
was  shoxeiling  an  entrance  through  the 
\<)L.   L\'.  —  70 


low  door.  Inside,  some  snow  had  drifted 
through  chinks  in  the  walls,  but  the  roof 
was  wind-proofed  by  the  crust;  and  his 
spirits  rose,  for  there  at  the  end  of  the 
shack  stood  a  rusty  tent  stove. 

When  he  had  gathered  birch-bark  and 
dry  spruce  sticks,  his  stiffened  fingers 
fumbled  for  his  match-box.  With  an  ex- 
clamation of  fear  he  swiftly  searched  each 
of  his  pockets.  As  he  did,  the  lean  face 
went  pale  under  the  weather-tanned  skin. 
Turning  to  the  dog,  he  cried: 

"The  matches  went  down  with  the  sled, 
boy  I  We're  done  for!  We'll  never  see 
Rupert  now!" 

As  a  last  resort,  he  carefully  explored 
the  shack,  but  it  had  been  unused  for 
years,  and  he  found  no  matches,  but 
stumbled  upon  what  the  wood-mice  had 
left  of  an  old  Company  blanket.  Again 
he  searched  the  room  for  that  which 
meant  warmth  and  life,  but  in  vain. 

Then  the  desperate  youth  set  to  work 
banking  in  the  walls  of  the  cache  with 
snow  to  make  it  wind-proof.  This  accom- 
plished, he  sealed  the  low  doorway  and 
prepared  to  fight  through  the  bitter  hours 
for  his  life.  His  woollen  clothes,  thanks 
to  the  severe  exercise,  were  partially  dr}-; 
so  were  the  socks  he  wore  next  his  feet. 
The  outer  ones  he  took  off,  kneaded  until 
they  were  soft,  wrung  out  what  moisture 
he  could,  and  put  on  again. 

Scraping  and  pounding  the  ice  from  the 
heavy  coat  of  the  Prince,  who,  owing  to 
the  thick  under-fur  of  soft  hair  and  the 
hardihood  of  his  breed,  was  immune  to 
cold,  Cristy  made  the  dog  lie  down,  and 
wrapping  the  blanket  around  them, 
clasped  the  great  beast  closely  to  his  own. 
Through  the  bitter  hours  the  warmth  of 
the  dog's  body  alone  kept  the  heart  of  his 
master  beating  and  the  blood  moving  in 
his  feet  and  hands. 

At  last  the  blue  March  dawn  broke  over 
the  cache  on  the  Ruj^ert,  and  with  it  the 
wind  fell.  Later  the  rising  sun  overtook 
on  the  river  trail  a  tra\eller  with  a  ragged 
blanket  slung  on  his  back,  and  a  slate- 
gray  husky.  Once  the  dog  ran  ahead,  and 
turning,  rushed  yelping  back  to  take  in 
his  jaws  a  mittened  hand,  and  march, 
swishing  a  bushy  tail,  beside  the  man  as  if 
urging  him  to  a  faster  j)ace.  Hut  the 
tra\eller,  with  head  tlown  and  haggard 
eyes,  swung  stitlly  on  at  the  same  stritle, 


656 


When  tlic  Prince  Came  Home 


for  Rupert  House  lay  ninety  white  miles 
away,  and  one  who  starves  must  save  his 
strength. 

Three  days  later  old  Michel  opened  the 
door  of  the  trade-house  at  Rupert,  stepped 
into  the  caribou  thongs  of  his  snow-shoes, 
and  shuffled  up  the  high  river  shore  toward 
his  cabin.  At  last  the  winter  was  break- 
ing. The  strong  March  sun,  reflected 
from  the  sparkling  white  level  of  river  and 
bay,  fairly  blinded  the  eyes.  The  tough 
old  breed  had  not  deigned  to  slip  on  the 
rabbit-skin  mitts  that  hung  from  his  neck 
by  a  cord,  and  in  the  sun  his  cap  of  cross- 
fox  with  its  bushy  tail  dangling  jauntily 
behind  seemed  too  warm.  Yet  lately  the 
nights  had  been  bitter,  wdth  much  wind. 
In  a  week,  perhaps,  the  snow  would  melt 
a  little  each  day  at  noon,  to  freeze  hard 
again  at  sunset.  Then  in  a  few  sleeps 
would  come  the  big  March  thaw,  and  the 
trails  would  close  for  a  moon.  So  he 
mused  as  his  snow-shoes  lazily  creaked  on 
the  crust. 

Suddenly  the  tall  figure  stopped  in  its 
tracks,  a  lean  hand  shading  the  keen  eyes. 

'^Ah-hah!" 

The  exclamation  was  followed  by  a  long 
silence  as  he  stood,  motionless,  gazing  up 
the  river. 

'Xree  comin'!"  he  muttered  after  a 
time,  and  shortly  added,  ''De  rabbit,  he 
give  out  in  hees  countree  for  sure." 

With  narrowed  eyes  still  shaded,  the 
watcher  followed  the  moving  spots  on  the 
snow  far  up  the  river  trail. 

"Ver'  strange  ting!"  he  finally  said 
aloud.  ''  He  travel  all  over  de  riviere  lak' 
he  seek  wid '  mal  de  tete.'  "  The  old  man 
slow^ly  shook  his  head.  ''De  husky,  why 
he  jump  de  trail?     Ver'  strange  ting!" 

Presently  the  approaching  objects  on 
the  wide  river  further  enlightened  the 
keen  eyes. 

"Ah-hah!"  This  time  with  more  ve- 
hemence, for  the  black  spots  were  begin- 
ning to  assume  shape.  "  Dere  ees  no  sled. 
De  Cree  starve  out  for  sure." 

Nearer  came  the  one  seeking  the  succor 
of  Rupert  House  from  the  pitiless  north. 
Then  the  old  man  expelled  his  breath 
with  a  long  ''Hah!"  The  mystery  of 
the  uncertain  course  of  the  stranger  was 
solved. 

' '  Snow-blind ! "  he  said,  and  turned  back 


to  the  trade-house,  to  reappear  with  the 
factor  and  two  Company  men. 

"A  snow-blind  Cree,  with  a  lone  husky, 
you  say,  Michel?"  inquired  Cristy,  his 
eyes  following  the  pointing  finger. 

"  Snow-blind,  right  enough,  and  starved, 
poor  devil!  There  he  goes  off  the  trail 
now.  Why,  the  dog's  pulling  him  back ; 
he's  leading  him.  He's  hitched  to  the 
husky." 

For  a  moment,  in  silence,  they  watched 
the  uncertain  progress  of  man  and  dog. 
Then  the  factor  exclaimed: 

"There,  he's  gone  down!  Michel,  har- 
ness a  team  to  the  cariole!  We'll  go  and 
get  him." 

Stunned,  or  too  weak  to  rise,  the  snow- 
blind  stranger  lay  where  he  fell,  while  the 
dog  nosed  the  prostrate  form.  Then  the 
husky  threw  back  his  head  and  roused  the 
dogs  of  Rupert  House  with  a  long  howl. 

Cristy  and  a  post  half-breed  w^ere 
rapidly  approaching  when  the  fallen  man, 
with  an  effort,  got  to  his  feet  and,  clinging 
to  a  trace  that  circled  the  dog's  neck, 
again  staggered  forward.  The  big  husky, 
excited  by  the  answering  howls  of  the  post 
dogs  appearing  from  all  directions,  dragged 
his  reeling  master  up  the  trail.  On  came 
the  strange  pair,  stricken  voyageur  and 
faithful  dog,  but  as  Cristy  reached  them, 
the  legs  of  the  man  doubled  under  him 
and  he  lurched  forward  on  the  snow. 
With  a  whine  the  husky  turned  to  the 
motionless  figure.  Then  he  faced  the 
strangers  with  a  warning  growl,  and  the 
astonished  Cristy  saw  on  his  broad  chest 
a  large  white  star. 

"Prince!  By  heaven,  it's  the  pup!" 
cried  the  amazed  factor. 

On  guard  over  the  body  of  his  master, 
whose  face  was  invisible,  the  huge  husky, 
narrow  eyes  blazing,  held  the  tw^o  men 
in  their  tracks. 

"  Don't  y'  know  me.  Prince?  Good  old 
Prince!"  coaxed  Cristy,  reaching  a  hand 
toward  the  dog,  who  stood  perplexed  by 
the  voice  of  the  factor  and  the  familiar 
white  buildings  grouped  on  the  shore 
ahead. 

With  a  moan,  the  one  in  the  snow  turned 
and  raised  himself  on  an  elbow.  Across 
the  lean,  bearded  face  a  strip  of  torn  shirt 
was  bound,  to  shield  the  inflamed  eyes 
from  the  sun-glare  on  the  crust.  A  mit- 
tenless  hand,  blue  from  frost-bite,  reached 


When  the   Prince  Came   Home 


05; 


up  and  touched  the  dog.  Then  the  wan- 
derer said  weakly: 

^'  I  hear  the  huskies — Prince.  We  must 
be  home — at  last  I" 

"Bruce!  Bruce!  my  lad!"  cried  his 
father,  rushing  to  his  stricken  son. 

With  a  bound  the  dog  met  the  factor 
half-way,  but  the  great  fangs  did  not 
strike,  for  he  had  recognized  his  old 
friend. 

Tenderly  the  starved  and  half-delirious 
youth  was  placed  in  the  cariole  sled  and 
brought  to  the  post. 

Huskies,  hurrying  from  far  and  near  at 
the  challenge  from  the  river,  already  had 
been  driven  away  when  the  Queen  ap- 
peared. They  were  climbing  the  shore 
trail  when  she  came  trotting  up  to  the 
great  dog  who  marched  beside  the  cariole 
sled  within  reach  of  his  master's  hand. 
The  Prince  pricked  up  his  ears,  whined 
uncertainly,  and  saluted  her  with  a  loud 
bark.  With  a  low  rumble  of  resentment 
in  her  throat  at  the  presence  at  Rupert 
House  of  a  strange  husky  whose  shoulders 
topped  her  own  by  inches,  she  gingerly 
approached  nearer.  For  a  moment  slant 
eyes  looked  into  slant  eyes,  as  mother 
and  son  stood  motionless.  Then,  yelping 
wildly,  the  Prince  sprang  toward  her. 
Surprised,  the  Queen  stood  on  the  defen- 
sive, when  her  bulky  puppy  carromed 
into  her  shoulders,  rolling  her  over  and 
over;  but  as  they  met,  her  nose,  like  a 
flash,  caught  the  glad  news.  Then  there 
followed  a  medley  of  yelps,  leaps,  caresses, 
and  acrobatic  expressions  of  unbounded 
canine  delight  such  as  Rupert  House  had 
witnessed  in  the  memory  of  no  living  man. 
Bereft  of  their  senses,  mother  and  son 
raced  up  the  high  shores,  round  the  trade- 
house,  over  to  the  factor's  quarters  and 
return,  barking  like  mad. 

When  Bruce  Cristy's  mother  took  him 


into  her  arms  at  the  factor's  door,  there 
happened  to  the  proud  Queen,  in  the 
presence  of  the  post,  that  which  no  husky 
before  had  had  either  the  strength  or  dar- 
ing to  attempt.  Running  at  her  side,  the 
joy-maddened  Prince,  weakened  by  three 
days'  fast  though  he  was,  suddenly  seized 
the  Queen  by  the  back  of  her  great  neck 
and,  with  a  wrench,  threw  her  on  the  snow. 
And  to  the  amazement  of  the  onlookers, 
instead  of  the  swift  punishment  which  they 
anticipated  would  be  meted  out  to  him 
for  his  audacity,  his  cold  nose  felt  the 
swift  lick  of  a  hot  tongue  as  she  gained 
her  feet,  and  again  joined  him  in  a  mad 
frolic. 

So  did  the  Queen  welcome  her  lost  son. 

That  night  Bruce  Cristy  lay  in  bed  with 
snow  compresses  cooling  the  inflamed  eyes 
and  aching  head.  While,  at  intervals, 
his  mother  fed  him  nourishing  broth,  he 
briefly  told  the  story  of  the  fmding  of  the 
Prince,  his  fight  for  life  at  the  Kettle 
Rapids,  and  the  long  struggle  home  with- 
out fire  or  food. 

Later,  as  his  worn-out  son  slept,  Cristy 
tiptoed  to  the  door  and,  slipping  into  his 
snow-shoes,  sought  the  shack  behind  the 
trade-house.  Softly  entering  on  moc- 
casined  feet,  he  smiled  at  the  picture  that 
the  light  from  the  low  moon  shining 
through  the  door  revealed.  For  there, 
lying  sprawled  upon  the  sacking  in  the 
corner  where  he  came  into  the  world,  lay 
the  wanderer,  sleeping  deeply  after  a 
bountiful  supper,  while  at  his  side,  with 
her  nose  resting  on  the  big-boned,  hairy 
fore  paws  of  her  son,  the  Queen  kept 
guard.  At  times  as  she  slept  her  deep 
chest  swelled  and  then  contracted  as  she 
heaved  a  contented  sigh  in  her  dreams, 
which  were  sweet,  for  at  last  the  Prince 
had  come  home. 


658 


PAX    ULTIMA 

By    Victor    Starbuck 

I  THINK  that  sometime,  when  the  year  is  young, 
And  April  steals  along  the  leaf-hung  ways, 
I  shall  shut  down  the  windows  and  put  by 
The  pleadings  and  reports,  lock  fast  the  doors, 
And  quit  my  desk,  wdth  its  long-piled-up  heaps 
Of  legal  rubbish — not  as  one  who  leaves 
His  dwelling  in  the  morn,  to  come  again 
At  candle-light,  but  rather  like  to  one 
Who  takes  his  staff  and  goes  a  pilgrimage 
(Not  looking  backward  even  in  his  thoughts) 
Unto  a  holy  city.     The  dreary  streets 
Shall  call  to  me  no  longer.     Night  and  noon, 
Dew-fall  and  afterglow,  shall  be  but  steps 
In  my  long  w^andering  that  leads  to  Peace. 

Once  more  I  shall  behold  the  bubbling  brooks 

Beneath  their  banks  of  fern,  or  where  they  run 

By  furrowed  fields,  and  hear  the  quiet  winds 

Aloof  from  earth,  that  move  the  towering  clouds 

And  whisper  solemn  secrets  to  the  pines. 

With  a  free  heart,  as  one  who  is  a  part 

And  substance  of  the  breathing  world,  and  knows 

Its  deeper  intimations.     I  shall  feel 

The  spirit  that  informs  the  setting  sun 

And  moves  the  tides,  and  makes  all-beautiful 

The  objects  of  the  sight;    and  I  shall  know 

The  dramas  of  the  dust  and  thistle-seed, 

And  lyrics  of  the  stars,  and  epic  sweep 

Of  galleon-winged  clouds. 

Once  more  my  hands 
Shall  guide  the  ploughshare  through  the  yielding  earth, 
And  I  shall  watch  the  gleaming  coulter  turn 
The  fragrant  furrows.     I  shall  swing  the  scythe 
Among  the  blossomy  grass,  and  see  the  dew. 
Sun-smitten  to  a  flame  of  rainbow-glints, 
Fall,  at  each  scythe-stroke,  with  the  stricken  grass 
That  whispers  as  it  falls;    and  I  shall  smell 
The  spirit-lulling  scent  of  sun-cured  hay 
Bedamped  with  evening  rains. 

And  when  the  dusk 
Brings  back  the  cricket's  immemorial  fife. 
Then  I  shall  stand  beside  the  gathered  ricks 
And  see  the  friendly  evening  star  lean  low 
Above  the  furrows.     So  my  life  shall  flow. 
As  doth  the  slow  procession  of  the  days. 
With  thoughts  of  standing  and  of  garnered  crops, 
And  sheep  and  goats  and  fig  and  scuppernong 
And  peas  and  melons.     And  the  world  may  pass 
With  gibes  and  bickerings,  and  I  shall  not  heed. 


A 


^T  a  time  when  everybody  considers  it 
a  moral,  spiritual,  and  a.^sthetic  duty 
to  be  **up  and  doing,"  and  a  crime  to 
be  "stuffy,"  it  is  amusing  and  suggestive 
to  see  a  man  with  the  modern  outlook,  a 
writer  quite  in  the  forward  movement  in  all 
other  aspects  of  his  work,  sounding 
uSsUerollife'  in  one  particular  a  note  as  far  re- 
moved  as  can  be  from  the  universal 
concert.  It  is  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  that  I 
am  thinking  of,  and  his  quaint  admiration — 
nay,  more,  his  affection,  his  almost  tender 
feeling — for  the  middle-aged  type  of  femi- 
nine person  known  as  a  frump.  ]\Ir.  Ben- 
nett is  not  an  author  who  can  be  charged 
with  regarding  the  opposite  sex  from  too 
sentimental  an  angle,  but  he  certainly  per- 
ceives solid  and  unsuspected  attractions  in  a 
kind  of  female  character  that  has  become, 
or  is  fast  becoming,  as  remote  from  the  com- 
prehension of  her  own  sex  as  if  she  belonged 
to  the  mysterious  race  that  built  the  stone 
prehistoric  monuments  of  South  America 
and  the  Pacific  islands.  The  English  writer 
has,  in  fact,  contributed  a  new  type  to  fic- 
tion. And  it  is  strange  that  the  critics  who 
are  always  in  search  of  such  things  should 
not  more  generally  have  found  this  out. 
The  feminine  character  who  makes  possible 
the  plot  of  "Buried  Alive"  (the  novel,  not 
necessarily  the  play  made  from  it)  is  an 
original  and  noteworthy  addition  to  litera- 
ture. She  is  also  a  commentary,  and  a  fresh 
and  racy  one,  on  the  life  of  to-day.  It  might 
appear  on  the  surface  as  if  she  had  been  a 
part  of  all  novels  since  novels  were  written. 
But  the  difference  is  that  she  used  to  be  in 
novels  for  the  ''comic  relief";  whereas  in 
IVIr.  Bennett's  pages  she  is  not  there  for 
that  purpose  at  all.  She  is  not  there  to  be 
lyricized  either;  to  have  her  dowdy  and 
drab  estate  treated  in  the  tearful  mood. 
The  reason  why  Mr.  Bennett  appears  to 
like  her  so  well  is  that  she  represents  in  his 
eyes  better  than  any  one  else  the  plain, 
the  absolute,  human  mean.  The  men  of  the 
Five  Towns,  as  you  see  them  in  ''The  Old 
Wives'  Tale,"  let  us  say,  certainly  walk  the 
average  path  of  life,  with  their  noses  to  the 
grindstone.      But    any    philosoi)her    knows 


that  the  dullest,  most  routine-loving  male 
remains,  at  heart,  incurably  a  believer  in  the 
existence  of  various  kinds  of  golden  fleeces, 
upon  a  quest  of  any  one  of  which  he  may 
suddenly  surprise  his  intimates  by  adven- 
turing. Not  so  the  middle-aged  or  elderly 
woman  who,  having  known  matrimony  and 
romance  in  her  youth,  has  now  settled  down 
to  "just  living  along."  As  the  English  au- 
thor interprets  her,  you  always  know,  with 
a  delightful  surety,  just  where  to  find  her. 
She  never  makes  you  uneasy  by  starting  in 
^pursuit  of  mirages,  because  she  has  so  im- 
perceptibly, without  saying  anything  about 
it,  lost  all  inconvenient  illusions.  Even 
when,  in  one  of  the  Bennett  novels,  a  lady 
of  this  class  finds  it  necessary  to  make  a 
determined  fight  for  her  husband's  affec- 
tions against  the  machinations  of  a  more  at- 
tractive rival,  what  could  be  more  pleas- 
antly matter-of-fact,  more  placidly  mag- 
nanimous, more  altogether  philosophical, 
than  the  manner  in  which  she  goes  about 
her  task?  One  only  wonders  why,  given  her 
serenity,  she  should  go  to  so  much  trouble. 
She  believes,  it  would  appear,  in  keeping  a 
husband,  as  she  would  (to  a  limited  extent) 
her  waist  measurements.  It  is  the  thing  to 
do.  And  the  thing  to  do,  she  would  say,  is 
always — in  a  world  where  all  people  are  more 
or  less  shams,  and  truly  can't  help  it,  poor 
things — in  the  end  the  comfortable  way  out 
for  everybody. 

The  word  exactly  defines  her.  She  is, 
herself,  a  comfortable  person.  Vet  is  it  no 
careless,  "slack"  comfortableness.  It  is 
the  kind  that  is  founded  on  an  illimitable, 
sphinx-like  wisdom.  It  is  the  comfortable- 
ness of  a  common  sense  that  has  taken  the 
measure  of  most  things;  if  not  by  actual 
experience,  by  a  sort  of  divination. 

The  general  interest  of  all  this  is.  that  one 
wonders  how  many  men  and  women,  in  this 
striving  generation,  have  a  leaning,  more 
or  less  unconfessed,  toward  precisely  these 
characteristics.  Those  that  have  them  prob- 
ably like  to  keep  them  rather  under  cover. 
For  it  has  come  to  this,  so  far  has  the  cult 
of  act ivity-at -any-cost  progressed,  that  not 
to  be  trying  for  something  more  than  one 

650 


(')(')() 


The   Point  of  View 


has  is  not  only  a  dense  state,  but  really  an 
ugly,  rather  sordid,  phenomenon.  It  is  not 
the  high  quality  that  it  was,  to  be  content 
with  your  situation  in  life  and  to  make  the 
best  of  it.  "Comfortable"  people  usually 
were  content;  and  certainly  they  could,  by 
an  alchemy  of  their  own,  extract  singular 
pleasure  from  the  commonplaces  of  exist- 
ence, and  convey  an  equal  sense  of  well- 
being  to  others.  Their  acquaintances  prized 
them  duly  therefor.  As  the  old  grand- 
father remarks  in  "Milestones"  to  his 
blithe,  gentle,  placid  wife  who  finds  every- 
thing pleasant:  '^ That's  because  you're 
pleasant.  I've  said  it  before.  And  I  say  it 
again."  Such  virtues  have  perceptibly  de- 
preciated of  late  years.  No  one  desires  to 
be  the  sort  of  creature  who  will  always  be 
found  sitting  at  the  fireside,  or  over  the 
quiet  tea-urn,  when  some  one  else  needs  a 
confidant.  No  one  wishes  to  be  soothing 
as  an  afternoon  walk  through  gray  Novem- 
ber woods.  No  one  wants  the  personality 
that  blunts  and  smooths  other  people's 
nerves  as  if  they  had  been  wrapped  up  in 
cot  ton- wool.  People  should  not  like  being 
wrapped  in  cotton-wool,  it  is  said.  The 
more  their  nerves  are  left  in  the  raw  the 
more  likely  they  are  to  accomplish  things. 
And  confidences,  in  any  case,  are  obsolete, 
weakening,  time-wasting  indulgences. 

Behind  this  change  of  view-point  is  a 
changed  ethical  standard.  This  is  a  dynam- 
ic period,  and  it  makes  no  distinction  be- 
tween going  slowly  and  going  slothfully. 
Shy  people  and  contemplative  casts  of  mind 
who  get  so  much  out  of  the  inward  moods 
are  not  regarded  with  the  good-humored 
tolerance  that  practical  souls  formerly  meted 
out  to  them.  They  arouse,  rather,  an  ir- 
ritated resentment,  as  if  they  were  the  vic- 
tims of  a  malady  they  could  cure  if  they 
chose.  And  perhaps  they  are,  and  perhaps 
they  could  cure  it  if  they  chose.  When  a 
movement  is  as  universal  as  the  present  one 
for  expanding  the  personality,  for  getting 
out  of  the  individual  shell,  for  struggling  up 
to  new  planes  and  unsuspected  experiences, 
it  is  safe  to  look  on  it  as  a  mysterious  sort  of 
life-force,  working  to  ends  of  its  own.  Peo- 
ple who  maintain  that  the  gospel  of  forced 
energy  is  altogether  abhorrent  and  tiresome 
have,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  the  burden 
of  the  proof  on  their  side.  They  may  say 
that  forcing  withers  imagination  and  dries 
up  the  deeper  movements  of  the  mind  at 


their  source.  They  may  say  that  they  never 
get  the  best  out  of  themselves  under  me- 
chanical pressure.  But  they  must  say  it 
quietly — and  wait  for  the  tide  to  turn. 


IT  is  a  curious  scheme  which  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells  unfolds,  in  the  opening  pages  of 
"The  Passionate  Friends,"  for  the  bet- 
ter understanding  of  fathers  by  their  sons. 
Why,  he  asks,  should  his  father  and  grand- 
father have  "left  so  much  of  the  tale  untold 
— to  be  lost  and  forgotten?  Why 
must  we  all  repeat  things  done,  patherrand  So 
and  come  again  very  bitterly  to 
wisdom  our  fathers  have  achieved  before 
us?  .  .  .  Cannot  we  begin  now  to  make  a 
better  use  of  the  experiences  of  life  so  that 
our  sons  may  not  waste  themselves  so  much; 
cannot  we  gather  into  books  .  .  .  the  gist 
of  these  confused  and  multitudinous  re- 
alities of  the  individual  career?"  And  he 
prophesies  a  "new  private  literature"  to  be 
passed  down  from  parent  to  child,  in  which 
fathers  and  mothers  will  tell  their  experi- 
ences "as  one  tells  things  to  equals,  with- 
out authority  or  reserves  or  discretions, 
so  that,  they  being  dead,  their  children 
may  rediscover  them  as  contemporaries  and 
friends." 

This  may  seem  at  first  glance  an  attract- 
ive and  feasible  plan,  but  does  Mr.  Wells 
or  any  one  else  really  suppose  that  the  son 
will  profit  by  the  father's  experience?  Even 
if  the  adventure  were  to  repeat  itself  exactly, 
which  is  unlikely,  can  any  one  of  us  imagine 
that  the  son  will  not  want  to  try  its  issues 
for  himself?  And  does  not  the  anxious 
father,  after  all,  like  him  the  better  for  his 
spirit?  Fancy,  for  instance,  the  young  man 
leaving  the  affair  which  engrosses  him  and 
hurrying  home.  "Father,"  he  says,  "my 
inclinations  lead  me  to  fall  in  love  with  the 
wrong  woman.  If  I  go  on  I  shall  find  my- 
self in  a  devil  of  a  scrape — and  I'm  not  sure 
that  it  won't  be  worth  it.  But  just  let  me 
have  a  look  at  your  private  record  and  see 
whether  you  have  put  down  anything  which 
is  likely  to  be  of  use.  Or  perhaps  grand- 
father may  have  something  to  say  about  it." 
And  picture  the  father  unlocking  the  drawer 
and  handing  out  the  book. 

In  the  matter  of  friendship  and  comrade- 
ship between  father  and  son,  it  is  well  under- 
stood that  it  is  the  father's  part  to  listen  to 
the  outpourings  of  youth,  to  advise  a  little, 


The   Point  of  View 


601 


to  sympathize  a  great  deal,  to  indulge  spar- 
ingly in  reminiscence  and  generously  in  an- 
ticipation. Doubtless  the  desire  for  self- 
expression  may  be  as  keen  in  the  father  as 
in  the  son,  but  it  is  a  true  instinct  which 
leads  him  to  indulge  it  more  freely  to  his 
contemporaries  than  to  his  children.  Not 
only  does  he  fear  to  weary  the  youth,  but 
he  would  dislike  very  much  to  shock  him. 
For  the  traditional  attitude  of  parent  and 
child  has  roots  which  strike  very  deep; 
even  deeper  in  the  child's  heart  than  in  the 
parent's.  The  father  does  indeed  like  to 
be  a  person  of  consideration  with  his  son,  to 
be  admired  and  respected  by  him,  as  well  as 
to  be  a  good  comrade,  but  this  feeling  on  his 
part  is  not  a  circumstance  compared  with 
the  son's  desire  to  look  up  to  him. 

No  person  on  earth  is  so  conservative  as 
a  child;  the  nursery  tale  must  always  be  told 
in  the  same  words.  And  with  regard  to  our 
parents  we  are  always  children.  We  don't 
want  to  look  at  them  with  level  eyes;  we 
want  to  look  up.  A  record  of  high  thoughts 
and  worthy  deeds — yes,  certainly  we  should 
like  that,  even  though  we  might  not  read  it 
very  often;  but  to  see  most  of  them  in  their 
habit  as  they  lived,  when  they  were  at  our 
own  time  of  life — their  follies,  their  blun- 
ders, their  stupidities,  their  vices,  large  and 
small,  their  narrowness  and  intolerance — no, 
thank  you,  we  don't  care  for  the  view.  True, 
it  may  be  amusing  to  hear  of  trifling  youth- 
ful follies,  of  the  sort  that  one  tells  jesting- 
ly at  family  gatherings;  that  father  made 
merry  in  his  college  days,  that  mother  was 
a  sad  coquette;  but  it  is  only  as  trifles,  in 
piquant  contrast  to  the  excellences  of  later 
life,  that  these  things  are  entertaining.  To 
be  sure,  if  we  were  to  come  upon  the  private 
record  only  when  we  had  ourselves  grown 
old,  we  could  regard  it  with  some  equa- 
nimity— but  not  in  our  youth!  There  is  no 
other  relation  in  life  in  which  we  so  jealously 
demand  adherence  to  type.  Our  parents 
may  be  handsome  and  witty,  wise  and  good, 
or  they  may  be  modest  and  self-effacing,  or 
plain,  or  a  little  slow-witted;  if  they  stick 
to  the  parent  type  we  can  shut  our  eyes  to  a 
great  deal  else.  If,  as  parents,  they  fi'il  un- 
obtrusively, it  is  disappointment;  if  they 
fail  conspicuously,  it  is  tragedy.  And  so,  if 
the  "private  literature"  of  the  family  should 
unfold  such  a  tale  as  that  of  the  "passionate 
friends,"  I  think  that  the  "little  son"  for 
whom  it  was  ostensii^ly  written  would  rather 


it  had  been  burned  unread.  For  our  desire 
is  that  "father"  shall  love  "mother"  bet- 
ter than  he  loves  any  other  woman,  or,  if 
that  be  tragically  impossible,  that  he  shall 
preserve  a  decent  reticence  with  regard  to 
his  vagrant  affections.  Decidedly,  his  son 
would  resent  being  taken  into  the  confi- 
dence of  his  alien  passion.  No,  I  think  Mr. 
Wells's  plan  will  hardly  do. 


A  "NATURAL  HLSTORY"  made  up  of 
the  conscientious  exaggerations  and 
conscienceless  misstatements  by  trav- 
ellers, and  other  romancers,  ought  to  prove 
an  interesting  work,  highly  protitable  as  a 
book-agent  offering.     In  the  rural  districts 
and  at  summer  resorts  solicitors 
should  find  it  easy  to  write  orders       xaurTnistory 
for  it  by  the  thousand;  especially 
in  telling  their  victims  that  it  represents  all 
the  great  men  in  literature,  from  Herodotus 
and  Tartarin  down  to  contemporary  writers. 
One  volume  of  this  work  I  have  already 
planned:  the  one  entitled  "America." 

Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  exclude  for- 
eign writers  from  this  volume.  That  would 
be  at  once  rash  and  ungenerous.  There  is, 
for  example,  John  Josselyn.  This  gentle- 
man paid  us  two  long  visits  in  the  course  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  published  a 
little  book  in  1672,  entitled:  "New  Eng- 
land's Rareties  Discovered  in  Birds,  Beasts, 
Fishes,  &  Plants  of  the  Country;  Together 
with  the  Physical  and  Chyrurgical  Reme- 
dies Wherewith  the  Natives  Constantly  use 
to  Cure  their  Distempers,  Wounds,  and 
Sores.  Also  a  perfect  Description  of  an 
Indian  SQUA,  in  all  her  Bravery;  with  a 
Poem  not  improperly  conferr'd  upon  her. 
Lastly  A  Chronological  Table  of  the  most 
remarkable  Passages  in  that  Country 
amongst  the  English."  Do  you  know  the 
work?  It  is  well  worth  3'our  study.  The 
reader  of  our  colonial  literature  finds  there 
such  refreshment  as  I  imagine  voyagers 
through  the  desert  enjoy  on  arriving  at  a 
particularly  herbaceous  oasis.  "Into  the 
woods,"  writes  Josselyn  on  one  page,  "and 
hai)pening  into  a  fine  broad  walk,  I  wan- 
dered till  I  chanced  to  spy  a  fruit — as  I 
thought — like  a  j^ine-apple,  plated  with 
scales.  It  was  as  big  as  the  crown  of  a 
woman's  hat  " — a  bonnet  of  1672,  remember, 
not  a  t()(iue  of  1014;  "I  made  bold  to  step 
into  it  with  an  intent  to  have  gathered  it. 


(ir)2 


The  Point  of  View 


No  sooner  had  I  touched  it  but  hundreds 
of  wasps" — /.  €.,  hornets—"  were  about  me. 
At  last  I  cleared  myself  from  them,  but  by 
the  time  I  was  come  into  the  house  they 
hardly  knew  me  but  by  my  garments." 

In  the  circumstances,  Josselyn  w^as  lucky 
to  have  any  garments  left  to  recognize. 
What  happened  to  him  was  natural  enough, 
in  the  premises;  but  Josselyn  affords  also  an- 
ecdotes of  unnatural  history.  "In  Amer- 
ica," he  writes,  ''barley  commonly  degen- 
erates into  oats,  and  summer  wheat  many 
times  changes  into  rye." 

Xow,  before  I  finish  my  compilation,  I 
want  to  decide — and  for  that  decision  I  shall 
refer  to  your  opinion — whether  Josselyn  was 
the  victim  of  a  practical  joker,  or  w'as  him- 
self that  joker.  "The  frogs  of  this  coun- 
try," he  wTites  in  all  apparent  seriousness, 
"are  commonly  as  big  as  a  child  one  year 
old."  I  shall  discuss  the  various  orders  of 
frogs,  native  and  foreign,  in  a  long  foot-note 
to  my  projected  \vork. 

This  much,  after  a  good  deal  of  research, 
I  am  sure  of:  Josselyn  was  more  pretentious 
than  authentic.  The  more  scholarly  nat- 
ural historiography  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury is,  nevertheless,  almost  as  questionable. 
Who  could  exceed  in  respectability  our  first 
distinguished  botanist,  Friend  John  Bar- 
tram?  Here  is  a  letter  that  any  one  may 
consult  in  manuscript — any  one,  that  is,  who 
finds  it  worth  a  trip  to  Philadelphia.  The 
letter  is  undated,  but  w^as  written  in  the 
author's  youth;  it  is  addressed  to  his  brother 
William,  who  was  then  "keeping  store"  in 
the  South.  The  botanist  wTote,  presum- 
ably, from  his  farm  by  the  Schuylkill;  and 
begins  (after  a  "Dear  Billy"): 

"I  was  lately  told  by  a  man  that  rides 
express,  that  he  saw  in  No  Carolina  not  far 
from  Cape  Fear,  a  strange  plant  about  as 
big  as  a  daisy  &  much  like  it  in  flower.  I 
think  he  called  it  ye  wonderful  flower  whose 
properties  was  such  that  if  they  looked 
earnestly  at  it  ye  petals  of  ye  flower  would 
close  up  he  said  ye  moors,  near  Brunswick 
knowed  it  well:  if  it  lieth  in  thy  way  to  speak 
with  Morris  More  ask  him  about  it  if  it  be 
true  it  will  be  a  fine  curiosity  &  furnish  mat- 
ter for  Phylosofical  contemplation.  .  .  ." 

So  far  as  I  know,  this  letter  has  never 
been  reproduced  in  the  historical  accounts 


of  John  Bartram,  who  founded  (as  his  son 
duly  records)  the  first  botanic  gardens  in 
all  America.  Yet  the  letter  is  deserving  of 
the  fame  I  mean  to  give  it.  And  so  are  my 
other  specimens  of  our  unnatural  natural 
history:  where  will  figure  passages  from 
Parson  Weems's  writings  (notably  his  ac- 
count of  the  mammoth  "suddenly  dashing 
in  among  a  thousand  buffaloes,  feeding  at 
large  on  the  vast  plains  of  Missouri");  from 
Saint  John  de  Crevecoeur's  charming  "Let- 
ters from  an  American  Farmer"  (Lowell 
called  it  "that  dear  book") — to  say  noth- 
ing of  Chateaubriand's  "Rene",  and  "At- 
ala"  and  "Travels  in  America." 

My  "Unnatural  Natural  History"  will 
make  new  reputations  for  other  writers,  too — 
Champlain,  for  one.  Champlain — a  truth- 
teller  in  so  far  as  any  Christian  man  may 
hope  to  be  so  classified — names  in  his  "Voy- 
ages" the  many  kinds  of  birds  of  prey  found 
in  the  New  W^orld:  "falcons,  gerfalcons, 
sakers,  tassels,  sparhawks,  goshawks,  mar- 
lins  (martens?) ,  two  kinds  of  eagles,  little  and 
big  owls,  great  horned  owls  of  exceptional 
size,  pyes,  woodpeckers."  So  far  so  good. 
But  listen  to  his  account  of  the  bald  buzzard 
or  sea-eagle:  "Gray  plumage  on  the  back 
and  white  on  the  belly,  as  fat  and  large  as  a 
hen,  with  one  foot  like  the  talon  of  a  bird  of 
prey,  with  which  it  catches  fish;  the  other  like 
that  of  a  duck.  The  latter  serves  for  swim- 
ming in  the  water  when  he  dives  for  fish. 
This  bird  is  not  supposed  to  be  found  except 
in  New  France." 

This  New  France  of  Champlain's  must 
have  extended  almost  as  far  south  as  Bar- 
tram's  North  Carolina.  I  suspect,  too,  that 
it  was  at  not  many  removes  from  that 
"French  pays  de  cocagne,''  where,  by  Ben- 
jamin Franklin's  Rabelaisian  account,  the 
streets  are  paved  with  half-baked  loaves 
and  the  houses  tiled  with  pancakes;  while 
fowls  fly  through  the  air  already  roasted, 
crying:  "Come,  eat  me!" 

The  country  described  in  the  volume 
"America"  in  this  "Unnatural  Natural  His- 
tory" of  mine  oft'ers  a  tempting  invitation 
to  the  travel-lover.  Not  all  of  us  care  to 
interrupt  our  walks  by  botanizing — but 
could  you,  gentle  reader,  refuse  to  pause 
and  watch  wheat  turning,  before  your  very 
eyes,  to  golden  rye? 


SOME  RECEXT  SMALL  SCI  LPT  IRES 

The   collcc 


^KS^^B 

Wk 

■^^i 

C  ^"^F^^^l 

v^>1 

^4h 

^^F/ J 

jggHJ^^H 

V^il 

^^^^^^^^H 

wm^.-^rJ^ 

^^^^^^^^^^1 

w^MljM 

^^HH 

Ci>/'yy!,i:he  I'v  />'.  /-.  A?«/f-. 
The  Elfin  Piper.      By  Lillian  Link. 


tenderness,  and  apprcciiilion  of  subtle  hu- 
mor. Some  of  the  very  smallest  pieces  were 
tionof  contem-  the  most  effective— as  Lillian  Link's  very 
porary  Ameri-  little  "Elfin  Piper/'  a  very  small,  flap- 
can  sculpture  eared  infant  seated  on  a  tiny  hillock  and 
shown  last  lluting  on  his  infini- 
Winter  at  the  tesimal  reed,  no  louder 
exhibition  of  than  the  drone  of  a 
the  National  mosquito.  To  this 
Academy  of  quality  of  delicate 
Design  in  New  charm  the  ladies — as 
York,  though  it  was  but  proper — con- 
included  only  tributed  frequently, 
one  hundred  IMrs.  Bessie  Potter 
and  nineteen  \'onnoh  among  the 
works,  the  first.  In  two  of  her 
great  majority  small    stat- 


uettes, the 
"Daphne" 
and  the 
"Grecian 
Draperies," 
she      h  a  d 


of  them  small 
and  none  of  them  very  large,  was  notable 
for  the  extent  of  the  field  it  covered.     The 
general  public,  it  was  officially  stated  at  the 
close  of  the  exhibition,  was  particularly  in- 
terested in  the  small  bronzes.     As  is  usual 
in    these   collective  exhibits,   the  sculpture     transferred 
showed  no  such   wide   divergence  of   tech-     some   of   the 
nical  theories  and  practices  as  the  paint-    attributes  of 
ings,  and  it  might  be  claimed  that  it  covered    her  lit  tie,  de 
an  even  wider  range  of  human  and  artistic  in-    icate,    mo( 
terests.    The  absence  of 
the  big,  official,  monu- 
mental  works  did   not 
very  seriously  diminish 
the   demand   upon   the 
spectator's  sym- 
pathies, imagi- 
nation, sense  of 
charm,  and  even 


Grecian  IVapeiie^.      I'y  r<es>ie  Potter 
N'oiinoh. 


Vol.  LV. 


( ill  is  \\  ailing. 


l!y  Aba^tenia  St.   Lc^ier  Kberlc. 


ern  ladies  to  larger  themes  and 

higher  sculptural  motifs,  and 

added  to  them.     The  "Daphne'' 

stands  very  simply  and  naturally 

gathering  with 

•     "  one   ha  ml  her 

'  \  ample    d  r  a  - 

prries  o\er  her 

smooth  young 

body,  and  with 

lur   left    a  r  m 

raised    puts 

l)ack    her   long 

hair;    in  t  h  e 

0('3 


V 


CM 


The  Field  of  Art 


"Grecian  Dra- 
peries" the  maid, 
also  standing, 
draped  in  her 
long,  loose  un- 
dergarment (an 
Ionic  chiton, 
perhaps),  and 
with  her  right 


The  Shell  Fountain. 
Scudder. 


Ev  Janet 


The  Duck  Baby.     By  Edith  B. 
Parsons. 


hand  extended  holds  out 
at  arm's  length  the  wide 
overgarment,  the  pep- 
lum,  preparatory  to 
bringing  it  around  her. 
The  head,  bent  down- 
ward a  little,  is  gracious; 
the  figure,  natural  and 
feminine,  is  yet  sculp- 
turesque. 

;Miss  Eberle  has  found  a  new  inspiration 
in  a  little  group  of  three  every-day  young 
girls  in  light  bathing  dresses  on  a  sandy 
beach,  sitting,  standing,  and  stooping.  They 
are  all  at  the  slim  age,  the  body  not  j^et 
developed,  and  the  limbs  long  rather 
than  round.  Their  hair,  loosely  put 
up,  falls  in  picturesque  little  loops  and 
braids;  conventionality  is  quite  absent. 
The  one  on  the  right  stoops  to  gather 
sea-weed  washed  up  by  the  tide;  at  the 
left  of  the  group  another  sits  flat  on  the 
sand  and  pulls  off  her  long  stockings, 
looking  over  her  shoulder  at  the  sea- 
weed gatherer;  the  third,  in  the  centre, 
standing,  twists  upon  herself  as  only  a 
young  person  can  to  tuck  up  the  bot- 
tom of  her  scanty  skirt.  This  cheer- 
ful and  decorative  group,  very  skilfully 
spaced  and  planned,  was  first  seen  in 
the  plaster  at  the  celebrated  ''Armory 
exhibition,"  of  "Futurists"  and  such, 
last  year,  but  was  one  of  several  works 
of  art  shown  there  that  did  not  seem 
to  belong  in  that  galere.  No  contem- 
porary exhibition  of  sculpture  is  com- 
plete without  at  least  one  of  Miss  Scud- 
der's  little  fountain  figures,  and  in  these 


galleries  of  the  Academy  there  were  three, 
the  most  interesting  being  the  little  bronze 
figure  for  the  "  Shell  Fountain,"  a  small  nude 
girl  holding  high  in  her  right  hand  a  clam- 
shell from  which  the  water  is  to  fall  on  the 
twiddling  fingers  of  her  left,  graceful  and 
amusing  as  a  fountain  figure  should  be.  In 
another  fountain  figure,  by  Edith  Parsons, 
also  life-size,  "The  Duck  Baby."  a  little  girl 
standing  straightly  on  both  legs 
grins  in  great  enjovTnent  as  she  holds 
against  each  shoulder  a  protesting 
duckling. 

The  Helen  Foster  Barnett  prize  for 
the  best  piece  of  sculpture  shown  in 
the  exhibition,  the  work  of  an  art- 
ist under  thirty-five  years  of  age. 
which  had  been  awarded  five  times 
previously,  was  given  to  Paul  ]Man- 
ship,  a  graduate  of  the  American 
School  in  Rome,  who  first  became 
known  to  the  general  public  by  his 
exhibit  in  that  of  the  School  at 
the  Architectural  League  Exhibition 
in  February,  19 13.  Many  of  his 
works  seen  here  in  bronze,  including 
the  prize-winner,  group  of "  Centaur 
and  Dryad,"  wxre  first  shown  at  the 
League  exhibition  in  plaster,  with 
also  three  works  of  life-size  figures.  Among 
the  additional  bronzes  in  the  Academy  gal- 
leries was  a  little  group,  an  early  work,  quite 
difi"erent  in  inspiration  and  execution,  much 


The  LjTic  Muse.     By  Paul  Manship. 


Tlie   Field  of  Art 


6G5 


more  summary  in  modelling,  "Tired 
Workers."  In  his  later  work  the 
sculptor  has  occupied  himself  very 
frequently  with  antique  themes,  with 
skilful  adaptations  of  the  archaic, 
and  of  vase-painting  details,  decora- 
tive and  rendered  with  a  very  care- 
ful completeness,  which  runs  into 
great  delicacy  and  beauty  in  the  or- 
naments, as  on  the  pedestal  of  the 
''Centaur  "and  on  a  handsome  semi- 
classic  vase  exhibited.  Less  impor- 
tant as  a  decorative  work,  but  per- 
haps endowed  with  a  more  lively  and 
humorous    human   interest,    is   the 


Mndt 


ill  bronze  of  P.ison  fur  a  street  bridi^e.  Wahhiii^ton,  D.  C. 
l!y  A.  I'hiniister  I'roct.r. 


Fanning  a  Twister.     By  Joseph  J.  Mora. 

with  the  same  original  and  skilful  combi- 
nation of  accurate  and  finished  modelling  and 


group  of  ''Satyr     ters  of  the  League  exhibition.     The  "Lyric 
and   Sleeping     ]\Iuse"  kneels,  throws  her  lyre  out  at  arm's 
Nymph,"    in    length  and  sings,  open-mouthed;  the  "Little 
which  the  figures     Brother,"  a  baby,  is  held  up  triumphantly 
are  of  about  the    on  his  big  sister's  shoulder;    in  the  "Play- 
same  size  and    fulness"  the  girl  seated  dances  the  infant 
carried    out    on  her  outstretched  leg;  the  "Spring  Awa- 
kening" is  remarkable  for  the  rendering  of 
the  tightened  muscles  in  the  entire  body  and 
limbs  as  the  seated  nude  figure  stretches  and 
yawns  in  complete  abandon.     On  the  con- 
trary, the  "Portrait  Statuette"  is  of  a  lady 
walking,   in  a  careful  reproduction  of  her 
modern  street   costume.     The   sculptor   is 
at  present  engaged,  among  other  things,  on  a 
series  of  highly  decorative  heroic  classic  ter- 
minal figures,  twelve  in  number,  to  be  carved 
in  white  marble. 

As  for  the  mounted  cowboy  (or  soldier) 
in  action — who  has  come  to  be  one  of  the 
accepted  figures  in  the  contemporary  native 
sculpture — he  appeared  here  very  nearly  at 
his  best,  in  two  spirited  little  groups  by 
Joseph  J.  Mora,  "Fanning  a  Twister"  and 
"On  the  Hurricane  Deck."      In  the  group 


adaptations  of  archaic  treatment  in  the  with  the  suggestive  nautical  title  the  horse, 
heads  (sometimes,  as  in  the 
case  of  this  nymph,  of  the  hair 
only),  the  tails,  and  occasional 
little  formal  trimmings  of 
curled  hair  or  fur.  Notwith- 
standing the  rendering  of  the 
hair  in  these  figures  by  a  form- 
al division  into  parallel  lines, 
the  feeling  of  softness  and 
abundance  is  adequately  con- 
veyed— notably  in  tliat  of  tliis 
sleeping  nymi)h. 

The  same  qualities  may  be 
found  in  some  of  the  sculptor's 
other  statuettes,  also  re{)r()- 
ductions  in  bronze  of  the  plas-  Woundfii  lomr.uic.    i:>-  caii  i-:.  .Xkricy. 


01)0 


The  Field  of  Art 


with  his  head  down,  stiff  on  his  lore  legs, 
has  both  hind  legs  in  the  air  for  the  in- 
tinite.  skyward  kick  and  the  rider  braces 
himself  backward  in  the  saddle  against  the 
coming  calapulling 
over  the  animal's 
head.  In  the  other 
the  horse,  head 
down  and  much  to 
one  side,  is  anchored 
on  his  straddling 
hind  legs  for  the  ir- 
resistible twisting 
rear  that  shall  send 
the  rider  headlong 
over  the  tail,  while 
he — in  what  looks 
very  like  rash  bra- 
vado— slaps  the 
neck  of  the  beast 
with  his  sombrero. 
The  completeness 
of  knowledge  here 
shown  of  equine 
construction  and 
possible  motion  is 
one  of  the  most 
modern  of  artistic 
acquirements. 

Of  the  other  an- 
imal sculptures  in 
this  exhibition — 
few  in  number — the 
most  notable  were 
Phimister  Proctor's 
small  model  in 
bronze  for  one  of  his 
colossal  bison  that 
are  to  face  each 

other  at  the  entrance  of  the  Q  Street  Bridge 
in  Washington,  D.  C,  both  recently  com- 
pleted in  his  studio  in  New  York  City,  and 
Carl  E.  Akeley's  moving  little  group  of 
the  "Wounded  Comrade" — an  African  el- 
ephant in  distress  supported  and  encour- 
aged by  two  others,  one  on  each  side. 
This  incident  is  declared  by  the  hunters  to 
have  been  witnessed  more  than  once.  In 
this  group  all  three  tuskers  advance  slowly 
through  the  long  elephant-grass,  the  two 
friends  pressing  closely  against  the  sides  of 
their  wounded  comrade  to  keep  him  on  his 
feet;  he  on  the  left  side  wraps  his  long  trunk 
around  and  across  the  head  and  even  thrusts 
one  of  his  tusks  under  the  other's  to  support 
him.     The  dark  color  of  the  bronze,  sup- 


Uiifolding  of  Life.      By  Chester  Beach. 


piemen  ling  the  very  accurate  and  careful 
modelling  of  these  pachyderms,  gives  a  curi- 
ous air  of  nature  in  little  to  this  contribution 
to  science  and  art.     The  incident  of  the 

broken  tusk  of  one 
of  the  good  Samari- 
tans is  also  accord- 
ing to  the  facts — 
one  broken  among 
three  pair  is  said  to 
be  rather  below  the 
average. 

Mr.  Proctor's  bi- 
son are  also  among 
the  modern  ad- 
ditions to  the  rep- 
ertory of  art  —  to 
the  formidable  bulk 
and  weight  and 
strength  which  are 
this  animal's  ob- 
vious monumental 
qualities  the  sculp- 
tor adds  an  action, 
an  alertness,  head 
and  tail  up,  also 
founded  on  truth, 
which  give  him  that 
air  of  power  and 
menace  necessary 
to  symbolic  animals. 
This  small  bronze 
represented  the 
completed  full-size 
model  shown  in  the 
sculptor's  studio  in 
January,  1914,  and 
cast  in  the  same 
month,  the  largest 
single  casting  in  bronze  ever  done  in  America. 
Of  the  more  purely  imaginative  sculpture 
the  largest  and  in  some  respects  the  most 
ambitious  work  in  this  exhibition  was  Ches- 
ter Beach's  "Unfolding  of  Life" — figures  in 
white  marble  of  about  half  life-size.  In  this 
group  the  nude  female  figure,  emerging  from 
her  confining  draperies,  was  slender  and 
graceful,  long-limbed,  not  expressing  the  ful- 
ness of  exuberance  of  life;  in  the  unidealized 
head  the  sculptor  probably  meant  to  repre- 
sent character  and  vigor  rather  than  the 
mere  beauty.  The  arrangement  of  the  dra- 
pery behind  her  and  on  the  extended  right 
arms  was  well  designed  to  set  off  the  lines 
of  the  figure. 

William  Walton. 


Dra%vn  by  Walter  King  Stau 


WE   SAW,    ON  THE  PLAIN    BENEATH,    OUR   TIDY   VILLAGE   AND  THE   WINDING 

THREAD   OF   THE   RIVER. 

—"Upland  Pastures,"  page  726. 


ScRiBNER's  Magazine 


VOL.  LV 


JUNE,   1914 


NO.  6 


A   HUNTER-NATURALIST   IN   TIIP: 
BRAZILIAN    WILDERNESS* 

[THIRD   ARTICLE] 

BY  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

THE   HEADWATERS  OF  TPIE   PARAGUAY 

Illustrations  from  photographs  by  Kermit  Roosevelt  and  oiher  members 

OF  the  expedition 

AT  Corumba  our  entire  party,  and  all    satisfied  himself  that  the  bo.xes  and  bap;s 

AA     their  belongings,  came  aboard  our    were  in  place.     It  was  probable  that  hard- 

good  little  river  boat,  the  Nyoac.    shiplay  in  the  future;  but  the  day  was  our 

Christmas  Day  saw  us  making  our  way    own,  and  the  day  was  pleasant.     In  the 

steadily  up-stream  against  the  strong  cur-    evening  the  after-deck,  open  all  around, 

rent,  and  between  the  green  and  beautiful    where  we  dined,  was  decorated  with  green 

boughs  and  rushes,  and  we  drank  the  health 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States  and 
of  the  President  of  Brazil. 

Now  and  then  we  passed  little  ranches 
on  the  river's  edge.  This  is  a  fertile  land, 
pleasant  to  live  in,  and  any  settler  who  is 
willing  to  work  can  earn  his  li\ing.  There 
are  mines;  there  is  water-power;  there  is 
abundance  of  rich  soil.  The  country  will 
soon  be  opened  by  rail.  It  offers  a  tine 
field  for  immigration  and  for  agricultural, 
mining,  and  business  development;  and  it 
has  a  great  future. 

Cherrie  and  Miller  had  secured  a  little 
owl  a  month  before  in  the  Chaco,  and  it 
was  travelling  with  them  in  a  basket.  It 
was  a  dear  little  bird,  \cry  tame  and  atlec- 
tionate.  It  liked  to  be  handled  and 
petted;  and  when  Miller,  its  esj)ecial  i)ro- 
tector,  came  into  the  cabin,  it  would  make 


banks  of  the  upper  Paraguay.  The  shal- 
low little  steamer  was  jammed  with  men, 
dogs,  rifles,  partially  cured  skins,  boxes  of 
provisions,  ammunition,  tools,  and  photo- 
graphic supplies,  bags  containing  tents, 
cots,  bedding,  and  clothes,  saddles,  ham- 
mocks, and  the  other  necessaries  for  a 
trip  through  the  "great  wilderness,"  the 
*'matto  grosso"  of  western  Brazil. 

It  was  a  brilliantly  clear  day,  and,  al- 
though of  course  in  that  latitude  and  at 
that  season  the  heat  was  intense  later  on, 
it  was  cool  and  pleasant  in  the  early 
morning.  We  sat  on  the  forward  deck, 
admiring  the  trees  on  the  brink  of  the 
sheer  mud-banks,  the  lush  rank  grass  of 
the  marshes,  and  the  many  water  birds. 
The  two  pilots,  one  black  and  one  white, 
stood  at  the  wheel.  Colonel  Rondon  read 
Thomas  a  Kempis;  Kermit,  Cherrie,  and 


Miller  squatted  outside  the  railing  on  the  queer  little  noises  as  a  signal  that  it  wished 
deck  over  one  [)addle-wheel  and  put  the  to  be  taken  up  and  jierched  on  his  hand, 
final  touches  on  the  jaguar-skins.     Fiala    Cherrie  and   Miller   had   tra|)i>ed   many 

♦Copyright,  1914,  by  Charles  Srribiier's  Suns,  New  York,       mamilials.        AmOIlg     tlicm      WilS     a     taVTU 
U.  S.  A.     AH  risihts  reserved,  incliiilitig  that  of  translation  I  U'4:  .U      1      ..  »    ..•.,1  Kl  .  .1-  K  J  ^,..'    .  . 

into  foreign  languages,  inckiding  the  Scandinavian.  WCaSCl,  Wnitlsn  alK)\  e  anCl  DUICK  DClOW  ,  db 

Si'EClAL   Notice. — These   articles   arc   fully   protected    under  the  copyright  law,  wliich  imposes  a  severe  penalty  for 

infringcujcnt. 

Copyright,  1914.  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.     All  rights  reserved. 


Vol.  LV. — 72 


667 


6()S 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in   the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


bii^  and  bloodthirsty  as  a  fisher-martin; 
and  a  tiny  opossum  no  bigger  than  a 
mouse.  They  had  taken  four  species  of 
opossum,  but  they  had  not  found  the 
curious  water-opossum  which  they  had 
obtained  on  the  rivers  flowing  into  the 
raril)bean  Sea.  This  opossum,  which  is 
black  and  white,  swims  in  the  streams  like 
a  muskrat  or  otter,  catching  fish  and  liv- 
ing in  burrows  w'hich  open  under  water. 
^Miller  and  Cherrie  were  puzzled  to  know 
why  the  young  throve,  leading  such  an 
existence  of  constant  immersion;  one  of 
them  once  found  a  female  swimming  and 
diving  freely  wath  four  quite  well-grown 
young  in  her  pouch. 

We  saw  on  the  banks  screamers  — 
big,  crested  waders  of  archaic  type,  with 
spurred  wings,  rather  short  bills,  and  no 
especial  affinities  with  other  modern  birds. 
In  one  meadow  by  a  pond  we  saw  three 
marsh  deer,  a  buck  and  two  does.  They 
stared  at  us,  with  their  thickly  haired  tails 
raised  on  end.  These  tails  are  black  under- 
neath, instead  of  white  as  in  our  white-tail 
deer.  One  of  the  vagaries  of  the  ultra- 
concealing  colorationists  has  been  to  up- 
hold the  (incidentally  quite  preposterous) 
theory  that  the  tail  of  our  deer  is  colored 
w^hite  beneath  so  as  to  harmonize  with  the 
sky  and  thereby  mislead  the  cougar  or  wolf 
at  the  critical  moment  when  it  makes  its 
spring;  but  this  marsh  deer  shows  a  black 
instead  of  a  white  flag,  and  yet  has  just  as 
much  need  of  protection  from  its  enemies, 
the  jaguar  and  the  cougar.  In  South 
America  concealing  coloration  plays  no 
more  part  in  the  lives  of  the  deer,  the  ta- 
mandua,  the  peccary,  the  jaguar,  and  the 
puma  than  it  plays  in  Africa  in  the  lives 
of  such  animals  as  the  zebra,  the  sable 
antelope,  the  wildebeeste,  the  lion,  and 
the  hunting  hyena. 

Next  day  we  spent  ascending  the  Sao 
Lourengo.  It  was  narrower  than  the  Para- 
guay, naturally,  and  the  swirling  brown 
current  was  if  anything  more  rapid.  The 
strange  tropical  trees,  standing  densely  on 
the  banks,  were  matted  together  by  long 
bush  ropes — lianas,  or  vines,  some  very 
slender  and  very  long.  Sometimes  we  saw 
brilliant  red  or  blue  flowers,  or  masses  of 
scarlet  berries  on  a  queer  palm-like  tree,  or 
an  array  of  great  white  blossoms  on  a 
much  larger  tree.  In  a  lagoon  bordered 
by  the  taquara  bamboo  a  school  of  big  ot- 


ters were  playing;  when  they  came  to  the 
surface,  they  opened  their  mouths  like 
seals,  and  made  a  loud  hissing  noise.  The 
crested  screamers,  dark  gray  and  as  large 
as  turkeys,  perched  on  the  very  topmost 
branches  of  the  tallest  trees.  Hyacinth 
macaws  screamed  harshly  as  they  flew 
across  the  river.  Among  the  trees  was  the 
guan,  another  peculiar  bird  as  big  as  a 
big  grouse,  and  with  certain  habits  of  the 
wood-grouse,  but  not  akin  to  any  northern 
game-bird.  The  windpipe  of  the  male  is 
very  long,  extending  down  to  the  end  of 
the  breast-bone,  and  the  bird  utters  queer 
guttural  screams.  A  dead  cayman  floated 
down-stream, with  a  blackvulture  devour- 
ing it.  Capybaras  stood  or  squatted  on 
the  banks:  sometimes  they  stared  stupidly 
at  us;  sometimes  they  plunged  into  the 
river  at  our  approach.  At  long  intervals 
we  passed  little  clearings.  In  each  stood 
a  house  of  palm  logs,  with  steeply  pitched 
roof  of  palm  thatch,  and  patches  of  corn 
and  mandioc.  The  dusky  owner,  and 
perhaps  his  family,  came  out  on  the  bank 
to  watch  us  as  we  passed.  It  was  a  hot 
day — the  thermometer  on  the  deck  in  the 
shade  stood  at  103  degrees  Fahrenheit. 
Biting  flies  came  aboard  even  when  we 
were  in  midstream. 

Next  day  we  were  ascending  the  Cu- 
yaba  River.  It  had  begun  raining  in  the 
night,  and  the  heavy  downpour  continued 
throughout  the  forenoon.  In  the  morn- 
ing we  halted  at  a  big  cattle-ranch  to  get 
fresh  milk  and  beef.  There  were  various 
houses,  sheds,  and  corrals  near  the  river's 
edge,  and  fifty  or  sixty  milch  cows  were 
gathered  in  one  corral.  Spurred  plover,  or 
lapwings,  strolled  fa;miliarly  among  the 
hens.  Paraquets  and  red-headed  tanagers 
lit  in  the  trees  over  our  heads.  A  kind  of 
primitive  houseboat  was  moored  at  the 
bank,  a  woman  was  cooking  breakfast  over 
a  little  stove  at  one  end.  The  crew  were 
ashore.  The  boat  was  one  of  those  which 
are  really  stores,  and  which  travel  up  and 
down  these  rivers,  laden  with  what  the  na- 
tives most  need,  and  stopping  wherever 
there  is  a  ranch.  They  are  the  only  stores 
which  many  of  the  country-dwellers  see 
from  year's  end  to  year's  end.  They  float 
down-stream,  and  up-stream  are  poled  by 
their  crew,  or  now  and  then  get  a  tow  from 
a  steamer.  This  one  had  a  house  with  a 
tin  roof;  others  bear  houses  with  thatched 


The   Headwaters  of  the   Paraguay 


CG9 


roofs,  or  with  roofs  made  of  hides.  The 
river  wound  throuj^h  vast  marshes  broken 
by  belts  of  woodland. 

Always  the  two  naturalists  had  some- 
thing of  interest  to  tell  of  their  past  ex- 
perience suggested  by  some  bird  or  beast 
we  came  across.  Black  and  golden  ori- 
oles, slightly  crested,  of  two  different  spe- 
cies were  found  along  the  ri\er;  they  nest 
in  colonies,  and  often  we  passed  such  col- 
onies, the  long  pendulous  nests  hanging 
from  the  boughs  of  trees  directly  over  the 
water.  Cherrie  told  us  of  finding  such  a 
colony  built  round  a  big  wasp-nest,  sev- 
eral feet  in  diameter.  These  wasps  are 
venomousandirritable,andfew  foes  would 
dare  venture  near  birds'  nests  that  were 
under  such  formidable  shelter;  but  the 
birds  themselves  were  entirely  unafraid, 
and  obviously  were  not  in  any  danger  of 
disagreement  ^^^th  their  dangerous  pro- 
tectors. We  saw  a  dark  ibis  flying  across 
the  bow  of  the  boat,  uttering  his  deep, 
two-syllabled  note.  Miller  told  how  on 
the  Orinoco  these  ibises  plunder  the  nests 
of  the  big  river  turtles.  They  are  very 
skilful  in  finding  where  the  female  turtle 
has  laid  her  eggs,  scratch  them  out  of  the 
sand,  break  the  shells,  and  suck  the  con- 
tents. 

It  was  astonishing  to  find  so  few  mos- 
quitoes on  these  marshes.  They  did  not 
in  any  way  compare  as  pests  with  the  mos- 
quitoes on  the  lower  Mississippi,  the  New 
Jersey  coast,  the  Red  River  of  the  North, 
or  the  Kootenay.  Back  in  the  forest  near 
Corumba  the  naturalists  had  found  them 
very  bad  indeed.  Cherrie  had  spent  two 
or  three  days  on  a  mountain-top  which 
was  bare  of  forest;  he  had  thought  there 
would  be  few  mosquitoes,  but  the  long 
grass  harbored  them  (they  often  swarm  in 
long  grass  bush,  even  where  there  is  no 
water),  and  at  night  they  were  such  a  tor- 
ment that  as  soon  as  the  sun  set  he  had 
to  go  to  bed  under  his  mosquito-netting. 
Yet  on  the  vast  marshes  they  were  not 
seriously  troublesome,  in  most  places.  I 
was  informed  that  they  were  not  in  any 
way  a  bother  on  the  grassy  uplands,  the 
high  country  north  of  Cuyaba,  which  from 
thence  stretches  eastward  to  the  coastal 
region.  It  is  at  any  rate  certain  that  this 
inland  region  of  Brazil,  including  the  state 
of  Matto  Grosso  which  we  were  traversing, 
is  a  healthy  region,  excellently  adapted  to 


settlement;  railroads  will  speedily  pene- 
trate it,  and  then  it  will  witness  an  aston- 
ishing development. 

On  the  morning  of  the  28th  we  reached 
the  home  buildings  of  the  great  Sao  Joao 
fazcnda,  the  ranch  of  Senhor  Joao  da 
Costa  Marques.  Our  host  himself,  and 
his  son,  Doutor  Joao  the  younger,  who 
was  state  secretary  of  agriculture,  and  the 
latter's  charming  wife,  and  the  president 
of  Matto  Grosso,  and  several  other  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  had  come  down  the  river 
to  greet  us,  from  the  city  of  Cuyaba,  sev- 
eral hundred  miles  farther  up-stream.  As 
usual,  we  were  treated  with  whole-hearted 
and  generous  hospitality.  Some  miles 
below  the  ranch-house  the  party  met  us, 
on  a  stern-wheel  steamboat  and  a  launch, 
both  decked  with  many  flags.  The  hand- 
some white  ranch-house  stood  only  a  few 
rods  back  from  the  river's  brink,  in  a 
grassy  opening,  dotted  with  those  noble 
trees,  the  royal  palms.  Other  trees,  build- 
ings of  all  kinds,  flower-gardens,  veget- 
able-gardens, fields,  corrals,  and  enclo- 
sures with  high  white  walls  stood  near 
the  house.  A  detachment  of  soldiers  or 
state  police,  with  a  band,  were  in  front  of 
the  house,  and  two  flagpoles,  one  with  the 
Brazilian  flag  already  hoisted.  The  Amer- 
ican flag  was  run  up  on  the  other  as  I 
stepped  ashore,  while  the  band  played  the 
national  anthems  of  the  two  countries. 
The  house  held  much  comfort;  and  the 
comfort  was  all  the  more  appreciated  be- 
cause even  indoors  the  thermometer  stood 
at  107°  F.  In  the  late  afternoon  heavy 
rain  fell,  and  cooled  the  air.  We  were 
riding  at  the  time.  Around  the  house  the 
birds  were  tame:  the  parrots  and  j^ara- 
quets  crowded  and  chattered  in  the  trce- 
toi)s;  jacanas  played  in  the  wet  ground 
just  back  of  the  garden;  ibises  and 
screamers  called  loudly  in  the  swamps  a 
little  distance  off. 

Until  we  came  actually  in  sight  of  this 
great  ranch-house  we  had  been  passing 
through  a  hot,  fertile,  pleasant  wilder- 
ness, where  the  few  small  palm-roofed 
houses,  each  in  its  little  patch  of  sugar- 
cane, corn,  and  mandioc,  stood  \ery  many 
miles  a])art.  One  of  these  little  houses 
stood  on  an  old  Indian  mound,  exactly 
like  the  mounds  wliiih  form  the  only  hill- 
ocks along  the  lower  Mississippi,  and 
which  are  also  of  Intlian  origin.     These 


070 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the  Brazilian  Wilderness 


occasional  Indian  mounds,  made  ages  ago, 
arc  the  highest  bits  of  ground  in  the  im- 
mense swamps  of  the  upper  Paraguay 
region.  There  are  still  Indian  tribes  in  this 
neighborhood.  We  passed  an  Indian  fish- 
ing village  on  the  edge  of  the  river,  with 
huts,  scaffoldings  for  drying  the  fish,  ham- 
mocks, and  rude  tables.  They  cultivated 
patches  of  bananas  and  sugar-cane.  Out 
in  a  shallow  place  in  the  river  was  a  scaf- 
folding on  which  the  Indians  stood  to  spear 
fish.  The  Indians  were  friendly,  peaceable 
souls,  for  the  most  part  dressed  like  the 
poorer  classes  among  the  Brazilians. 

Next  morning  there  was  to  have  been  a 
great  rodeo,  or  round-up,  and  we  deter- 
mined to  have  a  hunt  first,  as  there  were 
still  several  kinds  of  beasts  of  the  chase, 
notably  tapirs  and  peccaries,  of  which  the 
naturalists  desired  specimens.  Doutor 
Joao,  our  host,  and  his  son  accompa- 
nied us.  Theirs  is  a  noteworthy  family. 
Born  in  Matto  Grosso,  in  the  tropics,  our 
host  had  the  look  of  a  northerner  and, 
although  a  grandfather,  he  possessed  an 
abounding  vigor  and  energy  such  as  very 
few  men  of  any  climate  or  surroundings 
do  possess.  All  of  his  sons  are  doing  well. 
The  son  who  was  with  us  was  a  stalwart, 
powerful  man,  a  delightful  companion,  an 
able  public  servant,  a  finished  horseman, 
and  a  skilled  hunter,  fondest  of  that  high- 
est kind  of  sport  in  which  the  man  must 
trust  to  his  own  nerve  and  prowess  to 
overcome  serious  danger.  He  carried  a 
sharp  spear,  not  a  rifie,f or  in  Matto  Grosso 
it  is  the  custom  in  hunting  the  jaguar  for 
riflemen  and  spearmen  to  go  in  at  him 
together  when  he  turns  at  bay,  the  spear- 
man holding  him  off  if  the  first  shot  fails 
to  stop  him,  so  that  another  shot  can  be 
put  in.  Altogether,  our  host  and  his  son 
reminded  one  of  the  best  type  of  Amer- 
ican ranchmen  and  planters,  of  those 
planters  and  ranchmen  who  are  adepts  in 
bold  and  manly  field  sports,  who  are  capi- 
tal men  of  business,  and  who  also  often 
supply  to  the  state  skilled  and  faithful 
public  servants.  The  hospitality  the  fa- 
ther and  son  extended  to  us  was  patri- 
archal: neither,  for  instance,  would  sit  at 
table  with  their  guests  at  the  beginning 
of  the  formal  meals;  instead  they  exer- 
cised a  close  personal  supervision  over  the 
feast.  Our  charming  hostess,  however, 
sat  at  the  head  of  the  table. 


At  six  in  the  morning  we  started,  all  of 
us  on  fine  horses.     The  day  was  lowering 
and  overcast.   A  dozen  dogs  were  with  us, 
but  only  one  or  two  were  worth  anything. 
Three  or  four  ordinary  countrymen,  the 
ranch  hands,  or  vaqueiros,  accompanied 
us;    they  were  mainly  of  Indian  blood, 
and  would  have  been  called  peons,  or  ca- 
boclos,  in  other  parts  of  Brazil,  but  here 
were  always  spoken  to  and  of  as  ''cama- 
radas."     They   were,  of   course,  chosen 
from  among  the  men  who  were  hunt- 
ers, and  each  carried  his  long,  rather  heavy 
and  clumsy  jaguar-spear.     In  front  rode 
our  vigorous  host  and  his  strapping  son,  the 
latter  also  carrying  a  jaguar-spear.     The 
bridles  and  saddles  of  the  big  ranchmen 
and  of  the  gentlefolk  generally  were  hand- 
some and  were  elaborately  ornamented 
with  silver.     The  stirrups,  for  instance, 
were  not  only  of  silver,  but  contained  so 
much  extra  metal  in  ornamented  bars  and 
rings  that  they  would  have  been  awkward 
for  less  practised  riders.     Indeed,  as  it 
was,  they  were  adapted  only  for  the  tips 
of  boots  with  long  pointed  toes,  and  were 
impossible  for  our  feet;  our  hosts'  stirrups 
were  long,  narrow  silver  slippers.     The 
camaradas,  on  the  other  hand,  had  jim- 
crow  saddles  and  bridles,  and  rusty  lit- 
tle iron  stirrups  into  which  they  thrust 
their  naked  toes.   But  all,  gentry  and  com- 
monalty alike,  rode  equally  well  and  with 
the  same  skill  and  fearlessness.     To  see 
Colonel  Rondon  and  our  hosts  gallop  at 
headlong  speed  over  any  kind  of  country 
toward  the  sound  of  the  dogs  with  their 
quarry  at  bay,  or  to  see  them  handle  their 
horses  in  a  morass,  was  a  pleasure.    It  was 
equally  a  pleasure  to  see  a  cmnarada  carry- 
ing his  heavy  spear,  leading  a  hound  in  a 
leash,  and  using  his  machete  to  cut  his  way 
through  the  tangled  vine-ropes  of  a  jungle, 
all  at  the  same  time  and  all  without  the 
slightest  reference  to  the  plunges,  and  the 
odd  and  exceedingly  jerky  behavior,  of 
his  wild  half-broken  horse — for  on  such  a 
ranch  most  of  the  horses  are  apt  to  come 
in  the  categories  of  half -broken  or  else  of 
broken-down.     One   dusky  tatterdemal- 
ion wore  a  pair  of  boots  from  which  he 
had  removed  the  soles,  his  bare,  spur-clad 
feet  projecting  from  beneath  the  uppers. 
He  was  on  a  little  devil  of  a  stallion,  which 
he  rode  blindfold  for  a  couple  of  miles, 
and  there  was  a  regular  circus  when  he 


Frojn  a photoi;>aph  by  A'eimiC  Koosezt-ii. 


Hoisting  the  American  flag  at  Sao  Joao. 

A  detachment  of  soldiers  or  state  pulice,  with  a  band,  were  in  front  of  the  house,  and  two  flairpoles,  one  with  the  Itnizilian  flajj  already 
liuistcd.     The  American  fla^  was  run  up  on  the  other  as  1  stepped  ashore.  —  I'ayc  <^. 


removed  the  bandage;  but  evidently  it 
never  occurred  to  him  that  the  animal  was 
hardly  a  comfortable  riding-horse  for  a  man 
going  out  hunting  and  encumbered  with 
a  spear,  a  machete,  and  other  belongings. 
The  eight  hours  that  we  were  out  we 
spent  chiefly  in  s]3lashing  across  the  marsh- 
es, with  excursions  now  and  then  into  vine- 
tangled  belts  and  clumps  of  timber.  Some 
of  the  bayous  we  had  to  cross  were  un- 
comfortably boggy.  We  had  to  lead  the 
horses  through  one,  wading  ahead  of  them; 
and  even  so  two  of  them  mired  down,  and 
their  saddles  had  to  be  taken  off  before 
they  could  be  gotten  out.  Among  the 
marsh  j)lants  were  fields  and  slrii)sof  the 
great  caete  rush.  These  caete  Hags  tow- 
ered above  the  other  and  lesser  marsh 
])lants.  They  were  higher  than  the  heads 
of  the  horsemen.  Their  two  or  three  huge 
banana-like  leaves  stood  straight  up  on 
Vol.  LV.-73 


end.  The  large  brilliant  flowers — orange, 
red,  and  yellow — were  joined  into  a  singu- 
larly sha])ed  and  solid  string  or  cluster. 
Humming-birds  buzzed  round  these  llow- 
ers;  one  species,  the  sickle-billed  hummer, 
has  its  bill  especially  adapted  for  use  in 
these  cjueerly  shai)ed  blossoms  and  gets 
its  food  only  from  them,  never  appearing 
around  any  other  })lant. 

The  birds  were  tame,  even  those  strik- 
ing and  beautiful  birds  which  under  man's 
l^ersecution  are  so  apt  to  become  scarce 
and  shy  The  huge  jabiru  storks,  stalk- 
ing through  the  water  with  stately  dig- 
nity, sometimes  refused  to  lly  until  we 
were  only  a  hundred  yards  otT;  one  of 
them  tlew  o\er  our  heads  at  a  distance 
of  thirty  or  forty  yards.  The  screamers, 
(Tying  curu-cunt,  and  the  il)ises,  wailing 
dolefully,  came  e\en  closer.  The  wt)n- 
tlerful    hyacinth    macaws,    in    twos    and 

(.71 


072 


A    Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


threes,  accompanied  us  at  times  for  sev- 
eral hundred  yards,  hovering  over  our 
heads  and  utterinij:  their  rasjMng  screams. 
In  one  wood  we  came  on  the  black  howler 
monkey.  The  place  smelt  almost  like  a 
menagerie.  Not  watching  with  sufficient 
care  I  brushed  against  a  sapling  on  which 
the  venomous  fire-ants  swarmed.  They 
burnt  the  skin  like  red- 
hot  cinders,  and  left  lit- 
tle sores.  More  than 
once  in  the  dryer  parts 
of  the  marsh  we  met 
small  caymans  making 
their  way  from  one  pool 
to  another.  My  horse 
stepped  over  one  before 
I  saw  it.  The  dead  car- 
casses of  others  showed 
that  on  their  wanderings 
they  had  encountered  ja- 
guars or  human  foes. 

We  had  been  out  about 
three  hours  w^hen  one  of 
the  dogs  gave  tongue  in 
a  large  belt  of  woodland 
and  jungle  to  the  left  of 
our  line  of  march  through 
the  marsh.  The  other 
dogs  ran  to  the  sound, 
and  after  a  while  the  long 
barking  told  that  the 
thing,  whatever  it  was,  was  at  bay  or  else 
in  some  refuge.  We  made  our  way  to- 
ward the  place  on  foot.  The  dogs  were 
baying  excitedly  at  the  mouth  of  a  huge 
hollow  log,  and  very  short  examination 
showed  us  that  there  were  two  peccaries 
within,  doubtless  a  boar  and  sow.  How- 
ever, just  at  this  moment  the  peccaries 
bolted  from  an  unsuspected  opening  at 
the  other  end  of  the  log,  dove  into  the 
tangle,  and  instantly  disappeared  with  the 
hounds  in  full  cry  after  them.  It  was 
twenty  minutes  later  before  we  again 
heard  the  pack  baying.  With  much  dif- 
ficulty, and  by  the  incessant  swinging  of 
the  machetes,  we  opened  a  trail  through 
the  network  of  vines  and  branches.  This 
time  there  was  only  one  peccary,  the  boar. 
He  was  at  bay  in  a  half-hollow  stump. 
The  dogs  were  about  his  head,  raving  with 
excitement,  and  it  was  not  possible  to  use 
the  rifle;  so  I  borrowed  the  spear  of  Dou- 
tor  Joao  the  younger,  and  killed  the  fierce 
little  boar  therewith. 


proui  a  pJiotog'raph  by  Miller. 

Moses,  Miller's  pet  owl. 

It  was  a  dear  little  bird,  very  tame  and 
affectionate. — Page  667. 


This  was  a  collared  peccary,  smaller  and 
less  fierce  than  its  white-lipped  kinsfolk. 
It  is  a  valiant  and  truculent  little  beast, 
nevertheless,  and  if  given  the  chance  will 
bite  a  piece  the  size  of  a  teacup  out  of 
either  man  or  dog.  It  is  found  singly  or 
in  small  parties,  feeds  on  roots,  fruits, 
grass,  and  sometimes  snakes  and  insects, 
and  delights  to  make  its 
home  in  hollow  logs.  If 
taken  young  it  makes  an 
affectionate  and  enter- 
taining pet.  When  the 
two  were  in  the  hollow 
log  we  heard  thera  utter  a 
kind  of  moaning,  or  men- 
acing, grunt,  long  drawn. 
An  hour  or  two  after- 
ward we  unexpectedly 
struck  the  fresh  tracks  of 
two  jaguars  and  at  once 
loosed  the  dogs,  who  tore 
off  yelling,  on  the  line  of 
the  scent.  Unfortunate- 
ly, just  at  this  moment 
the  clouds  burst  and  a 
deluge  of  rain  drove  in 
our  forces.  So  heavy 
was  the  downpour  that 
the  dogs  lost  the  trail  and 
we  lost  the  dogs.  We 
found  them  again  only 
owing  to  one  of  our  caboclos,  an  Indian 
with  a  queer  Mongolian  face,  and  no  brain 
at  all  that  I  could  discover,  apart  from  his 
special  dealings  with  wild  creatures,  cattle, 
and  horses.  He  rode  in  a  huddle  of  rags; 
but  nothing  escaped  his  eyes,  and  he  rode 
anything  anywhere.  The  downpour  con- 
tinued so  heavily  that  we  knew  the  rodeo 
had  been  abandoned,  and  we  turned  our 
faces  for  the  long,  dripping,  splashing  ride 
homeward.  Through  the  gusts  of  driving 
rain  we  could  hardly  see  the  way.  Once 
the  rain  lightened,  and  half  a  mile  away 
the  sunshine  gleamed  through  a  rift  in  the 
leaden  cloud-mass.  Suddenly  in  this  rift 
of  shimmering  brightness  there  appeared 
a  flock  of  beautiful  white  egrets.  With 
strong,  graceful  wing-beats  the  birds  urged 
their  flight,  their  plumage  flashing  in  the 
sun.  They  then  crossed  the  rift  and  were 
swallowed  in  the  gray  gloom  of  the  day. 
On  the  marsh  the  dogs  several  times 
roused  capybaras.  Where  there  w^ere  no 
ponds   of   sufficient   size   the   capybaras 


074 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


sought  refuge  in  flight  through  the  tan- 
gled marsh.     They  ran  well.     Kermit  and 
Fiala  went  after  one  on  foot,  full-speed, 
for  a  mile  and  a  half,  with  two  hounds 
which  then  bayed  it— literally  bayed  it,  for 
the  capybara  fought  with  the  courage  of  a 
gigantic  woodchuck. 
If  the  pack   over- 
took a  capybara, 
they  of  course  speed- 
ily finished  it ;  but  a 
single  dog  of  our  not 
very  valorous  outfit 
was  not  able  to  over- 
match its  shrill- 
squeaking  opponent. 

Near  the  ranch- 
house,  about  forty 
feet  up  in  a  big  tree, 
was  a  jabiru's  nest 
containing  young  ja- 
birus.  The  young 
birds  exercised  them- 
selves by  walking 
solemnly  round  the 
edge  of  the  nest  and 
opening  and  shut- 
ting their  wings. 
Their  heads  and 
necks  were  down- 
covered,  instead  of 
being  naked  like 
those  of  their  par- 
ents. Fiala  wished 
to  take  a  moving- 
picture  of  them  while 
thus  engaged,  and 
so,  after  arranging 
his  machine,  he 
asked  Harper  to 
rouse  the  young 
birds  by  throwing  a 
stick  up  to  the  nest. 

He  did  so,  whereupon  one  young  jabiru 
hastily  opened  its  wings  in  the  desired 
fashion,  at  the  same  time  seizing  the  stick 
in  its  bill !  It  dropped  it  at  once,  with  an 
air  of  comic  disappointment,  when  it  found 
that  the  stick  was  not  edible. 

There  were  many  strange  birds  round    the  fields  Miller  trapped  mice  of  a  kind 
about.     Toucans   were   not   uncommon,    entirely  new. 

I  have  never  seen  any  other  bird  take  Next  morning  the  sky  was  leaden,  and  a 
such  grotesque  and  comic  attitudes  as  the  drenching  rain  fell  as  we  began  our  de- 
toucan.  This  day  I  saw  one  standing  in  scent  of  the  river.  The  rainy  season  had 
the  top  of  a  tree  with  the  big  bill  pointing  fairly  begun.  For  our  good  fortune  we 
straight  into  the  air  and  the  tail  also    were  still  where  we  had  the  cabins  aboard 


From  a  photograph  by  Harper. 

A  jabiru's  nest. 

The  young'  birds  exercised  themselves  by  walkin 
emnly  round  the  edge  of  the  nest. 


cocked  perpendicularly.  The  toucan  is  a 
born  comedian.  On  the  river  and  in  the 
ponds  we  saw  the  finfoot,  a  bird  with  feet 
like  a  grebe  and  bill  and  tail  like  those  of  a 
darter,  but,  like  so  many  South  American 
birds,   with   no   close  affiliations  among 

other  species.  The 
exceedingly  rich  bird 
fauna  of  South 
America  contains 
many  species  which 
seem  to  be  survivals 
from  a  very  remote 
geologic  past,  whose 
kinsfolk  have  per- 
ished under  the 
changed  conditions 
of  recent  ages;  and 
in  the  case  of  many, 
like  the  hoatzin  and 
screamer,  their  like  is 
not  known  elsewhere. 
Herons  of  many  spe- 
cies swarmed  in  this 
neighborhood.  The 
handsomest  was  the 
richly  colored  tiger 
bittern.  Two  other 
species  were  so  un- 
like ordinary  herons 
that  I  did  not  recog- 
nize them  as  herons 
at  all  until  Cherrie 
told  me  what  they 
were.  One  had  a 
dark  body,  a  white- 
speckled  or  ocellated 
neck,  and  a  bill  al- 
most like  that  of  an 
ibis.  The  other 
looked  white,  but 
was  really  mauve- 
colored,  with  black 
When  perched  on  a  tree  it 
an  ibis;   and  instead  of   the 


Sol- 


on the  head 
stood  like 

measured  wing-beats  characteristic  of  a 
heron's  flight,  it  flew  with  a  quick,  vigor- 
ous flapping  of  the  wings.  There  were 
queer  mammals,  too,  as  well  as  birds.    In 


I-'ro»i  a  pnuio^^i  iij>h  Oy  JIurper. 


An  Indian  family. 


the  boat,  and  the  ranch-house,  in  which  to 
dry  our  clothes  and  soggy  shoes;  but  in 
the  intensely  humid  atmosphere,  hot  and 
steaming,  they  stayed  wet  a  long  time,  and 
were  still  moist  when  we  put  them  on 
again.  Before  we  left  the  house  where  we 
had  been  treated  with  such  courteous  hos- 
pitality— the  finest  ranch-house  in  Matto 
Grosso,  on  a  huge  ranch  where  there  are 
some  sixty  thousand  head  of  horned  cattle 
• — the  son  of  our  host,  Dom  Joao  the 
younger,  the  jaguar-hunter,  presented  me 
with  two  magnificent  volumes  on  the 
palms  of  Brazil,  the  work  of  Doctor  Bar- 
boso  Rodriguez,  one-time  director  of  the 
Botanical  Gardens  at  Rio  Janeiro.  The 
two  folios  were  in  a  box  of  native  cedar. 
No  gift  more  api)r()i)riate,  none  that  I 
would  in   the   future  value   more   as   a 


reminder  of  my  stay  in  Alatto  Grosso, 
could  have  been  given  me. 

All  that  afternoon  the  rain  continued. 
It  was  still  pouring  in  torrents  when  we 
left  the  Cuyaba  for  the  Sfu)  Louren(,"o  and 
steamed  up  the  latter  a  few  miles  before 
anchoring;  Dom  Joao  the  younger  had 
accompanied  us  in  his  launch.  The  Utile 
river  steamer  was  of  very  o])en  build,  as  is 
necessary  in  such  a  hot  climate;  and  to 
keep  things  dry  necessitated  also  keeping 
the  atmosphere  stilling.  The  German 
taxidermist  who  was  with  Colonel  Ron- 
don's  ])arty,  Reinish,  a  \ery  good  fellow 
from  Vienna,  sat  on  a  stool,  alternately 
drenched  with  rain  and  sweltering  with 
heat,  and  muttered  to  himself:  "Ach, 
Schweinereil " 

Two  small  caymans,  of  the  common  or 

675 


076 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  In  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


so-called  spectcacled  species,  with  promi-  downpour  speedily  wet  us  to  the  skin, 
nent  eyes,  were  at  the  bank  where  we  We  made  our  way  slowly  through  the  for- 
mooreci,  and  betrayed  an  astonishing  and    est,  the  machetes  playing  right  and  left, 


Froiii  a  photograph  by  Fiaia. 

Kermit  Roosevelt  breaking  tiail. 

Keriuit  was  the  one  of  our  party  who  possessed  the  speed,  endurance,  and  eyebight, 
and  accordingly  he  led. — Page  678. 


stupid  tameness.  Neither  the  size  of  the 
boat  nor  the  commotion  caused  by  the 
paddles  in  any  way  affected  them.  They 
lay  inshore,  not  twenty  feet  from  us,  half 
out  of  water;  they  paid  not  the  slightest 
heed  to  our  presence,  and  only  reluctantly 
left  when  repeatedly  poked  at,  and  after 
having  been  repeatedly  hit  with  clods  of 
mud  and  sticks;  and  even  then  one  first 
crawled  up  on  shore,  to  find  out  if  thereby 
he  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  annoyance 
we  caused  him. 

Next  morning  it. was  still  raining,  but 
we  set  off  on  a  hunt,  anyway,  going  afoot. 
A  couple  of  brown  camaradas  led  the 
way,  and  Colonel  Rondon,  Dom  Joao, 
Kermit,  and  I  followed.     The  incessant 


up  and  down,  at  every  step,  for  the  trees 
were  tangled  in  a  network  of  vines  and 
creepers.  Some  of  the  vines  were  as  thick 
as  a  man's  leg.  Mosquitoes  hummed 
about  us,  the  venomous  fire-ants  stung 
us,  the  sharp  spines  of  a  small  palm  tore 
our  hands — afterward  some  of  the  wounds 
festered.  Hour  after  hour  we  thus  walked 
on  through  the  Brazilian  forest.  We  saw 
monkeys,  the  common  yellowish  kind,  a 
species  of  cebus;  a  couple  were  shot  for 
the  museum  and  the  others  raced  off 
among  the  upper  branches  of  the  trees. 
When  we  came  on  a  party  of  coatis,  which 
look  like  reddish,  long-snouted,  long- 
tailed,  lanky  raccoons,  they  were  in  the 
top  of  a  big  tree.     One,  when  shot  at  and 


The  Headwaters  of  the  Paraguay 


f) 


i  / 


missed,  bounced  down  to  the  ground,  and 
ran  off  through  the  bushes;  Kermit  ran 
after  it  and  secured  it.  He  came  back, 
to  find  us  i)eering  hopelessly  up  into  the 
tree- top,  trying  to  place  where  the  other 
coatis  were.  Kermit  solved  the  difficulty 
by  going  up  along  some  huge  twisted 
lianas  for  forty  or  fifty  feet  and  ex- 
ploring the  upper  branches;  whereupon 
down  came  three  other  coatis  through  the 
branches,  one  being  caught  by  the  dogs 
and  the  other  two  esca])ing.  Coatis  fight 
savagely  with  both  teeth  and  claws.  Mil- 
ler told  us  that  he  once  saw  one  of 
them  kill  a  dog.  They  feed  on  all  small 
mammals,  birds,  and  reptiles,  and  even  on 
some  large  ones;  they  kill  iguanas;  Cher- 
rie  saw  a  rattling  chase  through  the  trees, 
a  coati  following  an  iguana  at  full  speed. 
We  heard  the  rush  of  a  couple  of  tapirs, 
as  they  broke  away  in  the  jungle  in  front 
of  the  dogs,  and  headed,  according  to  their 
custom,  for  the  river;  but  we  never  saw 
them.  One  of  the  party  shot  a  bush  deer — 
a  very  pretty,  graceful  creature,  smaller 


than  our  whitetail  deer,  but  kin  to  it  and 
doubtless  the  southernmost  representa- 
tive of  the  whitetail  group. 

Miller,  when  we  presented  the  mon- 
keys to  him,  told  us  that  the  females  both 
of  these  monkeys  and  of  the  howlers 
themselves  took  care  of  the  young,  the 
males  not  assisting  them,  and  moreover 
that  when  the  young  one  was  a  male  he 
had  always  found  the  mother  keeping 
by  herself,  away  from  the  old  males.  On 
the  other  hand,  among  the  marmosets  he 
found  the  fathers  taking  as  much  care  of 
the  young  as  the  mothers;  if  the  mother 
had  twins,  the  father  would  usually  carry 
one,  and  sometimes  both,  around  with 
him. 

After  we  had  been  out  four  hours  our 
camaradas  got  lost;  three  several  times 
they  travelled  round  in  a  complete  circle; 
and  w^e  had  to  set  them  right  with  the 
compass.  About  noon  the  rain,  which 
had  been  falling  almost  without  interrup- 
tion for  forty-eight  hours,  let  up,  and  in  an 
hour  or  two  the  sun  came  out.     We  went 


I'roiii  ,1  jX«7(//  /y  .liitJioiiy  hiala. 


TIk-  (lii.iliiit;  iii.issfs  i.f  iiursli  Kf^*'-'''  *""'  '•'«-•  ^'imy  sit-ins  oftlic  water  plants,  ilmililcil  our  work  .is  we  sw.ini.  <■  iinil-rrol  l>y  •>nr 
Llotliin>:  and  buut^,  and  Iiuldin^  uur  rillcb  alult.— I'agc  078. 


0)78 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


straight  across  the  marshes;  for  jaguars 
swim  and  wade  as  freely  as  marsh  deer. 
It  was  a  hard  walk.  The  sun  was  out. 
We  were  drenched  with  sweat.  We  were 
torn  by  the  spines  of  the  innumerable 
clusters  of  small  palms  with  thorns  like 
needles.  We  were  bitten  by  the  hosts  of 
fire-ants,  and  by  the 
mosquitoes,  which 
we  scarcely  noticed 
where  the  fire-ants 
were  found,  exactly 
as  all  dread  of  the 
latter  vanished  when 
we  were  mefiaced  by 
the  big  red  wasps,  cf 
which  a  dozen  stings 
will  disable  a  man, 
and  if  he  is  weak  or 
in  bad  health  will 
seriously  menace  his 
life.  In  the  marsh 
we  were  continually 
wading,  now  up  to 
our  knees,  now  up  to 
our  hips.  Twice  we 
came  to  long  bayous 
so  deep  that  we  had 
to  swim  them,  hold- 
ing our  rifles  above 
water  in  our  right 
hands.  The  floating 
masses  of  marsh 
grass,  and  the  slimy 
stems  of  the  water 

found  the  fresh  tracks  of  two,  and  after  plants,  doubled  our  work  as  we  swam, 
them  we  went.  Our  party  consisted  of  cumbered  by  our  clothing  and  boots  and 
Colonel  Rondon,  Lieutenant  Rogaciano,  holding  our  rifles  aloft.  One  result  of  the 
— an  excellent  man,  himself  a  native  of  swim,  by  the  way,  was  that  my  watch,  a 
Matto  Grosso,  of  old  Matto  Grosso  stock,  veteran  of  Cuba  and  Africa,  came  to  an 
— two  others  of  the  party  from  the  Sao  indignant  halt.  Then  on  we  went,  ham- 
Joao  ranch,  Kermit,  and  myself,  together  pered  by  the  weight  of  our  drenched  clothes 
with  four  dark-skinned  camaradas,  cow-  while  our  soggy  boots  squelched  as  we 
hands  from  the  same  ranch.     We  soon    walked.     There  was  no  breeze.     In  the 

undimmed  sky  the  sun  stood  almost  over- 
head. The  heat  beat  on  us  in  waves.  By 
noon  I  could  only  go  forward  at  a  slow 
walk,  and  two  of  the  party  were  worse  off 
than  I  was.  Kermit,  with  the  dogs  and 
two  camaradas  close  behind  him,  disap- 
peared across  the  marshes  at  a  trot.  At 
last,  when  he  was  out  of  sight,  and  it  was 


back  to  the  ri\er,  and  found  our  rowboat. 
In  it  the  hounds— a  motley  and  rather 
worthless  lot — and  the  rest  of  the  party 
were  ferried  across  to  the  opposite  bank, 
while  Colonel  Rondon  and  I  stayed  in  the 
boat,  on  the  chance  that  a  tapir  might  be 
roused  and  take  to  the  river.  However, 
no  tapir  was  found; 
Kermit  killed  a  col- 
lared peccary,  and  I 
shot  a  capybara  rep- 
resenting a  color- 
phase  the  naturalists 
wished. 

Next  morning, 
January  i,  19 14,  we 
were  up  at  five  and 
had  a  good  New 
Year's  Day  breakfast 
of  hardtack,  ham, 
sardines,  and  coffee 
before  setting  out  on 
an  all-day's  hunt  on 
foot.  I  much  feared 
that  the  pack  was  al- 
most or  quite  worth- 
less for  jaguars,  but 
there  were  two  or 
three  of  the  great 
spotted  cats  in  the 
neighborhood  and  it 
seemed  worth  while 
to  make  a  try  for 
them, anyhow.  After 
an  hour  or  two  we 


Frovi  a  photograpJi  by  f^er»iii  Roosevelt. 
Anthony  Fiala  in  the  bush. 


found  that  the  dogs  would  not  by  them- 
selves follow  the  jaguar  trail;  nor  would  the 
camaradas^  although  they  carried  spears. 
Kermit  was  the  one  of  our  party  who  pos- 
sessed the  speed,  endurance,  and  eyesight, 
and  accordingly  he  led.  Two  of  the  dogs 
would  follow  the  track  half  a  dozen  yards 
ahead  of  him,  but  no  farther;   and  two  of 

the  camaradas  could  just  about  keep  up  obviously  useless  to  follow  him,  the  rest  of 
with  him.  For  an  hour  we  went  through  us  turned  back  toward  the  boat.  The  two 
thick  jungle  where  the  machetes  were  con-  exhausted  members  of  the  party  gave  out, 
stantly  at  work.     Then  the  trail  struck  off    and  we  left  them  under  a  tree.     Colonel 


680 


A   Hunter-Naturalist  in  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


Rondon  and  Lieutenant  Rogaciano  were    of  the  upper  Paraguay,  but  would  also 
not  nuieh  tireti:  1  was  somewhat  tired,    do  work  of  real  scientific  value   as  re- 


but was  i)crfcctly 
able  to  go  lor  se\eral 
hours  more  if  I  did 
not  try  to  go  too  fast ; 
and  we  three  walked 
on  to  the  river,  reach- 
ing it  about  half 
past  four,  after  elev- 
en hours'  stitT  walk- 
ing with  nothing  to 
eat.  We  were  soon 
on  the  boat.  A  re- 
lief party  went  back 
for  the  two  men 
under  the  tree,  and 
soon  after  it  reached 
them  Kermit  also 
turned  up  with  his 
hounds  and  his 
camaradas  trailing 
wearily  behind  him. 
He  had  followed  the 
jaguar  trail  until  the 
dogs  were  so  tired 
that  even  after  he 
had  bathed  them, 
and  then  held  their 
noses  in  the  fresh 
footprints,  they 
would  pay  no  heed 
to  the  scent.  A 
hunter  of  scientific 
tastes,  a  hunter- 
naturalist,  or  even 
an  outdoors  natural- 
ist, or  faunal  nat- 
uralist interested  in 
big  mammals,  with 
a  pack  of  hounds 
such  as  those  with 
which  Paul  Rainey 
hunted  lion  and 
leopard  in  Africa,  or 
such  a  pack  as  the 
packs  of  Johnny 
Goff  and  Jake  Borah 
with  which  I  hunted 
cougar,  lynx,  and 


Froi>i  a  photoi^raph  ( 


A  troupial  nest. 

The  troupials,  or  big-  black  and  yellow  orioles,  had  b'.iilt  a 
larg^e  colony  of  their  nests  on  a  dead  tree. — Pag^e  68i. 


gards  all  the  big 
cats. 

The  fire-ants,  of 
which  I  have  above 
spoken,  are  general- 
ly found  on  a  species 
of  small  tree  or  sap- 
Hng,  with  a  greenish 
trunk.  They  bend 
the  whole  body  as 
they  bite,  the  tail  and 
head  being  thrust 
downward.'  A  few 
seconds  after  the 
bite  the  poison 
causes  considerable 
pain;  later  it  may 
make  a  tiny  fester- 
ing sore.  There  is 
certainly  the  most 
extraordinary  diver- 
sity in  the  traits 
by  which  nature 
achieves  the  perpet- 
uation of  species. 
Among  the  warrior 
and  predacious  in- 
sects the  prowess  is 
in  some  cases  of  such 
type  as  to  render  the 
possessor  practical- 
ly immune  from 
danger.  In  other 
cases  the  condition 
of  its  exercise  may 
normally  be  the  sac- 
rifice of  the  life  of  the 
possessor.  There 
are  wasps  that  prey 
and  formidable 
fighting  spiders, 
which  yet  instinct- 
ively so  handle  them- 
selves that  the  prey 
practically  never 
succeeds  in  either 
defending  itself  or 
retaliating,  being 


bear  in  the  Rockies,  or  such  packs  as  captured  and  paralyzed  with  unerring  ef- 

those  of  the  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  ficiency  and  with  entire  security  to  the 

planters  with  whom  I  have  hunted  bear,  wasp.    The  wasp's  safety  is  absolute.    On 

wildcat,  and  deer  in  the  cane-brakes  of  the  other  hand,  these  fighting  ants,  includ- 

the  lower   Mississippi,   would   not  only  ing  the  soldiers  even  among  the  termites, 

enjoy  fine  hunting  in  these  vast  marshes  are  frantically  eager  for  a  success  which 


An  Indian  in  a  dugout. 


generally  means  their  annihilation;  the 
condition  of  their  efficiency  is  absolute  in- 
difference to  their  own  security.  Prob- 
ably the  majority  of  the  ants  that  actu- 
ally lay  hold  on  a  foe  suffer  death  in 
consequence;  certainly  they  not  merely 
run  the  risk  of  but  eagerly  invite  death. 
The  following  day  we  descended  the 
Sao  Lourengo  to  its  junction  with  the  Para- 
guay, and  once  more  began  the  ascent  of 
the  latter.  At  one  cattle-ranch  where  we 
stopped,  the  troupials,  or  big  black  and 
yellow  orioles,  had  built  a  large  colony  of 
their  nests  on  a  dead  tree  near  the  primi- 
tive little  ranch-house.  The  birds  were 
breeding;  the  old  ones  were  feeding  the 
young.  In  this  neighborhood  the  natur- 
alists found  many  birds  that  were  new 
to  them,  including  a  tiny  woodpecker 
no  bigger  than  a  ruby-crowned  kinglet. 
They  had  collected  two  night  monkeys — 
nocturnal  monkeys,  not  as  agile  as  the 
ordinary  monkey;  these  two  were  found 
at   dawn,    having   stayed   out   too   late. 


The  early  morning  was  always  lo\'ely  on 
these  rivers,  and  at  that  hour  many  birds 
and  beasts  were  to  be  seen.  One  morn- 
ing we  saw  a  fine  marsh  buck,  holding  his 
head  aloft  as  he  stared  at  us,  his  red  coat 
vivid  against  the  green  marsh.  Another 
of  these  marsh  deer  swam  the  river  ahead 
of  us;  I  shot  at  it  as  it  landed,  and  ought 
to  have  got  it,  but  did  not.  As  always 
with  these  marsh  deer — and  as  with  so 
many  other  deer — I  was  struck  by  the  re- 
vealing or  advertising  quality  of  its  red 
coloration;  there  was  nothing  in  its  nor- 
mal surroundings  with  which  this  colora- 
tion harmonized;  so  far  as  it  had  any 
effect  whatever  it  was  always  a  revealing 
and  not  a  concealing  effect.  When  the 
animal  fled  the  black  of  the  erect  tail  was 
an  additional  revealing  mark,  although 
not  of  such  start lingly  advertising  quality 
as  the  flag  of  the  whitetail.  The  white- 
tail,  in  one  of  its  forms,  and  with  the  or- 
dinary whitetail  custom  of  (lisi)laying  the 
while  llag  as  it  runs,  is  l\)un(l  in  theinime- 

68 1 


Fro7>t  a  photograph  by  Harper. 


Snake-birds 

Mixed  flocks  of  scores  ofcoriiio- 
trees,  both  at  sunset 


diate  neighborhood  of  the  swamp  deer. 
It  has  the  same  foes.  Evidently  it  is  of 
no  survival  consequence  whether  the  run- 
ning deer  displays  a  white  or  a  black  flag. 
Any  competent  observer  of  big  game  must 
be  struck  by  the  fact  that  in  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  species  the  coloration  is  not 
concealing,  and  that  in  many  it  has  a 
highly  revealing  quality.  Moreover,  if 
the  spotted  or  striped  young  represent 
the  ancestral,  and  if,  as  seems  probable, 
the  spots  and  stripes  have,  on  the  whole, 
some  slight  concealing  value,  it  is  evident 
that  in  the  life  history  of  most  of  these 
large  mammals,  both  among  those  that 
prey  and  those  that  are  preyed  on,  con- 
cealing coloration  has  not  been  a  survival 
factor;  throughout  the  ages  during  which 
they  have  survived  they  have  gradually 
lost  whatever  of  concealing  coloration 
they  may  once  have  had — if  any — and 
have  developed  a  coloration  which  under 
present  conditions  has  no  concealing  and 
perhaps  even  has  a  revealing  quality, 
and  which  in  all  probability  never  would 
have  had  a  concealing  value  in  any  ''en- 
vironmental complex"  in  which  the  spe- 
cies as  a  whole  lived  during  its  ancestral 
682 


development.  Indeed,  it  seems  astonish- 
ing, when  one  observes  these  big  beasts — 
and  big  waders  and  other  water  birds — in 
their  native  surroundings,  to  find  how 
utterly  non-harmful  their  often  strikingly 
revealing  coloration  is.  Evidently  the 
various  other  survival  factors,  such  as 
habit,  and  in  many  cases  cover,  etc.,  are 
of  such  overmastering  importance  that 
the  coloration  is  generally  of  no  conse- 
quence whatever,  one  way  or  the  other, 
and  is  only  very  rarely  a  factor  of  any 
serious  weight. 

That  evening  we  reached  the  junction  of 
the  San  Lourengo  and  the  Paraguay,  and 
turned  up  the  latter.  This  junction  is  a 
day's  journey  above  Corumba.  From 
Corumba  there  is  a  regular  service  by 
shallow  steamers  to  Cayuba,  at  the  head 
of  one  fork,  and  to  San  Luis  de  Caceres,  at 
the  head  of  the  other.  The  steamers  are 
not  powerful  and  the  voyage  to  each  lit- 
tle city  takes  a  week;  and  there  are  other 
forks  that  are  navigable.  Above  Cayuba 
and  Caceres  launches  go  up-stream  for 
several  days'  journey,  except  during  the 
dry  est  parts  of  the  season.  North  of  this 
marshy  plain  lies  the  highland,  the  Plan 


and  cormorants. 


rants  and  darters  covered  certain 
and  atter  sunrise. 


Alto,  where  the  nights  are  cool  and  the 
climate  healthy.  But  I  wish  emphatic- 
ally to  record  my  view  that  these  marshy 
plains,  although  hot,  are  also  healthy ;  and, 
moreover,  the  mosquitoes,  in  most  places, 
are  not  in  sufficient  numbers  to  be  a  seri- 
ous pest,  although  of  course  there  must 
be  nets  for  protection  against  them  at 
night.  The  country  is  excellently  suited 
for  settlement,  and  offers  a  remarkable 
field  for  cattle-growing.  Moreover,  it  is 
a  paradise  for  water  birds  and  for  many 
other  kinds  of  birdS;  and  for  many  mam- 
mals. It  is  literally  an  ideal  place  in 
which  a  field  naturalist  could  s])end  six 
months  or  a  year.  It  is  readily  accessible, 
it  offers  an  almost  virgin  field  for  work, 
and  the  life  would  be  healthy  as  well  as 
delightfully  attractive.  The  man  should 
have  a  steam-launch.  In  it  he  could  with 
comfort  cover  all  parts  of  the  country 
from  south  of  Coimbra  to  north  of  Ca- 
yuba  and  Caceres.  Tlicrc  would  have  to 
be  a  good  deal  of  collecting,  although 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  butchery  should 
be  tolerated,  for  the  region  has  only  been 
superficially  worked,  es])ecially  as  regards 
mammals.     But  if  the  man  were  only  a 


collector  he  would  leave  undone  the  part 
of  the  work  best  worth  doing.  The  re- 
gion offers  extraordinary  o})portunities 
for  the  study  of  the  life  histories  of  birds 
which,  because  of  their  size,  their  beauty, 
or  their  habits,  are  of  exceptional  interest. 
All  kinds  of  problems  would  be  worked 
out.  For  example,  on  the  morning  of  the 
3d,  as  we  were  ascending  the  Paraguay, 
we  again  and  again  saw  in  the  trees  on  the 
bank  big  nests  of  sticks,  into  and  out  of 
which  ])araquets  were  flying  by  the  dozen. 
Some  of  them  had  straws  or  twigs  in  their 
bills.  In  some  of  the  big  globular  nests 
we  could  make  out  sc\'eral  holes  of  exit  or 
entrance.  Apparently  these  paraciuets 
were  building  or  remodelling  communal 
nests;  but  whether  they  had  themselves 
built  these  nests,  or  had  taken  old  nests 
and  added  onto  or  modified  them,  we 
could  not  tell.  There  was  so  much  of  in- 
terest all  along  the  banks  that  we  were 
continually  longing  to  stop  and  spend  days 
where  we  were.  Mixed  tlocks  of  scores 
of  cormorants  and  darters  covered  certain 
trees,  both  at  sunset  and  after  sunrise. 
Although  there  was  no  deep  forest,  merely 
belts  or  fringes  of  trees  along  the  ri\  i-r,  or 

08; 


CS4 


A    Ilunter-Naturallst  In  the   Brazilian  Wilderness 


ill  patches  back  of  it,  \vc  frequently  saw 
monkeys  in  the  riverine  tree-fringe — act- 
ive common  monkeys  and  l)hick  howlers 
of  more  leisurel)'  gait.  We  saw  caymans 
and  capybaras  sitting  socially  near  one 
another  on  the  sand-banks.  At  night  we 
heard  the  calling  of  large  flights  of  tree- 
ducks.  These  were  now  the  most  com- 
mon of  all  the  ducks,  although  there  were 
many  muscovy  ducks  also.  The  eve- 
nings were  pleasant  and  not  hot,  as  we  sat 
on  the  forward  deck;  there  was  a  waxing 
moon.  The  screamers  were  among  the 
most  noticeable  birds.  They  were  noisy; 
they  perched  on  the  very  tops  of  the  trees, 
not  down  among  the  branches;  and  they 
were  not  shy.  They  should  be  carefully 
protected  by  law,  for  they  readily  become 
tame,  and  then  come  familiarly  round  the 
houses.  From  the  steamer  we  now  and 
then  saw  beautiful  orchids  in  the  trees  on 
the  river-bank. 

One  afternoon  we  stopped  at  the  home 
buildings  or  headquarters  of  one  of  the 
great  outlying  ranches  of  the  Brazil  Land 
and  Cattle  Company,  the  Farquahar  syn- 
dicate, under  the  management  of  Murdo 
Mackenzie — than  whom  we  have  had  in 
the  United  States  no  better  citizen  or 
more  competent  cattleman.  On  this  ranch 
there  are  some  seventy  thousand  head  of 
stock.  We  were  warmly  greeted  by  Mc- 
Lean, the  head  of  the  ranch,  and  his  as- 
sistant Ramsey,  an  old  Texan  friend. 
Among  the  other  assistants,  all  equally 
cordial,  were  several  Belgians  and  French- 
men. The  hands  were  Paraguayans  and 
Brazilians,  and  a  few  Indians — a  hard-bit 
set,  each  of  whom  always  goes  armed  and 
knows  how  to  use  his  arms,  for  there  are 
constant  collisions  with  cattle  thieves 
from  across  the  Bolivian  border,  and  the 
ranch  has  to  protect  itself.  These  cow- 
hands, vaqueiros,  were  of  the  type  with 
which  we  were  now  familiar :  dark-skinned, 
lean,  hard-faced  men,  in  slouch  hats,  worn 
shirts  and  trousers,  and  fringed  leather 
aprons,  with  heavy  spurs  on  their  bare 
feet.  They  are  wonderful  riders  and  ro- 
pers, and  fear  neither  man  nor  beast. 
I  noticed  one  Indian  vaqueiro  standing  in 
exactly  the  attitude  of  a  Shilluk  of  the 
White  Nile,  with  the  sole  of  one  foot 
against  the  other  leg,  above  the  knee. 
This  is  a  region  with  extraordinary  possi- 
bilities of  cattle-raising. 


There  was  a  tannery,  a  slaughter-house, 
a  cannery;  a  church,  buildings  of  various 
kinds  and  all  degrees  of  comfort  for  the 
thirty  or  forty  families  who  made  the 
place  their  headquarters;  and  the  hand- 
some, white,  two-story  big  house,  stand- 
ing among  lemon-trees  and  flamboyants 
on  the  river-brink.  There  were  all  kinds 
of  pets  around  the  house.  The  most  fas- 
cinating was  a  wee,  spotted  fawn  which 
loved  being  petted.  Half  a  dozen  curas- 
sows  of  different  species  strolled  through 
the  rooms;  there  were  also  parrots  of  half 
a  dozen  different  species,  and  immedi- 
ately outside  the  house  four  or  five  herons, 
with  undipped  wings,  which  would  let  us 
come  within  a  few  feet  and  then  fly  grace- 
fully off,  shortly  afterward  returning  to 
the  same  spot.  They  included  big  and 
little  white  egrets  and  also  the  mauve  and 
pearl-colored  heron,  with  a  partially  black 
head  and  many-colored  bill,  which  flies 
with  quick,  repeated  wing-flappings,  in- 
stead of  the  usual  slow  heron  wing-beats. 

By  the  morning  of  January  5  we  had 
left  the  marsh  region.  There  were  low 
hills  here  and  there,  and  the  land  was 
covered  with  dense  forest.  From  time  to 
time  we  passed  little  clearings  with  palm- 
thatched  houses.  We  were  approaching 
Caceres,  where  the  easiest  part  of  our  trip 
would  end.  We  had  lived  in  much  com- 
fort on  the  little  steamer.  The  food  was 
plentiful  and  the  cooking  good.  At  night 
we  slept  on  deck  in  cots  or  hammocks. 
The  mosquitoes  were  rarely  troublesome, 
although  in  the  daytime  we  were  some- 
times bothered  by  numbers  of  biting  horse- 
flies. The  bird  life  was  wonderful.  One 
of  the  characteristic  sights  we  were  al- 
ways seeing  was  that  of  a  number  of  heads 
and  necks  of  cormorants  and  snake-birds, 
without  any  bodies,  projecting  above  wa- 
ter, and  disappearing  as  the  steamer  ap- 
proached. Skimmers  and  thick-billed 
tern  were  plentiful  here  right  in  the  heart 
of  the  continent.  In  addition  to  the 
spurred  lapwing,  characteristic  and  most 
interesting  resident  of  most  of  South 
America,  we  found  tiny  red-legged  plover 
which  also  breed  and  are  at  home  in  the 
tropics.  The  contrasts  in  habits  between 
closely  allied  species  are  w^onderful. 
Among  the  plovers  and  bay  snipe  there 
are  species  that  live  all  the  year  round  in 
almost  the  same  places,  in  tropical  and 


■.Hoi^rapli  by  Keriiiit  Rooai'cit. 

Arrival  at  Sao  Luis  de  Caceres. 
Groups  of  women  and  girls,  white  and  brown,  watched  us  from  the  low  blufi. 


subtropical  lands;  and  other  related  forms 
which  wander  over  the  whole  earth,  and 
spend  about  all  their  time,  now  in  the  arc- 
tic and  cold  temperate  regions  of  the  far 
North,  now  in  the  cold  temperate  regions 
of  the  South.  These  latter  wide-wander- 
ing birds  of  the  seashore  and  the  river- 
bank  pass  most  of  their  lives  in  regions  of 
almost  perpetual  sunlight.  They  spend 
the  breeding-season,  the  northern  sum- 
mer, in  the  land  of  the  midnight  sun,  dur- 
ing the  long  arctic  day.  They  then  fly 
for  endless  distances  down  across  the 
north  temperate  zone,  across  the  equator, 
through  the  lands  where  the  days  and 
nights  are  always  of  equal  length,  into 
another  hemisphere,  and  spend  another 
summer  of  long  days  and  long  twilights  in 
the  far  south,  where  the  antarctic  winds 
cool  them,  while  their  nesting  home,  at 
686 


the  other  end  of  the  world,  is  shrouded  be- 
neath the  iron  desolation  of  the  polar  night. 
In  the  late  afternoon  of  the  5th  we 
reached  the  quaint,  old-fashioned  little 
town  of  Sao  Luis  de  Caceres,  on  the  outer- 
most fringe  of  the  settled  region  of  the 
state  of  Matto  Grosso,  the  last  town  we 
should  see  before  reaching  the  villages 
of  the  Amazon.  As  we  approached  we 
passed  half-clad  black  washerwomen  on 
the  river's  edge.  The  men,  with  the  local 
band,  were  gathered  at  the  steeply  sloping 
foot  of  the  main  street,  where  the  steamer 
came  to  her  moorings.  Groups  of  women 
and  girls,  white  and  brown,  watched  us 
from  the  low  bluff;  their  skirts  and  bod- 
ices were  red,  blue,  green,  of  all  colors. 
Sigg  had  gone  ahead  with  much  of  the 
baggage;  he  met  us  in  an  improvised 
motor-boat,  consisting  of  a  dugout  to  the 


The   Headwaters  of  the   Paraguay 


687 


side  of  which  he  had  clamped  our  Evin- 
rude  motor;  he  was  giving  several  of  the 
local  citizens  of  prominence  a  ride,  to  their 
huge  enjoyment.  The  streets  of  the  little 
town  were  unpaved,  with  narrow  brick 
sidewalks.  The  one-story  houses  were 
white  or  blue,  with  roofs  of  red  tiles  and 
window-shutters  of  latticed  woodwork, 
come  down  from  colonial  days  and  trac- 
ing back  through  Christian  and  Moor- 
ish Portugal  to  a  remote  Arab  ancestry. 
Pretty  faces,  some  dark,  some  light,  looked 
out  from  these  windows;  their  mothers' 
mothers,  for  generations  past,  must  thus 
have  looked  out  of  similar  windows  in  the 
vanished  colonial  days.  But  now  even 
here  in  Caceres  the  spirit  of  the  new  Brazil 
is  moving;  a  fine  new  government  school 
has  been  started,  and  we  met  its  principal, 
an  earnest  man  doing  excellent  work,  one 
of  the  many  teachers  who,  during  the  last 
few  years,  have  been  brought  to  Matto 
Grosso  from  Sao  Paulo,  a  centre  of  the 
new  educational  movement  which  will  do 
so  much  for  Brazil. 

Father  Zahm  went  to  spend  the  night 
with  some  French  Franciscan  friars,  capi- 


tal fellows.  I  spent  the  night  at  the  com- 
fortable house  of  Lieutenant  Lyra;  a  hot- 
weather  house  with  thick  walls,  big  doors, 
and  an  open  ])atio  bordered  by  a  gallery. 
Lieutenant  Lyra  was  to  accompany  us; 
he  was  an  old  companion  of  Colonel  Ron- 
don's  explorations.  We  visited  one  or 
two  of  the  stores  to  make  some  fmal  pur- 
chases, and  in  the  evening  strolled  through 
the  dusky  streets  and  under  the  trees  of 
the  plaza;  the  women  and  girls  sat  in 
groups  in  the  doorways  or  at  the  windows, 
and  here  and  there  a  stringed  instrument 
tinkled  in  the  darkness. 

From  Caceres  onward  we  were  entering 
the  scene  of  Colonel  Rondon's  explora- 
tions. He  was  l)orn  in  Matto  Grosso,  and 
returned  thither  immediately  after  leav- 
ing the  military  school  in  Rio  Janeiro,  in 
which  he  studied  in  com])any  with  the 
present  foreign  minister  of  Brazil,  Lauro 
Muller.  For  some  eighteen  years  he  was 
occupied  in  exploring  and  in  opening  tele- 
graph lines  through  the  eastern  or  north- 
middle  part  of  the  great  forest  state,  the 
wilderness  state  of  the  ''matto  grosso" — 
the  "great  wilderness,"  or,  as  Australians 


I'i  y/in  a  /■f'id^'iy.i/'i'!  l<y  Miller. 

Vol.  LV.— 74 


The  ii.itiiialisls'  camp. 


From  a  phot^>!^raph  by  Fiala. 


The  naturalists  at  work. 


would  call  it,  "  the  bush."  Then,  in  1907, 
he  began  to  penetrate  the  unknown  re- 
gion lying  to  the  north  and  west.  He  was 
the  head  of  the  exploring  expeditions  sent 
out  by  the  Brazilian  Government  to  trav- 
erse for  the  first  time  this  unknown  land; 
to  map  for  the  first  time  the  courses  of  the 
rivers  which  from  the  same  divide  run 
into  the  upper  portions  of  the  Tapajos  and 
the  Madeira,  two  of  the  mighty  affluents 
of  the  Amazon,  and  to  build  telegraph- 
lines  across  to  the  Madeira,  where  a  line 
of  Brazilian  settlements,  connected  by 
steamboat  lines  and  a  railroad,  again, oc- 
curs. Three  times  he  penetrated  into  this 
absolutely  unknown,  Indian-haunted  wil- 
derness, being  absent  for  a  year  or  two  at 
a  time  and  suffering  every  imaginable 
hardship,  before  he  made  his  way  through 
to  the  Madeira  and  completed  the  tele- 
graph-line across.  The  officers  and  men 
of  the  Brazilian  army,  and  the  civilian 
scientists,  who  followed  him,  shared  the 
toil  and  the  credit  of  the  task.  Some 
of  his  men  died  of  beriberi;  some  were 
killed  or  wounded  by  the  Indians;  he 
himself  almost  died  of  fever;  again  and 
688 


again  his  whole  party  was  reduced  almost 
to  the  last  extremity  by  starvation,  dis- 
ease, hardship,  and  the  overexhaustion 
due  to  wearing  fatigues.  In  dealing  with 
the  wild,  naked  savages  he  showed  an  ex- 
traordinary combination  of  fearlessness, 
wariness,  good  judgment,  and  resolute 
patience  and  kindliness.  The  result  was 
that  they  ultimately  became  his  firm 
friends,  guarded  the  telegraph-lines,  and 
helped  the  few  soldiers  left  at  the  isolated, 
widely  separated  little  posts.  He  and  his 
assistants  explored  and  mapped  for  the 
first  time  the  Juruena  and  the  Gy-Parana, 
two  important  affluents  of  the  Tapajos 
and  the  Madeira,  respectively.  The  Ta- 
pajos and  the  Madeira,  like  the  Ori- 
noco and  Rio  Negro,  have  been  highways 
of  travel  for  a  couple  of  centuries.  The 
Madeira  (as  later  the  Tapajos)  was  the 
chief  means  of  ingress,  a  century  and 
a  half  ago,  to  the  little  Portuguese  settle- 
ments of  this  far  interior  region  of  Brazil; 
one  of  these  little  towns,  named  Matto 
Grosso,  being  the  original  capital  of  the 
province.  It  has  long  been  abandoned 
by  the  government,  and  practically  so  by 


The  Headwaters  of  the   Paraguay 


089 


its  inhabitants,  the  ruins  of  palace,  for- 
tress, and  church  now  rising  amid  the 
rank  tropical  luxuriance  of  the  wild  forest. 
The  mouths  of  the  main  atlluents  of  these 
highway  rivers  were  well  known.  But 
in  many  cases  nothing  but  the  mouth  was 
known.  The  river  itself  was  not  known, 
and  it  was  placed  on  the  map  by  guess- 
work. Colonel  Rondon  found,  for  ex- 
ample, that  the  course  of  the  Gy-Parana 
was  put  down  on  the  map  two  degrees  out 
of  its  proper  place.  He,  with  his  party, 
was  the  first  to  find  out  its  sources,  the 
first  to  traverse  its  upper  course,  the  first 
to  hiap  its  length.  He  and  his  assistants 
performed  a  similar  service  for  the  Jurue- 
na,  discovering  the  sources,  discovering 
and  descending  some  of  the  branches,  and 
for  the  first  time  going  down  and  making 
a  map  of  the  main  river  itself,  until  its 
junction  with  the  Tapajos.  Near  the 
watershed  between  the  Juruena  and  the 
Gy-Parana  he  established  his  farthest  sta- 
tion to  the  westward,  named  Jose  Boni- 
facio, after  the  first  great  republican  pa- 
triot of  Brazil.  A  couple  of  days'  march 
northwestward  from  this  station,  he  in 
1909  came  across  a  part  of  the  stream  of  a 


river  running  northward  between  the  Gy- 
Parana  and  the  Juruena;  he  could  only 
guess  where  it  debouched,  believing  it  to 
be  into  the  Madeira,  although  it  is  barely 
possible  that  it  enters  the  Tapajos  or  e\en 
the  Amazon.  The  region  through  which  it 
flows  is  unknown,  no  civilized  man  having 
ever  penetrated  it ;  and  as  all  conjecture  as 
to  what  the  ri\er  is,  as  to  its  length,  and  as 
to  its  place  of  entering  into  some  highway 
river,  is  mere  guesswork,  he  has  entered 
it  on  his  sketch  maps  as  the  Rio  da  Du- 
vida,  the  River  of  Doubt.  Among  the  of- 
ficers of  the  Brazilian  army  and  the  scien- 
tific civilians  who  have  accompanied  him 
there  have  been  not  only  expert  cartog- 
raphers, ])hotographers,  and  telegraphists, 
but  astronomers,  geologists,  botanists, 
and  zoologists.  Their  reports,  ])ublished 
in  excellent  shape  by  the  Brazilian  Gov- 
ernment, make  an  invaluable  series  of  \ol- 
umeS;  reflecting  the  highest  credit  on  the 
explorers,  and  on  the  government  itself. 
Colonel  Rondon's  own  accounts  of  his  ex- 
plorations, of  the  Indian  triljes  he  has 
visited,  and  of  the  beautiful  and  wonder- 
ful things  he  has  seen,  possess  a  peculiar 
interest. 


Colonel  Roosevelt  writing  for  Sckiiinkk's. 


HOW    SPRINCx    COMES    TO    SHASTA    JIM 

By   Henry  van   Dyke 

I  NEVER  saw  no  ''red  gods";  I  dunno  wot's  a  "lure"; 
But  if  it's  sumpin'  takin',  then  Spring  has  got  it  sure; 
An'  it  doesn't  need  no  Kiplin's,  nor  yet  no  London  Jacks, 
To  make  up  guff  about  it,  while  settin'  in  their  shacks. 

It's  sumpin'  very  simple  that  happens  in  the  Spring, 

But  it  changes  all  the  lookin's  of  every  blessed  thing; 

The  buddin'  woods  look  bigger,  the  mounting  twice  as  high, 

An'  the  house  looks  kindo  smaller,  tho  I  couldn't  tell  ye  why. 

It's  cur'ous  wot  a  show-down  the  month  of  April  makes, 
Between  the  reely  livin',  an'  the  things  that's  only  fakes! 
Machines  an'  barns  an'  buildin's,  they  never  give  no  sign; 
But  the  livin'  things  look  lively,  when  Spring  is  on  the  line. 

She  doesn't  come  too  suddin,  nor  she  doesn't  come  too  slow; 
Her  gaits  is  some  cayprishus,  an'  the  next  ye  never  know, — 
A  single-foot  o'  sunshine,  a  buck  o'  snow  er  hail, — 
But  don't  be  disappointed,  for  Spring  ain't  goin'  ter  fail. 

She's  loopin'  down  the  hillside, — the  driffs  is  fadin'  out. 
She's  runnin'  down  the  river, — d'ye  see  them  risin'  trout? 
She's  loafin'  down  the  canyon, — the  squaw-bed's  growin'  blue, 
An'  the  teeny  Johnny- jump-ups  is  just  a-peekin'  thro. 

A  thousan'  miles  o'  pine-trees,  with  Douglas  firs  between, 
Is  waitin'  for  her  fingers  to  freshen  up  their  green; 
With  little  tips  o'  brightness  the  firs  'ill  sparkle  thick, 
An'  every  yaller  pine-tree,  a  giant  candle-stick! 

The  underbrush  is  risin'  an'  spreadin'  all  around. 

Just  like  a  mist  o'  greenness  that  hangs  above  the  ground; 

A  million  manzanitas  'ill  soon  be  full  o'  pink; 

So  saddle  up,  my  sonny, — it's  time  to  ride,  I  think! 

We'll  ford  or  swim  the  river,  becos  there  ain't  no  bridge; 
We'll  foot  the  gulches  careful,  an'  lope  along  the  ridge; 
We'll  take  the  trail  to  Nowhere,  an'  travel  till  we  tire. 
An'  camp  beneath  a  pine-tree,  an'  sleep  beside  the  fire. 

We'll  see  the  blue-quail  chickens,  and  hear  'em  pipin'  clear; 
Perhaps  we'll  sight  a  brown-bear,  or  a  little  bunch  o'  deer; 
But  never  a  heathen  goddess  or  god  'ill  meet  our  eyes; 
For  why?     There  isn't  any!     They're  just  a  pack  o'  lies! 

Oh,  wot's  the  use  o'  ''red  gods,"  an'  "Pan,"  an'  all  that  stuff? 
The  natcheral  facts  o'  Springtime  is  wonderful  enuff! 
An'  if  there's  Someone  made  'em,  I  guess  He  understood, 
To  be  alive  in  Springtime  would  make  a  man  feel  good. 
California,  May  3,  19 13. 
690 


THE     DOMINANT    STRAIN 


By  Katharine  Fullerton  Gerould 


T  is  with  some  reluctance 
that  I  give  to  a  public  on 
whose  sympathy  a  reporter 
of  unvarnished  facts  can 
never  count,  the  details 
that  follow.  I  carry  light 
cargoes  for  choice;  and  why  I  should  have 
been  drawn  into  the  uncongenial  epic  of 
Rodney  Teele,  God  only  knows.  But  the 
thing  happened — happened,  alack!  to  my 
knowledge  and  witnessing  eye;  and  I  have 
been  (even  I,  with  my  inveterate  prefer- 
ence for  comic  opera)  so  struck  by  all  it 
meant,  that  I  cannot  refrain.  I  should 
call  the  episode  Biblical  in  its  large  effect- 
iveness, if  I  did  not  see  in  it  refinements 
of  weakness  that  the  Hebrew  scriptures 
knew  nothing  of.  Isaiah  or  Ezekiel  would 
have  smashed  through  the  rotten  spots  in 
the  fabric  with  a  lean  inspired  fist;  or 
lightning  would  have  descended  from  an 
ever-prepared  heaven.  Besides,  in  those 
days,  it  could  never  have  happened:  Amer- 
ica is  not  Palestine.  There  is  our  fatal 
modern  softness  in  it;  in  spite  of  a  hard- 
ness that  suits  quite  well  with  the  Chroni- 
cles. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected,  I  suppose,  that 
our  children  shall  keep  on  learning  hu- 
man nature  from  Jezebel  and  Joseph, 
though  the  Old  Testament  is,  to  my 
thinking,  as  good  a  primer  of  sociology 
as  The  Kallikat  Family.  It  is  inevitable 
that  they  should  learn  it  from  people  like 
Rodney  Teele,  who  was  a  king  of  sorts, 
as  thousands  of  stockholders  know.  The 
newspapers,  in  their  easy  way,  used  to 
compare  him  to  Napoleon.  But  he  was 
a  Napoleon  without  a  Josephine  and  with- 
out a  Saint  Helena.  He  will  stand,  how- 
ever, as  well  as  any  conqueror  of  them  all, 
to  illustrate  the  secular  way  of  things. 
There  are  always  human  passions  at  work, 
and  an  ineluctable  Voice  that  interferes. 
We  have  lost  and  gained  many  things  in 
the  twentieth  century;  but  irony  remains. 
Money  is  so  much  more  important  than 
anything  else,  nowadays,  whether  to  gov- 
ernments or  individuals,  that  we  must 
Vol.  LV.— 75 


be  forgiven  for  facing  men  like  Rodney 
Teele  with  bated  breath:  for  thinking  that 
the  personality  which  is  moved  by  a  brain 
like  that  is  something  out  of  the  common 
sort.  In  the  vast  perspectives  of  to-day, 
pirates  look  like  sneak-thieves,  and  the 
Medicis  like  push-cart  men.  How  we 
are  to  escape  reverence  for  Rodney  Teele 
and  his  like,  I  do  not  see.  Certainly, 
though  I  have  no  more  reason  to  be  a 
snob  than  most  men,  I  always  felt  his 
importance.  Even  when  I  had  seen  him 
pityingly  through  the  strangest  episode 
of  his  life,  I  still  felt  that  this  man  was 
not  quite  as  other  men.  Nothing  is  so 
romantic  as  Den>ocracy,  which  worships 
its  kings  wherever  they  happen  to  blaze 
forth.  Strength  is  not  yet  old-fashioned; 
and  our  fists  may  pro\e  that  yet  on  the 
front  teeth  of  Europe.  There  it  is:  all 
the  primeval  passions  astir  at  the  mere 
mention  of  Rodney  Teele!  I  must  get 
on  with  my  story.  It  will  not,  if  I  can 
write  the  truth  out  calmly,  leave  you  cold. 
I  knew  Rodney  Teele,  Junior,  at  Saint 
Jude's,  and  later  at  Harvard.  We  had 
been  good  friends  at  school,  where  a 
gilded  equality  prevailed;  and,  though 
I  could  not  afford  at  Harvard,  as  he  did,  to 
live  on  the  Gold  Coast,  I  saw  a  lot  of  him 
in  that  most  democratic  of  universities. 
Rodney,  of  course,  had  no  hereditary  so- 
cial pull  that  was  recognized  on  the  banks 
of  the  Charles;  but  it  would  have  been 
mediaeval  and  ridiculous  to  leave  a  fabu- 
lous fortune  like  that  out  in  the  cold, 
when  the  fabulous  fortune  was  also  a  good 
fellow.  Rodney  had  not  an  ounce  of 
vice  in  him;  by  which  I  do  not  mean  that 
he  was  a  weakling.  I  le  was  a  perpetually 
smouldering  creature,  agog  for  achieve- 
ments of  the  moral  order.  It's  a  com- 
plicated business  to  be  righteous  in  these 
days,  when  the  devil  is  Hinging  so  many 
paradoxes  about.  It  took  Rodney's  fa- 
ther in  a  premature  skullcaj),  and  surrounil- 
ed  with  secretaries,  to  do  that.  Rodney, 
Junior,  had  somehow  the  simplicity  of  the 
soil:  he  was  no  more  complicated  than  a 

691 


01)2 


The   Dominant  Strain 


crop  of  corn.  The  things  that  swayed 
him  were  blind.  unj)hrascable  forces.  It 
would  have  taken  the  Department  of  Ag- 
riculture to  analyze  him.  He  was,  for 
all  practical  purposes,  merely  a  good  fel- 
low— but  waiting,  you  could  see,  for  his 
chance.  Unless  his  chance  came  in  ex- 
traordinarily lucky  guise,  he  would  prob- 
ably mess  it.  That  was  the  impression  of 
our  crowd.  We  liked  Rodney  all  the  bet- 
ter for  not  being  a  replica  of  his  Machi- 
avellian parent — whom  we,  as  good  Amer- 
icans, knew  all  about.  Personally,  I 
thought  Rodney  would  be  distinctly  up 
against  it  when  it  came  to  sharing  the 
management  of  the  Teele  millions.  His 
allowance  was  enormous,  but,  after  all,  he 
wasn't  supposed  to  do  anything  but  spend 
it.  He  used  to  finance  us  all  when  we 
were  hard  up,  which  shows  he  was  a  good 
sort.  If  he  hadn't  been,  he  would  have 
been  the  last  man  we  could  borrow  from. 
No  one,  however,  could  have  called  Rod- 
ney Teele  a  financial  genius:  he  was  pe- 
culiarly the  heir  of  all  his  ancestors  who 
hadn't  made  good.  My  own  European- 
ized  kin  thought  him  dull,  though  they 
never  failed  to  tell  every  one  when  he 
had  been  staying  with  us,  or  when  I  had 
spent  a  college  holiday  in  the  vast  and 
gloomy  New  York  mansion  that  his  wid- 
owed father  inhabited  alone.  Rodney 
belonged,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  his 
father's  unfashionable  religious  sect;  but 
he  made  cheques  serve  in  lieu  of  more  per- 
sonal services.  Rodney  would  never  teach 
in  the  Sunday-school.  That  was  emphat- 
ically not  the  chance  he  was  waiting  for. 
At  that  time  he  was  a  bit  of  an  agnostic. 
Out  of  college,  I  naturally  saw  less  of 
Rodney.  I  had  just  enough  money  to 
potter  about  and  think  of  being  an  archi- 
tect, because  that  gave  me  a  chance  to  go 
to  Europe  on  fantastic  pretexts  of  study- 
ing detail.  I  eventually  became  an  archi- 
tect, but  I  am  not,  even  now,  a  very  good 
one.  Accordingly,  my  friends'  prophecy 
of  huge  commissions  from  the  Teeles  for 
every  sort  of  edifice,  public  and  private, 
has  never  been  fulfilled.  It  was  my  own 
fault,  however,  I  am  sure.  Rodney  Teele, 
Senior,  approved  of  my  companionship  for 
his  son — I  have  never  known  why,  as 
my  attitude  to  the  decorations  of  the  big 
Fifth  Avenue  house  must  have  been  in- 
sufferable.   I  was  at  the  priggish  age. 


Rodney  himself  was  too  unhappy,  I 
think,  at  the  time,  to  want  anything  but 
sympathy.  He  did  not  like  his  job,  which 
consisted  in  being  introduced  to  the  di- 
plomacy of  high  finance.  I  don't  think 
Rodney  disapproved  particularly  of  his 
father's  methods,  or  cared  which  way  the 
eternal  controversies  and  litigations  went. 
I  am  convinced  that  it  was  not  the  muck- 
raking that  made  him  wretched.  He  was 
simply  incapable  of  understanding  a  vast 
financial  policy;  and  that  incapacity,  con- 
sidering what  was  expected  of  him,  natu- 
rally made  for  his  unhappiness.  He  was 
like  a  child  wrinkling  its  brows  and  try- 
ing to  spell  an  elusive  word — a'  child  who 
knows  that  spelling  is  important.  Rodney 
Teele 's  fortune  would  have  been  safe 
enough  with  his  son ;  but  he  wanted  more 
than  that:  he  wanted  to  establish  a  dy- 
nasty of  Teele.  He  wanted  to  leave  a  name 
that  would  terrify  in  itself;  and  he  wanted 
his  son  to  be  a  man,  if  possible,  of  more 
power  than  he.  It  was  a  mad  thing  to 
ask  of  the  gods:  to  permit  Rodney  Teele 
to  exist  over  again  in  his  son,  to  let  the 
lightning  strike  twice  in  that  particular 
place.  Certainly  the  gods  showed  no 
sign  of  permitting  it.  Rodney  was  loyal, 
but  not  to  the  point  of  genius. 

Old  Teele  once  did  me  the  honor — as  an 
intimate  friend  of  Rodney's,  and  a  quite 
unimportant,  a  virtually  anonymous  crea- 
ture— of  consulting  me. 

"The  boy  has  stuff  in  him,"  he  said 
quietly,  with  an  interrogative  lift  of  his 
left  eyebrow.  (You've  seen  it  caught  in 
snapshots.) 

"Indeed,  he  has.  But  I  suspect  that 
it  isn't  that  kind." 

"He  looks  as  if  he  would  do  something, 
sometime." 

"  He  will.  But  no  one  except  his  guard- 
ian angel  knows  what.  When  Rodney 
wants  anything  supremely,  he'll  get  it. 
But  until  he  does  want  something  su- 
premely, he  will  be  perfectly  ineffectual. 
He  can't  apply  his  hidden  powers  until 
an  overmastering  desire  unseals  them. 
That's  my  notion  of  it,  sir." 

Rodney  Teele,  Senior,  pushed  back  his 
skullcap  and  gazed  at  me,  as  non-com- 
mittally  as  an  idol. 

"  Perhaps  you  are  right.  We  must  find 
the  key — we  must  find  the  key,  with 
God's  help." 


The  Dominant  Strain 


693 


It  did  not  seem  to  me  unnatural  that 
he  should  speak  of  the  Deity.  A  man 
like  that  must  believe  in  something  be- 
sides himself;  there  must  be  a  discreet 
colleague  somewhere,  or  the  weight  of 
the  world  would  be  too  much.  Napoleon 
had  his  star,  and  Rodney  had  his  own 
God,  in  whom  he  trusted — a  God  made 
vivid  by  a  rococo  taste  in  the  essentials  of 
salvation.  His  God  was  too  much  like  a 
salaried  confidant  to  suit  me;  but  I  have 
never  doubted  Rodney  Teele's  sincerity, 
or  his  capacity  for  mystical  vision.  The 
world  knows  only  his  charities;  but  once 
or  twice  I  have  perceived  the  Hebraic 
conviction  that  backed  them.  I  have 
seen  Rodney  Teele  at  prayer. 

So  we  were  w^aiting,  Rodney  Teele  and 
I,  leaning  from  our  separated  orbits,  to 
see  what  would  move  young  Rodney.  It 
was  nearly  a  year  before  we  saw — nearly 
a  year,  at  least,  before  I  did;  and,  char- 
acteristically, I  saw  it  in  the  morning  pa- 
per. Young  Rodney  had  married.  God 
knows  where  he  met  the  girl,  or  why  she 
bowled  him  over.  Artistically  speaking, 
it  was  a  mesalliance  of  the  finest.  She 
was  not  even  notorious.  I  waited  for 
some  word  from  Rodney  himself.  None 
came;  and  after  the  first  day  the  papers, 
one  and  all,  w^re  silent.  I  didn't  know 
what  sums  went  into  silencing  them;  but 
there  was  not  even  the  usual  mention  of  a 
fruitless  interview.  They  were  dumb  as 
fish.  The  great  negotiations  for  the  Lab- 
rador railway  went  on,  and  the  Boliv- 
ian loan  pursued  its  path.  Rodney  Teele 
was  at  the  helm,  and  w^hether  young  Rod- 
ney was  working  incognito  among  the 
crew,  or  had  been  marooned  on  some  coral 
island,  no  one  knew,  any  more  than  I.  I 
suffered  honest  pain,  for  I  had  been  fond 
of  Rodney;  and  for  his  father  I  had  that 
dazzled  and  guilty  respect  which  I  fancy 
most  citizens  shared  with  me.  I  wrote 
to  my  friend,  but  I  got  no  answer.  I  did 
not  write  to  the  elder  Teele;  from  him,  in 
the  circumstances,  I  was  as  cut  off  as  if  I 
lived  in  Mars.  In  the  world  of  loans  and 
railways  and  foreign  bourses,  I  was  as 
nothing. 

Once,  hoping  for  a  clue,  I  went  to 
his  unfamiliar  church,  and  saw  him,  soli- 
tary in  his  ])r()mincnt  pew.  There  was 
no  clue  there,  though  I  watched  him  all 
through  a  long  sermon.     He  looked — if 


there  has  ever  been  such  a  thing — like  a 
Chinese  Jew:  son  of  a  mandarin  and  a 
princess  of  the  house  of  David.  Nothing 
else  expresses  the  baflling  quality  of  that 
parchment  face  in  which,  above  the  thin, 
vertically  drooping  moustache  and  the 
high  cheek-bones,  black  eyes  burned. 
Fire  and  scroll  alike  were  inscrutable. 
The  ends  of  Asia  seemed  to  have  met 
in  that  countenance,  fixed  incongruously 
upon  the  optimistic  preacher  of  an  up- 
start creed.  I  took  home  a  tremendous 
impression,  but  I  no  longer  hoped  for 
clues.  Rodney  was  fair  and  stocky.  .  .  . 
He  would  go  under.  For  six  months  that 
conviction  was  all  my  sympathy  had  to 
feed  upon. 

Rodney  Teele  was  not  lost  to  my  mus- 
ings, however.  It  seemed  incredible  that 
he  could  drop  out  of  sight  like  a  kid- 
napped girl.  Sometimes  I  hoped  that  his 
father  was  financing  him  in  the  Antipodes 
— Celebes  or  Argentina;  that  somewhere, 
under  another  name,  he  was  the  lord  of 
rolling  acres  and  queer  exotic  comforts. 
Sometimes  I  feared  that  there  had  been  a 
bitter  quarrel  and  that  all  young  Rod- 
ney's latent  force  had  gone  into  suppress- 
ing himself  absolutely  out  of  a  world 
where  his  father's  name  was  so  much  as 
known.  In  that  case  he  would  have  to 
go  far  afield.  It  was  very  clear  that, 
whatever  had  happened,  Rodney  was  not 
trading  on  that  name — not  even  to  the 
extent  of  making  the  fortune  of  some  re- 
porter. Somebody's  will-power,  whether 
the  father's  or  the  son's,  had  created 
that  sinister  and  abysmal  silence.  The 
case  of  Rodney  Teele  was  not  even  a  stock 
subject  at  clubs  where  men  had  known 
him — perhaps  merely  because  the  news- 
papers didn't  keep  him  before  the  world. 
I  imagine  we  are  far  more  nose-led  by 
the  press  than  we  will  admit.  The  Teeles 
had  never  gone  in  for  ''society";  and 
young  Rodney  would  never  be  missed 
by  Wall  Street  so  long  as  old  Rodney 
was  there.  Sometimes  it  seemed  to  me 
that  I  was  the  only  living  creature  who 
gave  him  a  thought.  ''  Very  curious,"  said 
the  one  or  two  men  I  spoke  to;  then 
shrugged  their  shoulders  and  left  it — as 
if,  because  old  Rodney  Teele  was  silent, 
it  was  bad  form  for  any  one  else  to  wag 
his  tongue.  Hut  I  was  not  content;  and 
1  waited.     I  kept  myself  in  a  breathless 


694 


The  Dominant  Strain 


state  because — because  I  felt  it  shocking 
that  some  one  should  not  be  in  a  breath- 
less state.  And  because  no  one  else  was 
breathless,  I  came  to  consider  that  I  had 
been  the  only  person  who  had  really 
cared  about  young  Rodney.  I  don't  de- 
fend my  logic;  but,  at  all  events,  that  is 
the  state  of  mind  I  achieved  in  the  six 
months  after  Rodney's  marriage. 

It  was  six  months  or  more  after  the 
lightning-flash  in  the  papers — a  light- 
ning-flash which  had  been  followed  by  no 
reverberation — that  I  went  one  evening, 
as  carelessly  as  you  like,  to  the  telephone. 
The  call  was  long — I  remember  rattling 
the  receiver  impatiently  to  stop  it.  The 
message  I  listened  to  came  in  the  precise, 
chill  tones  of  Luke  Standish,  old  Rodney 
Teele's  private  secretary.  He  stated  his 
name  and  his  authority,  then  made  a 
bland  request  that  I  would  come  to  Mr. 
Teele's  house  that  evening,  if  possible,  for 
ten  minutes'  talk  with  the  great  man.  It 
was  less  a  request,  really,  than  an  ap- 
pointment: the  voice  mentioned  an  hour, 
and  hardly  waited  for  my  acquiescence, 
which  came,  indeed,  mechanically.  It 
was  a  voice  obviously  not  accustomed 
to  discussion  of  previous  engagements.  It 
dropped  the  information — but  not  in  the 
tone  of  apology — that  Mr.  Teele  was  sail- 
ing for  Europe  the  next  morning.  Then 
I  heard  the  click  at  the  other  end.  "Hang 
you,  I  knew  that!"  I  exclaimed,  as  I  hung 
up  the  receiver.  It  was  annoying  to  be 
told,  after  such  a  peremptory  summons, 
something  that  every  one  with  a  penny  to 
spend  on  a  newspaper  had  known  for  a 
week.  I  felt  as  irritated  as  if  I  had  been 
a  competitor  to  be  crushed;  and  the  irri- 
tation lasted. 

All  irritation  dropped,  however,  at  half 
past  eight  that  evening  in  Rodney  Teele's 
library,  when  I  stood  once  more  fac- 
ing him.  The  great  cavalcade  of  books 
swept  round  the  vast  room  in  serried  or- 
der, except  where  they  broke  ranks  over 
the  fireplace  to  admit  the  famous  Rem- 
brandt. I  had  seen  the  room  before,  but 
never  by  lamplight.  It  had  seemed  to 
me  senselessly  luxurious — barring  the 
Rembrandt — and  I  had  turned  up  my 
nose  at  the  collection,  which  ran  to  bind- 
ings rather  than  editions.  Rodney  Teele 
was  no  connoisseur;  and  even  the  Rem- 
brandt, as  I  knew,  had  been  a  mere  curi- 


ous accident  of  his  career.  I  remembered 
distinctly  my  own  earlier  scorn;  but  now 
my  scorn  dropped  with  my  irritation. 
Rodney  Teele  himself,  slim  and  terrible, 
was  a  collector's  piece  that  put  even  the 
Rembrandt  to  scorn.  The  dim  Dissent- 
ing light  of  the  church  where  I  had  last 
seen  him  had  done  him  no  justice,  though 
it  had  given  the  hint  of  what  I  now  saw 
focussed  by  the  sixty-four  candle-power 
lamp.  What  mating  had  produced  Rod- 
ney Teele,  I  wondered,  as  I  stood  before 
him.  I  remember  thinking  fantastically 
that  Who^s  Who  must  have  Jied.  By 
what  Mendelian  miracle  could  the  simple 
Middle  Western  pair  who  were  his  ac- 
credited progenitors  have  achieved  this 
offspring? 

The  face  that  was  bent  towards  mine  was 
more  Oriental  than  ever:  the  cheek-bones 
higher,  the  moustache  thinner  and  grayer, 
the  face  more  like  old  vellum — and  the 
black  eyes,  by  contrast,  fiercer.  "Inscru- 
table" is  a  cheap  word  to  describe  him 
with;  there  was  no  mystery  there,  in  the 
crude  sense,  because  there  was  no  sugges- 
tion of  anything  to  solve.  That  face  had 
everything  to  say — and  nothing  to  tell. 
It  showed  the  door  to  curiosity.  Rodney 
Teele  might  have  been  meditating  the  in- 
finite in  some  high  gorge  of  the  Yalu  since 
the  Mings  were  overthrown.  Only  the 
eyes  were  like  those  we  feel  blazing  upon  us 
from  the  pages  of  the  everlasting  Chroni- 
cles. I  thought  how  hideous  it  would  be 
if  I  had  come  there  to  question  him. 

He  did  not  offer  me  a  cigar,  though  I 
saw  the  conventional  box  at  hand.  Rod- 
ney Teele  did  not  smoke,  himself,  and  he 
probably  forgot  it.  I  cannot  say  how 
unimportant  I  felt. 

He  began  speaking  at  once — with  a 
quite  Occidental  precision,  in  a  soft, 
slightly  nasal  voice. 

"I  am  leaving  for  Carlsbad  to-mor- 
row.    My  physicians  insist  upon  it." 

I  bowed. 

"I  think  it  a  quite  unnecessary  precau- 
tion, but  as  I  am  not  needed  here  for  the 
moment,  I  judged  it  well  to  be  tractable. 
Any  means  of  adding  to  one's  strength 
after  the  age  of  sixty  are  desirable  in 
themselves." 

"Of  course."  I  spoke  shortly,  deter- 
mined not  to  grovel.  But  my  own  voice, 
I  noticed,  was  low. 


The  Dominant  Strain 


G95 


"I  remembered  you  as  an  intimate  of 
my  son's — an  intimate  whom,  in  former 
days,  I  was  glad  to  welcome." 

"I  have  always  been  very  fond  of  Rod- 
ney." 

"Yes — just  so.  And  Rodney,  I  think, 
was  fond  of  you — though  I  do  not  speak 
with  authority  of  my  son's  feelings."  He 
smiled. 

"He  certainly  was."  Some  of  the 
breathlessness  of  the  months  just  past  got 
into  my  voice  at  this  point.  To  that  I 
would  stick,  through  thick  and  thin,  nor 
care  what  the  Power  opposite  me  said. 

"I  felt  inclined  to  ask  you — I  have  not 
put  the  question  to  any  one  else — before 
leaving  America  for  a  rather  long  time,  if 
you  know  where  Rodney  is.  I  quite  un- 
derstand that  you  may  prefer  not  to 
answer." 

"On  the  contrary,  I  prefer  to  answer, 
and  with  complete  veracity.  I  know 
nothing  whatever  about  Rodney  except 
that  I  saw  some  months  ago  in  a  newspa- 
per that  he  was  married.  I  wrote  to  him 
here,  but  never  had  any  reply." 

"Yes.  Your  letter  is  probably  among 
these."  He  took  up  a  little  pile  of  letters 
from  the  table,  removed  the  elastic  band 
that  confined  them,  and  held  them  out  to 
me.     "Would  you  care  to  extract  it?" 

The  packet  was  not  very  large,  and  my 
own  letter  was  quickly  found.  I  fin- 
gered it,  with  the  proprietary  instinct  one 
has  towards  old  letters  of  one's  own  redis- 
covered in  strange  places  or  after  many 
days.  Then  another  impulse  conquered 
that:  the  impulse  not  to  stop  my  old  mes- 
sage on  its  delayed  and  doubtless  vain 
quest  for  Rodney  Teele.  No:  if  it  ever 
reached  him,  so  much  the  better.  It 
would  speak  for  itself  more  clearly  than  I 
could  speak  for  it.  I  handed  back  the 
packet. 

"I  think  m  let  it  take  its  luck.  There 
just  might  come  a  day  when  Rodney 
would  be  glad  to  fmd  it." 

"As  you  like."  Rodney  Tcele  replaced 
the  elastic  band  and  laid  the  bundle  to  one 
side.  "But  it  is  perhaps  fair  to  tell  you 
that  T  think  there  is  less  chance  of  its  reach- 
ing Rodney  here  than  in  any  other  spot  on 
earth." 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders.  "T.et  it 
take  its  luck,"  I  re[)eated.  Then  I  grew 
bold.     "Mr.  Teele,"  1  said,  "you  leave 


me  at  liberty  to  inicr  that  you  did  not 
approve  of  Rodney's  marriage.  Surely, 
you,  and  you  alone — since  you  managed 
to  choke  off  the  newsi)a[)ers — can  tell  best 
where  Rodney  is  likely  to  be;  for  Rodney 
must  have  talked  with  you  since  he  talked 
with  any  one  else.  No  one,  1  feel  perfectly 
sure,  has  seen  or  heard  of  Rodney  since  his 
marriage.  I  am  convinced  that,  if  any  one 
had,  it  would  have  been  I.  And  you  knew 
enough  at  least  to  silence  the  press — other- 
wise, there  would  have  been  a  dozen  re- 
ports a  day." 

He  fmgered  a  paper-cutter — not  nerv- 
ously, but  methodically,  as  if  with  a 
purpose. 

"If  the  newspapers  have  reported 
nothing,  it  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  because 
there  has  been  nothing  to  report.  I  re- 
quested them  to  refrain  from  publish- 
ing anything  that  was  not  absolutely  au- 
thentic. That,  they  were  kind  enough 
to  do.  If  Rodney  himself  had  chosen  to 
fill  a  column  a  day,  I  could  not,  of  course, 
have  prevented  it."     He  smiled  blandly. 

I  may  have  looked  incredulous,  for  he 
went  on.  "I  am  speaking  only  the  lit- 
eral truth.  Have  the  goodness  not  to 
doubt  my  word.  It  would  have  satisfied 
a  natural  curiosity  on  my  part  if  they  had 
succeeded  in  getting  at  Rodney.  But  I 
am  led  to  infer  that  he  has  the  family 
dislike  for  informing  the  public  about  his 
private  affairs." 

The  sense  of  his  power  ebbed  from  me  a 
little,  at  that  moment.  It  was  incon- 
ceivable that  any  one  could  come  close 
enough  to  old  Rodney  Teele  to  give  him 
a  strangle-hold.  He  was  incalculably 
remote.  I,  at  all  events,  was  very  far 
away  from  him — quite  out  of  his  per- 
spective, too  small  to  focus.  If  I  had 
been  something  within  his  ken — a  cor- 
poration, for  example — I  should  doubtless 
not  have  ventured.  But  it  really  could 
not  matter  to  Rodney  Teele  what  went 
on  in  the  insect  world. 

"  I  am  very  sorry  that  I  cannot  give  you 
any  information  about  Rodney,  If  I 
had  any — unless  Rodney  had  forbidden  it 
— it  would  ha\e  been  yours  unreser\edly. 
Would  you  mind  my  ap|)ealing  to  you  in 
turn?  Did  anything  pass  between  you 
and  your  son  that  could  give  an  old  friend 
— me,  to  be  exj)licit  a  clue  to  go  oil?  I 
would  do  a  good  deal  to  get  in  touch  with 


cm 


The   Dominant  Strain 


him.  I  would  make  sacrifices.  Did  he 
dri)i)  nothing  when  he  had  his  interview 
with  vou?" 

Rodney  Tcele's  left  eyebrow,  as  he  an- 
swered, had  its  peculiar  interrogative  lift 
— that  lilt  which  so  seldom  accompanied  a 
real  question.  'T  had  no  interview  with 
my  son.     None  was  needed." 

"Vou  mean ?" 

For  the  tirst  time,  he  spoke  sharply, 
and  departed  from  the  stilted  articula- 
tion of  the  self-made  man.  "When  the 
young  fool  decided  to  throw  his  life  away, 
he  wasn't  fool  enough  to  ask  me  if  I  ap- 
proved! Even  young  Rod  had  sense 
enough  for  that.  No,  sir:  we  needed  no 
interview!  He  wTote  me  a  letter  saying 
what  he  was  going  to  do;  and  then  he 
had  enough  remnants  of  decency  to  get 
out.  I've  heard  nothing  of  him  since." 
He  shut  his  lips  close,  and  returned  to  his 
delicate  operations  with  the  paper-cutter. 
I  was  left  staring. 

"Then  young  Rod  never  even  asked 
you  what  you  felt  about  it?" 

"My  son  knew  what  I  should  feel." 
He  had  returned  to  his  precise  manner. 
"For  a  long  time  he  has  been  perfectly 
aware  of  my  principles  on  the  subject  of 
marriage.  He  has  known  that  under  no 
conditions  would  I  sanction  his  taking  a 
wife  who  was  not  eminently  fit  to  bear 
the  next  generation  of  Teeles.  Wealth 
I  should  not  necessarily  have  asked  for; 
but  a  stock  worth  crossing  with  my  own 
I  think  I  had  a  right  to  expect.  I  am 
by  nature,  perhaps,  something  of  an  aris- 
tocrat in  these  matters,  Mr.  Souther.  I 
do  not  believe  in  taking  wives  among 
the  Midianitish  women.  And — I  say 
it  with  due  humility — the  son  of  Rodney 
Teele  had  no  ordinary  responsibilities." 

Useless  to  come  into  that  court  with 
a  tale  of  human  passion!  It  had  always 
seemed  to  me — though  I  knew  nothing 
about  it — that  between  father  and  son 
there  would  be  a  deep  instinctive  sympa- 
thy in  these  matters:  that  a  man  could 
hardly  be  unmoved  by  the  fresh  desire  en- 
gendered of  his  own  desire — however  deep 
beneath  the  ashes  his  own  desire  might  have 
come  to  lie.  But  Rodney  Teele  hardly 
seemed,  even  reminiscently,  the  human 
male.  He  had  the  most  celibate  face  I  have 
ever  seen.  A  strange  person  to  be  prating 
of  the  great  human  business  of  pedigrees! 


"The  girl  may  be  as  good  as  gold,"  I 
muttered. 

"She  may."  He  conceded  it  with  no 
air  of  concession.  "  But  I  am  justified  in 
supposing  that  if  my  son  had  honestly 
believed  her  on  all  reasonable  grounds  ac- 
ceptable to  me  as  a  daughter-in-law,  he 
would  have  intimated  as  much.  He  made 
no  attempt  to  defend  his  action  to  me. 
The  Teeles  are  good  pioneer  American 
stock.  I  have  been  blessed  with  success 
beyond  that  of  most  men  of  my  genera- 
tion, but  I  should  not  have  asked  my 
son  to  marry  any  one  of  better  birth  than 
himself — if  better  birth,  from  a  sane 
American  standpoint,  there  can  be.  The 
importance  of  heredity  is  being  so  com- 
pletely demonstrated  at  the  present  day  by 
the  men  of  science  that  I  should  have 
considered  it  a  gross  dereliction  of  my 
duty  as  a  father  and  a  steward  of  God's 
wealth,  had  I  wanted  less.  My  son  knew 
my  views  on  the  subject,  and,  if  he  had 
met  them  in  choosing  a  wife,  he  would  have 
told  me  so.  He  had  no  reason,  in  that  case, 
to  expect  opposition  from  me.  He  was  my 
only  child,  and  he  had  never  found  me  nig- 
gardly with  affection  or  with  money." 

"He  is  proud,  young  Rodney,"  I  mused. 

"Too  proud — and  yet  not  quite  proud 
enough,  I  am  afraid,"  his  father  affirmed, 
with  mild  precision.  "  And  now,  I  do  not 
think  I  need  keep  you  longer,  Mr.  Souther. 
I  thank  you  for  coming.  I  am  sure  you 
understand  a  father's  natural  curiosity." 
He  rose. 

"Have  you  any  message  for  Rodney,  if 
I  should  run  across  him  in  your  absence?  " 

He  settled  his  eye-glass  on  his  fine  nose 
and  looked  at  me  interrogatively. 

"Any  message?  Certainly  not.  If  I 
had  felt  it  imperative  to  communicate 
with  my  son,  I  could  have  employed  peo- 
ple to  trace  him.  I  assurQ  you  that  I 
respect  his  evident  desire  for  privacy. 
And  I  trust  you  will  not  think  it  neces- 
sary to  inform  any  one  of  my  inquiries. 
In  fact" —  he  looked  me  over  from  head 
to  foot — "if  you  have  any  doubts  on  that 
point,  I  should  be  glad  if  you  would  indi- 
cate to  me  an  adequate  way  of  silencing 
them." 

I  was  hot.  "There  are  some  things  that 
are  not  bought  and  sold,  Mr.  Teele,"  I 
declared.  "Among  them  are  confidences 
between  gentlemen." 


The  Dominant  Strain 


G97 


There  was  the  hint  of  a  smile  on  his 
stiff  smooth  features.  ''I  was  not  refer- 
ring to  money,"  he  answered. 

I  could  not  contradict  him,  though  I 
still  felt  that  my  impulse  of  anger  had  been 
justified. 

"  It  is  very  difficult  to  know,  in  personal 
matters,  just  what  another  man  may  con- 
sider to  be  his  duty,"  he  continued.  I  could 
not  gainsay  such  a  platitude,  and  judged 
it  better  to  say  nothing.  The  interview 
was  obviously  at  an  end;  and  for  nothing 
in  the  world  would  I  consciously  prolong  it. 
I  moved  to  the  door,  while  Rodney  Teele 
rang  for  a  servant  to  show  me  out.  We 
had  not  shaken  hands. 

He  was  still  holding  the  enamelled  bell- 
handle,  when  a  footman  entered.  Under 
his  perfectly  adequate  mask,  I  thought 
him  surprisingly  pale.  The  man  ignored 
me,  and  handed,  very  respectfully,  a  card 
to  Mr.  Teele.  I  waited  impatiently  for 
the  chance  to  say  a  definite  ''Good  eve- 
ning "  to  my  host.  When  I  heard  no  or- 
der given,  no  sound  made,  I  linally  turned 
my  head. 

Rodney  Teele  was  standing  near  the 
great  table,  but  erect,  quite  independent 
of  the  support  it  offered.  His  eyes  were 
bent  on  the  card,  and,  from  every  tense 
and  narrowed  feature,  I  could  see  that  he 
was  considering  a  plan  of  action  and  did 
not  mean  to  speak  prematurely.  I  was 
uncomfortable — Rodney  Teele  in  the  act 
of  decision  was,  even  to  an  outsider,  an 
impressive  figure.  I  felt,  besides,  as  if  I 
were  looking  through  a  keyhole;  such 
intensity,  impenetrable  though  it  was,  he 
must  usually  have  reserved,  instinctively, 
for  moments  of  solitude.  I  wanted  des- 
perately to  run;  yet  I  did  not  want  to 
break  in  upon  that  tremendous  concen- 
tration by  defmitcly  lea\'ing  the  room. 

He  spoke,  in  a  moment,  with  chill 
sharpness — still  looking  at  the  card.  He 
did  not  even  glance  at  the  servant. 

"How  does  it  happen  that  a  card  like 
this  is  brought  to  me?  Flodden  knows 
perfectly  well  that  I  never  see  any  one  ex- 
cept by  aj^pointment." 

The  man  was  nerxous,  1  could  see,  and 
I  turned  to  gaze  at  the  Rembrandt.  Jhil 
though  I  could  be  blind,  T  could  not  be 
deaf,  to  what  passed. 

"Flodden  is  out,  sir,  and  Dempsey  at 
the  door  is  new,  and  Mr.  Standish  has 


left  for  the  night,  and  Dempsey  didn't 
quite  venture,  sir,  he  said,  to — "  The 
voice  died  away  in  a  genuine  stammer. 
Clearly,  there  had  been  magic  in  the  card. 

"I  see  that  I  am  served  by  a  pack  of 
fools."  The  voice  was  very  quiet;  quiet 
enough  to  match  the  impassive  pagan 
face  that  got  so  vividly  (stare  as  I  would 
at  the  masteq^iece)  between  me  and  the 
Rembrandt. 

Then  I  heard  a  sharp  intake  of  the 
breath.  "Mr.  Souther  I"  I  faced  about. 
The  master's  back  was  turned,  now,  to 
the  servant,  and  the  man  was  surrepti- 
tiously drawing  the  back  of  his  hand  across 
his  forehead.  I  saw  the  gesture  vaguely 
over  his  master's  shoulder. 

I  hurried  forward.  "I  am  sorrj'  to 
have  been  an  interruption.  Good  night, 
Mr.  Teele."  I  wanted,  unlimitedly,  to 
dissociate  myself,  once  and  for  all,  from 
Rodney  Teele's  affairs. 

"Wait!"  He  lifted  a  i)eremptor}'  fin- 
ger. Apparently  his  decision  was  taken, 
and  I  saw  at  once,  to  my  extreme  dis- 
gust, that  he  had  involved  me  in  it.  No 
one,  it  seemed  to  me,  could  ever  have 
wanted  to  be  with  Rodney  Teele  more 
than  half  an  hour.  Humanly  speaking, 
it  was  a  strain.  And  he  had  not  even  of- 
fered me  a  cigar — damn  his  dictatorial 
eyes!  So,  confusedly,  reflected  the  sen- 
sitive young  cub  that  I  was  then. 

He  looked  at  me  keenly — his  pur|:)ose,  I 
was  sure,  perfectly  formed.  "Will  you 
be  so  good  as  to  be  present  at  an  inter- 
view I  have  just  decided  to  grant  to  this 
person?  I  should  be  glad  of  a  witness, 
and  my  secretary  is  spending  the  night 
with  his  mother  before  sailing  with  me 
to-morrow." 

1  looked  at  the  card,  held  negligently 
under  my  nose  by  Rodney  Teele's  strong 
hand.  "Mr.  Rodney  Teele,  Jr.,"  was  en- 
graved on  it.  Only  the  "  Mr."  was  crossed 
out  in  pencil,  and  "Mrs."  written  in 
above. 

Every  instinct  in  me  cried  out  "No!" 
If  there  has  to  be  a  fight,  I  like  a  sporting 
|)rop()siti()n,  and  the  handicap  against 
the  woman  whatever  she  was — was  too 
great.  I  don't  think  there  was  one  atom 
of  curiosity  in  me  concerning  the  e\ent 
that  was  about  to  take  place;  curit)sity  is 
of  comedy,  and  this  was  not  comedy. 
But  to  stay  seemed  to  be,  in  default  of 


698 


The  Dominant  Strain 


real  knowledge,  my  best  guess  at  the 
way  to  hack  young  Rodney.  ''  I'll  stay," 
1  said  at  last,  rather  thickly. 

"Thank  you."  Then  he  turned  to  the 
man.  ''You  may  show  her  up  here.  Is 
she  alone?" 

''Yes,  sir." 

"Bring  her  up  at  once."  He  tore  the 
card  carefully  in  two  and  dropped  it  into 
the  waste-basket.  To  me,  in  the  few 
minutes  that  went  to  the  servant's  de- 
scending and  convoying  his  charge  back  to 
the  library,  he  said  nothing.  We  waited 
in  silence,  each  staring  at  whatever  spot 
on  the  book-lined  wall  was  most  conve- 
nient. I  stole  one  look  at  him.  His  nar- 
rowed eyes  seemed  to  slant  slightly  upward 
at  the  corners,  and  his  thin  gray  mous- 
tache had  precisely  the  vertical  droop  of 
a  high  Chinese  official's.  He  was  more 
than  ever  like  a  mandarin  with  whom 
one  can  exchange  only  Ollendorffian  ideas, 
germane  to  the  philosophy  of  neither. 

At  last  we  heard  steps,  and  both  of  us, 
with  a  common  impulse,  faced  the  door. 
We  must  have  looked  like  allies  at  bay. 
The  footman  did  not  announce  the  visitor 
in  the  usual  way.  He  said  only,  ''Here 
she  is,  sir!"  and  fled,  decorously  but  defi- 
nitely— hot-foot,  no  doubt,  for  the  serv- 
ants' hall.  I  moved  over  and  closed  the 
great  mahogany  door.  Rodney  Teele  had 
given  me  no  sign,  but  in  some  way  his 
wishes  had  been  communicated  to  me. 
Unless  you  gave  yourself  time  to  think, 
you  would  always,  I  fancy,  have  taken  or- 
ders from  Rodney  Teele.  I  was  annoyed, 
the  instant  I  had  done  it :  I  was  no  lacquey 
to  forestall  his  desires.  Then  I  came  back 
to  the  situation. 

There  was  no  formal  introduction. 
Rodney  Teele  mentioned  my  name  to  his 
son's  wife — absently,  I  should  say,  except 
that  he  never  gave  the  impression  of 
doing  anything  absently.  He  motioned 
her  to  a  chair — almost  imperceptibly — 
but  she  paid  no  attention  to  the  gesture. 
He  sat  down,  himself,  then,  in  his  own 
desk-chair,  and  faced  the  two  of  us  who 
stood  on  the  other  side  of  the  table. 
Young  Mrs.  Teele  had  not  even  looked  at 
me  when  my  name  was  spoken;  she  had 
merely  shrugged  one  shoulder  slightly  in 
my  direction,  as  if  the  name  of  a  mi- 
nor annoyance  like  me  did  not  matter. 
Treated  so  cavalierly,  I  found  myself  at 


liberty  to  be  curious.  Rodney  Teele  sat 
erect,  as  if  in  the  judgment-seat — his 
yellow-white  face,  with  the  light  full  on 
it,  emerging  from  vague  vast  backgrounds 
of  shadow.  The  woman,  ignoring  me  ut- 
terly, stood  facing  him.  For  the  mo- 
ment I  was  free. 

I  knew,  in  an  instant,  that  I  should 
never  understand  why  Rodney  Teele, 
against  such  odds,  had  chosen  her.  "This 
is  what  it  took  to  move  young  Rodney; 
this  was  his  chance,"  my  brain  said  with 
slow  irony.  In  profile,  under  an  ugly  hat, 
her  face  did  not,  of  course,  have  fair  play; 
but,  even  so,  it  was  not  the  profile  of  a 
beauty.  Her  figure  was  good,  as  most 
young  American  figures  are  good;  but 
there  was  nothing  extraordinary  in  pos- 
ture, line,  or  carriage.  Her  eyes  I  could 
not  see.  More  than  ever,  it  seemed  a 
mad  adventure  of  young  Rod's — and  not 
so  much  mad,  even,  as  outrageously  un- 
necessary. But  of  course  I  did  not  know 
— never  should  know — what  had  flung 
them  together,  or  what  blinding  magic 
there  had  been  in  circumstance.  Some- 
times a  man  loves  a  woman  for  the  place 
or  the  hour  he  has  found  her  in.  I  was 
hideously  uncomfortable — I  had  expected 
that  she  would  have  beauty,  at  least,  to 
back  her.  Something  in  me  said:  "  Make 
the  most  of  your  bad  moment;  analyze  this 
miracle,  if  you  can."  But,  most  emphat- 
ically, I  could  not. 

All  this  was  a  matter  of  only  a  few  sec- 
onds to  my  quickened  senses,  my  eager, 
tiptoe  mind.     Then  I  heard  her  speaking. 

"I  wasn't  sure  you'd  see  me.  But  I 
saw  you  were  going  to  Europe  to-morrow, 
and  I  risked  everything." 

The  balances  of  judgment  that  I  con- 
sidered I  was  holding  swayed  percepti- 
bly. The  voice  was  good — perhaps  a 
shade  too  powerful,  too  full  of  emotional 
possibilities,  for  our  conventional  code, 
but  undeniably  an  asset.  Still:  to  throw 
away  that  chance  in  life  for  a  voice — es- 
pecially when  it  gave  no  positive  guar- 
antee of  being  the  voice  of  a  lady  .  .  .  Her 
English,  as  you  will  see,  was  well  enough; 
but  her  intonations  were  not  those  of  the 
privileged.  I  may  as  well  record  that 
fact  now. 

"It  was  a  sudden  decision  to  see  you. 
My  first,  perhaps  I  should  say  my  better, 
judgment,  suggested  that  I  should  most 


The  Dominant  Strain 


699 


emphatically  refuse.  I  hope  you  will 
justify  my  decision  by  being  brief.  What 
is  your  business  with  me?" 

''I  am  Rodney's  wife." 

"That  does  not  constitute  business 
with  me." 

"My  husband  is  your  son,  then." 

"Did  he  send  you  to  me?" 

"He  did  not.  He  is  as  proud  as  the 
devil." 

Rodney  Teele's  left  eyebrow  mounted. 
He  did  not  look  at  me,  but  I  felt,  none  the 
less,  his  dry  triumph  at  seeing  me  find  her 
taste  questionable. 

"Then  certainly  you  have  no  business 
with  me.  Suppose  we  terminate  this  quite 
useless  interview  now."  There  was  a 
slight  emphasis  on  the  last  word. 

"  I  thought  you  ought  to  know  that  your 
son  is  not  well  and  is  very  poor." 

"If  he  is  poor,  it  is  his  own  deliberate 
choice  that  has  made  him  so.  He  had  a 
good  salary  when  he  was  in  my  employ.  I 
need  not  speak  of  what  his  prospects 
were,  for  I  dare  say  you  considered  that 
before  you  married  him." 

"I  considered  nothing." 

"Then  you  were  very  foolish.  I  am 
quite  sure  that  my  son  did  not  lure 
you  into  marrying  him  with  promises  of 
wealth.  He,  at  least,  has  never  sug- 
gested that  I  should  turn  my  stewardship 
to  uses  that  I  do  not  approve  of.  I  think 
you  are  courageous — to  use  a  mild  word 
— to  ask  me  for  money  when  my  son 
feels  it  impossible  to  do  so  himself.  I 
think  you  are  not  very  proud  to  beg  when 
my  son  will  not  beg." 

"I  am  too  proud  to  beg  of  any  one  but 
you.  I  am  much  too  proud  to  beg  of  you 
for  myself." 

"Are  you  suggesting  that  you  would 
take  a  price  for  freeing  him?  Let  me  say 
at  once  that  I  believe  the  marriage-tie  to 
be  a  thing  instituted  of  God.  Since  my 
son  has  chosen  you,  if  you  are  faithful  to 
him,  I  should  consider  him  as  much  dis- 
graced by  divorce  as  he  was  by  his 
marriage." 

The  ivory-white  features  stirred  only 
so  much  as  speech  necessitated.  All  the 
time  his  narrowed  eyes  searched  her  face. 
She  was  very  game,  at  least. 

"Even  you  couldn't  part  us."  Her 
voice  sank  to  a  thrillingly  harsh  note. 
"And   1   tell   you    1   am    not  asking  for 


myself.  I  can  go  to  the  hosi)ital  when 
my  time  comes."  There  was  the  faintest 
contraction  of  Rodney  Teele's  thin  lips; 
but  his  face  remained  impenetrable  as 
ever.  "All  I  ask  of  you  is  to  keep  Rod- 
ney going  till  he  can  get  a  start.  He  had 
no  money  when  he  married  me  except 
what  was  in  his  pocket.  He's  got  no  for- 
tune of  his  own,  as  you  very  well  know, 
and  I  guess  he  always  lived  up  to  that 
magnificent  salary'  you  tell  about.  And, 
cast  oil  as  he  is,  he'll  never  go  to  any  of 
his  friends  for  help.  What  do  you  sup- 
pose Rodney  Teele,  Junior,  can  do  in  New 
York  with  you  and  his  own  pride  both 
against  him?  You  didn't  train  him  to 
work  with  his  hands,  did  you?  He's 
taken  what  he  could  get,  but  it'll  kill  him 
in  time.  Do  you  think  your  only  son 
is  such  a  poor  proposition  that  you  can't 
put  a  little  of  your  money  into  him — 
even  if  he  didn't  marry  the  girl  you 
picked  out  for  him?  You  can  send  him 
out  W^est.  Suppose  you  don't  like  me: 
he's  your  son,  isn't  he?  And  his  child 
will  be  your  grandchild,  no  matter  who 
his  mother  is." 

She  stopped,  and,  putting  her  hands  on 
the  table,  leaned  forward  across  it.  "  You 
can't  get  away  from  that  I" 

Things  were  going  very  badly.  I 
wished  myself  away,  so  helpless  I  felt. 
But  her  voice — the  rich  and  complex  or- 
gan that  she  could  command — was  a 
miracle.  I  wondered  if  it  could  have 
been  the  voice.  .  .  . 

Rodney  Teele  brought  his  hand  down 
on  the  table.  The  gesture  was  very 
quiet,  but  I  felt  that,  metaphorically 
s[)eaking,  the  imperial  thumb  had  been 
turned  down. 

"Two  facts  should,  I  think,  be  called  to 
your  attention,  madam.  One  is  that  I 
can  respond  to  no  appeals  made  to  me  by 
any  other  person  than  my  son  himself. 
The  other  is  that  your  child  is  of  no  im- 
portance to  me."  Again  the  slight  em- 
phasis— this  time  on  "your." 

I  have  ne\er,  before  or  since,  had  to 
stand  by  and  listen  to  the  si)eaking  of 
such  brutal  things;  yet  Rodney  Teele, 
saying  them  in  his  soft,  slightly  nasal 
voice,  (lid  not  sound  so  brutal  as  he  is  writ- 
ten down.  The  complete  detachment  of 
his  tone  saved  him — perhaps  her — tosome 
extent.     He  might  have  been  a  consulted 


7(X) 


The  Dominant  Strain 


oracle,  giving  forth  discouraging  informa- 
tion about  Rodney  Teele,  Senior.  Even 
so,  I  could  not  blame  her  for  flashing  back 
her  answer  at  him  with  some  shrillness. 
She  had  caught  his  emphasis  on  the  pro- 
noun. 

•'My  child?  And  why  not  my  child? 
I  was  an  honest  girl  w^hen  your  son  mar- 
ried me.  I  am  an  honest  woman  now. 
I  simply  tell  you  your  Christian  duty.  I 
am  no  Christian  myself;  but  I  don't 
believe  they'd  stand  for  your  kind  of 
charity." 

Rodney  Teele  took  up  his  paper-cutter 
and  held  it  lightly  betw^een  the  middle  fin- 
gers of  his  two  hands. 

''I  am  not  accusing  you  of  not  being 
'honest,'  as  you  use  the  word.  What  I 
mean  is  this,  woman!  The  Teeles  breed 
for  virtues  they  have  proved.  They 
breed  from  a  stock  they  can  count  on. 
If  God  has  given  me  power  in  the  land, 
the  less  reason  why  I  should  pass  it  on 
to  people  who  are  not  my  people  nor  their 
God  my  God.  I  have  nothing  against 
you;  but  you  were  not  the  wife  for  a 
Teele,  or  the  mother  for  Teeles.  My 
son  told  me  of  his  marriage  the  day  it 
w^as  accomplished.  He  told  me  who  you 
were  and  whence  you  came.  If  he  had 
had  any  effective  arguments  to  reconcile 
me  to  it,  he  would  have  produced  them 
then.  If  he  had  felt  that  circumstances 
were  now  such  as  to  justify  his  approach- 
ing me,  he  would  have  approached  me 
himself.  I  trust  far  more  to  my  son's 
conscience  than  to  yours.  I  do  not  say 
how  I  should  meet  any  approach  from 
him;  but,  in  any  case,  I  meet  none  that 
is  not  entirely  his  own.  My  son  is  si- 
lent; and  certainly  while  he  is  silent  you 
babble  in  vain.  As  for  my  fortune,  rather 
than  hand  it  down  to  generations  that  I 
can  never  be  sure  of,  it  shall  go  back  to 
God."  There  was  no  passion  in  his  tone 
— only  a  great  gravity  that  harshened  his 
soft  voice  slightly. 

The  woman  turned  away  from  him, 
and  for  the  first  time — though  even  then 
she  did  not  look  at  me — I  saw  her  face. 
Her  language  had  been  that  of  the  native- 
born — no  trace  of  foreign  accent.  But  the 
voice  ran  through  a  gamut  of  emotion  that 
the  pure  American  stock  does  not  easily 
come  by.  And  when  I  saw  her  face  clear- 
ly, for  a  few  seconds,  under  the  lamplight, 


I  found  in  it,  too,  something  haunting  and 
foreign — something  like  the  mingled  cru- 
dity and  suggestiveness  of  a  folk-song.  I 
had  no  time  to  follow  the  clue,  passion- 
ately concerned  though  I  was  to  discover 
why  she  had  so  moved  young  Rodney. 
She  turned  back,  while  I  was  still  discreetly 
searching  her  face,  to  Rodney  Teele. 

''You  talk  of  God — you?  God  is  sup- 
posed to  be  good,  isn't  he?  Why,  there 
isn't  a  man,  woman,  or  child  in  the  whole 
country  that  doesn't  know  how  you  got 
rich,  and  despise  you  for  it!"  Her  voice 
was  the  very  poetry  of  scorn.  She  was 
lyric,  while  old  Rodney  was  detached ;  and 
escaped  her  own  brutality  as  he  did  his. 
He  did  not  seem  revengeful,  or  she  brazen. 
Painful,  ugly,  as  the  scene  had  been,  even 
I,  the  witness,  did  not  feel  besmirched. 
She  had  strength,  that  girl,  if  she  had  no 
other  virtue  on  earth.  I  could  not  hon- 
estly call  her  dark  impressiveness  beauty, 
or  mistake  her  self-possession  for  breed- 
ing; but  she  was  not  simply  a  common 
creature. 

Then  I  heard  her  take  her  farewell  of 
Rodney  Teele.  "I  don't  know  what  you 
mean  by  the  glorious  Teele  stock.  If 
your  son's  child  has  an  honest,  healthy 
mother,  I  don't  see  why  the  Lord  you  seem 
to  know  so  much  about  should  ask  for 
more.  But  I  can't  talk  Scripture,  I'm 
thankful  to  say!  It's  for  me  to  worry,  I 
guess,  when  my  child  will  have  a  grand- 
father like  you." 

She  moved  to  the  door.  Rodney  Teele 
rose,  and  rang  the  bell  for  the  man  to 
reconduct  her.  He  did  not  answer  her,  or 
bid  her  good-evening.  Apparently  nei- 
ther would  carry  irony  to  the  point  of 
a  conventional  parting.  As  I  heard  the 
servant's  footsteps  approaching,  I  spoke 
to  her.  "Will  you  give  my  love  to  Rod- 
ney?" She  just  glanced  at  me,  and 
shrugged  her  shoulders,  as  if  I  had  merely 
made  some  kind  of  inarticulate  noise. 
She  did  not  pretend  to  reply.  Without 
one  backward  glance,  she  left  the  room; 
and  the  man  closed  the  door  behind  them. 

While  their  footsteps  grew  fainter,  I 
had  a  moment  of  acute  meditation,  my 
eyes  fixed  on  the  ground.  When  I  looked 
up,  Rodney  Teele  was  standing  at  the  far 
end  of  the  room  by  a  window,  his  back 
turned  to  me.  If  I  had  been  perplexed  as 
to  how  to  get  out  of  that  terrible  library  a 


The  Dominant  Strain 


701 


quarter  of  an  hour  before,  I  was  per- 
plexed now  tenfold.  But  before  I  could 
think  how  to  say  ''Good  night,"  I  saw 
that  I  was  to  be  spared  the  trouble  of  say- 
ing it  at  all.  Rodney  Teele  was  not 
thinking  of  me:  doubtless  he  believed  that 
I  had  gone.  One  arm  flung  out  hori- 
zontally, he  was  speaking  to  himself.  I 
moved  softly  to  the  door.  The  words 
came  clearly  from  that  distant  figure,  its 
oblivious  back  turned  to  me.  "But  as 
for  me  and  my  house,  we  will  serve  the 
Lord."  Then  he  dropped  to  his  knees 
and  was  silent.  In  two  minutes  I  was 
breasting  the  cool  evening  wind  of  the 
upper  Avenue.  I  had  encountered  no 
servants,  and  had  let  myself  out. 

Young  Rodney  Teele  died  of  pneu- 
monia while  his  father  was  in  Carlsbad. 
There  was  only  the  stark  notice  of  the 
death  in  the  papers — no  hint  of  an  ad- 
dress, no  mention  of  the  funeral:  ''Died, 
on ,  in  New  York  City,  of  pneu- 
monia, Rodney  Teele,  Jr."  I  got  just 
that  and  no  more  from  our  loquacious 
press;  and  it  crossed  my  mind  that  the 
widow  had  shown  herself  almost  a  Teele 
by  refusing  —  as  she  must  have  done — • 
to  be  interviewed.  Rodney  Teele,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  ocean,  was  equally  taci- 
turn. Now  and  then,  in  the  months  after 
he  had  returned,  I  heard  a  man  say  fur- 
tively that  old  Rodney  looked  done  up. 
But  as  he  had  no  social  existence,  most 
reports  of  the  sort  came  from  Wall  Street; 
and  his  untempered  despotism  in  the 
world  of  high  finance  robbed  those  chance 
hints  of  their  significance.  He  was  more 
colossal,  more  hated,  and  more  fawned  on, 
than  he  had  ever  been.  The  Lord,  as  he 
would  surely  have  said,  continued  to  bless 
his  efforts.  At  the  same  time  his  chari- 
ties became  more  overwhelming,  more 
cosmic,  than  ever.  He  was  the  acknowl- 
edged treasury  for  promoters  of  all  the 
most  up-to-date  and  scientific  reforms — 
the  modern  softness  again,  eating  through 
the  patriarchal  fi})re.  He  grew  also  more 
passionately  religious,  after  his  own  queer 
kind.  He  seemed  to  me  more  than  ever 
(for  I  occasionally  saw  him  in  his  own 
house)  to  be  in  per|)etual  connection,  by 
long-distance  telephone,  with  his  Maker. 
I  do  not  speak  flii)j)antly:  it  is  many  years 
since  there  has  been  t1ipj)ancy  in  any  one 
of  my  many  attitudes  to  Rodney  'I'eele.    L 


am  merely  trying  to  express  the  curious 
alliance  in  his  manner  between  the  mystic- 
al Dissenter  and  the  financier  sitting  at  the 
heart  of  an  impressive  modern  machinery. 
Meanwhile  the  eugenists,  the  social  re- 
formers, the  settlement  workers,  the  cho- 
sen missionary  societies,  were  gorged,  and 
wiped  the  fatness  of  his  wealth  from  their 
lips.  Suffragists,  I  belie\'e,  were  always 
turned  away  before  they  got  within  the 
outer  fringe  of  secretaries.  He  had  hated 
one  woman  too  much. 

I  say  that  I  saw  Rodney  Teele  occa- 
sionally. He  sent  for  me  now  and  then, 
and  1  dined  with  him  alone  in  that 
empty  house — singularly  empty,  because 
it  seemed  to  have  no  hope,  no  future. 
We  were,  he  and  I  and  the  servants,  like 
the  dwindling  population  of  a  citadel: 
safe  while  we  lasted,  but  never  to  be  rein- 
forced or  rescued.  It  was  depressing; 
and  yet  I  felt  that  I  owed  it  to  him  to  sit 
opposite  him,  once  every  six  months  or 
so,  and  eat  his  imperial  fare  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  melancholy  thoughts.  We 
never  discussed  the  scene  of  which  I  had 
been  a  witness;  we  never  mentioned  his 
dead  son.  If  Rodney  had  been  living,  I 
could  not  have  gone  there;  but  I  had  the 
sense,  if  not  of  serving  young  Rodney,  at 
least  of  doing  him  no  disservice.  Whether 
Rodney  Teele  had  ever  had  further  com- 
munication with  his  daughter-in-law,  I, 
of  course,  did  not  know.  Nothing  was 
ever  heard  of  her — which  might  cut  in 
either  direction.  That  I  was  tacitly  on 
the  side  of  young  Rodney  and  whatever 
belonged  to  him  I  am  sure  the  old  man 
knew;  but  he  did  not  resent  it.  I  some- 
times wondered  if  that  were  not  his  only 
reason  for  keeping  hold  of  me.  I  never 
quite  believed  that,  however.  I  think  his 
impulse  was,  rather,  not  to  lose  sight  of 
an  individual  who  possessed  intimate  in- 
formation of  the  sort  that  I  had  packed 
away.  I  should  have  been  quite  willing 
to  tell  old  Rodney  the  truth:  that  I  had 
sought— and  sought  fruitlessly — foryoung 
Rodney's  widt)w,  as  1  had  sought  for  Rod- 
ney himself  before  hi§  death.  Their  ob- 
scurity was  one  of  the  cleverest  and  most 
difiicult  things  I  have  ever  known  fate, 
assisted  or  unassisted,  to  achieve.  I  fan- 
cied they  had  been  lost  in  some  outlying 
slum  or  suburb,  perhaj)s  untler  another 
name.     In  any  case,  1  knew  less  than 


702 


The   Dominant  Strain 


n(nh^^,^.  If  R(xlney  Tcelc  knew  any- 
thing, he  kej)!  it  to  himself. 

The  pretext  for  his  occasional  invita- 
tions— there  was  always  a  pretext,  as  if  to 
guard  against  my  assuming  that  far-off 
event  to  be  fresh  in  his  memory — was 
usually  architectural  discussion.  I  was 
beginning  to  work  hard,  but  I  was  near 
enough  to  the  bottom  for  it  to  be  out  of 
the  question  that  Rodney  Teele  should 
consult  me  professionally.  He  liked  to 
talk  about  the  plans  of  the  various  build- 
ings that  he  endowed — informally,  as  he 
would  have  talked  to  a  friend.  I  do  not 
think  he  ever  asked  me  a  technical  ques- 
tion, or  in  any  sense  gave  away  his  own 
architects.  But  we  discussed  the  ex- 
teriors of  hospitals  and  settlements  and 
missionary  cffices — all  that  generation  of 
edifices  brought  into  being  by  Rodney 
Teele's  wealth  during  the  last  years  of  his 
life.  On  one  occasion  he  asked  me  to 
go  w^ith  him  while  he  inspected  a  newly 
opened  and  most  scientific  orphanage.  He 
used  to  walk  quietly  in,  of  an  afternoon, 
to  some  institution  he  had  backed,  chat 
mildly  with  the  authorities,  do  a  little 
casual  inspecting  with  the  air  of  a  sight- 
seer, and  walk  out  again — keeping,  all 
the  time,  his  thoughts  to  himself.  Such 
visits  were  duly  recorded  in  the  press,  of 
course;  but  they  were  externally  as  little 
as  possible  like  an  official  progress.  I 
was  often  his  sole  body-guard,  and  I 
know. 

''The  orphanage? "  I  answered,  in  reply 
to  his  suggestion.  ''Oh,  yes,  I  should 
like  to  see  it.  But  I  wonder,  sir,  that 
orphans  should  be  in  your  line." 

The  allusion  was  not  so  sharp  as  it 
sounds,  for  we  had  often  discussed  scien- 
tific philanthropy,  and  I  knew  some  of  his 


curious  views 


We  must  remember,"  said  Rodney 
Teele  in  his  soft  voice,  fainter  and  slightly 
more  nasal  than  of  old,  "that  the  laws  of 
heredity  are  becoming  fixed  for  us.  We 
know  that  a  certain  proportion  of  the  off- 
spring, even  with  a  bad  strain  in  one  of 
the  parents,  can  be  saved.  The  charter 
of  the  asylum  provides  that  they  can  re- 
ceive no  children  both  of  whose  parents 
are  undesirable.  The  eugenic  specialists 
are  finding  the  institution  a  fruitful  field 
for  research.  I  may  say  that  it  will  be  a 
great  help  to  the  proper  testing  of  the 


Mendelian  law  for  human  subjects."  He 
smoothed  his  glove  as  we  passed  down  the 
steps  of  his  grim  mansion.  "And  I  have 
a  great  deal  of  money,"  he  added  ir- 
relevantly. 

No  one,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  seen 
Rodney  Teele  in  what  could  be  called  a 
"human"  mood.  He  was  not  as  other 
men;  and  his  geniality  was  no  more  de- 
ceiving than  the  mask  the  Chinese  actor 
puts  on  in  sight  of  the  audience.  More 
than  ever,  that  afternoon,  as  we  rolled 
through  the  crowded  streets  in  the  barri- 
caded hush  of  his  limousine,  I  felt  the  iso- 
lation of  this  man.  I  wondered  privately 
if  he  kept  his  amenities,  like  his  confi- 
dences, for  God.  Not  the  greatest  expert 
of  them  all  had  ever  been  introduced,  I 
believe,  to  Rodney's  Teele's  philosophy 
of  life;  and  to  no  one,  I  judged,  had  he 
disclosed  the  complete  design  of  his  phi- 
lanthropy. They  were  all  blind  benefici- 
aries. I,  certainly,  was  as  bewildered  as 
any  one;  only  I  got  no  pleasure  out  of  the 
contemplation  of  Rodney  Teele.  It  did 
not  flatter  any  secret  democratic  taint  in 
me  to  see  him  walk  up  the  steps  of  the 
main  building  of  the  asylum  just  as  an- 
other man  would  have  done.  Yet  I  could 
not  refuse  him  the  little  things  he  asked 
me. 

This  afternoon  the  superintendent  was 
absent.  It  was  hard  on  the  superintendent, 
I  thought  privately.  He  would  so  have 
liked  that  brief  chat  in  his  own  office  with 
the  great  man — that  nervous  chat  in  which 
nothing  sincere  or  significant  could  pos- 
sibly be  brought  out.  An  assistant  prof- 
fered the  card-catalogue  as  an  object  of 
interest;  but  Rodney  Teele  waved  him 
away. 

"I  should  like  to  see  some  of  the  chil- 
dren— if  they  are  not  in  school." 

The  head  matron  was  summoned.  For 
the  little  ones,  it  was  the  hour  of  recrea- 
tion before  supper.  So  we  walked  towards 
the  scientific  playground  where  earnest 
young  women  taught  the  little  creatures 
the  scientific  way  to  play.  The  place  was 
as  clean  as  a  hospital;  elaborately  subdi- 
vided, an  intricate  bare  labyrinth  of  the 
most  modern  description.  I  was  not  un- 
interested in  the  plans  of  the  vast  place; 
but  it  was  only  one  of  a  thousand  details 
in  Rodney's  Teele's  past,  and  he  pushed 
on  towards  the  playground,  barely  nod- 


The  Dominant  Strain 


•03 


ding  at  the  matron's  occasional  outburst 
of  rapture  over  arrangements  for  sanita- 
tion or  comfort. 

Presently  we  faced  a  crowd  of  fifty  little 
creatures  in  a  broad,  sanded  enclosure. 
The  two  young  play-assistants  scanned 
our  group  of  three,  whispered  to  each 
other,  and  went  on  ostentatiously  guid- 
ing the  games.  The  children  seemed  to 
be  fearless,  which  comforted  me.  I  do 
not  like  orphan  asylums.  They  ran  up, 
by  twos  and  threes,  to  inspect  us  and 
smile  at  the  head  matron.  They  were 
always  herded  back  into  their  games  with 
elaborate  gentleness  by  the  play-assist- 
ants. 

Rodney  Teele  stood  on  the  lowest  of 
the  steps  that  led  down  into  the  play- 
ground, and  folded  his  hands  on  his  stick. 
He  stared  for  a  moment  non-committally 
before  him,  over  the  heads  of  the  chil- 
dren— a  party-colored  group.  It  was  one 
of  the  new  departures  of  this  gilded  insti- 
tution that  the  children  were  not  dressed 
alike.  A  little  boy  of  three  or  four  ran 
up  to  the  matron  to  show  her  a  toy  pail. 
I  should  not  have  noticed  the  child  except 
for  the  sudden  flush  that  came  over  the 
woman's  homely  and  dignified  face.  She 
beckoned  one  of  the  young  women,  whis- 
pered to  her,  and  gave  the  boy  into  her 
charge,  pointing  to  a  distant  sand-pile. 

Just  then  Rodney  Teele  turned  and 
saw  the  group.  Perhaps  he  thought  it 
time  for  another  manipulation  of  the  mask. 
At  all  events,  he  asked  a  question.  "  What 
is  this  little  boy's  name?" 

The  play-assistant  answered  promptly. 
"  Teddy,  sir.  Come,  Teddy,  don't  bother 
the  gentleman."  And  she  was  for  has- 
tening him  off. 

But  the  child  clung  for  a  moment  to 
the  voluminous  gray  skirts  of  the  matron 
and  spoke  shrilly. 

"It  isn't!  It's  Rodney  Teele,  Third. 
My  mother  told  me  so." 

The  matron  rocked  nervously  where 
she  stood.  "  It's  known  as  'Teddy  Rouse ' 
in  the  card-catalogue,  sir."  Her  face  had 
turned  from  red  to  pale.  ''  Hut  he  was 
two  years  old  when  his  mother  died:  we 
don't  know  what  crazy  things  she  may  have 
said  to  him.  Their  parents  come  near  l^e- 
ing  the  ruin  of  us  if  they  live  too  long. 
'Teddy  Rouse'  it  is,  and  Airs.  Rouse  llu-y 
say  she  was  called.     She  must  ha\  e  had 


her  marriage  certificate,  or  he  wouldn't 
have  been  admitted.  These  things  are 
all  done  perfectly  right  at  the  Home,  as 
the  superintendent  could  tell  you  if  he 
was  here.  Teddy,  go  and  play  with  Miss 
Bamberg." 

And  the  child  went,  but  not  before  I  had 
had  one  sufficient  look  at  him.  The  re- 
semblance to  young  Rodney's  wife  was 
unmistakable:  he  had  the  same  features, 
stamped,  too,  with  the  haunting,  foreign 
look  I  had  noticed  that  evening  in  old 
Rodney  Teele's  library.  "Recessive  to 
the  dominant  Teeles,"  I  muttered  to  my- 
self. Certainly,  the  child  had  no  look  of 
my  classmate,  and  still  less  of  that  man- 
darin in  ivory  who  stood  at  this  moment 
beside  me. 

Rodney  Teele  said  nothing.  He  raised 
his  hand  to  check  the  flow  of  the  matron's 
apology:  she  stopped  in  the  middle  of  a 
word.  He  did  not  glance  after  the  re- 
treating child;  but  I  knew  he  had  seen  as 
well  as  I.  If  ten  seconds  had  sufficed  to 
me,  they  would  have  been  more  than 
enough  for  Rodney  Teele.  He  turned  his 
back  on  the  playground  and  strode  stiff- 
ly into  the  building.  The  superintend- 
ent had  not  returned  when  we  reached 
the  ofBce,  and  we  waited  there  only  five 
minutes,  while  Mr.  Teele  talked  with  the 
assistant  about  some  new  Montessori  out- 
fits. The  matron  hovered  limply  in  the 
background,  and  followed  us  to  the  door. 
Not  a  word  was  spoken  about  Teddy 
Rouse. 

I  need  not  have  dreaded  the  drive 
home.  It  was  my  fate  to  enter  into  Rod- 
ney Teele's  life  at  strange  and  crucial 
moments,  and  to  emerge  from  them  with 
no  increased  sense  of  fellowshij)  with  him. 
He  always  ignored  immediately  what  we 
had  just  been  through  together,  and  the 
only  proof  I  had  of  his  remembering  those 
hours  was  that  he  did  not  cjuito  forget  my 
existence.  On  this  occasion,  as  well,  no 
reference  was  made  to  the  child  we  had 
seen.  The  only  difierence  it  had  made 
was  to  bring  to  Rcxiney  Teele's  face  the 
least  [)erfunctt)ry  smile  I  had  ever  seen 
there — the  smile  of  a  man  who  has  jus- 
tified his  ways.  Without  a  lead  from 
him,  I  could  not  speak;  and  we  drove 
home  uncommunicatively,  e\ce])t  for  that 
sprakiiig  smile.  He  dropped  me,  courti- 
ously,   at   my   own   club,   and   went   on. 


7(H 


The  Dominant  Strain 


Through  the  window  of  the  limousine,  as 
the  car  turned,  I  could  see  his  extraor- 
dinary face  still  mildly  glowing.  He 
never  sent  for  me,  after  that,  and  I  never 
saw  him  again. 

It  was  a  year  after  our  visit  to  the  or- 
phan asylum  that  Rodney  Teele  died. 
His  will  was  published  in  the  papers,  to 
the  last  inch  of  its  great  length.  That 
stupendous  storm  of  bequests  broke  over 
a  stunned  world,  excluding  for  a  day  every 
other  excitement.  There  was  so  much 
money!  Even  Rodney  Teele  must  have 
had  hard  work  to  dispose  of  it;  but  he  had 
evidently  toiled  gallantly  at  his  Hercu- 
lean task.  He  had  at  least  kept  his  ac- 
count with  his  Maker  on  an  imperial 
scale.  Again  I  w^as  haunted  by  a  sense 
of  partnership — as  if  Rodney  Teele  had 
been  the  terrestrial  member  of  the  firm. 
But  I  kept  my  cynical  reflections  to  my- 
self. The  date  of  the  wdll  lay  somewhere 
betw^een  young  Rodney's  marriage  and  the 
journey  to  Carlsbad,  though  there  were 
plenty  of  charitable  codicils  since  that  date. 
Some  of  his  financial  associates  were  re- 
membered, as  well  as  outlying  Teeles  in 
obscure  corners  of  the  country.  The  usu- 
al things  were  done  for  servants.  There 
w^as  no  mention  of  Teddy  Rouse. 

I  peered  into  the  future,  wondering 
vaguely  if  I  should  ever  be  in  a  position 
to  do  anything  for  little  Rodney  Teele, 
Third.  I  hoped  I  should.  But  at  the 
moment  I  could  not  afford  to  remove  him 
from  the  institution  where  he  was;  and 
a  brief  interview  with  Rodney  Teele's  law- 
yer showed  me  that,  in  the  circumstances, 
Rodney  Teele's  will  could  not  be  assailed 
for  the  child's  benefit.  There  had  been  a 
sealed  letter  to  his  lawyers  especially  pro- 
viding for  that  remote  contingency.  Rod- 
ney Teele  had  evidently  not  trusted  me. 
I  could  only  hold  on  and  hope  that  some- 


time I  might  quietly  take  the  boy  away 
and  look  after  him.  It  would  not  be  a 
work  of  love — he  did  not  look  like  Rod- 
ney; he  looked  only  like  all  the  things  that 
had  done  for  Rodney — but  it  might  lay  a 
few  ghosts  that  seemed  sometimes,  to  my 
forewarned  ears,  to  be  still  treading  the 
world. 

The  day  never  came,  however.  I  used 
to  visit  the  asylum  occasionally  as  a  kind 
of  carking  duty.  Always,  in  my  mind, 
was  the  firm  intention  to  withdraw  Teddy 
Rouse  as  soon  as  my  income  should  reach 
a  certain  figure,  which  I  had  fixed.  At 
present  Rodney  Teele's  grandchild  was 
faring  better  on  his  casual  crumb  of  Teele 
benevolence  than  I  could  guarantee  his 
faring.  It  was  some  satisfaction  to  me 
to  know,  at  least,  that  Teddy  Rouse 
would,  for  a  time,  have  been  supported 
by  his  grandfather.  Until  I  could  do  bet- 
ter, there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  go  oc- 
casionally and  carry  him  permitted  gifts. 
I  don't  think  the  child  ever  grew  fond  of 
me — probably  he  never  really  had  the 
chance.  I  hadn't  much  to  say  to  him — 
then. 

A  few  years  after  Rodney  Teele's  death, 
when  I  paid  one  of  my  periodic  visits  to 
the  orphanage,  I  was  informed  that  Teddy 
Rouse  had  run  away.  No  trace  of  the 
boy  was  ever  discovered:  his  evasion  had 
been  planned  with  a  skill  worthy  of  the 
Teeles.  It  is  possible  that,  one  of  these 
days,  we  shall  do  homage  to  some  finan- 
cial genius  of  undivulged  origin,  whose 
countenance  an  old  man  may  quietly 
recognize.  It  may  be  that,  meanwhile, 
the  Teele  brain  is  working  somewhere  in 
obscurity  behind  a  face  like  a  folk-song. 
But  I  doubt  it.  I  think  that  little  Teddy 
Rouse  was  a  pure  recessive,  and  that  with 
his  parents'  untimely  death  the  dominant 
strain  was  lost  forever. 


EVERY    MOVE 


By    Gordon    Artliur    Smith 

Illustrations  i:v  Andrk  Castaigne 


FAT  old  woman  in  a  blue- 
checked  apron  emerged 
from  the  shadows  of  the 
chestnut-trees  in  the  Ave- 
nue des  Champs-Elysees, 
and  began  to  set  in  ordered 
line  the  wooden  chairs  that  had  been  hud- 
dled together,  like  timid  animals  seeking 
warmth,  during  the  cool  hours  of  the  night. 
It  was  seven  o'clock  of  a  May  morning  in 
Paris.  Will  some  joyous  chemist  never 
distil  the  essence  of  it,  bottle  it,  and  dis- 
tribute it  gratis  as  an  antitoxin  for  mel- 
ancholy? 

The  old  woman  may  have  entertained 
some  similar  thought;  for,  as  she  worked, 
she  hummed  uncertainly  a  pleasant  little 
spring  song: 

Le  lendemain  elle  etait  souriante, 

A  sa  fenetre  fleurie;  chaque  soir 

Elle  arrosait  ses  petites  fleurs  grimpantes 

Avec  de  I'eau  de  son  arrosoir. 

When  her  task  was  fairly  accomplished, 
and  the  straw-bottomed  chairs  were  aligned 
like  so  many  stiff  hussars,  she  allowed  her 
gaze  to  wander  beyond  the  immediate 
foreground.  She  noted,  with  the  quick 
disapproval  of  an  order-loving  mind,  that 
the  gravel  of  the  walk  was  sprinkled  with 
cream-colored  blossoms  from  the  chest- 
nut-trees overhead.  She  weighed  for  an 
instant  the  possibilities  of  a  cleansing 
broom,  but  a  Latin  sense  of  poetry  checked 
her  hand.  To  such  an  extent  did  she  react 
that  thereafter  she  was  careful  not  to 
crush  a  single  blossom,  as  she  moved 
about  on  her  clumsy,  comical  feet. 

In  the  middle  of  the  avenue,  by  the 
Rond-Point,  a  grizzled  old  man  was  wa- 
tering the  road.  Behind  him,  progressing 
reluctantly  on  rollers,  snaked  fifty  yards 
of  rubber  hose.  Facing  the  Tuileries  he 
hurled  prismatic  showers  of  spray  into  the 
very  teeth  of  the  morning  sun. 

The  old  woman  greeted  his  api)roach 
cheerfully. 


"Variety  of  sausage,  hast  thou  not 
enough  stirred  up  the  dust  for  one  day?" 

"//^,  la  belle,''  he  answered;  "go  seat 
thyself  on  thy  chairs  at  two  cents  the 
hour!" 

"Thou  talkest,"  she  retorted  with  a 
grin. 

As  he  stopped  by  the  curb  he  turned 
some  mysterious  spigot  in  such  a  way 
that  the  jet  of  spray  folded  itself  up  like 
a  fan  and,  subsiding  into  a  single  ugly 
stream,  ran  disregarded  down  the  gutter. 

The  old  man  crooked  a  bent  thumb 
over  the  shoulder  of  his  blouse. 

"There  is  one  up  there  by  the  Rond- 
Point,"  he  said  darkly,  "  who  takes  money 
from  thy  pockets.  He  is  sitting  on  a 
bench.  What  thinkest  thou  of  that,  my 
little  one — on  a  bencJi!  Also,  he  has  not 
moved  from  that  bench  all  the  night. 
That  vexes  thee,  hein? — when  he  should 
be  renting  a  chair  of  thee." 

"The  camel  I"  she  exclaimed.  "I  will 
occupy  myself  with  him." 

"Take  care;  he  has  the  beauty  of  a 
devil." 

"  So  much  the  worse  for  the  devil.  He 
shall  sit  in  one  of  my  chairs  if  he  be  Fal- 
lieres  himself." 

With  this  reflection  on  the  president  of 
her  republic  she  hurried  away  to  seek  out 
the  oftendcr. 

She  found  him,  as  the  old  man  of  the 
hose  had  said,  occuj^ying  a  bench  at  the 
Rond-Point.  That  he  was  either  asleep 
or  in  misery  was  obvious,  for  his  body  was 
twisted  uj)  sideways  on  the  bench  in  a  po- 
sition that  no  rational,  wholly  conscious 
person  would  wilfully  assume,  and  his 
arms,  hanging  limi)ly  over  the  back  of  the 
seat,  served  as  a  precarious  pillow  for  his 
head. 

The  old  woman  eyed  him  in  iloubt. 
She  knew  him  at  once  for  a  gentleman: 
a  tramp  would  have  arranged  himself 
more  comfortably  and  wouhl  have  made 
use  of  his  coat  for  bedding.     Besides,  his 

70s 


7()t) 


Every  Move 


hair  was  cut  very  short  and  it  was  black, 
and  it  curled  in  a  manner  distinctly  patri- 
cian. A  shrewd  judge  of  social  strata  was 
the  old  woman. 

A  closer  inspection  revealed  him  an 
Anglo-Saxon;  he  was  smooth-shaven;  his 
shoes  were  well  shaped;  he  was  broad 
of  shoulder  and  narrow  of  waist;  his 
trousers  were  turned  up  as  though  they 
had  been  and  always  would  be,  and  there 
was  unmistakable  breeding  in  the  knot  of 
his  cravat. 

Noting  the  tired,  pathetic  lines  on  his 
face,  she  resolved  not  to  disturb  him,  and 
was  in  the  act  of  turning  away  when  he 
stirred  and  sat  upright. 

He  looked  about  him,  dazed,  gave  a 
hollow  laugh,  felt  through  his  pockets 
anxiously  and  swore  softly  and  with  per- 
fect resignation.  The  old  woman  moved 
up  in  front  of  him  and,  standing  with  her 
hands  on  her  hips,  addressed  him  in  a 
friendly  fashion. 

"Monsieur  has  not  need  of  a  chair? — it 
would  be  more  comfortable,  and  at  two 
cents  an  hour — "  Her  gesture  hinted 
that  two  cents  an  hour  was  a  sum  not  to 
be  mentioned  between  gentlemen  and  la- 
dies. 

But  he  shook  his  head  and  forced  a 
crooked  smile. 

"I  haven't  enough  to  hire  a  chair  for 
five  minutes,"  he  said  in  correct,  careful 
French.  '^Otherwise  I  should  not  have 
chosen  this  bench  for  a  night's  rest.  It  is 
hard  as  charity — or  is  it  'cold  as  char- 
ity' that  one  should  say?" 

The  old  woman  pleaded  ignorance  of 
the  appropriate  adjective;  but,  scenting 
mystery,  she  commenced  to  catechise. 

''Monsieur  says  that  he  has  passed  the 
night  on  this  bench?  Poor  monsieur!  It 
is  scandalous!" 

"Is  it  not?"  he  agreed. 

"And  monsieur  has  no  money?" 

"Not  a  cent." 

"Monsieur  has  been  robbed,  then?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered;  "monsieur  has 
been  robbed.  A  porter  at  the  Gare  du 
Nord  took  all  my  coppers,  a  taxi-auto  to 
my  hotel  took  all  my  silver,  and  two  bot- 
tles of  champagne  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris 
took  my  gold." 

"And  the  bank-notes?" 

"Oh,  the  bank-notes  were  taken  with- 
out my  consent.  In  their  case  I  cannot 
put  my  finger  on  the  thief;  but  should  you 


ask  me  to  guess,  why,  then,  I  might  in- 
form you  that  there  was  a  lovely  lady 
dressed  all  in  salmon  pink  with  whom  I 
waltzed  at  the  Bal  des  Coryphees  last 
night,  up  there  by  the  Place  Pigalle.  I 
recollect  that  she  pinned  a  white  carna- 
tion on  my  lapel,  and  was  agreeably  slow 
about  it.  Then,  when  I  looked  for  her 
later " 

"  She  had  gone ! "  finished  the  old  woman. 

"Exactly;  and  she  doubtless  is  using 
seven  five-hundred-franc  notes  for  curl- 
papers at  the  present  moment." 

"The  cow!"  ejaculated  the  old  woman 
coarsely.  "But  monsieur  can  get  no 
money  from  the  bankers?  Mo'nsieur  has 
no  friends  in  Paris?  Monsieur  cannot 
borrow  from  his  hotel?  " 

The  young  man  smiled. 

"I  know  no  one  in  Paris,"  he  explained. 
"As  for  my  hotel,  they  are  more  likely  to 
attach  my  baggage  than  to  advance  me  a 
louis.  But  I  am  keeping  you.  If  I  am 
not  mistaken  those  two  gentlemen  are  con- 
templating your  chairs  with  a  view  to  sit- 
ting on  them." 

The  woman  turned  to  follow  his  gaze. 

"That,"  she  explained,  "is  Monsieur 
Vilbert — very  rich — an  old  client  of  mine. 
He  is  the  little  thin  one  with  the  gray 
mustache  brushed  like  William's." 

"Like  William's?" 

"Yes,  like  that  of  William  the  German. 
I  will  go  to  bid  him  good  morning.  I 
know  him  well;  but  his  friend,  ^le  big 
one,  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  be- 
fore. It  must  be  that  he  does  not  sit 
often  in  the  Champs-Elysees." 

Left  to  himself,  the  young  man  stretched 
and  rose  to  his  feet.  He  slapped  the  dust 
out  of  his  clothes  and  shook  his  coat  vi- 
ciously in  a  vain  endeavor  to  smooth  the 
wrinkles  from  it.  A  night  on  a  bench  in 
the  open  air  is  a  poor  valet. 

Fortunately,  however,  he  was  young 
and  his  six  feet  two  of  youth  needed  no 
excuse. 

As  he  stooped  for  his  straw  hat,  which 
he  had  placed  under  the  bench,  he  heard 
footsteps  on  the  gravel  behind  him.  He 
turned,  hat  in  hand,  to  see  Monsieur  Vil- 
bert and  his  friend  standing  at  his  elbow. 
Monsieur  Vilbert  inspected  him  critically, 
head  to  one  side,  thumbs  resting  in  the 
upper  pockets  of  his  waistcoat,  dapper 
little  feet  turned  out  at  right  angles. 
Monsieur  Vilbert's  friend  inspected  him 


Every  Move 


•07 


ruminatively,  sharp  eyes  narrowed  to  slits 
in  his  round,  red  face,  fat  white  hands 
clasped  across  a  convex  abdomen,  patent- 
leather  feet  planted  far  apart. 

Then  Monsieur  \'in3ert  looked  at  his 
friend  and  they  both  nodded;  and  Mon- 
sieur Vilbert  gave  a  nervous,  energetic 
twist  to  his  gray  mustache,  and  his  friend 
drew  a  sleek  hand  across  his  smooth-sha- 
ven chins.  And  Monsieur  Vilbert  spoke 
in  French. 

"What  a  beautiful  morning!"  is  what 
he  said. 

The  young  man  regarded  one  and  then 
the  other,  puzzled,  surprised,  not  certain 
that  he  was  i)leased. 

"Yes,"  he  answered  finally,  "one  can- 
not complain  of  it." 

The  two  Frenchmen  appeared  to  ])on- 
der  the  words  as  though  they  had  been 
sibylline.  Then  they  nodded  once  more, 
omine  fausto. 

"Monsieur,"  said  Vilbert,  "my  friend, 
the  lady  who  rents  the  chairs,  informs  me 
that  you  are  a  stranger  here  in  Paris  and 
that  you — that  you  have  not  been  made 
to  feel  at  home;  in  short,  that  you  have 
been  robbed.  Pardon  the  brutality  of 
the  word,  will  you  not?" 

"But  certainly,"  replied  the  young 
man. 

"Good!"  said  Vilbert. 

"Good!"  echoed  his  friend. 

"And  now,"  continued  Vilbert,  "I  pray 
you  to  permit  me  to  present  myself.  I  am 
called  Etienne  Vilbert,  and  this  is  my 
friend  and  associate.  Monsieur  Hippolyte 
Dieudonne." 

They  bowed  graciously,  and  the  young 
man  could  do  no  less. 

"I  am  overcome,"  he  said. 

"You  have  not  heard  the  names  be- 
fore?'* asked  Vilbert,  it  seemed  a  little 
anxiously. 

"You  must  forgive  me,"  answered  the 
young  man,  "if  1  admit  that  I  have  not. 
I  come  from  America,  and  we  Americans 
know  very  little  of  your  country  and  e\cn 
less  of  its  great  men.  Nexcrthclcss  I  re- 
peat that  I  am  honored,  and  I  beg  to  give 
you  my  name  in  return.  T  am  called  Aus- 
tin Waide." 

"Well,   then,   Monsieur  Waide,"   said 

Vilbert  briskly,  when  he  and  Dieudonne 

had  duly  bowed  once  more  and  murmured 

their  enchantment,  "if  you  will  do  us  the 

Vol.  LV.— 7O 


honor  of  breakfasting  with  us  I  have  no 
doubt  l)ut  that  we  shall  be  able  to  put  be- 
fore you  a  proposition  that  will  be  of  ad- 
vantage to  all  of  us.  Do  you  accept, 
monsieur?" 

Austin  laughed. 

"I  certainly  accept  the  breakfast," 
said  he;  "and  as  for  the  proposition — 
why,  I  am  willing  to  do  anything  short  of 
a  crime  to  earn  my  Hving." 

"We  contemplate  nothing  criminal," 
Dieudonne  assured  him.  "However,  the 
work  may  be  exciting  and  not  uncon- 
nected with  danger " 

He  caught  Vilbert's  eye  and  stopped 
abruptly.  Vilbert  hailed  an  open  cab 
and  they  drove  out  the  Avenue  du  Bois  to 
the  Pre-Catelan.  There,  under  the  trees 
in  front  of  the  dairy,  they  breakfasted  de- 
liciously  on  fresh  eggs  and  milk  and  wild 
strawberries. 

When  they  had  finished,  Vilbert  pushed 
back  his  iron  chair  and  offered  a  brand  of 
government  cigarettes  from  a  small  mauve 
package. 

"I  patronize  home  industries,"  he 
remarked.  "Perhaps  you,  Dieudonne, 
would  prefer  son>ething  more  Oriental, 
with  a  Turkish  name  and  a  sensuous  box." 

Then  he  turned  directly  to  Austin. 

"Monsieur,"  he  said,  "you  are  young, 
handsome,  well-built,  athletic,  like  the 
majority  of  your  countrymen.  Like  the 
majority  of  your  countrymen,  too,  I  take 
it  that  you  are  not  afraid  of  danger." 

"I  have  never  wilfully  avoided  it,"  an- 
swered Austin,  smiling. 

"Good!"  said  Vilbert. 

"Good!"  said  Dieudonne. 

"I  think  we  can  use  you,"  Vilbert  con- 
tinued. "The  hours  will  be  short;  you 
will  be  released  to-night  in  time  for  your 
aperitif,  and  the  salary  will  be  anywhere 
from  one  hundred  francs  to  five  hundred, 
dcjK'nding  entirely  on  the  way  you  accjuit 
yourself  and  the  success  of  what,  for  us, 
is  something  of  an  exiuTiment.  Have  I 
made  nnself  understood?  If  so,  T  await 
your  answer." 

"One  moment,"  said  Austin.  "I  un- 
derstand that  you  olTer  me  from  twenty  to 
one  hundred  dollars  for  one  day's  work. 
Can  you  give  me  no  more  detniite  idea  of 
the  character  of  the  work?" 

\'ilbert  looked  at  his  associate  and  they 
both  shook  their  heads. 


70S 


Every  Move 


**No,  monsieur,"  answered  Dieudonne 
firmlv.  "that  is  one  of  the  conditions:  a 
blissful  ignorance  on  your  part  is  indis- 
pensable to  our  success.  We  may  but 
give  you  a  hint:  be  suri3rised  at  nothing; 
behave  as  a  gentleman  should,  and — well, 
do  not  be  afraid  to  defend  yourself  as  well 
as  you  are  able.  Moreover,  le  boxe  An- 
glais is  renowned;   need  I  say  more?" 

''Need  we  say  more?"  echoed  Vilbert 
dryly,  tossing  away  his  cigarette  and  rising. 
''And  so,  Monsieur  Waide,  if  you  say 
'  \es,'  you  will  accompany  us  back  to  Paris 
in  a  taxi-auto;  if  you  say  'no,'  we  part  re- 
gretfully, enchanted,  however,  to  have 
had  the  pleasure  of  your  society  at  our 
little  breakfast." 

''No  bouquets,"  said  Austin  with  a 
laugh.     "I  say  'yes.'" 

''Good!"  cried  Vilbert. 

"Good!"  cried  Dieudonne. 

They  paid  their  bill  and  walked  through 
the  vacherie,  Dieudonne  patting  the  sleek, 
fat  cows  and  throwing  bits  of  paper  at 
the  voracious  goats.  He  was  as  amused 
as  a  child.  Vilbert,  however,  serious  and 
impatient,  plucked  at  his  arm,  urging  him 
to  be  off. 

As  they  drove  back  through  the  Bois, 
the  sun  was  well  up  in  the  sky,  and  the 
roads  and  bridle-paths  had  assumed  the 
animation  that  is  bred  in  Paris  of  a  May 
morning.  Wonderfully  equipped  cava- 
liers, dressed  in  amazing  English  breeches 
and  coats,  cantered  dashingly  but  uncer- 
tainly at  the  sides  of  their  amazones,  as 
the  French  term  them.  Buxom  nounous, 
with  broad  ribbons  fluttering  from  their 
caps,  were  out  already  with  their  peram- 
bulators, airing  the  children  of  the  rich 
and  keeping  furtive  eyes  out  for  pictur- 
esque zouaves  or  gallant  guardsmen.  In 
France  it  is  not  the  police  who  distract 
the  nursemaids,  but  the  army. 

Conversation  between  the  three  men 
in  the  taxi  flagged.  Dieudonne,  making 
several  half-hearted  attempts  at  Gallic  wit, 
subsided  quickly  under  Vilbert's  severe 
frown.  Austin  was  calm,  indifferent,  al- 
most bored.  He  was  beginning  to  doubt 
the  sanity  of  the  two  Frenchmen;  but 
then — he  had  always  been  brought  up 
to  doubt  the  sanity  of  all  Frenchmen. 
There  still  persists  a  class  in  America  to 
whom  a  Frenchman  is  a  crazy  person  who 
eats  frogs  and  snails  and  who  wears  an 
imperial. 


Vilbert,  leaning  from  the  window  at  inter- 
vals, directed  the  course.  They  rounded 
the  arch  at  the  Place  de  I'Etoile  and  turned 
down  the  Champs-Elysees.  At  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde  they  took  the  Rue  Royale 
to  the  Madeleine,  and  then,  to  the  right,  on 
the  Boulevard  as  far  as  the  Opera  House. 
Here  they  swung  across  into  the  Boulevard 
Haussmann  and  followed  it  to  its  incep- 
tion. They  took  the  last  street  on  their 
left  and  stopped  at  the  house  next  to  the 
bureau  de  paste. 

Vilbert,  who  had  given  the  driver  a  gold 
piece  before  the  taxi  drew  up  at  the  curb, 
grasped  Austin  sharply  by  the  arm  and 
hurried  him  through  a  high,  dark  en- 
trance, the  heavy,  wooden  doors  of  which 
stood  open.  Austin  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
sombre  courtyard  beyond,  paved  with 
stone  and  decorated  with  dwarf  trees  in 
green  pots.  Then  he  was  led  to  the  right 
through  a  glass  door  into  a  large  hall. 
While  they  waited  in  front  of  an  elevator- 
shaft  he  had  time  to  look  about  him. 

The  hall  was  panelled  in  mahogany  half- 
way up  to  the  ceiling,  and  the  ceiling,  Aus- 
tin calculated,  was  nearly  twenty  feet 
high.  Above  the  panelling  hung  rich, 
soft  tapestries,  illuminated  dimly  by  clus- 
ters of  heavily  shaded  electric  lights.  At 
intervals  stood  gorgeous,  barbaric  suits  of 
mail,  erect  and  uncannily  alive.  Fast- 
ened to  the  panels  were  inlaid  shields  and 
swords  and  graceful  lances,  all  beautiful- 
ly wrought — the  plunder  of  a  mediaeval 
court.  The  floor  was  marble-paved,  in 
squares  of  black  and  white,  and  carved 
marble  benches  stood  in  the  corners. 

Somehow,  in  spite  of  the  insignia  of  war, 
it  gave  to  Austin  the  impression  of  a  ca- 
thedral of  the  middle  ages — some  chapel, 
perhaps,  designed  for  a  crusader's  tomb, 
filled  with  the  arms  by  which  he  had 
sought  to  hew  his  way  to  salvation.  It 
lacked  but  the  odor  of  incense  and  the 
religious  light  of  a  stained  window  to  com- 
plete the  illusion. 

The  lift,  which  had  been  descending 
silently  and  slowly,  untenanted,  and  pro- 
pelled by  some  unseen  hand  on  some  un- 
seen button,  now  reached  the  ground  with 
a  muffled  click  and  a  sigh  of  relief.  The 
two  Frenchmen  motioned  to  Austin  to 
enter.  When  they  had  followed  him,  so 
small  was  the  space  within  that  it  was 
with  difficulty  they  could  close  the  doors. 

Then  Vilbert  touched  the  topmost  of 


Every  Move 


'09 


eight  ivory  buttons  on  a  panel,  and  the 
tiny  compartment  hesitated,  wheezed,  and 
began  once  more  its  laborious  motion  up- 
ward, silently  as  before,  save  for  the  dull 
click  at  each  landing. 

"  Remember,"  warned  Vilbert  earnestly, 
"you  are  expected  to  do  exactly  as  you 
are  bidden  and  to  ask  no  questions.  It 
is  possible  that  some  things  may  seem  to 
you — how  shall  I  say  it? — bizarre,  extrav- 
agant. But  [t  is  not  for  you  to  Cjuestion 
our  methods.  If  you  conduct  yourself 
satisfactorily  to  us  your  reward  shall  be 
satisfactory  to  you." 

''Very  well,"  answered  Austin  cheer- 
fully, ''I  am  prepared  for  the  worst." 

''Good!"  said  Vilbert. 

"Good!"  said  Dieudonne. 

Austin  counted  six  landings  and  the 
lift  stopped  abruptly  at  the  seventh.  Vil- 
bert led  the  way  down  a  long  corridor, 
flanked  by  numerous  doors,  all  closely 
shut.  There  was  no  window  in  the  cor- 
ridor, but  it  was  lighted  at  intervals  by 
yellow  electric  lights.  The  bareness  of  its 
walls  and  ceiling  and  the  multiplicity  of  its 
doors  tended  to  accentuate  its  length.  It 
might  almost  have  been  the  corridor  of 
some  huge  jail. 

Austin  fancied  that  he  heard  voices  be- 
hind some  of  the  doors;  but  he  was  hur- 
ried along  so  peremptorily  that  he  could 
not  be  certain,  and  the  three  pairs  of  feet, 
echoing  loudly  on  the  stone  floor  beneath 
them,  drowned  all  minor  sounds. 

At  a  door  numbered  113  they  paused, 
and  Vilbert,  drawing  a  pass  key  from  his 
pocket,  turned  the  lock  and  entered  the 
room;  Dieudonne  and  Austin  followed. 

It  was  a  small  rectanglar  room,  unin- 
teresting, banal.  White  plaster  walls  and 
ceiling,  a  high,  small  window  framing  a 
patch  of  blue  sky,  a  long  wooden  bench, 
a  row  of  hooks  on  the  wall,  and  a  full- 
length  mirror  swinging  in  a  wooden  frame. 
Nothing  more. 

"Wait  here,"  commanded  Vilbert 
briefly,  and  pointed  to  the  bench.  Then 
he  turned  to  Dieudonne,  beckoned  him  to 
the  door,  and  muttered  directions  in  his 
ear. 

"Tell  Roxane  we  ha\e  found  him,  and 
tell  her  the  circumstances.  Warn  her  to 
be  ready.  I  will  call  Luzech  to  come  and 
prepare  him." 

Austin  heard  but,  hearing,  was  none 
the  wiser.     The  whole  affair  struck  him  as 


far-fetched,  unduly  mysterious.  If  there 
was  danger  to  be  encountered,  why  did 
they  not  point  out  the  danger  and  bid 
him  face  it?  They  were  behaving,  to  his 
eyes,  like  opera-boufTe  conspirators.  They 
needed  but  masks  and  dark  lanterns  and 
low  music. 

When  they  left  him  he  noted  that  they 
closed  the  door  and  that  the  lock  snapped 
back  at  its  closing.  He  shrugged  his 
broad  shoulders  and  listened  patiently  to 
the  sound  of  their  feet  diminishing  in  the 
distance  down  the  corridor. 

Walking  listlessly  over  to  the  window, 
he  looked  out,  his  chin  on  the  level  with 
the  sill.  From  that  i)osition  he  could  see 
nothing  save  the  mansard  roofs  of  houses 
several  blocks  away  and,  over  on  the  right 
and  beyond,  the  slender  line  of  the  EifTel 
Tower,  bayoneting  the  blue  sky. 

"An  excellent  bird's-eye  view  of  Paris," 
he  remarked.  "It  would  look  well  on  a 
post-card  to  send  home  to  Kansas  City. 
But  the  room  has  none  of  the  modem  con- 
veniences;  I  doubt  if  I  stay  long." 

He  sat  down  on  the  low  bench  and 
studied  his  shoes  and  his  fmger-nails. 
Still  no  interruption  occurred.  The  si- 
lence became  annoying  and,  for  the  first 
time  that  day,  he  lost  his  perfect  serenity. 
He  felt  through  his  pockets  for  a  cigarette, 
found  none,  and,  resorting  fmally  to  that 
manifestation  of  imj)atience  to  which  all 
caged  beasts  come  sooner  or  later,  he  paced 
the  room  from  corner  to  corner,  from  wall 
to  wall. 

Some  one  must  have  come  noiselessly  up 
the  corridor,  for,  of  a  sudden,  he  heard  the 
lock  snap  and  his  door  opened  inward. 
He  turned  and,  instinctively  on  the  de- 
fensive, put  his  back  to  the  wall.  What 
he  saw  in  the  doorway  startled  him  for  an 
instant;  and  then  he  smiled  apprecia- 
tively. It  was  too  good  to  be  true:  it 
smacked  of  the  "Arabian  Nights." 

A  huge  figure  blocked  the  doorway:  a 
man  as  black  and  as  shiny  as  hard  coal; 
and  he  was  naked  to  his  waist.  On  his 
head  was  a  fantastic,  turbanlike  alTair;  in 
his  ears  hung  two  golden  crescent  rings, 
and  about  his  loins  was  wrapped  a  leop- 
ard's skin,  rather  worn  and  frayed.  His 
feet  and  legs  were  as  bare  as  his  broad 
black  chest,  and  his  arms  were  decoratrd 
only  with  hea\v  gold  bracelets,  an  inch 
wide. 

Over  one  arm,  however,  hung  a  pile  of 


10 


Every  Move 


wonderfully  colored  fabrics,  all  purples 
and  scarlets  and  greens  and  blues,  em- 
broiilered  with  jewels  and  gold.  Advan- 
cing gravely  into  the  room,  he  laid  them 
on  the  bench,  and  Austin  perceived  that 
they  constituted  a  man's  garments — the 
garments,  possibly,  of  an  Eastern  prince. 

The  black  bowed  low  with  arms  out- 
stretched, his  features  set  stolidly,  un- 
responsive to  Austin's  frank  smile.  Then 
he  pointed  to  the  garments  with  a  wave 
of  his  hand  and  indicated  that  Austin 
was  to  clothe  himself  in  them  forthwith. 

''\'ery  well,  my  good  Nubian,"  agreed 
the  American;  ''your  wish  is  my  law." 

He  examined  the  apparel  with  interest 
and  amusement.  A  pair  of  gold  slippers, 
pointed  and  turned  up  at  the  toes  in  a 
curve  like  the  volutes  of  an  Ionic  capital; 
close-fitting  scarlet  tights  with  jewelled 
garters  to  clasp  about  them  below  the 
knee;  a  wonderful  purple  cloak  that  hung 
loosely  to  the  thighs  and  was  edged  with 
ermine  at  the  collar  and  around  the  wide 
sleeves  and  was  embroidered  gorgeously 
with  gold  in  strange  Oriental  designs;  a 
broad  scarlet  girdle  to  bind  it  at  the  waist, 
heavy  with  jewels  and  tasselled  with  gold 
rope,  and,  finally,  a  close-fitting  turban, 
clasped  at  the  forehead  with  a  huge  pur- 
ple amethyst. 

Slowly  and  wonderingly  Austin  got  out 
of  his  own  clothes,  and  slowly  and  won- 
deringly, with  the  aid  of  the  silent  Nu- 
bian, got  into  this  finery  of  the  East. 

Once  dressed,  he  surveyed  himself,  not 
without  approval,  in  the  tall  mirror.  His 
dark  complexion,  he  noted,  lent  itself  re- 
markably w^ell  to  the  costume:  he  was  ev- 
ery inch  a  Persian,  if,  indeed,  that  was 
what  the  costume  intended  him  to  be. 

Drawdng  himself  up  to  his  greatest 
height  he  found  that  he  was  able  to  look 
the  giant  Nubian  fairly  in  the  eyes.  This 
pleased  him,  filled  him  with  a  subtle  satis- 
faction. So  with  all  of  his  national  au- 
dacity he  slapped  himself  soundly  on  the 
chest  and  grinned  and  cried:  ''Behold  the 
great  Persian  lamb!  Now  bring  on  your 
Scheherazades— all  there  are  in  the  harem! " 

The  black  regarded  him  gravely,  almost 
pityingly,  and  maintained  an  ominous  si- 
lence; but  he  bowed  low  and  led  the  way 
through  the  door. 

Standing  in  the  corridor  was  Vilbert, 
nervously  twisting  the  pointed  ends  of  his 
mustache  into  spirals.     At  sight  of  Aus- 


tin, arrayed  in  glory,  he  nodded  and  gave 
a  short  grunt  of  satisfaction. 

"Good!"  he  said. 

Dieudonne  was  not  present  to  echo  the 
monosyllable. 

The  little  Frenchman,  slipping  his  arm 
through  Austin's,  led  him  slowly  down  the 
corridor.  The  Nubian  followed,  mute, 
behind  them. 

"My  friend,"  said  Vilbert  huskily,  "it 
now  depends  but  on  you.  I  have  done  all 
that  I  can  to  make  you  a  success.  I  may 
do  no  more.  Remember,  keep  your  head 
cool  and  your  hands  ready  and  your  mus- 
cles supple.  Fight,  if  you  must ;  and  if  you 
fight,  fight  well.  Meanwhile,  do  as  you  are 
told.  It  is  possible  that  I  shall  be  watch- 
ing you;  in  which  case  pretend  that  we 
have  never  met.  It  will  be  better  so. 
Au  revoir.  I  shake  your  hand  and  I  wish 
you  all  success." 

Monsieur  Vilbert,  his  voice  unsteady 
with  real  feeling,  wrung  his  hand  as 
though  he  were  sending  him  to  his  death. 
Austin  could  not  but  be  moved  by  the 
display  of  emotion. 

"  Good-by,  monsieur,"  he  said,  "  and  do 
not  agitate  yourself  on  my  account.  I 
have  been  in  some  pretty  tight  places  be- 
fore now.  Have  you  ever  tried  to  cross 
Broadway  down  by  Herald  Square  during 
the  rush  hour?  This  business  of  yours  is 
all  very  mysterious,  of  course,  but  at  least 
we  are  in  twentieth-century  Paris." 

"You  will  not  think  so  long,"  remarked 
Vilbert,  and  turned  on  his  heel  without 
another  word. 

Down  the  corridor  the  Nubian  led  the 
way,  respectfully,  solicitously,  as  one 
would  lead  an  attractive  lamb  to  the  sacri- 
fice. There  seemed  to  be  miles  of  corri- 
dor. 

Finally,  turning  abruptly  to  the  left, 
they  came  into  a  vaulted  atrium,  sur- 
rounded by  glistening  marble  columns 
that  supported  Byzantine  arches.  At  this 
point  the  Nubian  paused  and  stepped  aside 
in  order  that  Austin  might  see  into  the 
hall  beyond. 

Austin  looked  and  exclaimed:  "My 
God!" 

The  Nubian  put  his  finger  warningly  to 
his  lips. 

In  front  of  them  stretched  an  enor- 
mous court,  crowded  wdth  restless  people 
moving  quietly  backward  and  forward, 
in  different  directions,  in  and  out,  like  a 


Monsieur,"  said  \'ilbert,  "my  friend,  the  lady  who  rents  the  chairs,  informs  me  that  yuu  are  a  stranger  liere.' 

—  Page  707. 


wheat-field  in  a  shifting  wind.  An  arched 
colonnade  extended  along  the  rear  of  this 
courtyard  for  a  space  of  |)erhaps  fifty 
yards;  then  it  turned  on  itself  at  right 
angles  and  continued  in  that  direction  be- 
yond Austin's  range  of  vision  from  where 
he  stood  in  the  atrium.  Many  of  the  arch 
openings  were  closed  with  exquisite  tapes- 
tries; others  were  filled  with  the  wanton 
colors  of  tropical  foliage  and  fruits.  In 
two  of  them  fountains  tossed  up  jets  of 
water  that  hung,  ])eq)endicular  in  the  air, 
like  silver  wands. 

Over  this  vast  courtyard,  and  sui)i)()rted 
by  the  colonnades,  stretched  a  flat  roof  of 
white,  transparent  glass,  set  in  large  rect- 
angular lights,  through  which  the  May 
sun  poured  as  through  the  roof  of  some 
huge  greenhouse,  where  mammoth  plants 
were  being  nursed  to  unholy  size. 

At  the  back,  near  the  centre  of  the  rear 
Vol.  LV.— 77 


colonnade,  stood  a  dais,  raised  on  two  low, 
marble  steps,  caq)ete(l  with  a  rug  of 
tawny  yellow  and  })astel  blue;  and  on  the 
dais  was  a  broad  couch  of  cloth  of  gold, 
and  on  the  couch,  half-seated,  half-reclin- 
ing, languidly,  sensuously,  was  a  woman. 

"My  GodI"  rei)eated  Austin. 

Again  the  Nubian  motioned  for  silence. 

She  was  the  focus  of  the  crowd:  about 
luT  the  others  backed  and  filled  and  cir- 
cled and  l1c\v  like  bits  of  steel  about  a 
magnet.  I'Our  female  slaves,  their  black 
skins  shining  in  the  heat,  fanned  her  with 
long  ostrich-j)lumes — fanned  her  rhyth- 
mically, monotonously,  perpetually.  A 
score  of  men,  counteq)arts  of  Austin's 
Nubian,  kept  grim  watch  on  either  side 
of  her  throne,  their  hands  crossed  on  the 
hilts  of  their  naked,  e\il  swords. 

;\t  her  feet,  in  a  semicircle,  sat  a  do/en 
dancing  girls,  veiled  to  their  eyes,  stretch- 

711 


712 


Every  Move 


ini^  their  graceful  limbs  on  the  rugs  and 
the  soft  skins  that  covered  the  cold  marble 
of  the  tloor.  As  Austin  looked,  one  of 
them  was  dancing,  her  body  motionless 
above  the  waist,  save  for  the  slim  arms 
that  curved  and  coiled,  her  flat  palms 
making  strange,  abnormal  angles  with  her 
wrists. 

Beyond  the  circle  of  the  dancing  girls 
the  court  was  bare  in  front  of  the  throne; 
but  to  the  right  and  to  the  left  knelt  a 
score  of  men  and  women,  clad  in  Persian 
dress  and  beating  abstractedly  on  brazen 
cymbals  or  on  muffled  tambours;  and 
through  all  the  dull  din  that  they  made 
crept  another  sound,  a  grinding,  mechan- 
ical sound,  like  the  purr  of  a  smooth  motor 
or  the  buzz  of  a  dentist's  drill. 

But  Austin  could  not  keep  his  eyes  from 
the  woman  on  the  couch.  He  had  read  of 
vampires,  and  he  wondered  if,  perhaps, 
she  was  not  of  their  breed.  Her  face  em- 
bodied all  the  cruelty,  all  the  lust,  of  the 
baneful  women  that  have  marred  history. 
As  he  looked  on  her  he  shivered,  and  yet 
he  was  not  cold;  and  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  he  doubted  himself  and  his  own 
courage. 

She  was  dressed  all  in  white:  white, 
loose  Turkish  trousers,  gathered  at  her 
ankles  with  pearls ;  white  pointed  slippers 
curving  up  at  the  toes;  a  broad,  white 
girdle  beneath  her  breasts,  which  held 
in  place  the  thin  veil  that  draped  her  nar- 
row shoulders  and  which  hung  down  to 
her  knees,  weighted  with  pearls.  Pearls 
at  her  wrists,  pearls  on  her  long,  slender 
fingers,  pearls  wound  in  profusion  through 
her  black  hair.  Her  face  was  unveiled. 
Alas,  for  the  peace  of  man! 

Austin  looked  and  saw  a  narrow,  oval 
face,  white  as  paper;  a  broad,  full  mouth 
with  lips  painted  dark  vermilion — cru- 
el, pitiless  lips,  fretting  and  twisting  in 
front  of  small  teeth  that  were  too  white 
and  too  regular  to  seem  human.  Black, 
straight  eyebrows  almost  met  over  the 
thin  nose  and,  beneath  the  eyebrows, 
black  eyes  gleamed  and  darted,  restlessly, 
furtively,  under  narrow  lids  stained  with 
indigo. 

Austin  had  read  of  such  women,  had 
seen  fantastic  drawings  of  such  women; 
indeed,  he  remembered  that  such  a  wom- 
an as  this  adorned  the  pasteboard  boxes 
of  a  brand  of  cigarettes  luringly  called 
Persian  favorites.    But  to  be  face  to  face 


with  such  a  woman,  breathing  the  same 
heavy,  perfumed  air  that  she  breathed — 
that  was  a  different  matter.  It  gave  him 
a  strange  feeling  about  his  heart,  as  though 
he  had  smoked  too  many  of  those  cigar- 
ettes.    He  could  not  explain  it. 

Suddenly,  while  he  watched,  the  dan- 
cing girl  fell  exhausted,  her  forehead  on 
the  floor  in  front  of  the  dais.  At  a  nod 
from  the  woman  on  the  couch,  two  slaves 
lifted  her  in  their  arms  and  carried  her 
away,  panting  and  writhing,  out  through 
one  of  the  arches  of  the  colonnade. 

Forthwith  a  third  attendant  salamed, 
and,  although  Austin  could  not  hear  the 
spoken  words,  it  was  obvious  from  his  ges- 
tures that  he  announced  the  presence  of 
some  one  in  the  atrium.  The  woman  in 
white  clapped  her  hands  and,  led  by  the 
giant  Nubian,  Austin  marched  through  the 
crowd  that  made  a  lane  for  him  clear  to  the 
marble  steps.  There  the  black  drew  away 
a  few  paces,  leaving  him  face  to  face  with 
the  woman.  His  heart  beat  like  a  ham- 
mer while  she  surveyed  him  between  her 
narrowed  eyelids. 

At  length  she  stretched  out  a  listless, 
white  hand  to  be  kissed.  Under  other 
circumstances  Austin  might  well  have 
grasped  it  heartily  in  his  own,  given  it  an 
emphatic  shake,  and  murmured:  ''Glad 
to  meet  you." 

But  the  spell  being  upon  him,  he  leaned 
over  it  and  kissed  it  gracefully  enough. 

The  vermilion  lips  parted  in  a  slow 
smile. 

"Who  may  you  be?"  she  asked  in 
French,  and  her  voice  was  low  and  caress- 
ing. 

''My  name  is  Austin  Waide,"  he  an- 
swered stiffly. 

"And  what  is  your  business  here?" 

"I  am  afraid,  madame,  that  I  do  not 
exactly  know.     I  am  here  to  find  out." 

"Ah,"  she  said,  still  smiling,  "how  very 
interesting." 

"Perhaps,"  said  he. 

"Perhaps?"  she  echoed.  "And  why 
'perhaps'?  If  ignorance  is  bliss,  is  not 
doubt  seven  times  bliss?" 

"I  am  quite  satisfied,"  said  Austin, 
looking  her  fairly  in  the  eyes;  "only  these 
shoes  are  uncomfortable." 

"That  shall  be  remedied,"  she  an- 
swered, making  a  place  for  him  beside  her 
on  the  couch.  "Monsieur  Austin  Waide 
shall  not  be  compelled  to  stand." 


Every  Move 


13 


He  sat  down  as  he  was  bidden.    Strange        Austin  looked  her  frankly  in  the  eyes; 
to  say,  all  embarrassment  had  left  him;    and  her  eyes  were  not  frank,  but  the  re- 


..        A<>\^ 


Ovrr  ..iw  ;irin.  li  .wtvcr.  litm«  a  i>il<-  <>f  woiulerfully  colored  fabrics.  — I'ajiP  7«J9- 

but  he  felt  confidently  excited,  as  though  verse.     She  screened  them  with  her  in- 

he  had  drunk  champaKue.  (li^^)-tinted  lids  and  her  small  teeth  played 

"Do  you  tind  me  beautiful?"  she  tie-  with  hrr  lower  lip. 

manded,  turning  on  him  suddenly.  "Yes,"  he  answered  at  length,  "  I  tind 


14 


Every  Move 


vou  beautiful  in  a  certain  sense  of  the  The  woman  leaned  toward  Austin  on 

word."  the  couch,  her  eyes  fixed  on  his.     Some 

'*Vou  are  half-hearted,"  she  said,  dis-  strange,  Eastern  perfume  that  she  used 

satisfied,  "and  r.ot  gallant.    You  are  dis-  stole  about  him  and  intoxicated  him. 


V 


.\ 


X   ' 


She  laughed  softly,  and  he  put  out  his  arms  and  held  her  closely. 
—  Page  715. 


appointing  after  all.  But,  then,  you  are 
nothing  but  an  Anglo-Saxon  that  has 
never  felt  his  heart  beat." 

She  clapped  her  hands  sharply  and  mo- 
tioned to  one  of  the  girls  lying  at  her  feet. 

"Dance!"  she  commanded. 

The  girl  obeyed  her,  trembling.  The 
din  of  the  tambours  throbbed,  pulselike, 
through  the  court.  The  long  fans  of  os- 
trich-plumes waved  to  and  fro,  like  pen- 
dulums, in  the  heavy,  scented  air. 


Watching  his  face,  she  read  in  it  his  agi- 
tation, and  she  smiled  at  the  knowledge 
that  she  had  stirred  him — smiled  slowly 
and  lazily  with  her  red  lips. 

"Ah,"  she  said  softly,  "at  last  you 
know  that  your  heart  beats.  Now,  tell 
me,  am  I  beautiful?" 

"You  are  so  beautiful  that  it  hurts," 
he  answered  her,  shivering.  The  blood 
rushed  to  his  head  and  above  the  dull 
beating  of  the  music  he  could  hear  his  own 


Every  Move 


715 


heavy  breathing  and  hers;  and,  through 
it  all,  the  even,  rhythmical  murmur,  like 
the  purr  of  a  smooth  motor  or  the  buzz  of 
a  dentist's  drill. 

She  laughed  softly,  and  he  put  out  his 
arms  and  held  her  closely.  Her  eyes 
came  nearer  to  his,  fixed  on  them,  holding 
them.  A  loose  strand  of  her  hair  brushed 
his  forehead.  Then  he  closed  his  eyes 
and  kissed  her  on  the  lips. 

As  he  did  so  the  dancing  girl  fell  to  the 
ground  and  lay  there  white,  motionless, 
exhausted.  At  the  same  instant  the  sound 
of  the  tambours  ceased,  and,  stifled  by  the 
silence,  he  opened  his  eyes  and  rose  to  his 
feet,  dazed,  staring  stupidly  about  him. 


There  was  no  movement  from  the 
crowd  in  front  of  the  dais.  The  dancing 
girl  lay  where  she  had  fallen.  Only  the 
fans  swayed  up  and  down  monotonously. 

As  his  senses  came  slowly  back  to  him, 
he  passed  his  hand  vaguely  across  his  fore- 
head. It  was  as  though  he  were  coming 
out  of  some  tense,  realistic  dream — some 
dream  that  had  been  so  vivid  that  he 
could  not  yet  wholly  shake  it  off. 

Then,  standing,  he  saw  that  which  he 
had  not  seen  before.  He  saw,  half-hid- 
den by  the  screening  foliage,  the  body  of 
a  man,  sprawling,  twisted  and  contorted, 
on  the  marl)le  floor  to  the  left  of  the  dais. 
The  body  was  dressed  much  as  he  himself 


.'.*>.    L.0'.«  "   i 


He  saw,  lialf-hiddcH  by  the  screening  foliage,  the  body  of  u  luun,  sprawling,  twisted  and  contorted. 


16 


Every  Move 


was  dressed,  and  the  body  lay  in  a  pool  of 
blood.  An  ugly  knife  lay  beside  it,  bare 
and  crimson. 

While  he  stood  and  gazed,  overwhelmed, 
unbelieving,  the  woman  beside  him 
clapped  her  hands  once  more.  Two  giant 
black  slaves,  half-naked,  their  muscles 
rippling  smoothly  along  their  arms  and 
backs,  bowed  low  before  her.  She  pointed 
at  Austin  with  disdain. 

"Take  him  away,"  she  said,  "and  teach 
him.  He  sickens  me;  he  is  over-squeam- 
ish. Teach  him  not  to  draw  away  from 
my  kisses  as  though  they  burnt  his  lips. 
When  you  have  finished  with  him  you  may 
bring  him  back  and  throw  him  beside  the 
other.     Now  go.     Take  him  away ! " 

They  rushed  at  him  together.  But  he 
stood  on  the  dais,  two  steps  above  them, 
waiting  for  them.  And  this  was  in  his 
favor. 

One  of  them  he  caught  neatly  under  the 
chin  with  his  left  and  sent  him  reeling 
back  with  his  arms  beating  the  air.  The 
second  grappled  with  him  and  they  rocked 
and  staggered  together,  up  and  down  the 
step.  The  woman,  drawing  her  feet  up 
on  the  couch  that  they  might  not  be  in  the 
way,  watched  the  fight  with  cool  interest, 
her  chin  in  her  hands.  She  watched  it  as 
might  a  disinterested  spectator  who  had 
no  bet  on  the  outcome:  she  approved  a 
good  blow  struck  or  an  advantage  gained 
by  either  side. 

In  the  doorway  of  the  atrium  Austin 
had  a  glimpse  of  Monsieur  Vilbert's  white 
face  watching  them  eagerly.  Behind  him 
bulged  the  fat  figure  of  Dieudonne,  his 
cheeks  shining  with  excitement. 

Austin  tripped  his  man  and  threw  him 
heavily  to  the  floor,  just  as  the  other 
black  regained  his  unsteady  feet.  Mon- 
sieur Vilbert,  in  the  distance,  grinned  sar- 
donically and  rubbed  his  small  white  hands. 
His  lips  framed  the  monosyllable  ''good." 

' '  Good ! ' '  echoed  Dieudonne,  at  his  back. 

The  woman  on  the  couch  imperiously 
waved  forward  two  more  slaves  from  the 
waiting  row.  It  reminded  Austin  grimly 
of  Nero  clamoring  in  the  Colosseum  for 
more  lions. 

"If  they  start  using  their  knives  it's — 
good-by,"  he  muttered. 

With  four  against  him,  even  though 
two  of  them  were  somewhat  crippled  by 
previous  combat,  the  fight  became  dis- 


mally unequal.  They  came  upon  him 
with  a  rush  from  all  sides  save  the  rear, 
where  he  was  protected  by  the  couch.  He 
was  able  to  deliver  but  one  blow,  and  that 
one,  being  his  last,  was  a  desperate  effort. 
He  had  the  satisfaction  of  stretching  one 
huge,  ugly  giant  flat  on  his  back  before 
they  overpowered  him  and  held  his  arms 
fast  to  his  sides. 

They  manifested  no  gentleness  then  in 
their  treatment  of  him;  one  at  his  head 
and  two  at  his  feet.  The  fourth  lay  beside 
the  dancing  girl,  motionless,  unheeded. 

As  they  bore  Austin  away  toward  the 
atrium  he  had  a  glimpse  of  the  woman, 
stretched  prone  on  the  couch,  following 
him  with  her  eyes.  And  a  slow,  cruel 
smile  curled  her  lips.  The  long  fans  were 
waving  quietly,  rhythmically,  and  the 
only  sound  throughout  the  court  was  that 
dull  murmur,  like  the  purr  of  a  smooth 
motor  or  the  buzz  of  a  dentist's  drill. 

Vilbert  met  them  in  the  atrium.  He 
was  strangely  excited,  and  all  the  time  he 
was  rubbing  his  sleek  hands  gloatingly  to- 
gether. Dieudonne  stood  behind  him, 
perspiring  freely. 

Once  outside  the  court  Austin  was 
allowed  to  stand,  the  slaves  holding  his 
arms.  Panting,  furious,  he  looked  back  to- 
ward the  dais.  The  woman  was  huddled 
on  the  couch,  sobbing  and  shaking  and 
wringing  her  hands. 

Vilbert  stood  by  the  entrance,  his  arm 
upraised,  waiting.  Suddenly  the  woman 
sat  upright,  threw  back  her  head,  drew 
something  from  her  girdle  that  flashed 
like  a  knife,  and  plunged  it  into  her  breast. 
Then  she  fell  forward  on  her  face. 

"Now!"  cried  Vilbert  ecstatically. 
"Finished!" 

He  clapped  his  hands,  and  the  scene 
changed  with  magic  rapidity.  The  wom- 
an on  the  couch  raised  herself  slowly  and 
began  to  adjust  her  clothing,  patting  her 
hair  with  delicate  touches.  The  Nubian 
slave  and  the  dancing  girl,  who  had  lain 
prostrate  on  the  floor,  got  slowly  to  their 
feet,  she  smiling,  laughing,  chatting  un- 
concernedly and  volubly  in  French;  he 
stumbling,  a  little  stiffly,  somewhat  crest- 
fallen, for  Austin  had  put  excellent  force 
behind  his  last  upper-cut. 

And  the  dull  noise  like  the  purr  of  a 
smooth  motor  or  the  buzz  of  a  dentist's 
drill  ceased. 


Dniwn  l>y  A.  Ciistui^nc 

With  four  against  him,  even  though  two  of  them  were  somewhat  cripplcil  by  previous  combat,  the  fight  became 

dismally  unequal.  —  Page  71O. 


717 


718 


The  Trodden  Way 


\'ilbert  turned,  his  face  wreathed  in 
smiles.  He  seized  Austin  in  his  arms  and 
kissed  him  rapturously  on  both  cheeks. 

"Cut  it  out,"  said  Austin  disgustedly; 
''  what  in  the  devil  do  you  think  you  are  do- 
ing?    Will  you  please  tell  me  the  joke?" 

''Ha,  hal"  laughed  Monsieur  Vilbert; 
"he  thinks  it  a  joke.  Well,  here  is  Rox- 
ane.     She  will  explain  the  joke." 

"  Yes,"  agreed  Dieudonne,  ''she  will  ex- 
plain." 

As  he  spoke,  the  woman  from  the  couch 
came  into  the  atrium.  Vilbert,  beside 
himself  with  delight,  rushed  to  her, 
shrieking  adjectives  of  approval.  When 
she  had  calmed  him  he  turned  to  Austin. 

''Monsieur  Waide,"  he  said,  "it  is  my 
great  pleasure  to  present  you  to  Madame 
Roxane  Verneuil,  of  the  Comedie  Fran- 
<;-aise.  To-day,  for  the  first  time  in  her 
brilliant  career,  she  has  honored  the  firm 
of  Vilbert  and  Dieudonne  by  consenting 
to  display  her  divine  talent  for  a  moving- 
picture " 

"Hush,"  said  she,  interrupting  his  elo- 
quence. "Monsieur  Waide,  I  am  en- 
chanted to  meet  you  on  a  somewhat  more 
formal  basis  than  just  now;  and  may  I 
congratulate  you  on  your  most  realistic 
portrayal  of  the  leading  role  of  our  drama 
without  words.  Realism — perfect  real- 
ism !     That  is  what  we  obtained  by  keep- 


ing you  in  ignorance  of  our  purpose.  I 
only  regret  that  your  words  cannot  be  re- 
produced as  well  as  your  motions.  Your 
fighting  was  magnificent,  but  your  love- 
making  was— well,  shall  I  say  convincing?  " 

"One  does  what  one  can,  madame," 
said  Austin  weakly.  "It  is  somewhat 
humiliating,  however,  to  find  that,  out  of 
so  many,  I  was,  so  to  speak,  the  only 
goat — le  seule  chevre."" 

"I  do  not  quite  comprehend,"  said 
Roxane,  "but  you  need  not  be  humili- 
ated; poor  Alphonse  and  Bernard  are  still 
nursing  their  chins — they  who  are  used  to 
rough  handling,  also.  What 'shall  you 
call  the  film.  Monsieur  Vilbert?" 

"I  think,"  answered  Monsieur  Vilbert, 
"that  I  shall  call  it  'Through  Passion  to 
Death.'  That  should  attract  the  Ameri- 
can public." 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  Austin,  "that  por- 
tions of  my  performance  would  fall  short  of 
that  title.  I  only  wish  I  might  give  an  en- 
core; for  I  am  convinced  that  on  a  second 
trial  I  could  do  myself  better  justice.  There 
was  one  part  in  particular,"  he  added, 
glancing  surreptitiously  at  Roxane,  "that  I 
might  have  improved  had  I  not  hurried  it. " 

"Oh,  I  am  not  sure,"  she  answered  him 
quickly;  "you  did  it  quite  well  enough." 
And,  smiling,  she  dabbed  the  rouge  from 
her  lips  with  her  handkerchief. 


THE    TRODDEN    WAY 

By  Martha   Haskell   Clark 

Did  you  know  the  call  of  the  spring-sweet  world,  mother,  oh,  my  mother, 

Hid  close  in  the  dim-remembered  days  when  you  were  as  young  as  I? 

When  life  seemed  only  a  gypsy  trail  through  pine-fringed  upland  and  sunlit  swale, 

And  never  a  care  walked  nigh,  ah,  mother,  for  never  a  care  walks  nigh. 

All  day  a-fare  under  bough-laced  skies  we  have  read  our  love  in  each  other's  eyes, 

And  life  is  fair  as  a  gypsy  trail,  with  the  spring  wind  sweeping  by. 

Ay,  little  wild  heart,  through  the  jasmined  door 
You  pass  the  way  that  I  walked  before. 

Did  you  know  the  glare  of  the  summer  noon,  mother,  oh,  my  mother, 
Locked  far  in  the  half -forgotten  days  when  you  were  as  young  as  I? 
When  the  hands'  relief  at  a  duty  done  meant  only  another  task  begun 
With  the  breath  of  the  roses  nigh,  ah,  mother,  the  breath  of  the  roses  nigh. 


Concerning  Conversation 


719 


The  prisoning  cottage  walls  within,  all  the  stifling  hours  must  I  sit  and  spin 
Till  life  seems  only  a  tangled  skein,  with  the  tear-knotted  threads  awry. 

Ay,  little  mute  heart,  through  the  dust  and  heat 
You  will  find  the  print  of  my  toiling  feet. 

Did  you  shrink  from  the  shadowy  valley-path,  mother,  oh,  my  mother, 

Spread  dark  in  the  pale-lit  autumn  days,  when  you  were  as  young  as  I? 

The  whispered  prayer,  and  the  frightened  tears,  and  the  gaunt,  grim  shapes  of  the 

hidden  fears 
That  stir  in  the  gloom  close  by,  ah,  mother,  that  walk  in  the  gloom  close  by. 
Till  the  rose-leaf  touch  of  a  tiny  hand  stretched  out  of  the  night  of  shadow-land, 
And  over  a  world  of  peace  there  lay  the  gold  of  a  sunset  sky. 

Ay,  little  lone  heart,  through  the  dark  and  dread 
My  feet  have  faltered,  my  heart  has  bled. 

I  know  each  step  of  your  seeking  feet,  daughter,  oh,  my  daughter, 

And  when  the  road  is  adrift  with  snow,  and  you  are  as  old  as  I, 

You  will  find  the  flame  of  that  springtime  fire  you  lit  on  the  trails  of  your  young 

desire 
Is  whispering  still  anigh,  my  daughter,  is  whispering  love  anigh. 
It  has  lit  the  path  of  your  gypsy  feet,  it  has  lent  its  warmth  to  the  hearth-side  peat, 
And  still  through  the  gray  of  the  winter  dusk  will  its  comfort  and  trust  bide  by. 

Ay,  little  young  heart,  there  is  no  regret 

On  the  road  where  the  light  of  that  flame  is  set. 


CONCERNING    CONVERSATION 

By  Brander  Matthews 


T  is  not  always  that  foreign- 
ers, adrift  for  a  few  weeks 
in  these  United  States,  ex- 
hibit that  condescension 
which  Lowell  resented 
sharj)ly.  Sometimes  they 
reveal  themselves  as  very  frank  in  exj)ress- 
ing  their  disappointment  and  their  disaj)- 
proval.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  they  are 
often  disappointed  in  us — perlui])s  almost 
as  often  as  we  are  disapi)()inted  in  them. 
They  may  have  ventured  across  the  West- 
ern ocean  merely  to  spy  out  the  land,  or  they 
may  have  arrived  as  missionaries  of  cuUure, 
having  prej)ared  themselves  to  enlighten  us 
by  means  of  lectures  in  words  of  one  syllable 
Vol.  LV.— 78 


— to  borrow  a  pertinent  phrase  of  Colonel 
Hig<irinson's.  But  whether  thev  come  as 
single  spies  or  in  lecturing  battalions  they 
rarely  display  the  self-control  which  pre- 
vented Thackeray  from  adverse  criticism 
of  his  American  hosts.  Dickens  had  been 
welcomed  as  the  guest  of  the  nation;  but 
he  did  not  hold  that  the  acceptance  of  our 
hosj)itality  debarred  him  from  the  privilege 
of  speaking  his  mind  freely  about  his  en- 
tertainers. Many  lesser  men  have  shared 
our  bread  and  salt;  and  ncU  a  few  of  them 
have  felt  free  to  follow  the  example  of 
Dickens  rather  than  that  of  Thai  keray. 

In  the  fall  of  1909  a  wandering  British 
j)liilosoj)her,    who    hailed    from    the    Uni- 


720 


Concerning  Conversation 


vcrsity  of  Cambridge,  was  a  guest  at  vari- 
ous American  colleges;  and  after  he  had 
gone  back  to  his  own  })lace  he  published 
in  a  Cambridge  review  his  opinion  that  ''in 
America  there  is,  broadly  speaking,  no 
culture.  There  is  instruction;  there  is  re- 
search; there  is  technical  and  professional 
training;  there  is  speciaHzation  in  science 
and  in  industry;  there  is  every  possible  ap- 
plication of  life  to  purposes  and  ends;  but 
there  is  no  hfe  for  its  own  sake."  And  he 
declared  that  "you  will  lind,  if  you  travel 
long  in  America,  that  you  are  suffering 
from  a  kind  of  atrophy.  You  will  not,  at 
first,  reaHze  what  it  means.  But  suddenly 
it  will  flash  upon  you  that  you  are  suffering 
from  lack  of  conversation.  You  do  not 
converse;  you  cannot;  you  can  only  talk. 
It  is  the  rarest  thing  to  meet  a  man  who, 
when  a  subject  is  started,  is  willing  or  able 
to  follow  it  out  into  its  ramifications,  to  play 
with  it,  to  embroider  it  with  pathos  or  with 
wit,  to  penetrate  to  its  roots,  to  trace  its 
connections  and  affinities.  Question  and 
answer,  anecdote  and  jest,  are  the  staple  of 
American  conversation;  and,  above  all,  in- 
formation. They  have  a  hunger  for  posi- 
tive facts." 

In  a  sweeping  assertion  like  this  there 
is  certainly  no  hint  of  condescension,  even 
if  there  is  in  it  a  disquieting  assumption 
of  superiority.  That  it  should  have  been 
made  by  an  Englishman  is  a  little  starthng, 
since  our  kin  across  the  sea  would  seem  to 
be  related  to  us  in  nothing  more  intimately 
than  in  their  desire  for  information  and 
their  hunger  for  positive  facts.  It  would 
have  been  more  understandable  if  this  as- 
sertion had  been  risked  by  a  Frenchman, 
since  the  French  are  governed  by  the  social 
instinct  and  trained  from  their  youth  up  to 
be  easy  in  converse  themselves  and  also  to 
put  others  at  their  ease.  There  it  is,  how- 
ever, made  by  an  Englishman;  and  this 
leaves  us  wondering  what  Hawthorne  could 
have  meant  when  he  made  one  of  the  en- 
tries in  the  note-book  he  kept  while  he  was 
in  exile  as  consul  to  Liverpool:  *'I  wish  I 
could  know  exactly  what  the  English  style 
good  conversation.  Probably  it  is  some- 
thing like  plum-pudding — as  heavy,  but 
seldom  as  rich." 

Yet  there  is  profit  always  in  weighing  the 
words  of  an  aHen  critic  of  American  charac- 
teristics and  in  trying  to  discover  how  much 
of  truth  may  be  contained  in  his  off-hand 
opinion.     We  can  afford  to  overlook  the 


casual  discourtesy  of  his  supercilious  and 
superficial  phrase  if  we  are  able  to  get  at 
the  core  of  his  accusation.  It  is  well  that 
we  should  know  ourselves;  and  we  must 
not  deny  our  gratitude  to  the  foreigner  who 
forces  us  to  take  stock  of  our  deficiencies. 
If  we  are  frank  we  must  admit  that  ques- 
tion and  answer,  anecdote  and  jest,  are  fre- 
quent in  our  mouths,  and  that  our  ears 
hunger  for  information.  The  relish  for 
anecdote  and  jest  is  one  manifestation  of 
that  omnipresent  American  humor,  which 
is  also  good  humor  and  which  may  often 
degenerate  into  mere  triviality.  The  de- 
sire for  positive  facts  is  an  attribute  of  our 
practicaHty,  of  our  ability  to  turn  every- 
thing to  account.  We  are  not  unlike  the 
Athenians  of  old  in  our  eagerness  to  hear 
and  to  tell  some  new  thing;  and  probably 
some  part  of  the  wide-spread  ability  to  shift 
our  ingenuity  suddenly  into  new  channels 
may  be  ascribed  to  this  very  characteristic. 
A  chance  fact  dropped  in  talk  by  a  stranger, 
a  casual  scrap  of  information  picked  up  by 
the  wayside — these  things  have  been  the 
seed-corn  of  many  a  new  industry.  We 
have  no  cause  to  blush  when  we  are  told 
that  we  have  a  hunger  for  positive  facts  or 
even  when  we  are  assured  that  the  staple 
of  our  talk  is  question  and  answer. 

This  is  as  it  should  be,  and  no  man  has  a 
right  to  expect  anything  more  in  ordinary 
talk.  But  the  imported  lecturer  made  a 
sharp  distinction  between  ordinary  talk  and 
genuine  conversation.  Talk  is  all  in  the 
day's  work;  it  is  practical;  it  consists  of 
question  and  answer;  it  lends  itself  lightly 
to  the  interchange  of  facts  and  to  the 
swapping  of  stories.  Conversation  is  an- 
other thing  altogether,  or  rather  it  is  the 
same  thing  raised  and  glorified.  There  is 
the  same  difference  between  talk  and  con- 
versation that  there  is  between  house-paint- 
ing and  the  mural  decoration  of  Puvis  de 
Chavannes  or  of  John  La  Farge.  Talk 
might  be  called  one  of  the  mechanical  arts, 
whereas  conversation  is  one  of  the  fine  arts. 
Only  a  man  born  to  the  craft,  specifically 
gifted  for  it,  trained  by  years  of  practice,  en- 
lightened by  the  example  of  the  masters  of 
conversation,  can  take  a  subject,  follow  it 
out  in  all  its  ramifications,  play  with  it, 
embroider  it  with  pathos  or  with  wit,  pene- 
trate to  its  roots,  and  trace  its  connections 
and  affinities.  A  great  converser  is  like 
any  other  great  artist,  born  not  made — or 
rather  born  and  also  made. 


Concerning  Conversation 


721 


Our  Cambridge  critic  has  here  .sui)plicd 
an  admirable  definition  of  the  line  art 
of  conversation  as  distinguished  from  the 
frankly  inartistic  talk  of  every-day  life. 
Where  he  made  his  slip  was  in  expecting  to 
find  practitioners  of  this  delicate  art  scat- 
tered all  over  the  United  States  wherever 
his  engagements  might  take  him.  In  no 
country  of  the  world  is  any  one  of  the  fine 
arts  cultivated  by  the  average  man;  and  it 
is  absurd  to  expect  the  average  man  to  lift 
himself  to  this  exalted  level  of  artistic  ac- 
complishment. The  average  man  has  no 
time  for  any  of  the  fine  arts;  he  is  too  busy 
trying  to  keep  a  roof  over  his  head  and  to 
make  a  living  for  his  family.  The  masters 
of  conversation  are  no  more  frequent  in 
America  than  they  are  anywhere  else;  and 
the  visitor  from  abroad  is  no  more  likely  to 
drop  into  the  centre  of  a  circle  of  these 
artists  here  than  an  American  abroad  is 
likely  to  happen  into  a  similar  group  on  the 
other  side.  In  no  country  do  these  artists 
in  conversation  hold  an  open  exhibition  and 
sell  tickets  at  the  door. 

Hawthorne,  for  example,  before  he  went 
to  England,  had  attended  the  Saturday 
luncheons  at  Boston,  with  Lowell  at  one  end 
of  the  table  and  Holmes  at  the  other,  and  it 
is  small  wonder  that  he  failed  to  find  con- 
versation of  that  kind  in  Liverpool.  The 
itinerant  lecturer  who  recorded  his  suffer- 
ings from  a  lack  of  conversation  here  in  the 
United  States  did  not  have  the  good  for- 
tune to  penetrate  into  the  circles  where  that 
fine  art  was  cultivated.  At  home  he  knew 
where  to  go  to  get  just  what  he  wanted;  and 
because  he  did  not  know  where  to  get  it 
here  he  was  rash  enough  to  assume  that  it 
did  not  exist.  The  assumption  may  have 
been  natural  enough ;  but  it  was  a  blunder, 
nevertheless.  x\nd  it  was  intensified  by  his 
failure  to  reflect  on  the  fact  that  he  was  not 
one  of  us,  but  an  outsider,  a  man  not  tested, 
an  unknown  quantity,  passing  through  ha- 
stily, and  only  pausing  here  and  there  to  eat 
and  to  sleep,  and  to  speak  his  piece,  and 
then  away  on  the  wing  once  more.  Even 
if  he  had  by  chance  found  himself  in  some 
circle  of  true  lovers  of  conversation,  he  him- 
self would  have  been  a  disturbing  element, 
and  he  might  have  got  away  without  ever 
susi)ecting  that  he  had  been  in  the  com- 
pany of  the  very  artists  whose  society  he 
was  vainly  seeking.  A  master  of  conver- 
sation might  shrink  from  showing  off  i)e- 
fore  a  stranger;  he  might  prefer  to  reserve 


for  his  intimates  the  full  display  of  his 
powers. 

Our  British  visitor  failed  to  find  fit  con- 
versation here  in  America,  yet  he  seems  to 
have  had  no  doubt  that  it  existed  in  En- 
gland. But  a  recent  American  writer  is  sad- 
dened because  it  cannot  now  Ije  found  any- 
where. He  has  asserted  that  ''present-day 
conversation  has  sunk  far  below  the  high 
levels  of  the  talk  of  the  past;  that  our 
conversational  performances  are  flat,  thin, 
and  poor";  and  "that  conversation  is  in- 
deed a  lost  art."  He  believes  that  this  as- 
sertion will  pass  unchallenged  and  he  has 
set  it  in  the  foreground  of  a  welcome  vol- 
ume into  which  he  has  collected  half  a  score 
of  essays  on  the  subject.  He  even  ven- 
tures to  entitle  this  delectable  gathering 
''The  Lost  Art  of  Conversation."  Here 
again  we  find  cropping  up  the  ineradicable 
belief  that  this  is  a  day  of  decadence  and 
that  there  were  giants  in  other  days  to 
whose  stature  we  cannot  hope  to  stretch 
ourselves.  We  are  all  })rone  to  be  praisers 
of  passed  times — especially  when  we  are 
very  young  or  very  old.  The  great  masters 
are  all  dead  and  we  have  been  born  too  late 
into  an  exhausted  world.  As  Tom  Reed 
put  it  pithily,  "a  statesman  is  a  successful 
politician — who  is  dead."  There  are  no 
great  actors  now,  and  no  great  orators,  and 
no  great  conversationalists.  These  opinions 
are  the  result  of  that  o{)tical  delusion  which 
leads  us  to  think  that  the  telegraph  poles  are 
closer  together  the  farther  off  they  are. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  good  conversation 
is  })robably  no  rarer  to-day  and  in  these 
United  States  than  it  ever  was  anywhere. 
It  must  always  be  rare,  if  conversation 
is  truly  one  of  the  fine  arts.  It  nourished 
in  London  in  the  eighteenth  century  in  The 
Club,  which  gathered  about  Johnson,  al- 
though his  selfish  brutality  must  often  have 
killed  the  easy  interchange  of  question  and 
answer,  since  Johnson  was  incorrigibly 
domineering;  and,  as  (loldsmith  once  put 
it,  "whenever  his  pistol  missed  fire,  he 
knocked  you  dowTi  with  the  butt."  Ct^n- 
versation  was  cultivated  as  a  fine  art  in 
Boston  at  those  Saturday  luncheons,  al- 
though Lowell  and  Holmes  may  have  been 
a  little  inclined  to  .seize  more  than  their 
share  of  the  talk.  \w(\  it  flourishes  to-day 
in  New  York  in  several  little  circles  where 
there  are  men  of  the  world  and  men  of  af- 
fairs who  are  able  to  follow  a  subject  out 
into  its  ramifications  and  to  play  with  it, 


722 


Concerning  Conversation 


penetrating  to  its  roots  and  embroider- 
ing it  \vith  wit  and  with  pathos.  Such  lit- 
tle circles  are  not  many,  of  course,  but  they 
exist  here  and  now,  known  to  those  who  are 
competent  to  join  them — and  necessarily 
unknown  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 

In  Mr.  Krans's  agreeable  collection  of 
essays  which  he  has  entitled  ''The  Lost  Art 
of  Conversation,"  we  fmd  the  two  charac- 
teristically acute  papers  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  on  ''Talk  and  Talkers,"  written 
more  than  twenty-five  years  ago.  Steven- 
son was  a  delightful  talker  himself,  as  I  can 
testify,  although  I  had  only  the  privilege  of 
one  afternoon  session  with  him,  not  long 
before  he  left  England  for  the  last  time. 
And  he  knew  good  talk  when  he  heard  it. 
In  these  two  essays  he  painted  the  portraits 
of  six  of  his  friends  whom  he  held  to  be 
masters  of  the  art  of  conversation.  These 
friends  whose  powers  he  was  celebrating  he 
disguised  under  various  names — "Burly," 
"Spring  heel'd  Jack,"  "Cockshot,"  and 
"Purcell."  Most  of  them  are  now  dead; 
and  there  is  no  indiscretion  in  giving  their 
real  names.  "Cockshot"  was  Professor 
Fleeming  Jenkin,  whose  biography  Steven- 
son was  to  write.  "Burly"  was  his  collab- 
orator, W.  E.  Henley,  who  turned  traitor 
after  Stevenson's  death.  "Spring  heel'd 
Jack"  was  his  cousin,  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson. 
"Athelred"  was,  I  believe,  his  executor, 
Mr.  Baxter.  "Opalstein"  was  John  Ad- 
dington  Symonds,  and  "Purcell"  was  Mr. 
Edmund  Gosse. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  four  out  of  the  six.  I 
never  had  the  pleasure  of  talking  with  Sy- 
monds or  with  Mr.  Baxter,  and  I  think 
I  had  speech  with  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson 
only  two  or  three  times.  But  the  other 
three  I  met  frequently,  often  together,  al- 
though they  were  not  as  intimate  with  each 
other  severally  as  they  were  with  Steven- 
son himself.  That  they  were  masters  of 
the  art  of  conversation,  conscious  and  de- 
liberate artists — this  is  beyond  all  ques- 
tion. Fleeming  Jenkin,  more  especially, 
was  one  of  the  most  gifted  and  spontane- 
ous talkers  I  have  ever  had  the  delight  of 
listening  to — full  of  whim  and  of  wisdom, 
delighting  in  expounding  unexpected  the- 
ories tinctured  with  his  own  vivacious 
originality. 

Yet  I  should  hesitate  to  assign  to  any  one 
of  these  four  British  subjects  a  higher  place 


in  the  hierarchy  of  good  talkers  than  I 
should  bestow  upon  four  American  citizens 
— Thomas  B.  Reed  and  John  Hay,  Clar- 
ence King  and  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich. 
They  were  all  wits,  but  they  none  of  them 
insisted  on  reducing  talk  to  a  sohloquy,  as 
Macaulay  and  Gladstone  were  wont  to  do. 
A  brilliant  conversationalist  cannot  be  a 
monologue  artist.  He  must  give  and  take; 
he  must  play  the  game  fairly,  allowing  his 
associates  a  chance  to  show  what  they  can 
do  also.  On  the  other  hand,  wit  is  the  most 
precious  ingredie'nt  of  good  talk;  and  none 
who  love  conversation  will  hold  with  Pri- 
or's man  who 

"  Thinks  wit  the  bane  of  conversation, 
And  says  that  learning  spoils  a  nation." 

Tom  Reed's  conversation  was  a  constant 
delight,  due  in  part  to  his  caustic  wit.  John 
Hay  had  the  same  wide  knowledge  of  men 
and  affairs;  and  his  talk  was  also  tinctured 
with  a  subacid  wit.  When  he  was  secre- 
tary of  state  he  clashed  repeatedly  with  the 
Senate,  which  led  him  to  express  his  opin- 
ion with  the  utmost  freedom.  When  he 
was  asked  which  senator  he  detested  most, 
he  answered  promptly,  "The  one  I  have 
seen  last.  I  hold  the  Senate  to  be  my  tribal 
enemy!"  Clarence  King  had  an  equally 
large  acquaintance  with  the  world  and  an 
equally  frank  delivery  of  his  opinion  about 
men  and  things.  And  as  for  Aldrich,  pearls 
of  wit  dropped  from  his  lips  whenever  he 
opened  his  mouth.  I  chanced  to  say  to 
him  once  that  it  was  curious  how  a  certain 
British  scholar,  who  seemed  to  have  read 
everything  and  written  about  everything, 
should  not  have  gained  greater  wisdom 
by  all  his  labors.  "  Yes,"  said  Aldrich,  "he 
is  like  a  gas-pipe — no  richer  for  the  illumi- 
nation it  has  conveyed." 

Of  course,  specimen  bricks  are  wholly 
inadequate  even  to  suggest  an  idea  of  the 
house  of  conversation  in  which  Reed  and 
Hay,  Aldrich  and  King,  made  themselves 
at  home.  Good  talk  is  not  merely  a  swift 
succession  of  good  things,  and  after  a  while 
a  sequence  of  smart  sayings  will  prove 
fatiguing.  The  subject  must  be  embroid- 
ered with  pathos  as  well  as  with  wit,  and  it 
must  be  penetrated  to  its  roots  and  explored 
in  its  affinities,  as  the  British  lecturer  as- 
serted. Good  talk  calls  for  the  clash  of 
opinions  and  for  the  shock  of  prejudices. 
Contradiction  —  the  courteous  contradic- 
tion of  an  equal  who  has  self-respect  so 


Concerning  Conversation 


'23 


abundant  that  he  respects  also  the  views  of 
his  opponent — contradiction  is  of  the  es- 
sence of  the  contract.  There  never  was  a 
more  fooHsh  definition  than  that  which  de- 
clared an  agreeable  man  to  be  "a  man  who 
agrees  with  you."  So  far  as  conversation 
is  concerned  an  agreeable  man  is  one  who 
disagrees  with  you,  courteously  but  insist- 
ently, who  assaults  your  private  opinions 
and  who  takes  your  pet  prejudices  by  storm. 
For  really  good  talk  you  need  the  man  who 
can  see  both  sides  of  a  question  and  who 
can  suddenly  discover  a  third  side,  discon- 
certing to  both  parties.  He  may  be  a 
feeble  arithmetician  who  tries  to  make  two 
half-truths  equal  a  whole  truth;  and  yet 
even  this  may  be  risked  in  conversation, 
sprung  upon  the  hearers  unexpectedly,  to 
force  them  to  go  back  to  first  principles. 

It  seemed  fairest  to  match  Stevenson's 
quartet  of  British  conversers  with  four 
Americans  now  departed  and  therefore  to 
be  named  here  without  impropriety.  But 
there  are  fortunately  others  of  the  same 
generation  well  worthy  to  be  ranked  with 
them.  One  was  the  venerable  essayist  who 
served  his  country  gallantly  in  command 
of  a  black  regiment  and  who  deserved  well 
of  all  Americans,  young  folks  and  old. 
Another  is  the  imaginative  artist  who 
adorned  the  Persian  poet  with  drawings 
inspired  by  a  sympathetic  understanding. 
A  third  is  the  dean  of  American  novelists, 
whose  talking  is  like  his  writing  in  that  it  is 
compact  with  knowledge  of  human  nature 
and  adorned  with  the  most  dehcate  felic- 
ity of  phrasing. 

And  in  my  own  generation  I  should  be  at 
no  loss  to  single  out  at  least  half  a  dozen 
masters  of  the  art  of  conversation,  not  un- 
worthy of  comparison  with  those  whom  I 
have  already  called  to  the  witness-stand. 
Two  or  three  of  my  colleagues  at  Columbia 
University  could  not  be  omitted  from  any 
catalogue  of  competent  conversers;  they  are 
scholars  who  have  not  allowed  their  wide 
knowledge  to  weigh  down  their  wit  and  who 
are  free  from  the  reproach  that  Vauve- 
nargues  brought  against ''  the  men  of  learn- 
ing who  resemble  gross  feeders  with  a  bad 
digestion."  Eciually  insistent  upon  admis- 
sion to  the  list  of  the  good  talkers  1  haj)|)en 
to  know  are  two  artists,  one  a  mural  j)ainter 
and  the  other  an  illustrator,  whose  conver- 
sation has  the  ring  of  the  true  metal.  Both 
of  them  have  what  Stevenson  credited  to 


Henley,  "a  desire  to  hear — although  not 
always  to  listen."  It  is  true  also  that  both 
of  them  may  succumb  on  occasion  to  that 
tem{)tation  to  monologue,  which  is  fatal 
to  general  conversation;  yet  they  can  be 
tempted  into  team-play,  serving  an  idea 
like  a  tennis-ball,  with  long  rallies,  during 
which  the  subject  flies  high  and  is  returned 
sharply  and  seems  about  to  fall  to  the 
ground  only  to  be  caught  up  dexterously 
and  driven  into  an  unexj)ected  corner. 

The  reason  why  conversation  of  the  high- 
est type  is  infrequent  is  that  its  substance 
must  be  ideas  rather  than  things  or  persons. 
Now,  the  immense  majority  of  mankind 
seem  to  be  interested,  if  not  solely,  at  least 
chiefly,  in  persons.  Nothing  human  is  for- 
eign to  them  and  they  take  a  keen  relish  in 
discussing  their  fellow  human  beings.  Yet 
the  bulk  of  this  talk  is  about  individuals, 
known  to  the  talkers  themselves.  \'ery 
rarely  does  the  conversation  of  the  majority 
aspire  to  deal  with  humanity  at  large,  with 
men  and  women  in  their  ampler  relations. 
For  the  most  part  this  talk  is  mere  gossip, 
the  interchange  of  question  and  answer 
about  friends  and  acquaintances.  A  com- 
fortable minority  may  like  to  converse  about 
things  and  to  exchange  information.  It  is 
this  minority  which  exhibits  that  hunger 
for  facts,  which  our  British  visitor  noted. 
Comparatively  few  are  those  who  can  lift 
themselves  u{)  to  the  level  of  general  ideas 
and  who  can  tunnel  down  to  the  principles 
which  govern  human  conduct.  Yet  con- 
versation disi)lays  itself  to  best  advantage 
only  when  the  participants  are  willing  to 
deal  with  ideas,  rather  than  with  persons 
and  things — although  without  neglecting 
these.  Not  only  must  they  be  willing  to 
do  this,  they  must  also  be  capable  of  it. 
They  need  a  broad  basis  of  knowledge  as 
well  as  a  shrewd  understanding  of  human 
nature  and  of  the  interplay  of  the  social 
forces. 

When  the  requirements  and  conditions 
of  genuine  conversation  are  clearly  appre- 
hended, we  need  not  be  surprised  that  it 
is  a  rarity  to-tlay  and  that  it  always  has 
been  a  rarity.  And  we  can  appreciate  the 
full  meaning  of  Holmes's  assiTtion  (in 
"The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table") 
that  *'  talking  is  one  of  the  line  arts — the  no- 
blest, the  most  im|)()rtant.  the  most  dilVuult 
— and  its  lUient  harmonies  may  be  spoiled 
by  the  intrusion  of  a  single  harsh  note."^ 


OLD     FAIRINGDOWN 

By  Olive   Tilford   Dargan 

Soft  as  a  treader  on  mosses 

I  go  through  the  village  that  sleeps; 

The  village  too  early  abed, 

For  the  night  still  shuffles,  a  gypsy, 

In  the  woods  of  the  east, 

And  the  west  remembers  the  sun. 

Not  all  are  asleep;  there  are  faces 
X  That  lean  from  the  walls  of  the  gardens. 

Look  sharply,  or  you  will  not  see  them, 
Or  think  them  another  stone  in  the  wall. 
I  spoke  to  a  stone,  and  it  answered, 
Like  an  aged  rock  that  crumbles. 
And  each  falling  piece  was  a  word. 
"Five  have  I  buried,"  it  said, 
"And  seven  are  over  the  sea." 

Here  is  a  hut  that  I  pass, 

So  lowly  it  has  no  brow, 

And  dwarfs  sit  within  at  a  table. 

A  boy  waits  apart  by  the  hearth; 

On  his  face  is  the  patience  of  firelight, 

But  his  eyes  seek  the  door  and  a  far-world. 

It  is  not  the  call  to  the  table  he  waits. 

But  the  call  of  the  sea-rimmed  forests. 

And  cities  that  stir  in  a  dream. 

I  haste  by  the  low-browed  door. 

Lest  my  arms  go  in  and  betray  me, 

A  mother  jealously  passing. 

He  will  go,  the  pale  dwarf,  and  walk  tall  among  giants; 

The  child  with  his  eyes  on  the  far-land, 

And  fame  like  a  young,  curled  leaf  in  his  heart. 

The  stream  that  darts  from  the  hanging  hill 

Like  a  silver  wing  that  must  sing  as  it  flies, 

Is  folded  and  still  on  the  breast 

Of  the  village  that  sleeps. 

Each  mute  old  house  is  more  old  than  the  other, 

And  each  wears  its  vines  like  ragged  hair 

Round  the  half-blind  windows. 

If  a  child  should  laugh,  if  a  girl  should  sing, 

Would  the  houses  rub  the  vines  from  their  eyes, 

And  listen  and  live? 
724 


Old    Fairino^down  725 


't> 


A  voice  comes  now  from  a  cottage, 
A  voice  that  is  young  and  must  sing, 
A  honeyed  stab  on  the  air, 
And  the  houses  do  not  wake. 

I  look  through  the  leaf-blowzed  window, 

And  start  as  a  gazer  who,  passing  a  death-vault, 

Sees  Life  sitting  hopeful  within. 

She  is  young,  but  a  woman,  round-breasted, 

Waiting  the  peril  of  Eve; 

And  she  makes  the  shadows  about  her  sweet 

As  the  glooms  that  play  in  a  pine- wood. 

She  sits  at  a  harpsichord  (old  as  the  walls  are), 

And  longing  flows  in  the  trickling,  fairy  notes 

Like  a  hidden  brook  in  a  forest 

Seeking  and  seeking  the  sun. 

I  have  watched  a  young  tree  on  the  edge  of  a  wood 

When  the  mist  is  weaving  and  drifting; 

Slowly  the  boughs  disappear,  and  the  leaves  reach  out 

Like  the  drowning  hands  of  children, 

Till  a  gray  blur  quivers  cold 

Where  the  green  grace  drank  of  the  sun. 

So  now,  as  I  gaze,  the  morrows 

Creep  weaving  and  winding  their  mist 

Round  the  beauty  of  her  who  sings. 

They  hide  the  soft  rings  of  her  hair, 

Dear  as  a  child's  curling  fingers; 

They  shut  out  the  trembling  sun  of  eyes 

That  are  deep  as  a  bending  mother's; 

And  her  bridal  body  is  scarfed  with  their  chill. 

For  old,  and  old,  is  the  story; 

Over  and  over  I  hear  it. 

Over  and  over  I  listen  to  murmurs 

That  are  always  the  same  in  these  towns  thai  sleep; 

Where,  gray  and  unwed,  a  w^oman  passes, 

Her  cramped,  drab  gown  the  bounds  of  a  world 

She  holds  with  grief  and  silence; 

And  a  gossip  whose  tongue  alone  is  unwithercd 

Mumbles  the  tale  by  her  affable  gate; 

How  the  lad  must  go,  and  the  girl  must  stay, 

Singing  alone  to  the  years  and  a  dream; 

Then  a  letter,  a  rumor,  a  word, 

From  the  land  that  reaches  for  lovers. 

And  gives  them   not   back; 

And  the  maiden  looks  up  with  a  face  that  is  okl; 

Her  smile,  as  her  body,  is  evermore  barren; 


726 


Upland   Pastures 


Her  cheek  like  the  bark  of  the  beech-tree 
Where  cHmbs  the  gray  winter. 

Now  have  I  seen  her  young, 

The  lone  girl  singing, 

With  the  full,  round  breast  and  the  berry  lip, 

And  heart  that  runs  to  a  dawn-rise 

On  new-world  mountains. 

The  weeping  ash  in  the  dooryard 

Gathers  the  song  in  its  boughs. 

And  the  gown  of  dawn  she  will  never  wear. 

I  can  listen  no  more;  good-by,  little  town,  old  Fairingdown. 
I  climb  the  long,  dark  hill-side. 

But  the  ache  I  have  found  here  I  cannot  outclimb. 
O  heart,  if  we  had  not  heard,  if  we  did  not  know 
There  is  that  in  the  village  that  never  will  sleep! 
Hampshire,  England. 


UPLAND    PASTURES 

By  Walter  Prichard  Eaton 

Illustrations  by  Walter  King  Stone 


HERE  are  alluring  names  in 
the  corner  of  the  world 
where  I  dwell,  such  as  the 
Upper  Meadow,  Sky  Farm, 
and  High  Pasture.  Is  there 
not  something  breeze- 
blown  and  spacious  about  the  very  words 
High  Pasture?  You  do  not  need  a  pic- 
ture to  bring  the  image  to  your  eye.  Per- 
haps your  image  will  not  in  the  least  re- 
semble our  High  Pasture,  to  be  sure,  but 
what  does  that  matter?  You  will  see  a 
greensward  flung  like  a  mantle  over  the 
tall  shoulder  of  a  hill,  the  blue  dome  of  the 
sky  dropping  down  behind  it,  and  to  the 
ear  of  memory  will  come  the  faint,  lazy 
tinkle  of  a  cow-bell.  It  is  the  magic  of 
the  words  which  matters,  not  the  realism 
of  the  image. 

Our  High  Pasture  is  on  the  southern 
shoulder  of  Rattlesnake  Hill,  and  it  is 
splendidly  isolated  from  the  lowlands  by 
forest.  The  forest  marches  down  from 
the  summit  upon  it  and  stops  abruptly 
with  an  edge  like  a  tall  green  wall.    The 


pasture  itself  goes  over  the  shoulder  on 
either  side  with  a  beautiful  domelike  bil- 
low, and  meets  the  forest  again  climbing 
up  from  the  valley.  You  see  no  road  lead- 
ing thither.  It  is  a  lonely  clearing  on  the 
heights,  and  behind  the  sharp,  doming 
line  of  its  wave-crest  the  sky  drops  down 
to  infinite  depths  of  space.  How  far  one 
could  see  if  he  climbed  there  and  looked 
over  the  crest !  How  fresh  the  wind  must 
blow  out  of  those  deep  sky  spaces,  though 
here  in  the  valley  the  summer  day  is 
breathless  and  sultry!  How  tiny  the 
black-and-white  specks  of  the  Holsteins 
appear,  as  they  seem  barely  to  move,  like 
lazy  flies  on  a  green  tapestry! 

One  autumn  not  long  ago  the  farmer 
ploughed  High  Pasture,  turning  it  from 
green  to  brown,  and  when  the  first  snow- 
spits  of  November  came  the  furrows  filled, 
and  suddenly  it  was  a  beautiful  zebra-skin 
laid  over  the  shoulder  of  the  hill.  Then 
all  winter  it  was  a  dome  of  glistening 
white  amid  the  reddish-gray  of  the  moun- 
tain forest.     But  as  spring  came  up  the 


Upland   Pastures 


727 


land  it  grew  emerald  with  oats,  and  in  point,  while  a  woodchuck  rushed  off  into 

lush  midsummer  we  climbed  through  the  the  oats,  stirring  their  toi)s  like  a  fish 

woods  to  reach  it,  up  the  bed  of  a  forest  swimming  just  under  the  surface  of  the 

brook,  and  came  out  upon  the  lower  edge  water,  swallows  skimmed  the  lield  Uke 


A  greensward  rtniiH  like  a  mantle  u\er  the  tall  shonldcr  of  a  hill,  the  blue 
dome  of  the  sky  druppni^  down  heliiiid  it.  —  I'age  726. 


as  upon  a  ])each.  I'he  waves  were  break-  gulls,  and  c\  en  the  pines  to  our  left  spoke 
ing  at  our  feet.  Ovxt  the  dome-line  above  with  the  voice  of  the  ocean.  At  the  crest 
us,  out  of  those  deep  sky  spaces  behind,  of  the  ridge  we  set  our  backs  to  the  forest 
came  the  wind,  and  swej)t  the  billows  wall  and  looked  i)Ut  over  the  pasture  be- 
down  upon  us  with  a  rustling  murmur  as  low  us.  Kver  the  wind  went  by  across  the 
of  some  magic,  brittle  sea.  oats,  wave  after  wave  of  emerald,  and  we 
We  skirted  the  pasture  to  the  highest  saw,  on  the  plain  beneath,  our  tidy  vil- 
VoL.  LV.— 79 


'28 


Upland   Pastures 


lagc  and  the  winding  thread  of  the  river, 
and  beyond  that  another  hill  going  up 
\N'ith  the  green  pastures  of  Sky  Farm 
perched  on  its  liftecn-hundred-foot  shoul- 
der, and  farther  still  the  mountain  walls 
like  smoky  blue  billows  on  the  horizon. 
Beliind  us,  in  the  dim,  cool,  evergreens,  a 
wood-thrush  sang.  A  cheewink  hopped 
in  a  near-by  tree,  and  a  field-sparrow  was 


is  a  road  the  motors  never  essay,  and  last 
year's  leaves  lie  in  the  wheel-ruts  in  the 
spring,  while  in  the  autumn  the  squirrels 
scold  at  your  intrusion.  Presently  you 
hear  a  brook  falling  down  a  ravine  to  the 
left,  and  the  road  grows  steeper,  the 
thank-you-marms  more  frequent.  Light 
breaks  ahead,  and  you  stand  suddenly 
in  the  Sky  Farm  plum  orchard.     If  it 


The  mountain  wall  goes  up  beyond  us,  bearing  its  dark,  snow-flecked  pines  prominently  against  the  gray-and- 

white  of  bare  birch  and  chestnut  trunks,  etched  with  a  myriad  vertical  strokes  upon 

the  groundwork  of  snow. — Page  732. 


busy  in  the  oats.  How  fresh  was  the 
breeze,  how  peaceful  this  airy  spacious- 
ness! The  world  was  being  bathed  in 
sunshine  and  dried  by  the  wind.  We  lay 
down  at  the  pasture  edge,  and  the  waving 
oats  shut  out  everything  but  the  sky. 
We  could  look  a  long  way  into  the  green 
aisles  between  the  stalks,  and  once  we 
saw  a  field-mouse  pass  across  the  end  of  a 
vista,  a  prowler  in  this  pygmy  forest.  He 
made  no  sound.  There  was  no  sound  any- 
where save  the  brittle  wave-swish  of  the 
grain,  the  deep  murmur  of  the  evergreens 
behind  us,  and  the  music  of  the  birds. 

To  me  there  is  less  allurement  in  Sky 
Farm,  because  it  is  inhabited.  The  true 
upland  pasture  is  isolated,  alone.  But 
yet  Sky  Farm  has  many  attractions  not 
often  appreciated  by  the  vacation  visitors 
to  our  valley,  who  almost  invariably  ex- 
claim: "It  must  be  dreadfully  cold  there 
in  winter!"  The  road  to  this  farm  winds 
up  the  mountain  for  two  miles  through  a 
wood  of  tall  chestnut-trees,  noble  old  fel- 
lows hung  w^ith  bitter-sweet  and  shading 
wild  garden  borders  of  fern  and  brake.     It 


is  blossom-time,  you  stand  suddenly  in 
Japan,  after  two  miles  of  climbing  through 
a  New  England  forest.  But  beyond  the 
plum  orchard  is  the  unmistakable  gray 
barn  and  the  unmistakable  small,  bare 
house  of  the  New  England  hill  farm.  A 
few  steps  bring  you  to  the  dooryard.  The 
road  ends  at  the  barn  runway — the  road 
ends  and  the  view  opens.  You  look  back 
over  the  forest,  mile  on  mile  to  the  hori- 
zon hills,  and  through  the  barn  itself  and 
the  smaller  rear  door  at  the  vacant  sky, 
for  on  that  side  the  hill  drops  sheer  away. 
Behind  the  house  the  clearing  extends  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  up  a  steep  slope  to  meet 
the  woods  coming  down  from  the  summit 
of  the  mountain.  Here  the  cattle  browse 
which  give  the  farm  excuse  for  being. 
Their  steep  pasturage  is  sown  with  granite 
bowlders,  amid  which  they  move,  or  lie 
quietly  on  gray  days  when  sky  and  rocks 
are  of  a  color.  Sometimes  they  wander 
still  higher  into  the  summit  woods,  and  as 
you  make  your  way  up  toward  the  peak 
of  the  mountain  you  will  hear  their  bells 
tinkling  unseen.     From  the  doorstep  of 


Upland   Pastures 


•29 


his  house  the  farmer  can  look  down  upon  only  the  rushing  of  the  nin;ht  wind  over 
our  village.  On  still  Sabbath  mornin^^s  the  mountain  or  the  mullled  tinkle  of  a 
he   can   hear   the   call    from   the   church    cow-bell  as  the  herd  moxes  to  a  new  pas- 


The  clearing  extends  .  .   .   up  a  steep  sIojjc  to  meet  the  woods  coming  down  from 
the  summit  of  the  mountain.  —  Page  728. 


stee])les,  and  at  night,  ])erhaps,  the  boom 
of  the  hours.  Yet  he  dwells  strangely  in  a 
world  apart,  Hke  one  on  a  watch-tower. 
His  son,  to  be  sure,  in  fme  weather  can 
reach  school  on  a  bicycle  (at  no  little  ])er- 
sonal  risk)  in  an  incredibly  short  time. 
But  it  is  slow  work  getting  home  again. 
Once  home  for  the  evening,  it  must  be  a 
strong  temptation  indeed  lo  draw  the  in- 
habitants of  this  house  down  to  those 
twinkling  lights  of  the  town.  'Tlu')'  look 
out  upon  our  habitations,  but  they  hear 


turage  undiT  the  stars.    To  such  a  farm 
might  Teulelsdrockh  have  retiretl. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  decide  in  what 
season  of  the  year  the  ri)per  Meadow  is 
at  its  best,  for  in  each  it  has  a  shy,  elusi\e 
charm  peculiarly  its  own.  The  Lower 
Meadow,  through  which  it  is  reached,  is  a 
link  between  one  of  our  largest  farms  and 
the  e.\tensi\'e  swamj)  whiih  lies  at  the 
steep  side  of  a  mountain.  This  meadow, 
or  hay-lield.  is  man\'  acres  in  extent, 
threaded  by  a  slow-inoxing,  alder-lringed 


'30 


Upland   Pastures 


brook.  On  the  farther  side,  through  a  springing  beside  it.  It  is  shut  into  the 
barred  gate,  a  wood-road  strikes  ui)ward.  woods.  Yet  the  steep  climb  thither,  the 
It  ascends  rapidly  for  perhaps  a  quarter    silence,  the  washed  air,  all  conspire  to  the 


The  cattle  tracks,  eroded  deep  into  the  soil  like  dry  irrigation  ditches,  sometimes 
plunge  through  tangles  of  hemlock,  crossing  and  criss-crossing. — Page  732. 


of  a  mile,  and  comes  out  into  an  unex- 
pected clearing,  a  genuine  little  meadow 
two  or  three  acres  in  extent,  pocketed  on 
a  shelf  of  the  precipitous  mountain  wall, 
which  was  not  visible  from  the  valley. 
Doubtless  you  have  seen  a  tiny  lake  with 
a  wooded  mountainside  leaping  up  from 
it.  The  Upper  Meadow  is  exactly  like 
such  a  lake,  with  lush  green  grass  for 
water,  grass  so  rich,  indeed,  that  you  al- 
most look  for  it  to  hold  reflections.  No 
prospect  is  possible  from  the  Upper  Mead- 
ow, save  the  view  of  the  mountain  wall 


sense  of  height.  It  is  a  man-made  clear- 
ing, but  only  in  haying-time  does  man 
intrude.  It  has  all  the  artlessness  of  a 
forest  glade. 

In  spring  the  charm  of  the  Upper 
Meadow  is  virginal,  not  because  of  the 
trilliums  and  dog-tooth  violets  along  its 
borders,  but  because  of  the  birches  burst- 
ing into  leaf.  It  is  surrounded  by  woods 
in  which  birches  predominate,  and  there 
are  many  birches  all  up  the  mountain 
wall.  In  the  early  season,  while  yet  the 
other    hardwoods    are   naked,   the   win- 


Upland  Pastures                                         7:U 

ter-washed  trunks  of   the  l)irches  stand  horses  ^listeninf]j  with  sweat.     Man  has 

out  with  starthn.i^j  distinctness,  one  «;reat  made  his  annual   invasion.     Under  the 

forked  i)atriarch  in  i)articuhir  h)()kinijj  like  shade  of  a  bush  stands  a  brown  jw^  of 

a  Hghtning  stab  against  the  background  l)arley-water.    Out  in  the  sun  stands  the 

of  a  pine.     Then,  as  the  warmth  steals  rake,  awaiting  its  turn.    In  a  day  or  two 

into  the  soil,  the  birches  begin  to  put  on  the  great  wagon  will  come  and  carrv  down 


A  rocky  shoulder  of  the  hill  guarded  by  cedars,  where  you  will  suddenly  view  the  true  pasture  a  mile  away, 

over  a  ravine  of  forest. — Page  732. 


their  brilliant  foliage,  almost  a  Nile  green, 
perhaps  the  most  lively  in  our  northern 
latitudes.  As  the  sun  strikes  in  u})on 
them,  and  upon  the  moist,  rich  young 
grass  of  the  meadow,  they  make  a  vivid 
screen  about  this  lonely  glade,  a  screen  of 
sharp  white  and  translucent  foliage,  and 
all  up  the  mountain,  amid  the  bare  lilac 
trunks  of  the  second-growth  timl^er,  you 
can  see  the  birch  green  shimmering  in  the 
golden  light.  The  birches  are  never  so 
virginal  as  in  their  bright,  diai)hanous 
robes  of  spring,  and  no  scene  for  me  has 
quite  the  delicate  beauty  of  the  Upper 
Meadow  at  that  hour. 

But  when  the  forest  foliage  has  melted 
into  the  lush  monotony  of  midsummer, 
the  meadow  grass  is  high  and  ripe,  the 
thrushes  have  almost  ceased  their  wood- 
land songs,  and  the  laurel-bushes  on 
the  borders  of  the  clearing  ha\e  dropped 
their  clustered  petals  of  pink-and-white,  a 
sound  comes  to  you  as  you  climb  through 
the  woods  which  contrasts  oddly  with  the 
sylvan  stillness — the  hot  click-click-click 
of  a  mower.  As  you  emerge  into  the  Uj)- 
per  Meadow  you  see  half  the  grass  lying 
low,  and  against  the  u])stan(lingedge,  eat- 
ing it  down,  achances  the  machine,  behind 
the  strong,  willing  Ijreasls  of  the  l)n)wn 


the  hay,  leaving  the  meadow  once  more 
to  the  birds  and  mountain  silence  for  an- 
other twehcmonth.  But  meanwhile  the 
willing  horses  in  their  strength,  the  meas- 
ured, mathematical  fall  of  the  grass,  the 
cicada  click  of  the  mower,  the  occasional 
shout  of  the  driver,  are  sights  and  sounds 
not  unpleasant,  and  you  lie  beneath  the 
shadows  which  creej)  out  across  the  stub- 
ble, to  look  and  listen  all  the  drowsy  after- 
noon. 

To  emerge  through  the  woods  in  au- 
tumn into  the  Upi)er  Meadow  is  like 
l)utting  your  head  and  shoulders  through 
a  great,  gorgeous  tapestry,  from  the  ilark 
under  side.  The  bordering  trees,  above 
the  glossy  green  of  the  laurel-bushes,  are 
in  bright  array,  and  above  you  all  the 
mountainside  is  triumphant  with  color. 
IWcn  the  meadow  lloor  has  reclothed  it- 
self in  green  aftiT  the  reaj)ing,  as  if  to  be 
dressed  for  this  j^ageaiUry. 

But  in  winter,  perhaps,  our  meadow 
can  be  at  its  best,  when  the  world  wears 
white  and  not  a  creature  that  wanders 
unseen  in  the  woods  but  lea\es  its  track. 
In  winter  our  lierkshire  world  becomes 
everywhere  more  simi)liried.  The  nixri- 
ad  mott)rs  desert  our  highwa\s.  and  the 
horse  comes  into  his  own  once  more,  with 


'32 


Upland   Pastures 


a  jingle  of  sleigh-bells.  The  deserted 
summer  estates,  their  rose-bushes  clad  in 
straw,  their  garden  beds  buried  under 
pine  boughs,  no  longer  impose  upon  us  an 
alien  and  more  sophisticated  order.  We 
may  cut  cross-lots  on  our  snow-shoes 
without  fear  of  trespass.  And  then  it  is 
that  the  Upper  Meadow  becomes  the 
hermit  of  the  pastures.  No  human  tracks 
have  preceded  ours  up  the  trail.  We 
come  out  into  the  mountain  clearing,  daz- 
zling under  the  sun,  amid  the  hush  of  the 
winter  woods.  The  mountain  wall  goes 
up  beyond  us,  bearing  its  dark,  snow- 
flecked  pines  prominently  against  the 
gray-and-white  of  bare  birch  and  chest- 
nut trunks,  etched  with  a  myriad  vertical 
strokes  upon  the  groundwork  of  snow. 
There  is  only  the  soft,  padded  swish  of 
our  snow-shoes  to  be  heard  as  we  advance 
to  the  centre  of  the  meadow.  Yet  life  has 
been  here.  A  deer  has  crossed — two  deer, 
three  deer — plunging  almost  knee-deep 
into  the  snow.  Over  the  white  carpet  a 
pheasant  has  walked,  one  foot  mathemat- 
ically behind  the  other,  and  at  this  point 
something  startled  him,  for  the  tracks 
cease  abruptly.  Here  are  the  marks  on  the 
snow  where  his  long  tail  feathers  brushed 
as  he  took  the  air.  Nearer  the  edge  of 
the  meadow,  where  the  glossy  laurel  fringe 
is  still  green,  a  rabbit  emerged,  hopped 
out  a  way,  and  turned  back.  And  it  will 
be  strange  if  we  do  not  find  the  track  of  a 
fox,  sneaking  down  in  the  night  from  his 
hole  up  in  the  mountain  rocks  to  the  val- 
ley farms.  There  is  not  even  the  sign  of 
mown  grass  to  speak  of  man  in  the  clear- 
ing now.  It  is  lonely  as  a  frozen  mountain 
lake,  wrapped  secure  in  the  heart  of  its  up- 
land wilderness. 

In  these  softer  modern  days,  when  we 
all  desire  the  valley  warmth,  the  nervous 
companionship  of  our  kind,  the  handy 
motion-picture  theatre,  many  an  upland 
pasture  is  going  back  to  wildness,  in- 
vaded by  birch  and  pine  upon  the  bor- 
ders, overrun  with  the  hosts  of  the  shrub- 
by cinquefoil,  most  provocative  of  plants 
because  it  refuses  to  blossom  unanimously, 
putting  forth  its  yellow  flowers  a  few  at  a 
time  here  and  there  on  the  sturdy  bush. 
Such  a  pasture  I  know  upon  a  hilltop 
eighteen  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  where 
now  few  cattle  browse,  and  seldom  enough 
save  at  blueberry  season  does  a  human 
foot  pass  through  the  rotted  bars  or  strad- 


dle the  tumbling,  lichen-covered  stone 
wall,  where  sentinel  mulleins  guard  the 
gaps.  It  is  not  easy  now  even  to  reach  this 
pasture,  for  the  old  logging  roads  are 
choked  and  the  cattle  tracks,  eroded  deep 
into  the  soil  like  dry  irrigation  ditches, 
sometimes  plunge  through  tangles  of  hem- 
lock, crossing  and  criss-crossing  to  reach 
little  green  lawns  where  long  ago  the  huts 
of  charcoal-burners  stood,  and  only  at 
the  very  summit  converging  into  paral- 
lels that  are  plain  to  follow.  Some  of 
them,  too,  will  lead  you  far  astray,  to  a 
rocky  shoulder  of  the  hill  guarded  by 
cedars,  where  you  will  suddenly  view  the 
true  pasture  a  mile  away,  over  a  ravine 
of  forest.  Yet  once  you  have  reached  the 
true  summit  pasture,  there  bursts  up- 
on you  a  prospect  the  Lake  country  of 
England  cannot  excel;  here  the  north- 
bound Peabodies  rest  in  May  to  tune  their 
voices  for  their  mating-song,  here  the 
everlasting  flower  sheds  its  subtle  per- 
fume on  the  upland  air,  the  sweet  fern 
contends  in  fragrance,  and  here  the  world 
is  all  below  you  with  naught  above  but 
Omar's  inverted  bowl  and  a  drifting 
cloud. 

It  is  good  now  and  then  to  hobnob 
with  the  clouds,  to  be  intimate  with  the 
sky.  "The  world  is  too  much  with  us" 
down  below;  every  house  and  tree  is 
taller  than  we  are,  and  discourages  the 
upward  glance.  But  here  in  the  hilltop 
pasture  nothing  is  higher  than  the  vision 
save  the  blue  zenith  and  the  white  flotilla 
of  the  clouds.  Climbing  over  the  tumbled 
wall,  to  be  sure,  the  grass-line  is  above 
your  eye;  and  over  it,  but  not  resting  upon 
it,  is  a  great  Denali  of  a  cumulus.  It  is 
not  resting  upon  the  pasture-ridge,  be- 
cause the  imagination  senses  with  the 
acuteness  of  a  stereoscope  the  great  drop 
of  space  between,  and  feels  the  thrill  of 
aerial  perspective.  Your  feet  hasten  to 
the  summit,  and  once  upon  it  your  hat 
comes  off,  while  the  mountain  wind  lifts 
through  your  hair,  and  you  feel  yourself 
in  the  apex  and  zenith  of  the  universe. 
Far  below  lie  the  blue  eyes  of  Twin  Lakes, 
and  beyond  them  rises  the  beautiful  dome 
of  the  Taconics,  ethereal  blue  in  color,  yet 
solid  and  eternal.  Lift  your  face  ever  so 
little,  and  the  green  world  begins  to  fall 
from  sight,  the  great  cloud-ships,  sailing 
in  the  summer  sky,  begin  to  be  the  one 
thing  prominent.    How  soft  they  billow 


Drawn  by  Walter  Kin^  Slo/u: 

Here  the  everlasting  flower  sheds  its  subtle  perfume  on  the  upland  air,  the  sweet  fern  contends  in  fraRramc,  and 
here  the  world  is  all  below  you  with  naught  above  but  ( )niar's  inverted  buwl  and  a  drifting  cloud. 

—  I'agc  732. 


733 


It  is  good  now  and  then  to  hobnob  with  the  clouds,  to  be  intimate  with  the  sky. —Page  732. 


as  they  ride  I  How  exquisite  they  are  with 
curve  and  shadow  and  puffs  of  silver 
light!  Even  as  you  watch,  one  sweeps 
across  the  sun,  and  trails  a  shadow  anchor 
over  the  pasture,  over  your  feet.  You 
almost  hold  your  breath  as  it  passes,  for 
it  seems  in  some  subtle  way  as  if  the  cloud 
had  touched  you,  had  spoken  you  on  its 
passage. 

From  this  upland  pasture  you  may 
watch  ''the  golden  light  of  afternoon" 
withdraw  from  the  valleys,  like  the  reced- 
ing waters  of  a  flood,  and  the  amethyst 
shadows  creep  up  the  eastern  hills.  You 
may  watch  the  cloud-ships  come  to  an- 
chor over  the  Catskills  in  the  west,  and 
transform  themselves  into  Himalayas, 
snow-capped,  rose-crowned.  And,  as  you 
descend  at  last  through  the  cow-paths 
and  logging-roads  to  the  valley,  it  will 
be  breathless  twilight  in  the  hemlocks, 
and  a  wood-thrush  will  sing  of  the  eve- 
ning mysteries. 

But  the  upland  pasture  that  I  love  best 
of  all  is  in  Franconia,  high  above  the  little 
Ham  Branch  intervale,  on  the  forest-clad 
slopes  of  Kinsman.  A  single  road  runs 
up  the  intervale,  into  a  region  of  aban- 
doned clearings.  The  great  west  wall 
of  Kinsman,  rearing  to  its  saddle-back 
twin  summits  more  than  four  thousand 
feet  aloft,  is  uncompromising  and  discour- 
ages human  conceit.  There  is  a  rugged 
wildness  here  our  Berkshire  land  knows 
nothing  of,  and  a  tax  on  the  breath  in 
climbing  for  which  we  have  no  a(lec|uale 
preparation.  No  railroad  whistle  can  here 
reach   the  ears.     Creatures  wihler  than 


deer  may  cross  this  clearing.  And  the  air 
of  it  is  filled  with  the  pungent  fragrance  of 
the  northern  balsams. 

The  way  to  this  ])asture  lies  through  a 
lower  pasture  behind  the  tiny  farmhouse 
by  the  road.  It  is  a  steep  way,  past  a 
running  brook  and  through  a  sugar-grove 
where  the  sugar-house  of  rough  boards 
stands  surrounded  by  huge  woodpiles 
against  next  year's  "b'ilin'  down."  At 
the  head  of  the  grove,  after  an  acre  or 
two  more  of  clearing,  the  path  suddenly 
starts  upward  at  a  shaq)  angle,  and  for  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  goes  through  a  dense 
forest  of  young  spruces  and  balsams,  so 
dense  that  scarce  a  leaf  of  undergrowth  is 
visible  on  the  brown  needles.  It  emerges 
from  the  evergreens  as  suddenly  as  it 
entered  them,  and  you  hnd  yourself  on  a 
plateau  pasture  five  or  six  acres  in  extent, 
once  regular  in  shajx^  but  now  broken  into 
tiny  bays  and  inlets  all  along  the  edges  by 
the  invasion  of  the  forest,  by  jetties  and 
ca])es  of  Christmas  trees.  And  out  be- 
yond each  cape  and  })eninsula  are  reefs 
and  islands  of  young  balsams,  anywhere 
from  six  inches  to  twenty  feet  high,  rich 
in  color,  perfect  in  shai)e,  incomparable 
in  fragrance.  The  pasture,  in  a  few  years, 
would  be  quite  overrun,  obliterated,  were 
it  not  for  the  cattle.  They  cannot  (luite 
Tight  back  the  iiua.sioii,  l)ut  they  can  hohl 
it  in  check.  None  i)i  them  is  \isil)le.  per- 
hai)s,  as  \'ou  enter  this  mountain  glade, 
but  you  hear  the  sweet  tinkle  oi  a  bell,  and 
presently,  around  a  cape  of  Christmas 
trees,  comes  a  Jersey,  head  down,  bell  jin- 
gling, to  lift  her  soft  eyes  and  look  at  you. 


730 


Upland   Pastures 


The  pasture  is  almost  level,  but  at  the 
farther  side  the  steep  ascent  is  renewed 
again,  the  path  marked  by  a  giant  oak. 
Here  the  hardwood  begins,  witness  of 
some  bygone  lumbering.    Behind  the  oak 


hour  that  we  discovered  it  many  years 
ago,  we  two  together.  The  sun  may  have 
dropped  behind  Flagstaff  Hill  when  we 
leave  the  valley,  and  the  cows  have  de- 
scended to  stand  lowing  behind  the  barn. 


You  see  the  pointed  firs  cutting  sharp  against  the  sky,  the  sentinels  of  the  pasture. 


looms  the  great  north  peak  of  Kinsman, 
w^hich  can  now  be  climbed,  thanks  to  a 
trail  recently  cut  by  the  son  of  Frederick 
Goddard  Tuckerman,  whose  collected 
poems,  published  in  i860,  have  been  quite 
unjustly  forgotten.  The  Tuckerman  trail 
is  a  steep  and  rough  one,  part  way  through 
absolutely  virgin  timber,  where  the  trunks 
of  the  great  canoe  birches  are  green  with 
age  and  moss,  and  it  leads  to  the  finest 
view  in  the  White  Mountains,  finer  than 
that  from  Washington  or  Lafayette.  But 
we  shall  not  leave  our  pasture  now  for  the 
peak.  The  peak  is  for  special  occasions, 
the  pasture  for  our  daily  solace. 

All  day  long  in  this  pasture  the  Pea- 
bodies,  or  white-throated  sparrows,  sing 
their  fiutelike  call ;  out  in  the  sunlight  or 
in  the  cool  woods  above,  the  cow-bells 
tinkle  drowsily.  All  day  long  the  great 
north  peak  looks  down  upon  you  from 
the  east,  and  you  Took  down,  in  turn,  upon 
the  world  to  the  west — or  so  much  of  it 
as  you  can  glimpse  through  the  vista  of 
the  steep  trail  in  the  evergreens.  Look- 
ing westward,  if  you  raise  your  eyes,  you 
see  the  pointed  firs  cutting  sharp  against 
the  sky,  the  sentinels  of  the  pasture.  It 
is  at  the  sunset  hour  in  June  that  we  love 
the  pasture  best,  for  it  was  at  such  an 


but  our  ascent  is  as  rapid  as  the  sun's  de- 
clension, and  we  reach  the  upland  in  time 
to  find  the  west  taking  fire,  flaming  into 
gold. 

Now  there  comes  a  hush  in  the  bird 
songs,  a  hush  in  all  nature,  while  the 
peak  behind  us  grows  amethyst,  the  high 
zenith  clouds  are  salmon  streamers,  and 
the  golden  west  blushes  into  rose.  The 
woods  grow  dim.  The  rose  dusks  to  a 
deeper  hue,  and  suddenly  against  it  all 
the  pointed  firs  stand  darkly  up  like  a 
spired  city  in  fairy-land.  At  that  moment 
the  birds  break  their  hush,  the  Peabodies 
flute  from  spire  to  spire  like  little  Moslems 
in  Christian  belfries,  and  from  the  dusk  of 
the  forest  wall  behind  us  comes  ringing 
the  full-throated  song  of  a  hermit-thrush. 
Even  the  sparrows  respect  that  master 
minstrel,  and  pause.  An  expectant  si- 
lence succeeds.  Then,  from  farther  off, 
from  the  very  depths  of  the  woods,  the 
coolness  of  their  brooks,  the  greenness  of 
their  leaves,  the  mystery  of  their  silences 
made  vocal,  the  answer  comes,  in  liquid 
triplets  dripping  twilight.  George  Moore 
has  called  the  songs  of  Schubert  and  Schu- 
mann ''the  moonlit  lakes  and  nightin- 
gales of  music."  But  what  man-made 
music  is  twilight  and  the  hermit-thrush? 


Upland    Pastures 


A  few  of  Mozart's  andantes?  Almost, 
perhaps,  yet  they  hick  the  forest  timbre, 
and  the  dusk;  they  are  Hcjuid  and  pen- 
sive, but  they  were  composed  at  sunrise, 
or  while  the  sun  yet  linf^ered  on  the  low- 
land meadows.  Incom[)arable  of  birds, 
uncelebrated  in  classic  story  like  the 
nightingale,  uttering  no  homesick  note  in 
a  warm  and  sentimental  southland  like 
the  mocking-l:)ird,  your  habitat  in  your 
musical  mating-time  is  the  forests  of  our 
bleak  New  Hampshire  hills,  and  on  the 
border  of  an  upland  pasture  at  twilight 
you  sing  an  unheard  song  that  could 
ravish  the  world! 

And  we,  listening  breathless  beneath 
the  dimming  spires  of  the  pointed  firs, 
amid  the  warm  fragrance  of  the  balsams, 
are  secretly  glad  that  this  is  sol 

It  is  from  an  u}:)land  pasture  that  you 
may  view  the  cloud-drive  best.  The 
Franconia  cloud-dri\'es  come  from  the 
southeast,  and  usually  the  vanguard  of 
the  procession  sucks  in  through  the  fun- 
nel of  the  Notch,  on  the  other  side  of 
Kinsman,  wrapping  the  Old  ^lan  of  the 
Mountain  in  vapor  while  yet  the  sun  is 
shining  for  us.  But  soon  the  vapors  find 
their  way  upward.  We  lift  our  eyes  and 
see  their  artillery  smoke  coming  over 
the  north  peak,  trailing,  wind-blown  and 
shredded,  from  its  trees,  and  then  rushing 
out  over  our  valley  to  obliterate  the  sun. 
Once  over  the  rampart,  the  whole  storm 
follows  in  their  wake.  A  great,  dark  mass 
of  vapor  drops  down  with  clammy  affec- 
tion about  the  mountain,  rushes  through 
the  tree-tops,  and  seems  about  to  descend 
to  our  very  house,  when  it  is  suddenly 
whisked  off.  Abo\e  this,  on  a  le\el  with 
the  summit,  the  main  storm-clouds  rush, 
pouring  rain,  and  finally,  through  rift 
after  closing  rift  in  this  layer,  we  can  see 
far  aloft,  moving  more  leisurely,  great 
masses  of  cumuli. 

The  point  where  the  lowest  cloud  lea\es 
the  mountain  is  the  top  of  an  upland  pas- 
ture. In  spite  of  the  drenching  rain,  we 
climb  past  the  huddled,  despondent  cat- 
tle into  the  very  vapors.  The  last  hea\e 
of  the  pasture  into  the  woods  is  shrouded 
one  moment  in  gray  mist,  and  cleared  the 
next  by  a  freak  of  the  wind,  revealing 
the  tall  trees  beyond  and  a  glimpse  into 
the  high  defile  of  Cannon  Mountain.  The 
cloud  whi{)s  cold  and  numbing  about  Ua. 
Vol.  LV.— So 


Looking  back  down  the  pasture  we  can  see 
the  rain-drenched  farms,  and  the  western 
hill  wall  going  up  again  into  cloud.  Just 
over  us  the  dark  wrack  moves  with  in- 
credible speed,  propelled  by  a  wind  we 
cannot  feel.  We  are  on  the  very  under 
edge  of  the  cloud-drive,  in  curious  kin- 
ship with  the  storm. 

But  no  words  on  upland  pastures  would 
be  complete  without  mention  of  the  stars. 
The  charm  of  upland  pastures  is  their 
isolation,  their  fellowship  with  cloud  and 
wind,  their  silence  and  their  spaciousness, 
lifted  far  above  the  valley,  adventurous 
of  the  heights;  and  the  boon  companions 
of  isolation  are  the  stars. 

The  sunset  glow  has  long  faded  in  the 
west,  the  elfin  spires  are  but  black  shad- 
ows on  purple  depth,  the  Peabodies  and 
thrushes  have  ceased  their  song,  and  only 
an  owl  or  a  night-hawk  sneaks  on  silent 
wing  from  the  woods  behind — yet  still 
we  remain  amid  the  warm  fragrance  of 
the  balsams,  loath  to  leave,  or  perhaps 
wrapped  in  our  blankets  not  intending  to 
leave  till  we  have  boiled  our  morning 
coffee  against  a  bowlder,  while  the  sun 
flatters  "  the  mountain  tops  with  sover- 
eign eye."  No  valley  lamps  are  visi- 
ble from  this  high,  sheltered  chamber. 
But  a  planet  hangs  like  a  beacon  in 
a  fir-tree  to{).  and  all  the  zenith  blazes. 
How  patient  they  are,  the  stars!  How 
slow-moving,  how  unalterable!  Vou  are 
very  small,  beneath  this  coverlet  of  the 
Milky  Way,  and  to  your  mind  come  back 
the  words  from  Tuckerman's  sonnet  — 
he  whose  son  built  the  path  to  the  i)eak 
beyond: 

And  what  canst  thou,  to  whom  no  hands  holonii. 
To  hasten  by  one  hour  the  morninj^'s  birth? 
Or  stay  one  |)Ianet  at  his  circle  hung. 
In  the  great  flight  of  stars  across  the  earth? 

It  is  good  to  feel  such  humbleness, 
amid  the  solemnity  of  the  heights.  But 
it  is  good,  as  well,  to  feel  still  the  fra- 
grant warmth  of  the  balsams  keeping 
olT  the  wind,  to  listen  (|uietly  while  a  lit- 
tle bird  close  by  wakes  with  a  sweet 
cheep  and  rustles  to  another  |H'rch.  and 
to  hear,  for  good-night  lullaby,  the  dis- 
tant, drowsy  tinkle  of  a  cow-bell,  as  the 
herd,  turned  loose  again  after  milking. 
make  their  way  slowly  back  to  their  up- 
land i)asture. 


THE    QUALITY    OF    MERCY 

By  Simeon  Strunsky 


Illustrations   by   Hanson   Booth 


iJag^jgJJHE  story  of  how  Old  Man 
Tillotson,  of  the  depart- 
ment of  classical  philology, 
saved  the  track-and-field 
championship  for  Silver 
Lake  University  consti- 
tutes a  memorable  but  not  very  familiar 
chapter  in  the  comparatively  short  and 
simple  annals  of  that  hustling  seat  of 
learning.  Cooper  —  the  physical  sciences 
and  biology — is  the  only  man  who  knows 
all  the  facts,  and  he  will  sometimes  re- 
hearse them  in  Tillotson's  presence.  On 
such  occasions  Tillotson  will  listen  with 
perfectly  detached  interest  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point,  when  he  rises  from  his  chair 
and  goes  to  look  out  of  the  window.  This 
happens  when  Cooper  comes  to  that  part 
of  the  story  which  describes  how  the 
assembled  undergraduate  body  of  Silver 
Lake,  on  the  night  of  the  famous  vic- 
tory, cheered  Professor  Tillotson  until  he 
was  compelled  to  come  out  on  his  porch 
and  address  them  on  the  meaning  of  life, 
whereupon  they  marched  off  in  a  solid 
phalanx  and  attempted  to  set  fire  to  the 
local  hotel  and  opera-house.  Silver  Lake's 
third  consecutive  championship  could  ob- 
viously be  commemorated  in  no  other 
way. 

President  Brinkley's  visit  to  Tillotson 
fell  on  the  Saturday  before  the  games.  It 
was  a  raw  April,  but  the  windows  of  Tillot- 
son's library,  opening  on  the  porch,  were 
ajar.  Looking  up  from  his  work  the  old 
man  discovered  Brinkley  unmistakably  in 
the  act  of  calling  upon  him.  Tillotson 
wondered.  Brinkley  was  the  president  of 
Silver  Lake  and  he,  Tillotson,  was  pro- 
fessor of  ancient  languages  and  literature 
and  history  in  that  institution.  What 
could  there  possibly  be  for  them  to  talk 
about? 

Yet  the  two  men  had  a  very  definite 
regard  for  each  other.    Tillotson,  it  will 
be  recalled,  never  concealed  his  admira- 
tion for  the  youthful  college  president 
738 


whose  financial  genius  had  made  Silver 
Lake  the  pride  and  nightmare  of  every 
wealthy  citizen  in  the  State.  And  Brink- 
ley  was  aware  that  Tillotson  had  his 
capitalized  value  as  a  representative  of 
the  useless  but  higher  things  of  life  which 
it  is  the  mission  of  our  universities  to  con- 
serve. At  bottom  they  had  little  against 
each  other  and  nothing  in  common,  and  so 
got  on  very  well  by  rarely  coming  in  con- 
tact. 

It  appeared  that  Brinkley  had  been 
strolling  by.  Recalling  that  Saturday  was 
not  a  busy  day  for  Professor  Tillotson,  he 
had  dropped  in  for  a  chat.  He  began  by 
picking  up  a  mouldy,  eighteenth-century 
Tacitus  from  the  table  and  by  means  of  a 
single  intelligent  remark  on  the  beautiful 
paper  and  typography  he  brought  a  glow 
to  the  old  man's  face.  Then  Brinkley 
looked  out  of  the  window,  observed  that 
it  would  probably  rain,  and  quoted  some- 
thing from  Lucretius  so  exquisitely  ap- 
propriate that  it  made  his  host  gasp. 
Tillotson  felt,  with  a  vivid  sense  of  alarm, 
that  he  was  getting  to  like  his  visitor. 
This  could  not  possibly  be  the  practical 
young  man  whose  record  at  Silver  Lake 
had  brought  him  repeated  offers  as  gen- 
eral manager  of  commercial  concerns  at  a 
salary  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year 
and  up.  brinkley's  salary  at  Silver  Lake 
was  $6,500.  Then  he  must  have  his 
ideals,  thought  Tillotson;  no  vulgar  soul 
could  quote  Lucretius  so  beautifully. 

If  Brinkley  had  gone  on  quoting  from 
Tacitus  and  Lucretius  his  host  would  prob- 
ably have  grown  suspicious.  But  the 
president  easily  passed  from  the  classics 
and  threw  Tillotson  into  deeper  amaze- 
ment by  speaking  to  him  about  things 
which  Brinkley  had  every  reason  to  sup- 
pose Tillotson  was  not  interested  in  or  ac- 
tually despised.  He  spoke  about  what 
he  had  done  for  the  university  and  what 
he  hoped  to  do.  He  dilated  on  buildings, 
laboratories,  the  new  athletic  field,  courses, 


The  Quality  of  Mercy 


•39 


schedules,  salaries — money.  He  told  Til- 
lotson  what  the  annual  income  of  the 
university  was,  and  how  rapidly  the  def- 
icit was  growing,  and  how  difficult  it 
was  to  raise  funds  in  view  of  the  prevail- 
ing trade  reaction.  He  actually  talked 
money  to  Tillotson,  a  subject  which  is  al- 
ways fascinating  to  those  who  haven't  the 
least  idea  of  how  to  make  any. 

When  Brinkley  rose  to  say  good-by  Til- 
lotson was  saying  to  himself  that  he  had 
been  fearfully  unjust  to  this  capable  and 
earnest  young  man. 

''By  the  way,"  said  Brinkley,  turning 
back  at  the  door;  ''just  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  ridiculous  problems  I  am  al- 
ways being  called  upon  to  face.  Next 
Saturday  the  track  championship  will  be 
run  off  on  Sherman  Field." 

"The  track  championship?"  said  Til- 
lotson. 

"We  have  won  two  years  in  succession, 
beating  out  Kiowa  State  by  a  good  mar- 
gin. We  have  always  made  a  clean  sweep 
of  the  distance  runs  and  the  jumps." 

"To  be  sure,"  said  Tillotson.  "Now 
that  you  mention  it,  I  recall  that  about 
this  time  of  the  year  the  student  body  is 
accustomed  to  assemble  in  scanty  gar- 
ments on  Sherman  Field,  where  they  run, 
leap,  and  hurl  weights  through  the  air 
with  a  thoroughness  of  purpose  which 
they  quite  fail  to  display  in  their  studies." 

"Have  you  ever  seen  the  games?"  said 
Brinkley. 

"Never,"  said  Tillotson.  "Inasmuch 
as  the  termination  of  such  exercises  is 
regularly  followed  by  a  riot  and  the  in- 
tervention of  the  fire  department,  I  have 
made  it  a  point  to  spend  the  day  with  a 
relative  who  lives  at  some  distance.  He 
has  an  excellent  library  and  his  wife  is 
quite  deaf." 

"We  were  all  young  once,  Dr.  Tillot- 
son," said  Brinkley. 

"But  not  to  the  i)oint  of  felony." 

"Oh,  felony!"  protested  Brinkley  in 
great  good  humor.  "Think  back  on  your 
own  past." 

Tillotson's  head  sank  on  his  breast. 

'' Feccavi.  When  I  was  thirteen  1  tied 
a  lantern  to  the  calf's  tail  and  the  barn 
burned  down." 

Brinkley  laughed.* 

"Now,  you  see.  Only  this  year  we  are 
in  a  fix.  We  may  lose  Ciillesi)ie.  He  is 
sure  of  at  least  three  firsts — the  half-mile, 


the  hurdles,  and  the  broad  jump.  That 
means  Kiowa  will  j)robably  carry  otT  the 
chami)i()nshi[).  The  boys  have  been  send- 
ing delegations  to  me." 

"Without  being  able  to  share  the  feel- 
ings of  they(jungmenon  the  subject,"  said 
Tillotson,  "I  can  still  see  how  the  loss 
of  Gillespie  would  be  a  natural  subject  of 
regret.  I  trust  the  accident  is  not  seri- 
ous." 

Brinkley  looked  out  of  the  window. 

"Gillespie  is  queer — not  stupid,  but  in- 
different. .\t  the  last  mcjment  we  lind 
that  he  is  disqualified  from  competing  in 
the  games  because  of  his  poor  marks  in 
class." 

"That  will  doubtless  be  a  salutary  les- 
son to  him,"  said  Tillotson.  "The  pain 
of  seeing  Kiowa  win  the  championship  will 
supply  the  necessary  moral  correcti\e." 

"Quite  so,"  said  Brinkley.  "Gillespie 
has  three  conditions  against  him.  Two  of 
the  departmental  heads  concerned  have 
agreed  to  give  him  a  special  examination, 
some  time  after  the  games.  I  believe 
he  is  in  your  class  in  ancient  history." 

"And  one  of  the  conditions  imposed 
comes  from  me?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Brinkley.  "  I  am  bound  to 
confess  his  standing  is  very  low  indeed. 
F  you  marked  him." 

"  Unfortunately  that  is  not  a  sure  means 
of  identification  in  my  classes,"  said  Til- 
lotson. "The  letter  F  is  a  symbol  which 
T  am  frequently  compelled  to  employ  at 
the  height  of  the  athletic  season.  Gil- 
lespie?   I  fear  I  cannot  place  him." 

He  walked  over  to  his  shelves  and 
searched  out  a  thin,  Hat  1  oil-book.  He 
opened  the  book  and  ran  his  tinger  over 
the  pages. 

"Ah,  yes,  Gilles])ie.  In  the  last  six 
weeks  he  has  been  absent  from  roll-call 
fourteen  times.  That  would  explain  why 
his  name  sounds  so  familiar,  whereas  his 
})hysical  appearance  has  left  no  impres- 
sion on  my  memory." 

"I  am  iiuliiu'd  to  think  the  boy  means 
well,"  said  Brinkley.    "He  has  character." 

"Undoubtedly,"  said  Tillot.son.  "Gil- 
lespie's record  of  attendance  would  argue 
remarkable  (|ualities  of  j)ersistence."  His 
tone  was  now  bitter.  ".\nd  if  1  fail  to 
lift  his  suspension  Kiowa  is  sure  io  win 
the  State  eliani|)ionshii)?" 

Brinkley  was  aware  that  he  had  gone 
too  far. 


40 


Tlie  Quality  of  Mercy 


"I  shouldn't  let  that  worry  me,  Dr. 
Tillotson.  The  subject  just  popped  into 
my  mind.  It  seemed  to  me  that  if  he 
were  given  another  chance  Gillespie  would 
redeem  himself.  However,  it  doesn't 
matter." 

He  shook  hands  once  more  and  went 
out.  Tillotson  picked  up  the  copy  of 
Tacitus  to  which  the  president  had  so  feel- 
ingly alluded,  dusted  it  reverently  so  as 
to  remove  all  traces  of  the  profane  touch, 
and  then,  in  an  access  of  wrath,  slammed 
the  book  furiously  back  upon  the  table. 


II 


That  w^as  on  Saturday,  just  a  week 
before  the  games.  In  the  late  afternoon 
of  the  following  Tuesday  Tillotson  and 
Cooper  were  strolling  across  the  campus 
in  the  direction  of  Sherman  Field.  It 
was  Professor  Cooper  who  had  proposed 
the  walk  and  it  was  unquestionably  by 
accident  that  they  happened  to  be  moving 
in  that  particular  direction.  The  entire 
Silver  Lake  squad  was  at  practice  under 
the  dolorous  eye  of  a  head  coach  on  whose 
life's  happiness  some  early  disappoint- 
ment had  cast  its  blight,  to  judge  from 
the  unhappy  way  in  which  he  chewed  to- 
bacco and  yelled.  The  two  men  stopped 
to  watch.  Cooper's  was  the  eager,  ex- 
pert, wistful  eye  of  the  old  athlete  for 
whom  such  things  were  only  memories. 
Tillotson  looked  on  without  seeing,  hard- 
ly aware,  in  fact,  of  where  he  was. 

It  had  been  a  painful  three  days  for 
him.  He  clung  to  Cooper  pathetically. 
Seldom  had  he  experienced  such  need  for 
human  companionship.  He  knew  him- 
self a  marked  man.  During  these  days 
the  campus  hummed  with  Gillespie's  sus- 
pension and  Tillotson's  awful  responsibil- 
ity. Freshmen  who  had  never  given  the 
old  man  a  passing  thought  w^ould  now 
turn  to  stare  in  round-eyed,  innocent 
horror  at  the  man  who  w^as  going  to  let 
Kiowa  carry  off  the  track  championship. 
Tillotson  could  have  endured  their  re- 
sentment, but  this  petrified  horror  in 
their  young  eyes  was  unendurable.  Til- 
lotson told  Cooper  that  sometimes  he  felt 
very  much  as  Dante  must  have  felt  when 
people  in  Florence  were  pointing  him  out 
as  the  man  who  had  been  in  hell.  And 
sometimes,  he  said,  he  felt  like  Hester 
Prynne  with  a  great,  flaming,  scarlet  let- 


ter on  his  chest,  K,  for  Kiowa.  The 
members  of  the  faculty  were  just  as  bad 
as  the  freshmen,  he  thought. 

His  mind  was  brooding  on  the  subject 
at  this  very  moment. 

"They  think  me  a  mule,"  said  Tillot- 
son, referring  to  the  faculty. 

"Oh,  nonsense,"  said  Cooper,  his  eyes 
fixed  on  a  little  group  of  runners  directly 
across  the  field.  "You  take  this  business 
more  seriously  than  any  of  us." 

Tillotson  shook  his  head. 

"I  am  convinced  beyond  reasonable 
doubt  that  I  am  being  generally  regard- 
ed as  a  mule.  I  am  not  so  sure-  but  that 
you- 


"See  that  man  come  up  from  behind!" 
shouted  Cooper.  His  hand  fell  heavily  on 
Tillotson's  arm  and  gripped  it. 

Tillotson  looked,  and  his  face  lit  up. 

The  little  band  of  runners  had  turned 
into  the  stretch  for  the  desperate  rush 
to  the  tape.  Mouths  half-open  like  the 
sob  of  a  naughty  child,  eyes  glazed,  arms 
thrown  up  as  if  in  appeal,  they  hurled 
themselves  forward  toward  the  finish  line, 
where  the  head  coach  stood,  masticat- 
ing at  the  rate  of  several  hundred  rev- 
olutions a  minute,  yelling  to  them  to  come 
on. 

Then  it  seemed  to  Tillotson  that  all  the 
runners  but  one  had  lost  the  power  of  lo- 
comotion and  were  madly  galloping  on  the 
same  spot,  like  a  stage-chariot  in  "Ben 
Hur." 

"Watch  him  cut  them  down!"  cried 
Cooper. 

Now  they  seemed  to  be  actually  slip- 
ping backward.  From  the  rear  of  the 
bare-armed,  bare-legged  group  a  com- 
pact, deep-chested  form  shot  out.  Til- 
lotson found  himself  comparing  the  swift 
play  of  those  flashing  legs  to  the  sweep  of 
a  remorseless  scythe.  He  was  cutting 
them  down  indeed.  One  after  another 
they  dropped  behind,  beating  the  ground 
with  leaden  feet,  whereas  for  this  flying 
youth,  it  w^as  not  solid  earth  at  all  he  was 
touching,  but  a  soft,  flexible  surface  which 
came  up  to  meet  his  feet  and  toss  him  for- 
w^ard  like  the  circus  net  to  the  acrobat. 
Tillotson  watched  the  rhythm  of  those 
marvellous  legs,  and  caught  himself  quot- 
ing from  his  beloved  classics.  As  the  boy 
flew  by,  Tillotson  had  a  glimpse  of  slight- 
ly opened  lips,  like  a  baby's  in  wonder, 
and   on   them   the  pathetic  smile   of  a 


The  Quality  of  Mercy 


741 


child;  only  it  was  a  smile  of  supreme  ef-  which  was  the  fruit  of  a  six  months'  ar- 

fort  and  pain.  dtnt  courtship  between  President  Hrink- 

"Et  ventis  et  fuhninis  ocior  alis,"  mut-  ley  and  a   breakfast-food   millionaire  of 

tered  Tillotson,  and  his  eyes  followed  the  a   neighboring   State.     Before   the  Kym- 


Freshmen  who  had  never  given  the  old  man  a  passing  thought  would  now  turn  to  stare.  —  Page  74a 


radiant  figure  to  the  finish  line,  first  by 
any  number  of  yards. 

Cooper  turned  to  him  bright-eyed. 
^'Well,  Tillotson?" 

''It  was  stirring,"  said  Tillotson.  ''At 
such  moments  wisdom  and  holiness  can 
only  bow  the  head  before  the  di\'ine  gift 
of  youth." 

"That  was  Gillespie,"  said  Cooper,  and 
looked  away. 

Tillotson  repeated  the  name  twice  and 
shook  his  head. 

"A  godlike  youth.  I  recall  him  now. 
It  is  a  ])ity  that  in  class  he  should  be  un- 
der the  imi)ression  that  the  battle  of  Mar- 
athon was  won  by  Julius  Ciusar  in  the 
fifth  century  of  the  present  era." 

The  half-mile  was  the  last  of  the  trials. 
Athletes,  trainers,  and  plain  citizens  were 
now  scurrying  toward  the  new  gymnasium, 
Vol.  LV.— 81 


nasium  was  dedicated  the  price  of  that 
particular  breakfast  food  had  gone  up 
two  cents  on  the  i)ackage. 

"Do  you  mind  stepping  into  the  gym- 
nasium?" said  Cooper.  "I  dare  say  you 
haven't  been  inside  one  for  an  age." 

"Two  years  ago  I  was  in  the  old  gym- 
nasium," said  Tillotson.  *'  I  addressed 
there  a  conxention  of  secondary-schix)! 
teachers  on  the  |)lace  of  Greek  in  the 
modern  curriculum.     Let  us  enter." 

They  climbed  the  stairs  and  peeped 
into  the  drcssing-nu)m,  standing  con- 
cealed in  a  corner  of  the  hallway.  'I'hey 
peered  down  the  long  gallery,  gridironed 
with  narrow  alcoves  of  iron  lockers  in 
double  tiiTs.  Tillotson  blinked  in  the 
glare  of  the  electric  lights  and  when  he 
spoke  he  raised  h'\>  \oWv  to  make  him- 
self   heard    above    tlu-    tumult.      It    was 


'42 


Tlie  Quality  of  Mercy 


a  babel  of  calls,  cries,  howls,  laughter, 
whistling,  and  now  and  then  a  yelp  of 
simulated  pain,  or  a  piteous  api)eal  for 
towels  and  a  shoe-horn — the  ordinary  con- 
versational tone  of  the  ''gym"  dressing- 
room. 

"This  is  Athens,"  said  Tillotson. 

Cooper  caught  his  meaning  and  nodded. 
The  glare  of  carbon  globes  fell  on  the 
white-and-pink  of  strong,  young,  naked 
bodies.  It  was  a  gallery  in  the  Louvre 
come  to  life,  a  riot  of  attitudes.  Nudes 
were  sprawling  on  the  low^  seats  at  the 
foot  of  the  lockers;  stood  on  tiptoe  with 
arms  upflung  to  reach  the  topmost  hooks 
in  the  upper  row  of  lockers;  wTithed  on 
the  floor  in  impromptu  wrestling  con- 
tests ;  or  scampered  up  and  down  on  pre- 
tended felonious  assaults.  A  naked  fig- 
ure, closely  beset,  flashed  by  the  doorway 
w^here  the  two  men  stood,  to  seek  refuge 
in  the  shower- room.  Just  in  front  of  Til- 
lotson the  fatal  blow  fell.  The  pursuer 
hurled  his  weapon  and  the  splash  of  a  wet 
towel  on  naked  shoulders  sent  a  rain  of 
drops  into  Tillotson's  face.  Victor  and 
vanquished,  with  loud  outcries,  vanished 
into  the  shower-room. 

"One  of  the  most  widely  disseminated 
superstitions,  affecting  our  entire  scheme 
of  modern  art,"  said  Tillotson,  wiping  the 
water  from  his  eyes,  "is  that  which  deals 
with  the  supposed  beauty  of  the  nude  fe- 
male form.  The  ancients  knew  better. 
There  is  no  such  beauty.  It  is  a  concep- 
tion based  largely  upon  a  debauched  use 
of  the  curved  line.  Beauty  consists  not 
in  circles  and  semicircles,  but  in  gently 
flowing  lines  like  the  almost  invisible  out- 
w^ard  swell  of  the  Greek  column,  or  the 
torso  of  the  young  man  just  in  front 
who  is  engaged  in  putting  on  his  shirt. 
Look  closely  at  him,  Cooper." 

"I  am  looking,"  said  Cooper,  but  his 
eyes  were  turned  toward  the  further  end 
of  the  room. 

"The  shoulders  of  that  young  man," 
said  Tillotson,  "form  the  base  of  a  mag- 
nificent, inverted,  isosceles  triangle.  Ob- 
serve how  the  lines  from  the  base  to  the 
apex  run  firmly,  relieved,  but  not  broken, 
by  the  local  curvatures  of  the  muscles, 
down  the  side  walls  of  the  thorax,  hesi- 
tating a  moment  at  the  hips,  and  in  a 
straight  plunge  along  femur  and  tibia  to 
the  feet.    Remove  from  the  female  form 


the  obsession  of  sex  and  what  is  there  in 
French  art  that  can  compare  with  the 
rhythm  and  the  superb  economy  of 
mechanism  displayed  in  the  uplifted  arm 
that  just  now  hurled  the  wet  towel  with 
such  splendid  abandon,  if  with  somewhat 
regrettable  disregard  for  the  rights  of  by- 
standers." 

"There's  Gillespie  at  the  other  end  of 
the  room,"  said  Cooper.  "He's  coming 
this  way." 

Gillespie  came  down  the  narrow  path- 
way between  the  alcoves,  a  towel  around 
his  hips,  whistling.  The  tragedy  of  his 
disqualification  evidently  did,  not  weigh 
him  down.  The  games  were  still  five  days 
off  and  that  is  a  long  time  for  youth  to 
anticipate  fate.  He  walked  slowly,  bowing 
to  right  and  left  in  mock  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  shouts  of  laudatory  comment 
on  his  performance  in  the  half-mile.  He 
was  of  stocky  build  for  a  runner — his 
chest  and  arms  would  have  indicated  the 
oarsman  or  even  the  hammer  and  shot, 
but  he  carried  his  weight  with  that  same 
soaring  lightness  which  had  eaten  up  his 
competitors  on  the  track. 

"A  splendid  youth,"  said  Tillotson. 
"It  makes  his  unparalleled  ignorance  of 
the  elementary  facts  of  ancient  history 
all  the  more  pitiful." 

Later  Tillotson  wondered  whether  his 
friend  Cooper  had  been  subtly  at  work 
that  entire  afternoon  leading  up  to  this 
very  situation.  At  any  rate,  the  profess- 
or of  biology  and  the  physical  sciences 
turned  upon  Tillotson  with  extraordinary 
vehemence. 

"Ancient  history!  Good  God,  Tillot- 
son, look  at  the  boy.  You  have  said  it 
yourself.  He  is  ancient  history.  He  is 
Athens.     Look  at  him!" 

"Your  plea  is  undeniably  sound,"  said 
Tillotson.  His  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 
naked  boy,  who  had  stopped  to  exchange 
the  compliments  of  a  wet  towel  and  the 
flat  of  a  hair-brush  with  an  intimate  ac- 
quaintance. "Phidias  would  have  been 
delighted  to  cut  that  body  in  marble  and 
Pindar  might  have  been  inspired  to  an 
outburst  of  glorious  dactyls.  It  is  not 
at  all  unlikely  that  young  Gillespie  in 
his  bath-towel  would  have  been  chosen 
senator  or  possibly  high  priest  by  the 
Athenians,  whereas  you  and  I,  Cooper, 
might  have  been  delegated  to  the  task  of 


"It  is  a  matter  of  regret,"  said  Tillotson,  "that  my  rull-bouk,  recording  no  less  than  fourteen 
absences  should  have  debarred  you." — Page  744. 


sweeping  off  the  lenii)Ie  steps  after  the  tudes  ol   asl()ni>liiiu'nl.   iiuule   the   phice 

sacrifice."  more    than    ever    hke    a    gallery    in    the 

Gillespie  was  passing  the  doorway  on  Lou\re. 

his  way  to  the  shower-room  when  Tillot-  "Mr.  ('iillesi)ie.  1  I)elie\e,"  said  'I'illot- 

son  step])ed  out  from  his  corner  and  con-  son. 

fronted  him.     'J1ie  boy  stood   still.     He-  "Vcs,  sir,"  said  (lillespie,  neither  timid 

hind  In'm  the  long  room  grew  silent,  and  nor    insolent.      With    his    towel    knitted 

the  naked  ligures,  rigid  in  varying  atli-  about   his  waist  he  looked  like  a  frank, 

74i 


744 


The  Quality  of  Mercy 


fearless,  well-brought-up   young   cave- 
man. 

"I  gather  from  my  roll-book  that  you 
are  a  member  of  my  class  in  Greek  and 
Roman  history,"  said  Tillotson.  "And, 
in  fact,  as  I  look  at  you,  I  do  detect  a  cer- 
tain familiarity  of  facial  expression.  I 
have  just  seen  you  run  the  half-mile.  It 
was  handsomely  done." 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  the  boy;  'T 
tried  to  do  my  best." 

"It  is  a  matter  of  regret,"  said  Tillot- 
son, "  that  my  roll-book,  recording  no  less 
than  fourteen  absences  in  the  space  of 
six  weeks,  should  have  automatically  de- 
barred you  from  participating  in  next 
Saturday's  trial  of  strength  and  skill 
against  Kiow^a  State." 

"I'm  sorry,  sir." 

"This  draught  from  the  doorway  is  not 
too  strong,  I  hope,  for  your  somewhat 
exposed  attire?"  said  Tillotson. 

"No,  sir." 

"  In  that  case  will  you  tell  me  the  name 
of  the  Athenian  youth  who  brought  news  . 
of  the  victory  at  Marathon  to  the  city?" 

Gillespie  thought  a  moment  and 
flushed. 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  know,  sir." 

"Very  well,  then.  Will  you  kindly  tell 
me  with  what  event  in  Greek  history  you 
connect  Mr.  Browning's  poem  of  Phei- 
dippides?" 

"I  am  afraid  I  can't,  sir,"  said  Gilles- 
pie. 

"I  distinctly  feel  the  draught  in  this 
open  doorway,"  said  Tillotson.  "If  I  am 
not  careful  I  shall  sneeze  very  shortly. 
Kindly  enter  the  shower-room,  Mr.  Gil- 
lespie, and  I  will  follow  you." 

Gillespie  walked  into  the  vaporous, 
humid  chamber  and  Tillotson  balanced 
himself  on  the  threshold.  The  granite 
floor  was  awash. 

"No  doubt,"  he  said,  "you  can  recall 
the  date  of  the  battle  of  Thermopylae?" 

"I  was  always  poor  on  dates,  sir,"  said 
the  boy. 

"Then  one  more  question,  Mr.  Gilles- 
pie. In  running  the  half-mile  against  the 
representative  of  Kiowa  State  would  you 
claim  a  handicap  of  fifty  yards?" 

"Why,  no,  sir." 

"And  when  you,  having  abandoned 
your  studies  for  the  track,  enter  the  field 
against  a  Kiowa  runner  who  has  devoted 
sufficient  time  to  his  studies  to  attain 


satisfactory  scholastic  standing,  are  you 
not  in  fact  demanding  a  very  handsome 
handicap?" 

"  I  could  give  Jones  on  the  Kiowa  team 
thirty  yards  and  beat  him,  sir." 

"That  does  not  alter  the  moral  aspect 
of  the  situation,"  said  Tillotson.  "I  will 
detain  you  no  longer.  Chills  are  easily 
caught  in  the  early  spring  even  by  robust 
organisms  like  yours.  If  any  reasons 
occur  to  you  why  I  should  lift  my  in- 
hibition against  your  taking  part  in  the 
games,  I  shall  be  pleased  to  give  them 
thought." 

Gillespie  hesitated. 

"There  is  one  thing,  sir.  Biit  I  cannot 
speak  about  it  here." 

"Very  well,"  said  Tillotson,  "if  you 
will  accompany  me  to  my  house — natu- 
rally after  you  have  bathed  and  resumed 
your  clothes — I  shall  be  happy  to  con- 
tinue our  discussion." 

He  turned  and  walked  down-stairs,  his 
head  held  high.  Cooper  followed  him, 
silent  and  disheartened.  In  the  locker- 
room,  pandemonium,  to  use  the  language 
of  the  New  York  Times,  broke  loose. 
Jenkins,  the  football  captain,  stood  up 
naked  and  unashamed  on  a  chair  and 
offered  to  bet  ten  to  six  that  Old  Man 
Tillotson  had  gone  bug-house. 


Ill 


"It  isn't  really  an  excuse,  sir,"  said 
Gillespie.  "I  know  I  have  loafed  on  the 
job.  I  don't  know  why.  I  guess  I  never 
should  have  been  sent  to  college.  This 
is  my  senior  year  and  I  suppose  it  will 
serve  me  right  if  I  lost  my  last  chance  for 
the  games.  I  shouldn't  mind  it  for  my- 
self." 

Tillotson  looked  up  from  beside  the 
fire.    It  was  a  raw  April. 

"Then  there  are  others  who  would  feel 
the  disappointment  more  heavily  than 
yourself?" 

"There  is  some  one  else,  sir." 

"And  she  is  coming  down  for  the 
games?" 

Gillespie  looked  unhappy. 

"She  is,  sir." 

"That  makes  the  situation  more  diffi- 
cult than  ever,"  said  Tillotson. 

"It  does." 

"  Not  in  the  way  you  possibly  imagine," 
said  Tillotson.    "If  it  were  a  mere  ques- 


The  Quality  of  Mercy 


74.1 


tion  of  providinfT  adequate  punishment        *' She /^  proud,  sir,"  said  Gillespie.    ''I 

for  you,  I  should  remain  convinced,  as  I  know  she  would  feel  the  flisj^race  of  it." 
am  at  present,  that  the  inglorious  close        "And    might    even    have    recourse   to 

of  your  athletic  career  at  Silver  Lake— it  extreme  measures?" 


I)iit  when  Gillespie  was  gone  Tillotson  sat  before  the  fire  and  wrestled  with  the  devil — I'age  746. 


would  be  idle  to  call  it  an  academic  ca- 
reer— was  just  and  proper.  But  punish- 
ment now  would  only  be  a  mistaken 
kindness." 

''Kindness,  Professor  Tillotson?" 

"Naturally,  kindness.  It  would  render 
you  a  martyr  in  prejudiced  eyes.  The 
young  lady  in  question " 

''What,  sir?"  said  Gillespie,  looking 
up  quickly. 

"1  repeat,  the  young  lady  in  (|uesti()n, 
instead  of  making  you  feel  the  shanie  of 
the  thing,  would  only  pity  you  and  justify 
you.  So  where  would  your  punishim-nt 
be?" 


"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  by  ex- 
treme measures,  sir." 

"I  mean,"  said  Tillotson,  "that  the 
young  lady,  after  the  tirst  generous  im- 
pulse in  your  behalf,  might  be  imj)elled 
to  consider  that  a  man  so  tkigrantly  dere- 
lict in  his  consideration  for  others  is  not 
the  man  to  whom  she  should  trust  herself 
for  lilV.  That  would  be  punishment  in- 
deed." 

Gillespie's  face  worki'd  and  he  shaded 
his  eyes  with  his  hands.  Tillot.son  was 
sorry  l"or  him. 

".Mv  dear  .Mr.  (lilU>pir."  In-  said.  "I 
hope  \-ou  will   not   ct)nsider  nu-  imperii- 


'40 


The  Quality  of  Mercy 


nent  in  thus  intruding  on  your  private 
ciinccrns.  Only  you  sec  that  I  approach 
my  duty  in  a  state  of  mind  heavily  tinged 
with  regret." 

"I  quite  understand,  sir,"  said  the  boy. 
'T  guess  I  can  take  my  medicine." 

"I  will  not  as  yet  commit  myself  on  the 
case,"  said  Tillotson;  "as  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  explain,  the  moral  issues  involved 
are  exceedingly  complicated.  Until  I  ar- 
rive at  my  decision,  a  persistent  applica- 
tion to  the  first  three  hundred  pages 
of  ^Martin's  'Outlines  of  Greek  History' 
might  not  be  misspent." 

"I  will  try,  sir,"  said  Gillespie,  ''but  I 
haven't  much  hope." 

"Neither,  to  be  frank,  have  I,"  said 
Tillotson.  "But  even  if  I  decide  not  to 
offer  you  the  privilege  of  a  special  exami- 
nation you  will  at  least  have  acquired 
merit." 

But  when  Gillespie  was  gone  Tillotson 
sat  before  the  fire  and  wrestled  with  the 
devil.  He  felt  his  standards  being  under- 
mined by  a  tidal  wave  of  sentiment.  Soft, 
w^arming  memories  of  his  youth  inun- 
dated him  and  shook  him  so  badly  that 
for  shame  he  took  refuge  in  the  appeal  to 
reason.  To  punish  the  boy  w^ould  be  not 
merely  harsh,  it  would  be  absurdly  futile. 
Gillespie  was  above  academic  rewards 
and  penalties.  Tillotson  had  seen  him 
on  the  track  and  in  the  "gym,"  and  knew 
that  the  boy  had  the  glory  of  conquering 
strength  and  youth  and  beauty.  Now  he 
knew  that  Gillespie  had  also  the  crown- 
ing gift  of  life — love.  What  could  a  uni- 
versity give  him  or  take  away  from  him? 
What  more,  indeed,  could  a  university  ask 
of  its  candidates  for  a  diploma? 

Still  he  did  not  yield.  In  the  end  he 
knew  that  he  must,  but  others  did  not 
know.  The  days  went  by  and  the  cam- 
pus writhed  with  suspense.  Gillespie  was 
out  on  the  track,  keeping  himself  in  con- 
dition against  what  seemed  an  impos- 
sible chance.  He  had  made  a  dab  at  his 
books  and  given  them  up.  He  did  not 
try  to  see  Tillotson  again.  Nor  was  the 
latter  accessible  during  that  critical  period 
in  Silver  Lake's  history.  He  kept  himself 
in  seclusion  against  Brinkley  and  the  hor- 
rified gaze  of  the  freshmen.  Cooper,  pre- 
suming on  a  closer  intimacy  with  Tillot- 
son than  any  other  man  in  the  faculty 
could  boast,  made  a  feeble  attempt  at 
intercession  and  was  snubbed. 


It  is  written  in  the  annals  of  Silver 
Lake  that  Tillotson 's  ban  on  the  univer- 
sity's champion  point- winner  was  not 
lifted  till  the  very  last  moment.  Satur- 
day came  and  the  crowds  poured  into  the 
stands  on  Sherman  Field.  Kiowa's  dele- 
gation, aware  of  how  matters  stood,  was 
jubilant,  and  four  of  Kiowa's  cheer-lead- 
ers were  voiceless  for  three  weeks  after 
the  games.  Silver  Lake  ate  its  heart  in 
silence.  The  head  coach  chewed  tobacco 
with  tears  in  his  eyes  and  murder  in  his 
heart.     Tillotson  was  not  in  the  stands. 

The  story  goes  that  President  Brinkley 
was  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Sherman 
Field  when  Tillotson  rang  him  up. 

"I  have  come  to  the  conclusion,"  said 
a  strained  voice  at  the  other  end  of  the 
line,  "that  it  might  be  advisable  to  set 
young  Gillespie  another  examination  in 
Greek  history  some  time  next  week.  This, 
I  presume,  renders  him  eligible.  I  will 
confirm  my  verbal  decision  in  a  written 
statement  to  the  same  effect." 

Brinkley's  dash  for  Sherman  Field  was 
not  a  bad  sprint  in  itself.  Kiowa  State 
was  beaten  that  afternoon  by  fifty-three 
points  to  thirty-six,  Gillespie  carrying  off 
firsts  in  the  half-mile,  the  mile,  the  hur- 
dles, and  the  broad  jump.  That  night 
the  plate-glass  and  mirror  insurance  in  the 
down-town  section  was  a  total  loss. 


IV 


Professor  Tillotson  was  thinking  of 
Gillespie  over  his  coffee  and  cigar  w^hen  riot 
went  loose  in  his  front  yard.  He  heard  a 
mob  and  a  brass  band.  He  heard  cheer- 
ing. Giant  torpedoes  exploded  against 
his  windows.  His  door-bell  kept  up  a  hell- 
ish clamor,  under  the  stimulus  of  three 
sophomores  specially  detailed  for  that 
service.  Tillotson  stepped  out  on  the 
porch  and  was  received  with  a  roar  of 
friendly  cheers.  They  called  him  Good 
Old  Tilly  and  demanded  a  speech.  He 
held  up  his  hand  for  silence. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "I  appreciate 
your  extraordinary  enthusiasm  in  a  cause 
which  does  more  credit  to  your  hearts 
and  your  vocal  organs  than  to  your  sense 
of  right  and  wrong.  Is  it  necessary,  do 
you  think,  to  persist  in  applying  pressure 
to  my  door-bell?  Thank  you,  that  is 
much  better.  I  need  not  tell  you,  of 
course,  after  an  academic  career  of  fifty 


Drawn  by  Hanson  Booth. 

Tillutsun  stepped  uut  uii  tlie  purch  and  was  received  with  a  roar  uf  friendly  cheers.— Page  74^ 


747 


'48 


The  Quality  of  Mercy 


years  but  faintly  punctuated  with  poj)u- 
larity,  how  stimulating  it  is  to  have 
earned  this  remarkable  demonstration  of 
jniblic  favor  by  saving  our  university 
from  the  inconceivable  disgrace  of  being 
beaten  by  Kiowa  State.    With  your  per- 


In  front  of  the  library  he  met  Gillespie 
walking  arm  in  arm  with  a  white-haired 
woman  in  black.    The  boy  stopped. 

''My  mother,  sir,"  he  said. 

Tillotson  bowed. 

"And  the  young  lady?"  he  asked. 


"  My  mother,  sir." 


mission  I  will  now  return  to  my  library 
in  order  to  ascertain  whether  I  am  more 
gratified  than  ashamed.  The  door-bell, 
I  presume,  can  be  repaired  at  moderate 
cost.    I  thank  you." 

They  gave  him  the  locomotive  cheer  and 
departed.  But  Tillotson  had  spoken  dis- 
ingenuously. He  was  not  ashamed.  He 
was  elated  by  the  victory  over  Kiowa,  and 
altogether  he  was  in  a  state  of  mind  where 
reading  or  going  to  bed  was  out  of  the 
question.  It  was  an  interesting  psycho- 
logical condition  which  bethought  it  would 
be  worth  while  talking  over  with  Cooper. 


"The  young  lady?"  said  Gillespie,  and 
looked  away. 

'T  see  my  error,"  said  Tillotson.  "It 
was  your  mother  who  really  formed  the 
subject  of  our  conversation." 

"It  was,  sir,"  said  Gillespie. 

Tillotson  raised  his  hat  and  walked  on; 
but  instead  of  looking  up  Cooper  he  went 
home.  There  he  wrote  the  following  let- 
ter to  President  Brinkley: 

"My  dear  Mr.  Brinkley: 

"In  confirmation  of  my  verbal  message 
of  this  afternoon,  I  hereby  give  formal 


The  Liftincr  of  the  Burden 


749 


notice  of  the  annulment  of  Mr.  Gillespie's 
disability  as  to  participation  in  the  games 
concluded  several  hours  ago.  More- 
over, I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  sub- 
ject Mr.  Gillespie  to  any  further  test  in 
his  work  in  Greek  history.  If  the  object 
of  that  course  is  to  imbue  the  student 
with  the  standards  and  outlook  of  the 
classic  world  I  consider  that  I  have  ad- 
mirably succeeded  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Gil- 
lespie. I  testify  that  he  is  thoroughly 
steeped  in  the  spirit  of  the  pagan  civili- 


zation. Not  only  can  he  run  faster  and 
leap  farther  than  any  normally  constituted 
Christian  youth  should,  but  his  ethical 
outlook  convinces  me  that  for  him  the 
Christian  system  of  morals  has  never  ex- 
isted. Years  of  post-graduate  study  in 
the  literature  of  the  ancients  could  hardly 
produce  a  more  acceptable  heathen.  I 
have  the  honor  of  recommending  him  un- 
qualifiedly for  his  diploma. 

"Sincerely, 
''John  Fremont  Tillotson." 


THE    LIFTING    OF   THE    BURDEN 

By  Edith   Rickert 


^HERE  come  moments  in  the 
lives  of  all  of  us  when  the 
door  of  the  present  swings 
sharply  shut  and  leaves  us 
dizzy  before  an  untried  fu- 
ture. Sometimes  this  ends 
an  imperceptible  narrowing  of  the  way  by 
which  we  have  come  through  the  long  gal- 
lery of  the  past;  sometimes  it  crashes  like  a 
portcullis  and  cuts  our  loves  in  two.  But, 
be  it  slow  or  swift,  there  is  always  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  a  moment,  and  all  the  world 
between. 

For  Ruth  Payne  it  came  with  the  reading 
of  a  letter  in  the  twilight  of  a  snowy  after- 
noon. As  she  sat  very  still,  looking  across 
the  red-and-gray  city  below,  her  sparrow 
came  and  chirped  expectantly  on  her  win- 
dow ledge.  She  had  taught  him  to  look  for 
crumbs,  and  this  night  he  could  not  make 
her  hear. 

The  letter  was  incomprehensible.  It 
came  on  a  Wednesday  from  Alice  Under- 
wood, when  to-morrow  there  should  be  one 
from  Ben  himself;  and  this  which  came  out 
of  its  proper  time  told  the  incredible  news 
that  he  was  dead.  Suddenly  dead.  Dead? 
It  was  less  than  a  week  since  they  had 
parted. 

*'  I  don't  believe  it,"  she  said.  "  If  it  were 
true,  I  couldn't  bear  it.  God,  don't  let  it 
be  true!" 

Vol.  LV.— 82 


The  sparrow  chirped  piteously;  he  had 
his  own  troubles. 

She  covered  her  face  with  her  hands. 
''If  I  am  very  quiet,  I  shall  wake  up  pres- 
ently.    Things  don't  happen  this  way." 

She  was  still  so  long  that  her  thought 
took  wings  and  fled  back  to  the  week  be- 
fore. She  seemed  to  see  again  the  low  bo.x 
hedges  that  bordered  the  path  to  his  door, 
the  white-tlecked  barberry  bushes,  the  pur- 
ple shadow  of  the  porch  on  the  snow.  So  it 
had  looked  when  she  had  come  back  from 
the  post-office  that  last  day  but  one  of  her 
stay. 

Indoors  the  sun  was  streaming  red 
through  the  big  west  window  of  the  hall. 
Ben's  door  was  shut,  but  she  could  see  Mrs. 
Underwood  with  her  lace  pillow  and  -Mice 
with  the  cat  on  the  rug  by  the  fire. 

''That  you,  Ruth?"  Alice  had  called  in 
her  babyish  voice.  ''Would  you  mind  call- 
ing Ben?     Tea's  ready." 

He  was  clearly  at  home;  smoke  betrayed 
him  even  through  (he  closed  door.  But  she 
had  to  knock  two  or  three  limes. 

He  was  almost  hidden  by  books,  of  course, 
and  he  did  not  look  u|)  until  she  could 
have  touched  his  shoulder.  Then  she  had 
laughed  a  little  and  he  had  sprung  to  his 
feet  with  the  light  in  his  blue  eyes  that 
seemed  always  a  miracle. 

"  Oh,  is  it  you  ?  I  was  miles  away.  I've 
found  the  most  interesting  thing;  just  sit 
down  here  a  moment  and  look  at  this." 

Then  she  had  l)een  in  the  arm-chair  and 


750 


The  Lifting  of  the  Burden 


Ben  had  knelt  to  explain,  and  they  had  both 
disgracefully  forgotten  all  about  tea.  Was 
that  Wednesday  ?  Only  a  week  ago  ?  And 
now,  what  was  the  impossible  thing  that 
somebody  said  had  happened? 

It  was  on  Thursday  night  that  she  had 
taken  the  midnight  train  to  New  York. 

She  had  only  a  dim  remembrance  of  the 
dingy,  crowded  waiting-room,  but  a  vivid 
image  of  Ben,  in  his  rough  coat,  with  the 
visored  cap  that  threw  strange,  distorting 
shadows  on  his  face. 

''You  work  too  hard,"  he  said.  "Be 
good!  If  you  are  good,  you  can  do  any- 
thing!" 

"But  I  don't  want  to  do  anything! '' 
she  retorted.  "What  does  it  matter,  doing 
things?" 

' '  What  does  matter  ?  "  he  had  caught  her 
up. 

It  was  clearly  impossible  to  answer  "You, 
Ben!"  She  evaded  him  with  a  plea  that 
the  icy  platform  was  better  than  a  stuffy 
room,  and  they  went  outside. 

But  he  did  not  drop  his  point.  "Tell  me 
what  does  matter." 

She  was  glad  of  her  broad  hat-brim  as 
she  answ^ered,  "I  don't  know  unless  it's 
living  while  you  live.  Work  isn't  the  whole 
end  of  life." 

"Perhaps  not,"  he  had  answered,  "but 
some  people  aren't  allowed  to  choose." 

O  Ben,  Ben,  who  knew  better  than  she 
what  his  hard  work  had  done  for  Alice  and 
his  mother? 

"So  I  have  found,"  she  had  answered, 
and  then,  ashamed,  had  turned  away  to 
the  glittering  rails,  dreading  to  see  the  ap- 
proaching headlight  of  the  engine. 

But  stronger  than  this  dread  was  the 
force  that  drew  her  to  turn  again  and  look 
at  him.  Their  eyes  met  and  could  not  part 
until  the  flash  and  roar  of  the  train  shot  into 
consciousness  with  a  sensation  of  physical 
pain. 

And  now  they  were  saying  that  he  was 
dead!     Ben! 

Her  room  faded  away  into  cloud. 

Outside,  the  sparrow  ruiBed  his  feathers 
and  humped  his  shoulders  against  a  pitiless 
world. 

II 

She  leaned  forward  with  a  start  at  the 
sound  of  a  voice  in  the  darkness.  "What 
is  it,  Alma?" 


"I'm  sorry,  Miss  Ruth,  but  the  grocer 
forgot  to  send  the  salted  almonds." 

Ruth  fell  back  with  a  sigh  of  relief;  then 
she  laughed  to  find  that  she  was  awake  at 
last,  and  that  her  loss  was  not  more  serious 
than  salted  almonds. 

"It  doesn't  matter.  Alma,  I  must  have 
been  asleep.  What  time  is  it?  Is  any- 
body coming  to  dinner?" 

"Mr.  and  Mrs.  ShefBeld,  Miss  Ruth," 
answered  the  girl  reproachfully.  "  It's  past 
six!" 

"Oh,  well,  will  you  turn  on  the  light, 
please?     Thanks." 

After  that  she  did  not  remember  much 
what  happened  until  she  found  herself  in 
her  own  room,  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the 
bed.  She  felt  too  weak  and  ill  to  see  the 
Sheffields.  But  her  watch  told  her  that  it 
was  now  too  late  to  telephone.  She  would 
have  barely  time  to  dress.  Well,  what  of  it  ? 
To-morrow  would  come  and  next  week, 
each  day  with  its  own  burden  of  living; 
there  was  no  escaping  the  days. 

She  went  hurriedly  to  her  wardrobe  and 
took  out  the  first  dress  that  touched  her 
hands,  a  soft  black  thing  with  little  frills  of 
red  at  the  neck  and  sleeves.  The  memory 
stung  that  she  had  worn  it  at  the  Under- 
woods', the  night  before  she  came  away,  and 
Ben  had  greeted  her  with,  "Well,  Lady- 
bird!" She  had  supposed  he  liked  it  as  he 
seldom  noticed  such  things. 

She  pushed  it  away,  then  drew  it  back 
with  swift  defiance.  Certainly  she  would 
wear  it;  it  would  help  to  keep  away  bad 
dreams.  She  dressed  without  looking  in 
the  glass,  afraid  to  meet  her  own  eyes;  and 
so  hurriedly  that  she  found  time  to  ar- 
range the  flowers  on  the  table  and  to  light 
the  wood  fire  in  the  library  before  her  guests 
arrived. 

The  flame  of  it  was  scorching  her  cheeks 
when  she  heard  the  click  of  the  elevator  and 
voices  on  the  landing. 

"Ruthie,  dear,  you're  prettier  than  ever! 
What  a  color!"  said  Belle  Sheffield,  flut- 
tering up  to  be  kissed.  "It's  an  age  since 
I've  seen  you!  That's  what  comes  of 
being  too  happy!  We're  atrociously  self- 
ish, Harry  and  I!" 

It  was  no  difficult  matter  to  keep  the 
little  bride  chattering  until  dinner  was  an- 
nounced. And  when  they  sat  at  table,  she 
had  only  to  give  her  guests  food  and  play 
chorus;  they  were  sufficiently  occupied  with 
each  other  and  with  a  house  that  they  were 


The  Lifting  of  the  Burden 


rsi 


going  to  build  in  the  spring.  She  had  not 
dreamed  that  it  would  be  so  easy  to  play 
the  game. 

When  they  returned  to  the  lil^rar)',  there 
was  always  the  fire  to  play  with,  and,  pres- 
ently, coffee. 

Turning  suddenly,  she  once  surprised  the 
two  holding  hands.  They  had  the  grace 
to  blush,  but  not  to  move,  and  Belle  said: 
**\Vhen  are  you  going  to  marry,  Ruthie?" 

Ruth  went  away  out  of  the  circle  of 
light,  not  finding  any  answer. 

"You'll  never  know  anything  about  life 
until  you  do,"  continued  Belle,  placidly. 
''  So  how  can  you  write  ?  What  are  you  do- 
ing over  there  in  the  dark?" 

"Finding  cigarettes  for  Harry." 

When  she  had  poured  the  coffee,  remem- 
bering that  Belle  took  sugar  but  no  cream 
and  Harry  cream  without  sugar,  there  was 
nothing  more  to  do.  She  leaned  back  in 
her  chair  and  let  them  go  on  telling  her  how 
happy  they  were  together. 

It  was  near  midnight  when  Belle  said, 
*' Mercy,  mercy,  child!  What's  the  mat- 
ter?" 

"Why?"  asked  Ruth. 

"Your  cheeks  are  all  spotty!'^ 

"I  suppose  I've  been  pinching  them," 
she  answered  truthfully. 

"Trying  to  keep  awake!  A\'e've  talked 
her  to  death!  Harry,  let's  run;  she  won't 
be  able  to  write  a  word  to-morrow." 

"The  world  will  go  on  just  the  same — 
don't  worry,"  laughed  Ruth. 

When  she  was  alone  again  she  moved 
about  the  room,  setting  it  to  rights;  but 
when  all  was  in  order  as  she  liked  to  have 
it,  there  was  no  longer  any  excuse  for  not 
going  to  bed.  She  tried  to  fix  her  mind  on 
the  process  of  undressing,  put  things  away 
without  seeing  them,  and  at  last  lay  still 
in  the  darkness  with  her  hands  pressed 
over  her  eyes  to  keep  away  everything  that 
threatened  to  impinge  upon  consciousness. 
So  she  might  hypnotize  herself  to  sleep — a 
moment  at  a  time,  the  night  would  i)ass. 
Soon  she  would  be  tired  enough. 

She  did  not  hear  the  striking  of  the  clock. 
She  was  too  intent  upon  holding  the  door 
against  the  beast  that  clawed  for  entrance 
to  her  mind  and  tore  so  that  she  seemed  to 
l)e  all  one  pain,  even  though  she  would  not 
let  him  in;  but  the  night  would  j)ass  if  one 
held  out  long  enough,  and  in  the  morning — 
things  were  always  better  in  the  morning. 

There  came  a  moment  when  the  tide  of 


consciousness  ebbed  a  little,  but  it  surged 
back  with  a  sudden  cr}'.  "()  Ben,  I  dreamed 
you  were " 

She  found  herself  sitliii;;  uj)  in  l>e(l,  with 
her  arms  stretched  out  into  the  darkness. 
She  laid  her  head  on  her  knees,  sobbing  in 
utter  miserv.  "D  Cod,  if  it  were  yester- 
day!" 

And  presently  sleep  came  and  found  her 
so. 


Ill 


She  rose  with  the  gray  dawn  to  shut  out 
a  wintr)'  fog  that  drifted  in  through  the  open 
window.  But  after  a  moment  she  realized 
that  this  was  only  an  excuse;  her  growing 
trouble  was  beginning  to  cry  out  for  proof. 
If  it  were  all  a  dream  that  she  had  had 
a  letter  from  Alice!  God,  if  it  were  all  a 
dream ! 

But  the  white  envelope  lay  on  her  bureau, 
inexorable,  never  to  be  escaped  again. 

Hours  later  Alma  brought  her  break- 
fast. "You  looked  so  tired  last  night,  Miss 
Ruth,"  she  said,  her  eyes  moist  with  ex- 
pectation of  praise.  She  must  eat  some- 
thing, not  to  defeat  kindly  forethought. 

Letters  were  brought  in.  With  eyes  that 
could  scarcely  see  Ruth  turned  them  over 
and  then  let  them  all  slip  to  the  fioor.  The 
one  was  missing. 

Then  the  morning  began  its  claims,  an 
urgent  telephone  message,  the  weekly  bills, 
household  orders. 

Oh,  that  sparrow,  that  sparrow! 

She  could  not  interpret  his  shrill  piping: 
"You  gave  me  nothing  yesterday.  .\m  I 
to  go  hungry  to-day  ?  "  But  when  she  could 
stand  his  clamorous  persistence  no  longer, 
she  slipped  into  her  dressing-gown  and 
found  crumbs  for  him.  At  the  wimlow  her 
lace  sleeve  caught  in  one  of  the  fenis,  and 
in  saving  it  she  felt  the  soil  dry  and  [K)w- 
dery.  Clearly,  if  one  incurred  the  resjHin- 
sibilily  even  of  ferns,  one  had  to  live  up  to 
them.  What  was  ihe  use  of  going  back 
to  bed?  One  could  not  slop  things  any 
more  than  one  could  hold  one's  breath :  one 
had  to  go  on  and  on. 

After  all,  had  anything  really  happeneil.-* 
There  was  her  pretty  llat,  unchangetl  as 
yesterday;  ever)'  book  in  its  place;  the 
piano  open;  the  morning  paper  on  the  ta- 
l)le;   Alma  singing  in  the  kitchen.      Duties, 


•52 


The 


Lifting 


of  the  Burden 


the  old  duties,  pressed  upon  her;  pleasures, 
new  pleasures,  had  been  arranged  for:  there 
was  no  outward  change  in  her  environment. 
Was  not  everything  quite  the  same  as  yes- 
terday?    Call  it  so. 

When  she  sat  at  her  desk,  a  little  later, 
looking  at  her  unhnished  manuscript,  she 
remembered  that  there  was  first  a  letter  to 
be  written.  What  could  she  say  to  Alice? 
She  could  not  tell  the  secret  that  clung  to 
her  heart;  yet  she  must  write — what  people 
usually  wrote  when  such  things  were  true; 
what  other  people  expected  to  hear. 

Somehow  the  letter  was  finished  in  the 
course  of  the  afternoon.  She  posted  it  her- 
self, afterward  walking  on,  without  knowl- 
edge of  her  footsteps,  until  darkness  over- 
took her,  chilled  and  damp  with  fallen  snow, 
far  from  home. 

She  was  almost  glad  that  an  oppression 
as  of  the  onset  of  illness  gave  her  an  excuse 
for  not  dining  with  the  Gorhams.  She 
would  go  to  bed,  and  in  the  relief  of  sheer 
physical  pain  would  forget. 


IV 


The  morning  brought  Mrs.  Gorham, 
full  of  nervous  concern.  ^^Had  she  been 
working  too  hard?  Would  she  go  South 
or  somewhere?  What  she  needed  was  a 
change."' 

"Change!"  There  was  a  sudden  bitter- 
ness in  Ruth's  heart. 

"By  the  way — "  began  Mrs.  Gorham, 
and  stopped  short. 

Ruth  felt  what  was  coming  and  steadied 
herself. 

"Do  you  know?  But  it's  all  in  the  pa- 
pers, of  course.  Wasn't  it  horribly  sud- 
den?" 

Ruth  looked  at  her  without  speaking;  it 
did  not  seem  worth  while  to  contradict  the 
story. 

"  It  must  be  a  terrible  shock  to  his  mother 
and  sister !  How  will  they  get  on  ?  I  didn't 
realize,  I'm  such  a  little  stupid,  that  he  was 
a  great  man.  You  did,  of  course,  knowing 
them  all  so  well?" 

"Yes,"  said  Ruth.  She  was  thinking 
that  the  sound  of  Minnie's  voice  was  better 
if  one  disassociated  it  from  all  meaning. 

When  she  had  gone  and  there  was  no 
more  need  for  watchfulness,  the  saving 
physical  pain  came  back  fourfold.  So  the 
day  passed,  with  the  ticking  clock,  the  drip 
gf  melting  snow,  the  noisy  sparrow. 


Alma  was  tearful  with  pleas  that  she 
might  send  for  the  doctor,  and  urgent  with 
delicacies  of  her  own  making,  so  futile  is 
complete  devotion,  and  at  length  Ruth  sat 
up  in  bed  and  spoke  severely.  "  If  I'm  not 
better  to-morrow,  Alma,  you  shall  have 
your  own  way.  But  I  shall  be  better,  you 
wdll  see." 

Meanwhile  the  blessed  screen  of  illness 
gave  her  a  little  time  to  fight  off  the  things 
that  could  not  be  borne. 

In  the  morning  the  pain  was  gone,  and 
in  its  place  was  come  a  strange  sort  of 
stoicism  that  helped  her  to  take  her  letters 
steadily,  and  without  expectation.  But  her 
lips  drew  tight  when  she  saw  the  black 
border  of  a  note  from  Alice. 

Funeral  ?  Alice  was  writing  of  a  funer- 
al? Of  flowers,  people,  ceremonies?  It 
was  a  wonder,  thought  Ruth  bitterly,  that 
she  did  not  describe  her  own  mourning. 

But  what  had  all  this  to  do  with  Ben? 
He  had  always  been  so  alive,  so  intensely 
practical,  so  scornful  of  the  sentiment  that 
vainly  tries  to  cloak  the  brutal  facts  of 
life.  He  would  have  been  the  first  to  laugh 
at  all  this  show;  Ruth  covered  her  face 
against  a  sudden  stabbing  thought.  Clearly 
the  best  proof  that  he  was  dead  was  that  he 
had  not  protested  against  his  own  funeral. 

Suppose  it  true,  then — was  she  bound  to 
keep  on  living  ?  Why  ?  There  was  none  to 
make  special  claim  upon  her:  her  parents 
were  long  since  dead;  her  brothers  and 
sister  married  and  absorbed  in  their  own 
families;  her  friends,  for  the  most  part,  had 
homes  and  careers  of  their  own.  Here  was 
a  way,  a  reasonable  way,  out  of  an  impossi- 
ble situation. 

Of  course,  one  must  be  careful  not  to 
make  a  mess  of  it.  One  must  put  one's 
affairs  in  order  and  then  so  arrange  that 
there  could  be  no  doubt  of  success. 

She  had  seen  it  done  once.  An  unknown 
man  had  pointed  his  hands  above  his  head 
and  leaped  from  a  steamer  crossing  the 
Channel.  A  bell  had  clanged  from  the 
bridge,  the  engines  had  thudded  backward; 
with  a  swift  running  of  feet  and  slewing  of 
ropes  a  boat  had  been  lowered;  for  half 
an  hour  a  silent  crowd  had  watched  the  little 
craft  at  her  searching  while  the  big  steamer 
heaved  and  sank  in  the  slbw  wash  of  the 
waves.  Then  the  little  boat  came  back  as 
she  went  away,  and  the  engine-bell  clanged 
full  speed  ahead.  When  those  who  had 
seen  the  jump  had  described  the  manner  of 


The   Lifting  of  tlic    Hurdcn 


753 


it  to  those  who  had  not,  the  incident  was 
dosed.  There  might  have  been  a  brief 
paragraph  in  various  newspapers,  and  per- 
haps some  people  were  still  waiting  for  that 
nameless  man  to  come  home;  but  for  him 
how  indescribably  quick  and  easy  had  been 
the  transition  from  the  known  world  to  the 
unknown.  To  be  sure,  he  might  have  been 
saved — ignominious!  One  would  have  to 
guard  against  that. 

It  may  have  been  late  that  same  after- 
noon, or  perhaps  the  next,  when  Alma 
brought  in  a  small  box  that  had  come  by 
express. 

She  was  expecting  it;  Alice's  letter  had 
explained.  They  had  been  going  over  some 
of  his  things  already,  sorting  them,  arrang- 
ing them,  putting  them  away,  giving  them 
away.     So  soon! 

They  meant  to  be  kind,  according  to 
their  image  of  her  friendship  for  him. 
They  were  sharing  with  her  things  that  she 
might  cherish  for  the  sake  of  old,  dear 
associations. 

There  were  books — she  did  not  read  their 
titles — and  in  one  of  them  a  letter  from 
Alice,  enclosing  a  single  sheet  in  his  writ- 
ing. She  laid  it  gently  aside;  it  was  more 
possible  first  to  read  what  Alice  had  to  say. 
She  skimmed  the  lines,  but  the  essential 
matters  stood  out  sharply  in  the  maze  of 
words. 

"We  found  the  few  lines  on  his  desk, 
dear,  the  morning  after;  but  in  our  first 
trouble  we  did  not  realize  for  whom  they 
were  meant.  .  .  . 

"You  will  wonder  why  I  sent  you  the  old 
cap,  I  know,  yet  it  is  hard  to  explain,  and 
perhaps  after  all  you  won't  want  it.  But  I 
couldn't  bear  to  see  it  hanging  in  the  hall, 
and  I  couldn't  put  it  away ;  it  seemed  some- 
how as  if  he  might  come  back  and  look  for 
it.  Then  I  remembered  you,  and  I  thought 
perhaps  you  would  keep  it  and  love  it  for 
my  sake  as  well  as  for  your  own." 

Did  Alice  guess?  But  what  did  it  mat- 
ter now? 

She  found  courage  presently  to  read  that 
other  message;   it  was  so  pitiably  short. 

"Well,  little  gleaner — "  but  there  she  had 
to  stop.  It  was  the  name  he  used  to  give 
her  when  he  was  especially  j)lcase(l  with  her. 

When  she  could  read  on,  she  was  soon  at 
the  end.  "I  haven't  time  for  a  letter  to- 
night; but  there's  one  thing  I  must  tell  you 
for  fear  that  it  might  never  get  said  at  all. 
I  don't  want  you  to  be  in  doubt  even  for  a 


day.  Bother!  Telephone  for  me;  I'll  Ijc 
back  in  a  moment." 

That  was  all;  the  telephone  had  cheated 
her  of  the  one  comfort  that  might  have 
brought  a  measure  of  peace — certain  knowl- 
etlge  of  his  love.  Had  he  had  some  fore- 
shadowing that  the  end  was  so  near?  But 
the  words  had  not  been  said  or  written, 
and  now  they  would  never  be  said — never, 
never. 

In  the  morning  they  had  found  him  at 
his  desk  asleep,  with  his  head  on  his  arms. 
And  all  that  she  had  to  live  upon  was  mem- 
ory, and  these  few  things. 

It  was  when  she  came  upon  the  gray- 
green  tweed  cap  that  he  had  worn  the  last 
night  they  were  together  that  the  barriers 
of  her  unbelief  gave  way  before  the  tide  of 
realization.  That  it  should  be  hers  at  all, 
meant  that  its  owner  would  never  come 
back  to  miss  it. 


The  night  passed  for  her,  as  it  has  done 
for  millions  of  women,  in  sleeplessness  and 
tears. 

As  she  lay  still  at  last,  with  the  rough 
tweed  against  her  sore  cheek,  she  was 
suddenly  beset  by  a  ridiculous  memory  of 
Dutch  peasants  in  church,  the  men  pray- 
ing in  their  caps  as  she  had  often  seen  them 
do.  The  memory  stirred  the  thought:  If 
she  were  to  pray  now  ?  Was  not  prayer  for 
such  a  time  as  this?  But  what  could  pray- 
er do,  now  that  everything  was  lost  ?  She 
should  have  prayed  sooner! 

Yet  the  idea  clung  to  her  in  the  moniing. 
She  had  gone  to  church  perhaps  as  much  as 
most  people;  but  religion  had  nothing  to 
say  to  her  now.  She  had  heard  a  thousand 
sermons;  but  she  could  not  remember  any 
of  them.  She  had  uttered  thousands  ol 
prayers;  but  they  were  all  paralyzed  now. 

For  all  that,  she  presently  brought  out  her 
Testament,  in  despair  of  finding  other  help. 
Half-blinded  with  tears,  she  read  here  and 
there  at  random,  trying  to  glean  some  sense 
that  would  bring  relief.  .  .  .  But  it  seemed 
a  liopeless  turning  over  of  pages.  \\  here 
was  there  help?  In  Paul?  He,  too,  had 
doubted  and  suffered,  and  he,  more  than 
the  others,  had  talked  of  a  resurrecli«)n. 
Old  words,  scarcely  heedctl  in  old,  happy 
(lavs.  erhoe«l  dimly  now  in  the  recesses  of 
her  mind:  "How  say  some  among  you 
that  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead?" 


•54 


Tlie 


Lifting  of 


the   Burden 


She  found  the  chapter  and  read  breath- 
lessly, and  at  the  same  time  half  rebel- 
liously,  until  she  came  to  the  verse: 

"But  some  man  will  say,  How  are  the 
dead  raised  up?  and  with  what  body  do 
they  come?" 

That  was  the  cry  of  her  sorrow. 

She  wanted  Ben  as  he  was,  with  all  his 
faults — the  Ben  who  smoked  too  much, 
who  swore  sometimes;  the  Ben  whose 
slightest  headache  stabbed  her  with  pain, 
whose  smile  was  like  no  light  other  in  the 
world. 

*'Thou  fool,  that  which  thou  sowest  is 
not  quickened,  except  it  die: 

"And  that  which  thou  sowest,  thou 
sowest  not  that  body  that  shall  be,  but  bare 
grain,  it  may  chance  of  wheat,  or  of  some 
other  grain: 

"  But  God  giveth  it  a  body  as  it  hath 
pleased  him,  and  to  every  seed  its  own 
body." 

She  read  on,  a  dozen  verses,  and  as  she 
read  lost  heart.  Paul  did  not  stop  to  rea- 
son out  his  own  analogy;  he  went  off  into  a 
vain  reiteration  of  terms.  And  the  analogy 
itself  seemed  to  her  cruelly  false.  If  it 
meant  anything,  this  figure  of  seed-bearing, 
it  was  that  immortality  is  in  the  passing 
of  life  from  father  to  son;  the  rest  was  im- 
agination based  on  longing.  What  was 
this  ''spiritual  body"  of  Christ  that  had 
appeared  before  the  very  eyes  of  such 
and  such  witnesses  ?  The  contradiction  of 
terms  was  not  to  be  explained  away.  Life 
went  on  in  the  race,  but  the  individual  per- 
ished, the  human  qualities  that  made  one 
man  dearer  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world, 
these  would  never  come  together  again 
as  long  as  the  world  lasted.     Ben! 

"Behold  I  show  you  a  mystery;  We 
shall  not  all  sleep,  but  we  shall  all  be 
changed, 

"In  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  at  the  last  trump:  for  the  trumpet  shall 
sound,  and  the  dead  shall  be  raised  in- 
corruptible, and  we  shall  be  changed. 

"For  this  corruptible  must  put  on  incor- 
ruption,  and  this  mortal  must  put  on  im- 
mortality." 

O  Paul  the  dreamer!  To  him  it  was  all 
mystery  and  credible,  and  by  mere  vain 
reiteration  his  faith  grew  into  the  great  war- 
cry:  "O  death,  where  is  thy  sting?  O 
grave,  where  is  thy  victory?" 

But  when  one  came  to  look  for  meaning, 
for  proof,  what  then  ?     If  resurrection  was 


a  miracle,  no  less  miracle  was  faith  in  it; 
and  the  very  essence  of  a  miracle  was  that 
it  must  happen  in  the  soul.  But  if  it  did 
not  happen?  What  did  other  people  do? 
Could  one  shut  one's  eyes  to  law  and  rea- 
son, and  walk  blindly  the  way  the  heart 
led?  What  matter  then  if  heaven  lay  at 
the  end  of  the  chain  of  years?  One  was 
safe.  But  to  have  known  heaven  and  lost 
it;  how  find  it  again? 

That  way  lay  madness.  She  walked  the 
floor  until  the  walls  of  her  room  seemed  to 
close  in  and  suffocate  her,  and  then  she  fled 
from  herself  to  the  streets. 

She  was  still  weak  from  her  illness,  and 
yet  instinct  drove  her  an  endless,  weary 
trail,  seeking  help  in  the  eyes  of  all  that  she 
met. 

It  seemed  to  her  then  that  she  found  the 
scars  of  trouble,  no  less  than  her  own,  on 
most  of  the  faces  that  passed  by.  Rich 
and  poor,  they  seemed  to  her  alike  sor- 
rowful beyond  understanding,  except  some 
against  whom  she  shut  her  eyes,  shudder- 
ing. For  the  first  time  in  her  life,  it  seemed 
that  she  had  the  power  to  look  through  the 
veil  of  sense  and  read  souls. 


VI 


Near  dusk  she  found  herself  in  front  of 
Gertrude  Lingen's  doorway  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Washington  Square.  In  a  sud- 
den overpowering  need  to  speak,  to  be 
spoken  to,  she  went  up-stairs. 

Yet  at  first  she  found  little  to  say.  The 
silence  of  two  was  comforting. 

But  Mrs.  Lingen  understood,  and  it  was 
not  long  before  she  ventured:  "Can  you 
tell  me,  dear?" 

Then  words  seemed  impossible. 

After  a  while:  "Nothing  is  unbearable, 
dear." 

"What  is  worst  of  all?"  asked  Ruth. 

There  was  again  a  pause  before  the 
answer  came:  "Slow  decay  of  the  soul,  I 
think;  if  you  see  what  I  mean.  It's  like 
standing  on  the  shore  and  watching  a  man 
drown ;  no,  it's  worse !  That  would  be  mer- 
ciful, by  comparison !  If  some  one  you  love 
goes  away,  you  can  stand  it;  but  to  watch 
him  changing  under  your  eyes,  and  be  help- 
less, that's  like  being  tied  while  murder  is 
done  before  you,  inch  by  inch." 

She  added  with  a  little  catch  of  the 
breath:  "But  that's  my  trouble.  What's 
yours?" 


The  Lifting  of  the   Burden 


iOO 


''Oh!"  said  Ruth  softly.  ''Yes,  I  knew; 
but — "  She  added  after  a  pause:  ''If  one 
could  only  make  sense  of  the  world!" 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Lingen,  "a  good  many 
people  wish  that  at  one  time  or  another  in 
their  lives.  I  suppose  we  must  be  rather 
a  stupid  race.  Shall  wc  have  the  lights 
on?" 

"Not  yet.  All  the  people  I  met  to-day 
are  breaking  down  under  Ijurdens  too  heavy 
to  bear." 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Lingen;  "they  bear 
theni  mostly." 

"How?" 

Gertrude  laughed  gently.  "As  if  I  know! 
Each  finds  his  own  way." 

"How do  you?"  • 

"  I  ?  Oh,  I  try  not  to  make  a  fuss.  And 
I  have  my  housekeeping,  and  the  children, 
thank  God!" 

One  does  not  always  know  when  one 
touches  the  quick  of  a  friend's  pain,  even 
with  the  gentlest  finger  in  the  world. 

"That's  it,"  said  Ruth.  "You  have  them, 
and  in  them  something  of  his  old  self  that 
you  used  to  love.  Even  if  it  came  to  an 
absolute  break  with  him,  you  have  that. 
If  you  had  not  so  much,  Gertrude?" 

"Then  it  would  be  harder,"  confessed 
Mrs.  Lingen,  but  she  added:  "Yet  per- 
haps in  them,  for  all  that  I  can  do  now,  I 
may  have  to  see  the  same  thing  going  on. 
Mothers  never  know." 

"  But  you  have  them  now ;  they  keep  you 
alive  now." 

"Yes,  now." 

"That's  the  whole  thing.  Tell  me  what 
to  do  wow,"  pleaded  Ruth.  "Tell  me  what 
I  have  now.^' 

The  answer  was  slow  to  come  and  un- 
expected. "At  least,  you  have  your  soul 
alive,  or  you  wouldn't  suffer  so;  and  that 
is  the  main  thing.  You  will  keep  it  alive, 
and  so  doing  give  life  to  others." 

"What  does  that  matter  when ?" 

"When?" 

The  words  came  easily  enough  now. 
"When  he  is  dead." 

Mrs.  Lingen  asked  no  questions.  Per- 
haps she  was  piecing  out  the  story:  certain- 
ly she  knew  that  silence  was  the  l)est  sym- 
pathy. 

"I  don't  think  I'm  unreasonable,"  said 
Ruth.  "I  ask  only  something  to  hang  on 
to,  something  to  live  by,  the  next  twenty, 
thirty,  forty  years." 

"It   grows  with    the   need,   dear,"   said 


Mrs.  Lingen.  ''You  are  beginning  to  find 
it  now,  although  you  don't  know.  You'll 
just  have  to  tight  on;  vou'll  win  in  the 
end." 

"It  isn't  fighting  to  beat  the  air,"  said 
Ruth.    "  One  takes  weapons,  makes  plans." 

''You  have  your  weapons,  and  your 
plans.  Why  change  your  way  of  life?  It 
all  comes  in." 

"Copy,  you  mean?"  laughed  Ruth  bit- 
terly. "Oh,  wait  a  month;  it's  only  de- 
cent." 

Mrs.  Lingen  disregarded  her.  ''Your 
days  will  go  just  the  same.  It  isn't  as  if 
you  had  been  living  with  him  for  years, 
missed  him  in  every  room,  almost  every 
moment.     That  would  be  worse,  darling." 

"No,"  protested  the  girl.  "At  least  I 
should  have  had  much  to  remember.  Now 
it  is  only  dreams." 

They  were  interrupted  by  the  bell. 
Lights  were  turned  on  and  Mrs.  Sheftield 
came  in,  full  of  chatter  about  everything 
in  the  world.  Her  joy  in  life  bubbled  like 
champagne.  Ruth,  listening,  wondered 
when  it  would  begin  to  grow  tlat. 

Mrs.  Lingen,  who  had  been  at  the  tele- 
phone, came  back  with  an  entreaty.  "  Ruth , 
do  something  to  please  me — there,  it's  a 
promise.  Stop  at  our  doctor's  and  get 
something  for  that  cold  of  yours.  He's  at 
home;   I've  just  asked." 

Eor  a  moment  Ruth's  cheeks  flamed  at 
the  interference,  then  she  crept  into  her 
friend's  arms  and  half-sobbed:  "All  right. 
I'll  be  good." 

Vll 

ShI':  was  shown  at  once  into  the  c»)n- 
sulting-room.  "Well,  Ruth;  well,  my 
dear,"  said  he.  He  was  a  man  long  past 
sixty  and  had  been  a  college  friend  of  her 
father's. 

As  he  rose  he  knocked  the  green  shade 
of  his  reading-lamj)  aside  so  that  she  was 
for  a  moment  in  the  lull  glare  of  the  light; 
then  he  let  her  drop  into  the  shadow  of  an 
easy  chair. 

"dot  a  bad  throat,  Gertrude  tells  me. 
Put  out  your  tongue.  What — no?  Let's 
have  your  wrist.  A  touch  of  intluenza — 
hey  ?  I  shall  carry  you  home  and  chuck  you 
into  bed  presently.  W  hat  do  you  mean  by 
trailing  round  the  streets  in  this  state?  Oh, 
I'm  not  saying  that  it  will  do  you  any  great 
harm.    You're  made  of  gulla-pcrcha." 


/t 


56 


The   Lifting  of  tlie   Burden 


''Warranted  for  how  long?"  she  asked, 
tn-ing  to  adopt  his  light  tone. 

''Fifty,  SLxty  years — what  you  like." 
His  eyes  twinkled  and  he  chased  an  un- 
uttere'd  protest  on  her  part  with  a  quick, 
*'  Oh,  yes,  you  will — when  you  know  how  a 
little." 

''Do  you  know  how?"  she  asked  with- 
out irony,  but  in  simple  eagerness  to  learn 
the  secret. 

"I?  Lord,  no!  Thank  heaven,  school 
keeps  for  most  of  us,  all  our  lives.  We've 
a  chance  to  learn  a  thing  or  two  from  day 
to  day." 

"You,  really,  find  it  a  good  world  to  live 
in?"  she  asked  in  a  kind  of  wonder. 

"Good?  A  most  infernal  world!  A 
howling  wilderness  of  hyenas  chewing  up 
babes!  But  that's  the  very  point:  it  gives 
a  man  a  chance  to  put  his  shoulder  to  the 
wheel,  with  a  heave-ho  and  all  together, 
lads." 

As  she  was  silent,  he  challenged  her  with 
"Well?" 

^'How  did  you  come  to  feel  that  way?" 

"You  remind  me  of  the  deacon  who  said 
he  could  stand  anything  but  temptation. 
By  trying  it,  my  dear;  laying  hold  of  the 
ropes,  so  to  speak.  Well,  of  course,  I  un- 
derstand by  the  look  of  you,  to  speak  plain- 
ly, that  you've  been  through  an  earthquake 
lately.  I  should  judge  it  has  shattered  all 
the  little  glass  windows  of  your  faith  into  a 
million  bits.  Trying  to  piece  'em  together, 
are  you?    Better  get  new  ones." 

"I  know,"  she  said.  "Go  on."  Then 
she  added  hastily:  "But  I  wanted  them 
as  they  were.  If  I  could  only  shut  my  eyes 
and  make  believe." 

"Just  like  you  women!"  he  jeered. 
"Always  pining  to  be  fooled,  are  you? 
Well,  it  can  be  patched — your  faith,  I  mean. 
Go  to  church  reg'lar,  take  up  good  works, 
live  in  a  settlement,  hey  ?  Besides,  you  have 
your  little  story-book  writing  to  keep  you 
out  of  mischief;  also  you  can  go  to  Europe, 
you  know,  and  bring  home  rags  and  plaster 
to  trim  up  your  house  with.  I'll  give  you 
a  tonic  for  a  beginning.  It'll  do  you  a  lot 
of  good,  especially  if  you  have  faith  when 
you  take  it.  You'll  be  surprised  to  find 
how  the  tragedy  melts  away  as  you  go  on 
living.  I'm  not  sure  that  that  isn't  the 
worst  of  it  in  many  cases.  Yes,  I  know 
I'm  a  brute,"  he  concluded  with  placidity. 
"A  man  always  is  when  he  speaks  the 
truth." 


He  lifted  his  eyebrows  at  her  silence,  but 
after  a  time  she  said:  "  I  can  face  the  facts. 
But  that's  mere  endurance,  not  living.  I 
want  a  new  faith;  tell  me  where  to  go  to 
look  for  it." 

"That's  the  very  dickens  of  it,"  he  con- 
ceded frankly.  "I  can't.  Nobody  can. 
There's  no  saying  where  it's  to  be  had  or 
what  it  will  cost  until  the  bill  comes  in. 
Then  we  whistle  and  reach  in  our  pockets 
to  see  whether  we've  cash  enough;  and  we 
usually  haven't." 

"No,"  she  agreed.     "What then?" 

He  rubbed  his  thin,  straight,  white  hair. 
"Then  we  pay  on  the  instalment  plan.  It 
works  out  in  time." 

"Does  it ?  "  she  asked.  " Should  you  like 
to  have  to  live  sixty  years  longer?" 

"  Oh,  Lord,  yes!  I'm  greedy;  I'd  take  a 
hundred  if  I  could  get  'em!" 

"And  after?" 

He  shook  a  long  finger  at  her.  "After? 
See  here,  little  girl,  you  let  the  sealed  jam- 
pots alone.  There's  plenty  of  marmalade 
in  this  world  for  your  little  spoon.  After? 
Fiddlesticks!" 

"No,"  she  answered  quietly;  "it  isn't 
fiddlesticks  when  you  have  to  face  it,  when 
you  have  lost  all  that  makes  life  worth 
while." 

He  moved  impatiently  and  took  up  the 
book  that  he  had  been  reading  when  she 
came  in. 

She  said  at  once :  ' '  Shall  I  go  ?  Do  you 
want  to  read?" 

"It's  an  interesting  book,"  he  admitted, 
"but  it  doesn't  attempt  to  answer  all  the 
questions  that  a  young  person  can  ask. 
No,  you  don't  get  off  that  way.  Bring 
them  on,  one  by  one;  I  rather  like  to  hear 
myself  talk,  you  know." 

"What's  it  all  for — the  misery  in  the 
world?" 

He  answered  gravely  and  without  pause: 
"To  water  the  plants,  my  dear.  Prosper- 
ity is  a  desert  as  far  as  growing  your  soul  is 
concerned.  Pretty  dried-up  plantations  in 
my  part  of  New  York.  It  always  pleases 
me  to  hear  that  my  patients  are  in  trouble ; 
I  should  like  to  make  a  little  for  some  of  'em 
occasionally. — Two  ?  " 

"That  may  do  for  Fifth  Avenue.  But 
w4iat  of  the  East  Side?" 

"Too  much  irrigation  there,  that's  all. 
There's  an  amazing  lack  of  proportion 
about  the  human  race.  We  let  Tommy 
stuff  himself  until  he  dies,  body  and  soul,  of 


The  Liftinor  of  the  Burden 


4i)i 


sheer  repletion,  while  Dick  and  Harry  may 
gnaw  gutter  bones  until  they  turn  into  them 
— provided  they  don't  squeal.  But  all  this 
seems  rather  general  to  have  pinched  your 
face  into  that  expression.  The  only  thing 
you  can  do  about  it,  as  far  as  I  see,  is  to 
button-hole  a  young  congressman  now  and 
then,  unfledged  preferably,  and  tell  him  you 
and  the  other  women  won't  vote  for  him 
when  you  get  the  chance,  unless  he  cleans 
everything  up  before  the  next  session. — 
Three?" 

"Meanwhile,"  she  said,  ''they  starve." 

"So  they  do,  and  your  worrying  won't 
help  them;  besides,  it's  not  half  as  bad  as 
it  looks.  The  body  adjusts  itself  by  de- 
grees. Many  diseases  are  more  painful; 
no  good  getting  sentimental  about  it  unless 
you  mean  to  act.  Much  better  come  out 
with  your  own  little  grievance  if  you  want 
relief." 

As  she  was  silent,  he  whistled  and  at  last 
murmured:  "No  symptoms,  no  treat- 
ment." 

She  could  not  yet  speak  and  again  he 
tried  to  help  her.  "What  comet  has  come 
swishing  into  vour  little  world  and  smashed 
it?" 

"Death,"  she  answered. 

He  twirled  his  watch  as  it  lay  on  the 
table,  and  it  was  some  seconds  before  he 
replied:  "Death  isn't  a  comet;  it's  a  kind 
of — loadstar,  I  suppose,  if  we  must  keep  the 
figure.  I  have  seen  death  in  almost  every 
conceivable  form,  in  hospitals  and  homes, 
on  land  and  sea,  battle  and  murder." 

He  snapped  his  watch  shut  and  put  it  into 
his  pocket.     "Count  it  out." 

He  saw  that  she  doubted  her  hearing,  so 
he  repeated  with  emphasis:  "  Count  it  out, 
I  say.     Life's  the  thing." 

"And  yet,"  she  protested,  "you  have  lost 
some,  that  you  loved." 

"Lost  them?  No.  They  are  dead,  as 
we  say.     But  I  have  not  lost  them." 

There  was  bitterness  in  her  tone.  "So 
you  believe  it  all  then — about  resurrection, 
I  mean?" 

He  rose  and  went  to  the  cupboard  in 
the  wall  behind  her.  "Oh,  I  don't  know. 
You  must  define  your  terms.  I  believe  in 
my  own  experience.  It  is  hard  to  go  be- 
yond that." 

He  brought  her  a  glass  of  cordial. 
"Drink  this,  steady!  No,  I  .shouldn't  pass 
for  orthodox  even  in  these  days  of  latitude. 
But  I  know  what  I  know."     He  checked 


himself  and  laughed.  "That  is,  if  I  know 
anything  at  all." 

"It's  the  how,"  she  said,  struggling  for 
control.     "Oh,  tell  me  how!" 

"I  can't,"  said  he,  "and  you  wouldn't 
believe  me  if  I  did.  People  never  do  until 
they  find  out  for  themselves.  But  you've 
got  to  get  a  creed  of  some  sort  to  live  by,  in 
the  meantime.  Christianity  answers  ver>' 
well  for  some  millions;  Buddhism  for  a 
good  few;  Mohammedanism  for  more. 
Some  still  pin  their  faith  to  totem  poles. 
If  you  can't  make  any  of  those  do,  you 
will  have  to  make  your  Bible  as  you  go. 
It  happens  ever}'  now  and  again.  No 
harm  done  as  long  as  you  don't  try  to  thrust 
your  new  doctrine  down  the  world's  throat; 
then  you  pay  the  penalty  with  fire  or  rope, 
or  some  such  thing.  But  the  great  thing 
is  to  build  and  build  and  go  on  building, 
and  let  the  rest  take  care  of  itself.  Later 
you  may  feel  that  you  have  a  message  to 
give  to  the  world.  Well,  the  world  can  take 
care  of  itself  and  needn't  buy." 

But  she  put  all  that  aside.'  "Tell  me," 
she  said,  "why  things  hurt  so  when  we 
don't  mean  them  to  —  when  we  trv  to  be 
brave?" 

He  paused  a  moment  before  he  answered. 
"I  suppose  it's  because  we're  all  selfish 
to  the  core — man  and  nation.  That's  the 
primal  curse.  It's  like  a  hard  shell  grow- 
ing round  the  pulpy  inside  that  we  com- 
monly call  the  soul;  it  leaves  no  room  for 
germination.  It  takes  pretty  brutal  treat- 
ment, even  with  the  best  of  us,  to  knock  a 
hole  through  and  let  in  light  and  air." 

"Well,  take  vour  axe  to  me,"  she  urged. 

"Have  I  leave?  It  will  hurt.  Well,"  he 
laid  his  watch  on  the  table  again  and  began 
to  twirl  it  slowly— a  bedside  mannerism, 
she  knew ;  "here's  your  case.  You've  been 
thinking  you'd  found  the  greatest  thing  in 
the  world,  what  you  women  call  love,  and 
Lord  knows  what  you  mean  by  it!  The 
man  has  died,  I  take  it,  and  so,  of  course, 
there's  nothing  left.  What  are  you  to  do? 
Right  so  far?  It  seems  a  little  odd  that 
the  greatest  thing  in  the  world  should  hang 
by  .so  slender  a  thread  as  the  life  of  a  human 
being,  and  that,  having  once  had  it,  you 
should  lo.se  it  in  the  tick  of  a  watch." 

She  covered  her  face  from  his  eyes. 

But  they  looked  kindly  upon  her  as  he 
continued:  "Right?  That  big  emotion 
of  vours  that  drowns  ever}'lhing  el.^e,  mil- 
lions of  people  on  this  planet — we'll  omit  the 


758 


Tlie  Liftinor  of  tlic   Burden 


others— never  know  it  at  all.  Think  big, 
my  dear!  There's  something  outside  you 
and  your  love." 

Even  while  she  wondered  at  his  brutal- 
ity, it  came  over  her  that  Ben  himself,  un- 
der such  circumstances,  might  have  talked 
much  that  way.  .  .  .  Was  it  only  the  dif- 
ference between  men  and  women? 

As  she  said  nothing,  he  continued  medi- 
tatively: ''From  a  practical  point  of  view, 
I  might  help  you,  I  think;  but  you  wouldn't 
listen  to  me  and  carry  it  out.  Women  never 
do.  They  only  curse  me  in  their  hearts 
for  an  old  meddler  who  doesn't  know  what 
he's  talking  about." 

''Try  me,"  she  whispered. 

"Well,  if  you  are  like  other  women,  you 
will  have  kept  certain  things  of  his — letters, 
gifts,  or  whatever — to  cry  over.  Go  home 
now  and  burn  them  to-night,  before  you 
have  time  to  think." 

He  Avas  interrupted  by  her  voice,  half- 
choking.     "No!" 

"I  thought  not,"  he  said  dryly.  "Well, 
at  least,  you  will  let  me  drive  you  home; 
I'm  making  a  call  your  w^ay.  And  you  will 
go  to  bed  and  get  some  sleep,  I'll  see  to 
that." 

She  needed  all  her  will  merely  to  keep  a 
decent  self-control,  and  nothing  much  was 
said  until  the  carriage  stopped  at  her  door. 
He  insisted  upon  going  up-stairs  with  her, 
and  she  could  tell  by  the  way  he  wandered 
about  her  room  that  he  had  still  something 
on  his  mind. 

"You  may  trust  me,  you  know,"  she 
ventured. 

"Yes,  you'll  do,"  he  answered  absently; 
then  added  with  more  fire:  "If  I  could 
only  knock  it  into  you,  or  knock  it  out  of 
you,  that  life  isn't  shut  up  within  the  four 
miserable  walls  of  self — stupid,  ignorant, 
greedy,  damnable  Self!  What  is  it,  any- 
way? A  bundle  of  little  loves  and  hates 
and  ambitions  and  messages  to  the  world 
that  the  w^orld  doesn't  want,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  sickening  rot.  Plain  speech,  my 
dear,  but  you'll  forgive  an  old  man.  Look 
you  here  now:  do  you  know,  or  don't  you, 
that  all  men  are,  literally,  made  of  the  same 
stuff?  The  identical  cells,  infinitely  split 
up,  infinitely  built  up,  in  all  of  us.  My 
patients  are  not  usually  pleased  when  I 
talk  to  them  about  their  greasy  brothers; 
but  the  sooner  you  come  to  an  understand- 
ing of  the  situation,  the  sooner  you'll  ham- 
mer out  a  working  theory  of  life.     You 


don't  have  to  worry  about  the  beginning  of 
the  first  amoeba  before  you  work  out  a  creed 
that  will  keep  you  going  and  make  you  of 
some  use  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  hey?" 

As  she  did  not  answer,  he  continued 
musingly:  "All  one  blood — if  we  could 
only  see  it." 

He  could  not  guess  at  her  heart-cry: 
"But  what  of  Ben?"  Aloud  she  said: 
"You  speak  always  in  terms  of  the  body." 

"Most  people  live  largely  in  terms  of  the 
body,"  he  caught  her  up,  and  added:  "I 
understood  you  to  put  your  loss  on  that 
basis." 

He  saw  that  he  had  startled  some  new 
thought  in  her,  and  took  up  his  hat  to  go — 
paused  and  drew  from  his  vest  a  small 
packet.  "It's  against  my  conscience,  but 
you  women  seem  to  require  soothing  pow- 
ders when  you  are  cutting  your  wisdom 
teeth.  Follow  directions  and  you'll  get 
some  sleep  to-night.  It's  the  first  step  back 
to  sanity.  I'll  look  in  again  to-morrow 
morning." 

He  had  closed  the  door  before  her  de- 
fiance reached  him:  "I'll  do  anything  else, 
not,  not  that!" 

VIII 

She  no  longer  felt  ill  and  she  would  not 
go  to  bed  as  she  knew  he  expected  her  to  do. 
She  would  not  turn  over  the  little  pile  of 
letters  on  her  table,  knowing  well  that  there 
could  be  nothing  in  them  that  mattered  to 
her  happiness. 

She  would  not  have  her  dinner,  though 
she  drank  the  hot  milk  that  Alma  brought 
her  by  the  fireside.  Then  v^as  the  time  to 
take  the  powder  the  doctor  had  left;  but 
her  soul  was  in  rebellion  and  she  would  not. 
He  had  required  too  much — the  one  thing 
that  was  impossible. 

She  sent  Alma  away  and  turned  out  all 
the  lights  except  the  one  on  the  library  table 
where  she  sat  with  her  few  treasures  gath- 
ered up  in  her  arms. 

"It  would  be  like  burning  live  things," 
she  moaned,  ''and  some  day  they  might 
help  me  to  dream  again." 

To  dream  again,  to  go  through  life 
dreaming,  that  was  the  only  hope.  Yet, 
now  that  she  most  needed  this  blessed  grace, 
it  had  left  her — the  power  to  dream  had 
gone.  She  could  no  longer  see  his  face  dis- 
tinctly, much  less  call  up  the  sound  of  his 
voice,  his  ways,  his  words.     Try  as  she 


The   Lifting  of  the  Burden 


759 


would,  she  could  only  remember  brokenly, 
this  feature,  that  phrase;  the  impression  of 
the  whole  personality  seemed  to  be  gone. 

Other  things  associated  with  him,  often 
by  mere  chance,  peripheral  things  that  had 
never  mattered  a  straw,  lingered  as  sharply 
drawn  in  her  mind  as  if  they  had  been  pho- 
tographed there:  the  litter  of  papers  on  the 
study  table;  the  design  of  the  poker  with 
which  he  had  played  with  the  fire;  the  dress 
of  a  casual  visitor  who  had  bored  him  more 
than  usual  at  tea  one  day;  the  kitten  that 
preferred  his  shoulder  to  any  cushion  in  the 
house — trifles  scarcely  heeded  at  the  time. 
He  who  had  absorbed  all  her  consciousness 
was  gone,  and  all  thq  other  things  that  she 
had  brushed  aside  now  lingered  in  her  mem- 
ory. 

"I  will  not  bum  them,"  she  vowed,  hug- 
ging the  things  that  had  been  his. 

''You  need  them,  then,  to  jog  your 
memory?  You  are  afraid  of  forgetting ? " 
It  was  almost  like  a  voice  in  the  room — 
the  doctor's. 

"He  may  come  back;  it  is  the  only  way; 
they  may  bring  him  back  again,  or  I  can't 
bear  it,"  she  sobbed. 

To  this  there  came  no  reply,  although 
she  listened  long  in  vain. 

She  did  not  know  how  long  she  sat  thus 
with  her  face  hidden.  She  was  startled  by 
a  slight  thud  on  the  hearth.  She  looked 
up  to  find  that  one  of  the  logs  had  broken 
and  fallen  forward  and  threatened  the  rug. 

She  bent  forward  to  push  it  back  and, 
after  some  little  trouble,  succeeded.  But 
as  she  sat  watching  it,  she  came  to  observe 
a  smell  of  burning  in  the  room,  and  look- 
ing down,  saw  that  two  of  his  letters  had 
fallen  on  the  tiles  and  were  fast  turning 
brown. 

Even  then  she  did  not  move.  A  strange 
despair  ran  through  her  veins;  if  it  w^as 
possible  for  these  infinitely  precious  things 
to  burn,  they  must  burn;  it  was  not  hers  to 
save  them. 

She  sat  and  watched  stonily  until  it  was 
too  late  to  save  those  that  had  fallen;  then 
she  knew  that  by  so  doing  she  had  given 
consent  to  the  destruction  of  the  others. 
She  gathered  them  in  her  arms,  held  them 
close  a  moment,  then  without  a  quiver  laid 
them  together  behind  the  back  log,  in  the 
very  heart  of  the  fire. 
•  When,  her  lap  was  empty  she  covered  her 
face.  She  heard  the  sudden  leap  and  fiare 
of  the  flame,  and  felt  the  fierce  heat  of  it 


scorching  her  hands  as  she  knelt  on  the 
hearth;  but  she  would  not  look  until  the 
roar  had  died  away  into  the  slow  drop- 
ping of  ashes. 


IX 


In  the  morning  she  lay  awake  a  long  time 
with  closed  eyes,  wondering  what  had  hap- 
pened, or  was  going  to  happen,  that  she 
should  be  so  content.  She  had  an  odd 
sensation  as  of  sunlight  on  her  eyelids,  and 
yet  she  could  hear  the  sleet  beating  against 
the  pane.  Presently  she  gave  up  the  effort 
to  think,  very  sure,  though  she  could  not 
tell  how  she  should  be  sure,  that  whatever 
was  coming  would  be  hers  without  struggle 
on  her  part. 

When  she  knew  by  the  tinkle  of  silver  in 
the  dining-room  that  it  was  time  to  get  up, 
she  sprang  out  of  bed  with  a  curious  sense 
of  lightness.  She  even  lifted  her  hands 
to  her  head,  with  the  sensation  as  if  a  great 
weight  that  had  crushed  her  to  the  earth 
had  been  suddenly  removed.  She  could 
not  remember  anything,  could  not  think  of 
anything  except  that  she  was  in  her  own 
little  home,  that  everything  was  going  to 
be  all  right  again,  something  was  going  to 
happen  to  make  her  live  again,  something 
too  good  to  believe,  only  it  was  true. 

She  had  a  return  of  her  old  joy  in  cold 
water  that  morning,  and  with  it  came  back 
something  of  her  old  vigor.  She  dressed 
with  more  than  usual  care.  Somebody  was 
coming.  The  doctor?  She  had  forgotten 
his  very  existence.  She  could  not  imagine 
who  it  would  be;  no  matter,  she  would 
know  presently. 

When  she  came  out  into  the  librar}',  very 
trim  in  her  embroidered  white  linen  waist, 
she  watered  her  ferns  and  fed  her  sparrow, 
half-smiling  all  the  while  in  inexplicable 
content.  She  was  expectant,  too,  and  lis- 
tened much;  but  not  hurried  or  anxious. 
There  was  time,  all  the  time,  and  one  could 
be  infinitely  patient,  now  that  one  was  sure. 
Sure  of  what? 

That  did  not  matter;  she  cut  off  the 
questioning  voice  but  witliout  impatience. 
To  be  sure,  that  was  enough. 

She  was  still  too  early  for  breakfast.  She 
crossed  the  room  to  her  piano,  closed  now 
for  days,  opened  it,  and,  after  a  few  doubt- 
ful chords,  began  to  play.  She  was  not 
conscious  that  she  chose  any  particular 
theme;   but  the  keys  kindled  beneath  her 


TOO 


The  Summons 


fingers  and  Schumann's  ''Warum?"  came 
ft)rth  like  a  living  voice  asking  for  ever  and 
ever  the  (luestion  that  none  can  answer.  In 
her  hands  it  spoke  as  perhaps  it  has  never 
spoken  before  in  this  world  and  may  never 
speak  again,  its  despair  swelling  into  a  cry 
of  triumph. 

At  the  end  she  sat  on,  smiling  at  the  keys. 
''Ves,  dear,  we  know;  don't  we?" 

What  was  it?  Nobody  had  spoken. 
There  was  nobody  in  the  room.  It  was 
nothing,  nothing  at  all,  and  everything: 
the  Guest  had  come. 

If  there  was  a  voice  in  the  room,  it  was 
perhaps  a  ghostly  echo  of  the  doctor's:  ''I 
have  not  lost  them;  but  I  understood  you 
to  put  it  on  that  basis."     What  basis? 

Nothing  had  happened,  nothing  that 
could  be  perceived  by  any  of  the  live  senses 
of  man,  nothing  that  could  be  described  in 
words.  The  past  had  gone,  that  was  all — 
the  old,  tangible  past;  the  future  did  not 
exist;  only  the  present  remained,  the  liv- 
ing present,  reality  at  last.  .  .  . 

"Count  it  out.     Life's  the  thing." 

"Yes,  dear,  we  know." 

To  know,  not  to  dream;   to  live,  not  to 


work;  to  be,  not  to  think!  Was  that  the 
sense  of  it  all  ? 

To  have  lost  everything  and  to  be  in- 
finitely rich ;  to  be  robbed  of  all  and  to  be 
repaid  a  thousandfold ;  to  crawl  out  of  the 
chrysalis  of  death  and  to  spread  wings  in 
the  open — did  it  mean  that? 

The  Guest  was  with  her.  He  was  not 
dead;  he  could  never  die.  They  two  were 
together  now  and  for  ever  more,  and  there 
could  be  no  parting.  She  had  the  greater 
burden,  to  live  for  both  through  long  years 
and  lonely,  tired  days;  but  there  was  glad- 
ness in  the  memory  that  she  had  spared  him 
doing  it  for  her;  and  all  the  while  he  was 
there,  would  be  with  her,  and  no  one  else 
would  know. 

It  had  come  to  her,  the  incommunicable 
experience,  the  one  reality  in  a  changing 
world,  and  it  had  brought  with  it  a  joy 
that  could  never  be  outworn.  It  told  her 
that  life  is  nothing  other  than  the  love  that 
is  sufficient  in  itself,  the  hope  that  is  its 
own  fulfilment,  a  faith  in  the  Reality  by 
which  alone  all  things  are  held  together, 
that  is  stronger  than  the  foundations  of  the 
world. 


THE    SUMMONS 
By  William   R.  Benet 


To-day  the  dreamy  distances 

Of  grape-stained,  purple  hills 

Spun  out  thin,  hazy  mists  that  ran 

To  greet  far  plains  where  streams  began 

World-faring  from  their  rills. 

And  oh  my  heart  was  singing,  dear! 

The  wood,  the  wind,  the  sun 

With  age-old  scents  my  nostrils  thrilled — 

With  fierce,  young  strength  my  being  filled- 

The  hills  and  I  were  one! 

For,  follow — follow — follow ! 

The  sweet  wind  calls  to  me. 


The  Summons  761 

Hill-rim  to  misty  hollow 

'Tis  follow — follow — follow ! 

And  oh  the  far  hill  crest  that  hails 

The  first  gust  of  the  sea! 


II 


To-day  a  pagan  wreath  wear  I 
Of  goldenrod  and  corn. 
To-day  the  russet  world  is  clad 
In  Bacchic  mirth  to  make  me  glad — • 
The  joy  of  souls  reborn. 

Oh,  glad  my  heart  is  faring,  dear, 

Through  wood  and  wind  and  sun! 

The  oils  that  flame  yon  western  sky 

Are  not  more  brave — more  brave  than  I. 

The  hills  and  I  are  one! 

For,  follow — follow — follow ! 

The  leaf-crisp  highway  calls. 

Hill-rim  to  misty  hollow 

'Tis  follow — follow — follow ! 

The  drunken  wind's  mad  vagrant  I 

Beyond  the  city's  walls! 

Ill 

To-day  to  cloud-blown  sky  above 
My  reckless  gage  is  flung. 
To-day  a  creaking  highroad  tree, 
A  bonfire's  blaze  shall  frantic  me 
To  ecstasies  unsung. 

For  oh  my  heart  is  singing,  dear. 

With  wood  and  sun  and  wind! 

Ho,  bark-brown  dryads  of  the  trees-^ 

Ho,  nereids  of  the  cresting  seas  I 

The  world  is  left  behind. 

'Tis,  follow — follow — follow 

The  sword-flame  of  the  sky! 

Hill-rim  to  misty  hollow 

The  cry  goes.  Follow — follow! 

And  vagabond — thrice  vagabond— 

Oh  vagabond  am  I! 


CHAxMOIS-HUNTING    IN    SWITZERLAND 

By  P.   Kuhner 

Illustrations  by  A.  B.  Frost 


E  who  is  a  stranger  to  the 
Alpine  world,  or  only 
knows  it  from  the  great 
visitors'  centres,  wdll  gen- 
erally have  a  rather  vague 
idea  about  the  big  game  of 
the  Alps — the  chamois,  the  total  existing 
number,  and  the  way  to  hunt  them.  He 
gathers  his  knowledge  from  old  legends, 
and,  since  he  never  saw  any  of  these  ani- 
mals on  his  flying  visits,  he  concludes  that 
they  must  be  very  nearly  exterminated,  as 
was  their  cousin,  the  ibex,  which  has  dis- 
appeared except  a  few^  specimens  kept  in 
preserves.  However,  the  chamois  was  the 
fitter,  and  so  it  survived.  In  its  struggle 
for  existence,  the  government  in  modern 
times  has  assisted  it  with  a  certain  number 
of  protective  laws.  During  nineteen  days 
only,  in  the  month  of  September,  hunting 
is  allowed,  and  the  severe  observance  of 
this  law  is  guaranteed  by  a  number  of 
gamekeepers  and,  above  all,  by  the  hunt- 
ers themselves,  w^ho  of  course  do  not 
allow  the  poacher  to  take  an  unlawful 
advantage.  The  offender  is  threatened 
with  fines  out  of  proportion  to  the  possible 
gain,  and  in  case  of  a  repeated  offence  the 
fine  is  doubled  and  the  transgressor  dis- 
qualified for  several  years.  Hunting  it- 
self is  rendered  more  difficult  by  the  pro- 
hibition of  small  calibres  and  of  repeating 
guns.  In  order  to  prevent,  in  any  case, 
too  big  a  slaughter  of  the  game  even  by 
the  most  intense  hunting  activity  during 
those  nineteen  days,  the  government  has 
given  refuges  to  the  persecuted  animals. 
These  are  the  "  Freiberge,"  whole  districts 
w^hich  are  under  the  care  of  gamekeep- 
ers, where  hunting  is  prohibited  during 
years.  If  such  an  asylum  is  opened  again, 
these  gamekeepers  take  pains  to  scatter  the 
undisturbed  animals  by  firing  with  blank 
cartridges  and  making  a  great  alarm,  so 
that  the  hunter  may  not  get  his  prey  too 
easily.  If  in  spite  of  this  precaution  the 
killing  off  is  excessive,  or  the  game  is  har- 
762 


assed  in  an  inhuman  way  by  too  great  a 
number  of  hunters,  the  government  again 
closes  the  "Freiberge,"  sometimes  after 
two  or  three  days,  and  the  gamekeepers 
and  policemen  warn  off  the  sportsmen. 

In  the  early  game-lawless  times  traps, 
too,  w^re  set  for  the  animals.  Their  effi- 
ciency was  based  on  the  eagerness  of  the 
chamois  for  salt,  and  their  construction 
was  so  simple  and  ingenious  that  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  describe  one.  The  whole 
apparatus  consists  of  three  laths  only,  two 
of  which  are  joined  so  as  to  form  a  rigid 
acute  angle,  whilst  the  third  shorter  one 
is  fixed  to  the  one  side  of  the  said  an- 
gle with  a  peg  around  which  it  can  swing 
freely.  This  apparatus  is  mounted  in  a 
suitable  place,  so  that  it  is  accessible  from 
one  side  only,  the  plane  of  the  angle  stand- 
ing vertically,  and  the  lower  side  practi- 
cally horizontal.  In  this  position  the 
third  piece  hangs  vertically  and  is  al- 
lowed to  swing  inward  toward  the  vertex, 
whereas  the  opposite  outward  movement 
is  stopped  by  a  peg  as  soon  as  it  has  come 
back  to  its  perpendicular  position.  The 
animal  to  be  caught  approaches  the  trap, 
puts  its  head  through  the  angle  where  it  is 
wide  enough  to  admit  it,  and  begins  to  lick 
the  row  of  salt  which  runs  parallel  to  the 
lower  side.  It  follows  the  row  of  salt, 
gradually  moving  toward  the  vertex  and 
lifting  unconsciously  the  crosspiece  with  its 
neck.  Finally,  the  neck  reaches  the  end 
of  the  crosspiece,  which  then  falls  back  to 
its  perpendicular  position  against  the  peg. 
So  the  animal  is  caught  loosely  in  the  tri- 
angle formed  by  the  two  sides  and  the 
crosspiece.  Of  course  such  traps  are  for- 
bidden nowadays,  and  their  use  is  pun- 
ished by  a  fine  up  to  four  hundred  francs. 

Whilst  the  chamois  is  thus  protected  by 
the  government  against  human  eagerness 
for  prey  and  hunting,  nature  on  its  part 
has  equipped  it  with  effective  means  of  de- 
fence— that  is,  fine  instincts,  keen  senses, 
and  astounding  strength  and  endurance. 


Chamois-Hunting  in  Switzerland 


'03 


The  chamois  is  a  species  of  the  antelope 
and  a  close  relative  to  the  goat.  It  is  eas- 
ily distinguished,  however,  from  the  latter 
at  a  distance  by  the  circular,  glossy-black, 
hook-shaped  little  horns  which  we  all 
know  as  ornaments  of  the  nicely  polished 
though  useless  Alpine  sticks  of  our  carpet 
tourists.  On  closer  inspection  a  num- 
ber of  other  distinctions  become  evident. 
Compared  with  the  goat,  the  chamois  has 
a  deep,  broad  chest  to  which  the  muscles 
of  the  shoulders  and  fore  legs  are  affixed  in 
such  masses  that  the  animal  might  appear 
clumsy  did  not  the  ease  and  grace  of  its 
movements  render  such  an  impression  al- 
together impossible.  The  hind  legs  being 
equally  well  developed,  the  whole  body 
appears  compact  and  massive.  And  to 
this  appearance  the  animal's  physical  abil- 
ity answers  perfectly. 

The  present  writer  one  day,  on  a  moun- 
tain tour  with  two  friends  and  a  guide,  sur- 
prised five  chamois.  The  animals  noticed 
the  party  first  and  ran  clattering  close  past 
them,  the  hard,  steel-like  hoofs  sounding 
on  the  rock  like  hammers.  In  a  few  min- 
utes they  had  gone  a  distance  which  it 
would  have  taken  quite  an  hour  for  any 
man  to  clear.  Then  they  vanished  in  a 
saddle  between  two  peaks,  whilst  the  val- 
ley behind  them  rang  with  the  shrill  noise 
of  the  loosened  stones  they  had  kicked 
down,  that  leaped  from  rock  to  rock.  Very 
soon  these  strange  sounds,  too,  had  died 
away,  and  the  small  troop  of  men  left  be- 
hind only  then  noticed  how  slow  and  labo- 
rious their  own  progress  was. 

In  November,  during  the  rut,  harsh  en- 
counters take  place  between  the  bucks. 
The  roe  willingly  follows  the  victorious 
one,  and  bears  one,  sometimes  two,  kids 
toward  the  end  of  April  or  the  beginning 
of  May.  In  spring  the  hair  of  the  cham- 
ois has  the  color  of  the  deer,  in  autumn 
it  turns  dark  brown,  and  in  winter  almost 
black.  Then  the  flocks  move  down  from 
their  very  high  pasture-grounds  toward 
the  woody  regions,  where  they  find  both 
food  and  shelter  under  the  broad  branches 
of  old  pines,  which  keep  the  ground  under- 
neath free  from  snow.  But  no  sooner  has 
the  snow  melted  far  enough  to  allow  them 
sufficient  food  above  the  timber-line  than 
they  are  off  to  return  to  their  favorite 
abode,  the  high,  inaccessible  Alpine  pas- 
tures.    There  they  live  together,  in  tlocks 


of  five  to  twenty,  most  gayly,  as  appears 
from  their  playing,  sham  lighting,  and 
merry  jumps.  Meantime  they  never  fail 
to  mount  a  guard,  mostly  an  elderly  roe. 
It  seems  that  these  are  fitter  for  this  duty 
than  the  bucks,  probably  because  of  their 
greater  carefulness  owing  to  their  mother- 
hood. Their  scent  is  so  acute  that  they 
detect  a  man  at  a  distance  of  miles.  As 
soon  as  the  sentinel  perceives  something 
suspicious  she  gives  a  sharp,  hoarse  whistle. 
Then  the  whole  company  keeps  suddenly 
quiet,  as  though  petrified,  and  after  a  few 
seconds  chase  away  like  lightning  toward 
some  safe  refuge,  or  for  a  distant  point  of 
observation,  where  they  constantly  and 
w4th  great  attention  eye  the  disturber. 
No  doubt  this  scent,  too,  is  the  reason  why 
even  a  zealous  tourist  so  rarely  sees  a  cham- 
ois. He  does  not  pay  any  attention  to 
the  wand,  which  reveals  his  presence  to  the 
chamois  long  before  he  is  near  enough  to 
see  it.  Strange  to  say,  as  soon  as  the  ani- 
mal has  got  the  scent  it  keeps  on  flying 
much  farther,  as  though  frightened  by 
a  report.  On  the  flight  all  the  incredible 
strength  and  swiftness  of  the  chamois  show 
up  to  their  best  advantage.  It  clears  cre- 
vasses thirteen  to  eighteen  feet  wide  and 
jumps  onto  rocks  fourteen  feet  high. 

It  is  plain  that  this  kind  of  game  will  not 
be  hunted  successfully  by  the  first  comer. 
It  is  not  enough  to  be  a  good  shot  when,  be- 
sides the  whole  hunting  outfit,  an  animal 
weighing  about  sixty  pounds  is  to  be  car- 
ried down  from  a  giddy  height  over  decep- 
tive glaciers  and  brittle  rocky  bowlders; 
nor  is  it  sufficient  to  be  a  good  mountain 
tourist  who,  under  a  safe  guide,  shows  re- 
markable strength  and  courage.  No,  the 
hunter  must  combine  in  his  person  the 
qualities  of  a  good  shot,  an  excellent  tour- 
ist, and  a  guide.  A  small  number  of  se- 
lect ones  only  fulfil  these  conditions,  and 
their  number  does  not  increase.  How 
should  it?  The  short  space  of  nineteen 
days  every  year  cannot  turn  out  hunters 
like  those  who  formerly  carried  on  the 
hunt  throughout  the  year  and  yet  alarmed 
and  drove  off  the  animals  much  less  than 
the  thousands  of  tourists  do  to-day.  The 
fact  is  to  be  added  that  the  high  valleys 
show  a  tendency  to  depopulation  owing 
to  the  greater  comfort  and  better  chances 
of  gain  in  towns  and  cities.  Therefore 
the  question  may  be  raised  whether  the 


7ti4 


Chamois- Hunting  in   Switzerland 


chamois  or  its  hunter  is  more  likely  to  be 
extinct  first. 

Formerly,  as  nowadays,  the  elite  of 
hunters  consisted  of  the  peasants  of  the 
upper  valleys  and  the  guides.  These 
people,  ^vho'se  regular  trade  is  generally 
much  more  remunerative  than  hunting, 
are  enthusiasts  and  accordingly  spend  a 
good  deal  of  care  and  money  for  their  out- 
tit.  Their  attire  is  made  of  the  natural 
wool  of  mostly  self-raised  sheep.  It  is  of 
a  light  gray  color  equally  difficult  to  tell 
irom  the  rock  and  from  the  glacier,  and 
the  coat  is  provided  with  very  wide  and 
spacious  pockets  which  render  the  knap- 
sack superfluous  and  give  the  whole  suit 
a  peculiar  appearance.  The  hat  is  of  a 
soft  gray  felt.  As  important  as  the  hard, 
sharp-edged  hoof  is  to  the  chamois  is  the 
quality  of  his  boots  to  the  one  who  will 
follow  it.  The  boots  are  made  of  strong 
leather  with  the  soles  projecting  little  or 
not  at  all,  and  studded  all  round  with 
hooded  spikes  the  pin  of  which  is  driven 
through  and  then  bent  under  the  hood. 
Everybody  who  knows  how^  life  and  death 
may  depend  on  the  keeping  firm  or  yield- 
ing of  a  single  spike  wall  understand  the 
special  care  bestowed  on  this  part  of  the 
outfit.  The  proper  hunting  implements 
are  the  gun,  the  telescope,  and  the  stick. 
The  guns,  the  calibre  of  which  must  not 
be  less  than  9  mm.,  are  some  private  arms, 
some  old  military  rifles.  Most  of  the 
former  are  rifles  of  the  well-known  falling 
block  system,  called  "Martini";  the  lat- 
ter, Peabody  or  Vetterli  guns,  for  sale  in 
the  arsenals  for  five  francs  or  a  little  more. 
The  smokeless  Vetterli .  cartridge  is  used 
for  ammunition.  As  to  field-glasses,  the 
so  called  ''Zugspiegel,"  a  telescope  mag- 
nifying twelve  to  twenty  times,  is  still 
most  popular.  These  instruments  have  a 
rather  bright  field  but  a  narrow  angle  of 
view,  which,  however,  does  not  appear  to 
be  a  drawback.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
said  that  the  big  angle  of  modern  pris- 
matic field-glasses  leads  to  a  less  thorough 
inspection  of  the  field.  Nevertheless,  the 
modern  glasses  gradually  come  to  the 
front,  since  both  their  luminosity  and 
their  magnifying  power  have  been  in- 
creased. The  hunter's  stick  is  somewhat 
shorter  than  the  ordinary  "alpenstock," 
and  either  without  any  shoe— in  order  to 
avoid  the  noise  through  touching  stones 


and  rock — or  it  is  provided  with  a  boat- 
hook.  This  contrivance  enables  the  hunt- 
er to  lift  himself  when  climbing,  and  means 
a  safeguard  in  dangerous  positions.  The 
ample  pockets  of  the  jacket  contain  the 
provisions,  mostly  bread  and  dry  meat, 
the  cartridges,  and,  above  all,  the  hunting 
license,  for  want  of  which  the  man  risks 
being  taken  up  as  a  poacher. 

Unlike  the  neighboring  countries,  Ger- 
many and  Austria — with  the  exception  of 
three  cantons  only,  where  hunting-grounds 
are  let  out  by  the  government — Swit- 
zerland maintains  free  hunting.  Every 
blameless  person  is  free  to  hunt  inside  the 
canton  during  a  certain  period  fixed  by 
the  government  and  after  having  taken 
a  license.  This  license  is  made  out  by  the 
local  police  at  a  price  determined  by  law. 
In  the  Grisons,  the  biggest  and  most 
mountainous  canton,  the  fee  for  natives 
is  12  francs,  for  Swiss  of  other  cantons  40 
francs,  and  for  foreigners  100  francs.  Of 
course,  the  hunt  itself  is  carried  on  in  very 
different  ways  according  to  its  being  free 
or  on  leased  lands.  The  grounds  on  lease 
are  under  the  care  of  tenants  who  have  the 
exclusive  right  to  hunt,  are  free  to  arrange 
battues,  can  nurse  and  foster  the  game  ten- 
derly or  kill  it.  Whilst  the  tenant  has  on 
his  ground  the  monopoly  of  the  hunt,  with 
the  license  system  every  holder  of  a  li- 
cense is  the  authorized  competitor  of  every 
other.  Accordingly,  every  one  starts  on 
his  own  account  and  as  a  rule  alone.  The 
most  zealous  hunters  repair  to  the  limit 
of  the  hunting  district  the  day  before  the 
hunt  is  opened.  They  are  not  allowed  to 
go  any  farther  with  their  equipment,  and 
so  they  lose  no  time,  starting  at  midnight, 
and  try  to  reach  a  considerable  height  be- 
fore sunrise.  Thus  they  gain  a  wide  field 
for  examination  with  their  telescopes  and 
foil  the  most  effective  means  of  protection 
of  the  animals — the  scent. 

By  sunrise,  when  the  upper  regions  of 
the  mountains  are  warmed  by  the  first 
rays,  the  warm  air  rises  and  by  suction 
causes  a  current  going  up-hill.  There- 
fore the  hunter  tries  to  reach  a  point  above 
the  supposed  stand  of  the  game  before 
the  treacherous  current  begins,  and  so 
approach  it  unnoticed.  If  he  has  been 
successful  and  sighted  the  animals  or  the 
buck,  the  second  more  exciting  act  of  the 
spectacle  begins,  the  issue  of  which  shows 


Chamois-Huntinu  in  Switzerland 


"05 


whether  we  deal  with  a  comedy  or  a  drama  in  such  a  case  the  superiority  of  the  native 

with  bloodshed.     The  point  is  to  advance  hunter  shows  most  distinctly, 

with  extreme  care  and  under  constant  con-  At  last  within  range,  the  hunter  has — if 

trol  of  the  wind  to  shooting-range;  that  is,  a  whole  flock  is  before  him — to  choose  his 


Chamois. 


about  eighty  metres.  Stooping  and  creep- 
ing, utilizing  every  cover  and  a\oiding 
every  noise,  the  hunter  draws  closer,  like 
a  cat  to  the  bird.  Often,  however,  this  di- 
rect stalking  is  not  possible,  because  the 
ground  may  not  offer  any  cover  or  possi- 
bility of  advancing  noiselessly,  or  because 
gorges  or  crevasses  bar  the  way.  Then 
the  position  must  be  turned,  an  operation 
which  may  take  hours.  It  stands  to  rea- 
son that  this  manojuvre  has  any  chance  of 
success  only  when  combined  with  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  the  locality,  and  that 
Vol.  LV.— 83 


victim.  Since  shooting  kids  and  suckling 
does  is  forbidden,  he  must  select  among 
the  other  animals,  as  far  as  jiossible,  one 
whose  ])ositi()n  admits  of  hitting  it  in  the 
shoulder-blade.  If  the  doe  has  been  sep- 
arated from  its  kids  by  i)re\ious  chasing 
it  is  dilTicult  to  tell  her  from  the  other 
animals,  because  the  udder  is  \  ery  small 
and  entirely  hidtlen  between  the  hind  legs. 
With  the  report  of  the  rille  the  whole 
tlock  sj)rings  uj),  hesitates  an  instant  until 
the  scent  rexeals  to  them  where  danger 
threatens,  antl  rushes  away.    \'ery  rarely 


thi) 


Chanu)is-I  hinting  in  Switzerland 


a  hunter  will  succeed  in  placing  a  second 
shot  during  the  momentary  hesitation 
preceding  the  rush.  The  tirst  one,  of 
course,  has  been  tired  in  the  stooi)ing  atti- 
tude in  which  the  man  has  crawled  for- 
ward and  which  impedes  his  nun-ements. 
He  would  therefore  have  to  jumj)  u]^ 
load  afresh,  and  aim,  manipulations  which 
certainly  do  not  require  much 
time,  but  still  more  than  it 
takes  a  chamois,  a^  a  rule,  to 
get  out  of  harm's  way. 

And  yet  three  years  ago  a 
hunter  of  the  Grisons  man- 
aged to  shoot  from  the  same 
spot  four  chamois.  He  had 
viewed  a  flock  grazing  at  the 
foot  of  a  rocky  wall.  There 
was  no  possibility  of  ap- 
proaching the  animals  across 
the  open  hillside  between  him 
and  them.  He  had  to  turn 
them.  In  order  to  land  in  the 
proper  place,  he  counted  from 
below  a  number  of  projecting 
rocks  in  the  w^all  which  he 
meant  to  pass  on  his  way 
down,  and  ascended  the  wall 
from  its  back.  Looking  down 
from  the  top,  however,  the 
aspect  was  so  totally  differ- 
ent from  what  he  expected  it 
to  be  from  below  that  he  had 
to  estimate  the  direction  and 
descend  without  marks.  Having  descend- 
ed cautiously  to  a  place  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  length  of  his  course,  could 
not  be  very  far  from  the  flock's  pasture, 
he  lifted  himself  a  little  to  view  the  sur- 
roundings, and  saw  the  animals  couching 
unsuspectingly  at  a  level  with  his  posi- 
tion and  wdthin  range.  Between  him  and 
them  extended  a  narrow  gorge,  the  lower 
end  of  which  was  formed  by  a  rock  cut 
vertically  on  its  outer  face.  The  foremost 
animal  was  aimed  at.  As  the  report  rang 
out  the  whole  flock  bounced  up  and  rushed 
down  into  the  gorge  that  divided  them 
from  their  pursuer.  But  he,  too,  started 
to  his  feet,  slipped  a  fresh  cartridge  into  the 
barrel,  and  shot  at  short  range  an  animal, 
galloping  by,  right  through  the  shoulder- 
blade.  The  bullet,  having  gone  through 
the  animal's  body,  struck  the  ground  im- 
mediately in  front  of  the  last  two  fugitives 
and  kicked  up  a  cloud  of  dust  and  splinters 


The  trap. 


among  the  rotten  stones  of  the  gorge. 
The  two,  frightened,  stopped  short,  and  a 
third  cartridge  glided  into  the  barrel.  A 
third  shot  and  the  foremost  of  the  animals 
fell,  whilst  the  other  tried  to  escape  uphill. 
There  in  the  steep  rock  the  flight  is  slower 
and  the  bullet  overtook  the  fourth  and 
last  victim.  The  first  one  had  still  been 
able  to  flee  with  the  flock 
through  the  gorge  but  then  had 
broken  down  under  the  rock  at 
its  mouth. 

The  strange  concatenation 
of  circumstances  and  chances 
that  led  to  this  most  extraordi- 
nary success  shows  how  rarely 
a  similar  one  may  be  obtained. 
Often,  for  instance,  it  will  be 
impossible,  in  spite  of  all  strat- 
agems, to  get  within  range.  Up 
to  a  little  more  than  two  hun- 
dred metres  a  true  shot  is  not 
unlikely  to  hit  the  animal.  If 
so,  it  will  generally  be  wounded 
only  and  remain  somewhat  be- 
hind the  flying  flock.  In  such 
a  case  a  calm  and  experienced 
huntsman  will  not  urge  the 
game  to  a  more  speedy  flight, 
which  might  possibly  be  suc- 
cessful, by  firing  once  more. 
He  will  rather  follow  it,  ex- 
pecting that  the  loss  of  blood 
will  finally  arrest  the  escape. 
Thus  he  will  come  to  a  surer  second  shot 
and  prevent  the  wounded  animal  perishing 
miserably  and  for  nobody's  good,  which 
grieves  a  true  hunter  more  than  its  escape. 
If  the  circumstances  are  unfavorable,  if 
a  strong  wind  often  changing  its  direction 
keeps  blowing,  or  rain,  blizzards,  and  fog 
veil  the  distance,  even  the  most  skilful 
hunter  will  come  home  empty-handed. 
He  then  must  seek  shelter  in  out-of-the- 
way  Alpine  huts  or  the  little  stone  refuges 
of  the  shepherds,  and  may  consider  him- 
self very  happy  if,  instead  of  a  chamois, 
he  gets  a  chance  to  shoot  a  fat  marmot. 
And  yet  the  real  hunter  will  be  off  what- 
ever the  weather,  and  will  not  miss  a  sin- 
gle one  of  the  short  nineteen  days. 

Every  means  is  used  to  improve  upon 
the  uncertain  chances  of  the  difficult  hunt. 
Salt-licks  are  the  favorite  method.  They 
are  made  to  attract  and  accustom  the  ani- 
mals to  certain  places.     Secretly,  so  that 


Chaniois-Muntin^-  in   Switzerland 


7G7 


no  other  one  may  see  him  and  reap  the  it  while  it  is  at  it,  because  the  surviving 

fruit  of  his  labor,  the  hunter,  long  before  ones  would  not  return  to  the  place  for  a 

the  hunt  is  opened,  puts  out  salt,  either  long  while.     Of  C(jurse,  even  using  these 

pure  or  in  the  shape  of  lick-stones  made  means,  chamois-hunting   does  not  turn 


Looking  for  game. 


of  gypsum  or  cement  slaked  with  salted  into  mere  waylaying,  since  the  inii)edi- 

water.     Still  more  effective  and  durable  menls  of  wind  and  weather,  and  the  inler- 

proves  the  painting  of  rocks  with  a  mix-  ferencet)f  other  hunters,  remain.     In  some 

tureof  salt,  water,  and  gyi)sum.   At  thebe-  cases,  particularly  when  a  bigger  flock  has 

ginning  of  the  hunt  the  animal  is  watched  been  sighted,  several  hunters  make  com- 

on  its  way  ip  the  lick.    They  do  not  shoot  mon  cause,  if  surrouiuling  t  he  game  prom- 


Waiting  for  a  good  shot. 


ises  a  better  result  for  each  hunter  than 
working  separately.  This  is  far  from  mean- 
ing a  regular  battue,  which  is  impossible 
because  there  is  no  central  direction  or 
anybody  who  w^ould  pay  for  the  beaters, 
who,  apart  from  their  wages,  would  have 
to  have  licenses.  The  affair  is  managed 
so  that  one  man  tries  to  get  within  range 
while  the  others  at  great  intervals  place 
themselves  in  those  spots  where  the  ani- 
mals are  likely  to  pass.  Here,  too,  suc- 
cess is  most  uncertain,  a  chamois's  oppor- 
tunities for  escape  being  always  much 
more  numerous  than  the  hunters.  Where 
768 


an  animal  is  difficult  to  get  at,  they  try 
sometimes  to  bring  it  within  range  by  one 
or  two  men  approaching  it  from  different 
directions,  who  start  it  fleeing  toward  a 
hunter  on  guard.  Or  sometimes  the  cham- 
ois runs  into  a  dead  lane,  which  leads  to 
a  projecting  rock  or  one  that  blocks  up  the 
passage  so  that  the  game  is  compelled  to 
return  in  order  to  continue  its  flight.  Its 
pursuer,  barring  its  way,  may  gather  in 
rich  spoils  provided  he  be  well  posted. 
If  his  stand,  however,  should  be  on  the 
narrow  path  of  the  fleeing  game  itself, 
he  is  in  imminent  danger  of  being  over- 


■  . 

^ 

< 

^ 

p^^ 

■tfr^viN 

uBLa 

1^ 

1 

».  ^'''^^ 

,, 

^ 

'4 

'jjf^^ 

-^^^^1 

"^^ 


Tlie  shot. 


run  and  flung  into  the  abyss,  or  else  the 
wounded  animal  falls  down  into  some 
inaccessible  place  or  is  shattered  in  the 
depths  for  crows  and  birds  of  prey  to  feast 
upon.  A  fall  from  a  considerable  height 
may  cause  the  bursting  of  the  intestines, 
which  makes  the  meat  uneatable. 

All  the  difficulties  concjuered  and  the 
animal  safely  killed,  the  roughest  and 
most  trying  work  begins.  Often  it  is  dif- 
ficult and  dangerous  merely  lo  reach  the 
place  where  the  game  has  fallen.  All  the 
zeal  and  ambition  of  a  hunterarer('(|uiri'{|. 
Lucky   the   man   who   is   accustomed    to 


carry  his  whole  hay  harvest  on  his  own 
shoulders  into  the  shed  by  loads  of  hun- 
dredweights, as  the  ]-)easants  of  the  high 
mountains  do.  To  him  the  return  home 
becomes  a  joyful  triumph.  As  soon  as 
the  animal  is  brought  to  a  lit  ])lace  it  is 
e\'iscerated.  In  order  to  carry  it  with  the 
greatest  amount  of  ease  the  front  legs  are 
tied  to  the  hind  ones;  then  the  hunter  slips 
his  head  between  the  body  and  the  legs  of 
the  animal,  so  that  they  rest  against  his 
forehead.  To  avoid  soreness,  the  hat  is 
])ut  in  between,  and  to  make  the  whole 
burden  as  compact  as  possible  the  ani- 

709 


Chamois-Hunlin 


111 


Switzerland 


malV  hcatl  is  bent  hai-kward  and  hooked 
under  the  knee  of  a  front  leg  with  one  of 
the  Httle  horns.  Thus  the  weight  rests 
chiefly  on  the  porter's  neck,  who  must 
bend  fonvard  in  order  to  diminish  the  pres- 
sure on  his  forehead.  During  the  journey 
it  will  sometimes  be  possible  to  facilitate 
the  job  by  dragging  the  burden  over  steep 
snow-covered  fields  or  to  roll  it  down  some 
grassy  slope. 

Thus  they  proceed  toward  the  bottom 
of  the  next  valley  or  the  nearest  place  of- 
fering some  conveyance  to  a  neighboring 
game  dealer's  or  a  railway  station.  In 
most  cases  this  will  be  the  small  peas- 
ants' and  tourists'  inn  situated  at  the  up- 
per end  of  some  high  valley.  In  the  Sep- 
tember hunting-season  the  inn  is  haunted 
by  hunters  only,  when  every  night  the 
general  room  shows  a  most  lively  aspect. 
The  room  is  low,  entirely  w^ainscoted 
with  wood,  has  small  windows,  which 
form  deep  recesses  in  the  thick  walls,  a 
cupboard  built  into  the  wainscoting  with 
numerous  doors  and  draw^ers,  and  a  huge 
stone  stove,  surrounded  by  a  clothes- 
horse  on  which  to  hang  up  and  dry  the  wet 
garments.  At  the  fall  of  night  hunters 
from  all  directions  come  together  there. 
Gaiters  and  boots  are  taken  off,  the  pipes 
lit,  the  guns  cleaned,  and  the  day's  events 
talked  over.  The  one  who  has  brought 
home  the  richest  booty  finds  the  readiest 
listeners,  especially  when  he  has  killed 
a  chamois  out  of  a  flock  which  may  be 
hunted  in  common  next  day.  So  a  merry 
but  usually  rather  quiet  conviviality  de- 
velops. When  the  ever  new  topic  as  well 
as  the  nourishing  warm  supper  have  been 
thoroughly  enjoyed,  the  Swiss  national 
play  at  cards,  the  "  Jass,"  begins.  He  who 
takes  it  and  his  vocation  as  a  hunter  seri- 
ously is  satisfied  with  one  game,  in  order 
to  be  in  good  form  on  his  way  next  morn- 
ing before  the  break  of  day.  Others 
whose  enthusiasm  is  divided  between  hunt- 
ing and  "Jass"  may  still  be  found  sit- 
ting up  when  the  other  starts. 

The  biggest,  most  mountainous  canton 
in  Switzerland,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
richest  in  game,  is  the  Grisons.  Its  gov- 
ernment in  1 910  ordered  a  commission  to 
examine  the  hunting  question,  from  whose 
most  interesting  report  the  following 
statements  are  taken.  In  the  five  years 
from  1905  to  1909  chamois-hunting  has 


twice  been  suspended,  namely,  in  1906 
and  1908,  and  opened  in  the  three  other 
years  from  the  7th  to  the  25th  of  Septem- 
ber. In  these  five  years  4,418  chamois 
were  killed,  that  is,  an  average  of  884  per 
annum,  or  1,475  P^^  hunting  season.  In 
1909,  that  is,  after  the  close  year  of  1908, 
in  nineteen  days  1,580  were  killed,  which 
shows  that  the  chamois  increased  rapidly 
after  the  close  season.  In  the  five  years 
from  1900  to  1904  the  hunt  was  open  from 
the  ist  to  the  25th  of  September,  and  an 
average  of  i ,  1 96  animals  were  killed.  The 
commission  estimated  the  living  chamois 
of  the  canton  for  the  month  of  August, 
1909,  at  about  7,000  head,  and  held  that 
by  a  proposed  system  of  hunting-ground 
leases,  under  which  the  animals  would  be 
cared  for  during  winter,  the  live  stock 
might  be  brought  to  20,000  head;  and, 
moreover,  the  income  which  commonalties 
and  the  state  draw  from  the  hunt  would 
be  multiplied.  Submitted  to  the  plebis- 
citum,  the  bill  proposing  the  system  of 
hunting-ground  leases  was  nevertheless 
rejected  by  a  great  majority.  They  would 
not  allow  their  government  to  take  away 
from  them  the  right  of  freely  roaming 
about  the  hunting-grounds  of  the  whole 
canton,  and  accept  in  exchange  a  number 
of  strictly  limited  leaseholds,  which  the 
rich  only  could  rent.  An  increase  of  the 
license  fee,  however,  to  a  three  or  fourfold 
amount  would  probably  not  have  met  wdth 
serious  opposition.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
other  cantons  charge  from  sixty  to  eighty 
francs  for  the  license,  and  at  the  same  time 
offer  fewer  chances  for  game  than  the 
Grisons. 

Formerly,  that  is,  until  the  year  1874, 
hunting  was  practised  by  professionals,  or 
at  least  those  people  whose  income  largely 
depended  on  the  produce  of  the  hunt.  In 
those  days  hunting  was  sometimes  alto- 
gether free,  or  open  for  a  much  longer 
period  of  the  year;  partly  without  effect- 
ive supervision  against  poaching,  and, 
above  all,  the  most  effective  one,  the  mu- 
tual control  by  numerous  license-holders. 
Moreover,  the  high  mountain  regions 
were  then  much  less  accessible  than  now- 
adays, when  they  are  approachable  by 
numerous  paths  and  shelters.  Then  a 
single  hunter,  well  acquainted  with  the 
remotest  parts  of  his  mountain  district, 
and  known  to  be  a  good  shot  and  bold  fel- 


Drawn  by  A .  B.  J''rc>si. 


The  quarry. 


771 


Bringing  home  the  quarry. 


low,  could  establish  a  kind  of  reign  of  ter- 
ror. This  reign  was  tacitly  understood  by 
the  local  population,  because  it  was  di- 
rected against  those  only  who  would  have 
hunted  in  the  usurped  fields,  and  there- 
fore it  was  not  dangerous  to  the  common- 
wealth. In  so  far  as  such  a  hunter  was  a 
great  help  to  the  peasants  and  shepherds 
in  their  struggle  against  beasts  of  prey, 
such  as  wolves  and  bears,  and  the  damage 
caused  by  other  kinds  of  game,  he  was 
often  very  popular. 

Professional    hunting    under    circum- 
stances at  that  time  so  much  more  diffi- 
cult required,  of  course,  the  most  robust 
772 


ones  of  a  race  of  men  robust  in  itself;  ac- 
cordingly the  reports  about  the  deeds  of 
chamois-hunters  of  the  last  century  often 
sound  fabulous,  even  though  authentic. 
The  most  interesting  collection  of  ac- 
counts of  such  hunters'  exploits  are  cer- 
tainly found  in  F.  von  Tschudi's  well- 
known  and  famous  work,  "  Das  Tierleben 
der  Alpenwelt."  Foremost  amongst  his 
heroes  of  the  High  Alps  stands  Johann 
Markus  Colani,  who  by  cunning  and  ter- 
ror had  secured  the  hunting  monopoly 
throughout  the  vast  territory  of  the  Ber- 
nina  group.  Two  thousand  seven  hundred 
chamois  are  said  to  have  been  that  power- 


Solace 


/  / 


3 


ful  man's  victims,  and  a  certain  number  of 
men,  too.  A  friend  of  his,  A.  Cadonau,  of 
Bergiin,  asserts,  however,  that  there  was 
one  only,  a  Tyrolese  poacher,  who  was 
shot  by  Colani,  near  Piz  Ot.  To-day  it 
would  probably  not  be  possible  to  fmd  out 
what  really  happened  eighty  years  ago 
and  longer  in  the  remote  gorges  and  rocks 
of  the  Bernina.  Anyway,  it  is  not  very 
probable  that  the  choleric  and  violent 
man  would  have  dismissed  amiably  a 
poacher  from  his  hunting-ground,  and 
that  a  third  person  who  by  chance  had 
been  witness  of  the  deed  would  have  felt 
tempted  to  bring  a  complaint  against  him. 
Another  hunter  of  the  Grisons  of  a  later 
period,  whose  name  is  still  alive  amongst 
the  population,  was  Jacob  Spinas.  He 
started  hunting  when  twelve  years  old, 
and  after  twenty-two  years  had  killed 
about  600  chamois.  The  Bergell,  too,  the 
southmost  valley  of  the  Canton  des  Gri- 
sons, that  extends  from  the  upper  Enga- 
dine  down  to  the  Lake  of  Lugano,  has  al- 
ways turned  out  excellent  hunters;  so  also 
Pietro  Soldini  from  Stampa,  who  until  the 
year  1868  had  shot  1,200  to  1,300  chamois, 
49  thereof  in  one  season. 


Most  fascinating  are  Tschudi's  descrip- 
tions of  those  y)erils  and  exertions  of  the 
hunters  to  which  the  greater  number  hnally 
succumbed,  whilst  a  few  most  marvel- 
lously escaped.  One,  on  a  narrow  cornice 
with  a  yawning  chasm  underneath,  fights 
a  strong  buck  to  the  death;  another  is 
seized  by  an  avalanche  and  his  bruised 
body  swept  down  into  the  valley;  high  up 
among  the  rocks  they  fmd  the  skeleton  of 
a  third  in  the  place  to  which  he  had  been 
able  to  drag  himself,  with  an  ankle  broken 
when  his  strength  failed  and  he  i)erished  by 
hunger  and  cold.  Many  were  never  heard 
of  again;  they  went  and  did  not  return. 

The  city  visitor  who  spends  his  holidays 
in  the  High  Alps,  when  he  sees  the  hunter 
coming  down  with  blood-stained  jacket 
and  with  the  noble  chamois  on  his  shoul- 
der, is  probably  shocked  at  such  brutality 
and  cruelty.  He  certainly  would  never 
be  dangerous  to  a  chamois,  and  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  that  man  lights  against 
man  in  the  big  cities  of  the  plain  costs  no 
blood;  but  the  greater  inequality  of  their 
weapons  makes  it  more  cruel  and  imbit- 
tering  than  that  between  the  strong,  fleet 
game  and  its  daring  hunter. 


SOLACE 


.    By  Walter  Malone 

When  I  am  bowed  wuth  grief,  let  me  not  say, 
"Lord,  I  am  cheered  in  mine  adversity 
To  know  that  countless  thousands  in  this  world 
To-day  are  bowed  with  burdens  heavier 
Than  those  allotted  unto  me."     Let  not 
The  selfish  thought  that  hearts  of  others  ache 
With  pangs  more  poignant  than  mine  own,  be  made 
A  balm  to  soothe  me  to  contentedncss. 
No,  rather  let  me  say,  ''Though  I  am  thrall 
To  sorrow,  it  is  comfort  unto  me 
To  know  that  countless  others  at  this  hour 
Are  glad  of  heart.     I  thank  Thee  that  my  gloom 
Eclipses  not  the  noontide  of  their  joy." 
O  brother,  though  my  hearth  be  desolate, 
Lonely  and  dreary,  let  my  solace  be 
To  know  that  in  Ihy  house  is  warmth  and  love, 
Dancing  and  feasting,  and  the  sound  of  mirth: 
Yea,  brother,  let  my  worthier  comfort  be 
To  know  thy  i)ath  is  bright  though  mine  is  dark. 
Vol.  LV.— 84 


/\    PATRIOTIC    PILGRIMAGE 


By  Anne   Hollingsworth  Wharton 

Author  of  "  Martha  Washington,"  etc. 

Illustrations  from  photographs 


MERICAN  interest  in  Eng- 
land will  centre  for  some 
months  around  a  pictur- 
esque hamlet  in  Northamp- 
tonshire on  whose  outskirts 
lies  the  Manor  of  Washing- 
ton. The  British  Committee  for  the  Cel- 
ebration of  the  Hundred  Years  of  Peace 
between  England  and  the  United  States, 
by  buying  the  English  home  of  the  family 
of  George  Washington,  has  paid  a  graceful 
and  generous  tribute  to  the  character  and 
ability  of  the  former's  quondam  foe.  For 
many  years  Sulgrave  has  been  regarded 
by  students  of  American  history  as  a 
point  of  interest;  but  not  until  1888,  when 
jVIr.  Henry  F.  Waters  proved  that  the 
Sulgrave  Washingtons  were  the  direct  an- 
cestors of  George  Washington,  had  they 
come  to  regard  this  little  village  in  North- 
amptonshire as  a  genuine  historic  shrine. 
When  his  Excellency  General  Washing- 
ton said,  in  reply  to  Sir  Isaac  Heard's 
questions  about  the  English  origin  of  his 
family,  that  he  had  always  heard  that 
they  came  from  Lancashire  or  Yorkshire 
or  a  still  more  northerly  county  of  Eng- 
land, he  little  knew  that  he  was  starting 
genealogists  of  the  future  upon  a  hunt  as 
exciting  as  one  of  his  own  Virginia  fox- 
hunts. From  the  days  of  Washington 
Irving  to  our  own  time  genealogists  have 
engaged,  more  or  less  profoundly,  in  this 
sport,  and  we  can  only  wonder  that  the  in- 
genious and  imaginative  Weems  resisted 
the  temptation  of  supplying  his  hero  with 
an  'appropriate  line  of  ancestors.  Colo- 
nel Chester,  keen  genealogist  that  he  was, 
was  throw^n  off  the  scent  by  Washington's 
own  statement  that  his  was  a  north  coun- 
try family.  In  this  he  was  quite  correct, 
but  he  evidently  did  not  know  of  the 
removal  of  the  Washingtons  from  Whit- 
field and  Warton  township,  Lancaster 
County,  to  Northamptonshire  prior  to  the 
emigration  to  America.  Colonel  Chester, 
making  no  allowance  for  migratory  hab- 
774    . 


its  among  the  English,  who  usually  stayed 
where  they  happened  to  be  born,  un- 
less they  came  to  America,  overlooked 
many  valuable  leadings  toward  Sulgrave. 
Again,  as  if  further  to  confuse  him  and  his 
brother  genealogists,  is  the  fact  that  there 
are  quite  distinct  footprints  of  the  Wash- 
ingtons in  and  around  Durham  prior  to 
their  settlement  in  Lancashire.  Near  Dur- 
ham is  Washington  Hall  and  the  hamlet  of 
Washington,  once  Wassington  or  "Town 
of  the  Wassings,"  dating  back  to  the  days 
of  the  Conqueror.*  This  Washington 
Hall  at  Durham,  now  a  tenement-house, 
affords  another  shrine  that  may  some  day 
be  visited  by  the  curious  American  tourist ; 
but  Sulgrave  being  nearer  in  time  to  the 
emigration  of  the  Washington  brothers  is 
the  most  interesting  spot  in  England  as- 
sociated with  the  family. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  after  searches 
and  researches  in  which  Mr.  Waters, 
Colonel  Joseph  L.  Chester,  and  Sir  Henry 
Drayton  engaged  for  years,  with  ardor 
such  as  belongs  to  a  still  hunt  after  a 
baffling  historical  fact,  a  scrap  of  parch- 
ment found  in  the  parish  register  of  Tring 
brought  them  back  at  last  to  the  simple 
statement  made  by  Washington  Irving: 
"The  branch  of  the  family  to  which  our 
Washington  immediately  belongs,  sprang 
from  Lawrence  Washington,  Esquire,  of 
Gray's  Inn,  son  of  John  Washington  of 
Warton  in  Lancashire."  The  only  dif- 
ference in  Irving 's  treatment  of  this  gene- 
alogical puzzle  is  that  he  seems  to  have 
overlooked  one  generation  of  the  Lanca- 
shire Washingtons. 

Interesting  as  Sulgrave  will  doubtless 
prove  to  the  American  visitor,  his  patri- 
otic pilgrimage  will  be  quite  incomplete  if 
it  does  not  include  Brington,  where  the 

*The  Wassingtons  or  Washingtons  probably  dwelt  in 
Yorkshire  before  settling  in  Lancashire.  We  find  mention 
of  them,  however,  as  owners  of  land  in  Lancashire  as  early 
as  1261  when  they  held  half  of  a  village  in  Carneford,  and 
in  1484  a  John  Wassington,  thirty  years  of  age  and  up- 
wards, is  spoken  of  as  son  and  heir  of  Robert  Wassington, 
who  died  December  7,  1483.  .  .  .  (From  Townley's  "Ab- 
stracts of  Lancashire  Inquisitions,"  vol.  II,  p.  117  .) 


A   Patriotic   Pilgrimage 


no 


Washingtons  made  their  home  for  some 
years  after  they  left  Sulpjrave,  and  also 
Ecton,  tiie  quaint  little  village  in  which 
the  ancestors  of  Benjamin  Franklin  lived 
for  many  years.  Both  of  these  places  are 
in  the  same  county  and  within  easy  mo- 
toring or  driving  distance.  In  their  eager 
quest  after  data  concerning  the  English 
home  of  the  Washingtons  many  histori- 
ans have  overlooked  the  coincidence  that 
the  ancestors  of  the  two  men  whose  influ- 
ence was  so  great  upon  the  early  fortunes 
of  the  United  States  lived  for  several  gen- 
erations in  the  same  county  of  England. 
Parton,  adverting  to  this  circumstance, 
and  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the  aris- 
tocratic Irving,  makes  the  following  pic- 
turesque contrast  between  the  two  fam- 
ilies: "Knights,  abbots,  lords  of  the  man- 
or, valiant  defenders  of  cities  and  par- 
takers of  the  spoils  of  conquest,  bore  the 
name  of  Washington,  w'hose  deeds  and 
honors  are  recorded  in  ancient  parchment, 
upon  memorial  brass  and  monumental 
stone.  Franklin,  on  the  contrary,  came 
of  a  long  line  of  village  blacksmiths.  A 
Franklin  may  have  tightened  a  rivet  in 
the  armor,  or  replaced  a  shoe  upon  the 
horse  of  a  Washington,  or  doffed  his  cap 
to  a  Washington  riding  past  the  ancestral 
forge;  but,  until  Postmaster  Franklin  met 
Colonel  Washington  in  the  camp  of  Gen- 
eral Braddock  in  1755,  the  two  races  had 
run  their  several  ways  without  com- 
munion." 

This  paragraph  would  only  serve  to 
provoke  a  smile,  in  view  of  the  distin- 
guished ability  and  achievements  of  the 
two  men,  did  they  not  both  owe  certain 
characteristics  to  their  English  ancestry. 
The  soldierly  qualities,  the  habit  of  com- 
mand, the  stanch  loyalty,  the  high  cour- 
age, and  the  marked  dignity  and  reserve 
of  Washington,  who  had  spent  his  early 
years  in  the  simple  life  of  colonial  Vir- 
ginia, may  well  be  regarded  as  ancestral 
traits,  while  in  Benjamin  Franklin  we  find 
reproduced  the  perseverance,  industry, 
inventiveness,  shrewdness,  and  keen  in- 
sight into  character  which  belonged  to  a 
long  line  of  village  blacksmiths  who  need- 
ed in  their  business  to  use  their  heads  as 
well  as  their  hands  to  good  j)urpose,  and 
naturally  studied  men  as  they  came  and 
went  in  the  course  of  their  busy  lives. 
One  biographer  goes  so  far  as  to  attribute 


Franklin's  unequalled  power  of  holding 
his  tongue  upon  occasions  to  the  ancestral 
village  smith  who,  hearing  all  the  gossip 
of  his  little  world,  needed  to  observe  great 
discretion  in  the  repeating  of  it.*  If  in  af- 
fairs of  state  Franklin  knew  how  to  be  dis- 
creetly silent,  about  his  own  concerns  he 
was  open  and  communicative,  in  which 
again  he  differed  from  Washington.  When 
the  latter  was  a{)proached  with  regard  to 
his  English  connections  he  dismissed  the 
question  courteously  but  summarily.  He 
had  heard  that  the  English  family  had 
lived  in  one  of  the  northern  counties  of 
England — this  much  he  had  heard  and  he 
gave  himself  no  further  concern  in  the 
matter,  as  if  to  say,  whoever  his  English 
forebears  may  have  been  and  in  whatever 
part  of  England  they  may  have  lived,  he 
himself  was  a  Virginia  gentleman — that 
fact  sufficed.  Franklin,  on  the  contrary, 
having,  as  he  acknowledged,  a  curiosity  in 
collecting  family  anecdotes  and  a  habit 
of  making  notes,  recorded  in  his  autobi- 
ography, with  evident  pride,  the  fact  that 
he  w^as  descended  from  sturdy  North- 
amptonshire yeomen  who  had  held  land 
in  the  village  of  Ecton  for  three  hundred 
years  and  more,  adding  that  the  eldest 
son  had  always  been  bred  a  smith,  a  cus- 
tom which  was  followed  by  his  father. 
Well  equipped  as  he  was  with  ancestral 
lore,  it  is  not  strange  that,  at  the  time  of  his 
first  mission  to  England,  Franklin  should 
have  made  his  way  to  Ecton  to  pay  his 
respects  to  the  memory  of  those  who  had 
gone,  and  to  enter  into  pleasant  relations 
with  members  of  the  family  still  living  in 
the  neighboring  town  of  Wellingborough. 
He  who  to-day  delights  in  genealogical 
quests  may  readily  imagine  the  interest 
with  which  Franklin  turned  from  serious 
affairs  of  state  to  spend  a  few  days  in  the 
lovely  midland  county  of  old  England  in 
which  his  forebears  had  li\cd  for  three 
centuries  or  more.  This  historical  [)ilgrim- 
age  may  be  made  now  with  far  less  fatigue 
than  in  Franklin's  day — by  rail  from  Lon- 
don or  in  a  tive-mile  drive  from  North- 
ampton.    The   Manor   farm-house,   still 

•The  villapc  smith  was  a  man  of  imixirtancc  in  carlv 
limes,  as  there  was  then  scope  for  his  craftsmanship  in  UUn 
>ractical  and  decorative  matters,  anri  the  for^e  seems  to 
iiave  been  a  part  of  the  Frankhns'  heritafje.  They  were 
freeholders,  as  the  name  indicates,  the  term  Kninklin  being 
in  use  as  early  as  the  liays  of  Chaucer,  who  says  : 

"  This  worthy  Kranklin  bore  a  purse  of  silk 
I'ixcd  to  his  girdle,  white  as  morning  milk.'' 


R 


770 


A   Patriotic 


Pilgrimage 


standing,  has  frequently  been  spoken  of  as 
the  early  home  of  the  Franklins.  There 
is  no  proof  of  this,  although  the  records  of 
Ecton  show  that  a  stone  house  belonging 
to  the  family  was  sold  to  the  Lords  of  the 
Manor  in  1 740.  The  village  church  is  well 
worth  a  visit,  as  here  are  to  be  seen  tomb- 
stones and  records  which  prove  that 
Franklin  was  able  to  read  his  title  clear 
to  ancestors  who  were  landowners  in 
Northamptonshire  for  many  generations, 
while  the  line  of  the  Washington  family 
has  been  definitely  settled  only  within  a 
few  years,  which  brings  us  back  to  Sul- 
grave  and  its  associations. 

Some  years  ago,  while  travelling  from 
York  to  London,  an  English  lady  who 
happened  to  be  seated  near  me  in  the  rail- 
way compartment  spoke  authoritatively 
of  Sulgrave  as  the  ancestral  home  of  the 
Washingtons,  and  w^ondered  that  Ameri- 
cans interested  in  the  history  of  their 
country  should  not  more  frequently  visit 
this  old  town.  At  that  time  so  many 
doubts  had  been  thrown  upon  Sulgrave 
that  I  felt  disposed  to  reserve  my  enthu- 
siasm until  I  could  be  quite  sure  of  having 
found  the  true  goal  of  pilgrimage,  recall- 
ing the  story  told  of  a  patriotic  visitor  to 
Mount  Vernon  who  was  found  shedding 
tears  over  the  old  ice-cave,  under  the  im- 
pression that  he  was  w^eeping  over  the 
tomb  of  the  pater  patrice. 

It  was  not  until  1907  that  I  visited  Sul- 
grave. Being  in  Oxford  and  misled  by 
the  fact  that  the  places  lie  near  each  other 
on  the  map,  my  friend  and  I  set  forth 
upon  what  seemed  to  be  a  short  journey;  I 
believe,  however,  that  one  can  make  more 
changes  of  train  in  twenty  miles  in  Eng- 
land than  anywhere  else,  and  although  we 
left  Oxford  at  nine  in  the  morning  we  did 
not  reach  Sulgrave  until  long  after  noon. 
At  Banbury,  immortalized  in  nursery 
rhyme,  there  was  a  change  of  cars,  and  find- 
ing that  the  connection  between  Wood- 
ford and  Helmdon  involved  a  wait  of 
nearly  tw^o  hours,  we  secured  a  brougham, 
and  so  between  hedges  of  hawthorn,  and 
in  rain  and  sunshine,  we  drove  to  Sul- 
grave, via  Culworth.  Upon  this  visit  we 
saw  the  church,  the  Washington  tablets, 
and  the  Manor  House;  but  on  the  whole 
the  visit  w^as  unsatisfactory,  as  we  had  no 
intelligent  guide.  Just  before  leaving  Sul- 
grave we  met  the  vicar,  who  told  us  many 


interesting  things  about  the  church  and  the 
Manor  House,  but  regretted  the  absence 
of  his  sister,  who  had,  he  said,  made  a  study 
of  the  Sulgrave  Washingtons.  At  the  vic- 
ar's suggestion  I  afterward  corresponded 
with  this  intelligent  Englishwoman,  who 
offered  to  answer  all  my  questions  but  at 
the  same  time  urged  me  to  come  again 
to  Sulgrave:  "  Come  talk  to  me,  my  dear 
lady,"  she  wrote;  "  I  am  the  romantic  one 
of  the  family;  come  as  soon  as  you  can." 
This,  you  will  admit,  w^as  a  sufl&ciently  en- 
ticing invitation,  as  romantic  people  are 
usually  enthusiastic,  and  nothing  in  the 
world  is  as  contagious  as  enthusiasm !  Be- 
ing practical  also,  and  thrifty,  my  corre- 
spondent had  appended  to  her  letter  a  list 
of  trains  and  connections  with  a  minute 
table  of  expenses  down  to  the  last  penny, 
after  the  delightfully  exact  English  fashion. 
By  far  the  most  direct  route  to  Sulgrave 
is  from  London  by  the  Great  Central  to 
Helmdon ;  but  being  in  Oxford,  in  October, 
1909 1  again  made  my  journey  from  there. 
As  the  weather  was  quite  hopeless  on  the 
morning  of  the  one  day  that  remained  for 
this  expedition,  and  having  a  foolish  Amer- 
ican prejudice  against  visiting  rural  land- 
marks in  a  pouring  rain,  I  waited  for  the 
noon  train  to  Helmdon,  and  so  again  jour- 
neyed by  winding  ways,  but  fortunately  in 
sunshine  which  never  seems  quite  so  beau- 
tiful as  in  England.  Heavy  clouds  still 
overhung  the  meadows  of  emerald-green, 
as  green  as  June  fields  in  America;  the 
woods  that  skirted  the  meadows  were  of  a 
darker  shade,  with  a  suggestion  of  Octo- 
ber in  the  scarlet  of  the  rose  hips  on  the 
hedges  and  of  the  rowan-berries,  with  here 
and  there  a  touch  of  russet-brown.  The 
land  swells  gently  from  the  dead  level  of 
Oxford  northward,  for  not  far  away  are 
the  Basset  Hills,  and  Edgehill,  where  the 
first  battle  was  fought  between  the  Royal- 
ists and  the  Parliamentarians,  in  which 
struggle  George  Washington's  English  rel- 
atives took  part  on  the  royalist  side.  At 
Banbury  we  exchanged  the  railway-train 
for  an  electric  tram  to  Woodford,  w^here 
we  took  still  another  train  to  Helmdon. 
All  these  changes,  although  the  distance  is 
not  over  twenty-five  miles!  I  wired  en 
route,  as  directed  by  my  English  friend,  to 
James  Watson,  carrier,  Brackley,  this  last 
being  the  post  village  nearest  to  Helmdon. 
No  carrier's  w^agon  was  to  be  seen  when  I 


P/toto^ra/>/t,  cc/<yrighc  by  Topical  Press,  Lo?tdo>t. 

The  Manor  farmhouse,  Ecton,  has  frequently  been  spoken  of  as  the  early  home  of  the  Franklins.  —  Page  775. 


reached  Helmdon,  a  charmingly  pictur- 
esque httle  village  where  every  one  knows 
the  business  of  his  neighbor.  As  in  Bar- 
rie's  "Thrums,"  it  would  have  been  im- 
possible for  Lawyer  Ogilvy's  servant  Cas- 
sieky  to  have  gone  to  the  T'nowhead  farm 
for  extra  milk  without  Jess  and  all  her 
neighbors  knowing  there  was  to  be  com- 
pany at  the Ogilvys'  and  that  ''they'll  be 
ha'in'  a  puddin'  for  supper  the  nicht."  So 
the  station-master,  with  the  air  of  one  in 
authority,  said  that  he  had  just  seen  the 
carrier's  son,  who  had  told  him  where  his 
father  had  gone — he  could  not  say  how 
long  this  errand  would  delay  him — on  his 
return  he  would  find  my  telegram  and  in 
answer  to  it  he  would  reach  the  station 
at  Helmdon  "sometime  during  the  after- 
noon." This  information  not  being  en- 
tirely satisfactory,  and  as  it  was  then  three 
o'clock  and  Sulgrave  and  its  treasures  lay 
only  two  miles  away,  I  set  forth  to  walk, 
but  was  soon  overtaken  by  the  carrier 
himself,  who  entertained  me  during  the 
drive  with  the  agricultural  and  social  af- 
fairs of  the  countryside. 

Sulgrave  appears  in  Lewis's  To])ograpli- 
ical  Dictionary  as  a  parish  in  the  union  of 
Brackley,   containing   live   hundred   and 
Vol.  LV.— 85 


sixty  inhabitants.  As  we  drove  through 
the  little  straggling  hamlet,  with  its  one 
shop  that  is  also  the  post-office,  I  won- 
dered where  the  over  five  hundred  souls 
were  lodged — the  houses  are  so  few  and  so 
small.  The  parish  is  large,  however,  in- 
cluding two  thousand  acres,  even  if  the 
living  is  ])itifully  poor,  as  the  parish 
church  is  a  discharged  vicarage,  valued  in 
the  King's  books  at  £qj  17s.  To  the  west 
of  the  little  church  of  Saint  James,  with 
its  square  tower,  so  common  among  early 
English  churches,  is  Castle  Hill,  around 
which  many  traditions  cluster;  but  the 
crowning  glory  of  the  sleejn'  little  town  of 
Sulgrave,  its  title  to  distinction  e\en  in 
the  English  mind,  is  that  it  was  the  ln)me 
of  the  ancestors  of  the  great  American. 
Perhaps  also,  back  of  the  glory,  in  the 
minds  of  these  thrifty  villagers, is  the  hope 
of  ])ossil)le  re\enue  accruing  to  Sulgrave 
from  the  open  hands  of  patriotic  Ameri- 
can tourists  coming  here  to  do  honor  to 
the  ancestral  home  of  Washington.  For, 
ho\ve\er  genealogists  may  ha\-e  (jueried 
and  (loul)ti'(l  and  wandered  far  al'ield  on  a 
false  scent  after  the  Washington  line,  even 
to  Scandinaxia,  to  irtland,  and  later  to 
Yorkshire  ap(l   Middlesex,  the  family  at 

777 


77S 


A    Patriotic   Pilgrimage 


the  vicarage,  where  the  li\ing  has  been 
held  by  the  Anlennes  for  se\eral  ijjenera- 
tions,  seems  ne\  er  ti)  have  wavered  in  its 
belief  that  Sulgrave  IManor  was  the  home 
of  the  forefathers  of  George  Washington. 
Tradition  may  go  wrong  in  certain  details, 


that  monarch.  In  the  pavement  of  the 
south  aisle  is  a  stone  slab  bearing  efBgies 
of  Lawrence  Washington,  his  wife  Amy 
or  Amee,  and  their  four  sons  and  seven 
daughters.  The  inscription,  in  black  let- 
ter, is  dated  1564.     When   Washington 


Photo^rapiz,  ccpy right  by  Topical  Press,  Lo?tdo?i. 

The  village  church,  Ecton.     Here  are  to  be  seen  tombstones  and  records  which  prove  that  Franklin  was  able  to 

read  his  title  clear. — Page  776. 


but  it  is  not  likely  to  go  far  astray  in  the 
framework  of  an  historical  structure. 

As  I  had  been  invited  to  stay  over  night 
at  the  vicarage,  the  afternoon — all  that 
was  left  of  it — was  mine,  and  between 
showers,  with  a  cheering  regale  of  tea  and 
plum-cake  sandwiched  in  between  trips, 
my  enthusiastic  and  intelligent  cicerone 
conducted  me  to  the  church  and  Man- 
or House.  The  church  came  first,  early 
English  in  architecture,  the  beautiful 
north  door  with  its  carving  dating  back  to 
1350,  other  parts  of  the  building  being  of 
later  date,  about  1650.  As  if  to  guaran- 
tee the  antiquity  of  the  Sulgrave  church 
there  is  in  the  chancel  a  leper's  squint 
w^hich  belongs  only  to  very  ancient  sanc- 
tuaries, while  carvings  in  stone  of  Edward 
III  and  his  wdfe  Philippa  go  to  prove  that 
it  was  built  or  rebuilt  during  the  reign  of 


Irving  visited  Sulgrave,  prior  to  1855,  the 
brasses  of  the  slab  were  still  intact.  Since 
then  some  vandal,  supposed  to  have  been 
an  American,  has  despoiled  most  of  the  ef- 
figies of  their  glory.  A  member  of  the 
Washington  family  in  England  has  placed 
a  tablet  on  the  east  wall,  near  the  Wash- 
ington pew%  and  has  had  the  remaining 
brasses  on  the  slab  securely  fastened  to  the 
floor.  The  wall-tablet  bears  the  following 
inscription,  a  copy  of  that  on  the  floor: 

Here  lies  buried  ye  bodies 
or  Lawrence  WAsmNcxoN,  Gent,  and 
Amee  his  wife  by  whom  he  has 
ISSUE  IIII  SONS  and  VII  daughters. 
He  Lawrence  dyed  the  —  day  of 

—  An"  15 —  AND  x\mEE  the  VI  day 

OF  October.  1564. 

Lawrence  Washington  survived  his  w4fe 
Amee  more  than  twenty  years  and  the 


A    Patriotic   Pil^^-rinia^e 

o  o 


■9 


date  of  his  death, 
October  19,  1585, 
was  evidently  not 
added  to  the  in- 
scription, althou<^h 
he  was  buried  in  the 
Sulgrave  church. 
Both  wall-tablet 
and  slab  bear  the 
Washington  a  r  m  s 
in  color — argent, 
two  bars  gules,  in 
chief  three  mullets 
of  the  second. 
Hither  from  Sul- 
grave  ]Manor  came 
Lawrence  Washing- 
ton to  sit  in  the 
family  pew  with  his 
wife  Amee,  whose 

efhgy  with  those  of  her  eleven  children 
once  shone  forth  in  memorial  brass.  For- 
tunately, drawings  of  these  figures  have 
been  preserved,  which  represent  the  four 
sons  in  frock  coats — the  old  coat  that  was 
really  like  a  frock — and  the  seven  daugh- 
ters in  close  caps  and  long  gow^ns,  the 
mother  in  the  costume  of  a  woman  of  rank 
in  Tudor  times,  while  the  father,  Law- 
rence Washington,  appears  in  the  long 
fur-bordered  robe  of  a  mayor.  This  Law- 
rence Washington,  of  Gray's  Inn,  son  of 


The  little  straggling  hamlet  of  Sulgrave. — Page  777. 


John  Washington  of  Warton,  Lancashire, 
and  of  Margaret  Kytson,  was  a  successful 
wool  merchant  in  1539  when  he  bought 
Sulgrave  Manor.  As  his  maternal  uncle 
was  one  of  England's  foremost  merchants, 
it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  neph- 
ew was  attracted  to  commerce  by  the  suc- 
cess of  his  kinsman,  who  was  known  as 
"  Kytson  the  Merchant."  Another  reason 
for  Lawrence  Washington's  engaging  in  the 
wool  business  in  Northamptonshire  is  that 
his  neighbor.  Sir  John  Spencer,  with  whom 


riic  (.liurch  (.aiiic  tir-.t.  early  Kii>;lisii  in  architecture. —  I'ayc  778. 


7S0 


,\    Patriotic    Pilorimao^e 


ho  was  connected  by  marria^xe,  \yas  the  fore- 
most jnitron  of  the  wool  trade  in  the  Mid- 
lands. This  lirst  Lord  Sjiencer,  knighted 
by  Henry  \'III,  is  said  to  have  aspired  to 
possess  twenty  thousand  sheej),  but  never 
could  count  niore  than  nineteen  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  at  one  time. 
Lawrence  Washington  of  Gray's  Lin 
lived  in  or  near  Northampton  before  his 
removal  to  Sulgrave,  and  besides  being  a 


It  is  quite  })lain  that  at  this  time  the  Wash- 
ingtons  had  fallen  upon  evil  days  and  the 
remo\'al  of  Robert  and  his  son  to  B ring- 
ton,  which  was  part  of  the  Spencer  estate, 
was  doubtless  in  consequence  of  the  family 
connection  with  Earl  Spencer  through  the 
Kytsons  and  Pargiters.  That  this  noble- 
man befriended  his  Washington  kinsfolk 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  Lucy  Washing- 
ton is  spoken  of  as  ''  lady  housekeeper"  in 


Pnotografh,  copyright  by  Topical  Press,  London. 


Hither  from  Sulgrave  Manor  came  Lawrence  Washington  to  sit  in  the  family  pew  with  liis 

wife  Amee. —  Page  779. 


successful  wool  merchant  was  evidently  a 
man  of  some  importance  in  the  commu- 
nity, as  he  was  twice  mayor  of  the  town 
and  one  of  the  original  trustees  of  the  Free 
Grammar  School.  It  was  not  from  Law- 
rence Washington's  eldest  son,  Sir  Law- 
rence, that  our  Virginians  were  descended, 
but  from  his  second  son  Robert.  This  Rob- 
ert married  Elizabeth  Light,  of  Warwick- 
shire, and  through  her  the  Sulgrave  Manor 
came  into  the  family,  being  already  vested 
in  her  father-in-law,  Lawrence,  the  mayor. 
Robert  Washington  and  his  wife  lived  at 
Sulgrave  until  1610,  when  he  and  his  son 
LawTence  sold  the  Manor  to  Lawrence 
Makepeace,  Esquire,  of  Lincoln's  Inn.* 

*  LawTence  Makepeace,  the  purchaser  of  Sulgrave,  was  a 
grandson  of  old  Lawrence  Washington  the  mayor;  so  that, 
although  the  Washington  Manor  passed  out  of  possession  of 
those  of  the  name,  it  still  belonged  for  some  years  to  those 
of  Washmgton  blood.  It  was  in  the  family  altogether  for  a 
hundred  and  twenty  years. 


the  Spencer  family,  and  that  the  names  of 
the  young  Washingtons  appear  upon  the 
registers  of  Althorpe  as  frequent  guests  of 
the  house.  Al  though  Robert  Washington 
did  not  own  Sulgrave  Manor  after  1610, 
he  desired  that  his  body  should  be  buried 
where  his  father's  was,  in  front  of  his  pew 
in  the  church,  under  the  same  stone. 
Lawrence  Washington,  son  of  Robert,  died 
before  his  father  and  w^as  buried  at  B  ring- 
ton  in  1616.  His  son,  the  Reverend  Law- 
rence of  Purleigh,  born  in  1602,  was  the 
father  of  the  John  and  Lawrence  Washing- 
ton who  came  to  Virginia  about  1658. 

Leaving  the  church  and  its  epitaphs,  we 
turned  to  more  cheerful  memorials  of  the 
Sulgrave  Washingtons,  and  walking  down 
Church  Street,  soon  reached  the  old  Man- 
or House.  By  crossing  a  field  we  entered 
the  court  upon  which  kitchen  and  side  door 


Photograph,  coJ>yrtght  by  Topical  Press,  London. 

Sulerrave  Manor  is  now  little  more  than  a  farmhouse. 


both  open.  The  house  is  of  limestone  in  portance  in  its  day.  Over  the  front  cn- 
f airly  good  preservation,  and  either  only  trance  is  a  shield  embossed  in  plaster, 
a  portion  of  the  old  house  has  been  pre-  now  quite  indistinct,  said  to  have  once 
served  or  it  was  never  completed 
according  to  Lawrence  Wash- 
ington's orginal  plan,  which 
makes  it  appear  odd  in  style  and 
architecture.  The  court  from 
which  we  entered  is  not  the  front 
of  the  house,  as  the  great  door  is 
on  the  other  side,  facing  to  the 
southeast,  and  leads  into  what 
was  once  a  large  hall,  now  di- 
vided into  dairy  and  living- 
room.  When  Washington  Ir- 
ving visited  the  Manor  House 
he  noticed  the  Washington 
crest  (the  raven  or  eagle  wings) 
in  colored  glass  on  a  window 
of  what  was  then  used  as  a  but- 
tery. He  says  that  another 
window,  on  which  the  entire 
family  arms  was  emblazoned, 
had  been  removed.  Sir  Henry 
Drayton,  a  local  genealogist  of 
repute,  referred  to  two  similar 
compositions  in  the  possession 
of  Lady  Hanmer  which  are 
known  to  have  come  from  the 
IVIanor  House  at  Sulgrave,  and 
others  at  Fawsley  Church,  pre- 
sumably from  the  same  ])hice. 
Sulgrave  Manor  is  now  little 
more  than  a  farmhouse,  yet 
there  are  many  indications  tliat 
it  was  a  building  of  size  and  im- 


Photcgrafli,  t  ,</>\rtji:'it  /<_Y  l\<fu  «»/  Prr.\s,  /..•</./.•</. 


Over  the  front  entrance  is  a  s«hieUl  embossed  in  plaster  . 
this  shiclil  in  the  K''*hle  arc  tlie  royal  arms. 


above 


7S1 


7S2 


A    Patriotic   Pib-rimao-e 


borne  the  Washin.i^ton  arms.  Above  this 
shield  in  the  ,^able  are  the  royal  arms,  with 
a  lion  and  grilTm,  or  dragon,  as  supporters, 
and  in  the  same  embossed  plaster-work 
are  the  initials  E.  R.— not  Edward  Rex, 
but  Elizabeth  Regina.  In  the  two  span- 
drels of  this  principal  door  are  the  Wash- 


room that  we  were  glad  to  escape  from  its 
incongruities  and  make  our  way  up  the 
handsome  dark-oak  stairway,  with  its 
twisted  oak  balusters,  to  a  spacious  room 
above,  simply  furnished  as  a  bedroom. 
It  was  in  this  loom  that  Lawrence  Wash- 
ington, son  of  Robert,  and  ancestor  of 


Photograph,  copyright  by  Topical  Press,  London. 

Walk  by  country  roads  to  Little  Briiigton,  where  another  Washington  house  is  to  be  seen. — Page  784. 


ington  arms,  with  the  mullets  or  stars  and 
the  bars  sunk  instead  of  relieved,  and  in 
the  apex  of  the  gable  the  arms  again  ap- 
pear above  the  royal  arms.  This  door 
leads  into  the  hall,  on  one  side  of  which  is 
the  living-room  with  large  windows  from 
which  the  muUions  have  been  removed. 
On  the  left-hand  side  of  the  entrance  w^e 
noticed  a  niche  which  was  once  used  for 
holy  water,  as  this  house  w^as  an  ancient 
priory  of  Saint  Andrew's,  before  it  was  dis- 
charged by  Henry  VHI.  The  present  liv- 
ing-room of  the  house  is  a  large  square 
room  wdth  dark  oak  beams  in  the  ceiling 
and  a  generous  fireplace,  which  has  been 
filled  up  with  some  unsightly  modern 
heating  apparatus;  this  and  the  tasteless 
furniture  were  so  out  of  place  in  the  old 


George  Washington,  was  born.  At  the 
head  of  the  stairway  is  a  large  closet, 
which  was  pointed  out  to  us  as  of  special 
interest  as  the  place  where  Queen  Eliza- 
beth hid  while  engaged  in  a  game  of  hide- 
and-seek  during  a  visit  to  the  Manor 
House,  when  Robert  Washington  was  liv- 
ing here.  It  is  said  that  this  queen,  who 
seems  to  have  had  the  same  talent  as  our 
own  Washington  for  sleeping  about  in 
different  houses,  spent  a  night  here  on 
one  of  her  royal  progresses;  and  desiring 
some  light  diversion  before  retiring  to  rest 
engaged  with  her  host  and  his  guests  in 
a  game  of  hide-and-seek.  After  a  suit- 
able time  of  looking  elsewhere  the  sportive 
lady  was  found  in  this  large  closet,  and 
much  praised  by  her  diplomatic  host  for 


Photograph,  copyrit^^Jit  by  Topical  I'ras,  l.o>ido>i. 

A  short  half-mile  from  Little  Brington  is  Great  Hrington.     In  the  church,  beautifully  situated  upon  rising  ground, 

we  find  Washington  tombs. — Page  7S4. 


finding  so  good  a  hid- 
ing-place. So  runs 
the  tale,  and,  whether 
true  or  not,  it  serves  to 
light  up  the  sombre  old 
house,  fast  falling  into 
ruin,  with  the  light  and 
color  that  belonged  to 
royal  progresses  and 
pageants. 

To  Americans  who 
are  interested  in  Old 
World  associations 
with  the  family  of  our 
first  President,  u})()n 
this  peace  anniversary 
between  the  two  great 
English-speaking 
nations,  I  say,  as  my 
enthusiastic  friend  said 
to  me,  come  to  Sul- 
grave,  cross  the  thresh- 
old so  often  crossed  by 
the  men  and  women 
who  lived  and  loxed 
within  these  walls,  sit 


Kuad  leading  to  the  church  at  lircat  iSrington. 


by  the  chimney-i)lace 
where  tliey  once  sat 
with  their  children,  and 
look  out  from  the  win- 
dows upon  the  green 
fields  and  hedges  of 
the  old  England  that 
they  loved  and  that  we 
love  to-day,  and  see 
how  the  surroundings, 
side-lights,  and  village 
lra{litit)ns  give  reality 
and  substance  to  the 
story  of  the  Washing- 
tons  who  li\cd  here 
more  than  three  cen- 
turies agt).  Erom  Sul- 
gravego  to  Northamp- 
ton, as  I  did,  and  see 
among  its  many  mem- 
orials, dating  far  back 
in  I'Jiglish  history,  the 
name  of  the  first  Law- 
rence Washington  with 
the  dates  of  his  services 
upon    the    mayors' 


7M 


A   Patriotic   Pilgrimage 


^liicUls  in  the  town  hall.  Then  drive  which  had  been  for  some  years  in  the  pos- 
throu^h  Althorpe  Park,  the  fine  well-  session  of  an  aunt  of  the  Reverend  Law- 
wooded  estate  of  Lord  Spencer,  or  walk  rence  Washington  of  Purleigh  was  given  to 
by  country  roads,  set  about  with  pretty  him  by  her,  and  in  turn  given  by  him  to 
thatched  cottages,  to  Little  Brington,  his  son  John,  the  emigrant  to  Virginia. 
where  another  Washington  house  is  to  be  As  the  early  settlers  of  America  did  not 


Memorial  of  Benjamin  Franklin  in 
Ecton  Church. 


seen.  Over  the  door- 
way of  this  dwelling  is 
a  tablet  bearing  the 
d  e  V  o  u  t    inscription : 

THE  LORD  (.EVETH 
THE  LORD  TAKETH 
\W\V  BLESSED  BE  THE 
\  \MK  OE  THE  LORD 
COXSTRUCTA  1606. 

From  the  date  upon  this 
tablet  it  was  evidently 
placed  upon  the  house 
before  the  Washingtons 
sold  Sul grave  Manor 
and  moved  to  Little 
Brington.  In  the  old 
garden  some  distance 
from  the  house  is  a  sun- 
dial upon  whose  stone 
face  the  Washington 
arms  are  carved  with 
the  initials  R.  W.  and 
the  date  161 7. 

A  short  half-mile 
from  Little  Brington  is 
Great  Brington,  typical 
English  village,  tidy,  comfortable,  and  well  in  the  army  of  the  King.  It  matters  little 
cared  for  by  its  owner,  Lord  Spencer,  to  us  to-day  upon  which  side  the  Wash- 
In  the  church,  beautifully  situated  upon  ingtons  fought  in  the  civil  war  in  England 
rising  ground,  are  the  richly  carved  tombs  — it  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  they 
of  the  Spencers,  from  the  first  Baron  Rob-  were  loyal  to  the  cause  which  they  es- 
ert  to  recent  times.  Here  again  we  find  poused,  and  I  must  confess  to  a  distinct 
Washington  tombs,  that  of  Lawrence,  son  thrill  of  enthusiasm  when  I  learned  that 
of  Robert  Washington  of  Sulgrave,  set  in  Sir  Henry  Washington,  own  cousin  to  the 
the  stone  floor  of  the  chancel.  Upon  this  Virginia  emigrants,  refused  to  surrender 
tomb,  the  Washington  mullets  and  bars  Worcester  to  the  Parliamentarians  even 
are  impaled  with  the  three  goblets  of  the  when  menaced  by  greatly  superior  num- 
Butlers  both  very  handsomely  carved  in  bers,  with  lack  of  ammunition  and  food 
the  stone.  After  seeing  the  stars  and  bars  staring  him  in  the  face,  because,  as  he 
as  they  appear  upon  Lawrence  Washing-  loyally  stated,  he  "awaited  his  Majesty's 
ton's  tomb  we  cannot  wonder  that  many    commands." 

persons  have  attributed  the  design  of  the  General  Washington's  high  courage  and 
American  flag  to  this  source,  a  very  natur-  loyalty  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  Rev- 
al  inference  and  one  that  has  never  been  olution  seem  to  have  been  hereditary 
disproved.  On  the  seal  and  book-plate  traits.  The  old  motto  of  the  family  was 
used  by  General  Washington  the  arms  are  in  his  blood  as  well  as  upon  his  arms — 
given  as  upon  the  tomb  of  Lawrence  the  end  crowns  the  work,  or,  as  the  even 
Washington  at  Brington,  except  that  the  more  opposite  legend  of  his  Butler  an- 
Butler  goblets  are  omitted.  The  story  cestors  reads.  Persevere,  never  despair. 
in  the  Washington  family  is  that  a  ring    No  commander  ever  persevered  more  val- 


trouble  themselves 
much  about  heraldic 
symbols  or  quarterings, 
the  three  goblets  of  the 
Butlers  were  not  missed 
by  John  Washington, 
and  the  seal  as  it  stood 
while  the  family  lived  at 
Sulgrave  has  always 
been  used  by  the  Ameri- 
can Washingtons. 

This  patriotic  pil- 
grimage might  well  be 
extended  to  Purleigh  in 
Essex,  where  the  Rev- 
erend Lawrence  Wash- 
ington, the  great-great- 
grandfather of  George 
Washington,  held  a  liv- 
ing which  was  subse- 
quently sequestered 
from  him  by  the  Par- 
liamentarians, he  being 
on  the  Royalist  side  and 
his  two  brothers,  Sir 
William  and  Sir  John, 


The  Trick  of  the  Voice 


785 


iantly  in  the  face  of  overwhelming  dif-  may  be  an  illusion,  but  hereditary  vir- 

ficulties  than  George  Washington,  as  if  tue  gives  a  patent  of  innate   nobleness 

to  prove,   as   his    first    biographer   said  beyond  all  the  blazonry  of  the  Heralds' 

in    this    connection,    "Hereditary    rank  College." 


THE    TRICK    OF   THE    VOICE 


By  Edwin  W.  Morse 


^^I^^^HAT  was  about  the  worst 
performance  of  Carmen  I 
ever  heard,"  said  Heart- 
field,  laying  the  copy  of  // 
Secolo,  which  he  had  been 
reading,  on  the  compart- 
ment seat,  and  gazing  out  of  the  window 
at  the  peasants  among  the  mulberry-trees. 
"I'm  glad  to  see  that  this  paper  roasts 
her." 

I  assented:  she  was  pretty  bad. 

"I  suppose,"  Heartfield  went  on,  re- 
flectively, with  his  eyes  still  on  the  ever- 
changing  landscape,  "IVe  seen  half  a 
dozen  Car  mens  in  the  last  twenty  years, 
and,  do  you  know,  the  one  whose  voice 
lingers  most  gratefully  in  my  memory  is 
the  first  one  I  ever  heard — Minnie  Hauk. 
You  remember  her,  Jim?  Weren't  those 
great  days — when  the  old  Academy  was 
as  sweet-toned  and  as  resonant  as  a  Strad- 
ivarius  and  when  Campanini  and  Del 
Puente  were  young  and  lusty!  I  was 
young  myself  then.  Perhaps  that's  the 
reason  Minnie  Hauk's  voice  made  such  an 
abiding  impression  on  me.  I  can  hear  it 
and  see  her  yet  in  every  scene! 

"I  have  a  theory, "my friend  continued, 
still  gazing  meditatively  out  of  the  win- 
dow, "that  the  timbre  of  every  person's 
voice,  yours  and  mine  as  well  as  a  singer's, 
is  distinct  from  that  of  every  one  else's 
voice — just  as  distinct  as  one's  thumb- 
print is,  and  that  this  individual  quality 
persists  through  life.  Perhaps,"  after  a 
pause,  "it  lasts  into  the  next  world,  and 
if  so  I'd  wager  a  harp  that  I  shall  be  able 
to  pick  Minnie  Hauk  out  of  the  heavenly 
choir  by  her  voice,  unless ' ' — and  he  looked 
at  me  with  a  mock  expression  of  stern  re- 
proach— "you  and  a  lot  more  of  my  friends 
succeed  in  dragging  me  down  to  Mr.  Luci- 
fer's rathskeller." 
Vol.  LV.— 86 


Heartfield's  visions  were  suddenly  dis- 
pelled by  the  conductor  and  his  demand  for 
our  tickets;  and  the  high  spirits  in  which 
we  had  both  left  Milan  were  momentarily 
dashed  when  we  learned  from  this  func- 
tionary that  we  should  have  to  stop  over 
for  two  hours  at  Piacenza  before  we  could 
go  on  to  Parma,  where  we  were  to  renew 
our  acquaintance  with  the  Correggio  fres- 
coes. As  usual,  I  was  to  blame.  Through 
my  stupidity  in  misreading  Bradshaw  up 
or  down,  I  don't  know  which,  we  had 
taken  the  wrong  train.  There  was  no  help 
for  it,  however,  and  we  were  too  light- 
hearted  to  mind  such  a  misadventure. 
For  Heartfield  had  received  a  cablegram 
the  day  before,  bringing  the  welcome 
news  that  his  designs  for  a  city  hall  in 
Milwaukee  or  Saint  Paul,  I've  forgotten 
which,  had  been  accepted,  and  we  were  as 
happy  as  two  boys  out  of  school.  It  was 
this  competition  and  another  for  an  art 
museum  for  some  town  in  the  Middle 
West,  over  both  of  which  Heartfield  had 
worked  nights  and  Sundays  for  weeks, 
that  had  upset  his  nerves  and  had  made 
this  brief  holiday  in  Italy  necessary.  With 
some  difficulty  I  had  got  a  leave  of  ab- 
sence from  the  Recorder  oflice,  and  with 
more  difficulty  I  had  finally  beguiled  my 
old  friend — we  had  been  chums  at  Dart- 
mouth in  the  late  'seventies — into  hang- 
ing up  his  T-square  for  a  few  weeks  in 
order  that  we  might  both  get  a  change  of 
scene  and  a  rest.  John's  wife,  Grace,  had 
gladly  entered  into  the  consjMracy  to  coax 
him  away  from  his  work,  for  she  realized 
more  keenly  than  any  one  else  did  the 
overstrained  condition  which  he  was  in; 
the  children  and  her  other  interests,  she 
generously  urged,  would  occupy  her  until 
he  returned,  rested  and  refreshed. 

"This   is   a   deuce   of   a   place    to   be 


7S6 


The  Trick  of  the  Voice 


stranded  in  on  a  hot  forenoon,"  exclaimed 
Hearttield,  as  we  descended  to  the  station 
phitform  at  Piaccnza.  And  the  sur- 
roundings certainly  were  unattractive — a 
dinp:>'  station  building;  two  or  three  care- 
free,sleepy-eyed  porters;  the  railway  of- 
ficials gesticulating  and  important;  a  few 
native  travellers  gettmg  in  or  out  of  the 
train ;  and,  at  one  side,  two  soldiers,  mere 
boys  apparently,  tr>'ing  heroically  with 
their  knives  to  carve  a  hunk  of  bread  from 
a  loaf  which  they  had  w^edged  firmly  into 
the  architecture  of  the  station. 

"Look  at  those  fellow^s,  John!  They 
ought  to  have  a  cleaver  or  an  axe  for  that 
job!" 

*'I  have  often  w^ondered,"  rejoined  my 
companion  in  his  gravest  manner,  but 
with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  ''whether  or  not 
the  regulations  of  the  Italian  army  pro- 
vide for  the  use  of  these  loaves  of  bread 
as  weapons  in  hand-to-hand  fighting  or 
as  breastworks.  Teak  sawdust  baked  in 
one  of  Andrew  Carnegie's  Pittsburg  ovens 
couldn't  be  tougher  or  harder." 

Lea\dng  the  soldiers  to  their  bread  we 
set  out  from  the  station,  through  the  still- 
ness, the  glare,  and  the  heat  of  the  June 
forenoon,  to  see  w'hat  the  Palazzo  Farnese 
looked  like.  Whenever  it  was  possible  we 
took  advantage  of  the  loose  awnings  which 
hung  in  front  of  the  shops.  The  streets 
were  deserted;  every  one  seemed  to  have 
gone  indoors  to  wait  for  the  cool  of  the 
afternoon.  Once  Heartfield  stopped  for  a 
few  minutes  in  the  shadow  of  a  wall  to 
make  a  hasty  sketch  of  the  detail  of  a 
cornice  which  had  caught  his  practised 
eye.  ''It  differs  a  little  from  anything  in 
the  books,"  was  his  only  comment. 

As  we  strolled  leisurely  along,  stopping 
now  to  examine  the  design  of  some  iron- 
work on  an  old  door  or  glancing  at  a  pair 
of  brow^n  eyes  only  half  concealed  by  a 
striped  window  awning,  we  both  noticed 
an  elderly  man  on  the  other  side  of  the 
street  looking  at  us  curiously  and  appar- 
ently keeping  pace  with  us.  When,  on 
leaving  the  Palazzo  Farnese,  we  set  out  to 
see  the  church,  a  short  distance  away,  for 
which  Raphael  painted  the  Sistine  Ma- 
donna, we  saw,  not  a  little  to  our  surprise, 
that  the  same  old  gentleman  was  eying 
us  and  apparently  following  us. 

Thus  challenged,  we  looked  at  him  more 
carefully.    He   was   under   the   average 


height  and  stooped  a  little  as  he  walked. 
Although  he  w^as  dressed  like  an  Italian, 
for  some  reason  he  did  not  look  like  one. 
His  gray  hair  and  longish  beard,  his  slightly 
bent  figure  and  the  halting  deliberation  of 
his  gait,  told  us  that  his  age  might  be  sev- 
enty, perhaps  more.  His  eyes,  however, 
were  keen  and  alert.  The  thin,  loosely 
fitting  dark-colored  clothes  that  he  wore, 
with  a  soft  hat  and  a  blue  silk  handker- 
chief carelessly  knotted  around  his  neck, 
indicated,  we  thought,  that  he  might  be  a 
petty  tradesman  or  the  owner  of  a  small 
farm.  The  most  curious  thing  about  him 
was  his  evident  interest  in  us,  the  motive 
or  the  purpose  of  which  was  beyond  us  to 
fathom.  A  year  had  not  yet  passed  since 
our  war  with  Spain  ended,  and  there  was 
still,  here  and  there,  a  feeling  of  hostility 
to  Americans,  of  which  we  had  been  made 
vaguely  conscious,  among  the  Italian  peo- 
ple. There  was  nothing  sinister,  however, 
in  the  bearing  of  this  inquisitive  old  gen- 
tleman. On  the  contrary,  his  attitude 
seemed  friendly.  And  when  he  turned 
down  a  cross-street  and  disappeared  we 
indulged  in  all  sorts  of  conjectures  as  to 
the  cause  of  his  unusual  behavior. 

Just  as  we  were  emerging  from  the 
Church  of  San  Sisto  we  came  face  to  face 
with  the  mysterious  stranger  again,  and, 
not  a  little  surprised,  we  instinctively 
drew  back  a  step.  The  expression  of  his 
wrinkled  and  bearded  face  reassured  us, 
however,  and  the  next  moment  he  ad- 
vanced haltingly  wdth  the  words,  "You're 
Americans,  ain't  yer?"  adding,  when  we 
admitted  our  nationality,  "I  thought  so. 
Not  many  come  to  this  place,  and  it  does 
me  good  to  see  one.  I'm  an  American, 
too."  The  old  fellow  picked  his  way,  so 
to  speak,  among  these  words,  as  if,  by  rea- 
son of  long  neglect,  the  English  tongue 
had  become  a  matter  of  memory  instead 
of  an  instinct  with  him. 

Our  curiosity  and  interest  in  turn  were 
now  aroused  by  our  new  acquaintance,  and 
we  urged  him  to  show  us  the  way  to  a  cafe 
where  we  could  have  a  talk.  So,  with  only 
an  occasional  word,  he  led  us  slowly  by  a 
zigzag  course  through  several  streets  to 
the  Piazza  dei  Cavalli,  the  centre  of  the 
town,  where,  in  the  Cafe  Roma,  we  found 
a  table  in  a  cool  corner  near  a  window. 
During  the  walk  we  had  had  an  opportu- 
nity surreptitiously  to  note  the  clearness  of 


The  Trick  of  the  Voice 


■^^ 


the  old  man's  bronzed  skin  and  the  neat- 
ness of  his  whole  appearance,  and  espe- 
cially of  his  shoes.  When  we  were  seated 
and  Heartfield  had  asked  the  waiter  to 
bring  us  some  bread,  Gorgonzola  cheese, 
and  a  flask  of  native  wine,  our  new  ac- 
quaintance added  a  few  words  in  Italian 
that  was  incomi)rehcnsible  to  us,  but 
which  improved,  no  doubt,  the  quality  of 
both  the  wine  and  the  cheese. 

Having  laid  a  foundation  for  a  smoke, 
we  lighted  our  cigars,  the  old  gentleman, 
declining  our  offers,  loading  and  lighting 
a  pipe  of  curious  shape;  and  then  we 
boldly  asked  him  to  tell  us  how  he  hap- 
pened to  be  in  such  a  place  as  Piacenza. 

''There  ain't  much  to  tell,"  he  replied 
slowly,  it  evidently  being  an  effort  for  him 
10  recall  the  English  words  he  wished  to 
use,  simple  as  they  were.  ''I  was  a  sol- 
dier in  the  Civil  War — a  sergeant  in  a  New 
Hampshire  regiment.  In  'sixty-three  I 
was  wounded  in  the  head  and  captured 
and  thrown  into  Libby  Prison.  A  year 
later,  while  I  was  bein'  taken  to  Anderson- 
ville,  I  escaped  and  made  my  way  north. 
For  a  year  I  was  in  the  hospital  at  Nash- 
ville, and  when  the  war  ended  I  managed 
to  get  enough  money  together  to  come 
over  here  in  a  sailin'  vessel.  I  was  so 
tired,  and  somethin'  ailed  my  head,  and  I 
wanted  to  sit  'n  the  sun  and  rest.  I've 
been  here  ever  since.  But  I'm  goin'  back 
some  day  to  die  'n  my  own  country.  It's 
good  to  talk  wdth  an  American  again." 

A  wan  and  pathetic  smile  flickered 
around  the  corners  of  the  old  man's  lips 
as  he  ended  this  simple  tale,  behind  which, 
we  instinctively  felt,  lay  much  suffering 
and  many  tragic  experiences.  We  wanted 
to  know  more,  but  a  certain  dignity  and 
reserve  surrounding  the  old  soldier  pre- 
vented either  Heartfield  or  me  from  in- 
quiring more  particularly  into  the  circum- 
stances of  his  life.  The  sweet  wine,  being 
free  from  all  such  scruples,  came  to  our 
aid  by  loosening  the  old  fellow's  tongue  a 
little,  and,  as  if  he  wished  to  justify  as  well 
as  to  explain  his  long  expatriation,  he 
went  on,  even  more  slowly  than  before, 
searching  for  his  words  carefully: 

''I'm  very  comfortable  here.  Many 
years  ago,  when  I  had  got  my  health  back, 
I  married  an  Italian  woman,  and  we  have 
three  grown  children,  and  all  of  them  work 
in  the  mulberry  groves.     I  make  shoes, 


but,"  with  a  suggestion  of  a  smile,  "I 
don't  work  very  hard  now.  I  enjoy  the 
sunshine  and  the  warmth.  It  makes  me 
shiver  to  think  how  cold  and  bleak  it  used 
to  be  in  New  Hampshire.  But  I  shall  go 
back  there  before  the  end  comes." 

As  the  old  soldier  paused  to  take  an- 
other sip  of  the  sweet  wine,  Heartfield, 
glancing  at  his  watch,  reminded  me  that 
we  had  less  than  fifteen  minutes  in  which 
to  catch  our  train.  Hastily  paying  the 
score,  while  Heartfield  went  into  the  pi- 
azza to  tind  a  cab,  I  gave  the  old  veteran 
my  card  with  my  club  address  in  New 
York,  and  urged  him  to  let  me  know  if 
I  could  ever  be  of  service  to  him.  He 
thanked  me  rather  awkwardly,  adding, 
with  another  suggestion  of  a  smile,  ''I 
haven't  any  card:  we  don't  need  'em  here. 
But  I'll  write  my  address  on  one  of  yours." 

He  did  so,  and  I  thrust  the  card  into  my 
pocket  as  we  hastily  bade  him  good-by  and 
wished  him  the  best  of  luck.  Jumping 
into  the  cab  we  were  hurried  across  the 
piazza,  the  old  soldier  looking  after  us 
rather  wistfully,  I  thought,  and  waving 
his  hand.  We  reached  the  station  barely 
in  time  to  get  our  hand  luggage  together 
and  secure  a  compartment  as  the  train 
pulled  out  for  Parma. 

The  incident  of  the  meeting  with  this 
veteran  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had 
sobered  us  both.  We  looked  out  of  the 
window  at  the  slopes  and  summits  of 
the  Apennines  as  they  swept  by  and  at  the 
yellow  torrents  flowing  from  the  gorges  and 
under  the  long  bridges  which  we  crossed 
from  time  to  time,  but  we  saw  nothing. 
My  thoughts  were  following  the  old  sol- 
dier, sorely  wounded,  into  Libby  Prison 
and  into  the  hospital.  Heartfield,  I  sus- 
pect, was  thinking  of  his  own  father  and 
perhaps  of  the  self-sacrilicing  devotion  of 
his  widowed  mother  while  he  was  working 
his  way  through  college  and  through  the 
Tech.  If,  as  I  imagined  from  one  or  two 
things  I  had  heard,  his  father  had  been  a 
man  of  rather  weak  character,  his  mother 
was  certainly  a  remarkable  woman  in 
many  ways. 

Suddenly  Heartfield  broke  the  sileiue. 
"I  ne\er  meet  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War 
without  being  strangely  atTected — I  sup- 
pose from  the  recollection  of  my  own  fa- 
ther, who,  you  remember,  enlisted  and 
left  home  when  I  was  six  years  old,  and 


788 


The   Homeward  Road 


who  now  lies  in  a  nameless  grave  on  some 
X'irginia  battle-field— we  nevercould  learn 
where.  But  there  was  somethmg  about 
this  old  man  that  moved  me  unusually — 
whether  it  was  his  story  or  his  manner  or 
his  voice  I  can't  say.  I  think  it  must  have 
been  his  voice  which  reminded  me  of  some 
one  or  something.  I  wonder  what  part  of 
New  Hampshire  he  came  from  and  what 
his  name  is." 

'T  have  his  name  here,"  I  replied, 
reaching  into  my  pocket  and  pulling  out 
the  card  which  the  old  soldier  had  given 
me.  Glancing  at  it  I  saw%  in  faint,  pen- 
cilled writing,  the  words: 

Giovanni  Cuorecampo 
Via  Felice  Cavallotti 

Giovanni  Cuorecampo — John  Heartfield! 
The  words  swam  before  my  eyes,  and  I 
read  them  again  more  carefully,  so  as 
to  make  sure  that  the  unfamiliar  handwrit- 
ing was  not  playing  me  some  trick.  There 
they  were,  however,  ominously  uncom- 
promising— Giovanni  Cuorecampo — John 
Heartfield.  Slowly  the  dreadful  truth,  or 
my  surmise  of  what  the  dreadful  truth 
^  might  be,  engulfed  my  mind,  leaving  me 


dazed,  irresolute,  and,  for  the  moment, 
helpless.  Instinctively  I  clutched  at  the 
window  frame  in  a  nervous  attempt  to  pull 
myself  out  of  the  whirlpool  of  emotions  in 
which  I  found  myself  struggling,  and  as  I 
did  so  a  gust  of  wind  blew  the  card  from 
my  loosened  fingers. 

''  Confound  the  luck ! "  I  cried,  with  con- 
fused feelings  of  genuine  regret  and  of  un- 
speakable relief  surging  through  my  mind. 
''There  goes  that  card!  How  careless  of 
me  to  lose  it!" 

"  Can  you  remember  the  name?  "  asked 
John  calmly,  his  eyes  still  fixed  on  a  water- 
fall in  the  distance  which  had  prevented 
him  from  noticing  my  momentary  agita- 
tion. 

"Ye-es,"  I  replied  hesitatingly.  'T — 
I  think  so." 

"What  was  it?" 

"Giovanni  Bianco,"  I  answered  in  a 
low  voice,  after  a  pause. 

"Ah,  John  White,"  he  rejoined  easily. 
"  Not  much  of  a  clew,  but  when  I  get  back 
I  shall  have  to  see  if  I  can  find  any  trace 
of  him  in  the  records  of  the  Wur  Depart- 
ment. The  old  man  interests  me  for 
some  reason  or  other.  I  wish  I  could  get 
the  sound  of  his  voice  out  of  my  ears." 


THE    HOMEWARD    ROAD 

By  Charles  Buxton  Going 

The  fields  of  workaday  are  thickly  sowed 

With  tangled  troubles  and  the  thorns  of  care; 

But  when  night  comes,  it  brings  the  homew^ard  road — 
And  you  are  there. 

Together,  in  the  cool  and  fragrant  hush, 

Cares  fall  away,  and  love  and  life  grow  strong; 

And  lo!  the  restful  fields  with  flowers  are  lush, 
And  full  of  song. 

A  little  wishing  moon,  above  the  hill. 

Hangs  in  the  saffron  sky  its  silver  bow^; 
And  to  the  murmur  of  the  crickets'  trill, 

Homeward  we  go. 

To  home  and  hearth  and  heart — how  glad  the  quest! 

Through  dusk  whose  velvet  bloom  half  veils  the  view, 
Homew^ard  and  loveward — oh,  dear  heart,  the  rest! 

Homeward,  v/ith  you! 


THE   POINT  OF   VILW 


AT  our  doorway  \vc  find  it  hard  to  tell 
LX  whether  the  nearnesses  or  the  dis- 
'*'  ^  tances  are  more  enticing.  The  shade 
of  one's  own  trees  is  grateful,  and  the  small 
pink-and-white  clover  that  blossoms  in  the 
lawn  close  to  the  earth  is  sweet;  yet  the  far- 
away paths  are  always  calling, 
Old  Trails  calling,  as  they  must  ever  to  hu- 
man souls.  Past  the  blue  del- 
phiniums of  the  border,  themselves  suggest- 
ive of  distance,  as  a  subtle-minded  gardener 
once  told  us,  to  the  hazy  blue  of  the  distant 
hill  is  an  inevitable  journey  for  the  eye,  and 
where  the  eye  wanders  the  feet  would  fain 
follow.  Wherever  we  glance,  we  see  stable 
and  permanent  surroundings  slipping  into 
the  beginning  of  trails.  Our  neighbor's  trim 
green  lawn,  surrounded  by  the  tidiest  hedge 
in  the  world,  under  a  huge,  overshadowing 
elm,  would  seem  to  be  a  very  abiding-place, 
stationary  and  unchanging,  yet  it  is  here 
that  we  get  our  first  glimpse  of  the  highway, 
and  one  glance  at  the  open  road  is  sometimes 
enough  to  set  the  feet  a-going.  Another 
way,  one  sees  the  living  green  of  sunlight  in 
the  wild  grass  and  least  birch-trees  on  the 
hillside,  and  may  not  stay,  for  a  little  wind  en- 
tices, and  one  follows  with  swift  feet  down  the 
slope,  through  the  intervale  where  a  stream 
wanders,  up  the  hill  where  it  runs  riot  in  the 
long,  waving  grass,  to  a  sunny  bit  of  road 
which  lingers  as  if  waiting  for  a  comrade  be- 
fore entering  the  shadow  of  the  wood. 

As  we  stand  w^avering  on  the  threshold, 
uncertain  whether  to  go  or  stay,  spring 
calls  to  us  in  the  early  note  of  bird  or  the 
cry  of  the  hylas,  in  young  greens  and  faint 
rose  tints  that  run  swiftly  over  distant  hill 
and  wood;  or  autumn  beckons,  with  its 
magic,  haze-haunted  distances,  and  its  gray- 
blue  mists  beyond  the  oaks  that  burn  deep- 
red  with  the  late  fires  of  fall.  Even  winter, 
sometimes  austerely,  over  white  snow  that 
seems  the  end  of  things,  sometfmes  gayly, 
with  tingling  in  the  blood,  stings  one  forth, 
over  crisp  paths,  by  naked,  lovely  branches 
against  a  clear,  cold  sky,  past  roadsides 
where  every  branch  and  withered  blossom 
bends  with  'its  soft  weight  of  new-fallen 
snow.     And  the  call  of  the  summer  nights, 


the  charm  of  the  road  one  cannot  see,  who 
can  resist  that?  The  familiar  pathways  arc 
full  of  challenge  of  the  unknown;  sweeter, 
more  penetrating  odors  creep  out  in  the 
darkness,  from  dusky  tangles  of  vine  and 
shadowy  fields;  the  common  roadways  seem 
to  end  in  stars. 

This  is  a  gently  rolling  country,  that  lin- 
gers in  its  passage  toward  the  sea,  by  many 
a  low-lying  meadow  and  reedy  stream;  and 
through  it,  here,  there,  and  everj'where,  a 
little  loitering  river  wanders  its  own  wet 
way.  If  we  lack  opportunities  for  steep 
climbing,  yet  there  are  gentle  heights  to 
tempt  our  feet.  One,  that  to  which  the 
delphinium  beckons,  you  reach,  after  your 
tramp  by  the  roadside  is  over,  through  an 
old  New  England  pasture,  full  of  unforgct- 
able  charm.  By  gray  rocks  covered  with 
ancient  lichen,  by  clumps  of  tall  fern  you  go, 
climbing  a  broad  slope  past  wild  rose  and 
barberry  tangles.  Blueberries,  dim  in  color 
as  this  hill  summit  from  our  distant  home, 
grow  here  among  the  bay,  and  juniper,  and 
sweet  fern.  You  hold  a  few  in  your  hand  as 
you  go  climbing  on,  past  the  tiny  sentinel 
cedars  that  dot  the  close  grass,  to  a  broad 
and  gracious  summit.  You  are  higher  than 
you  thought.  Miles  and  miles  about  you 
stretches  the  encompassing  green  country, 
with  the  silver  line  of  the  river,  and  the  soft, 
deep-foliaged  trees,  out  and  out;  the  entire 
horizon  is  clear,  in  perfect  circle.  In  the 
west  lies  the  faint  blue  outline  of  distant 
mountains,  and  between,  slight  ridges  that 
the  misty  sunset  finds,  wave  upon  wave  of 
land  shining  out  toward  the  sky.  It  is  silent, 
except  for  the  tinkle  of  a  cow-bell  now  and 
then,  and  the  cawing  of  a  hoarse  old  crow. 

Some  of  the  roadsides  about  us  are  as 
neglected  and  as  full  of  charm  as  if  they  did 
not  know  they  are  living  in  an  era  of  land- 
scape gardeners.  Long  grass  sways  by  the 
fences;  wild  grapevine,  berry-bushes,  wooil- 
bine  tangle  there;  asters,  white  or  purple, 
and  tall,  starry  goldenrod  nodding  over 
fences  still  are  spared  us,  by  the  grace  of 
(lod  and  the  forgetfulness  of  man.  That 
highway  whose  invitation  is  ever  before  us 
charms  by  its  onward  directness,  its  ovcr- 

789 


7!)(; 


The  Point  of  View 


shadowing  trees,  elms,  oaks,  and  ancient 
maples,  and  by  its  bordering  meadows. 
Neither  gypsy  caterpillars  nor  automobiles 
have  as  yet  destroyed  it,  though  both  are 
making  progress.  This  highway,  in  all  sea- 
sons, in  all  moods,  we  know,  in  sunlight, 
starlight,  and  in  misty  rain.  Here,  in  a 
sheltered  hollow,  spring  comes  earliest;  over 
the  half-hidden,  sunny  water  one  sees  the 
delicate  ripple  of  young  leaves,  myriad- 
tinted;  trailing  willow^  branches  are  there 
with  their  faint  golden  gleam,  and  red 
blossoms  of  the  maple,  all  wearing  the  iri- 
descent glory  of  April  days.  To  the  broad 
grassy  meadows  just  beyond,  in  May,  the 
bobolinks  come  home  and  build  again,  madly 
singing  in  the  summer. 

On  sleepy,  sunshiny  afternoons,  so  great 
is  the  charm  of  these  meadows,  and  the  pale, 
indescribable  green  of  the  young  wheat-field 
near,  or  its  later  golden  grain,  that  you 
almost  forget  the  open  road.  A  sense  of 
warmth  and  rest  and  fulness  of  life  possesses 
you;  you  sit  upon  an  "old  gray  stone"  and 
doze  in  the  sun,  with  the  fragrance  of  pine 
in  your  nostrils;  then  you  waken  with  a 
start  and  trudge  on. 

Still  more  compelling  is  the  invitation  of 
this  highway  in  late  evenings,  in  the  damp- 
ness and  wet  fragrance  of  full  summer. 
Everything  calls  one — the  booming  of  the 
old  frogs  from  the  low,  marshy  pond,  an- 
swering each  other  from  under  the  great 
willows  on  opposite  sides  where  they  make 
their  homes.  Tree-toads  are  calling,  calling 
from  shadowy  trees  close  to  the  road,  and  the 
cheep  of  drowsy  birds  comes  from  unseen 
nests  near  by.  Fireflies  everywhere  lure  one 
on;  that  field  of  wheat  is  full  of  them;  so  is 
the  long  grass  where  bobolinks  are  asleep. 

There  is  another  road,  whose  loveliness  at 
night  belies  a  touch  of  sordidness  it  wears  in 
the  light  of  day.  Here  we  go  to  see  the 
stars,  for  it  commands  wide  open  spaces. 
Orion,  the  pole  star,  the  corona  borealis — 
and  the  steady  swing  of  our  stride  seems  in 
unison  with  their  steady  swing.  Common 
things  take  on  a  dim,  mysterious  beauty, 
lent  by  the  fireflies  and  the  star-shine. 
Through  the  soft  darkness  of  the  neighbor- 
ing corn-field  the  tasselled  tops  shine  like 
dull  torches,  as  we  stop  to  breathe  in  the 
sweetness  of  it  all— the  moist,  cool  sweet- 
ness. Would  that  John  Keats  might  have 
smelled  this  of  a  summer  night! 

Something  is  always  calling  us  from  chair 


or  hammock  in  our  birch-trees'  shade — the 
drifting  flight  of  a  butterfly,  the  beat  of  a 
swift  bird's  wing,  floating  bit  of  thistledown, 
or  flower  and  driven  leaf  of  autumn,  sharing 
the  wind's  wild  flight.  I  would  not  have  the 
challenge  of  the  distances  find  me  lacking, 
nor  discern  heights  or  glimpses  of  far  roads 
that  I  do  not  know.  This  sense  of  constant 
quest  is  but  part  of  the  eternal  impulse 
which  we  share  with  all  the  universe  toward 
change  and  movement.  It  is  well  that  ra- 
dium —  potent  in  modern  surgery  —  has 
opened  the  minds  of  scientists  to  a  suspicion 
that  matter  is  but  a  form  of  energy,  of  mo- 
tion, and  that  they  begin  to  waken  to  an 
idea  suggested  by  Greek  philosophers  more 
than  two  thousand  years  ago!  Great  is  the 
joy  of  moving  where  all  things  move;  deep 
is  the  thrill  of  that  sense  of  wide  companion- 
ship that  nothing  escapes.  The  symbolism 
of  the  open  road  has  always  been  our  best 
and  profoundest  symbol;  the  "pilgrimage 
of  man"  suggests  more  potently  than  any 
other  figure  our  lot  between  the  cradle  and 
the  grave.  There  is  an  unescapable  charm 
in  feeling  one's  feet  move  slowly  along  the 
common  highway;  each  step  reaches  back 
to  our  earliest  beginning,  and  onward  to  one 
end,  connecting  our  two  ultimate  selves. 
Something  primeval  perhaps  lingers  in  it,  a 
sense  of  those  earliest  stages  when  the  ani- 
mal found  itself  floating  free  from  the  old 
vegetable  fixedness,  in  fearful  joy  of  oozy 
motion;  something  too  of  the  thrill  of  those 
first  moments  of  ability  to  choose  a  path,  the 
flash  of  the  living  will  through  the  incipient 
stages  of  animal  being. 


THE  thought  of  one's  primeval  self 
suggests  primeval  process;  there  are 
walks  hereabout  that  bear  witness  to 
the  ceaseless  growth,  the  stir  and  unrest,  at 
the  heart  of  apparently  stable  things.  Such 
is  the  path  about  our  little  lake,  by  shelving 
shore,  under  overhanging  trees, 
past  jutting  points  where  the  re-  Alone  ^" 
fleeted  beauty  of  moss  and  tree 
ripples  down  into  the  water  with  exquisitely 
changing  gradations;  and  the  more  rugged 
path  about  the  upper  lake,  where,  between 
hemlock  branches,  we  get  ghmpses  of  an  ir- 
regular wild  shore,  and  of  secluded  corners 
overgrown  with  reeds  and  lily-pads.  We 
know,  for  the  wise  have  told  us,  that, 
through  timeless  and  imperceptible  nature 


The  Point  of  View 


'91 


process,  our  bright  sheet  of  water  is  filling 
up  from  the  other.  Through  the  silence,  we 
can  almost  hear 

"The  moanings  of  the  homeless  sea, 

The  sound  of  streams,  that,  swift  or  slow, 
Draw  clown  .Ionian  hills,  and  sow 
The  dust  of  continents  to  be." 

Of  the  glacial  action  that  determined  the 
shape  of  our  rounding  hills  and  wide  sand 
plains,  dim  pictures  form  themselves  in  one's 
mind,  but  the  "  imagination  boggles  at "  that 
cold  world  of  ice.  Curiously  interesting  is 
the  walk  along  the  *'eskar,"  or  bed  of  a  gla- 
cial river.  High,  winding,  with  uniform 
wooded  slopes  below — you  would  think  it 
an  aqueduct  but  for  the  curves.  You  are 
with  the  tree-tops,  touched  with  faint  spring 
color  or  autumn-tinted,  and  you  know, 
though  you  are  far  up  in  the  air,  that  this 
is  the  bed  of  the  most  ancient  type  of  river. 
You  are  going  the  way  the  water  went  un- 
counted years  ago,  under  the  slowly  melting 
mass  of  ice,  heaping  up  debris. 

The  aqueduct  in  places  would  seem  to 
be  imitating  the  eskar,  save  that  it  runs 
straight,  at  times  with  even,  grassy  slopes 
perhaps  seventy  feet  high.  Here  and  there 
it  is  carried  over  marshy  stream  or  deep 
gully  by  stately  Roman  arches  of  gray  stone, 
the  dull  Pompeian  red  of  its  brick  walls  fad- 
ing and  crumbling  above  the  green.  All 
about,  a  network  of  aqueducts,  converging 
cityward,  afford  for  us  and  for  other  tramps 
enchanting  trails,  with  always  a  footpath 
running  through  the  grass,  sometimes  at  a 
height,  sometimes  across  a  level  meadow, 
most  charming  of  all  when  sunken  and  shel- 
tered by  high  banks,  where  deep  cutting  was 
necessary  to  keep  a  level  for  the  water. 
Here  summer  lingers  into  autumn,  and  au- 
tumn keeps  winter  out  long  after  the  high- 
ways are  surrendered.  Violets  and  low  wild 
roses  blossom  along  the  slender  trail;  the 
gently  sloping  sides  are  clothed  with  gracious 
grass  and  fern;  goldenrod,  asters,  sumac, 
and  scrub-oak  bring  autumn  glory  there. 

For  country  near  a  large  city,  there  is 
an  amazing  amount  of  woodland  hereabout. 
Though  much  of  it  is  second  growth,  and 
it  lacks  the  deep  solemnity  of  the  ancient 
wood,  it  has  the  immemorial  appeal  of  the 
forest,  which  is  different  from  the  appeal  of 
anything  else  earth  has  to  offer,  more  inti- 
mate, more  subtle,  perhaps  going  farther 
back.    There  are  wood-roads  here  and  there, 


deep  ruts  with  grassy  strips  between;  you 
can  walk  for  miles  under  delicate,  translu- 
cent young  leaves  in  spring,  and  see  every- 
where about  the  flame  of  green  sunlight  in 
ferns  that  light  the  shadowy  corners.  In 
autumn,  the  brown  and  red  and  gold,  inter- 
lacing overhead,  the  slim  tree-trunks,  the 
tracery  of  branch  and  twig,  recall,  but  with 
far  greater  beauty,  the  glory  of  living  color 
of  the  Sainte  Chapelle.  Here  one  is  aware, 
more  deeply  than  anywhere  else,  of  eternal 
process,  stir,  and  change,  at  nature's  very 
heart.  Some  rustle  across  the  stillness  brings 
constantly  a  sense  of  encompassing  life. 

"Enter  these  enchanted  woods, 
You  who  dare. 

Here  the  snake  across  your  path 
Stretches  in  his  golden  bath; 
Mossy-footed  scjuirrels  leap, 
Soft  as  winnowing  plumes  of  sleep. 

Change,  the  strongest  son  of  Life, 
Has  the  Spirit  here  to  wife." 

If  you  wish  a  companion  for  your  way- 
faring, perhaps  you  seek  the  little  river  that 
goes  gently,  with  innumerable  twists  and 
windings,  toward  the  sea.  From  the  high- 
way you  pass  through  an  opening,  once 
guarded  by  a  pair  of  bars;  you  follow, 
through  a  low  bit  of  meadowland,  a  road 
deep  grown  with  grass,  daisies  and  butter- 
cups blossoming  at  the  side  and  between. 
Under  the  aqueduct,  beyond  the  tall  grasses 
of  the  marsh,  where  wild  blue  iris  grows, 
beyond  the  reeds  and  rushes,  you  find  the 
river,  the  slow  little  river,  the  laziest  stream 
in  all  the  world,  outside  of  England.  It  is, 
of  all  the  rivers  in  existence,  the  one  for 
those  divided  in  their  minds,  not  knowing 
whether  to  go  or  to  stay  at  home.  It  flows 
gently  past  its  mossy,  wooded  banks,  so  full 
of  reflections  of  birch  and  maple,  pine  and 
dogwood,  that  it  must  almost  think  itself  a 
forest,  with  so  untroubled,  so  clear  a  surface 
that  you  cannot  tell,  by  looking,  which  way 
the  current  goes,  and  the  floating  leaves  are  of 
no  help.  This  is  because  of  the  many  curves 
and  turnings;  it  goes  back  on  its  course  again 
and  again.  Opposite  lies  a  great  estate, 
once  open  to  the  wayfarer,  now,  alas!  closed, 
with  miles  oi  magic,  tree-bordered  driveway. 

"Five  miles,  meandering  with  a  mazy  motion, 
Through  wood  and  dale  the  sacreil  river  ran," 

and  still  does,  I  fancy.     Sacred?     Of  coursci 

Is  it  not  the  river  Charles? 


792 


The   Point  of  View 


It  is  an  enchanting  stream,  gracious, 
companionable.  In  spring  and  autumn, 
boats  and  canoes  with  young  men  in  white 
flannels  recall  the  Oxford  students  of  old 
days,  except  that  these  young  men  sit  up 
straighter,  as  behooves  them,  the  compan- 
ion being  not  the  undergraduate  fox-terrier 
but  a  college  girl. 

The  path  skirts  the  shore  closely,  through 
beds  of  fern,  past  wild  honeysuckle  and  tan- 
gled vines,  up  a  little  slope  fragrant  with 
pine.  You  reach  at  last  a  beautiful  pine 
wood,  with  its  fragrances,  its  brown  bed  of 
needles,  its  "sunny  spots  of  greenery,"  and 
here  you  stop,  letting  the  river  ripple  on 
through  wood  and  meadow  to  the  sea. 

So  we  keep  moving,  moving,  in  spite  of 
the' enticement  of  the  threshold,  the  imme- 
morial desire  to  wander  being  ever  with  us, 
the  need  of  being  up  and  away.  This  slow 
progression  sets  mind  and  spirit  free;  you 
walk  out  of  old  worries,  old  tangles,  into 
fine  freedom.  And  the  joy,  the  sheer  joy  of 
going  on!  Beauty  is  greater  because  you 
pass  and  go;  the  charm  of  the  wild  rose  that 
you  see  but  once  haunts  you  endlessly.  The 
sting,  the  challenge,  the  potency  of  change 
have  deeper  cause  than  we  know  for  so  com- 
manding us.  If  each  step  reaches  back 
through  eons  of  life  to  the  very  threshold 
of  being,  it  reaches  forward  still  rriore  end- 
lessly. Each  onward  footstep  brings  its 
thrill;  it  is  one  footstep  nearer  the  goal,  and 
seems  at  times  to  be  about  to  touch  the 
verj"-  outer  edge  of  mystery. 

The  most  appealing  path  is  no  path  at  all, 
but  a  bit  of  open  country,  where  high  slopes 
with  softly  swelling  hills  and  hollows  stretch 
out  like  a  bit  of  the  Wiltshire  dow^ns.    In  the 


bottomlands  below,  the  river  comes  nearest 
us,  and  here  lies  a  sunken  meadow,  safe  and 
hidden;  automobilists  cannot  see  it  as  they 
speed  along  the  highway,  for  on  one  side  it 
is  wood-sheltered,  on  the  other  guarded  by 
the  gently  rounding  hills.  It  is  beloved 
by  birds  and  butterflies,  by  fireflies,  crickets, 
and  by  us.  Most  of  all  we  love  it  at  the 
folding-time  of  the  birds,  when  we  face  the 
even  grass  and  hear  the  good-night  chirping, 
with  the  gurgle  of  the  frogs,  and  the  "noise- 
less noise"  of  slow  water.  This,  like  the 
upper  slopes,  is  covered  by  smooth  short 
grass,  with  the  gold  of  close-clinging  butter- 
cups everywhere,  tiniest  daisies,  and  redden- 
ing sorrel  tints.  Like  much  of  New  England, 
it  has  no  luxuriance  of  vegetation,  but  a 
spare  and  delicate  beauty,  wrought  by  na- 
ture in  one  of  her  fine,  ascetic  moods;  yet 
the  soft  hollows  of  the  downs  keep  all  win- 
ter, under  the  snow,  the  freshness  of  living 
grass,  and  the  first  flush  of  pale  green  in 
earliest  spring  over  hill  and  hollow  has  en- 
chantment that  I  find  nowhere  else. 

I  know  the  way  I  shall  take,  when  the  last 
moment  comes.  Not  by  the  highway  shall 
my  feet  fare  forth,  nor  any  main-travelled 
road;  not  by  aeroplane  or  motor,  but  afoot 
and  alone,  under  the  wide-branching  oak, 
over  the  brow  of  the  little  hill,  dipping  into 
the  hollow,  by  the  half-hidden  path  bordered 
by  sweet  fern  and  the  least  goldenrod,  up  the 
broader  slope  where  the  world  opens  out  to 
westward.  Bare  hill  and  hollow,  stretching 
on  and  on;  trees  beyond  trees;  a  glimpse  of 
the  lake,  and  beyond — the  red-brown  bars 
of  sunset.  It  would  seem  but  an  easy  step 
from  this  world  to  a  fairer — if  indeed  any 
could  be  more  fair,  which  I  doubt. 


SIR  JOIIX  TEXMEL—CARTOUMST 


F 


Good  Sir  John ! 

A  tril)ute  to  Sir  Johti  on  his 

retirement,  liy  I.iiiley 

Sanibotirne. 

Reproduced  by  the  special 
permission  of  the  pro- 
prietors of  PiDtcli. 


'OR  about  a  doz- 
en years  before 
his  death ,  on 
Feljruary  26,  Sir 
John  Tenniel,  so  long 
chief  cartoonist  of 
Punch,  had  done  no 
work.  Yet  the  obit- 
uaries seemed  to 
indicate  that  the 
memory  of  his  ac- 
complishment was 
stillfairly  vivid,  that 
the  impression  made 
was  a  lasting  one. 
What  is  the  underlying  cause  of  this? 
Not  caricature;  Tenniel's  cartoons  were 
free  from  distortion.  Not  rampant  humor; 
Tenniel's  sense  of  humor  was  ever  restrained 
though  ever  ready.  Nor  primarily  strength 
of  drawing;  Tenniel  had,  indee'd,  a  clean- 
cut  line  which  was  generally  adequate  and 
at  times  remarkably  so.  He  used  always 
a  precision  in  linear  statement  which  im- 
parted to  his  drawings  an  effect  of  sure- 
ness  that  did  not  always  bear  analysis. 
The  salient  quality  of  Tenniel's  draughts- 
manship is  its  simple  directness,  a  very  im- 
portant, a  very  necessary,  quality  in  political 


satire.  But  the  success  of  Tenniel  in  the  field 
which  was  [)eculiarly  his  own  for  so  many 
years  was  based  initially  on  certain  inher- 


it was  the  rabbit  returning  splendidly  dressed. 

From  "Alice  in  Wonderland." 
Reproduced  l>y  permission  uf  Macmillan  &  Co.,  Ltd. 


ent  qualities  which,  to  some  extent,  at  least, 
may  not  strike  the  beholder,  at  first  sight, 
as  potent  factors  in  political  caricature. 


"  I  weep  for  yon,"  the  Walrus  said. 
"  I  deeply  syntpathi/e." 

ironi  "  Ihrou^'h  the  Looking  Cila.ss.'     Kcproilu.cd  l)y  pcrmlision  ol  Mai  niilian  iV  C«i.,  I.t>t 


Vol.  LV.— 87 


793 


794 


The   Field  of  Art 


First  of  all,  seriousness.     Cartooning  of  notes.     His  conception  of  Lincoln   as   the 

the  best  kind  is  a  serious  business.     It  is  not  coon  ready  to  come  down  from  the  tree  on 

the  agile  wieldcrs  of  the  slap-stick  whose  being  assured  that  Crockett  (John  Bull)  is 

names  appear  most  prominently  in  the  an-  in  earnest  has  an  American  tang  that  ap- 

nals  of  political  pictorial  satire,  but  men  of  peals  to  us.     And  there  is  grim  humor  in  his 

the  weight,  the  force,  the  energy  of  Gillray,  summing  up  of  the  situation  in  his  picture 

Daumier,  Tenniel,Nast,Keppler.    And  seri-  of   Lincoln   stirring   the   hearth  fire,   from 

ousness  finds  its  highest  expression  in  hones-  which  pours  forth  a  thick  volume  of  sooty 


ty  of  purpose  such  as 
wasTenniel's.  "The 
secret  of  the  power 
of  his  cartoons,"  said 
an  American  writer, 
"has  always  lain  in 
their  inherent  truth- 
fulness." 

Next,  dignity;  a 
dignity  racial  as  well 
as  individual.  That 
is,  an  element  which 
emphasizes  the  high 
standard  set  by  his 
serious  intent.  An 
element  which  places 
us,  indeed,  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  reticence 
and  good  breeding. 
It  has  been  said  some- 
where that  this  ret- 
icence, this  restraint, 
was  in  accordance 
with  the  policy  of  the 
publication  on  the 
pages  of  which  it  was 
displayed.  If  this  is 
so,  if  such  restrictions 
were  imposed,  the  re- 
markably large  num- 
ber of  indubitable 
"hits"  scored  by  the 

artist  in  his  two  thousand  cartoons  becomes 
all  the  more  noteworthy. 

Underneath  the  dignity  of  demeanor,  the 
reserve,  there  are  felt  strength  and  variety 
both  of  invention  and  of  suggestion,  and 
often  strong  dramatic  feeling. 

Such  qualities  Tenniel  employed  with  sin- 
gular, straightforward  effectiveness.  Sharp 
he  was  often — witness  his  Civil  War  car- 
toons— but  bitter,  hardly.  Certainly  not 
bitter  with  the  ferocity  of  Gillray,  nor  with 
the  relentless  mercilessness  of  Nast's  Gree- 
ley-campaign  drawings.  And  even  if  we 
winced  under  his  attacks  on  the  North  dur- 
ing those  trying  times  of  the  sixties,  we  can 
smile  to-day  at  the  recollection  of  kindlier 


Dropping  the  pilot. 

Reproduced  by  the  special  permission  of  the  proprietors 
of  Punch. 


smoke  resolving  it- 
self into  innumerable 
minute  Africans; 
"What  a  nice  White 
House  this  would 
be,"  he  sighs,  "if  it 
were  not  for  the 
blacks!"  Tenniel's 
cartoons  against  Lin- 
coln have  been  re- 
ferred to  repeatedly, 
but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  the  good 
faith  that  animated 
them.  And  be  it  said 
now  that  for  the 
height  of  bitterness 
in  attacks  on  the  war 
President  one  must 
turn  over  the  cari- 
catures produced  at 
the  time  in  our  own 
land.  As  for  the  rest, 
the  cartoonist  is 
neither  omniscient 
nor  an  infallible 
prophet,  but  a  human 
being.  Tenniel  made 
the  amende  honorable 
on  the  death  of  the 
martyr  President  in 
his  drawing  with  the 
accompanying  verses  by  Tom  Taylor.  The 
reference  to  prophecy  recalls  the  "keen 
political  foresight"  attributed  to  Tenniel. 
Once,  however,  hopefulness  and  optimism 
inspired  a  cartoon  which  proved  fallacious. 
On  April  12,  1884,  desire  prompted  a  pic- 
ture of  General  Gordon  at  Khartoum  strain- 
ing his  eyes  to  see  needed  help  coming,  and 
rewarded  only  by  a  "Mirage."  On  Febru- 
ary 7,  1885,  came  the  scene  of  the  arrival  of 
relief,  with  the  joyful  caption  "At Last."  A 
week  later  the  news  of  the  taking  of  Khar- 
toum did  away  with  all  hope,  and  Britannia, 
"Too  Late,"  despairingly  sees  the  Mahdi's 
hordes  pouring  through  the  gate  into  the  be- 
leaguered city.     Gladstone  was  prime  min- 


"HUMBLE  PIE." 

Mr.  Bull.      "  Humble  pie  again,  William  ! — Yuu  gave 

me  that  yesterday?" 
Head    Waiter.      "Yes,    sir — no,    sir — that   were    Ge- 

NEV.\   humble  pie,  sir.     This  is   Beklin   humble 

pie,  sir !  !" 

Reproduced  by  the  special  permission  of  the  ])roprietors 
of  Punch. 


\VH.\i-  NEXr? 

Russian  Bear.  "You've  read  my  'Circular !'  You 
know  my  intentions  are  strictly  honourable !  What 
are_jw<  going  to  do?" 

British  Lion.  "  lilest  if  I  know!  Ask  the  Govern- 
ment, and  if  they  can't  tell  you,  try  the  Opposi- 
tion !  !  " 

Repro<liice<l  by  the  special  pennissioii  of  the  proprictofs 
of  f'uiuh. 


e; 


ister  at  the  time,  and  he  and  Beaconsfield  one  of  the  competitors  for  the  frescoes  of  the 
were  prominent  figures  for  years  in  Ten-  Palace  of  Westminster.  But  he  had  also  il- 
niel's  weekly  pictorial  comments.  Separate-  lustrated  i-I^sop,  and  it  was  this  work  which 
ly  or  in  juxtaposition,  he  presented  them  attracted  Mark  Lemon's  attention.  If  he 
again  and  again  with 
a  happy  seizure  of  sa- 
lient characteristics 
in  feature  and  expres- 
sion, with  a  subtle  yet 
simply  expressed  sum- 
marizing of  such  fun- 
damental traits  under 
the  changing  influ- 
ences of  mood  and  cir- 
cumstance and  vary- 
ing attitude  of  mind. 
When  in  1850  Ten- 
niel  was  called  to 
Punch  in  place  of 
Richard  Doyle,  he  was 
apparently  not  too 
enthusiastic  over  the 
prospect.  His  eyes 
had  been  turned  to 
other  spheres:  at  six- 
teen he  had  exhibited 
and  sold  his  first  oil- 
painting,  and  subse- 
quently he  had  been 


THE  AMERICAN   DIKHCl  1   IN 

President   Abe.      "What   a    nice    Wiimk    Hot  sk    this 
would  be,  if  it  were  not  for  the  Hi  ai.  Ks  !  " 

KcproduLcd  by  the  special  pcrniKMluii  of  the  pii>|>ricliii« 
of  Pumh. 


really  uttered  at  that 
time  the  statement  at- 
tributed to  him:  "Do 
they  suppose  there  is 
anything  funny  about 
me?"  he  certainly  ex- 
l)erience(l  a  change  of 
heart  subsequently. 
"Some  people,"  he 
once  said  to  Spiel- 
niann.  "believe  that  I 
am  no  humourist  .that 
1  have  no  sense  of  fun 
at  all.  .  .  .  Now /be- 
lieve that  I  ha  ve  a 
very  keen  sense  of  hu- 
niDur,  and  that  my 
drawings  are  some- 
tinies  really  funny." 

lie  was  ab.solutely 
right.  That  appears 
most  markedly  in  the 
title  |)ages  of  which 
he  drew  so  many  for 
Punch.  There  is  the 
7g5 


•OG 


The   I'icld  of  Art 


The  Roundelay  of  UoUo. 

From  an  original  drawing  \>y  Sir  John  Tenniel  in  Piatc/t's  Pocket  Book,  ex- 
tended to  thirty-eiglit  vohimes,  with  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  original 
drawings  and  twenty-five  tracings.  From  tlie  rare-book  collection  of  Charles 
Scrihner's  Sons. 


mind  a  bit  of  stage  property  whi  -h 
Tcnnicl  often  used,  and  to  the  best 
effect.  The  first  appearance,  which 
I  remember,  of  this  royal  animal  in 
his  cartoons  occurred  on  August  22, 
1857,  in  the  print  entitled  "The  Brit- 
ish Lion's  Vengeance  on  the  Bengal 
Tiger,"  revenge,  that  is,  for  the  Se- 
poy massacre  of  women  and  chil- 
dren at  Cawnpore.  Tenniel,  in  fact, 
was  happy  in  the  delineation  of  ani- 
mals; his  Russian  bear  was  an  in- 
imitable mixture  of  strength,  clum- 
siness, and  cunning.  Again  and  again 
he  appears:  paying  his  addresses  to 
Gladstone  (as  an  elderly  maiden), 
slowly  crushing  Turkey  to  death, 
clumsily  yet  stealthily  playing  his 
game  on  the  chess-board  of  Euro- 
pean politics. 

Particularly  noteworthy  in  all  this 
is  the  fact  that  the  story  is  told,  the 
point  made,  with  but  a  few  figures, 
not  infrequently  with  only  two. 
That  is  an  important  element:  con- 
ciseness, clearness.  Summing  up 
then  the  characteristics  of  Ten- 
niel's  style  and  expression,  there  are 
found  seriousness,  honesty,  direct- 
ness, force,  clearness,  the  saving  salt 
of  subtle  humor,  and  adequate  pres- 
entation. 

F.  Weitenkampf. 


inimitable  Punch  standing  beside  the  im- 
perturbable British  lion,  whom  Toby,  his 
fat  little  dog,  is  aping  in  carriage.  Or  Punch 
being  carried  off  to  the  Chicago  Fair  of 
1893  by  the  American  eagle.  Cosmo  Monk- 
house  well  characterized  these  titles  and  the 
head-and-tail-pieces  as  showing  "decorative 
ingenuity  and  sprightly  humor."  And  who 
can  fail  to  see  the  twinkling  e^e  behind 
the  scenes  he  drew  for  "Alice  in  Wonder- 
land"? He  has  fixed  for  us,  with  hearty 
sympathy,  types  of  the  hatter,  the  mad 
hare,  the  carpenter,  the  loquacious  walrus, 
and  the  rest  of  the  company.  Finally,  in 
his  cartoons,  the  humor  is  often  least  ap- 
parent, yet  often  there.  One  has  but  to 
glance  at  the  Beaconsfield  series  to  see  that. 
The  reference  to  the  British  lion  brings  to 


Ueproduced  by  the  special  permission  of  the 
proprietors  of  I'uncli. 


AP         Scribner's  magazine 

2 

S3295 

^.55 


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