Tracks of a Rolling Stone
by Henry J. Coke
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

by

Henry J. Coke

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

THE First Edition of this book was written, from beginning to
end, in the short space of five months, without the aid of
diary or notes, beyond those cited as such from a former
work.

The Author, having no expectation that his reminiscences
would be received with the kind indulgence of which this
Second Edition is the proof, with diffidence ventured to tell
so many tales connected with his own unimportant life as he
has done. Emboldened by the reception his 'Tracks' have met
with, he now adds a few stories which he trusts may further
amuse its readers.

June 1905.

CHAPTER I

WE know more of the early days of the Pyramids or of ancient
Babylon than we do of our own. The Stone age, the dragons of
the prime, are not more remote from us than is our earliest
childhood. It is not so long ago for any of us; and yet, our
memories of it are but veiled spectres wandering in the mazes
of some foregone existence.

Are we really trailing clouds of glory from afar? Or are our
'forgettings' of the outer Eden only? Or, setting poetry
aside, are they perhaps the quickening germs of all past
heredity - an epitome of our race and its descent? At any
rate THEN, if ever, our lives are such stuff as dreams are
made of. There is no connected story of events, thoughts,
acts, or feelings. We try in vain to re-collect; but the
secrets of the grave are not more inviolable, - for the
beginnings, like the endings, of life are lost in darkness.

It is very difficult to affix a date to any relic of that dim
past. We may have a distinct remembrance of some pleasure,
some pain, some fright, some accident, but the vivid does not
help us to chronicle with accuracy. A year or two makes a
vast difference in our ability. We can remember well enough
when we donned the 'CAUDA VIRILIS,' but not when we left off
petticoats.

The first remembrance to which I can correctly tack a date is
the death of George IV. I was between three and four years
old. My recollection of the fact is perfectly distinct -
distinct by its association with other facts, then far more
weighty to me than the death of a king.

I was watching with rapture, for the first time, the spinning
of a peg-top by one of the grooms in the stable yard, when
the coachman, who had just driven my mother home, announced
the historic news. In a few minutes four or five servants -
maids and men - came running to the stables to learn
particulars, and the peg-top, to my sorrow, had to be
abandoned for gossip and flirtation. We were a long way from
street criers - indeed, quite out of town. My father's house
was in Kensington, a little further west than the present
museum. It was completely surrounded by fields and hedges.
I mention the fact merely to show to what age definite memory
can be authentically assigned. Doubtless we have much
earlier remembrances, though we must reckon these by days, or
by months at the outside. The relativity of the reckoning
would seem to make Time indeed a 'Form of Thought.'

Two or three reminiscences of my childhood have stuck to me;
some of them on account of their comicality. I was taken to
a children's ball at St. James's Palace. In my mind's eye I
have but one distinct vision of it. I cannot see the crowd -
there was nothing to distinguish that from what I have so
often seen since; nor the court dresses, nor the soldiers
even, who always attract a child's attention in the streets;
but I see a raised dais on which were two thrones. William
IV. sat on one, Queen Adelaide on the other. I cannot say
whether we were marched past in turn, or how I came there.
But I remember the look of the king in his naval uniform. I
remember his white kerseymere breeches, and pink silk
stockings, and buckled shoes. He took me between his knees,
and asked, 'Well, what are you going to be, my little man?'

'A sailor,' said I, with brazen simplicity.

'Going to avenge the death of Nelson - eh? Fond o' sugar-
plums?'

'Ye-es,' said I, taking a mental inventory of stars and
anchor buttons.

Upon this, he fetched from the depths of his waistcoat pocket
a capacious gold box, and opened it with a tap, as though he
were about to offer me a pinch of snuff. 'There's for you,'
said he.

I helped myself, unawed by the situation, and with my small
fist clutching the bonbons, was passed on to Queen Adelaide.
She gave me a kiss, for form's sake, I thought; and I
scuttled back to my mother.

But here followed the shocking part of the ENFANT TERRIBLE'S
adventure. Not quite sure of Her Majesty's identity - I had
never heard there was a Queen - I naively asked my mother, in
a very audible stage-whisper, 'Who is the old lady with - ?'  
My mother dragged me off the instant she had made her
curtsey. She had a quick sense of humour; and, judging from
her laughter, when she told her story to another lady in the
supper room, I fancied I had said or done something very
funny. I was rather disconcerted at being seriously
admonished, and told I must never again comment upon the
breath of ladies who condescended to kiss, or to speak to,
me.

While we lived at Kensington, Lord Anglesey used often to pay
my mother a visit. She had told me the story of the battle
of Waterloo, in which my Uncle George - 6th Lord Albemarle -
had taken part; and related how Lord Anglesey had lost a leg
there, and how one of his legs was made of cork. Lord
Anglesey was a great dandy. The cut of the Paget hat was an
heirloom for the next generation or two, and the gallant
Marquis' boots and tightly-strapped trousers were patterns of
polish and precision. The limp was perceptible; but of which
leg, was, in spite of careful investigation, beyond my
diagnosis. His presence provoked my curiosity, till one fine
day it became too strong for resistance. While he was busily
engaged in conversation with my mother, I, watching for the
chance, sidled up to his chair, and as soon as he looked
away, rammed my heel on to his toes. They were his toes.
And considering the jump and the oath which instantly
responded to my test, I am persuaded they were abnormally
tender ones. They might have been made of corns, certainly
not of cork.

Another discovery I made about this period was, for me at
least, a 'record': it happened at Quidenham - my grandfather
the 4th Lord Albemarle's place.

Some excursion was afoot, which needed an early breakfast.
When this was half over, one married couple were missing. My
grandfather called me to him (I was playing with another
small boy in one of the window bays). 'Go and tell Lady
Maria, with my love,' said he, 'that we shall start in half
an hour. Stop, stop a minute. Be sure you knock at the
door.'  I obeyed orders - I knocked at the door, but failed
to wait for an answer. I entered without it. And what did I
behold? Lady Maria was still in bed; and by the side of Lady
M. was, very naturally, Lady M.'s husband, also in bed and
fast asleep. At first I could hardly believe my senses. It
was within the range of my experience that boys of my age
occasionally slept in the same bed. But that a grown up man
should sleep in the same bed with his wife was quite beyond
my notion of the fitness of things. I was so staggered, so
long in taking in this astounding novelty, that I could not
at first deliver my grandfathers message. The moment I had
done so, I rushed back to the breakfast room, and in a loud
voice proclaimed to the company what I had seen. My tale
produced all the effect I had anticipated, but mainly in the
shape of amusement. One wag - my uncle Henry Keppel - asked
for details, gravely declaring he could hardly credit my
statement. Every one, however, seemed convinced by the
circumstantial nature of my evidence when I positively
asserted that their heads were not even at opposite ends of
the bed, but side by side upon the same pillow.

A still greater soldier than Lord Anglesey used to come to
Holkham every year, a great favourite of my father's; this
was Lord Lynedoch. My earliest recollections of him owe
their vividness to three accidents - in the logical sense of
the term: his silky milk-white locks, his Spanish servant
who wore earrings - and whom, by the way, I used to confound
with Courvoisier, often there at the same time with his
master Lord William Russell, for the murder of whom he was
hanged, as all the world knows - and his fox terrier Nettle,
which, as a special favour, I was allowed to feed with
Abernethy biscuits.

He was at Longford, my present home, on a visit to my father
in 1835, when, one evening after dinner, the two old
gentlemen - no one else being present but myself - sitting in
armchairs over the fire, finishing their bottle of port, Lord
Lynedoch told the wonderful story of his adventures during
the siege of Mantua by the French, in 1796. For brevity's
sake, it were better perhaps to give the outline in the words
of Alison. 'It was high time the Imperialists should advance
to the relief of this fortress, which was now reduced to the
last extremity from want of provisions. At a council of war
held in the end of December, it was decided that it was
indispensable that instant intelligence should be sent to
Alvinzi of their desperate situation. An English officer,
attached to the garrison, volunteered to perform the perilous
mission, which he executed with equal courage and success.
He set out, disguised as a peasant, from Mantua on December
29, at nightfall in the midst of a deep fall of snow, eluded
the vigilance of the French patrols, and, after surmounting a
thousand hardships and dangers, arrived at the headquarters
of Alvinzi, at Bassano, on January 4, the day after the
conferences at Vicenza were broken up.

'Great destinies awaited this enterprising officer. He was
Colonel Graham, afterwards victor at Barrosa, and the first
British general who planted the English standard on the soil
of France.'

This bare skeleton of the event was endued 'with sense and
soul' by the narrator. The 'hardships and dangers' thrilled
one's young nerves. Their two salient features were ice
perils, and the no less imminent one of being captured and
shot as a spy. The crossing of the rivers stands out
prominently in my recollection. All the bridges were of
course guarded, and he had two at least within the enemy's
lines to get over - those of the Mincio and of the Adige.
Probably the lagunes surrounding the invested fortress would
be his worst difficulty. The Adige he described as beset
with a two-fold risk - the avoidance of the bridges, which
courted suspicion, and the thin ice and only partially frozen
river, which had to be traversed in the dark. The vigour,
the zest with which the wiry veteran 'shoulder'd his crutch
and show'd how fields were won' was not a thing to be
forgotten.

Lord Lynedoch lived to a great age, and it was from his house
at Cardington, in Bedfordshire, that my brother Leicester
married his first wife, Miss Whitbread, in 1843. That was
the last time I saw him.

Perhaps the following is not out of place here, although it
is connected with more serious thoughts:

Though neither my father nor my mother were more pious than
their neighbours, we children were brought up religiously.
From infancy we were taught to repeat night and morning the
Lord's Prayer, and invoke blessings on our parents. It was
instilled into us by constant repetition that God did not
love naughty children - our naughtiness being for the most
part the original sin of disobedience, rooted in the love of
forbidden fruit in all its forms of allurement. Moses
himself could not have believed more faithfully in the direct
and immediate intervention of an avenging God. The pain in
one's stomach incident to unripe gooseberries, no less than
the consequent black dose, or the personal chastisement of a
responsible and apprehensive nurse, were but the just
visitations of an offended Deity.

Whether my religious proclivities were more pronounced than
those of other children I cannot say, but certainly, as a
child, I was in the habit of appealing to Omnipotence to
gratify every ardent desire.

There were peacocks in the pleasure grounds at Holkham, and I
had an aesthetic love for their gorgeous plumes. As I hunted
under and amongst the shrubs, I secretly prayed that my
search might be rewarded. Nor had I a doubt, when
successful, that my prayer had been granted by a beneficent
Providence.

Let no one smile at this infantine credulity, for is it not
the basis of that religious trust which helps so many of us
to support the sorrows to which our stoicism is unequal? Who
that might be tempted thoughtlessly to laugh at the child
does not sometimes sustain the hope of finding his 'plumes'
by appeals akin to those of his childhood? Which of us could
not quote a hundred instances of such a soothing delusion -
if delusion it be? I speak not of saints, but of sinners:
of the countless hosts who aspire to this world's happiness;
of the dying who would live, of the suffering who would die,
of the poor who would be rich, of the aggrieved who seek
vengeance, of the ugly who would be beautiful, of the old who
would appear young, of the guilty who would not be found out,
and of the lover who would possess. Ah! the lover. Here
possibility is a negligible element. Consequences are of no
consequence. Passion must be served. When could a miracle
be more pertinent?

It is just fifty years ago now; it was during the Indian
Mutiny. A lady friend of mine did me the honour to make me
her confidant. She paid the same compliment to many - most
of her friends; and the friends (as is their wont) confided
in one another. Poor thing! her case was a sad one. Whose
case is not? She was, by her own account, in the forty-
second year of her virginity; and it may be added,
parenthetically, an honest fourteen stone in weight.

She was in love with a hero of Lucknow. It cannot be said
that she knew him only by his well-earned fame. She had seen
him, had even sat by him at dinner. He was young, he was
handsome. It was love at sight, accentuated by much
meditation - 'obsessions [peradventure] des images
genetiques.'  She told me (and her other confidants, of
course) that she prayed day and night that this distinguished
officer, this handsome officer, might return her passion.
And her letters to me (and to other confidants) invariably
ended with the entreaty that I (and her other, &c.) would
offer up a similar prayer on her behalf. Alas! poor soul,
poor body! I should say, the distinguished officer, together
with the invoked Providence, remained equally insensible to
her supplications. The lady rests in peace. The soldier,
though a veteran, still exults in war.

But why do I cite this single instance? Are there not
millions of such entreaties addressed to Heaven on this, and
on every day? What difference is there, in spirit, between
them and the child's prayer for his feather? Is there
anything great or small in the eye of Omniscience? Or is it
not our thinking only that makes it so?

CHAPTER II

SOON after I was seven years old, I went to what was then,
and is still, one of the most favoured of preparatory schools
- Temple Grove - at East Sheen, then kept by Dr. Pinkney. I
was taken thither from Holkham by a great friend of my
father's, General Sir Ronald Ferguson, whose statue now
adorns one of the niches in the facade of Wellington College.
The school contained about 120 boys; but I cannot name any
one of the lot who afterwards achieved distinction. There
were three Macaulays there, nephews of the historian - Aulay,
Kenneth, and Hector. But I have lost sight of all.

Temple Grove was a typical private school of that period.
The type is familiar to everyone in its photograph as
Dotheboys Hall. The progress of the last century in many
directions is great indeed; but in few is it greater than in
the comfort and the cleanliness of our modern schools. The
luxury enjoyed by the present boy is a constant source of
astonishment to us grandfathers. We were half starved, we
were exceedingly dirty, we were systematically bullied, and
we were flogged and caned as though the master's pleasure was
in inverse ratio to ours. The inscription on the threshold
should have been 'Cave canem.'

We began our day as at Dotheboys Hall with two large
spoonfuls of sulphur and treacle. After an hour's lessons we
breakfasted on one bowl of milk - 'Skyblue' we called it -
and one hunch of buttered bread, unbuttered at discretion.
Our dinner began with pudding - generally rice - to save the
butcher's bill. Then mutton - which was quite capable of
taking care of itself. Our only other meal was a basin of
'Skyblue' and bread as before.

As to cleanliness, I never had a bath, never bathed (at the
school) during the two years I was there. On Saturday
nights, before bed, our feet were washed by the housemaids,
in tubs round which half a dozen of us sat at a time. Woe to
the last comers! for the water was never changed. How we
survived the food, or rather the want of it, is a marvel.
Fortunately for me, I used to discover, when I got into bed,
a thickly buttered crust under my pillow. I believed, I
never quite made sure, (for the act was not admissible), that
my good fairy was a fiery-haired lassie (we called her
'Carrots,' though I had my doubts as to this being her
Christian name) who hailed from Norfolk. I see her now: her
jolly, round, shining face, her extensive mouth, her ample
person. I recall, with more pleasure than I then endured,
the cordial hugs she surreptitiously bestowed upon me when we
met by accident in the passages. Kind, affectionate
'Carrots'! Thy heart was as bounteous as thy bosom. May the
tenderness of both have met with their earthly deserts; and
mayest thou have shared to the full the pleasures thou wast
ever ready to impart!

There were no railways in those times. It amuses me to see
people nowadays travelling by coach, for pleasure. How many
lives must have been shortened by long winter journeys in
those horrible coaches. The inside passengers were hardly
better off than the outside. The corpulent and heavy
occupied the scanty space allotted to the weak and small -
crushed them, slept on them, snored over them, and
monopolised the straw which was supposed to keep their feet
warm.

A pachydermatous old lady would insist upon an open window.
A wheezy consumptive invalid would insist on a closed one.
Everybody's legs were in their own, and in every other
body's, way. So that when the distance was great and time
precious, people avoided coaching, and remained where they
were.

For this reason, if a short holiday was given - less than a
week say - Norfolk was too far off; and I was not permitted
to spend it at Holkham. I generally went to Charles Fox's at
Addison Road, or to Holland House. Lord Holland was a great
friend of my father's; but, if Creevey is to be trusted -
which, as a rule, my recollection of him would permit me to
doubt, though perhaps not in this instance - Lord Holland did
not go to Holkham because of my father's dislike to Lady
Holland.

I speak here of my introduction to Holland House, for
although Lady Holland was then in the zenith of her
ascendency, (it was she who was the Cabinet Minister, not her
too amiable husband,) although Holland House was then the
resort of all the potentates of Whig statecraft, and Whig
literature, and Whig wit, in the persons of Lord Grey,
Brougham, Jeffrey, Macaulay, Sydney Smith, and others, it was
not till eight or ten years later that I knew, when I met
them there, who and what her Ladyship's brilliant satellites
were. I shall not return to Lady Holland, so I will say a
parting word of her forthwith.

The woman who corresponded with Buonaparte, and consoled the
prisoner of St. Helena with black currant jam, was no
ordinary personage. Most people, I fancy, were afraid of
her. Her stature, her voice, her beard, were obtrusive marks
of her masculine attributes. It is questionable whether her
amity or her enmity was most to be dreaded. She liked those
best whom she could most easily tyrannise over. Those in the
other category might possibly keep aloof. For my part I
feared her patronage. I remember when I was about seventeen
- a self-conscious hobbledehoy - Mr. Ellice took me to one of
her large receptions. She received her guests from a sort of
elevated dais. When I came up - very shy - to make my
salute, she asked me how old I was. 'Seventeen,' was the
answer. 'That means next birthday,' she grunted. 'Come and
give me a kiss, my dear.'  I, a man! - a man whose voice was
(sometimes) as gruff as hers! - a man who was beginning to
shave for a moustache! Oh! the indignity of it!

But it was not Lady Holland, or her court, that concerned me
in my school days, it was Holland Park, or the extensive
grounds about Charles Fox's house (there were no other houses
at Addison Road then), that I loved to roam in. It was the
birds'-nesting; it was the golden carp I used to fish for on
the sly with a pin; the shying at the swans, the hunt for
cockchafers, the freedom of mischief generally, and the
excellent food - which I was so much in need of - that made
the holiday delightful.

Some years later, when dining at Holland House, I happened to
sit near the hostess. It was a large dinner party. Lord
Holland, in his bath-chair (he nearly always had the gout),
sat at the far end of the table a long way off. But my lady
kept an eye on him, for she had caught him drinking
champagne. She beckoned to the groom of the chambers, who
stood behind her; and in a gruff and angry voice shouted:
'Go to my Lord. Take away his wine, and tell him if he
drinks any more you have my orders to wheel him into the next
room.'  If this was a joke it was certainly a practical one.
And yet affection was behind it. There's a tender place in
every heart.

Like all despots, she was subject to fits of cowardice -
especially, it was said, with regard to a future state, which
she professed to disbelieve in. Mr. Ellice told me that
once, in some country house, while a fearful storm was
raging, and the claps of thunder made the windows rattle,
Lady Holland was so terrified that she changed dresses with
her maid, and hid herself in the cellar. Whether the story
be a calumny or not, it is at least characteristic.

After all, it was mainly due to her that Holland House became
the focus of all that was brilliant in Europe. In the
memoirs of her father - Sydney Smith - Mrs. Austin writes:
'The world has rarely seen, and will rarely, if ever, see
again all that was to be found within the walls of Holland
House. Genius and merit, in whatever rank of life, became a
passport there; and all that was choicest and rarest in
Europe seemed attracted to that spot as their natural soil.'

Did we learn much at Temple Grove? Let others answer for
themselves. Acquaintance with the classics was the staple of
a liberal education in those times. Temple Grove was the
ATRIUM to Eton, and gerund-grinding was its RAISON D'ETRE.
Before I was nine years old I daresay I could repeat -
parrot, that is - several hundreds of lines of the AEneid.
This, and some elementary arithmetic, geography, and drawing,
which last I took to kindly, were dearly paid for by many
tears, and by temporarily impaired health. It was due to my
pallid cheeks that I was removed. It was due to the
following six months - summer months - of a happy life that
my health was completely restored.

CHAPTER III

MR. EDWARD ELLICE, who constantly figures in the memoirs of
the last century as 'Bear Ellice' (an outrageous misnomer, by
the way), and who later on married my mother, was the chief
controller of my youthful destiny. His first wife was a
sister of the Lord Grey of Reform Bill fame, in whose
Government he filled the office of War Minister. In many
respects Mr. Ellice was a notable man. He possessed shrewd
intelligence, much force of character, and an autocratic
spirit - to which he owed his sobriquet. His kindness of
heart, his powers of conversation, with striking personality
and ample wealth, combined to make him popular. His house in
Arlington Street, and his shooting lodge at Glen Quoich, were
famous for the number of eminent men who were his frequent
guests.

Mr. Ellice's position as a minister, and his habitual
residence in Paris, had brought him in touch with the leading
statesmen of France. He was intimately acquainted with Louis
Philippe, with Talleyrand, with Guizot, with Thiers, and most
of the French men and French women whose names were bruited
in the early part of the nineteenth century.

When I was taken from Temple Grove, I was placed, by the
advice and arrangement of Mr. Ellice, under the charge of a
French family, which had fallen into decay - through the
change of dynasty. The Marquis de Coubrier had been Master
of the Horse to Charles X. His widow - an old lady between
seventy and eighty - with three maiden daughters, all
advanced in years, lived upon the remnant of their estates in
a small village called Larue, close to Bourg-la-Reine, which,
it may be remembered, was occupied by the Prussians during
the siege of Paris. There was a chateau, the former seat of
the family; and, adjoining it, in the same grounds, a pretty
and commodious cottage. The first was let as a country house
to some wealthy Parisians; the cottage was occupied by the
Marquise and her three daughters.

The personal appearances of each of these four elderly
ladies, their distinct idiosyncrasies, and their former high
position as members of a now moribund nobility, left a
lasting impression on my memory. One might expect, perhaps,
from such a prelude, to find in the old Marquise traces of
stately demeanour, or a regretted superiority. Nothing of
the kind. She herself was a short, square-built woman, with
large head and strong features, framed in a mob cap, with a
broad frill which flopped over her tortoise-shell spectacles.
She wore a black bombazine gown, and list slippers. When in
the garden, where she was always busy in the summer-time, she
put on wooden sabots over her slippers.

Despite this homely exterior, she herself was a 'lady' in
every sense of the word. Her manner was dignified and
courteous to everyone. To her daughters and to myself she
was gentle and affectionate. Her voice was sympathetic,
almost musical. I never saw her temper ruffled. I never
heard her allude to her antecedents.

The daughters were as unlike their mother as they were to one
another. Adele, the eldest, was very stout, with a profusion
of grey ringlets. She spoke English fluently. I gathered,
from her mysterious nods and tosses of the head, (to be sure,
her head wagged a little of its own accord, the ringlets too,
like lambs' tails,) that she had had an AFFAIRE DE COEUR with
an Englishman, and that the perfidious islander had removed
from the Continent with her misplaced affections. She was a
trifle bitter, I thought - for I applied her insinuations to
myself - against Englishmen generally. But, though cynical
in theory, she was perfectly amiable in practice. She
superintended the menage and spent the rest of her life in
making paper flowers. I should hardly have known they were
flowers, never having seen their prototypes in nature. She
assured me, however, that they were beautiful copies -
undoubtedly she believed them to be so.

Henriette, the youngest, had been the beauty of the family.
This I had to take her own word for, since here again there
was much room for imagination and faith. She was a confirmed
invalid, and, poor thing! showed every symptom of it. She
rarely left her room except for meals; and although it was
summer when I was there, she never moved without her
chauffrette. She seemed to live for the sake of patent
medicines and her chauffrette; she was always swallowing the
one, and feeding the other.

The middle daughter was Aglae. Mademoiselle Aglae took
charge - I may say, possession - of me. She was tall, gaunt,
and bony, with a sharp aquiline nose, pomegranate cheek-
bones, and large saffron teeth ever much in evidence. Her
speciality, as I soon discovered, was sentiment. Like her
sisters, she had had her 'affaires' in the plural. A Greek
prince, so far as I could make out, was the last of her
adorers. But I sometimes got into scrapes by mixing up the
Greek prince with a Polish count, and then confounding either
one or both with a Hungarian pianoforte player.

Without formulating my deductions, I came instinctively to
the conclusion that 'En fait d'amour,' as Figaro puts it,
'trop n'est pas meme assez.'  From Miss Aglae's point of view
a lover was a lover. As to the superiority of one over
another, this was - nay, is - purely subjective. 'We receive
but what we give.'  And, from what Mademoiselle then told me,
I cannot but infer that she had given without stint.

Be that as it may, nothing could be more kind than her care
of me. She tucked me up at night, and used to send for me in
the morning before she rose, to partake of her CAFE-AU-LAIT.
In return for her indulgences, I would 'make eyes' such as I
had seen Auguste, the young man-servant, cast at Rose the
cook. I would present her with little scraps which I copied
in roundhand from a volume of French poems. Once I drew, and
coloured with red ink, two hearts pierced with an arrow, a
copious pool of red ink beneath, emblematic of both the
quality and quantity of my passion. This work of art
produced so deep a sigh that I abstained thenceforth from
repeating such sanguinary endearments.

Not the least interesting part of the family was the
servants. I say 'family,' for a French family, unlike an
English one, includes its domestics; wherein our neighbours
have the advantage over us. In the British establishment the
household is but too often thought of and treated as
furniture. I was as fond of Rose the cook and maid-of-all-
work as I was of anyone in the house. She showed me how to
peel potatoes, break eggs, and make POT-AU-FEU. She made me
little delicacies in pastry - swans with split almonds for
wings, comic little pigs with cloves in their eyes - for all
of which my affection and my liver duly acknowledged receipt
in full. She taught me more provincial pronunciation and bad
grammar than ever I could unlearn. She was very intelligent,
and radiant with good humour. One peculiarity especially
took my fancy - the yellow bandana in which she enveloped her
head. I was always wondering whether she was born without
hair - there was none to be seen. This puzzled me so that
one day I consulted Auguste, who was my chief companion. He
was quite indignant, and declared with warmth that Mam'selle
Rose had the most beautiful hair he had ever beheld. He
flushed even with enthusiasm. If it hadn't been for his
manner, I should have asked him how he knew. But somehow I
felt the subject was a delicate one.

How incessantly they worked, Auguste and Rose, and how
cheerfully they worked! One could hear her singing, and him
whistling, at it all day. Yet they seemed to have abundant
leisure to exchange a deal of pleasantry and harmless banter.
Auguste was a Swiss, and a bigoted Protestant, and never lost
an opportunity of holding forth on the superiority of the
reformed religion. If he thought the family were out of
hearing, he would grow very animated and declamatory. But
Rose, who also had hopes, though perhaps faint, for my
salvation, would suddenly rush into the room with the carpet
broom, and drive him out, with threats of Miss Aglae, and the
broomstick.

The gardener, Monsieur Benoit, was also a great favourite of
mine, and I of his, for I was never tired of listening to his
wonderful adventures. He had, so he informed me, been a
soldier in the GRANDE ARMEE. He enthralled me with hair-
raising accounts of his exploits: how, when leading a
storming party - he was always the leader - one dark and
terrible night, the vivid and incessant lightning betrayed
them by the flashing of their bayonets; and how in a few
minutes they were mowed down by MITRAILLE. He had led
forlorn hopes, and performed deeds of astounding prowess.
How many Life-guardsmen he had annihilated: 'Ah! ben oui!'
he was afraid to say. He had been personally noticed by 'Le
p'tit caporal.'  There were many, whose deeds were not to
compare with his, who had been made princes and mareschals.
PARBLEU! but his luck was bad. 'Pas d'chance! pas d'chance!
Mo'sieu Henri.'  As Monsieur Benoit recorded his feats, and
witnessed my unbounded admiration, his voice would grow more
and more sepulchral, till it dropped to a hoarse and scarcely
audible whisper.

I was a little bewildered one day when, having breathlessly
repeated some of his heroic deeds to the Marquise, she with a
quiet smile assured me that 'ce petit bon-homme,' as she
called him, had for a short time been a drummer in the
National Guard, but had never been a soldier. This was a
blow to me; moreover, I was troubled by the composure of the
Marquise. Monsieur Benoit had actually been telling me what
was not true. Was it, then, possible that grown-up people
acquired the privilege of fibbing with impunity? I wondered
whether this right would eventually become mine!

At Bourg-la-Reine there is, or was, a large school. Three
days in the week I had to join one of the classes there; on
the other three one of the ushers came up to Larue for a
couple of hours of private tuition. At the school itself I
did not learn very much, except that boys everywhere are
pretty similar, especially in the badness of their manners.
I also learnt that shrugging the shoulders while exhibiting
the palms of the hands, and smiting oneself vehemently on the
chest, are indispensable elements of the French idiom. The
indiscriminate use of the word 'parfaitement' I also noticed
to be essential when at a loss for either language or ideas,
and have made valuable use of it ever since.

Monsieur Vincent, my tutor, was a most good-natured and
patient teacher. I incline, however, to think that I taught
him more English than he taught me French. He certainly
worked hard at his lessons. He read English aloud to me, and
made me correct his pronunciation. The mental agony this
caused me makes me hot to think of still. I had never heard
his kind of Franco-English before. To my ignorance it was
the most comic language in the world. There were some words
which, in spite of my endeavours, he persisted in pronouncing
in his own way. I have since got quite used to the most of
them, and their only effect is to remind me of my own rash
ventures in a foreign tongue. There are one or two words
which recall the pain it gave me to control my emotions. He
would produce his penknife, for instance; and, contemplating
it with a despondent air, would declare it to be the most
difficult word in the English language to pronounce. 'Ow you
say 'im?'  'Penknife,' I explained. He would bid me write it
down; then having spelt it, he would, with much effort, and a
sound like sneezing - oh! the pain I endured! - slowly repeat
'Penkneef.'  I gave it up at last; and he was gratified with
his success. As my explosion generally occurred about five
minutes afterwards, Monsieur Vincent failed to connect cause
and effect. When we parted he gave me a neatly bound copy of
La Bruyere as a prize - for his own proficiency, I presume.
Many a pleasant half-hour have I since spent with the witty
classic.

Except the controversial harangues of the zealot Auguste, my
religious teaching was neglected on week days. On Sundays,
if fine, I was taken to a Protestant church in Paris; not
infrequently to the Embassy. I did not enjoy this at all. I
could have done very well without it. I liked the drive,
which took about an hour each way. Occasionally Aglae and I
went in the Bourg-la-Reine coucou. But Mr. Ellice had
arranged that a carriage should be hired for me. Probably he
was not unmindful of the convenience of the old ladies. They
were not. The carriage was always filled. Even Mademoiselle
Henriette managed to go sometimes - aided by a little patent
medicine, and when it was too hot for the chauffrette. If
she was unable, a friend in the neighbourhood was offered a
seat; and I had to sit bodkin, or on Mademoiselle Aglae's
lap. I hated the 'friend'; for, secretly, I felt the
carriage was mine, though of course I never had the bad taste
to say so.

They went to Mass, and I was allowed to go with them, in
addition to my church, as a special favour. I liked the
music, the display of candles, the smell of the incense, and
the dresses of the priests; and wondered whether when
undressed - unrobed, that is - they were funny old gentlemen
like Monsieur le Cure at Larue, and took such a prodigious
quantity of snuff up their noses and under their finger-
nails. The ladies did a good deal of shopping, and we
finished off at the Flower Market by the Madeleine, where I,
through the agency of Mademoiselle Aglae, bought plants for
'Maman.'  This gave 'Maman' UN PLAISIR INOUI, and me too; for
the dear old lady always presented me with a stick of barley-
sugar in return. As I never possessed a sou (Miss Aglae kept
account of all my expenses and disbursements) I was strongly
in favour of buying plants for 'Maman.'

I loved the garden. It was such a beautiful garden; so
beautifully kept by Monsieur Benoit, and withered old Mere
Michele, who did the weeding and helped Rose once a week in
the laundry. There were such pretty trellises, covered with
roses and clematis; such masses of bright flowers and sweet
mignonette; such tidy gravel walks and clipped box edges;
such floods of sunshine; so many butterflies and lizards
basking in it; the birds singing with excess of joy. I used
to fancy they sang in gratitude to the dear old Marquise, who
never forgot them in the winter snows.

What a quaint but charming picture she was amidst this
quietude, - she who had lived through the Reign of Terror:
her mob cap, garden apron, and big gloves; a trowel in one
hand, a watering-pot in the other; potting and unpotting; so
busy, seemingly so happy. She loved to have me with her, and
let me do the watering. What a pleasure that was! The
scores of little jets from the perforated rose, the gushing
sound, the freshness and the sparkle, the gratitude of the
plants, to say nothing of one's own wet legs. 'Maman' did
not approve of my watering my own legs. But if the watering-
pot was too big for me how could I help it? By and by a
small one painted red within and green outside was discovered
in Bourg-la-Reine, and I was happy ever afterwards.

Much of my time was spent with the children and nurses of the
family which occupied the chateau. The costume of the head
nurse with her high Normandy cap (would that I had a female
pen for details) invariably suggested to me that she would
make any English showman's fortune, if he could only exhibit
her stuffed. At the cottage they called her 'La Grosse
Normande.'  Not knowing her by any other name, I always so
addressed her. She was not very quick-witted, but I think
she a little resented my familiarity, and retaliated by
comparisons between her compatriots and mine, always in a
tone derogatory to the latter. She informed me as a matter
of history, patent to all nurses, that the English race were
notoriously bow-legged; and that this was due to the vicious
practice of allowing children to use their legs before the
gristle had become bone. Being of an inquiring turn of mind,
I listened with awe to this physiological revelation, and
with chastened and depressed spirits made a mental note of
our national calamity. Privately I fancied that the mottled
and spasmodic legs of Achille - whom she carried in her arms
- or at least so much of the infant Pelides' legs as were not
enveloped in a napkin, gave every promise of refuting her
generalisation.

One of my amusements was to set brick traps for small birds.
At Holkham in the winter time, by baiting with a few grains
of corn, I and my brothers used, in this way, to capture
robins, hedge-sparrows, and tits. Not far from the chateau
was a large osier bed, resorted to by flocks of the common
sparrow. Here I set my traps. But it being summer time, and
(as I complained when twitted with want of success) French
birds being too stupid to know what the traps were for, I
never caught a feather. Now this osier bed was a favourite
game covert for the sportsmen of the chateau; and what was my
delight and astonishment when one morning I found a dead hare
with its head under the fallen brick of my trap. How
triumphantly I dragged it home, and showed it to Rose and
Auguste, - who more than the rest had 'mocked themselves' of
my traps, and then carried it in my arms, all bloody as it
was (I could not make out how both its hind legs were broken)
into the salon to show it to the old Marquise. Mademoiselle
Henriette, who was there, gave a little scream (for effect)
at sight of the blood. Everybody was pleased. But when I
overheard Rose's SOTTO VOCE to the Marquise: 'Comme ils sont
gentils!' I indignantly retorted that 'it wasn't kind of the
hare at all: it was entirely due to my skill in setting the
traps. They would catch anything that put its head into
them. Just you try.'

How severe are the shocks of early disillusionment! It was
not until long after the hare was skinned, roasted, served as
CIVET and as PUREE that I discovered the truth. I was not at
all grateful to the gentlemen of the chateau whose dupe I had
been; was even wrath with my dear old 'Maman' for treating
them with extra courtesy for their kindness to her PETIT
CHERI.

That was a happy summer. After it was ended, and it was time
for me to return to England and begin my education for the
Navy I never again set eyes on Larue, or that charming nest
of old ladies who had done their utmost to spoil me. Many
and many a time have I been to Paris, but nothing could tempt
me to visit Larue. So it is with me. Often have I
questioned the truth of the NESSUN MAGGIOR DOLORE than the
memory of happy times in the midst of sorry ones. The
thought of happiness, it would seem, should surely make us
happier, and yet - not of happiness for ever lost. And are
not the deepening shades of our declining sun deepened by
youth's contrast? Whatever our sweetest songs may tell us
of, we are the sadder for our sweetest memories. The grass
can never be as green again to eyes grown watery. The lambs
that skipped when we did were long since served as mutton.
And if

Die Fusse tragen mich so muthig nicht empor
Die hohen Stufen die ich kindisch ubersprang,

why, I will take the fact for granted. My youth is fled, my
friends are dead. The daisies and the snows whiten by turns
the grave of him or her - the dearest I have loved. Shall I
make a pilgrimage to that sepulchre? Drop futile tears upon
it? Will they warm what is no more? I for one have not the
heart for that. Happily life has something else for us to
do. Happily 'tis best to do it.

CHAPTER IV

THE passage from the romantic to the realistic, from the
chimerical to the actual, from the child's poetic
interpretation of life to life's practical version of itself,
is too gradual to be noticed while the process is going on.
It is only in the retrospect we see the change. There is
still, for yet another stage, the same and even greater
receptivity, - delight in new experiences, in gratified
curiosity, in sensuous enjoyment, in the exercise of growing
faculties. But the belief in the impossible and the bliss of
ignorance are seen, when looking back, to have assumed almost
abruptly a cruder state of maturer dulness. Between the
public schoolboy and the child there is an essential
difference; and this in a boy's case is largely due, I fancy,
to the diminished influence of woman, and the increased
influence of men.

With me, certainly, the rough usage I was ere long to undergo
materially modified my view of things in general. In 1838,
when I was eleven years old, my uncle, Henry Keppel, the
future Admiral of the Fleet, but then a dashing young
commander, took me (as he mentions in his Autobiography) to
the Naval Academy at Gosport. The very afternoon of my
admittance - as an illustration of the above remarks - I had
three fights with three different boys. After that the 'new
boy' was left to his own devices, - QUA 'new boy,' that is;
as an ordinary small boy, I had my share. I have spoken of
the starvation at Dr. Pinkney's; here it was the terrible
bullying that left its impress on me - literally its mark,
for I still bear the scar upon my hand.

Most boys, I presume, know the toy called a whirligig, made
by stringing a button on a loop of thread, the twisting and
untwisting of which by approaching and separating the hands
causes the button to revolve. Upon this design, and by
substituting a jagged disk of slate for the button, the
senior 'Bull-dogs' (we were all called 'Burney's bull-dogs')
constructed a very simple instrument of torture. One big boy
spun the whirligig, while another held the small boy's palm
till the sharp slate-edge gashed it. The wound was severe.
For many years a long white cicatrice recorded the fact in my
right hand. The ordeal was, I fancy, unique - a prerogative
of the naval 'bull-dogs.'  The other torture was, in those
days, not unknown to public schools. It was to hold a boy's
back and breech as near to a hot fire as his clothes would
bear without burning. I have an indistinct recollection of a
boy at one of our largest public schools being thus exposed,
and left tied to chairs while his companions were at church.
When church was over the boy was found - roasted.

By the advice of a chum I submitted to the scorching without
a howl, and thus obtained immunity, and admission to the
roasting guild for the future. What, however, served me
best, in all matters of this kind, was that as soon as I was
twelve years old my name was entered on the books of the
'Britannia,' then flag-ship in Portsmouth Harbour, and though
I remained at the Academy, I always wore the uniform of a
volunteer of the first class, now called a naval cadet. The
uniform was respected, and the wearer shared the benefit.

During the winter of 1839-40 I joined H.M.S. 'Blonde,' a 46-
gun frigate commanded by Captain Bouchier, afterwards Sir
Thomas, whose portrait is now in the National Portrait
Gallery. He had seen much service, and had been flag-captain
to Nelson's Hardy. In the middle of that winter we sailed
for China, where troubles had arisen anent the opium trade.

What would the cadet of the present day think of the
treatment we small boys had to put up with sixty or seventy
years ago? Promotion depended almost entirely on interest.
The service was entered at twelve or thirteen. After two
years at sea, if the boy passed his examination, he mounted
the white patch, and became a midshipman. At the end of four
years more he had to pass a double examination, - one for
seamanship before a board of captains, and another for
navigation at the Naval College. He then became a master's
mate, and had to serve for three years as such before he was
eligible for promotion to a lieutenancy. Unless an officer
had family interest he often stuck there, and as often had to
serve under one more favoured, who was not born when he
himself was getting stale.

Naturally enough these old hands were jealous of the
fortunate youngsters, and, unless exceptionally amiable,
would show them little mercy.

We left Portsmouth in December 1839. It was bitter winter.
The day we sailed, such was the severity of the gale and
snowstorm, that we had to put back and anchor at St. Helens
in the Isle of Wight. The next night we were at sea. It
happened to be my middle watch. I had to turn out of my
hammock at twelve to walk the deck till four in the morning.
Walk! I could not stand. Blinded with snow, drenched by the
seas, frozen with cold, home sick and sea sick beyond
description, my opinion of the Royal Navy - as a profession -
was, in the course of these four hours, seriously subverted.
Long before the watch ended. I was reeling about more asleep
than awake; every now and then brought to my senses by
breaking my shins against the carronade slides; or, if I sat
down upon one of them to rest, by a playful whack with a
rope's end from one of the crusty old mates aforesaid, who
perhaps anticipated in my poor little personality the
arrogance of a possible commanding officer. Oh! those cruel
night watches! But the hard training must have been a useful
tonic too. One got accustomed to it by degrees; and hence,
indifferent to exposure, to bad food, to kicks and cuffs, to
calls of duty, to subordination, and to all that constitutes
discipline.

Luckily for me, the midshipman of my watch, Jack Johnson, was
a trump, and a smart officer to boot. He was six years older
than I, and, though thoroughly good-natured, was formidable
enough from his strength and determination to have his will
respected. He became my patron and protector. Rightly, or
wrongly I am afraid, he always took my part, made excuses for
me to the officer of our watch if I were caught napping under
the half-deck, or otherwise neglecting my duty. Sometimes he
would even take the blame for this upon himself, and give me
a 'wigging' in private, which was my severest punishment. He
taught me the ropes, and explained the elements of
seamanship. If it was very cold at night he would make me
wear his own comforter, and, in short, took care of me in
every possible way. Poor Jack! I never had a better friend;
and I loved him then, God knows. He was one of those whose
advancement depended on himself. I doubt whether he would
ever have been promoted but for an accident which I shall
speak of presently.

When we got into warm latitudes we were taught not only to
knot and splice, but to take in and set the mizzen royal.
There were four of us boys, and in all weathers at last we
were practised aloft until we were as active and as smart as
any of the ship's lads, even in dirty weather or in sudden
squalls.

We had a capital naval instructor for lessons in navigation,
and the quartermaster of the watch taught us how to handle
the wheel and con.

These quartermasters - there was one to each of the three
watches - were picked men who had been captains of tops or
boatswains' mates. They were much older than any of the
crew. Our three in the 'Blonde' had all seen service in the
French and Spanish wars. One, a tall, handsome old fellow,
had been a smuggler; and many a fight with, or narrow escape
from, the coast-guard he had to tell of. The other two had
been badly wounded. Old Jimmy Bartlett of my watch had a
hole in his chest half an inch deep from a boarding pike. He
had also lost a finger, and a bullet had passed through his
cheek. One of his fights was in the 'Amethyst' frigate when,
under Sir Michael Seymour, she captured the 'Niemen' in 1809.
Often in the calm tropical nights, when the helm could take
care of itself almost, he would spin me a yarn about hot
actions, cutting-outs, press-gangings, and perils which he
had gone through, or - what was all one to me - had invented.

From England to China round the Cape was a long voyage before
there was a steamer in the Navy. It is impossible to
describe the charm of one's first acquaintance with tropical
vegetation after the tedious monotony unbroken by any event
but an occasional flogging or a man overboard. The islands
seemed afloat in an atmosphere of blue; their jungles rooting
in the water's edge. The strange birds in the daytime, the
flocks of parrots, the din of every kind of life, the flying
foxes at night, the fragrant and spicy odours, captivate the
senses. How delicious, too, the fresh fruits brought off by
the Malays in their scooped-out logs, one's first taste of
bananas, juicy shaddocks, mangoes, and custard apples - after
months of salt junk, disgusting salt pork, and biscuit all
dust and weevils. The water is so crystal-clear it seems as
though one could lay one's hands on strange coloured fish and
coral beds at any depth. This, indeed, was 'kissing the lips
of unexpected change.'  It was a first kiss moreover. The
tropics now have ceased to remind me even of this spell of
novelty and wonder.

CHAPTER V

THE first time I 'smelt powder' was at Amoy. The 'Blonde'
carried out Lord Palmerston's letter to the Chinese
Government. Never was there a more iniquitous war than
England then provoked with China to force upon her the opium
trade with India in spite of the harm which the Chinese
authorities believed that opium did to their people.

Even Macaulay advocated this shameful imposition. China had
to submit, and pay into the bargain four and a half millions
sterling to prove themselves in the wrong. Part of this went
as prize money. My share of it - the DOUCEUR for a middy's
participation in the crime - was exactly 100L.

To return to Amoy. When off the mouth of the Canton river we
had taken on board an interpreter named Thom. What our
instructions were I know not; I can only tell what happened.
Our entry into Amoy harbour caused an immediate commotion on
land. As soon as we dropped anchor, about half a mile from
the shore, a number of troops, with eight or ten field-
pieces, took up their position on the beach, evidently
resolved to prevent our landing. We hoisted a flag of truce,
at the same time cleared the decks for action, and dropped a
kedge astern so as to moor the ship broadside to the forts
and invested shore. The officer of my watch, the late Sir
Frederick Nicholson, together with the interpreter, were
ordered to land and communicate with the chief mandarin. To
carry out this as inoffensively as possible, Nicholson took
the jolly-boat, manned by four lads only. As it was my
watch, I had charge of the boat. A napkin or towel served
for a flag of truce. But long before we reached the shore,
several mandarins came down to the water's edge waving their
swords and shouting angrily to warn us off. Mr. Thom, who
understood what they said, was frightened out of his wits,
assuring us we should all be sawed in half if we attempted to
land. Sir Frederick was not the man to disobey orders even
on such a penalty; he, however, took the precaution - a very
wise one as it happened - to reverse the boat, and back her
in stern foremost.

No sooner did the keel grate on the shingle than a score of
soldiers rushed down to seize us. Before they could do so we
had shoved off. The shore was very steep. In a moment we
were in deep water, and our lads pulling for dear life. Then
came a storm of bullets from matchlocks and jingals and the
bigger guns, fortunately just too high to hit us. One bullet
only struck the back-board, but did no harm. What, however,
seemed a greater danger was the fire from the ship. Ere we
were halfway back broadside after broadside was fired over
our heads into the poor devils massed along the beach. This
was kept up until not a living Chinaman was to be seen.

I may mention here a curious instance of cowardice. One of
our men, a ship's painter, soon after the firing began and
was returned by the fort's guns, which in truth were quite
harmless, jumped overboard and drowned himself. I have seen
men's courage tried under fire, and in many other ways since;
yet I have never known but one case similar to this, when a
friend of my own, a rich and prosperous man, shot himself to
avoid death! So that there are men like 'Monsieur
Grenouille, qui se cachait dans l'eau pour eviter la pluie.'  
Often have I seen timid and nervous men, who were thought to
be cowards, get so excited in action that their timidity has
turned to rashness. In truth 'on est souvent ferme par
faiblesse, et audacieux par timidite.'

Partly for this reason, and partly because I look upon it as
a remnant of our predatory antecedents and of animal
pugnacity, I have no extravagant admiration for mere
combativeness or physical courage. Honoured and rewarded as
one of the noblest of manly attributes, it is one of the
commonest of qualities, - one which there is not a mammal, a
bird, a fish, or an insect even, that does not share with us.
Such is the esteem in which it is held, such the ignominy
which punishes the want of it, that the most cautious and the
most timid by nature will rather face the uncertain risks of
a fight than the certain infamy of imputed cowardice.

Is it likely that courage should be rare under such
circumstances, especially amongst professional fighters, who
in England at least have chosen their trade? That there are
poltroons, and plenty of them, amongst our soldiers and
sailors, I do not dispute. But with the fear of shame on one
hand, the hope of reward on the other, the merest dastard
will fight like a wild beast, when his blood is up. The
extraordinary merit of his conduct is not so obvious to the
peaceful thinker. I speak not of such heroism as that of the
Japanese, - their deeds will henceforth be bracketed with
those of Leonidas and his three hundred, who died for a like
cause. With the Japanese, as it was with the Spartans, every
man is a patriot; nor is the proportionate force of their
barbaric invaders altogether dissimilar.

Is then the Victoria Cross an error? To say so would be an
outrage in this age of militarism. And what would all the
Queens of Beauty think, from Sir Wilfred Ivanhoe's days to
ours, if mighty warriors ceased to poke each other in the
ribs, and send one another's souls untimely to the 'viewless
shades,' for the sake of their 'doux yeux?'  Ah! who knows
how many a mutilation, how many a life, has been the price of
that requital? Ye gentle creatures who swoon at the sight of
blood, is it not the hero who lets most of it that finds most
favour in your eyes? Possibly it may be to the heroes of
moral courage that some distant age will award its choicest
decorations. As it is, the courage that seeks the rewards of
Fame seems to me about on a par with the virtue that invests
in Heaven.

Though an anachronism as regards this stage of my career, I
cannot resist a little episode which pleasantly illustrates
moral courage, or chivalry at least, combined with physical
bravery.

In December, 1899, I was a passenger on board a Norddeutscher
Lloyd on my way to Ceylon. The steamer was crowded with
Germans; there were comparatively few English. Things had
been going very badly with us in the Transvaal, and the
telegrams both at Port Said and at Suez supplemented the
previous ill-news. At the latter place we heard of the
catastrophe at Magersfontein, of poor Wauchope's death, and
of the disaster to the Highland Light Infantry. The moment
it became known the Germans threw their caps into the air,
and yelled as if it were they who had defeated us.

Amongst the steerage passengers was a Major - in the English
army - returning from leave to rejoin his regiment at
Colombo. If one might judge by his choice of a second-class
fare, and by his much worn apparel, he was what one would
call a professional soldier. He was a tall, powerfully-
built, handsome man, with a weather-beaten determined face,
and keen eye. I was so taken with his looks that I often
went to the fore part of the ship on the chance of getting a
word with him. But he was either shy or proud, certainly
reserved; and always addressed me as 'Sir,' which was not
encouraging.

That same evening, after dinner in the steerage cabin, a
German got up and, beginning with some offensive allusions to
the British army, proposed the health of General Cronje and
the heroic Boers. This was received with deafening 'Hochs.'  
To cap the enthusiasm up jumped another German, and proposed
'ungluck - bad luck to all Englanders and to their Queen.'  
This also was cordially toasted. When the ceremony was ended
and silence restored, my reserved friend calmly rose, tapped
the table with the handle of his knife (another steerage
passenger - an Australian - told me what happened), took his
watch from his pocket, and slowly said: 'It is just six
minutes to eight. If the person who proposed the last toast
has not made a satisfactory apology to me before the hand of
my watch points to the hour, I will thrash him till he does.
I am an officer in the English army, and always keep my
word.'  A small band of Australians was in the cabin. One
and all of them applauded this laconic speech. It was
probably due in part to these that the offender did not wait
till the six minutes had expired.

Next day I congratulated my reserved friend. He was reticent
as usual. All I could get out of him was, 'I never allow a
lady to be insulted in my presence, sir.'  It was his Queen,
not his cloth, that had roused the virility in this quiet
man.

Let us turn to another aspect of the deeds of war. About
daylight on the morning following our bombardment, it being
my morning watch, I was ordered to take the surgeon and
assistant surgeon ashore. There were many corpses, but no
living or wounded to be seen. One object only dwells
visually in my memory.

At least a quarter of a mile from the dead soldiers, a stray
shell had killed a grey-bearded old man and a young woman.
They were side by side. The woman was still in her teens and
pretty. She lay upon her back. Blood was oozing from her
side. A swarm of flies were buzzing in and out of her open
mouth. Her little deformed feet, cased in the high-heeled
and embroidered tiny shoes, extended far beyond her
petticoats. It was these feet that interested the men of
science. They are now, I believe, in a jar of spirits at
Haslar hospital. At least, my friend the assistant surgeon
told me, as we returned to the ship, that that was their
ultimate destination. The mutilated body, as I turned from
it with sickening horror, left a picture on my youthful mind
not easily to be effaced.

After this we joined the rest of the squadron: the
'Melville' (a three-decker, Sir W. Parker's flagship), the
'Blenheim,' the 'Druid,' the 'Calliope,' and several 18-gun
brigs. We took Hong Kong, Chusan, Ningpo, Canton, and
returned to take Amoy. One or two incidents only in the
several engagements seem worth recording.

We have all of us supped full with horrors this last year or
so, and I have no thought of adding to the surfeit. But
sometimes common accidents appear exceptional, if they befall
ourselves, or those with whom we are intimate. If the
sufferer has any special identity, we speculate on his
peculiar way of bearing his misfortune; and are thus led on
to place ourselves in his position, and imagine ourselves the
sufferers.

Major Daniel, the senior marine officer of the 'Blonde,' was
a reserved and taciturn man. He was quiet and gentlemanlike,
always very neat in his dress; rather severe, still kind to
his men. His aloofness was in no wise due to lack of ideas,
nor, I should say, to pride - unless, perhaps, it were the
pride which some men feel in suppressing all emotion by
habitual restraint of manner. Whether his SANGFROID was
constitutional, or that nobler kind of courage which feels
and masters timidity and the sense of danger, none could
tell. Certain it is he was as calm and self-possessed in
action as in repose. He was so courteous one fancied he
would almost have apologised to his foe before he
remorselessly ran him through.

On our second visit to Amoy, a year or more after the first,
we met with a warmer reception. The place was much more
strongly fortified, and the ship was several-times hulled.
We were at very close quarters, as it is necessary to pass
under high ground as the harbour is entered. Those who had
the option, excepting our gallant old captain, naturally kept
under shelter of the bulwarks and hammock nettings. Not so
Major Daniel. He stood in the open gangway watching the
effect of the shells, as though he were looking at a game of
billiards. While thus occupied a round shot struck him full
in the face, and simply left him headless.

Another accident, partly due to an ignorance of dynamics,
happened at the taking of Canton. The whole of the naval
brigade was commanded by Sir Thomas Bouchier. Our men were
lying under the ridge of a hill protected from the guns on
the city walls. Fully exposed to the fire, which was pretty
hot, 'old Tommy' as we called him, paced to and fro with
contemptuous indifference, stopping occasionally to spy the
enemy with his long ship's telescope. A number of
bluejackets, in reserve, were stationed about half a mile
further off at the bottom of the protecting hill. They were
completely screened from the fire by some buildings of the
suburbs abutting upon the slope. Those in front were
watching the cannon-balls which had struck the crest and were
rolling as it were by mere force of gravitation down the
hillside. Some jokes were made about football, when suddenly
a smart and popular young officer - Fox, first lieutenant of
one of the brigs - jumped out at one of these spent balls,
which looked as though it might have been picked up by the
hands, and gave it a kick. It took his foot off just above
the ankle. There was no surgeon at hand, and he was bleeding
to death before one could be found. Sir Thomas had come down
the hill, and seeing the wounded officer on the ground with a
group around him, said in passing, 'Well, Fox, this is a bad
job, but it will make up the pair of epaulets, which is
something.'

'Yes sir,' said the dying man feebly, 'but without a pair of
legs.'  Half an hour later he was dead.

I have spoken lightly of courage, as if, by implication, I
myself possessed it. Let me make a confession. From my soul
I pity the man who is or has been such a miserable coward as
I was in my infancy, and up to this youthful period of my
life. No fear of bullets or bayonets could ever equal mine.
It was the fear of ghosts. As a child, I think that at times
when shut up for punishment, in a dark cellar for instance, I
must have nearly gone out of my mind with this appalling
terror.

Once when we were lying just below Whampo, the captain took
nearly every officer and nearly the whole ship's crew on a
punitive expedition up the Canton river. They were away
about a week. I was left behind, dangerously ill with fever
and ague. In his absence, Sir Thomas had had me put into his
cabin, where I lay quite alone day and night, seeing hardly
anyone save the surgeon and the captain's steward, who was
himself a shadow, pretty nigh. Never shall I forget my
mental sufferings at night. In vain may one attempt to
describe what one then goes through; only the victims know
what that is. My ghost - the ghost of the Whampo Reach - the
ghost of those sultry and miasmal nights, had no shape, no
vaporous form; it was nothing but a presence, a vague
amorphous dread. It may have floated with the swollen and
putrid corpses which hourly came bobbing down the stream, but
it never appeared; for there was nothing to appear. Still it
might appear. I expected every instant through the night to
see it in some inconceivable form. I expected it to touch
me. It neither stalked upon the deck, nor hovered in the
dark, nor moved, nor rested anywhere. And yet it was there
about me, - where, I knew not. On every side I was
threatened. I feared it most behind the head of my cot,
because I could not see it if it were so.

This, it will be said, is the description of a nightmare.
Exactly so. My agony of fright was a nightmare; but a
nightmare when every sense was strained with wakefulness,
when all the powers of imagination were concentrated to
paralyse my shattered reason.

The experience here spoken of is so common in some form or
other that we may well pause to consider it. What is the
meaning of this fear of ghosts? - how do we come by it? It
may be thought that its cradle is our own, that we are
purposely frightened in early childhood to keep us calm and
quiet. But I do not believe that nurses' stories would
excite dread of the unknown if the unknown were not already
known. The susceptibility to this particular terror is there
before the terror is created. A little reflection will
convince us that we must look far deeper for the solution of
a mystery inseparable from another, which is of the last
importance to all of us.

CHAPTER VI

THE belief in phantoms, ghosts, or spirits, has frequently
been discussed in connection with speculations on the origin
of religion. According to Mr. Spencer ('Principles of
Sociology') 'the first traceable conception of a supernatural
being is the conception of a ghost.'  Even Fetichism is 'an
extension of the ghost theory.'  The soul of the Fetich 'in
common with supernatural agents at large, is originally the
double of a dead man.'  How do we get this notion - 'the
double of a dead man?'  Through dreams. In the Old Testament
we are told: 'God came to' Abimelech, Laban, Solomon, and
others 'in a dream'; also that 'the angel of the Lord'
appeared to Joseph 'in a dream.'  That is to say, these men
dreamed that God came to them. So the savage, who dreams of
his dead acquaintance, believes he has been visited by the
dead man's spirit. This belief in ghosts is confirmed, Mr.
Spencer argues, by other phenomena. The savage who faints
from the effect of a wound sustained in fight looks just like
the dead man beside him. The spirit of the wounded man
returns after a long or short period of absence: why should
the spirit of the other not do likewise? If reanimation
follows comatose states, why should it not follow death?
Insensibility is but an affair of time. All the modes of
preserving the dead, in the remotest ages, evince the belief
in casual separation of body and soul, and of their possible
reunion.

Take another theory. Comte tells us there is a primary
tendency in man 'to transfer the sense of his own nature, in
the radical explanation of all phenomena whatever.'  Writing
in the same key, Schopenhauer calls man 'a metaphysical
animal.'  He is speaking of the need man feels of a theory,
in regard to the riddle of existence, which forces itself
upon his notice; 'a need arising from the consciousness that
behind the physical in the world, there is a metaphysical
something permanent as the foundation of constant change.'  
Though not here alluding to the ghost theory, this bears
indirectly on the conception, as I shall proceed to show.

We need not entangle ourselves in the vexed question of
innate ideas, nor inquire whether the principle of casuality
is, as Kant supposed, like space and time, a form of
intuition given A PRIORI. That every change has a cause must
necessarily (without being thus formulated) be one of the
initial beliefs of conscious beings far lower in the scale
than man, whether derived solely from experience or
otherwise. The reed that shakes is obviously shaken by the
wind. But the riddle of the wind also forces itself into
notice; and man explains this by transferring to the wind
'the sense of his own nature.'  Thunderstorms, volcanic
disturbances, ocean waves, running streams, the motions of
the heavenly bodies, had to be accounted for as involving
change. And the natural - the primitive - explanation was by
reference to life, analogous, if not similar, to our own.
Here then, it seems to me, we have the true origin of the
belief in ghosts.

Take an illustration which supports this view. While sitting
in my garden the other day a puff of wind blew a lady's
parasol across the lawn. It rolled away close to a dog lying
quietly in the sun. The dog looked at it for a moment, but
seeing nothing to account for its movements, barked
nervously, put its tail between its legs, and ran away,
turning occasionally to watch and again bark, with every sign
of fear.

This was animism. The dog must have accounted for the
eccentric behaviour of the parasol by endowing it with an
uncanny spirit. The horse that shies at inanimate objects by
the roadside, and will sometimes dash itself against a tree
or a wall, is actuated by a similar superstition. Is there
any essential difference between this belief of the dog or
horse and the belief of primitive man? I maintain that an
intuitive animistic tendency (which Mr. Spencer repudiates),
and not dreams, lies at the root of all spiritualism. Would
Mr. Spencer have had us believe that the dog's fear of the
rolling parasol was a logical deduction from its canine
dreams? This would scarcely elucidate the problem. The dog
and the horse share apparently Schopenhauer's metaphysical
propensity with man.

The familiar aphorism of Statius: PRIMUS IN ORBE DEOS FECIT
TIMOR, points to the relation of animism first to the belief
in ghosts, thence to Polytheism, and ultimately to
Monotheism. I must apologise to those of the transcendental
school who, like Max Muller for instance (Introduction to the
'Science of Religion'), hold that we have 'a primitive
intuition of God'; which, after all, the professor derives,
like many others, from the 'yearning for something that
neither sense nor reason can supply'; and from the assumption
that 'there was in the heart of man from the very first a
feeling of incompleteness, of weakness, of dependency, &c.'  
All this, I take it, is due to the aspirations of a much
later creature than the 'Pithecanthropus erectus,' to whom we
here refer.

Probably spirits and ghosts were originally of an evil kind.
Sir John Lubbock ('The Origin of Civilisation') says: 'The
baying of the dog to the moon is as much an act of worship as
some ceremonies which have been so described by travellers.'  
I think he would admit that fear is the origin of the
worship. In his essay on 'Superstition,' Hume writes:
'Weakness, fear, melancholy, together with ignorance, are the
true sources of superstition.'  Also 'in such a state of
mind, infinite unknown evils are dreaded from unknown
agents.'

Man's impotence to resist the forces of nature, and their
terrible ability to injure him, would inspire a sense of
terror; which in turn would give rise to the twofold notion
of omnipotence and malignity. The savage of the present day
lives in perpetual fear of evil spirits; and the
superstitious dread, which I and most others have suffered,
is inherited from our savage ancestry. How much further back
we must seek it may be left to the sage philosophers of the
future.

CHAPTER VII

THE next winter we lay for a couple of months off Chinhai,
which we had stormed, blockading the mouth of the Ningpo
river. Here, I regret to think, I committed an act which has
often haunted my conscience as a crime; although I had
frequently promised the captain of a gun a glass of grog to
let me have a shot, and was mightily pleased if death and
destruction rewarded my aim.

Off Chinhai, lorchers and fast sailing junks laden with
merchandise would try to run the blockade before daylight.
And it sometimes happened that we youngsters had a long chase
in a cutter to overhaul them. This meant getting back to a
nine or ten o'clock breakfast at the end of the morning's
watch; equivalent to five or six hours' duty on an empty
stomach.

One cold morning I had a hard job to stop a small junk. The
men were sweating at their oars like galley slaves, and
muttering curses at the apparent futility of their labour. I
had fired a couple of shots from a 'brown Bess' - the musket
of the day - through the fugitive's sails; and fearing
punishment if I let her escape, I next aimed at the boat
herself. Down came the mainsail in a crack. When I boarded
our capture, I found I had put a bullet through the thigh of
the man at the tiller. Boys are not much troubled with
scruples about bloodguiltiness, and not unfrequently are very
cruel, for cruelty as a rule (with exceptions) mostly
proceeds from thoughtlessness. But when I realised what I
had done, and heard the wretched man groan, I was seized with
remorse for what, at a more hardened stage, I should have
excused on the score of duty.

It was during this blockade that the accident, which I have
already alluded to, befell my dear protector, Jack Johnson.

One night, during his and my middle watch, the forecastle
sentries hailed a large sampan, like a Thames barge, drifting
down stream and threatening to foul us. Sir Frederick
Nicholson, the officer of the watch, ordered Johnson to take
the cutter and tow her clear.

I begged leave to go with him. Sir Frederick refused, for he
at once suspected mischief. The sampan was reached and
diverted just before she swung athwart our bows. But
scarcely was this achieved, when an explosion took place. My
friend was knocked over, and one or two of the men fell back
into the cutter. This is what had happened: Johnson finding
no one in the sampan, cautiously raised one of the deck
hatches with a boat-hook before he left the cutter. The mine
(for such it proved) was so arranged that examination of this
kind drew a lighted match on to the magazine, which instantly
exploded.

Poor Jack! what was my horror when we got him on board!
Every trace of his handsome features was gone. He was alive,
and that seemed to be all. In a few minutes his head and
face swelled so that all was a round black charred ball. One
could hardly see where the eyes were, buried beneath the
powder-ingrained and incrusted flesh.

For weeks, at night, I used to sit on a chest near his
hammock, listening for his slightest movement, too happy if
he called me for something I could get him. In time he
recovered, and was invalided home, and I lost my dear
companion and protector. A couple of years afterwards I had
the happiness to dine with him on board another ship in
Portsmouth, no longer in the midshipman's berth, but in the
wardroom.

Twice during this war, the 'Blonde' was caught in a typhoon.
The first time was in waters now famous, but then unknown,
the Gulf of Liau-tung, in full sight of China's great wall.
We were twenty-four hours battened down, and under storm
staysails. The 'Blenheim,' with Captain Elliott our
plenipotentiary on board, was with us, and the one
circumstance left in my memory is the sight of a line-of-
battle ship rolling and pitching so that one caught sight of
the whole of her keel from stem to stern as if she had been a
fishing smack. We had been wintering in the Yellow Sea, and
at the time I speak of were on a foraging expedition round
the Liau-tung peninsula. Those who have followed the events
of the Japanese war will have noticed on the map, not far
north of Ta-lien-wan in the Korean Bay, three groups of
islands. So little was the geography of these parts then
known, that they had no place on our charts. On this very
occasion, one group was named after Captain Elliott, one was
called the Bouchier Islands, and the other the Blonde
Islands. The first surveying of the two latter groups, and
the placing of them upon the map, was done by our naval
instructor, and he always took me with him as his assistant.

Our second typhoon was while we were at anchor in Hong Kong
harbour. Those who have knowledge only of the gales, however
violent, of our latitudes, have no conception of what wind-
force can mount to. To be the toy of it is enough to fill
the stoutest heart with awe. The harbour was full of
transports, merchant ships, opium clippers, besides four or
five men-of-war, and a steamer belonging to the East India
Company - the first steamship I had ever seen.

The coming of a typhoon is well known to the natives at least
twenty-four hours beforehand, and every preparation is made
for it. Boats are dragged far up the beach; buildings even
are fortified for resistance. Every ship had laid out its
anchors, lowered its yards, and housed its topmasts. We had
both bowers down, with cables paid out to extreme length.
The danger was either in drifting on shore or, what was more
imminent, collision. When once the tornado struck us there
was nothing more to be done; no men could have worked on
deck. The seas broke by tons over all; boats beached as
described were lifted from the ground, and hurled, in some
instances, over the houses. The air was darkened by the
spray.

But terrible as was the raging of wind and water, far more
awful was the vain struggle for life of the human beings who
succumbed to it. In a short time almost all the ships except
the men-of-war, which were better provided with anchors,
began to drift from their moorings. Then wreck followed
wreck. I do not think the 'Blonde' moved; but from first to
last we were threatened with the additional weight and strain
of a drifting vessel. Had we been so hampered our anchorage
must have given way. As a single example of the force of a
typhoon, the 'Phlegethon' with three anchors down, and
engines working at full speed, was blown past us out of the
harbour.

One tragic incident I witnessed, which happened within a few
fathoms of the 'Blonde.'  An opium clipper had drifted
athwart the bow of a large merchantman, which in turn was
almost foul of us. In less than five minutes the clipper
sank. One man alone reappeared on the surface. He was so
close, that from where I was holding on and crouching under
the lee of the mainmast I could see the expression of his
face. He was a splendidly built man, and his strength and
activity must have been prodigious. He clung to the cable of
the merchantman, which he had managed to clasp. As the
vessel reared between the seas he gained a few feet before he
was again submerged. At last he reached the hawse-hole. Had
he hoped, in spite of his knowledge, to find it large enough
to admit his body? He must have known the truth; and yet he
struggled on. Did he hope that, when thus within arms'
length of men in safety, some pitying hand would be stretched
out to rescue him, - a rope's end perhaps flung out to haul
him inboard? Vain desperate hope! He looked upwards: an
imploring look. Would Heaven be more compassionate than man?
A mountain of sea towered above his head; and when again the
bow was visible, the man was gone for ever.

Before taking leave of my seafaring days, I must say one word
about corporal punishment. Sir Thomas Bouchier was a good
sailor, a gallant officer, and a kind-hearted man; but he was
one of the old school. Discipline was his watchword, and he
endeavoured to maintain it by severity. I dare say that, on
an average, there was a man flogged as often as once a month
during the first two years the 'Blonde' was in commission. A
flogging on board a man-of-war with a 'cat,' the nine tails
of which were knotted, and the lashes of which were slowly
delivered, up to the four dozen, at the full swing of the
arm, and at the extremity of lash and handle, was very severe
punishment. Each knot brought blood, and the shock of the
blow knocked the breath out of a man with an involuntary
'Ugh!' however stoically he bore the pain.

I have seen many a bad man flogged for unpardonable conduct,
and many a good man for a glass of grog too much. My firm
conviction is that the bad man was very little the better;
the good man very much the worse. The good man felt the
disgrace, and was branded for life. His self-esteem was
permanently maimed, and he rarely held up his head or did his
best again. Besides which, - and this is true of all
punishment - any sense of injustice destroys respect for the
punisher. Still I am no sentimentalist; I have a contempt
for, and even a dread of, sentimentalism. For boy
housebreakers, and for ruffians who commit criminal assaults,
the rod or the lash is the only treatment.

A comic piece of insubordination on my part recurs to me in
connection with flogging. About the year 1840 or 1841, a
midshipman on the Pacific station was flogged. I think the
ship was the 'Peak.'  The event created some sensation, and
was brought before Parliament. Two frigates were sent out to
furnish a quorum of post-captains to try the responsible
commander. The verdict of the court-martial was a severe
reprimand. This was, of course, nuts to every midshipman in
the service.

Shortly after it became known I got into a scrape for
laughing at, and disobeying the orders of, our first-
lieutenant, - the head of the executive on board a frigate.
As a matter of fact, the orders were ridiculous, for the said
officer was tipsy. Nevertheless, I was reported, and had up
before the captain. 'Old Tommy' was, or affected to be, very
angry. I am afraid I was very 'cheeky.'  Whereupon Sir
Thomas did lose his temper, and threatened to send for the
boatswain to tie me up and give me a dozen, - not on the
back, but where the back leaves off. Undismayed by the
threat, and mindful of the episode of the 'Peak' (?) I looked
the old gentleman in the face, and shrilly piped out, 'It's
as much as your commission is worth, sir.'  In spite of his
previous wrath, he was so taken aback by my impudence that he
burst out laughing, and, to hide it, kicked me out of the
cabin.

After another severe attack of fever, and during a long
convalescence, I was laid up at Macao, where I enjoyed the
hospitality of Messrs. Dent and of Messrs. Jardine and
Matheson. Thence I was invalided home, and took my passage
to Bombay in one of the big East India tea-ships. As I was
being carried up the side in the arms of one of the boatmen,
I overheard another exclaim: 'Poor little beggar. He'll
never see land again!'

The only other passenger was Colonel Frederick Cotton, of the
Madras Engineers, one of a distinguished family. He, too,
had been through the China campaign, and had also broken
down. We touched at Manila, Batavia, Singapore, and several
other ports in the Malay Archipelago, to take in cargo.
While that was going on, Cotton, the captain, and I made
excursions inland. Altogether I had a most pleasant time of
it till we reached Bombay.

My health was now re-established; and after a couple of weeks
at Bombay, where I lived in a merchant's house, Cotton took
me to Poonah and Ahmadnagar; in both of which places I stayed
with his friends, and messed with the regiments. Here a copy
of the 'Times' was put into my hands; and I saw a notice of
the death of my father.

After a fortnight's quarantine at La Valetta, where two young
Englishmen - one an Oxford man - shared the same rooms in the
fort with me, we three returned to England; and (I suppose
few living people can say the same) travelled from Naples to
Calais before there was a single railway on the Continent.

At the end of two months' leave in England I was appointed to
the 'Caledonia,' flagship at Plymouth. Sir Thomas Bouchier
had written to the Admiral, Sir Edward Codrington, of
Navarino fame (whose daughter Sir Thomas afterwards married),
giving me 'a character.'  Sir Edward sent for me, and was
most kind. He told me I was to go to the Pacific in the
first ship that left for South America, which would probably
be in a week or two; and he gave me a letter to his friend,
Admiral Thomas, who commanded on that station.

About this time, and for a year or two later, the relations
between England and America were severely strained by what
was called 'the Oregon question.'  The dispute was concerning
the right of ownership of the mouth of the Columbia river,
and of Vancouver's Island. The President as well as the
American people took the matter up very warmly; and much
discretion was needed to avert the outbreak of hostilities.

In Sir Edward's letter, which he read out and gave to me
open, he requested Admiral Thomas to put me into any ship
'that was likely to see service'; and quoted a word or two
from my dear old captain Sir Thomas, which would probably
have given me a lift.

The prospect before me was brilliant. What could be more
delectable than the chance of a war? My fancy pictured all
sorts of opportunities, turned to the best account, - my
seniors disposed of, and myself, with a pair of epaulets,
commanding the smartest brig in the service.

Alack-a-day! what a climb down from such high flights my life
has been. The ship in which I was to have sailed to the west
was suddenly countermanded to the east. She was to leave for
China the following week, and I was already appointed to her,
not even as a 'super.'

My courage and my ambition were wrecked at a blow. The
notion of returning for another three years to China, where
all was now peaceful and stale to me, the excitement of the
war at an end, every port reminding me of my old comrades,
visions of renewed fevers and horrible food, - were more than
I could stand.

I instantly made up my mind to leave the Navy. It was a
wilful, and perhaps a too hasty, impulse. But I am impulsive
by nature; and now that my father was dead, I fancied myself
to a certain extent my own master. I knew moreover, by my
father's will, that I should not be dependent upon a
profession. Knowledge of such a fact has been the ruin of
many a better man than I. I have no virtuous superstitions
in favour of poverty - quite the reverse - but I am convinced
that the rich man, who has never had to earn his position or
his living, is more to be pitied and less respected than the
poor man whose comforts certainly, if not his bread, have
depended on his own exertions.

My mother had a strong will of her own, and I could not guess
what line she might take. I also apprehended the opposition
of my guardians. On the whole, I opined a woman's heart
would be the most suitable for an appeal AD MISERICORDIAM.
So I pulled out the agony stop, and worked the pedals of
despair with all the anguish at my command.

'It was easy enough for her to REVEL IN LUXURY and consign me
to a life worse than a CONVICT'S. But how would SHE like to
live on SALT JUNK, to keep NIGHT WATCHES, to have to cut up
her blankets for PONCHOS (I knew she had never heard the
word, and that it would tell accordingly), to save her from
being FROZEN TO DEATH? How would SHE like to be mast-headed
when a ship was rolling gunwale under? As to the wishes of
my guardians, were THEIR FEELINGS to be considered before
mine? I should like to see Lord Rosebery or Lord Spencer in
my place! They'd very soon wish they had a mother who &c.
&c.'

When my letter was finished I got leave to go ashore to post
it. Feeling utterly miserable, I had my hair cut; and,
rendered perfectly reckless by my appearance, I consented to
have what was left of it tightly curled with a pair of tongs.
I cannot say that I shared in any sensible degree the
pleasure which this operation seemed to give to the artist.
But when I got back to the ship the sight of my adornment
kept my messmates in an uproar for the rest of the afternoon.

Whether the touching appeal to my mother produced tears, or
of what kind, matters little; it effectually determined my
career. Before my new ship sailed for China, I was home
again, and in full possession of my coveted freedom as a
civilian.

CHAPTER VIII

IT was settled that after a course of three years at a
private tutor's I was to go to Cambridge. The life I had led
for the past three years was not the best training for the
fellow-pupil of lads of fifteen or sixteen who had just left
school. They were much more ready to follow my lead than I
theirs, especially as mine was always in the pursuit of
pleasure.

I was first sent to Mr. B.'s, about a couple of miles from
Alnwick. Before my time, Alnwick itself was considered out
of bounds. But as nearly half the sin in this world consists
in being found out, my companions and I managed never to
commit any in this direction.

We generally returned from the town with a bottle of some
noxious compound called 'port' in our pockets, which was
served out in our 'study' at night, while I read aloud the
instructive adventures of Mr. Thomas Jones. We were, of
course, supposed to employ these late hours in preparing our
work for the morrow. One boy only protested that, under the
combined seductions of the port and Miss Molly Seagrim, he
could never make his verses scan.

Another of our recreations was poaching. From my earliest
days I was taught to shoot, myself and my brothers being each
provided with his little single-barrelled flint and steel
'Joe Manton.'  At - we were surrounded by grouse moors on one
side, and by well-preserved coverts on the other. The grouse
I used to shoot in the evening while they fed amongst the
corn stooks; for pheasants and hares, I used to get the other
pupils to walk through the woods, while I with a gun walked
outside. Scouts were posted to look out for keepers.

Did our tutor know? Of course he knew. But think of the
saving in the butcher's bill! Besides which, Mr. B. was
otherwise preoccupied; he was in love with Mrs. B. I say 'in
love,' for although I could not be sure of it then, (having
no direct experience of the AMANTIUM IRAE,) subsequent
observation has persuaded me that their perpetual quarrels
could mean nothing else. This was exceedingly favourable to
the independence of Mr. B.'s pupils. But when asked by Mr.
Ellice how I was getting on, I was forced in candour to admit
that I was in a fair way to forget all I ever knew.

By the advice of Lord Spencer I was next placed under the
tuition of one of the minor canons of Ely. The Bishop of Ely
- Dr. Allen - had been Lord Spencer's tutor, hence his
elevation to the see. The Dean - Dr. Peacock, of algebraic
and Trinity College fame - was good enough to promise 'to
keep an eye' on me. Lord Spencer himself took me to Ely; and
there I remained for two years. They were two very important
years of my life. Having no fellow pupil to beguile me, I
was the more industrious. But it was not from the better
acquaintance with ancient literature that I mainly benefited,
- it was from my initiation to modern thought. I was a
constant guest at the Deanery; where I frequently met such
men as Sedgwick, Airey the Astronomer-Royal, Selwyn, Phelps
the Master of Sydney, Canon Heaviside the master of
Haileybury, and many other friends of the Dean's,
distinguished in science, literature, and art. Here I heard
discussed opinions on these subjects by some of their leading
representatives. Naturally, as many of them were Churchmen,
conversation often turned on the bearing of modern science,
of geology especially if Sedgwick were of the party, upon
Mosaic cosmogony, or Biblical exegesis generally.

The knowledge of these learned men, the lucidity with which
they expressed their views, and the earnestness with which
they defended them, captivated my attention, and opened to me
a new world of surpassing interest and gravity.

What startled me most was the spirit in which a man of
Sedgwick's intellectual power protested against the possible
encroachments of his own branch of science upon the orthodox
tenets of the Church. Just about this time an anonymous book
appeared, which, though long since forgotten, caused no
slight disturbance amongst dogmatic theologians. The
tendency of this book, 'Vestiges of the Creation,' was, or
was then held to be, antagonistic to the arguments from
design. Familiar as we now are with the theory of evolution,
such a work as the 'Vestiges' would no more stir the ODIUM
THEOLOGICUM than Franklin's kite. Sedgwick, however,
attacked it with a vehemence and a rancour that would
certainly have roasted its author had the professor held the
office of Grand Inquisitor.

Though incapable of forming any opinion as to the scientific
merits of such a book, or of Hugh Miller's writings, which he
also attacked upon purely religious grounds, I was staggered
by the fact that the Bible could possibly be impeached, or
that it was not profanity to defend it even. Was it not the
'Word of God'? And if so, how could any theories of
creation, any historical, any philological researches, shake
its eternal truth?

Day and night I pondered over this new revelation. I bought
the books - the wicked books - which nobody ought to read.
The INDEX EXPURGATORIUS became my guide for books to be
digested. I laid hands on every heretical work I could hear
of. By chance I made the acquaintance of a young man who,
together with his family, were Unitarians. I got, and
devoured, Channing's works. I found a splendid copy of
Voltaire in the Holkham library, and hunted through the
endless volumes, till I came to the 'Dialogues
Philosophiques.'  The world is too busy, fortunately, to
disturb its peace with such profane satire, such withering
sarcasm as flashes through an 'entretien' like that between
'Frere Rigolet' and 'L'Empereur de la Chine.'  Every French
man of letters knows it by heart; but it would wound our
English susceptibilities were I to cite it here. Then, too,
the impious paraphrase of the Athanasian Creed, with its
terrible climax, from the converting Jesuit: 'Or vous voyez
bien . . . qu'un homme qui ne croit pas cette histoire doit
etre brule dans ce monde ci, et dans l'autre.'  To which
'L'Empereur' replies: 'Ca c'est clair comme le jour.'

Could an ignorant youth, fevered with curiosity and the first
goadings of the questioning spirit, resist such logic, such
scorn, such scathing wit, as he met with here?

Then followed Rousseau; 'Emile' became my favourite.
Froude's 'Nemesis of Faith' I read, and many other books of a
like tendency. Passive obedience, blind submission to
authority, was never one of my virtues, and once my faith was
shattered, I knew not where to stop - what to doubt, what to
believe. If the injunction to 'prove all things' was
anything more than an empty apophthegm, inquiry, in St.
Paul's eyes at any rate, could not be sacrilege.

It was not happiness I sought, - not peace of mind at least;
for assuredly my thirst for knowledge, for truth, brought me
anything but peace. I never was more restless, or, at times,
more unhappy. Shallow, indeed, must be the soul that can
lightly sever itself from beliefs which lie at the roots of
our moral, intellectual, and emotional being, sanctified too
by associations of our earliest love and reverence. I used
to wander about the fields, and sit for hours in sequestered
spots, longing for some friend, some confidant to take
counsel with. I knew no such friend. I did not dare to
speak of my misgivings to others. In spite of my earnest
desire for guidance, for more light, the strong grip of
childhood's influences was impossible to shake off. I could
not rid my conscience of the sin of doubt.

It is this difficulty, this primary dependence on others,
which develops into the child's first religion, that
perpetuates the infantile character of human creeds; and,
what is worse, generates the hideous bigotry which justifies
that sad reflection of Lucretius: 'Tantum Religio potuit
suadere malorum!'

CHAPTER IX

TO turn again to narrative, and to far less serious thoughts.
The last eighteen months before I went to Cambridge, I was
placed, or rather placed myself, under the tuition of Mr.
Robert Collyer, rector of Warham, a living close to Holkham
in the gift of my brother Leicester. Between my Ely tutor
and myself there was but little sympathy. He was a man of
much refinement, but with not much indulgence for such
aberrant proclivities as mine. Without my knowledge, he
wrote to Mr. Ellice lamenting my secret recusancy, and its
moral dangers. Mr. Ellice came expressly from London, and
stayed a night at Ely. He dined with us in the cloisters,
and had a long private conversation with my tutor, and,
before he left, with me. I indignantly resented the
clandestine representations of Mr. S., and, without a word to
Mr. Ellice or to anyone else, wrote next day to Mr. Collyer
to beg him to take me in at Warham, and make what he could of
me, before I went to Cambridge. It may here be said that Mr.
Collyer had been my father's chaplain, and had lived at
Holkham for several years as family tutor to my brothers and
myself, as we in turn left the nursery. Mr. Collyer, upon
receipt of my letter, referred the matter to Mr. Ellice; with
his approval I was duly installed at Warham. Before
describing my time there, I must tell of an incident which
came near to affecting me in a rather important way.

My mother lived at Longford in Derbyshire, an old place, now
my home, which had come into the Coke family in James I.'s
reign, through the marriage of a son of Chief Justice Coke's
with the heiress of the De Langfords, an ancient family from
that time extinct. While staying there during my summer
holidays, my mother confided to me that she had had an offer
of marriage from Mr. Motteux, the owner of considerable
estates in Norfolk, including two houses - Beachamwell and
Sandringham. Mr. Motteux - 'Johnny Motteux,' as he was
called - was, like Tristram Shandy's father, the son of a
wealthy 'Turkey merchant,' which, until better informed, I
always took to mean a dealer in poultry. 'Johnny,' like
another man of some notoriety, whom I well remember in my
younger days - Mr. Creevey - had access to many large houses
such as Holkham; not, like Creevey, for the sake of his
scandalous tongue, but for the sake of his wealth. He had no
(known) relatives; and big people, who had younger sons to
provide for, were quite willing that one of them should be
his heir. Johnny Motteux was an epicure with the best of
CHEFS. His capons came from Paris, his salmon from
Christchurch, and his Strasburg pies were made to order. One
of these he always brought with him as a present to my
mother, who used to say, 'Mr. Motteux evidently thinks the
nearest way to my heart is down my throat.'

A couple of years after my father's death, Motteux wrote to
my mother proposing marriage, and, to enhance his personal
attractions, (in figure and dress he was a duplicate of the
immortal Pickwick,) stated that he had made his will and had
bequeathed Sandringham to me, adding that, should he die
without issue, I was to inherit the remainder of his estates.

Rather to my surprise, my mother handed the letter to me with
evident signs of embarrassment and distress. My first
exclamation was: 'How jolly! The shooting's first rate, and
the old boy is over seventy, if he's a day.'

My mother apparently did not see it in this light. She
clearly, to my disappointments did not care for the shooting;
and my exultation only brought tears into her eyes.

'Why, mother,' I exclaimed, 'what's up? Don't you - don't
you care for Johnny Motteux?'

She confessed that she did not.

'Then why don't you tell him so, and not bother about his
beastly letter?'

'If I refuse him you will lose Sandringham.'

'But he says here he has already left it to me.'

'He will alter his will.'

'Let him!' cried I, flying out at such prospective meanness.
'Just you tell him you don't care a rap for him or for
Sandringham either.'

In more lady-like terms she acted in accordance with my
advice; and, it may be added, not long afterwards married Mr.
Ellice.

Mr. Motteux's first love, or one of them, had been Lady
Cowper, then Lady Palmerston. Lady Palmerston's youngest son
was Mr. Spencer Cowper. Mr. Motteux died a year or two after
the above event. He made a codicil to his will, and left
Sandringham and all his property to Mr. Spencer Cowper. Mr.
Spencer Cowper was a young gentleman of costly habits.
Indeed, he bore the slightly modified name of 'Expensive
Cowper.'  As an attache at Paris he was famous for his
patronage of dramatic art - or artistes rather; the votaries
of Terpsichore were especially indebted to his liberality.
At the time of Mr. Motteux's demise, he was attached to the
Embassy at St. Petersburg. Mr. Motteux's solicitors wrote
immediately to inform him of his accession to their late
client's wealth. It being one of Mr. Cowper's maxims never
to read lawyers' letters, (he was in daily receipt of more
than he could attend to,) he flung this one unread into the
fire; and only learnt his mistake through the congratulations
of his family.

The Prince Consort happened about this time to be in quest of
a suitable country seat for his present Majesty; and
Sandringham, through the adroit negotiations of Lord
Palmerston, became the property of the Prince of Wales. The
soul of the 'Turkey merchant,' we cannot doubt, will repose
in peace.

The worthy rector of Warham St. Mary's was an oddity
deserving of passing notice. Outwardly he was no Adonis.
His plain features and shock head of foxy hair, his
antiquated and neglected garb, his copious jabot - much
affected by the clergy of those days - were becoming
investitures of the inward man. His temper was inflammatory,
sometimes leading to excesses, which I am sure he rued in
mental sackcloth and ashes. But visitors at Holkham (unaware
of the excellent motives and moral courage which inspired his
conduct) were not a little amazed at the austerity with which
he obeyed the dictates of his conscience.

For example, one Sunday evening after dinner, when the
drawing-room was filled with guests, who more or less
preserved the decorum which etiquette demands in the presence
of royalty, (the Duke of Sussex was of the party,) Charles
Fox and Lady Anson, great-grandmother of the present Lord
Lichfield, happened to be playing at chess. When the
irascible dominie beheld them he pushed his way through the
bystanders, swept the pieces from the board, and, with
rigorous impartiality, denounced these impious desecrators of
the Sabbath eve.

As an example of his fidelity as a librarian, Mr. Panizzi
used to relate with much glee how, whenever he was at
Holkham, Mr. Collyer dogged him like a detective. One day,
not wishing to detain the reverend gentleman while he himself
spent the forenoon in the manuscript library, (where not only
the ancient manuscripts, but the most valuable of the printed
books, are kept under lock and key,) he considerately begged
Mr. Collyer to leave him to his researches. The dominie
replied 'that he knew his duty, and did not mean to neglect
it.'  He did not lose sight of Mr. Panizzi.

The notion that he - the great custodian of the nation's
literary treasures - would snip out and pocket the title-page
of the folio edition of Shakespeare, or of the Coverdale
Bible, tickled Mr. Panizzi's fancy vastly.

In spite, however, of our rector's fiery temperament, or
perhaps in consequence of it, he was remarkably susceptible
to the charms of beauty. We were constantly invited to
dinner and garden parties in the neighbourhood; nor was the
good rector slow to return the compliment. It must be
confessed that the pupil shared to the full the
impressibility of the tutor; and, as it happened, unknown to
both, the two were in one case rivals.

As the young lady afterwards occupied a very distinguished
position in Oxford society, it can only be said that she was
celebrated for her many attractions. She was then sixteen,
and the younger of her suitors but two years older. As far
as age was concerned, nothing could be more compatible. Nor
in the matter of mutual inclination was there any disparity
whatever. What, then, was the pupil's dismay when, after a
dinner party at the rectory, and the company had left, the
tutor, in a frantic state of excitement, seized the pupil by
both hands, and exclaimed: 'She has accepted me!'

'Accepted you?' I asked. 'Who has accepted you?'

'Who? Why, Miss -, of course! Who else do you suppose would
accept me?'

'No one,' said I, with doleful sincerity. 'But did you
propose to her? Did she understand what you said to her?
Did she deliberately and seriously say "Yes?"'

'Yes, yes, yes,' and his disordered jabot and touzled hair
echoed the fatal word.

'O Smintheus of the silver bow!' I groaned. 'It is the
woman's part to create delusions, and - destroy them! To
think of it! after all that has passed between us these  -
these three weeks, next Monday! "Once and for ever."  Did
ever woman use such words before? And I - believed them!'  
'Did you speak to the mother?' I asked in a fit of
desperation.

'There was no time for that. Mrs. - was in the carriage, and
I didn't pop [the odious word!] till I was helping her on
with her cloak. The cloak, you see, made it less awkward.
My offer was a sort of OBITER DICTUM - a by-the-way, as it
were.'

'To the carriage, yes. But wasn't she taken by surprise?'

'Not a bit of it. Bless you! they always know. She
pretended not to understand, but that's a way they have.'

'And when you explained?'

'There wasn't time for more. She laughed, and sprang into
the carriage.'

'And that was all?'

'All! would you have had her spring into my arms?'

'God forbid! You will have to face the mother to-morrow,'
said I, recovering rapidly from my despondency.

'Face? Well, I shall have to call upon Mrs. -, if that's
what you mean. A mere matter of form. I shall go over after
lunch. But it needn't interfere with your work. You can go
on with the "Anabasis" till I come back. And remember -
NEANISKOS is not a proper name, ha! ha! ha! The quadratics
will keep till the evening.'  He was merry over his
prospects, and I was not altogether otherwise.

But there was no Xenophon, no algebra, that day! Dire was
the distress of my poor dominie when he found the mother as
much bewildered as the daughter was frightened, by the
mistake. 'She,' the daughter, 'had never for a moment
imagined, &c., &c.'

My tutor was not long disheartened by such caprices - so he
deemed them, as Miss Jemima's (she had a prettier name, you
may be sure), and I did my best (it cost me little now) to
encourage his fondest hopes. I proposed that we should drink
the health of the future mistress of Warham in tea, which he
cheerfully acceded to, all the more readily, that it gave him
an opportunity to vent one of his old college jokes. 'Yes,
yes,' said he, with a laugh, 'there's nothing like tea. TE
VENIENTE DIE, TE DECEDENTE CANEBAM.'  Such sallies of
innocent playfulness often smoothed his path in life. He
took a genuine pleasure in his own jokes. Some men do. One
day I dropped a pot of marmalade on a new carpet, and should
certainly have been reprimanded for carelessness, had it not
occurred to him to exclaim: 'JAM SATIS TERRIS!' and then
laugh immoderately at his wit.

That there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of
it, was a maxim he acted upon, if he never heard it. Within a
month of the above incident he proposed to another lady upon
the sole grounds that, when playing a game of chess, an
exchange of pieces being contemplated, she innocently, but
incautiously, observed, 'If you take me, I will take you.'  
He referred the matter next day to my ripe judgment. As I
had no partiality for the lady in question, I strongly
advised him to accept so obvious a challenge, and go down on
his knees to her at once. I laid stress on the knees, as the
accepted form of declaration, both in novels and on the
stage.

In this case the beloved object, who was not embarrassed by
excess of amiability, promptly desired him, when he urged his
suit, 'not to make a fool of himself.'

My tutor's peculiarities, however, were not confined to his
endeavours to meet with a lady rectoress. He sometimes
surprised his hearers with the originality of his abstruse
theories. One morning he called me into the stable yard to
join in consultation with his gardener as to the advisability
of killing a pig. There were two, and it was not easy to
decide which was the fitter for the butcher. The rector
selected one, I the other, and the gardener, who had nurtured
both from their tenderest age, pleaded that they should be
allowed to 'put on another score.'  The point was warmly
argued all round.

'The black sow,' said I (they were both sows, you must know)
- 'The black sow had a litter of ten last time, and the white
one only six. Ergo, if history repeats itself, as I have
heard you say, you should keep the black, and sacrifice the
white.'

'But,' objected the rector, 'that was the white's first
litter, and the black's second. Why shouldn't the white do
as well as the black next time?'

'And better, your reverence,' chimed in the gardener. 'The
number don't allays depend on the sow, do it?'

'That is neither here nor there,' returned the rector.

'Well,' said the gardener, who stood to his guns, 'if your
reverence is right, as no doubt you will be, that'll make
just twenty little pigs for the butcher, come Michaelmas.'

'We can't kill 'em before they are born,' said the rector.

'That's true, your reverence. But it comes to the same
thing.'

'Not to the pigs,' retorted the rector.

'To your reverence, I means.'

'A pig at the butcher's,' I suggested, 'is worth a dozen
unborn.'

'No one can deny it,' said the rector, as he fingered the
small change in his breeches pocket; and pointing with the
other hand to the broad back of the black sow, exclaimed,
'This is the one, DUPLEX AGITUR PER LUMBOS SPINA! She's got
a back like an alderman's chin.'

'EPICURI DE GREGE PORCUS,' I assented, and the fate of the
black sow was sealed.

Next day an express came from Holkham, to say that Lady
Leicester had given birth to a daughter. My tutor jumped out
of his chair to hand me the note. 'Did I not anticipate the
event'? he cried. 'What a wonderful world we live in!
Unconsciously I made room for the infant by sacrificing the
life of that pig.'  As I never heard him allude to the
doctrine of Pythagoras, as he had no leaning to Buddhism,
and, as I am sure he knew nothing of the correlation of
forces, it must be admitted that the conception was an
original one.

Be this as it may, Mr. Collyer was an upright and
conscientious man. I owe him much, and respect his memory.
He died at an advanced age, an honorary canon, and - a
bachelor.

Another portrait hangs amongst the many in my memory's
picture gallery. It is that of his successor to the
vicarage, the chaplaincy, and the librarianship, at Holkham -
Mr. Alexander Napier - at this time, and until his death
fifty years later, one of my closest and most cherished
friends. Alexander Napier was the son of Macvey Napier,
first editor of the 'Edinburgh Review.'  Thus, associated
with many eminent men of letters, he also did some good
literary work of his own. He edited Isaac Barrow's works for
the University of Cambridge, also Boswell's 'Johnson,' and
gave various other proofs of his talents and his scholarship.
He was the most delightful of companions; liberal-minded in
the highest degree; full of quaint humour and quick sympathy;
an excellent parish priest, - looking upon Christianity as a
life and not a dogma; beloved by all, for he had a kind
thought and a kind word for every needy or sick being in his
parish.

With such qualities, the man always predominated over the
priest. Hence his large-hearted charity and indulgence for
the faults - nay, crimes - of others. Yet, if taken aback by
an outrage, or an act of gross stupidity, which even the
perpetrator himself had to suffer for, he would momentarily
lose his patience, and rap out an objurgation that would
stagger the straiter-laced gentlemen of his own cloth, or an
outsider who knew less of him than - the recording angel.

A fellow undergraduate of Napier's told me a characteristic
anecdote of his impetuosity. Both were Trinity men, and had
been keeping high jinks at a supper party at Caius. The
friend suddenly pointed to the clock, reminding Napier they
had but five minutes to get into college before Trinity gates
were closed. 'D-n the clock!' shouted Napier, and snatching
up the sugar basin (it was not EAU SUCREE they were
drinking), incontinently flung it at the face of the
offending timepiece.

This youthful vivacity did not desert him in later years. An
old college friend - also a Scotchman - had become Bishop of
Edinburgh. Napier paid him a visit (he described it to me
himself). They talked of books, they talked of politics,
they talked of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, of
Brougham, Horner, Wilson, Macaulay, Jeffrey, of Carlyle's
dealings with Napier's father - 'Nosey,' as Carlyle calls
him. They chatted into the small hours of the night, as boon
companions, and as what Bacon calls 'full' men, are wont.
The claret, once so famous in the 'land of cakes,' had given
place to toddy; its flow was in due measure to the flow of
soul. But all that ends is short - the old friends had spent
their last evening together. Yes, their last, perhaps. It
was bed-time, and quoth Napier to his lordship, 'I tell you
what it is, Bishop, I am na fou', but I'll be hanged if I
haven't got two left legs.'

'I see something odd about them,' says his lordship. 'We'd
better go to bed.'

Who the bishop was I do not know, but I'll answer for it he
was one of the right sort.

In 1846 I became an undergraduate of Trinity College,
Cambridge. I do not envy the man (though, of course, one
ought) whose college days are not the happiest to look back
upon. One should hope that however profitably a young man
spends his time at the University, it is but the preparation
for something better. But happiness and utility are not
necessarily concomitant; and even when an undergraduate's
course is least employed for its intended purpose (as, alas!
mine was) - for happiness, certainly not pure, but simple,
give me life at a University,

Heaven forbid that any youth should be corrupted by my
confession! But surely there are some pleasures pertaining
to this unique epoch that are harmless in themselves, and are
certainly not to be met with at any other. These are the
first years of comparative freedom, of manhood, of
responsibility. The novelty, the freshness of every
pleasure, the unsatiated appetite for enjoyment, the animal
vigour, the ignorance of care, the heedlessness of, or
rather, the implicit faith in, the morrow, the absence of
mistrust or suspicion, the frank surrender to generous
impulses, the readiness to accept appearances for realities -
to believe in every profession or exhibition of good will, to
rush into the arms of every friendship, to lay bare one's
tenderest secrets, to listen eagerly to the revelations which
make us all akin, to offer one's time, one's energies, one's
purse, one's heart, without a selfish afterthought - these, I
say, are the priceless pleasures, never to be repeated, of
healthful average youth.

What has after-success, honour, wealth, fame, or, power -
burdened, as they always are, with ambitions, blunders,
jealousies, cares, regrets, and failing health - to match
with this enjoyment of the young, the bright, the bygone,
hour? The wisdom of the worldly teacher - at least, the
CARPE DIEM - was practised here before the injunction was
ever thought of. DU BIST SO SCHON was the unuttered
invocation, while the VERWEILE DOCH was deemed unneedful.

Little, I am ashamed to own, did I add either to my small
classical or mathematical attainments. But I made
friendships - lifelong friendships, that I would not barter
for the best of academical prizes.

Amongst my associates or acquaintances, two or three of whom
have since become known - were the last Lord Derby, Sir
William Harcourt, the late Lord Stanley of Alderley, Latimer
Neville, late Master of Magdalen, Lord Calthorpe, of racing
fame, with whom I afterwards crossed the Rocky Mountains, the
last Lord Durham, my cousin, Sir Augustus Stephenson, ex-
solicitor to the Treasury, Julian Fane, whose lyrics were
edited by Lord Lytton, and my life-long friend Charles
Barrington, private secretary to Lord Palmerston and to Lord
John Russell.

But the most intimate of them was George Cayley, son of the
member for the East Riding of Yorkshire. Cayley was a young
man of much promise. In his second year he won the
University prize poem with his 'Balder,' and soon after
published some other poems, and a novel, which met with
merited oblivion. But it was as a talker that he shone. His
quick intelligence, his ready wit, his command of language,
made his conversation always lively, and sometimes brilliant.
For several years after I left Cambridge I lived with him in
his father's house in Dean's Yard, and thus made the
acquaintance of some celebrities whom his fascinating and
versatile talents attracted thither. As I shall return to
this later on, I will merely mention here the names of such
men as Thackeray, Tennyson, Frederick Locker, Stirling of
Keir, Tom Taylor the dramatist, Millais, Leighton, and others
of lesser note. Cayley was a member of, and regular
attendant at, the Cosmopolitan Club; where he met Dickens,
Foster, Shirley Brooks, John Leech, Dicky Doyle, and the wits
of the day; many of whom occasionally formed part of our
charming coterie in the house I shared with his father.

Speaking of Tom Taylor reminds me of a good turn he once did
me in my college examination at Cambridge. Whewell was then
Master of Trinity. One of the subjects I had to take up was
either the 'Amicitia' or the 'Senectute' (I forget which).
Whewell, more formidable and alarming than ever, opened the
book at hazard, and set me on to construe. I broke down. He
turned over the page; again I stuck fast. The truth is, I
had hardly looked at my lesson, - trusting to my recollection
of parts of it to carry me through, if lucky, with the whole.

'What's your name, sir?' was the Master's gruff inquiry. He
did not catch it. But Tom Taylor - also an examiner -
sitting next to him, repeated my reply, with the addition,
'Just returned from China, where he served as a midshipman in
the late war.'  He then took the book out of Whewell's hands,
and giving it to me closed, said good-naturedly: 'Let us
have another try, Mr. Coke.'  The chance was not thrown away;
I turned to a part I knew, and rattled off as if my first
examiner had been to blame, not I.

CHAPTER X

BEFORE dropping the curtain on my college days I must relate
a little adventure which is amusing as an illustration of my
reverend friend Napier's enthusiastic spontaneity. My own
share in the farce is a subordinate matter.

During the Christmas party at Holkham I had 'fallen in love,'
as the phrase goes, with a young lady whose uncle (she had
neither father nor mother) had rented a place in the
neighbourhood. At the end of his visit he invited me to
shoot there the following week. For what else had I paid him
assiduous attention, and listened like an angel to the
interminable history of his gout? I went; and before I left,
proposed to, and was accepted by, the young lady. I was
still at Cambridge, not of age, and had but moderate means.
As for the maiden, 'my face is my fortune' she might have
said. The aunt, therefore, very properly pooh-poohed the
whole affair, and declined to entertain the possibility of an
engagement; the elderly gentleman got a bad attack of gout;
and every wire of communication being cut, not an obstacle
was wanting to render persistence the sweetest of miseries.

Napier was my confessor, and became as keen to circumvent the
'old she-dragon,' so he called her, as I was. Frequent and
long were our consultations, but they generally ended in
suggestions and schemes so preposterous, that the only result
was an immoderate fit of laughter on both sides. At length
it came to this (the proposition was not mine): we were to
hire a post chaise and drive to the inn at G-. I was to
write a note to the young lady requesting her to meet me at
some trysting place. The note was to state that a clergyman
would accompany me, who was ready and willing to unite us
there and then in holy matrimony; that I would bring the
licence in my pocket; that after the marriage we could confer
as to ways and means; and that - she could leave the REST to
me.

No enterprise was ever more merrily conceived, or more
seriously undertaken. (Please to remember that my friend was
not so very much older than I; and, in other respects, was
quite as juvenile.)

Whatever was to come of it, the drive was worth the venture.
The number of possible and impossible contingencies provided
for kept us occupied by the hour. Furnished with a well-
filled luncheon basket, we regaled ourselves and fortified
our courage; while our hilarity increased as we neared, or
imagined that we neared, the climax. Unanimously we repeated
Dr. Johnson's exclamation in a post chaise: 'Life has not
many things better than this.'

But where were we? Our watches told us that we had been two
hours covering a distance of eleven miles.

'Hi! Hullo! Stop!' shouted Napier. In those days post
horses were ridden, not driven; and about all we could see of
the post boy was what Mistress Tabitha Bramble saw of
Humphrey Clinker. 'Where the dickens have we got to now?'

'Don't know, I'm sure, sir,' says the boy; 'never was in
these 'ere parts afore.'

'Why,' shouts the vicar, after a survey of the landscape, 'if
I can see a church by daylight, that's Blakeney steeple; and
we are only three miles from where we started.'

Sure enough it was so. There was nothing for it but to stop
at the nearest house, give the horses a rest and a feed, and
make a fresh start, - better informed as to our topography.

It was past four on that summer afternoon when we reached our
destination. The plan of campaign was cut and dried. I
called for writing materials, and indicted my epistle as
agreed upon.

'To whom are you telling her to address the answer?' asked my
accomplice. 'We're INCOG. you know. It won't do for either
of us to be known.'

'Certainly not,' said I. 'What shall it be? White? Black?
Brown? or Green?'

'Try Browne with an E,' said he. 'The E gives an
aristocratic flavour. We can't afford to risk our
respectability.'

The note sealed, I rang the bell for the landlord, desired
him to send it up to the hall and tell the messenger to wait
for an answer.

As our host was leaving the room he turned round, with his
hand on the door, and said:

'Beggin' your pardon, Mr. Cook, would you and Mr. Napeer
please to take dinner here? I've soom beatiful lamb chops,
and you could have a ducklin' and some nice young peas to
your second course. The post-boy says the 'osses is pretty
nigh done up; but by the time - '

'How did you know our names?' asked my companion.

'Law sir! The post-boy, he told me. But, beggin' your
pardon, Mr. Napeer, my daughter, she lives in Holkham
willage; and I've heard you preach afore now.'

'Let's have the dinner by all means,' said I.

'If the Bishop sequesters my living,' cried Napier, with
solemnity, 'I'll summon the landlord for defamation of
character. But time's up. You must make for the boat-house,
which is on the other side of the park. I'll go with you to
the head of the lake.'

We had not gone far, when we heard the sound of an
approaching vehicle. What did we see but an open carriage,
with two ladies in it, not a hundred yards behind us.

'The aunt! by all that's - !'

What -  I never heard; for, before the sentence was
completed, the speaker's long legs were scampering out of
sight in the direction of a clump of trees, I following as
hard as I could go.

As the carriage drove past, my Friar Lawrence was lying in a
ditch, while I was behind an oak. We were near enough to
discern the niece, and consequently we feared to be
recognised. The situation was neither dignified nor
romantic. My friend was sanguine, though big ardour was
slightly damped by the ditch water. I doubted the expediency
of trying the boat-house, but he urged the risk of her
disappointment, which made the attempt imperative.

The padre returned to the inn to dry himself, and, in due
course, I rejoined him. He met me with the answer to my
note. 'The boat-house,' it declared, 'was out of the
question. But so, of course, was the POSSIBILITY of CHANGE.
We must put our trust in PROVIDENCE. Time could make NO
difference in OUR case, whatever it might do with OTHERS.
SHE, at any rate, could wait for YEARS.'  Upon the whole the
result was comforting - especially as the 'years' dispensed
with the necessity of any immediate step more desperate than
dinner. This we enjoyed like men who had earned it; and long
before I deposited my dear friar in his cell both of us were
snoring in our respective corners of the chaise.

A word or two will complete this romantic episode. The next
long vacation I spent in London, bent, needless to say, on a
happy issue to my engagement. How simple, in the retrospect,
is the frustration of our hopes! I had not been a week in
town, had only danced once with my FIANCEE, when, one day,
taking a tennis lesson from the great Barre, a forced ball
grazed the frame of my racket, and broke a blood vessel in my
eye.

For five weeks I was shut up in a dark room. It was two more
before I again met my charmer. She did not tell me, but her
man did, that their wedding day was fixed for the 10th of the
following month; and he 'hoped they would have the pleasure
of seeing me at the breakfast!'  [I made the following note
of the fact: N.B. - A woman's tears may cost her nothing;
but her smiles may be expensive.]

I must, however, do the young lady the justice to state that,
though her future husband was no great things as a 'man,' as
she afterwards discovered, he was the heir to a peerage and
great wealth. Both he and she, like most of my collaborators
in this world, have long since passed into the other.

The fashions of bygone days have always an interest for the
living: the greater perhaps the less remote. We like to
think of our ancestors of two or three generations off - the
heroes and heroines of Jane Austen, in their pantaloons and
high-waisted, short-skirted frocks, their pigtails and
powdered hair, their sandalled shoes, and Hessian boots. Our
near connection with them entrances our self-esteem. Their
prim manners, their affected bows and courtesies, the 'dear
Mr. So-and-So' of the wife to her husband, the 'Sir' and
'Madam' of the children to their parents, make us wonder
whether their flesh and blood were ever as warm as ours; or
whether they were a race of prigs and puppets?

My memory carries me back to the remnants of these lost
externals - that which is lost was nothing more; the men and
women were every whit as human as ourselves. My half-sisters
wore turbans with birds-of-paradise in them. My mother wore
gigot sleeves; but objected to my father's pigtail, so cut it
off. But my father powdered his head, and kept to his knee-
breeches to the last; so did all elderly gentlemen, when I
was a boy. For the matter of that, I saw an old fellow with
a pigtail walking in the Park as late as 1845. He, no doubt,
was an ultra-conservative.

Fashions change so imperceptibly that it is difficult for the
historian to assign their initiatory date. Does the young
dandy of to-day want to know when white ties came into vogue?
- he knows that his great-grandfather wore a white neckcloth,
and takes it for granted, may be, that his grandfather did so
too. Not a bit of it. The young Englander of the Coningsby
type - the Count d'Orsays of my youth, scorned the white tie
alike of their fathers and their sons. At dinner-parties or
at balls, they adorned themselves in satin scarfs, with a
jewelled pin or chained pair of pins stuck in them. I well
remember the rebellion - the protest against effeminacy -
which the white tie called forth amongst some of us upon its
first invasion on evening dress. The women were in favour of
it, and, of course, carried the day; but not without a
struggle. One night at Holkham - we were a large party, I
daresay at least fifty at dinner - the men came down in black
scarfs, the women in white 'chokers.'  To make the contest
complete, these all sat on one side of the table, and we men
on the other. The battle was not renewed; both factions
surrendered. But the women, as usual, got their way, and -
their men.

For my part I could never endure the original white
neckcloth. It was stiffly starched, and wound twice round
the neck; so I abjured it for the rest of my days; now and
then I got the credit of being a coxcomb - not for my pains,
but for my comfort. Once, when dining at the Viceregal Lodge
at Dublin, I was 'pulled up' by an aide-de-camp for my
unbecoming attire; but I stuck to my colours, and was none
the worse. Another time my offence called forth a touch of
good nature on the part of a great man, which I hardly know
how to speak of without writing me down an ass. It was at a
crowded party at Cambridge House. (Let me plead my youth; I
was but two-and-twenty.)  Stars and garters were scarcely a
distinction. White ties were then as imperative as shoes and
stockings; I was there in a black one. My candid friends
suggested withdrawal, my relations cut me assiduously,
strangers by my side whispered at me aloud, women turned
their shoulders to me; and my only prayer was that my
accursed tie would strangle me on the spot. One pair of
sharp eyes, however, noticed my ignominy, and their owner was
moved by compassion for my sufferings. As I was slinking
away, Lord Palmerston, with a BONHOMIE peculiarly his own,
came up to me; and with a shake of the hand and hearty
manner, asked after my brother Leicester, and when he was
going to bring me into Parliament? - ending with a smile:
'Where are you off to in such a hurry?'  That is the sort of
tact that makes a party leader. I went to bed a proud,
instead of a humiliated, man; ready, if ever I had the
chance, to vote that black was white, should he but state it
was so.

Beards and moustache came into fashion after the Crimean war.
It would have been an outrage to wear them before that time.
When I came home from my travels across the Rocky Mountains
in 1851, I was still unshaven. Meeting my younger brother -
a fashionable guardsman - in St. James's Street, he
exclaimed, with horror and disgust at my barbarity, 'I
suppose you mean to cut off that thing!'

Smoking, as indulged in now, was quite out of the question
half a century ago. A man would as soon have thought of
making a call in his dressing-gown as of strolling about the
West End with a cigar in his mouth. The first whom I ever
saw smoke a cigarette at a dining-table after dinner was the
King; some forty years ago, or more perhaps. One of the many
social benefits we owe to his present Majesty.

CHAPTER XI.

DURING my blindness I was hospitably housed in Eaten Place by
Mr. Whitbread, the head of the renowned firm. After my
recovery I had the good fortune to meet there Lady Morgan,
the once famous authoress of the 'Wild Irish Girl.'  She
still bore traces of her former comeliness, and had probably
lost little of her sparkling vivacity. She was known to like
the company of young people, as she said they made her feel
young; so, being the youngest of the party, I had the honour
of sitting next her at dinner. When I recall her
conversation and her pleasing manners, I can well understand
the homage paid both abroad and at home to the bright genius
of the Irish actor's daughter.

We talked a good deal about Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb.
This arose out of my saying I had been reading 'Glenarvon,'
in which Lady Caroline gives Byron's letters to herself as
Glenarvon's letters to the heroine. Lady Morgan had been the
confidante of Lady Caroline, had seen many of Byron's
letters, and possessed many of her friend's - full of details
of the extraordinary intercourse which had existed between
the two.

Lady Morgan evidently did not believe (in spite of Lady
Caroline's mad passion for the poet) that the liaison ever
reached the ultimate stage contemplated by her lover. This
opinion was strengthened by Lady Caroline's undoubted
attachment to her husband - William Lamb, afterwards Lord
Melbourne - who seems to have submitted to his wife's
vagaries with his habitual stoicism and good humour.

Both Byron and Lady Caroline had violent tempers, and were
always quarrelling. This led to the final rupture, when,
according to my informant, the poet's conduct was outrageous.
He sent her some insulting lines, which Lady Morgan quoted.
The only one I remember is:

Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!

Among other amusing anecdotes she told was one of Disraeli.
She had met him (I forget where), soon after his first
success as the youthful author of 'Vivian Grey.'  He was
naturally made much of, but rather in the Bohemian world than
by such queens of society as Lady Holland or Lady Jersey.
'And faith!' she added, with the piquante accent which
excitement evoked, 'he took the full shine out of his janius.
And how do ye think he was dressed? In a black velvet jacket
and suit to match, with a red sash round his waist, in which
was stuck a dagger with a richly jew'lled sheath and handle.'

The only analogous instance of self-confidence that I can
call to mind was Garibaldi's costume at a huge reception at
Stafford House. The ELITE of society was there, in diamonds,
ribbons, and stars, to meet him. Garibaldi's uppermost and
outermost garment was a red flannel shirt, nothing more nor
less.

The crowd jostled and swayed around him. To get out of the
way of it, I retreated to the deserted picture gallery. The
only person there was one who interested me more than the
scarlet patriot, Bulwer-Lytton the First. He was sauntering
to and fro with his hands behind his back, looking dingy in
his black satin scarf, and dejected. Was he envying the
Italian hero the obsequious reverence paid to his miner's
shirt? (Nine tenths of the men, and still more of the women
there, knew nothing of the wearer, or his cause, beyond
that.)  Was he thinking of similar honours which had been
lavished upon himself when HIS star was in the zenith? Was
he muttering to himself the usual consolation of the 'have-
beens' - VANITAS VANITATUM? Or what new fiction, what old
love, was flitting through that versatile and fantastic
brain? Poor Bulwer! He had written the best novel, the best
play, and had made the most eloquent parliamentary oration of
any man of his day. But, like another celebrated statesman
who has lately passed away, he strutted his hour and will
soon be forgotten - 'Quand on broute sa gloire en herbe de
son vivant, on ne la recolte pas en epis apres sa mort.'  The
'Masses,' so courted by the one, however blatant, are not the
arbiters of immortal fame.

To go back a few years before I met Lady Morgan: when my
mother was living at 18 Arlington Street, Sydney Smith used
to be a constant visitor there. One day he called just as we
were going to lunch. He had been very ill, and would not eat
anything. My mother suggested the wing of a chicken.

'My dear lady,' said he, 'it was only yesterday that my
doctor positively refused my request for the wing of a
butterfly.'

Another time when he was making a call I came to the door
before it was opened. When the footman answered the bell,
'Is Lady Leicester at home?' he asked.

'No, sir,' was the answer.

'That's a good job,' he exclaimed, but with a heartiness that
fairly took Jeames' breath away.

As Sydney's face was perfectly impassive, I never felt quite
sure whether this was for the benefit of myself or of the
astounded footman; or whether it was the genuine expression
of an absent mind. He was a great friend of my mother's, and
of Mr. Ellice's, but his fits of abstraction were notorious.

He himself records the fact. 'I knocked at a door in London,
asked, "Is Mrs. B- at home?"  "Yes, sir; pray what name shall
I say?"  I looked at the man's face astonished. What name?
what name? aye, that is the question. What is my name? I
had no more idea who I was than if I had never existed. I
did not know whether I was a dissenter or a layman. I felt
as dull as Sternhold and Hopkins. At last, to my great
relief, it flashed across me that I was Sydney Smith.'

In the summer of the year 1848 Napier and I stayed a couple
of nights with Captain Marryat at Langham, near Blakeney. He
used constantly to come over to Holkham to watch our cricket
matches. His house was a glorified cottage, very comfortable
and prettily decorated. The dining and sitting-rooms were
hung with the original water-colour drawings - mostly by
Stanfield, I think - which illustrated his minor works.
Trophies from all parts of the world garnished the walls.
The only inmates beside us two were his son, a strange, but
clever young man with considerable artistic abilities, and
his talented daughter, Miss Florence, since so well known to
novel readers.

Often as I had spoken to Marryat, I never could quite make
him out. Now that I was his guest his habitual reserve
disappeared, and despite his failing health he was geniality
itself. Even this I did not fully understand at first. At
the dinner-table his amusement seemed, I won't say to make a
'butt' of me - his banter was too good-natured for that - but
he treated me as Dr. Primrose treated his son after the
bushel-of-green-spectacles bargain. He invented the most
wonderful stories, and told them with imperturbable
sedateness. Finding a credulous listener in me, he drew all
the more freely upon his invention. When, however, he
gravely asserted that Jonas was not the only man who had
spent three days and three nights in a whale's belly, but
that he himself had caught a whale with a man inside it who
had lived there for more than a year on blubber, which, he
declared, was better than turtle soup, it was impossible to
resist the fooling, and not forget that one was the Moses of
the extravaganza.

In the evening he proposed that his son and daughter and I
should act a charade. Napier was the audience, and Marryat
himself the orchestra - that is, he played on his fiddle such
tunes as a ship's fiddler or piper plays to the heaving of
the anchor, or for hoisting in cargo. Everyone was in
romping spirits, and notwithstanding the cheery Captain's
signs of fatigue and worn looks, which he evidently strove to
conceal, the evening had all the freshness and spirit of an
impromptu pleasure.

When I left, Marryat gave me his violin, with some sad words
about his not being likely to play upon it more. Perhaps he
knew better than we how prophetically he was speaking.
Barely three weeks afterwards I learnt that the humorous
creator of 'Midshipman Easy' would never make us laugh again.

In 1846 Lord John Russell succeeded Sir Robert Peel as
premier. At the General Election, a brother of mine was the
Liberal candidate for the seat in East Norfolk. He was
returned; but was threatened with defeat through an
occurrence in which I was innocently involved.

The largest landowner in this division of the county, next to
my brother Leicester, was Lord Hastings - great-grandfather
of the present lord. On the occasion I am referring to, he
was a guest at Holkham, where a large party was then
assembled. Leicester was particularly anxious to be civil to
his powerful neighbour; and desired the members of his family
to show him every attention. The little lord was an
exceedingly punctilious man: as scrupulously dapper in
manner as he was in dress. Nothing could be more courteous,
more smiling, than his habitual demeanour; but his bite was
worse than his bark, and nobody knew which candidate his
agents had instructions to support in the coming contest. It
was quite on the cards that the secret order would turn the
scales.

One evening after dinner, when the ladies had left us, the
men were drawn together and settled down to their wine. It
was before the days of cigarettes, and claret was plentifully
imbibed. I happened to be seated next to Lord Hastings on
his left; on the other side of him was Spencer Lyttelton,
uncle of our Colonial Secretary. Spencer Lyttelton was a
notable character. He had much of the talents and amiability
of his distinguished family; but he was eccentric,
exceedingly comic, and dangerously addicted to practical
jokes. One of these he now played upon the spruce and
vigilant little potentate whom it was our special aim to win.

As the decanters circulated from right to left, Spencer
filled himself a bumper, and passed the bottles on. Lord
Hastings followed suit. I, unfortunately, was speaking to
Lyttelton behind Lord Hastings's back, and as he turned and
pushed the wine to me, the incorrigible joker, catching sight
of the handkerchief sticking out of my lord's coat-tail,
quick as thought drew it open and emptied his full glass into
the gaping pocket. A few minutes later Lord Hastings, who
took snuff, discovered what had happened. He held the
dripping cloth up for inspection, and with perfect urbanity
deposited it on his dessert plate.

Leicester looked furious, but said nothing till we joined the
ladies. He first spoke to Hastings, and then to me. What
passed between the two I do not know. To me, he said:
'Hastings tells me it was you who poured the claret into his
pocket. This will lose the election. After to-morrow, I
shall want your room.'  Of course, the culprit confessed; and
my brother got the support we hoped for. Thus it was that
the political interests of several thousands of electors
depended on a glass of wine.

CHAPTER XII

I HAD completed my second year at the University, when, in
October 1848, just as I was about to return to Cambridge
after the long vacation, an old friend - William Grey, the
youngest of the ex-Prime-Minister's sons - called on me at my
London lodgings. He was attached to the Vienna Embassy,
where his uncle, Lord Ponsonby, was then ambassador. Shortly
before this there had been serious insurrections both in
Paris, Vienna, and Berlin.

Many may still be living who remember how Louis Philippe fled
to England; how the infection spread over this country; how
25,000 Chartists met on Kennington Common; how the upper and
middle classes of London were enrolled as special constables,
with the future Emperor of the French amongst them; how the
promptitude of the Iron Duke saved London, at least, from the
fate of the French and Austrian capitals.

This, however, was not till the following spring. Up to
October, no overt defiance of the Austrian Government had yet
asserted itself; but the imminence of an outbreak was the
anxious thought of the hour. The hot heads of Germany,
France, and England were more than meditating - they were
threatening, and preparing for, a European revolution.
Bloody battles were to be fought; kings and emperors were to
be dethroned and decapitated; mobs were to take the place of
parliaments; the leaders of the 'people' - I.E. the stump
orators - were to rule the world; property was to be divided
and subdivided down to the shirt on a man's - a rich man's -
back; and every 'po'r' man was to have his own, and -
somebody else's. This was the divine law of Nature,
according to the gospels of Saint Jean Jacques and Mr.
Feargus O'Connor. We were all naked under our clothes, which
clearly proved our equality. This was the simple, the
beautiful programme; once carried out, peace, fraternal and
eternal peace, would reign - till it ended, and the earthly
Paradise would be an accomplished fact.

I was an ultra-Radical - a younger-son Radical - in those
days. I was quite ready to share with my elder brother; I
had no prejudice in favour of my superiors; I had often
dreamed of becoming a leader of the 'people' - a stump
orator, I.E. - with the handsome emoluments of ministerial
office.

William Grey came to say good-bye. He was suddenly recalled
in consequence of the insurrection. 'It is a most critical
state of affairs,' he said. 'A revolution may break out all
over the Continent at any moment. There's no saying where it
may end. We are on the eve of a new epoch in the history of
Europe. I wouldn't miss it on any account.'

'Most interesting! most interesting!' I exclaimed. 'How I
wish I were going with you!'

'Come,' said he, with engaging brevity.

'How can I? I'm just going back to Cambridge.'

'You are of age, aren't you?'

I nodded.

'And your own master? Come; you'll never have such a chance
again.'

'When do you start?'

'To-morrow morning early.'

'But it is too late to get a passport.'

'Not a bit of it. I have to go to the Foreign Office for my
despatches. Dine with me to-night at my mother's - nobody
else - and I'll bring your passport in my pocket.'

'So be it, then. Billy Whistle [the irreverend nickname we
undergraduates gave the Master of Trinity] will rusticate me
to a certainty. It can't be helped. The cause is sacred.
I'll meet you at Lady Grey's to-night.'

We reached our destination at daylight on October 9. We had
already heard, while changing carriages at Breslau station,
that the revolution had broken out at Vienna, that the rails
were torn up, the Bahn-hof burnt, the military defeated and
driven from the town. William Grey's official papers, aided
by his fluent German, enabled us to pass the barriers, and
find our way into the city. He went straight to the Embassy,
and sent me on to the 'Erzherzog Carl' in the Karnthner Thor
Strasse, at that time the best hotel in Vienna. It being
still nearly dark, candles were burning in every window by
order of the insurgents.

The preceding day had been an eventful one. The
proletariats, headed by the students, had sacked the arsenal,
the troops having made but slight resistance. They then
marched to the War Office and demanded the person of the War
Minister, Count Latour, who was most unpopular on account of
his known appeal to Jellachich, the Ban of Croatia, to
assist, if required, in putting down the disturbances. Some
sharp fighting here took place. The rioters defeated the
small body of soldiers on the spot, captured two guns, and
took possession of the building. The unfortunate minister
was found in one of the upper garrets of the palace. The
ruffians dragged him from his place of concealment, and
barbarously murdered him. They then flung his body from the
window, and in a few minutes it was hanging from a lamp-post
above the heads of the infuriated and yelling mob.

In 1848 the inner city of Vienna was enclosed within a broad
and lofty bastion, fosse, and glacis. These were levelled in
1857. As soon as the troops were expelled, cannon were
placed on the Bastei so as to command the approaches from
without. The tunnelled gateways were built up, and
barricades erected across every principal thoroughfare.
Immediately after these events Ferdinand I. abdicated in
favour of the present Emperor Francis Joseph, who retired
with the Court to Schobrunn. Foreigners at once took flight,
and the hotels were emptied. The only person left in the
'Archduke Charles' beside myself was Mr. Bowen, afterwards
Sir George, Governor of New Zealand, with whom I was glad to
fraternise.

These humble pages do not aspire to the dignity of History;
but a few words as to what took place are needful for the
writer's purposes. The garrison in Vienna had been
comparatively small; and as the National Guard had joined the
students and proletariats, it was deemed advisable by the
Government to await the arrival of reinforcements under
Prince Windischgratz, who, together with a strong body of
Servians and Croats under Jellachich, might overawe the
insurgents; or, if not, recapture the city without
unnecessary bloodshed. The rebels were buoyed up by hopes of
support from the Hungarians under Kossuth. But in this they
were disappointed. In less than three weeks from the day of
the outbreak the city was beleaguered. Fighting began
outside the town on the 24th. On the 25th the soldiers
occupied the Wieden and Nussdorf suburbs. Next day the
Gemeinderath (Municipal Council) sent a PARLEMENTAR to treat
with Windischgratz. The terms were rejected, and the city
was taken by storm on October 30.

A few days before the bombardment, the Austrian commander
gave the usual notice to the Ambassadors to quit the town.
This they accordingly did. Before leaving, Lord Ponsonby
kindly sent his private secretary, Mr. George Samuel, to warn
me and invite me to join him at Schonbrunn. I politely
elected to stay and take my chance. After the attack on the
suburbs began I had reason to regret the decision. The
hotels were entered by patrols, and all efficient waiters
KOMMANDIERE'D to work at the barricades, or carry arms. On
the fourth day I settled to change sides. The constant
banging of big guns, and rattle of musketry, with the
impossibility of getting either air or exercise without the
risk of being indefinitely deprived of both, was becoming
less amusing than I had counted on. I was already provided
with a PASSIERSCHEIN, which franked me inside the town, and
up to the insurgents' outposts. The difficulty was how to
cross the neutral ground and the two opposing lines. Broad
daylight was the safest time for the purpose; the officious
sentry is not then so apt to shoot his friend. With much
stalking and dodging I made a bolt; and, notwithstanding
violent gesticulations and threats, got myself safely seized
and hurried before the nearest commanding officer.

He happened to be a general or a colonel. He was a fierce
looking, stout old gentleman with a very red face, all the
redder for his huge white moustache and well-filled white
uniform. He began by fuming and blustering as if about to
order me to summary execution. He spoke so fast, it was not
easy to follow him. Probably my amateur German was as
puzzling to him. The PASSIERSCHEIN, which I produced, was
not in my favour; unfortunately I had forgotten my Foreign
Office passport. What further added to his suspicion was his
inability to comprehend why I had not availed myself of the
notice, duly given to all foreigners, to leave the city
before active hostilities began. How anyone, who had the
choice, could be fool enough to stay and be shelled or
bayoneted, was (from his point of view) no proof of
respectability. I assured him he was mistaken if he thought
I had a predilection for either of these alternatives.

'It was just because I desired to avoid both that I had
sought, not without risk, the protection I was so sure of
finding at the hands of a great and gallant soldier.'

'Dummes Zeug! dummes Zeug!' (stuff o' nonsense), he puffed.
But a peppery man's good humour is often as near the surface
as his bad. I detected a pleasant sparkle in his eye.

'Pardon me, Excellenz,' said I, 'my presence here is the best
proof of my sincerity.'

'That,' said he sharply, 'is what every rascal might plead
when caught with a rebel's pass in his pocket. Geleitsbriefe
fur Schurken sind Steckbriefe fur die Gerechtigkeit.'  (Safe-
conduct passes for knaves are writs of capias to honest men.)

I answered: 'But an English gentleman is not a knave; and no
one knows the difference better than your Excellenz.'  The
term 'Schurken' (knaves) had stirred my fire; and though I
made a deferential bow, I looked as indignant as I felt.

'Well, well,' he said pacifically, 'you may go about your
business. But SEHEN SIE, young man, take my advice, don't
satisfy your curiosity at the cost of a broken head. Dazu
gehoren Kerle die eigens geschaffen sind.'  As much as to
say: 'Leave halters to those who are born to be hanged.'  
Indeed, the old fellow looked as if he had enjoyed life too
well to appreciate parting with it gratuitously.

I had nothing with me save the clothes on my back. When I
should again have access to the 'Erzherzcg Carl' was
impossible to surmise. The only decent inn I knew of outside
the walls was the 'Golden Lamm,' on the suburb side of the
Donau Canal, close to the Ferdinand bridge which faces the
Rothen Thurm Thor. Here I entered, and found it occupied by
a company of Nassau JAGERS. A barricade was thrown up across
the street leading to the bridge. Behind it were two guns.
One end of the barricade abutted on the 'Golden Lamm.'  With
the exception of the soldiers, the inn seemed to be deserted;
and I wanted both food and lodging. The upper floor was full
of JAGERS. The front windows over-looked the Bastei. These
were now blocked with mattresses, to protect the men from
bullets. The distance from the ramparts was not more than
150 yards, and woe to the student or the fat grocer, in his
National Guard uniform, who showed his head above the walls.
While I was in the attics a gun above the city gate fired at
the battery below. I ran down a few minutes later to see the
result. One artilleryman had been killed. He was already
laid under the gun-carriage, his head covered with a cloak.

The storming took place a day or two afterwards. One of the
principal points of resistance had been at the bottom of the
Jagerzeile. The insurgents had a battery of several guns
here; and the handsome houses at the corners facing the
Prater had been loop-holed and filled with students. I
walked round the town after all was over, and was especially
impressed with the horrors I witnessed. The beautiful
houses, with their gorgeous furniture, were a mass of smoking
ruins. Not a soul was to be seen, not even a prowling thief.
I picked my way into one or two of them without hindrance.
Here and there were a heap of bodies, some burnt to cinders,
some with their clothes still smouldering. The smell of the
roasted flesh was a disgusting association for a long time to
come. But the whole was sickening to look at, and still more
so, if possible, to reflect upon; for this was the price
which so often has been, so often will be, paid for the
alluring dream of liberty, and for the pursuit of that
mischievous will-o'-the-wisp - jealous Equality.

CHAPTER XIII

VIENNA in the early part of the last century was looked upon
as the gayest capital in Europe. Even the frightful
convulsion it had passed through only checked for a while its
chronic pursuit of pleasure. The cynical philosopher might
be tempted to contrast this not infrequent accessory of
paternal rule with the purity and contentment so fondly
expected from a democracy - or shall we say a demagoguey?
The cherished hopes of the so-called patriots had been
crushed; and many were the worse for the struggle. But the
majority naturally subsided into their customary vocations -
beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, music, dancing, and play-going.

The Vienna of 1848 was the Vienna described by Madame de
Stael in 1810: 'Dans ce pays, l'on traite les plaisirs comme
les devoirs. . . . Vous verrez des hommes et des femmes
executer gravement, l'un vis-a-vis de l'autre, les pas d'un
menuet dont ils sont impose l'amusement, . . . comme s'il
[the couple] dansait pour l'acquit de sa conscience.'

Every theatre and place of amusement was soon re-opened.
There was an excellent opera; Strauss - the original -
presided over weekly balls and concerts. For my part, being
extremely fond of music, I worked industriously at the
violin, also at German. My German master, Herr Mauthner by
name, was a little hump-backed Jew, who seemed to know every
man and woman (especially woman) worth knowing in Vienna.
Through him I made the acquaintance of several families of
the middle class, - amongst them that of a veteran musician
who had been Beethoven's favourite flute-player. As my
veneration for Beethoven was unbounded, I listened with awe
to every trifling incident relating to the great master. I
fear the conviction left on my mind was that my idol, though
transcendent amongst musicians, was a bear amongst men.
Pride (according to his ancient associate) was his strong
point. This he vindicated by excessive rudeness to everyone
whose social position was above his own. Even those that did
him a good turn were suspected of patronising. Condescension
was a prerogative confined to himself. In this respect, to
be sure, there was nothing singular.

At the house of the old flutist we played family quartets, -
he, the father, taking the first violin part on his flute, I
the second, the son the 'cello, and his daughter the piano.
It was an atmosphere of music that we all inhaled; and my
happiness on these occasions would have been unalloyed, had
not the young lady - a damsel of six-and-forty - insisted on
poisoning me (out of compliment to my English tastes) with a
bitter decoction she was pleased to call tea. This delicate
attention, I must say, proved an effectual souvenir till we
met again - I dreaded it.

Now and then I dined at the Embassy. One night I met there
Prince Paul Esterhazy, so distinguished by his diamonds when
Austrian Ambassador at the coronation of Queen Victoria. He
talked to me of the Holkham sheep-shearing gatherings, at
which from 200 to 300 guests sat down to dinner every day,
including crowned heads, and celebrities from both sides of
the Atlantic. He had twice assisted at these in my father's
time. He also spoke of the shooting; and promised, if I
would visit him in Hungary, he would show me as good sport as
had ever seen in Norfolk. He invited Mr. Magenis - the
Secretary of Legation - to accompany me.

The following week we two hired a BRITZCKA, and posted to
Eisenstadt. The lordly grandeur of this last of the feudal
princes manifested itself soon after we crossed the Hungarian
frontier. The first sign of it was the livery and badge worn
by the postillions. Posting houses, horses and roads, were
all the property of His Transparency.

Eisenstadt itself, though not his principal seat, is a large
palace - three sides of a triangle. One wing is the
residence, that opposite the barrack, (he had his own
troops,) and the connecting base part museum and part
concert-hall. This last was sanctified by the spirit of
Joseph Haydn, for so many years Kapellmeister to the
Esterhazy family. The conductor's stand and his spinet
remained intact. Even the stools and desks in the orchestra
(so the Prince assured me) were ancient. The very dust was
sacred. Sitting alone in the dim space, one could fancy the
great little man still there, in his snuff-coloured coat and
ruffles, half buried (as on state occasions) in his 'ALLONGE
PERUCKE.'  A tap of his magic wand starts into life his
quaint old-fashioned band, and the powder flies from their
wigs. Soft, distant, ghostly harmonies of the Surprise
Symphony float among the rafters; and now, as in a dream, we
are listening to - nay, beholding - the glorious process of
Creation; till suddenly the mighty chord is struck, and we
are startled from our trance by the burst of myriad voices
echoing the command and its fulfilment, 'Let there be light:
and there was light.'

Only a family party was assembled in the house. A Baron
something, and a Graf something - both relations, - and the
son, afterwards Ambassador at St. Petersburg during the
Crimean War. The latter was married to Lady Sarah Villiers,
who was also there. It is amusing to think that the
beautiful daughter of the proud Lady Jersey should be looked
upon by the Austrians as somewhat of a MESALLIANCE for one of
the chiefs of their nobility. Certain it is that the young
Princess was received by them, till they knew her, with more
condescension than enthusiasm.

An air of feudal magnificence pervaded the palace: spacious
reception-rooms hung with armour and trophies of the chase;
numbers of domestics in epauletted and belaced, but ill-
fitting, liveries; the prodigal supply and nationality of the
comestibles - wild boar with marmalade, venison and game of
all sorts with excellent 'Eingemachtes' and 'Mehlspeisen'
galore - a feast for a Gamache or a Gargantua. But then, all
save three, remember, were Germans - and Germans! Noteworthy
was the delicious Chateau Y'quem, of which the Prince
declared he had a monopoly - meaning the best, I presume.
After dinner the son, his brother-in-law, and I, smoked our
meerschaums and played pools of ECARTE in the young Prince's
room. Magenis, who was much our senior, had his rubber
downstairs with the elders.

The life was pleasant enough, but there was one little
medieval peculiarity which almost made one look for retainers
in goat-skins and rushes on the floor, - there was not a bath
(except the Princess's) in the palace! It was with
difficulty that my English servant foraged a tub from the
kitchen or the laundry. As to other sanitary arrangements,
they were what they doubtless had been in the days of Almos
and his son, the mighty Arped. In keeping with these
venerable customs, I had a sentry at the door of my
apartments; to protect me, belike, from the ghosts of
predatory barons and marauders.

During the week we had two days' shooting; one in the
coverts, quite equal to anything of the kind in England, the
other at wild boar. For the latter, a tract of the
Carpathian Mountains had been driven for some days before
into a wood of about a hundred acres. At certain points
there were sheltered stands, raised four or five feet from
the ground, so that the sportsmen had a commanding view of
the broad alley or clearing in front of him, across which the
stags or boar were driven by an army of beaters.

I had my own double-barrelled rifle; but besides this, a man
with a rack on his back bearing three rifles of the prince's,
a loader, and a FORSTER, with a hunting knife or short sword
to despatch the wounded quarry. Out of the first rush of
pigs that went by I knocked over two; and, in my keenness,
jumped out of the stand with the FORSTER who ran to finish
them off. I was immediately collared and brought back; and
as far as I could make out, was taken for a lunatic, or at
least for a 'duffer,' for my rash attempt to approach unarmed
a wounded tusker. When we all met at the end of the day, the
bag of the five guns was forty-five wild boars. The biggest
- and he was a monster - fell to the rifle of the Prince, as
was of course intended.

The old man took me home in his carriage. It was a beautiful
drive. One's idea of an English park - even such a park as
Windsor's - dwindled into that of a pleasure ground, when
compared with the boundless territory we drove through. To
be sure, it was no more a park than is the New Forest; but it
had all the character of the best English scenery - miles of
fine turf, dotted with clumps of splendid trees, and gigantic
oaks standing alone in their majesty. Now and then a herd of
red deer were startled in some sequestered glade; but no
cattle, no sheep, no sign of domestic care. Struck with the
charm of this primeval wilderness, I made some remark about
the richness of the pasture, and wondered there were no sheep
to be seen. 'There,' said the old man, with a touch of
pride, as he pointed to the blue range of the Carpathians;
'that is my farm. I will tell you. All the celebrities of
the day who were interested in farming used to meet at
Holkham for what was called the sheep-shearing. I once told
your father I had more shepherds on my farm than there were
sheep on his.'

CHAPTER XIV

IT WAS with a sorry heart that I bade farewell to my Vienna
friends, my musical comrades, the Legation hospitalities, and
my faithful little Israelite. But the colt frisks over the
pasture from sheer superfluity of energy; and between one's
second and third decades instinctive restlessness -
spontaneous movement - is the law of one's being. 'Tis then
that 'Hope builds as fast as knowledge can destroy.'  The
enjoyment we abandon is never so sweet as that we seek.
'Pleasure never is at home.'  Happiness means action for its
own sake, change, incessant change.

I sought and found it in Bavaria, Bohemia, Russia, all over
Germany, and dropped anchor one day in Cracow; a week
afterwards in Warsaw. These were out-of-the-way places then;
there were no tourists in those days; I did not meet a single
compatriot either in the Polish or Russian town.

At Warsaw I had an adventure not unlike that which befell me
at Vienna. The whole of Europe, remember, was in a state of
political ferment. Poland was at least as ready to rise
against its oppressor then as now; and the police was
proportionately strict and arbitrary. An army corps was
encamped on the right bank of the Vistula, ready for expected
emergencies. Under these circumstances, passports, as may be
supposed, were carefully inspected; except in those of
British subjects, the person of the bearer was described -
his height, the colour of his hair (if he had any), or any
mark that distinguished him.

In my passport, after my name, was added 'ET SON DOMESTIQUE.'  
The inspector who examined it at the frontier pointed to
this, and, in indifferent German, asked me where that
individual was. I replied that I had sent him with my
baggage to Dresden, to await my arrival there. A
consultation thereupon took place with another official, in a
language I did not understand; and to my dismay I was
informed that I was - in custody. The small portmanteau I
had with me, together with my despatch-box, was seized; the
latter contained a quantity of letters and my journal. Money
only was I permitted to retain.

Quite by the way, but adding greatly to my discomfort, was
the fact that since leaving Prague, where I had relinquished
everything I could dispense with, I had had much night
travelling amongst native passengers, who so valued
cleanliness that they economised it with religious care. By
the time I reached Warsaw, I may say, without metonymy, that
I was itching (all over) for a bath and a change of linen.
My irritation, indeed, was at its height. But there was no
appeal; and on my arrival I was haled before the authorities.

Again, their head was a general officer, though not the least
like my portly friend at Vienna. His business was to sit in
judgment upon delinquents such as I. He was a spare, austere
man, surrounded by a sharp-looking aide-de-camp, several
clerks in uniform, and two or three men in mufti, whom I took
to be detectives. The inspector who arrested me was present
with my open despatch-box and journal. The journal he handed
to the aide, who began at once to look it through while his
chief was disposing of another case.

To be suspected and dragged before this tribunal was, for the
time being (as I afterwards learnt) almost tantamount to
condemnation. As soon as the General had sentenced my
predecessor, I was accosted as a self-convicted criminal.
Fortunately he spoke French like a Frenchman; and, as it
presently appeared, a few words of English.

'What country do you belong to?' he asked, as if the question
was but a matter of form, put for decency's sake - a mere
prelude to committal.

'England, of course; you can see that by my passport.'  I was
determined to fence him with his own weapons. Indeed, in
those innocent days of my youth, I enjoyed a genuine British
contempt for foreigners - in the lump - which, after all, is
about as impartial a sentiment as its converse, that one's
own country is always in the wrong.

'Where did you get it?' (with a face of stone).

PRISONER (NAIVELY): 'Where did I get it? I do not follow
you.'  (Don't forget, please, that said prisoner's apparel
was unvaleted, his hands unwashed, his linen unchanged, his
hair unkempt, and his face unshaven).

GENERAL (stonily): '"Where did you get it?" was my question.'

PRISONER (quietly): 'From Lord Palmerston.'

GENERAL (glancing at that Minister's signature): 'It says
here, "et son domestique" - you have no domestique.'

PRISONER (calmly): 'Pardon me, I have a domestic.'

GENERAL (with severity), 'Where is he?'

PRISONER: 'At Dresden by this time, I hope.'

GENERAL (receiving journal from aide-de-camp, who points to a
certain page): 'You state here you were caught by the
Austrians in a pretended escape from the Viennese insurgents;
and add, "They evidently took me for a spy" [returning
journal to aide]. What is your explanation of this?'

PRISONER (shrugging shoulders disdainfully): 'In the first
place, the word "pretended" is not in my journal. In the
second, although of course it does not follow, if one takes
another person for a man of sagacity or a gentleman - it does
not follow that he is either - still, when - '

GENERAL (with signs of impatience): 'I have here a
PASSIERSCHEIN, found amongst your papers and signed by the
rebels. They would not have given you this, had you not been
on friendly terms with them. You will be detained until I
have further particulars.'

PRISONER (angrily): 'I will assist you, through Her Britannic
Majesty's Consul, with whom I claim the right to communicate.
I beg to inform you that I am neither a spy nor a socialist,
but the son of an English peer' (heaven help the relevancy!).
'An Englishman has yet to learn that Lord Palmerston's
signature is to be set at naught and treated with contumacy.'

The General beckoned to the inspector to put an end to the
proceedings. But the aide, who had been studying the
journal, again placed it in his chief's hands. A colloquy
ensued, in which I overheard the name of Lord Ponsonby. The
enemy seemed to waver, so I charged with a renewed request to
see the English Consul. A pause; then some remarks in
Russian from the aide; then the GENERAL (in suaver tones):
'The English Consul, I find, is absent on a month's leave.
If what you state is true, you acted unadvisedly in not
having your passport altered and REVISE when you parted with
your servant. How long do you wish to remain here?'

Said I, 'Vous avez bien raison, Monsieur. Je suis evidemment
dans mon tort. Ma visite a Varsovie etait une aberration.
As to my stay, je suis deja tout ce qu'il y a de plus ennuye.
I have seen enough of Warsaw to last for the rest of my
days.'

Eventually my portmanteau and despatch-box were restored to
me; and I took up my quarters in the filthiest inn (there was
no better, I believe) that it was ever my misfortune to lodge
at. It was ancient, dark, dirty, and dismal. My sitting-
room (I had a cupboard besides to sleep in) had but one
window, looking into a gloomy courtyard. The furniture
consisted of two wooden chairs and a spavined horsehair sofa.
The ceiling was low and lamp-blacked; the stained paper fell
in strips from the sweating walls; fortunately there was no
carpet; but if anything could have added to the occupier's
depression it was the sight of his own distorted features in
a shattered glass, which seemed to watch him like a detective
and take notes of his movements - a real Russian mirror.

But the resources of one-and-twenty are not easily daunted,
even by the presence of the CIMEX LECTULARIUS or the PULEX
IRRITANS. I inquired for a LAQUAIS DE PLACE, - some human
being to consort with was the most pressing of immediate
wants. As luck would have it, the very article was in the
dreary courtyard, lurking spider-like for the innocent
traveller just arrived. Elective affinity brought us at once
to friendly intercourse. He was of the Hebrew race, as the
larger half of the Warsaw population still are. He was a
typical Jew (all Jews are typical), though all are not so
thin as was Beninsky. His eyes were sunk in sockets deepened
by the sharpness of his bird-of-prey beak; a single corkscrew
ringlet dropped tearfully down each cheek; and his one front
tooth seemed sometimes in his upper, sometimes in his lower
jaw. His skull-cap and his gabardine might have been
heirlooms from the Patriarch Jacob; and his poor hands seemed
made for clawing. But there was a humble and contrite spirit
in his sad eyes. The history of his race was written in
them; but it was modern history that one read in their
hopeless and appealing look.

His cringing manner and his soft voice (we conversed in
German) touched my heart. I have always had a liking for the
Jews. Who shall reckon how much some of us owe them! They
have always interested me as a peculiar people - admitting
sometimes, as in poor Beninsky's case, of purifying, no
doubt; yet, if occasionally zealous (and who is not?) of
interested works - cent. per cent. works, often - yes, more
often than we Christians - zealous of good works, of open-
handed, large-hearted munificence, of charity in its
democratic and noblest sense. Shame upon the nations which
despise and persecute them for faults which they, the
persecutors, have begotten! Shame on those who have extorted
both their money and their teeth! I think if I were a Jew I
should chuckle to see my shekels furnish all the wars in
which Christians cut one another's Christian weasands.

And who has not a tenderness for the 'beautiful and well-
favoured' Rachels, and the 'tender-eyed' Leahs, and the
tricksy little Zilpahs, and the Rebekahs, from the wife of
Isaac of Gerar to the daughter of Isaac of York? Who would
not love to sit with Jessica where moonlight sleeps, and
watch the patines of bright gold reflected in her heavenly
orbs? I once knew a Jessica, a Polish Jessica, who - but
that was in Vienna, more than half a century ago.

Beninsky's orbs brightened visibly when I bade him break his
fast at my high tea. I ordered everything they had in the
house I think, - a cold Pomeranian GANSEBRUST, a garlicky
WURST, and GERAUCHERTE LACHS. I had a packet of my own
Fortnum and Mason's Souchong; and when the stove gave out its
glow, and the samovar its music, Beninsky's gratitude and his
hunger passed the limits of restraint. Late into the night
we smoked our meerschaums.

When I spoke of the Russians, he got up nervously to see the
door was shut, and whispered with bated breath. What a
relief it was to him to meet a man to whom he could pour out
his griefs, his double griefs, as Pole and Israelite. Before
we parted I made him put the remains of the sausage (!) and
the goose-breast under his petticoats. I bade him come to me
in the morning and show me all that was worth seeing in
Warsaw. When he left, with tears in his eyes, I was consoled
to think that for one night at any rate he and his GANSEBRUST
and sausage would rest peacefully in Abraham's bosom. What
Abraham would say to the sausage I did not ask; nor perhaps
did my poor Beninsky.

CHAPTER XV

THE remainder of the year '49 has left me nothing to tell.
For me, it was the inane life of that draff of Society - the
young man-about-town: the tailor's, the haberdasher's, the
bootmaker's, and trinket-maker's, young man; the dancing and
'hell'-frequenting young man; the young man of the 'Cider
Cellars' and Piccadilly saloons; the valiant dove-slayer, the
park-lounger, the young lady's young man - who puts his hat
into mourning, and turns up his trousers because - because
the other young man does ditto, ditto.

I had a share in the Guards' omnibus box at Covent Garden,
with the privilege attached of going behind the scenes. Ah!
that was a real pleasure. To listen night after night to
Grisi and Mario, Alboni and Lablache, Viardot and Ronconi,
Persiani and Tamburini, - and Jenny Lind too, though she was
at the other house. And what an orchestra was Costa's - with
Sainton leader, and Lindley and old Dragonetti, who together
but alone, accompanied the RECITATIVE with their harmonious
chords on 'cello and double-bass. Is singing a lost art? Or
is that but a TEMPORIS ACTI question? We who heard those now
silent voices fancy there are none to match them nowadays.
Certainly there are no dancers like Taglioni, and Cerito, and
Fanny Elsler, and Carlotta Grisi.

After the opera and the ball, one finished the night at
Vauxhall or Ranelagh; then as gay, and exactly the same, as
they were when Miss Becky Sharpe and fat Jos supped there
only five-and-thirty years before.

Except at the Opera, and the Philharmonic, and Exeter Hall,
one rarely heard good music. Monsieur Jullien, that prince
of musical mountebanks - the 'Prince of Waterloo,' as John
Ella called him, was the first to popularise classical music
at his promenade concerts, by tentatively introducing a
single movement of a symphony here and there in the programme
of his quadrilles and waltzes and music-hall songs.

Mr. Ella, too, furthered the movement with his Musical Union
and quartett parties at Willis's Rooms, where Sainton and
Cooper led alternately, and the incomparable Piatti and Hill
made up the four. Here Ernst, Sivori, Vieuxtemps, and
Bottesini, and Mesdames Schumann, Dulcken, Arabella Goddard,
and all the famous virtuosi played their solos.

Great was the stimulus thus given by Ella's energy and
enthusiasm. As a proof of what he had to contend with, and
what he triumphed over, Halle's 'Life' may be quoted, where
it says: 'When Mr. Ella asked me [this was in 1848] what I
wished to play, and heard that it was one of Beethoven's
pianoforte sonatas, he exclaimed "Impossible!" and
endeavoured to demonstrate that they were not works to be
played in public.'  What seven-league boots the world has
stridden in within the memory of living men!

John Ella himself led the second violins in Costa's band, and
had begun life (so I have been told) as a pastry-cook. I
knew both him and the wonderful little Frenchman 'at home.'  
According to both, in their different ways, Beethoven and
Mozart would have been lost to fame but for their heroic
efforts to save them.

I used occasionally to play with Ella at the house of a lady
who gave musical parties. He was always attuned to the
highest pitch, - most good-natured, but most excitable where
music was to the fore. We were rehearsing a quintett, the
pianoforte part of which was played by the young lady of the
house - a very pretty girl, and not a bad musician, but
nervous to the point of hysteria. Ella himself was in a
hypercritical state; nothing would go smoothly; and the piano
was always (according to him) the peccant instrument. Again
and again he made us restart the movement. There were a good
many friends of the family invited to this last rehearsal,
which made it worse for the poor girl, who was obviously on
the brink of a breakdown. Presently Ella again jumped off
his chair, and shouted: 'Not E flat! There's no E flat
there; E natural! E natural! I never in my life knew a
young lady so prolific of flats as you.'  There was a pause,
then a giggle, then an explosion; and then the poor girl,
bursting into tears, rushed out of the room.

It was at Ella's house that I first heard Joachim, then about
sixteen, I suppose. He had not yet performed in London. All
the musical celebrities were present to hear the youthful
prodigy. Two quartetts were played, Ernst leading one and
Joachim the other. After it was over, everyone was
enraptured, but no one more so than Ernst, who unhesitatingly
predicted the fame which the great artist has so eminently
achieved.

One more amusing little story belongs to my experiences of
these days. Having two brothers and a brother-in-law in the
Guards, I used to dine often at the Tower, or the Bank, or
St. James's. At the Bank of England there is always at night
an officer's guard. There is no mess, as the officer is
alone. But the Bank provides dinner for two, in case the
officer should invite a friend. On the occasion I speak of,
my brother-in-law, Sir Archibald Macdonald, was on duty. The
soup and fish were excellent, but we were young and hungry,
and the usual leg of mutton was always a dish to be looked
forward to.

When its cover was removed by the waiter we looked in vain;
there was plenty of gravy, but no mutton. Our surprise was
even greater than our dismay, for the waiter swore 'So 'elp
his gawd' that he saw the cook put the leg on the dish, and
that he himself put the cover on the leg. 'And what did you
do with it then?' questioned my host. 'Nothing, S'Archibald.
Brought it straight in 'ere.'  'Do you mean to tell me it was
never out of your hands between this and the kitchen?'  
'Never, but for the moment I put it down outside the door to
change the plates.'  'And was there nobody in the passage?'  
'Not a soul, except the sentry.'  'I see,' said my host, who
was a quick-witted man. 'Send the sergeant here.'  The
sergeant came. The facts were related, and the order given
to parade the entire guard, sentry included, in the passage.

The sentry was interrogated first. 'No, he had not seen
nobody in the passage.'  'No one had touched the dish?'  
'Nobody as ever he seed.'  Then came the orders: 'Attention.
Ground arms. Take off your bear-skins.'  And the truth -
I.E., the missing leg - was at once revealed; the sentry had
popped it into his shako. For long after that day, when the
guard either for the Tower or Bank marched through the
streets, the little blackguard boys used to run beside it and
cry, 'Who stole the leg o' mutton?'

CHAPTER XVI

PROBABLY the most important historical event of the year '49
was the discovery of gold in California, or rather, the great
Western Exodus in pursuit of it. A restless desire possessed
me to see something of America, especially of the Far West.
I had an hereditary love of sport, and had read and heard
wonderful tales of bison, and grisly bears, and wapitis. No
books had so fascinated me, when a boy, as the 'Deer-slayer,'
the 'Pathfinder,' and the beloved 'Last of the Mohicans.'  
Here then was a new field for adventure. I would go to
California, and hunt my way across the continent. Ruxton's
'Life in the Far West' inspired a belief in self-reliance and
independence only rivalled by Robinson Crusoe. If I could
not find a companion, I would go alone. Little did I dream
of the fortune which was in store for me, or how nearly I
missed carrying out the scheme so wildly contemplated, or
indeed, any scheme at all.

The only friend I could meet with both willing and able to
join me was the last Lord Durham. He could not undertake to
go to California; but he had been to New York during his
father's reign in Canada, and liked the idea of revisiting
the States. He proposed that we should spend the winter in
the West Indies, and after some buffalo-shooting on the
plains, return to England in the autumn.

The notion of the West Indies gave rise to an off-shoot.
Both Durham and I were members of the old Garrick, then but a
small club in Covent Garden. Amongst our mutual friends was
Andrew Arcedeckne - pronounced Archdeacon - a character to
whom attaches a peculiar literary interest, of which anon.
Arcedeckne - Archy, as he was commonly called - was about a
couple of years older than we were. He was the owner of
Glevering Hall, Suffolk, and nephew of Lord Huntingfield.
These particulars, as well as those of his person, are note-
worthy, as it will soon appear.

Archy - 'Merry Andrew,' as I used to call him, - owned one of
the finest estates in Jamaica - Golden Grove. When he heard
of our intended trip, he at once volunteered to go with us.
He had never seen Golden Grove, but had often wished to visit
it. Thus it came to pass that we three secured our cabins in
one of the West India mailers, and left England in December
1849.

To return to our little Suffolk squire. The description of
his figure, as before said, is all-important, though the
world is familiar with it, as drawn by the pencil of a master
caricaturist. Arcedeckne was about five feet three inches,
round as a cask, with a small singularly round face and head,
closely cropped hair, and large soft eyes, - in a word, so
like a seal, that he was as often called 'Phoca' as Archy.

Do you recognise the portrait? Do you need the help of
'Glevering Hall' (how curious the suggestion!). And would
you not like to hear him talk? Here is a specimen in his
best manner. Surely it must have been taken down by a
shorthand writer, or a phonograph:

MR. HARRY FOKER LOQUITUR: 'He inquired for Rincer and the
cold in his nose, told Mrs. Rincer a riddle, asked Miss
Rincer when she would be prepared to marry him, and paid his
compliments to Miss Brett, another young lady in the bar, all
in a minute of time, and with a liveliness and facetiousness
which set all these young ladies in a giggle. "Have a drop,
Pen: it's recommended by the faculty, &c. Give the young
one a glass, R., and score it up to yours truly."'

I fancy the great man who recorded these words was more
afraid of Mr. Harry PHOCA than of any other man in the
Garrick Club - possibly for the reason that honest Harry was
not the least bit afraid of him. The shy, the proud, the
sensitive satirist would steal quietly into the room,
avoiding notice as though he wished himself invisible. Phoca
would be warming his back at the fire, and calling for a
glass of 'Foker's own.'  Seeing the giant enter, he would
advance a step or two, with a couple of extended fingers, and
exclaim, quite affably, 'Ha! Mr. Thackry! litary cove! Glad
to see you, sir. How's Major Dobbings?' and likely enough
would turn to the waiter, and bid him, 'Give this gent a
glass of the same, and score it up to yours truly!'  We have
his biographer's word for it, that he would have winked at
the Duke of Wellington, with just as little scruple.

Yes, Andrew Arcedeckne was the original of Harry Foker; and,
from the cut of his clothes to his family connection, and to
the comicality, the simplicity, the sweetness of temper
(though hardly doing justice to the loveableness of the
little man), the famous caricature fits him to a T.

The night before we left London we had a convivial dinner at
the Garrick - we three travellers, with Albert Smith, his
brother, and John Leech. It was a merry party, to which all
contributed good fellowship and innocent jokes. The latest
arrival at the Zoo was the first hippopotamus that had
reached England, - a present from the Khedive. Someone
wondered how it had been caught. I suggested a trout-fly;
which so tickled John Leech's fancy that he promised to draw
it for next week's 'Punch.'  Albert Smith went with us to
Southampton to see us off.

On our way to Jamaica we stopped a night at Barbadoes to
coal. Here I had the honour of making the acquaintance of
the renowned Caroline Lee! - Miss Car'line, as the negroes
called her. She was so pleased at the assurance that her
friend Mr. Peter Simple had spread her fame all the world
over, that she made us a bowl of the most delicious iced
sangaree; and speedily got up a 'dignity ball' for our
entertainment. She was rather too much of an armful to dance
with herself, but there was no lack of dark beauties, (not a
white woman or white man except ourselves in the room.)  We
danced pretty nearly from daylight to daylight. The blending
of rigid propriety, of the severest 'dignity,' with the
sudden guffaw and outburst of wildest spirits and comic
humour, is beyond description, and is only to be met with
amongst these ebullient children of the sun.

On our arrival at Golden Grove, there was a great turn-out of
the natives to welcome their young lord and 'massa.'  Archy
was touched and amused by their frantic loyalty. But their
mode of exhibiting it was not so entirely to his taste. Not
only the young, but the old women wanted to hug him. 'Eigh!
Dat you, Massa? Dat you, sar? Me no believe him. Out o' de
way, you trash! Eigh! me too much pleased like devil.' The
one constant and spontaneous ejaculation was, 'Yah! Massa too
muchy handsome! Garamighty! Buckra berry fat!'  The latter
attribute was the source of genuine admiration; but the
object of it hardly appreciated its recognition, and waved
off his subjects with a mixture of impatience and alarm.

We had scarcely been a week at Golden Grove, when my two
companions and Durham's servant were down with yellow fever.
Being 'salted,' perhaps, I escaped scot-free, so helped
Archy's valet and Mr. Forbes, his factor, to nurse and to
carry out professional orders. As we were thirty miles from
Kingston the doctor could only come every other day. The
responsibility, therefore, of attending three patients
smitten with so deadly a disease was no light matter. The
factor seemed to think discretion the better part of valour,
and that Jamaica rum was the best specific for keeping his
up. All physicians were SANGRADOS in those days, and when
the Kingston doctor decided upon bleeding, the hysterical
state of the darky girls (we had no men in the bungalow
except Durham's and Archy's servants) rendered them worse
than useless. It fell to me, therefore, to hold the basin
while Archy's man was attending to his master.

Durham, who had nerves of steel, bore his lot with the grim
stoicism which marked his character. But at one time the
doctor considered his state so serious that he thought his
lordship's family should be informed of it. Accordingly I
wrote to the last Lord Grey, his uncle and guardian, stating
that there was little hope of his recovery. Poor Phoca was
at once tragic and comic. His medicine had to be
administered every, two hours. Each time, he begged and
prayed in lacrymose tones to be let off. It was doing him no
good. He might as well be allowed to die in peace. If we
would only spare him the beastliness this once, on his honour
he would take it next time 'like a man.'  We were inexorable,
of course, and treated him exactly as one treats a child.

At last the crisis was over. Wonderful to relate, all three
began to recover. During their convalescence, I amused
myself by shooting alligators in the mangrove swamps at
Holland Bay, which was within half an hour's ride of the
bungalow. It was curious sport. The great saurians would
lie motionless in the pools amidst the snake-like tangle of
mangrove roots. They would float with just their eyes and
noses out of water, but so still that, without a glass,
(which I had not,) it was difficult to distinguish their
heads from the countless roots and rotten logs around them.
If one fired by mistake, the sport was spoiled for an hour to
come.

I used to sit watching patiently for one of them to show
itself, or for something to disturb the glassy surface of the
dark waters. Overhead the foliage was so dense that the heat
was not oppressive. All Nature seemed asleep. The deathlike
stillness was rarely broken by the faintest sound, - though
unseen life, amidst the heat and moisture, was teeming
everywhere; life feeding upon life. For what purpose? To
what end? Is this a primary law of Nature? Does cannibalism
prevail in Mars? Sometimes a mocking-bird would pipe its
weird notes, deepening silence by the contrast. But besides
pestilent mosquitos, the only living things in sight were
humming-birds of every hue, some no bigger than a butterfly,
fluttering over the blossoms of the orchids, or darting from
flower to flower like flashes of prismatic rays.

I killed several alligators; but one day, while stalking what
seemed to be an unusual monster, narrowly escaped an
accident. Under the excitement, my eye was so intently fixed
upon the object, that I rather felt than saw my way.
Presently over I went, just managed to save my rifle, and, to
my amazement, found I had set my foot on a sleeping reptile.
Fortunately the brute was as much astonished as I was, and
plunged with a splash into the adjacent pool.

A Cambridge friend, Mr. Walter Shirley, owned an estate at
Trelawny, on the other side of Jamaica; while the invalids
were recovering, I paid him a visit; and was initiated into
the mysteries of cane-growing and sugar-making. As the great
split between the Northern and Southern States on the
question of slavery was pending, the life, condition, and
treatment of the negro was of the greatest interest. Mr.
Shirley was a gentleman of exceptional ability, and full of
valuable information on these subjects. He passed me on to
other plantations; and I made the complete round of the
island before returning to my comrades at Golden Grove. A
few weeks afterwards I stayed with a Spanish gentleman, the
Marquis d'Iznaga, who owned six large sugar plantations in
Cuba; and rode with his son from Casilda to Cienfuegos, from
which port I got a steamer to the Havana. The ride afforded
abundant opportunities of comparing the slave with the free
negro. But, as I have written on the subject elsewhere, I
will pass to matters more entertaining.

CHAPTER XVII

ON my arrival at the Havana I found that Durham, who was
still an invalid, had taken up his quarters at Mr.
Crauford's, the Consul-General. Phoca, who was nearly well
again, was at the hotel, the only one in the town. And who
should I meet there but my old Cambridge ally, Fred, the last
Lord Calthorpe. This event was a fruitful one, - it
determined the plans of both of us for a year or more to
come.

Fred - as I shall henceforth call him - had just returned
from a hunting expedition in Texas, with another sportsman
whom he had accidentally met there. This gentleman
ultimately became of even more importance to me than my old
friend. I purposely abstain from giving either his name or
his profession, for reasons which will become obvious enough
by-and-by; the outward man may be described. He stood well
over six  feet in his socks; his frame and limbs were those
of a gladiator; he could crush a horseshoe in one hand; he
had a small head with a bull-neck, purely Grecian features,
thick curly hair with crisp beard and silky moustache. He so
closely resembled a marble Hercules that (as he must have a
name) we will call him Samson.

Before Fred stumbled upon him, he had spent a winter camping
out in the snows of Canada, bear and elk shooting. He was
six years or so older than either of us - I.E. about eight-
and-twenty.

As to Fred Calthorpe, it would be difficult to find a more
'manly' man. He was unacquainted with fear. Yet his
courage, though sometimes reckless, was by no means of the
brute kind. He did not run risks unless he thought the gain
would compensate them; and no one was more capable of
weighing consequences than he. His temper was admirable, his
spirits excellent; and for any enterprise where danger and
hardship were to be encountered few men could have been
better qualified. By the end of a week these two had agreed
to accompany me across the Rocky Mountains.

Before leaving the Havana, I witnessed an event which, though
disgusting in itself, gives rise to serious reflections.
Every thoughtful reader is conversant enough with them; if,
therefore, he should find them out of place or trite, apology
is needless, as he will pass them by without the asking.

The circumstance referred to is a public execution. Mr.
Sydney Smith, the vice-consul, informed me that a criminal
was to be garrotted on the following morning; and asked me
whether I cared to look over the prison and see the man in
his cell that afternoon. We went together. The poor wretch
bore the stamp of innate brutality. His crime was the most
revolting that a human being is capable of - the violation
and murder of a mere child. When we were first admitted he
was sullen, merely glaring at us; but, hearing the warder
describe his crime, he became furiously abusive, and worked
himself into such a passion that, had he not been chained to
the wall, he would certainly have attacked us.

At half-past six next morning I went with Mr. Smith to the
Campo del Marte, the principal square. The crowd had already
assembled, and the tops of the houses were thronged with
spectators. The women, dressed as if for a bull-fight or a
ball, occupied the front seats. By squeezing and pushing we
contrived to get within eight or nine yards of the machine,
where I had not long been before the procession was seen
moving up the Passeo. A few mounted troops were in front to
clear the road; behind them came the Host, with a number of
priests and the prisoner on foot, dressed in white; a large
guard brought up the rear. The soldiers formed an open
square. The executioner, the culprit, and one priest
ascended the steps of the platform.

The garrotte is a short stout post, at the top of which is an
iron crook, just wide enough to admit the neck of a man
seated in a chair beneath it. Through the post, parallel
with the crook, is the loop of a rope, whose ends are
fastened to a bar held by the executioner. The loop, being
round the throat of the victim, is so powerfully tightened
from behind by half a turn of the bar, that an extra twist
would sever a man's head from his body.

The murderer showed no signs of fear; he quietly seated
himself, but got up again to adjust the chair and make
himself comfortable! The executioner then arranged the rope
round his neck, tied his legs and his arms, and retired
behind the post. At a word or a look from the priest the
wrench was turned. For a single instant the limbs of the
victim were convulsed, and all was over.

No exclamation, no whisper of horror escaped from the lookers
on. Such a scene was too familiar to excite any feeling but
morbid curiosity; and, had the execution taken place at the
usual spot instead of in the town, few would have given
themselves the trouble to attend it.

It is impossible to see or even to think of what is here
described without gravely meditating on its suggestions. Is
capital punishment justifiable? This is the question I
purpose to consider in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII

ALL punishments or penal remedies for crime, except capital
punishment, may be considered from two points of view:
First, as they regard Society; secondly, as they regard the
offender.

Where capital punishment is resorted to, the sole end in view
is the protection of Society. The malefactor being put to
death, there can be no thought of his amendment. And so far
as this particular criminal is concerned, Society is
henceforth in safety.

But (looking to the individual), as equal security could be
obtained by his imprisonment for life, the extreme measure of
putting him to death needs justification. This is found in
the assumption that death being the severest of all
punishments now permissible, no other penalty is so
efficacious in preventing the crime or crimes for which it is
inflicted. Is the assumption borne out by facts, or by
inference?

For facts we naturally turn to statistics. Switzerland
abolished capital punishment in 1874; but cases of
premeditated murder having largely increased during the next
five years, it was restored by Federal legislation in 1879.
Still there is nothing conclusive to be inferred from this
fact. We must seek for guidance elsewhere.

Reverting to the above assumption, we must ask: First, Is
the death punishment the severest of all evils, and to what
extent does the fear of it act as a preventive? Secondly, Is
it true that no other punishment would serve as powerfully in
preventing murder by intimidation?

Is punishment by death the most dreaded of all evils? 'This
assertion,' says Bentham, 'is true with respect to the
majority of mankind; it is not true with respect to the
greatest criminals.'  It is pretty certain that a malefactor
steeped in crime, living in extreme want, misery and
apprehension, must, if he reflects at all, contemplate a
violent end as an imminent possibility. He has no better
future before him, and may easily come to look upon death
with brutal insensibility and defiance. The indifference
exhibited by the garrotted man getting up to adjust his chair
is probably common amongst criminals of his type.

Again, take such a crime as that of the Cuban's: the passion
which leads to it is the fiercest and most ungovernable which
man is subject to. Sexual jealousy also is one of the most
frequent causes of murder. So violent is this passion that
the victim of it is often quite prepared to sacrifice life
rather than forego indulgence, or allow another to supplant
him; both men and women will gloat over the murder of a
rival, and gladly accept death as its penalty, rather than
survive the possession of the desired object by another.

Further, in addition to those who yield to fits of passion,
there is a class whose criminal promptings are hereditary: a
large number of unfortunates of whom it may almost be said
that they were destined to commit crimes. 'It is unhappily a
fact,' says Mr. Francis Galton ('Inquiries into Human
Faculty'), 'that fairly distinct types of criminals breeding
true to their kind have become established.'  And he gives
extraordinary examples, which fully bear out his affirmation.
We may safely say that, in a very large number of cases, the
worst crimes are perpetrated by beings for whom the death
penalty has no preventive terrors.

But it is otherwise with the majority. Death itself, apart
from punitive aspects, is a greater evil to those for whom
life has greater attractions. Besides this, the permanent
disgrace of capital punishment, the lasting injury to the
criminal's family and to all who are dear to him, must be far
more cogent incentives to self-control than the mere fear of
ceasing to live.

With the criminal and most degraded class - with those who
are actuated by violent passions and hereditary taints, the
class by which most murders are committed - the death
punishment would seem to be useless as an intimidation or an
example.

With the majority it is more than probable that it exercises
a strong and beneficial influence. As no mere social
distinction can eradicate innate instincts, there must be a
large proportion of the majority, the better-to-do, who are
both occasionally and habitually subject to criminal
propensities, and who shall say how many of these are
restrained from the worst of crimes by fear of capital
punishment and its consequences?

On these grounds, if they be not fallacious, the retention of
capital punishment may be justified.

Secondly. Is the assumption tenable that no other penalty
makes so strong an impression or is so pre-eminently
exemplary? Bentham thus answers the question: 'It appears
to me that the contemplation of perpetual imprisonment,
accompanied with hard labour and occasional solitary
confinement, would produce a deeper impression on the minds
of persons in whom it is more eminently desirable that that
impression should be produced than even death itself. . . .
All that renders death less formidable to them renders
laborious restraint proportionably more irksome.'  There is
doubtless a certain measure of truth in these remarks. But
Bentham is here speaking of the degraded class; and is it
likely that such would reflect seriously upon what they never
see and only know by hearsay? Think how feeble are their
powers of imagination and reflection, how little they would
be impressed by such additional seventies as 'occasional
solitary confinement,' the occurrence and the effects of
which would be known to no one outside the jail.

As to the 'majority,' the higher classes, the fact that men
are often imprisoned for offences - political and others -
which they are proud to suffer for, would always attenuate
the ignominy attached to 'imprisonment.'  And were this the
only penalty for all crimes, for first-class misdemeanants
and for the most atrocious of criminals alike, the
distinction would not be very finely drawn by the interested;
at the most, the severest treatment as an alternative to
capital punishment would always savour of extenuating
circumstances.

There remain two other points of view from which the question
has to be considered: one is what may be called the
Vindictive, the other, directly opposed to it, the
Sentimental argument. The first may be dismissed with a word
or two. In civilised countries torture is for ever
abrogated; and with it, let us hope, the idea of judicial
vengeance.

The LEX TALIONIS - the Levitic law - 'Eye for eye, tooth for
tooth,' is befitting only for savages. Unfortunately the
Christian religion still promulgates and passionately clings
to the belief in Hell as a place or state of everlasting
torment - that is to say, of eternal torture inflicted for no
ultimate end save that of implacable vengeance. Of all the
miserable superstitions ever hatched by the brain of man
this, as indicative of its barbarous origin, is the most
degrading. As an ordinance ascribed to a Being worshipped as
just and beneficent, it is blasphemous.

The Sentimental argument, like all arguments based upon
feeling rather than reason, though not without merit, is
fraught with mischief which far outweighs it. There are
always a number of people in the world who refer to their
feelings as the highest human tribunal. When the reasoning
faculty is not very strong, the process of ratiocination
irksome, and the issue perhaps unacceptable, this course
affords a convenient solution to many a complicated problem.
It commends itself, moreover, to those who adopt it, by the
sense of chivalry which it involves. There is something
generous and noble, albeit quixotic, in siding with the weak,
even if they be in the wrong. There is something charitable
in the judgment, 'Oh! poor creature, think of his adverse
circumstances, his ignorance, his temptation. Let us be
merciful and forgiving.'  In practice, however, this often
leads astray. Thus in most cases, even where premeditated
murder is proved to the hilt, the sympathy of the
sentimentalist is invariably with the murderer, to the
complete oblivion of the victim's family.

Bentham, speaking of the humanity plea, thus words its
argument: 'Attend not to the sophistries of reason, which
often deceive, but be governed by your hearts, which will
always lead you right. I reject without hesitation the
punishment you propose: it violates natural feelings, it
harrows up the susceptible mind, it is tyrannical and cruel.'  
Such is the language of your sentimental orators.

'But abolish any one penal law merely because it is repugnant
to the feelings of a humane heart, and, if consistent, you
abolish the whole penal code. There is not one of its
provisions that does not, in a more or less painful degree,
wound the sensibility.'

As this writer elsewhere observes: 'It is only a virtue when
justice has done its work, &c. Before this, to forgive
injuries is to invite their perpetration - is to be, not the
friend, but the enemy of society. What could wickedness
desire more than an arrangement by which offences should be
always followed by pardon?'

Sentiment is the ULTIMA RATIO FEMINARUM, and of men whose
natures are of the epicene gender. It is a luxury we must
forego in the face of the stern duties which evil compels us
to encounter.

There is only one other argument against capital punishment
that is worth considering.

The objection so strenuously pleaded by Dickens in his
letters to the 'Times' - viz. the brutalising effects upon
the degraded crowds which witnessed public executions - is no
longer apposite. But it may still be urged with no little
force that the extreme severity of the sentence induces all
concerned in the conviction of the accused to shirk the
responsibility. Informers, prosecutors, witnesses, judges,
and jurymen are, as a rule, liable to reluctance as to the
performance of their respective parts in the melancholy
drama.'  The consequence is that 'the benefit of the doubt,'
while salving the consciences of these servants of the law,
not unfrequently turns a real criminal loose upon society;
whereas, had any other penalty than death been feasible, the
same person would have been found guilty.

Much might be said on either side, but on the whole it would
seem wisest to leave things - in this country - as they are;
and, for one, I am inclined to the belief that,

Mercy murders, pardoning those that kill.

CHAPTER XIX

WE were nearly six weeks in the Havana, being detained by
Lord Durham's illness. I provided myself with a capital
Spanish master, and made the most of him. This, as it turned
out, proved very useful to me in the course of my future
travels. About the middle of March we left for Charlestown
in the steamer ISABEL, and thence on to New York. On the
passage to Charlestown, we were amused one evening by the
tricks of a conjuror. I had seen the man and his wife
perform at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. She was called the
'Mysterious Lady.'  The papers were full of speculations as
to the nature of the mystery. It was the town talk and
excitement of the season.

This was the trick. The lady sat in the corner of a large
room, facing the wall, with her eyes bandaged. The company
were seated as far as possible from her. Anyone was invited
to write a few words on a slip of paper, and hand it to the
man, who walked amongst the spectators. He would simply say
to the woman 'What has the gentleman (or lady) written upon
this paper?'  Without hesitation she would reply correctly.
The man was always the medium. One person requested her,
through the man, to read the number on his watch, the figures
being, as they always are, very minute. The man repeated the
question: 'What is the number on this watch?'  The woman,
without hesitation, gave it correctly. A friend at my side,
a young Guardsman, took a cameo ring from his finger, and
asked for a description of the figures in relief. There was
a pause. The woman was evidently perplexed. She confessed
at last that she was unable to answer. The spectators
murmured. My friend began to laugh. The conjuror's bread
was at stake, but he was equal to the occasion. He at once
explained to the company that the cameo represented 'Leeder
and the Swan in a hambigious position, which the lady didn't
profess to know nothing about.'  This apology, needless to
say, completely re-established the lady's character.

Well, recognising my friend of the Egyptian Hall, I reminded
him of the incident. He remembered it perfectly; and we fell
to chatting about the wonderful success of the 'mystery,' and
about his and the lady's professional career. He had begun
life when a boy as a street acrobat, had become a street
conjuror, had married the 'mysterious lady' out of the 'saw-
dust,' as he expressed it - meaning out of a travelling
circus. After that, 'things had gone 'ard' with them. They
had exhausted their resources in every sense. One night,
lying awake, and straining their brains to devise some means
of subsistence, his wife suddenly exclaimed, 'How would it be
if we were to try so and so?' explaining the trick just
described. His answer was: 'Oh! that's too silly. They'd
see through it directly.'  This was all I could get out of
him: this, and the fact that the trick, first and last, had
made them fairly comfortable for the rest of their days.

Now mark what follows, for it is the gist and moral of my
little story about this conjuror, and about two other miracle
workers whom I have to speak of presently.

Once upon a time, I was discussing with an acquaintance the
not unfamiliar question of Immortality. I professed
Agnosticism - strongly impregnated with incredulity. My
friend had no misgivings, no doubts on the subject whatever.
Absolute certainty is the prerogative of the orthodox. He
had taken University honours, and was a man of high position
at the Bar. I was curious to learn upon what grounds such an
one based his belief. His answer was: 'Upon the phenomena
of electro-biology, and the psychic phenomena of mesmerism.'  
His 'first convictions were established by the manifestations
of the soul as displayed through a woman called "The
Mysterious Lady," who, &c., &c.'

When we have done with our thaumaturgist on board the ISABEL,
I will give another instance, precisely similar to this, of
the simple origin of religious beliefs.

The steamer was pretty full; and the conjuror begged me to
obtain the patronage of my noble friend and the rest of our
party for an entertainment he proposed to give that evening.
This was easily secured, and a goodly sum was raised by
dollar tickets. The sleight-of-hand was excellent. But the
special performance of the evening deserves description in
full. It was that of a whist-playing dog. Three passengers
- one of us taking a hand - played as in dummy whist, dummy's
hand being spread in a long row upon the deck of the saloon
cabin. The conjuror, as did the other passengers, walked
about behind the players, and saw all the players' hands, but
not a word was spoken. The dog played dummy's hand. When it
came to his turn he trotted backwards and forwards, smelling
each card that had been dealt to him. He sometimes
hesitated, then comically shaking his head, would leave it to
smell another. The conjuror stood behind the dog's partner,
and never went near the animal. There was no table - the
cards were thrown on the deck. They were dealt by the
players; the conjuror never touched them. When the dog's
mind was made up, he took his card in his mouth and laid it
on the others. His play was infallible. He and his partner
won the rubber with ease.

Now, to those ignorant of the solution, this must, I think,
seem inexplicable. How was collusion managed between the
animal and its master? One of the conditions insisted upon
by the master himself was silence. He certainly never broke
it. I bought the trick - must I confess it? for twenty
dollars. How transparent most things are when - seen
through! When the dog smelt at the right card, the conjuror,
who saw all four hands, and had his own in his pocket,
clicked his thumb-nail against a finger-nail. The dog alone
could hear it, and played the card accordingly.

The other story: A few years after my return to England, a
great friend called upon me, and, in an excited state,
described a SEANCE he had had with a woman who possessed the
power of 'invoking' spirits. These spirits had correctly
replied to questions, the answers to which were only known to
himself. The woman was an American. I am sorry to say I
have forgotten her name, but I think she was the first of her
tribe to visit this country. As in the case spoken of, my
friend was much affected by the results of the SEANCE. He
was a well-educated and intelligent man. Born to wealth, he
had led a somewhat wildish life in his youth. Henceforth he
became more serious, and eventually turned Roman Catholic.
He entreated me to see the woman, which I did.

I wrote to ask for an appointment. She lived in Charlotte
Street, Fitzroy Square; but on the day after the morrow she
was to change her lodgings to Queen Anne Street, where she
would receive me at 11 A.M. I was punctual to a minute, and
was shown into an ordinary furnished room. The maid informed
me that Mrs. - had not yet arrived from Charlotte Street, but
she was sure to come before long, as she had an engagement
(so she said) with a gentleman.

Nothing could have suited me better. I immediately set to
work to examine the room and the furniture with the greatest
care. I looked under and moved the sofa, tables, and
armchairs. I looked behind the curtains, under the rug, and
up the chimney. I could discover nothing. There was not the
vestige of a spirit anywhere. At last the medium entered - a
plain, middle-aged matron with nothing the least spiritual
about her. She seated herself opposite to me at the round
table in the centre of the room, and demurely asked what I
wanted. 'To communicate with the spirits,' I replied. She
did not know whether that was possible. It depended upon the
person who sought them. She would ask the spirits whether
they would confer with me. Whereupon she put the question:
'Will the spirits converse with this gentleman?'  At all
events, thought I, the term 'gentleman' applies to the next
world, which is a comfort. She listened for the answer.
Presently three distinct raps on the table signified assent.
She then took from her reticule a card whereon were printed
the alphabet, and numerals up to 10. The letters were
separated by transverse lines. She gave me a pencil with
these instructions: I was to think, not utter, my question,
and then put the pencil on each of the letters in succession.
When the letters were touched which spelt the answer, the
spirits would rap, and the words could be written down.

My friend had told me this much, so I came prepared. I began
by politely begging the lady to move away from the table at
which we were seated, and take a chair in the furthest corner
of the room. She indignantly complied, asking if I suspected
her. I replied that 'all ladies were dangerous, when they
were charming,' which put us on the best of terms. I placed
my hat so as to intercept her view of my operations, and thus
pursued them.

Thinking the matter over beforehand, I concluded that when
the questioner, of either sex, was young, love would very
probably be the topic; the flesh, not the spirit, would be
the predominant interest. Being an ingenuous young man of
the average sort, and desperately in love with Susan, let us
say, I should naturally assist the supernatural being, if at
a loss, to understand that the one thing wanted was
information about Susan. I therefore mentally asked the
question: 'Who is the most lovely angel without wings, and
with the means of sitting down?' and proceeded to pass the
pencil over the letters, pausing nowhere. I now and then got
a doubtful rap on or under the table, - how delivered I know
not - but signifying nothing. It was clear the spirits
needed a cue. I put the pencil on the letter S, and kept it
there. I got a tentative rap. I passed at once to U. I got
a more confident rap. Then to S. Rap, rap, without
hesitation. A and N were assented to almost before I touched
them. Susan was an angel - the angel. What more logical
proof could I have of the immortality of the soul?

Mrs. - asked me whether I was satisfied. I said it was
miraculous; so much so indeed, that I could hardly believe
the miracle, until corroborated by another. Would the
spirits be kind enough to suspend this pencil in the air?
'Oh! that was nonsense. The spirits never lent themselves to
mere frivolity.'  'I beg the spirits' pardon, I am sure,'
said I. 'I have heard that they often move heavy tables. I
thought perhaps the pencil would save them trouble. Will
they move this round table up to this little one?'  I had, be
it observed, when alone, moved and changed the relative
positions of both tables; and had determined to make this my
crucial test. To my astonishment, Mrs. - replied that she
could not say whether they would or not. She would ask them.
She did so, and the spirits rapped 'Yes.'

I drew my chair aside. The woman remained seated in the
corner. I watched everything. Nothing happened. After a
while, I took out my watch, and said: 'I fear the spirits do
not intend to keep their word. I have an appointment twenty
minutes hence, and can only give them ten minutes more.'  She
calmly replied she had nothing to do with it. I had heard
what the spirits said. I had better wait a little longer.
Scarcely were the words out of her mouth, when the table gave
a distinct crack, as if about to start. The medium instantly
called my attention to it. I jumped out of my seat, passed
between the two tables, when of a sudden the large table
moved in the direction of the smaller one, and did not stop
till it had pushed the little one over. I make no comments.
No explanation to me is conceivable. I simply narrate what
happened as accurately as I am able.

One other case deserves to be added to the above. I have
connected both of the foregoing with religious persuasions.
The SEANCE I am about to speak of was for the express purpose
of bringing a brokenhearted and widowed mother into
communication with the soul of her only son - a young artist
of genius whom I had known, and who had died about a year
before. The occasion was, of course, a solemn one. The
interest of it was enhanced by the presence of the great
apostle of Spiritualism - Sir William Crookes. The medium
was Miss Kate Fox, again an American. The SEANCE took place
in the house of a very old friend of mine, the late Dr.
George Bird. He had spiritualistic tendencies, but was
supremely honest and single-minded; utterly incapable of
connivance with deception of any kind. As far as I know, the
medium had never been in the room before. The company
present were Dr. Bird's intimate friend Sir William Crookes -
future President of the Royal Society - Miss Bird, Dr. Bird's
daughter, and her husband - Mr. Ionides - and Mrs. -, the
mother of the young artist. The room, a large one, was
darkened; the last light being extinguished after we had
taken our places round the dining-table. We were strenuously
enjoined to hold one another's hands. Unless we did so the
SEANCE would fail.

Before entering the room, I secretly arranged with Mr.
Ionides, who shared my scepticism, that we should sit side by
side; and so each have one hand free. It is not necessary to
relate what passed between the unhappy mother and the medium,
suffice it to say that she put questions to her son; and the
medium interpreted the rappings which came in reply. These,
I believe, were all the poor lady could wish for. To the
rest of us, the astounding events of the SEANCE were the dim
lights, accompanied by faint sounds of an accordion, which
floated about the room over our heads. And now comes, to me,
the strangest part of the whole performance. All the while I
kept my right arm extended under the table, moving my hand to
and fro. Presently it touched something. I make a grab, and
caught, but could not hold for an instant, another hand. It
was on the side away from Mr. Ionides. I said nothing,
except to him, and the SEANCE was immediately broken up.

It may be thought by some that this narration is a biassed
one. But those acquainted with the charlatanry in these days
of what is called 'Christian Science,' and know the extent to
which crass ignorance and predisposed credulity can be duped
by childish delusions, may have some 'idea how acute was the
spirit-rapping epidemic some forty or fifty years ago. 'At
this moment,' writes Froude, in 'Fraser's Magazine,' 1863,
'we are beset with reports of conversations with spirits, of
tables miraculously lifted, of hands projecting out of the
world of shadows into this mortal life. An unusually able,
accomplished person, accustomed to deal with common-sense
facts, a celebrated political economist, and notorious for
business-like habits, assured this writer that a certain
mesmerist, who was my informer's intimate friend, had raised
a dead girl to life.'  Can we wonder that miracles are still
believed in? Ah! no. The need, the dire need, of them
remains, and will remain with us for ever.

CHAPTER XX

WE must move on; we have a long and rough journey before us.
Durham had old friends in New York, Fred Calthorpe had
letters to Colonel Fremont, who was then a candidate for the
Presidency, and who had discovered the South Pass; and Mr.
Ellice had given me a letter to John Jacob Astor - THE
American millionaire of that day. We were thus well provided
with introductions; and nothing could exceed the kindness and
hospitality of our American friends.

But time was precious. It was already mid May, and we had
everything to get - wagons, horses, men, mules, and
provisions. So that we were anxious not to waste a day, but
hurry on to St. Louis as fast as we could. Durham was too
ill to go with us. Phoca had never intended to do so. Fred,
Samson, and I, took leave of our companions, and travelling
via the Hudson to Albany, Buffalo, down Lake Erie, and across
to Chicago, we reached St. Louis in about eight days. As a
single illustration of what this meant before railroads,
Samson and I, having to stop a day at Chicago, hired a buggy
and drove into the neighbouring woods, or wilderness, to hunt
for wild turkeys.

Our outfit, the whole of which we got at St. Louis, consisted
of two heavy wagons, nine mules, and eight horses. We hired
eight men, on the nominal understanding that they were to go
with us as far as the Rocky Mountains on a hunting
expedition. In reality all seven of them, before joining us,
had separately decided to go to California.

Having published in 1852 an account of our journey, entitled
'A Ride over the Rocky Mountains,' I shall not repeat the
story, but merely give a summary of the undertaking, with a
few of the more striking incidents to show what travelling
across unknown America entailed fifty or sixty years ago.

A steamer took us up the Missouri to Omaha. Here we
disembarked on the confines of occupied territory. From near
this point, where the Platte river empties into the Missouri,
to the mouth of the Columbia, on the Pacific - which we
ultimately reached - is at least 1,500 miles as the crow
flies; for us (as we had to follow watercourses and avoid
impassable ridges) it was very much more. Some five-and-
forty miles from our starting-place we passed a small village
called Savannah. Between it and Vancouver there was not a
single white man's abode, with the exception of three trading
stations - mere mud buildings - Fort Laramie, Fort Hall, and
Fort Boise.

The vast prairies on this side of the Rocky Mountains were
grazed by herds of countless bison, wapiti, antelope, and
deer of various species. These were hunted by moving tribes
of Indians - Pawnees, Omahaws, Cheyennes, Ponkaws, Sioux, &c.
On the Pacific side of the great range, a due west course -
which ours was as near as we could keep it - lay across a
huge rocky desert of volcanic debris, where hardly any
vegetation was to be met with, save artemisia - a species of
wormwood - scanty blades of gramma grass, and occasional
osiers by river-banks. The rivers themselves often ran
through canons or gulches, so deep that one might travel for
days within a hundred feet of water yet perish (some of our
animals did so) for the want of a drop to drink. Game was
here very scarce - a few antelope, wolves, and abundance of
rattlesnakes, were nearly the only living things we saw. The
Indians were mainly fishers of the Shoshone - or Great Snake
River - tribe, feeding mostly on salmon, which they speared
with marvellous dexterity; and Root-diggers, who live upon
wild roots. When hard put to it, however, in winter, the
latter miserable creatures certainly, if not the former,
devoured their own children. There was no map of the
country. It was entirely unexplored; in fact, Bancroft the
American historian, in his description of the Indian tribes,
quotes my account of the Root-diggers; which shows how little
was known of this region up to this date. I carried a small
compass fastened round my neck. That and the stars (we
travelled by night when in the vicinity of Indians) were my
only guides for hundreds of dreary miles.

Such then was the task we had set ourselves to grapple with.
As with life itself, nothing but the magic powers of youth
and ignorance could have cajoled us to face it with heedless
confidence and eager zest. These conditions given, with
health - the one essential of all enjoyment - added, the
first escape from civilised restraint, the first survey of
primordial nature as seen in the boundless expanse of the
open prairie, the habitat of wild men and wild animals, -
exhilarate one with emotions akin to the schoolboy's rapture
in the playground, and the thoughtful man's contemplation of
the stars. Freedom and change, space and the possibilities
of the unknown, these are constant elements of our day-
dreams; now and then actual life dangles visions of them
before our eyes, alas! only to teach us that the aspirations
which they inspire are, for the most part, illusory.

Brief indeed, in our case, were the pleasures of novelty.
For the first few days the business was a continuous picnic
for all hands. It was a pleasure to be obliged to help to
set up the tents, to cut wood, to fetch water, to harness the
mules, and work exactly as the paid men worked. The equality
in this respect - that everything each wanted done had to be
done with his own hands - was perfect; and never, from first
to last, even when starvation left me bare strength to lift
the saddle on to my horse, did I regret the necessity, or
desire to be dependent on another man. But the bloom soon
wore off the plum; and the pleasure consisted not in doing
but in resting when the work was done.

For the reason already stated, a sample only of the daily
labour will be given. It may be as well first to bestow a
few words upon the men; for, in the long run, our fellow
beings are the powerful factors, for good or ill, in all our
worldly enterprises.

We had two ordinary mule-drivers - Potter and Morris, a
little acrobat out of a travelling circus, a METIF or half-
breed Indian named Jim, two French Canadians - Nelson and
Louis (the latter spoke French only); Jacob, a Pennsylvanian
auctioneer whose language was a mixture of Dutch, Yankee, and
German; and (after we reached Fort Laramie) another Nelson -
'William' as I shall call him - who offered his services
gratis if we would allow him to go with us to California.

Jacob the Dutch Yankee was the most intelligent and the most
useful of the lot, and was unanimously elected cook for the
party. The Canadian Nelson was a hard-working good young
fellow, with a passionate temper. Louis was a hunter by
profession, Gallic to the tip of his moustache - fond of
slapping his breast and telling of the mighty deeds of NOUS
AUTRES EN HAUT. Jim, the half-breed was Indian by nature -
idle, silent, treacherous, but a crafty hunter. William
deserves special mention, not from any idiosyncrasy of the
man, but because he was concerned soon after he joined us in
the most disastrous of my adventures throughout the
expedition.

To look at, William Nelson might have sat for the portrait of
Leatherstocking. He was a tall gaunt man who had spent his
youth bringing rafts of timber down the Wabash river, from
Fort Wayne to Maumee, in Ohio. For the last six years (he
was three-and-thirty) he had been trapping musk rats and
beaver, and dealing in pelts generally. At the time of our
meeting he was engaged to a Miss Mary something - the
daughter of an English immigrant, who would not consent to
the marriage until William was better off. He was now bound
for California, where he hoped to make the required fortune.
The poor fellow was very sentimental about his Mary; but,
despite his weatherbeaten face, hardy-looking frame, and his
'longue carabine,' he was scarcely the hero which, no doubt,
Miss Mary took him for.

Yes, the novelty soon wore off. We had necessaries enough to
last to California. We also had enough unnecessaries to
bring us to grief in a couple of weeks. Our wagons were
loaded to the roof. And seeing there was no road nor so much
as a track, that there were frequent swamps and small rivers
to be crossed, that our Comanche mules were wilder than the
Indians who had owned them, it may easily be believed that
our rate of progress did not average more than six or seven
miles a day; sometimes it took from dawn to dusk to cross a
stream by ferrying our packages, and emptied wagons, on such
rafts as could be extemporised. Before the end of a
fortnight, both wagons were shattered, wheels smashed, and
axles irreparable. The men, who were as refractory as the
other animals, helped themselves to provisions, tobacco and
whisky, at their own sweet will, and treated our
remonstrances with resentment and contempt.

Heroic measures were exigent. The wagons were broken up and
converted into pack saddles. Both tents, masses of
provisions, 100 lbs. of lead for bullets, kegs of powder,
warm clothing, mackintoshes, waterproof sheeting, tarpaulins,
medicine chest, and bags of sugar, were flung aside to waste
their sweetness on the desert soil. Not one of us had ever
packed a saddle before; and certainly not one of the mules
had ever carried, or to all appearances, ever meant to carry,
a pack. It was a fight between man and beast every day -
twice a day indeed, for we halted to rest and feed, and had
to unpack and repack our remaining impedimenta in payment for
the indulgence.

Let me cite a page from my diary. It is a fair specimen of
scores of similar entries.

'JUNE 24TH. - My morning watch. Up at 1 A.M. Roused the men
at 3.30. Off at 7.30. Rained hard all day. Packs slipped
or kicked off eighteen times before halt. Men grumbling.
Nelson and Jim both too ill to work. When adjusting pack,
Nelson and Louis had a desperate quarrel. Nelson drew his
knife and nearly stabbed Louis. I snatched a pistol out of
my holster, and threatened to shoot Nelson unless he shut up.
Fred, of course, laughed obstreperously at the notion of my
committing murder, which spoilt the dramatic effect.

'Oh! these devils of mules! After repacking, they rolled,
they kicked and bucked, they screamed and bit, as though we
were all in Hell, and didn't know it. It took four men to
pack each one; and the moment their heads were loosed, away
they went into the river, over the hills, and across country
as hard as they could lay legs to ground. It was a cheerful
sight! - the flour and biscuit stuff swimming about in the
stream, the hams in a ditch full of mud, the trailed pots and
pans bumping and rattling on the ground until they were as
shapeless as old wide-awakes. And, worst of all, the pack-
saddles, which had delayed us a week to make - nothing now
but a bundle of splinters.

'25TH. - What a night! A fearful storm broke over us. All
round was like a lake. Fred and I sat, back to back, perched
on a flour bag till daylight, with no covering but our
shooting jackets, our feet in a pool, and bodies streaming
like cascades. Repeated lightning seemed to strike the
ground within a few yards of us. The animals, wild with
terror, stampeded in all directions. In the morning, lo and
behold! Samson on his back in the water, insensibly drunk.
At first I thought he was dead; but he was only dead drunk.
We can't move till he can, unless we bequeath him to the
wolves, which are plentiful. This is the third time he has
served us the same trick. I took the liberty to ram my heel
through the whisky keg (we have kept a small one for
emergencies) and put it empty under his head for a pillow.'

There were plenty of days and nights to match these, but
there were worse in store for us.

One evening, travelling along the North Platte river, before
reaching Laramie, we overtook a Mormon family on their way to
Salt Lake city. They had a light covered wagon with hardly
anything in it but a small supply of flour and bacon. It was
drawn by four oxen and two cows. Four milch cows were
driven. The man's name was Blazzard - a Yorkshireman from
the Wolds, whose speech was that of Learoyd. He had only his
wife and a very pretty daughter of sixteen or seventeen with
him. We asked him how he became a Mormon. He answered:
'From conviction,' and entreated us to be baptized in the
true faith at his hands. The offer was tempting, for the
pretty little milkmaid might have become one of one's wives
on the spot. In truth the sweet nymph urged conversion more
persuasively than her papa - though with what views who shall
say? The old farmer's acquaintance with the Bible was
remarkable. He quoted it at every sentence, and was eloquent
upon the subject of the meaning and the origin of the word
'Bible.'  He assured us the name was given to the Holy Book
from the circumstance of its contents having passed a synod
of prophets, just as an Act of Parliament passes the House of
Commons - BY BILL. Hence its title. It was this historical
fact that guaranteed the authenticity of the sacred volume.
There are various reasons for believing - this is one of
them.

The next day, being Sunday, was spent in sleep. In the
afternoon I helped the Yorkshire lassie to herd her cattle,
which had strayed a long distance amongst the rank herbage by
the banks of the Platte. The heat was intense, well over 120
in the sun; and the mosquitos rose in clouds at every step in
the wet grass. It was an easy job for me, on my little grey,
to gallop after the cows and drive them home, (it would have
been a wearisome one for her,) and she was very grateful, and
played Dorothea to my Hermann. None of our party wore any
upper clothing except a flannel shirt; I had cut off the
sleeves of mine at the elbow. This was better for rough
work, but the broiling sun had raised big blisters on my arms
and throat which were very painful. When we got back to
camp, Dorothea laved the burns for me with cool milk. Ah!
she was very pretty; and, what 'blackguard'  Heine, as
Carlyle dubs him, would have called 'naive schmutzig.'  When
we parted next morning I thought with a sigh that before the
autumn was over, she would be in the seraglio of Mr. Brigham
Young; who, Artemus Ward used to say, was 'the most married
man he ever knew.'

CHAPTER XXI

SPORT had been the final cause of my trip to America - sport
and the love of adventure. As the bison - buffalo, as they
are called - are now extinct, except in preserved districts,
a few words about them as they then were may interest game
hunters of the present day.

No description could convey an adequate conception of the
numbers in which they congregated. The admirable
illustrations in Catlin's great work on the North American
Indians, afford the best idea to those who have never seen
the wonderful sight itself. The districts they frequented
were vast sandy uplands sparsely covered with the tufty
buffalo or gramma grass. These regions were always within
reach of the water-courses; to which morning and evening the
herds descended by paths, after the manner of sheep or cattle
in a pasture. Never shall I forget the first time I
witnessed the extraordinary event of the evening drink.
Seeing the black masses galloping down towards the river, by
the banks of which our party were travelling, we halted some
hundred yards short of the tracks. To have been caught
amongst the animals would have been destruction; for, do what
they would to get out of one's way, the weight of the
thousands pushing on would have crushed anything that impeded
them. On the occasion I refer to we approached to within
safe distance, and fired into them till the ammunition in our
pouches was expended.

As examples of our sporting exploits, three days taken almost
at random will suffice. The season was so far advanced that,
unless we were to winter at Fort Laramie, it was necessary to
keep going. It was therefore agreed that whoever left the
line of march - that is, the vicinity of the North Platte -
for the purpose of hunting should take his chance of catching
up the rest of the party, who were to push on as speedily as
possible. On two of the days which I am about to record this
rule nearly brought me into trouble. I quote from my
journal:

'Left camp to hunt by self. Got a shot at some deer lying in
long grass on banks of a stream. While stalking, I could
hardly see or breathe for mosquitos; they were in my eyes,
nose, and mouth. Steady aim was impossible; and, to my
disgust, I missed the easiest of shots. The neck and flanks
of my little grey are as red as if painted. He is weak from
loss of blood. Fred's head is now so swollen he cannot wear
his hard hat; his eyes are bunged up, and his face is comic
to look at. Several deer and antelopes; but ground too
level, and game too wild to let one near. Hardly caring what
direction I took, followed outskirts of large wood, four or
five miles away from the river. Saw a good many summer
lodges; but knew, by the quantity of game, that the Indians
had deserted them. In the afternoon came suddenly upon deer;
and singling out one of the youngest fawns, tried to run it
down. The country being very rough, I found it hard work to
keep between it and the wood. First, my hat blew off; then a
pistol jumped out of the holster; but I was too near to give
up, - meaning to return for these things afterwards. Two or
three times I ran right over the fawn, which bleated in the
most piteous manner, but always escaped the death-blow from
the grey's hoofs. By degrees we edged nearer to the thicket,
when the fawn darted down the side of a bluff, and was lost
in the long grass and brushwood, I followed at full speed;
but, unable to arrest the impetus of the horse, we dashed
headlong into the thick scrub, and were both thrown with
violence to the ground. I was none the worse; but the poor
beast had badly hurt his shoulder, and for the time was dead
lame.

'For an hour at least I hunted, for my pistol. It was much
more to me than my hat. It was a huge horse pistol, that
threw an ounce ball of exactly the calibre of my double
rifle. I had shot several buffaloes with it, by riding close
to them in a chase; and when in danger of Indians I loaded it
with slugs. At last I found it. It was getting late; and I
didn't rightly know where I was. I made for the low country.
But as we camped last night at least two miles from the
river, on account of the swamps, the difficulty was to find
the tracks. The poor little grey and I hunted for it in
vain. The wet ground was too wet, the dry ground too hard,
to show the tracks in the now imperfect light.

'The situation was a disagreeable one: it might be two or
three days before I again fell in with my friends. I had not
touched food since the early morning, and was rather done.
To return to the high ground was to give up for the night;
but that meant another day behind the cavalcade, with
diminished chance of overtaking it. Through the dusk I saw
what I fancied was something moving on a mound ahead of me
which arose out of the surrounding swamp. I spurred on, but
only to find the putrid carcase of a buffalo, with a wolf
supping on it. The brute was gorged, and looked as sleek as
"die schone Frau Giermund"; but, unlike Isegrim's spouse, she
was free to escape, for she wasn't worth a bullet. I was so
famished, that I examined the carcase with the hope of
finding a cut that would last for a day or two; my nose
wouldn't have it. I plodded on, the water up to the saddle-
girths. The mosquitos swarmed in millions, and the poor
little grey could hardly get one leg before the other. I,
too, was so feverish that, ignorant of bacteria, I filled my
round hat with the filthy stagnant water, and drank it at a
draught.

'At last I made for higher ground. It was too dark to hunt
for tracks, so I began to look out for a level bed. Suddenly
my beast, who jogged along with his nose to the ground, gave
a loud neigh. We had struck the trail. I threw the reins on
his neck, and left matters to his superior instincts. In
less than half an hour the joyful light of a camp fire
gladdened my eyes. Fred told me he had halted as soon as he
was able, not on my account only, but because he, too, had
had a severe fall, and was suffering great pain from a
bruised knee.'

Here is an ordinary example of buffalo shooting:

'JULY 2ND. - Fresh meat much wanted. With Jim the half-breed
to the hills. No sooner on high ground than we sighted game.
As far as eye could reach, right away to the horizon, the
plain was black with buffaloes, a truly astonishing sight.
Jim was used to it. I stopped to spy them with amazement.
The nearest were not more than half a mile off, so we
picketed our horses under the sky line; and choosing the
hollows, walked on till crawling became expedient. As is
their wont, the outsiders were posted on bluffs or knolls in
a commanding position; these were old bulls. To my
inexperience, our chance of getting a shot seemed small; for
we had to cross the dipping ground under the brow whereon the
sentinels were lying. Three extra difficulties beset us -
the prairie dogs (a marmot, so called from its dog-like bark
when disturbed) were all round us, and bolted into their
holes like rabbits directly they saw us coming; two big grey
wolves, the regular camp followers of a herd, were prowling
about in a direct line between us and the bulls; lastly, the
cows, though up and feeding, were inconveniently out of
reach. (The meat of the young cow is much preferred to that
of the bull.)  Jim, however, was confident. I followed my
leader to a wink. The only instruction I didn't like when we
started crawling on the hot sand was "Look out for
rattlesnakes."

'The wolves stopped, examined us suspiciously, then quietly
trotted off. What with this and the alarm of the prairie
dogs, an old bull, a patriarch of the tribe, jumped up and
walked with majestic paces to the top of the knoll. We lay
flat on our faces, till he, satisfied with the result of his
scrutiny, resumed his recumbent posture; but with his head
turned straight towards us. Jim, to my surprise, stealthily
crawled on. In another minute or two we had gained a point
whence we could see through the grass without being seen.
Here we rested to recover breath. Meanwhile, three or four
young cows fed to within sixty or seventy yards of us.
Unluckily we both selected the same animal, and both fired at
the same moment. Off went the lot helter skelter, all save
the old bull, who roared out his rage and trotted up close to
our hiding place.

'"Look out for a bolt," whispered Jim, "but don't show
yourself nohow till I tell you."

'For a minute or two the suspense was exciting. One hardly
dared to breathe. But his majesty saw us not, and turned
again to his wives. We instantly reloaded; and the startled
herd, which had only moved a few yards, gave us the chance of
a second shot. The first cow had fallen dead almost where
she stood. The second we found at the foot of the hill, also
with two bullet wounds behind the shoulder. The tongues,
humps, and tender loins, with some other choice morsels, were
soon cut off and packed, and we returned to camp with a grand
supply of beef for Jacob's larder.

CHAPTER XXII

AT the risk of being tedious, I will tell of one more day's
buffalo hunting, to show the vicissitudes of this kind of
sport. Before doing so we will glance at another important
feature of prairie life, a camp of Sioux Indians.

One evening, after halting on the banks of the Platte, we
heard distant sounds of tomtoms on the other side of the
river. Jim, the half-breed, and Louis differed as to the
tribe, and hence the friendliness or hostility, of our
neighbours. Louis advised saddling up and putting the night
between us; he regaled us to boot with a few blood-curdling
tales of Indian tortures, and of NOUS AUTRES EN HAUT. Jim
treated these with scorn, and declared he knew by the 'tunes'
(!) that the pow-wow was Sioux. Just now, he asserted, the
Sioux were friendly, and this 'village' was on its way to
Fort Laramie to barter 'robes' (buffalo skins) for blankets
and ammunition. He was quite willing to go over and talk to
them if we had no objection.

Fred, ever ready for adventure, would have joined him in a
minute; but the river, which was running strong, was full of
nasty currents, and his injured knee disabled him from
swimming. No one else seemed tempted; so, following Jim's
example, I stripped to my flannel shirt and moccasins, and
crossed the river, which was easier to get into than out of,
and soon reached the 'village.'  Jim was right, - they were
Sioux, and friendly. They offered us a pipe of kinik (the
dried bark of the red willow), and jabbered away with their
kinsman, who seemed almost more at home with them than with
us.

Seeing one of their 'braves' with three fresh scalps at his
belt, I asked for the history of them. In Sioux gutturals
the story was a long one. Jim's translation amounted to
this: The scalps were 'lifted' from two Crows and a Ponkaw.
The Crows, it appeared, were the Sioux' natural enemies
'anyhow,' for they occasionally hunted on each other's
ranges. But the Ponkaw, whom he would not otherwise have
injured, was casually met by him on a horse which the Sioux
recognised for a white man's. Upon being questioned how he
came by it, the Ponkaw simply replied that it was his own.
Whereupon the Sioux called him a liar; and proved it by
sending an arrow through his body.

I didn't quite see it. But then, strictly speaking, I am no
collector of scalps. To preserve my own, I kept the hair on
it as short as a tooth-brush.

Before we left, our hosts fed us on raw buffalo meat. This,
cut in slices, and dried crisp in the sun, is excellent.
Their lodges were very comfortable, most of them large enough
to hold a dozen people. The ground inside was covered with
buffalo robes; and the sewn skins, spread tight upon the
converging poles, formed a tent stout enough to defy all
weathers. In winter the lodge can be entirely closed; and
when a fire is kindled in the centre, the smoke escaping at a
small hole where the poles join, the snugness is complete.

At the entrance of one of these lodges I watched a squaw and
her child prepare a meal. When the fuel was collected, a fat
puppy, playing with the child, was seized by the squaw, and
knocked on the throat - not head - with a stick. The puppy
was then returned, kicking, to the tender mercies of the
infant; who exerted its small might to add to the animal's
miseries, while the mother fed the fire and filled a kettle
for the stew. The puppy, much more alive than dead, was held
by the hind leg over the flames as long as the squaw's
fingers could stand them. She then let it fall on the
embers, where it struggled and squealed horribly, and would
have wriggled off, but for the little savage, who took good
care to provide for the satisfactory singeing of its
playmate.

Considering the length of its lineage, how remarkably hale
and well preserved is our own barbarity!

We may now take our last look at the buffaloes, for we shall
see them no more. Again I quote my journal:

'JULY 5TH. - Men sulky because they have nothing to eat but
rancid ham, and biscuit dust which has been so often soaked
that it is mouldy and sour. They are a dainty lot! Samson
and I left camp early with the hopes of getting meat. While
he was shooting prairie dogs his horse made off, and cost me
nearly an hour's riding to catch. Then, accidentally letting
go of my mustang, he too escaped; and I had to run him down
with the other. Towards evening, spied a small band of
buffaloes, which we approached by leading our horses up a
hollow. They got our wind, however, and were gone before we
were aware of it. They were all young, and so fast, it took
a twenty minutes' gallop to come up with them. Samson's
horse put his foot in a hole, and the cropper they both got
gave the band a long start, as it became a stern chase, and
no heading off.

'At length I managed to separate one from the herd by firing
my pistol into the "brown," and then devoted my efforts to
him alone. Once or twice he turned and glared savagely
through his mane. When quite isolated he pulled up short, so
did I. We were about sixty yards apart. I flung the reins
upon the neck of the mustang, who was too blown to stir, and
handling my rifle, waited for the bull to move so that I
might see something more than the great shaggy front, which
screened his body. But he stood his ground, tossing up the
sand with his hoofs. Presently, instead of turning tail, he
put his head down, and bellowing with rage, came at me as
hard as he could tear. I had but a moment for decision, - to
dig spurs into the mustang, or risk the shot. I chose the
latter; paused till I was sure of his neck, and fired when he
was almost under me. In an instant I was sent flying; and
the mustang was on his back with all four legs in the air.

'The bull was probably as much astonished as we were. His
charge had carried him about thirty yards, at most, beyond
us. There he now stood; facing me, pawing the ground and
snorting as before. Badly wounded I knew him to be, - that
was the worst of it; especially as my rifle, with its
remaining loaded barrel, lay right between us. To hesitate
for a second only, was to lose the game. There was no time
to think of bruises; I crawled, eyes on him, straight for my
weapon: got it - it was already cocked, and the stock
unbroken - raised my knee for a rest. We were only twenty
yards apart (the shot meant death for one of the two), and
just catching a glimpse of his shoulder-blade, I pulled. I
could hear the thud of the heavy bullet, and - what was
sweeter music - the ugh! of the fatal groan. The beast
dropped on his knees, and a gush of blood spurted from his
nostrils.

'But the wild devil of a mustang? that was my first thought
now. Whenever one dismounted, it was necessary to loosen his
long lariat, and let it trail on the ground. Without this
there was no chance of catching him. I saw at once what had
happened: by the greatest good fortune, at the last moment,
he must have made an instinctive start, which probably saved
his life, and mine too. The bull's horns had just missed his
entrails and my leg, - we were broadside on to the charge, -
and had caught him in the thigh, below the hip. There was a
big hole, and he was bleeding plentifully. For all that, he
wouldn't let me catch him. He could go faster on three legs
than I on two.

'It was getting dark, I had not touched food since starting,
nor had I wetted my lips. My thirst was now intolerable.
The travelling rule, about keeping on, was an ugly incubus.
Samson would go his own ways - he had sense enough for that -
but how, when, where, was I to quench my thirst? Oh! for the
tip of Lazarus' finger - or for choice, a bottle of Bass - to
cool my tongue! Then too, whither would the mustang stray in
the night if I rested or fell asleep? Again and again I
tried to stalk him by the starlight. Twice I got hold of his
tail, but he broke away. If I drove him down to the river
banks the chance of catching him would be no better, and I
should lose the dry ground to rest on.

'It was about as unpleasant a night as I had yet passed.
Every now and then I sat down, and dropped off to sleep from
sheer exhaustion. Every time this happened I dreamed of
sparkling drinks; then woke with a start to a lively sense of
the reality, and anxious searches for the mustang.

'Directly the day dawned I drove the animal, now very stiff,
straight down for the Platte. He wanted water fully as much
as his master; and when we sighted it he needed no more
driving. Such a hurry was he in that, in his rush for the
river, he got bogged in the muddy swamp at its edge. I
seized my chance, and had him fast in a minute. We both
plunged into the stream; I, clothes and all, and drank, and
drank, and drank.'

That evening I caught up the cavalcade.

How curious it is to look back upon such experiences from a
different stage of life's journey! How would it have fared
with me had my rifle exploded with the fall? it was knocked
out of my hands at full cock. How if the stock had been
broken? It had been thrown at least ten yards. How if the
horn had entered my thigh instead of the horse's? How if I
had fractured a limb, or had been stunned, or the bull had
charged again while I was creeping up to him? Any one, or
more than one, of these contingencies were more likely to
happen than not. But nothing did happen, save - the best.

Not a thought of the kind ever crossed my mind, either at the
time or afterwards. Yet I was not a thoughtless man, only an
average man. Nine Englishmen out of ten with a love of sport
- as most Englishmen are - would have done, and have felt,
just as I did. I was bruised and still; but so one is after
a run with hounds. I had had many a nastier fall hunting in
Derbyshire. The worst that could happen did not happen; but
the worst never - well, so rarely does. One might shoot
oneself instead of the pigeon, or be caught picking forbidden
fruit. Narrow escapes are as good as broad ones. The truth
is, when we are young, and active, and healthy, whatever
happens, of the pleasant or lucky kind, we accept as a matter
of course.

Ah! youth! youth! If we only knew when we were well off,
when we were happy, when we possessed all that this world has
to give! If we but knew that love is only a matter of course
so long as youth and its bounteous train is ours, we might
perhaps make the most of it, and give up looking for -
something better. But what then? Give up the 'something
better'? Give up pursuit, - the effort that makes us strong?
'Give up the sweets of hope'?  No! 'tis better as it is,
perhaps. The kitten plays with its tail, and the nightingale
sings; but they think no more of happiness than the rose-bud
of its beauty. May be happiness comes not of too much
knowing, or too much thinking either.

CHAPTER XXIII

FORT LARAMIE was a military station and trading post
combined. It was a stone building in what they called a
'compound' or open space, enclosed by a palisade. When we
arrived there, it was occupied by a troop of mounted riflemen
under canvas, outside the compound. The officers lived in
the fort; and as we had letters to the Colonel - Somner - and
to the Captain - Rhete, they were very kind and very useful
to us.

We pitched our camp by the Laramie river, four miles from the
fort. Nearer than that there was not a blade of grass. The
cavalry horses and military mules needed all there was at
hand. Some of the mules we were allowed to buy, or exchange
for our own. We accordingly added six fresh ones to our
cavalcade, and parted with two horses; which gave us a total
of fifteen mules and six horses. Government provisions were
not to be had, so that we could not replenish our now
impoverished stock. This was a serious matter, as will be
seen before long. Nor was the evil lessened by my being laid
up with a touch of fever - the effect, no doubt, of those
drenches of stagnant water. The regimental doctor was
absent. I could not be taken into the fort. And, as we had
no tent, and had thrown away almost everything but the
clothes we wore, I had to rough it and take my chance. Some
relics of our medicine chest, together with a tough
constitution, pulled me through. But I was much weakened,
and by no means fit for the work before us. Fred did his
best to persuade me from going further. He confessed that he
was utterly sick of the expedition; that his injured knee
prevented him from hunting, or from being of any use in
packing and camp work; that the men were a set of ruffians
who did just as they chose - they grumbled at the hardships,
yet helped themselves to the stores without restraint; that
we had the Rocky Mountains yet to cross; after that, the
country was unknown. Colonel Somner had strongly advised us
to turn back. Forty of his men had tried two months ago to
carry despatches to the regiment's headquarters in Oregon.
Only five had got through; the rest had been killed and
scalped. Finally, that we had something like 1,200 miles to
go, and were already in the middle of August. It would be
folly, obstinacy, madness, to attempt it. He would stop and
hunt where we were, as long as I liked; or he would go back
with me. He would hire fresh good men, and buy new horses;
and, now that we knew the country, we could get to St. Louis
before the end of September, and' - . There was no reasonable
answer to be made. I simply told him I had thought it over,
and had decided to go on. Like the plucky fellow and staunch
friend that he was, he merely shrugged his shoulders, and
quietly said, 'Very well. So be it.'

Before leaving Fort Laramie a singular incident occurred,
which must seem so improbable, that its narration may be
taken for fiction. It was, however, a fact. There was
plenty of game near our camping ground; and though the
weather was very hot, one of the party usually took the
trouble to bring in something to keep the pot supplied. The
sage hens, the buffalo or elk meat were handed over to Jacob,
who made a stew with bacon and rice, enough for the evening
meal and the morrow's breakfast. After supper, when everyone
had filled his stomach, the large kettle, covered with its
lid, was taken off the fire, and this allowed to burn itself
out.

For four or five mornings running the kettle was found nearly
empty, and all hands had to put up with a cup of coffee and
mouldy biscuit dust. There was a good deal of
unparliamentary language. Everyone accused everyone else of
filthy greediness. It was disgusting that after eating all
he could, a man hadn't the decency to wait till the morning.
The pot had been full for supper, and, as every man could
see, it was never half emptied - enough was always left for
breakfast. A resolution was accordingly passed that each
should take his turn of an hour's watch at night, till the
glutton was caught in the act.

My hour happened to be from 11 to 12 P.M. I strongly
suspected the thief to be an Indian, and loaded my big pistol
with slugs on the chance. It was a clear moonlight night. I
propped myself comfortably with a bag of hams; and concealed
myself as well as I could in a bush of artemisia, which was
very thick all round. I had not long been on the look-out
when a large grey wolf prowled slowly out of the bushes. The
night was bright as day; but every one of the men was sound
asleep in a circle round the remains of the camp fire. The
wolf passed between them, hesitating as it almost touched a
covering blanket. Step by step it crept up to the kettle,
took the handle of the lid between its jaws, lifted it off,
placed it noiselessly on the ground, and devoured the savoury
stew.

I could not fire, because of the men. I dared not move, lest
I should disturb the robber. I was even afraid the click of
cocking the pistol would startle him and prevent my getting a
quiet shot. But patience was rewarded. When satiated, the
brute retired as stealthily as he had advanced; and as he
passed within seven or eight yards of me I let him have it.
Great was my disappointment to see him scamper off. How was
it possible I could have missed him? I must have fired over
his back. The men jumped to their feet and clutched their
rifles; but, though astonished at my story, were soon at rest
again. After this the kettle was never robbed. Four days
later we were annoyed with such a stench that it was a
question of shifting our quarters. In hunting for the
nuisance amongst the thicket of wormwood, the dead wolf was
discovered not twenty yards from our centre.

The reader would not thank me for an account of the
monotonous drudgery, the hardships, the quarrellings, which
grew worse from day to day after we left Fort Laramie. Fred
and I were about the only two who were on speaking terms; we
clung to each other, as a sort of forlorn security against
coming disasters. Gradually it was dawning on me that, under
the existing circumstances, the fulfilment of my hopes would
be (as Fred had predicted) an impossibility; and that to
persist in the attempt to realise them was to court
destruction. As yet, I said nothing of this to him. Perhaps
I was ashamed to. Perhaps I secretly acknowledged to myself
that he had been wiser than I, and that my stubbornness was
responsible for the life itself of every one of the party.

Doubtless thoughts akin to these must often have haunted the
mind of my companion; but he never murmured; only uttered a
hasty objurgation when troubles reached a climax, and
invariably ended with a burst of cheery laughter which only
the sulkiest could resist. It was after a day of severe
trials he proposed that we should go off by ourselves for a
couple of nights in search of game, of which we were much in
need. The men were easily persuaded to halt and rest.
Samson had become a sort of nonentity. Dysentery had
terribly reduced his strength, and with it such intelligence
as he could boast of. We started at daybreak, right glad to
be alone together and away from the penal servitude to which
we were condemned. We made for the Sweetwater, not very far
from the foot of the South Pass, where antelope and black-
tailed deer abounded. We failed, however, to get near them -
stalk after stalk miscarried.

Disappointed and tired, we were looking out for some snug
little hollow where we could light a fire without its being
seen by the Indians, when, just as we found what we wanted,
an antelope trotted up to a brow to inspect us. I had a
fairly good shot at him and missed. This disheartened us
both. Meat was the one thing we now sorely needed to save
the rapidly diminishing supply of hams. Fred said nothing,
but I saw by his look how this trifling accident helped to
depress him. I was ready to cry with vexation. My rifle was
my pride, the stag of my life - my ALTER EGO. It was never
out of my hands; every day I practised at prairie dogs, at
sage hens, at a mark even if there was no game. A few days
before we got to Laramie I had killed, right and left, two
wild ducks, the second on the wing; and now, when so much
depended on it, I could not hit a thing as big as a donkey.
The fact is, I was the worse for illness. I had constant
returns of fever, with bad shivering fits, which did not
improve the steadiness of one's hand. However, we managed to
get a supper. While we were examining the spot where the
antelope had stood, a leveret jumped up, and I knocked him
over with my remaining barrel. We fried him in the one tin
plate we had brought with us, and thought it the most
delicious dish we had had for weeks.

As we lay side by side, smoke curling peacefully from our
pipes, we chatted far into the night, of other days - of
Cambridge, of our college friends, of London, of the opera,
of balls, of women - the last a fruitful subject - and of the
future. I was vastly amused at his sudden outburst as some
start of one of the horses picketed close to us reminded us
of the actual present. 'If ever I get out of this d-d mess,'
he exclaimed, 'I'll never go anywhere without my own French
cook.'  He kept his word, to the end of his life, I believe.

It was a delightful repose, a complete forgetting, for a
night at any rate, of all impending care. Each was cheered
and strengthened for the work to come. The spirit of
enterprise, the love of adventure restored for the moment,
believed itself a match for come what would. The very
animals seemed invigorated by the rest and the abundance of
rich grass spreading as far as we could see. The morning was
bright and cool. A delicious bath in the Sweetwater, a
breakfast on fried ham and coffee, and once more in our
saddles on the way back to camp, we felt (or fancied that we
felt) prepared for anything.

That is just what we were not. Samson and the men, meeting
with no game where we had left them, had moved on that
afternoon in search of better hunting grounds. The result
was that when we overtook them, we found five mules up to
their necks in a muddy creek. The packs were sunk to the
bottom, and the animals nearly drowned or strangled. Fred
and I rushed to the rescue. At once we cut the ropes which
tied them together; and, setting the men to pull at tails or
heads, succeeded at last in extricating them.

Our new-born vigour was nipped in the bud. We were all
drenched to the skin. Two packs containing the miserable
remains of our wardrobe, Fred's and mine, were lost. The
catastrophe produced a good deal of bad language and bad
blood. Translated into English it came to this: 'They had
trusted to us, taking it for granted we knew what we were
about. What business had we to "boss" the party if we were
as ignorant as the mules? We had guaranteed to lead them
through to California [!] and had brought them into this
"almighty fix" to slave like niggers and to starve.' There
was just truth enough in the Jeremiad to make it sting. It
would not have been prudent, nay, not very safe, to return
curse for curse. But the breaking point was reached at last.
That night I, for one, had not much sleep. I was soaked from
head to foot, and had not a dry rag for a change. Alternate
fits of fever and rigor would alone have kept me awake; but
renewed ponderings upon the situation and confirmed
convictions of the peremptory necessity of breaking up the
party, forced me to the conclusion that this was the right,
the only, course to adopt.

For another twenty-four hours I brooded over my plans. Two
main difficulties confronted me: the announcement to the
men, who might mutiny; and the parting with Fred, which I
dreaded far the most of the two. Would he not think it
treacherous to cast him off after the sacrifices he had made
for me? Implicitly we were as good as pledged to stand by
each other to the last gasp. Was it not mean and dastardly
to run away from the battle because it was dangerous to fight
it out? Had friendship no claims superior to personal
safety? Was not my decision prompted by sheer selfishness?
Could anything be said in its defence?

Yes; sentiment must yield to reason. To go on was certain
death for all. It was not too late to return, for those who
wished it. And when I had demonstrated, as I could easily
do, the impossibility of continuance, each one could decide
for himself. The men were as reckless as they were ignorant.
However they might execrate us, we were still their natural
leaders: their blame, indeed, implied they felt it. No
sentimental argument could obscure this truth, and this
conviction was decisive.

The next night and the day after were, from a moral point of
view, the most trying perhaps, of the whole journey. We had
halted on a wide, open plain. Due west of us in the far
distance rose the snowy peaks of the mountains. And the
prairie on that side terminated in bluffs, rising gradually
to higher spurs of the range. When the packs were thrown
off, and the men had turned, as usual, to help themselves to
supper, I drew Fred aside and imparted my resolution to him.
He listened to it calmly - much more so than I had expected.
Yet it was easy to see by his unusual seriousness that he
fully weighed the gravity of the purpose. All he said at the
time was, 'Let us talk it over after the men are asleep.'

We did so. We placed our saddles side by side - they were
our regular pillows - and, covering ourselves with the same
blanket, well out of ear-shot, discussed the proposition from
every practical aspect. He now combated my scheme, as I
always supposed he would, by laying stress upon our bond of
friendship. This was met on my part by the arguments already
set forth. He then proposed an amendment, which almost upset
my decision. 'It is true,' he admitted, 'that we cannot get
through as we are going now; the provisions will not hold out
another month, and it is useless to attempt to control the
men. But there are two ways out of the difficulty: we can
reach Salt Lake City and winter there; or, if you are bent on
going to California, why shouldn't we take Jacob and Nelson
(the Canadian), pay off the rest of the brutes, and travel
together, - us four?'

Whether 'das ewig Wirkende' that shapes our ends be
beneficent or malignant is not easy to tell, till after the
event. Certain it is that sometimes we seem impelled by
latent forces stronger than ourselves - if by self be meant
one's will. We cannot give a reason for all we do; the
infinite chain of cause and effect, which has had no
beginning and will have no end, is part of the reckoning, -
with this, finite minds can never grapple.

It was destined (my stubbornness was none of my making) that
I should remain obdurate. Fred's last resource was an
attempt to persuade me (he really believed: I, too, thought
it likely) that the men would show fight, annex beasts and
provisions, and leave us to shift for ourselves. There were
six of them, armed as we were, to us three, or rather us two,
for Samson was a negligible quantity. 'We shall see,' said
I; and by degrees we dropped asleep.

CHAPTER XXIV

BEFORE the first streak of dawn I was up and off to hunt for
the horses and mules, which were now allowed to roam in
search of feed. On my return, the men were afoot, taking it
easy as usual. Some artemisia bushes were ablaze for the
morning's coffee. No one but Fred had a suspicion of the
coming crisis. I waited till each one had lighted his pipe;
then quietly requested the lot to gather the provision packs
together, as it was desirable to take stock, and make some
estimate of demand and supply. Nothing loth, the men obeyed.
'Now,' said I, 'turn all the hams out of their bags, and let
us see how long they will last.'  When done: 'What!' I
exclaimed, with well - feigned dismay, 'that's not all,
surely? There are not enough here to last a fortnight.
Where are the rest?  No more? Why, we shall starve.'  The
men's faces fell; but never a murmur, nor a sound. 'Turn out
the biscuit bags. Here, spread these empty ham sacks, and
pour the biscuit on to them. Don't lose any of the dust. We
shall want every crumb, mouldy or not.'  The gloomy faces
grew gloomier. What's to be done?'  Silence. 'The first
thing, as I think all will agree, is to divide what is left
into nine equal shares - that's our number now - and let each
one take his ninth part, to do what he likes with. You
yourselves shall portion out the shares, and then draw lots
for choice.'

This presentation of the inevitable compelled submission.
The whole, amounting to twelve light mule packs (it had been
fifteen fairly heavy ones after our purchases at Fort
Laramie), was still a goodly bulk to look at. The nine
peddling dividends, when seen singly, were not quite what the
shareholders had anticipated.

Why were they still silent? Why did they not rebel, and
visit their wrath upon the directors? Because they knew in
their hearts that we had again and again predicted the
catastrophe. They knew we had warned them scores and scores
of times of the consequences of their wilful and reckless
improvidence. They were stupefied, aghast, at the ruin they
had brought upon themselves. To turn upon us, to murder us,
and divide our three portions between them, would have been
suicidal. In the first place, our situation was as desperate
as theirs. We should fight for our lives; and it was not
certain, in fact it was improbable, that either Jacob or
William would side against us. Without our aid - they had
not a compass among them - they were helpless. The instinct
of self-preservation bade them trust to our good will.

So far, then, the game was won. Almost humbly they asked
what we advised them to do. The answer was prompt and
decisive: 'Get back to Fort Laramie as fast as you can.'  
'But how? Were they to walk? They couldn't carry their
packs.'  'Certainly not; we were English gentlemen, and would
behave as such. Each man should have his own mule; each,
into the bargain, should receive his pay according to
agreement.' They were agreeably surprised. I then very
strongly counselled them not to travel together. Past
experience proved how dangerous this must be. To avoid the
temptation, even the chance, of this happening, the surest
and safest plan would be for each party to start separately,
and not leave till the last was out of sight. For my part I
had resolved to go alone.

It was a melancholy day for everyone. And to fill the cup of
wretchedness to overflowing, the rain, beginning with a
drizzle, ended with a downpour. Consultations took place
between men who had not spoken to one another for weeks.
Fred offered to go on, at all events to Salt Lake City, if
Nelson the Canadian and Jacob would go with him. Both
eagerly closed with the offer. They would be so much nearer
to the 'diggings,' and were, moreover, fond of their leader.
Louis would go back to Fort Laramie. Potter and Morris would
cross the mountains, and strike south for the Mormon city if
their provisions and mules threatened to give out. William
would try his luck alone in the same way. And there remained
no one but Samson, undecided and unprovided for. The strong
weak man sat on the ground in the steady rain, smoking pipe
after pipe; watching first the preparations, then the
departures, one after the other, at intervals of an hour or
so. First the singles, then the pair; then, late in the
afternoon, Fred and his two henchmen.

It is needless to depict our separation. I do not think
either expected ever to see the other again. Yet we parted
after the manner of trueborn Britons, as if we should meet
again in a day or two. 'Well, good-bye, old fellow. Good
luck. What a beastly day, isn't it?'  But emotions are only
partially suppressed by subduing their expression. The
hearts of both were full.

I watched the gradual disappearance of my dear friend, and
thought with a sigh of my loss in Jacob and Nelson, the two
best men of the band. It was a comfort to reflect that they
had joined Fred. Jacob especially was full of resource;
Nelson of energy and determination. And the courage and cool
judgment of Fred, and his presence of mind in emergencies,
were all pledges for the safety of the trio.

As they vanished behind a distant bluff, I turned to the
sodden wreck of the deserted camp, and began actively to pack
my mules. Samson seemed paralysed by imbecility.

'What had I better do?' he presently asked, gazing with dull
eyes at his two mules and two horses.

'I don't care what you do. It is nothing to me. You had
better pack your mules before it is dark, or you may lose
them.'

'I may as well go with you, I think. I don't care much about
going back to Laramie.'

He looked miserable. I was so. I had held out under a long
and heavy strain. Parting with Fred had, for the moment,
staggered my resolution. I was sick at heart. The thought
of packing two mules twice a day, single-handed, weakened as
I was by illness, appalled me. And though ashamed of the
perversity which had led me to fling away the better and
accept the worse, I yielded.

'Very well then. Make haste. Get your traps together. I'll
look after the horses.'

It took more than an hour before the four mules were ready.
Like a fool, I left Samson to tie the led horses in a string,
while I did the same with the mules. He started, leading the
horses. I followed with the mule train some minutes later.
Our troubles soon began. The two spare horses were nearly as
wild as the mules. I had not got far when I discerned
through the rain a kicking and plunging and general
entanglement of the lot ahead of me. Samson had fastened the
horses together with slip knots; and they were all doing
their best to strangle one another and themselves. To leave
the mules was dangerous, yet two men were required to release
the maddened horses. At last the labour was accomplished;
and once more the van pushed on with distinct instructions as
to the line of march, it being now nearly dark. The mules
had naturally vanished in the gloom; and by the time I was
again in my saddle, Samson was - I knew not where. On and on
I travelled, far into the night. But failing to overtake my
companion, and taking for granted that he had missed his way,
I halted when I reached a stream, threw off the packs, let
the animals loose, rolled myself in my blanket, and shut my
eyes upon a trying day.

Nothing happens but the unexpected. Daylight woke me.
Samson, still in his rugs, was but a couple of hundred yards
further up the stream. In the afternoon of the third day we
fell in with William. He had cut himself a long willow wand
and was fishing for trout, of which he had caught several in
the upper reaches of the Sweetwater. He threw down his rod,
hastened to welcome our arrival, and at once begged leave to
join us. He was already sick of solitude. He had come
across Potter and Morris, who had left him that morning.
They had been visited by wolves in the night, (I too had been
awakened by their howlings,) and poor William did not relish
the thought of the mountains alone, with his one little white
mule - which he called 'Cream.'  He promised to do his utmost
to help with the packing, and 'not cost us a cent.'  I did
not tell him how my heart yearned towards him, and how
miserably my courage had oozed away since we parted, but made
a favour of his request, and granted it. The gain, so long
as it lasted, was incalculable.

The summit of the South Pass is between 8000 and 9000 feet
above the level of the Gulf of Mexico. The Pass itself is
many miles broad, undulating on the surface, but not
abruptly. The peaks of the Wind River Chain, immediately to
the north, are covered with snow; and as we gradually got
into the misty atmosphere we felt the cold severely. The
lariats - made of raw hide - became rods of ice; and the poor
animals, whose backs were masses of festering raws, suffered
terribly from exposure. It was interesting to come upon
proofs of the 'divide' within a mile of the most elevated
point in the pass. From the Hudson to this spot, all waters
had flowed eastward; now suddenly every little rivulet was
making for the Pacific.

The descent is as gradual as the rise. On the first day of
it we lost two animals, a mule and Samson's spare horse. The
latter, never equal to the heavy weight of its owner, could
go no further; and the dreadful state of the mule's back
rendered packing a brutality. Morris and Potter, who passed
us a few days later, told us they had seen the horse dead,
and partially eaten by wolves; the mule they had shot to put
it out of its misery.

In due course we reached Fort Hall, a trading post of the
Hudson's Bay Company, some 200 miles to the north-west of the
South Pass. Sir George Simpson, Chairman of that Company,
had given me letters, which ensured the assistance of its
servants. It was indeed a rest and a luxury to spend a
couple of idle days here, and revive one's dim recollection
of fresh eggs and milk. But we were already in September.
Our animals were in a deplorable condition; and with the
exception of a little flour, a small supply of dried meat,
and a horse for Samson, Mr. Grant, the trader, had nothing to
sell us. He told us, moreover, that before we reached Fort
Boise, their next station, 300 miles further on, we had to
traverse a great rocky desert, where we might travel four-
and-twenty hours after leaving water, before we met with it
again. There was nothing for it but to press onwards. It
was too late now to cross the Sierra Nevada range, which lay
between us and California; and with the miserable equipment
left to us, it was all we could hope to do to reach Oregon
before the passage of the Blue Mountains was blocked by the
winter's snow.

Mr. Grant's warnings were verified to the foot of the letter.
Great were our sufferings, and almost worse were those of the
poor animals, from the want of water. Then, too, unlike the
desert of Sahara, where the pebbly sand affords a solid
footing, the soil here is the calcined powder of volcanic
debris, so fine that every step in it is up to one's ankles;
while clouds of it rose, choking the nostrils, and covering
one from head to heel. Here is a passage from my journal:

'Road rocky in places, but generally deep in the finest
floury sand. A strong and biting wind blew dead in our
teeth, smothering us in dust, which filled every pore.
William presented such a ludicrous appearance that Samson and
I went into fits over it. An old felt hat, fastened on by a
red cotton handkerchief, tied under his chin, partly hid his
lantern-jawed visage; this, naturally of a dolorous cast, was
screwed into wrinkled contortions by its efforts to resist
the piercing gale. The dust, as white as flour, had settled
thick upon him, the extremity of his nasal organ being the
only rosy spot left; its pearly drops lodged upon a chin
almost as prominent. His shoulders were shrugged to a level
with his head, and his long legs dangled from the back of
little "Cream" till they nearly touched the ground.'

We laughed at him, it is true, but he was so good-natured, so
patient, so simple-minded, and, now and then, when he and I
were alone, so sentimental and confidential about Mary, and
the fortune he meant to bring her back, that I had a sort of
maternal liking for him; and even a vicarious affection for
Mary herself, the colour of whose eyes and hair - nay, whose
weight avoirdupois - I was now accurately acquainted with.
No, the honest fellow had not quite the grit of a
'Leatherstocking.'

One night, when we had halted after dark, he went down to a
gully (we were not then in the desert) to look for water for
our tea. Samson, armed with the hatchet, was chopping wood.
I stayed to arrange the packs, and spread the blankets.
Suddenly I heard a voice from the bottom of the ravine,
crying out, 'Bring the guns for God's sake! Make haste!
Bring the guns!'  I rushed about in the dark, tumbling over
the saddles, but could nowhere lay my hands on a rifle.
Still the cry was for 'Guns!'  My own, a muzzle-loader, was
discharged, but a rifle none the less. Snatching up this,
and one of my pistols, which, by the way, had fallen into the
river a few hours before, I shouted for Samson, and ran
headlong to the rescue. Before I got to the bottom of the
hill I heard groans, which sounded like the last of poor
William. I holloaed to know where he was, and was answered
in a voice that discovered nothing worse than terror.

It appeared that he had met a grizzly bear drinking at the
very spot where he was about to fill his can; that he had
bolted, and the bear had pursued him; but that he had
'cobbled the bar with rocks,' had hit it in the eye, or nose,
he was not sure which, and thus narrowly escaped with his
life. I could not help laughing at his story, though an
examination of the place next morning so far verified it,
that his footprints and the bear's were clearly intermingled
on the muddy shore of the stream. To make up for his fright,
he was extremely courageous when restored by tea and a pipe.
'If we would follow the trail with him, he'd go right slick
in for her anyhow. If his rifle didn't shoot plum, he'd a
bowie as 'ud rise her hide, and no mistake. He'd be darn'd
if he didn't make meat of that bar in the morning.'

CHAPTER XXV

WE were now steering by compass. Our course was nearly
north-west. This we kept, as well as the formation of the
country and the watercourses would permit. After striking
the great Shoshone, or Snake River, which eventually becomes
the Columbia, we had to follow its banks in a southerly
direction. These are often supported by basaltic columns
several hundred feet in height. Where that was the case,
though close to water, we suffered most from want of it. And
cold as were the nights - it was the middle of September -
the sun was intensely hot. Every day, every mile, we were
hoping for a change - not merely for access to the water, but
that we might again pursue our westerly course. The scenery
was sometimes very striking. The river hereabouts varies
from one hundred to nearly three hundred yards in width;
sometimes rushing through narrow gorges, sometimes descending
in continuous rapids, sometimes spread out in smooth shallow
reaches. It was for one of these that we were in search, for
only at such points was the river passable.

It was night-time when we came to one of the great falls. We
were able here to get at water; and having halted through the
day, on account of the heat, kept on while our animals were
refreshed. We had to ascend the banks again, and wind along
the brink of the precipice. From this the view was
magnificent. The moon shone brightly upon the dancing waves
hundreds of feet below us, and upon the rapids which extended
as far as we could see. The deep shade of the high cliffs
contrasted in its impenetrable darkness with the brilliancy
of the silvery foam. The vast plain which we overlooked,
fading in the soft light, rose gradually into a low range of
distant hills. The incessant roar of the rapids, and the
desert stillness of all else around, though they lulled one's
senses, yet awed one with a feeling of insignificance and
impotence in the presence of such ruthless force, amid such
serene and cold indifference. Unbidden, the consciousness
was there, that for some of us the coming struggle with those
mighty waters was fraught with life or death.

At last we came upon a broad stretch of the river which
seemed to offer the possibilities we sought for. Rather late
in the afternoon we decided to cross here, notwithstanding
William's strong reluctance to make the venture. Part of his
unwillingness was, I knew, due to apprehension, part to his
love of fishing. Ever since we came down upon the Snake
River we had seen quantities of salmon. He persisted in the
belief that they were to be caught with the rod. The day
before, all three of us had waded into the river, and flogged
it patiently for a couple of hours, while heavy fish were
tumbling about above and below us. We caught plenty of
trout, but never pricked a salmon. Here the broad reach was
alive with them, and William begged hard to stop for the
afternoon and pursue the gentle sport. It was not to be.

The tactics were as usual. Samson led the way, holding the
lariat to which the two spare horses were attached. In
crossing streams the mules would always follow the horses.
They were accordingly let loose, and left to do so. William
and I brought up the rear, driving before us any mule that
lagged. My journal records the sequel:

'At about equal distances from each other and the main land
were two small islands. The first of these we reached
without trouble. The second was also gained; but the packs
were wetted, the current being exceedingly rapid. The space
remaining to be forded was at least two hundred yards; and
the stream so strong that I was obliged to turn my mare's
head up it to prevent her being carried off her legs. While
thus resting, William with difficulty, - the water being over
his knees, - sidled up to me. He wanted to know if I still
meant to cross. For all answer, I laughed at him. In truth
I had not the smallest misgiving. Strong as was the current,
the smooth rocky bottom gave a good foothold to the animals;
and, judging by the great width of the river, there was no
reason to suppose that its shallowness would not continue.

'We paused for a few minutes to observe Samson, who was now
within forty or fifty yards of the opposite bank; and, as I
concluded, past all danger. Suddenly, to the astonishment of
both of us, he and his horse and the led animals disappeared
under water; the next instant they were struggling and
swimming for the bank. Tied together as they were, there was
a deal of snorting and plunging; and Samson (with his
habitual ingenuity) had fastened the lariat either to himself
or his saddle; so that he was several times dragged under
before they all got to the bank in safety.

'These events were watched by William with intense anxiety.
With a pitiable look of terror he assured me he could not
swim a yard; it was useless for him to try to cross; he would
turn back, and find his way to Salt Lake City.

'"But," I remonstrated, "if you turn back, you will certainly
starve; everything we possess is over there with the mules;
your blanket, even your rifle, are with the packs. It is
impossible to get the mules back again. Give little Cream
her head, sit still in your saddle, and she'll carry you
through that bit of deep water with ease."

'"I can live by fishing," he plaintively answered. He still
held his long rod, and the incongruity of it added to the
pathos of his despair. I reminded him of a bad river we had
before crossed, and how his mule had swum it safely with him
on her back. I promised to keep close to him, and help him
if need were, though I was confident if he left everything to
Cream there would be no danger. "Well, if he must, he must.
But, if anything happened to him, would I write and tell
Mary? I knew her address; leastways, if I didn't, it was in
his bag on the brown mule. And tell her I done my best."

'The water was so clear one could see every crack in the rock
beneath. Fortunately, I took the precaution to strip to my
shirt; fastened everything, even my socks, to the saddle;
then advanced cautiously ahead of William to the brink of the
chasm. We were, in fact, upon the edge of a precipice. One
could see to an inch where the gulf began. As my mare
stepped into it I slipped off my saddle; when she rose I laid
hold of her tail, and in two or three minutes should have
been safe ashore.

'Looking back to see how it had fared with William, I at once
perceived his danger. He had clasped his mule tightly round
the neck with his arms, and round the body with his long
legs. She was plunging violently to get rid of her load.
Already the pair were forty or fifty yards below me.
Instantly I turned and swam to his assistance. The struggles
of the mule rendered it dangerous to get at him. When I did
so he was partially dazed; his hold was relaxed. Dragging
him away from the hoofs of the animal, I begged him to put
his hands on my shoulders or hips. He was past any effort of
the kind. I do not think he heard me even. He seemed hardly
conscious of anything. His long wet hair plastered over the
face concealed his features. Beyond stretching out his arms,
like an infant imploring help, he made no effort to save
himself.

'I seized him firmly by the collar, - unfortunately, with my
right hand, leaving only my left to stem the torrent. But
how to keep his face out of the water? At every stroke I was
losing strength; we were being swept away, for him, to
hopeless death. At length I touched bottom, got both hands
under his head, and held it above the surface. He still
breathed, still puffed the hair from his lips. There was
still a hope, if I could but maintain my footing. But, alas!
each instant I was losing ground - each instant I was driven
back, foot by foot, towards the gulf. The water, at first
only up to my chest, was now up to my shoulders, now up to my
neck. My strength was gone. My arms ached till they could
bear no more. They sank involuntarily. William glided from
my hands. He fell like lead till his back lay stretched upon
the rock. His arms were spread out, so that his body formed
a cross. I paddled above it in the clear, smooth water,
gazing at his familiar face, till two or three large bubbles
burst upon the surface; then, hardly knowing what I was
doing, floated mechanically from the trapper's grave.

. . . . . . .

'My turn was now to come. At first, the right, or western,
bank being within sixty or seventy yards, being also my
proper goal, I struck out for it with mere eagerness to land
as soon as possible. The attempt proved unsuccessful. Very
well, then, I would take it quietly - not try to cross
direct, but swim on gently, keeping my head that way. By
degrees I got within twenty yards of the bank, was counting
joyfully on the rest which a few more strokes would bring me,
when - wsh - came a current, and swept me right into the
middle of the stream again.

'I began to be alarmed. I must get out of this somehow or
another; better on the wrong side than not at all. So I let
myself go, and made for the shore we had started from.

'Same fate. When well over to the left bank I was carried
out again. What! was I too to be drowned? It began to look
like it. I was getting cold, numb, exhausted. And - listen!
What is that distant sound? Rapids? Yes, rapids. My
flannel shirt stuck to, and impeded me; I would have it off.
I got it over my head, but hadn't unbuttoned the studs - it
stuck, partly over my head. I tugged to tear it off. Got a
drop of water into my windpipe; was choking; tugged till I
got the shirt right again. Then tried floating on my back -
to cough and get my breath. Heard the rapids much louder.
It was getting dark now. The sun was setting in glorious red
and gold. I noticed this, noticed the salmon rolling like
porpoises around me, and thought of William with his rod.
Strangest of all, for I had not noticed her before, little
Cream was still struggling for dear life not a hundred yards
below me; sometimes sinking, sometimes reappearing, but on
her way to join her master, as surely as I thought that I
was.

'In my distress, the predominant thought was the loneliness
of my fate, the loneliness of my body after death. There was
not a living thing to see me die.

'For the first time I felt, not fear, but loss of hope. I
could only beat the water with feeble and futile splashes. I
was completely at its mercy. And - as we all then do - I
prayed - prayed for strength, prayed that I might be spared.
But my strength was gone. My legs dropped powerless in the
water. I could but just keep my nose or mouth above it. My
legs sank, and my feet - touched bottom.

'In an instant, as if from an electric shock, a flush of
energy suffused my brain and limbs. I stood upright in an
almost tranquil pool. An eddy had lodged me on a sandbank.
Between it and the land was scarcely twenty yards. Through
this gap the stream ran strong as ever. I did not want to
rest; I did not pause to think. In I dashed; and a single
spurt carried me to the shore. I fell on my knees, and with
a grateful heart poured out gratitude for my deliverance.

. . . . . . .

'I was on the wrong side, the side from which we started.
The river was yet to cross. I had not tasted food since our
early meal. How long I had been swimming I know not, but it
was dark now, starlight at least. The nights were bitterly
cold, and my only clothing a wet flannel shirt. And oh! the
craving for companionship, someone to talk to - even Samson.
This was a stronger need than warmth, or food, or clothing;
so strong that it impelled me to try again.

'The poor sandy soil grew nothing but briars and small
cactuses. In the dark I kept treading on the little prickly
plants, but I hurried on till I came in sight of Samson's
fire. I could see his huge form as it intercepted the
comfortable blaze. I pictured him making his tea, broiling
some of William's trout, and spreading his things before the
fire to dry. I could see the animals moving around the glow.
It was my home. How I yearned for it! How should I reach
it, if ever? In this frame of mind the attempt was
irresistible. I started as near as I could from opposite the
two islands. As on horseback, I got pretty easily to the
first island. Beyond this I was taken off my feet by the
stream; and only with difficulty did I once more regain the
land.

My next object was to communicate with Samson. By putting
both hands to my mouth and shouting with all my force I made
him hear. I could see him get up and come to the water's
edge; though he could not see me, his stentorian voice
reached me plainly. His first words were:

'"Is that you, William? Coke is drowned."

'I corrected him, and thus replied:

'"Do you remember a bend near some willows, where you wanted
to cross yesterday?"

'"Yes."

'"About two hours higher up the river?"

'"I remember."

'"Would you know the place again?"

'"Yes."

'"Are you sure?

'"Yes, yes."

'"You will see me by daylight in the morning. When I start,
you will take my mare, my clothes, and some food; make for
that place and wait till I come. I will cross there."

'"All right."

'"Keep me in sight as long as you can. Don't forget the
food."

'It will be gathered from my words that definite instructions
were deemed necessary; and the inference - at least it was
mine - will follow, that if a mistake were possible Samson
would avail himself of it. The night was before me. The
river had yet to be crossed. But, strange as it now seems to
me, I had no misgivings! My heart never failed me. My
prayer had been heard. I had been saved. How, I knew not.
But this I knew, my trust was complete. I record this as a
curious psychological occurrence; for it supported me with
unfailing energy through the severe trial which I had yet to
undergo.'

CHAPTER XXVI

OUR experiences are little worth unless they teach us to
reflect. Let us then pause to consider this hourly
experience of human beings - this remarkable efficacy of
prayer. There can hardly be a contemplative mind to which,
with all its difficulties, the inquiry is not familiar.

To begin with, 'To pray is to expect a miracle.'  'Prayer in
its very essence,' says a thoughtful writer, 'implies a
belief in the possible intervention of a power which is above
nature.'  How was it in my case? What was the essence of my
belief? Nothing less than this: that God would have
permitted the laws of nature, ordained by His infinite wisdom
to fulfil His omniscient designs and pursue their natural
course in accordance with His will, had not my request
persuaded Him to suspend those laws in my favour.

The very belief in His omniscience and omnipotence subverts
the spirit of such a prayer. It is on the perfection of God
that Malebranche bases his argument that 'Dieu n'agit pas par
des volontes particulieres.'  Yet every prayer affects to
interfere with the divine purposes.

It may here be urged that the divine purposes are beyond our
comprehension. God's purposes may, in spite of the
inconceivability, admit the efficacy of prayer as a link in
the chain of causation; or, as Dr. Mozely holds, it may be
that 'a miracle is not an anomaly or irregularity, but part
of the system of the universe.'  We will not entangle
ourselves in the abstruse metaphysical problem which such
hypotheses involve, but turn for our answer to what we do
know - to the history of this world, to the daily life of
man. If the sun rises on the evil as well as on the good, if
the wicked 'become old, yea, are mighty in power,' still, the
lightning, the plague, the falling chimney-pot, smite the
good as well as the evil. Even the dumb animal is not
spared. 'If,' says Huxley, 'our ears were sharp enough to
hear all the cries of pain that are uttered in the earth by
man and beasts we should be deafened by one continuous
scream.'  'If there are any marks at all of special design in
creation,' writes John Stuart Mill, 'one of the things most
evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals
should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other
animals. They have been lavishly fitted out with the
instruments for that purpose.'  Is it credible, then, that
the Almighty Being who, as we assume, hears this continuous
scream - animal-prayer, as we may call it - and not only pays
no heed to it, but lavishly fits out animals with instruments
for tormenting and devouring one another, that such a Being
should suspend the laws of gravitation and physiology, should
perform a miracle equal to that of arresting the sun - for
all miracles are equipollent - simply to prolong the brief
and useless existence of such a thing as man, of one man out
of the myriads who shriek, and - shriek in vain?

To pray is to expect a miracle. Then comes the further
question: Is this not to expect what never yet has happened?
The only proof of any miracle is the interpretation the
witness or witnesses put upon what they have seen.
(Traditional miracles - miracles that others have been told,
that others have seen - we need not trouble our heads about.)  
What that proof has been worth hitherto has been commented
upon too often to need attention here. Nor does the weakness
of the evidence for miracles depend solely on the fact that
it rests, in the first instance, on the senses, which may be
deceived; or upon inference, which may be erroneous. It is
not merely that the infallibility of human testimony
discredits the miracles of the past. The impossibility that
human knowledge, that science, can ever exhaust the
possibilities of Nature, precludes the immediate reference to
the Supernatural for all time. It is pure sophistry to
argue, as do Canon Row and other defenders of miracles, that
'the laws of Nature are no more violated by the performance
of a miracle than they are by the activities of a man.'  If
these arguments of the special pleaders had any force at all,
it would simply amount to this: 'The activities of man'
being a part of nature, we have no evidence of a supernatural
being, which is the sole RAISON D'ETRE of miracle.

Yet thousands of men in these days who admit the force of
these objections continue, in spite of them, to pray.
Huxley, the foremost of 'agnostics,' speaks with the utmost
respect of his friend Charles Kingsley's conviction from
experience of the efficacy of prayer. And Huxley himself
repeatedly assures us, in some form or other, that 'the
possibilities of "may be" are to me infinite.'  The puzzle
is, in truth, on a par with that most insolvable of all
puzzles - Free Will or Determinism. Reason and the instinct
of conscience are in both cases irreconcilable. We are
conscious that we are always free to choose, though not to
act; but reason will have it that this is a delusion. There
is no logical clue to the IMPASSE. Still, reason
notwithstanding, we take our freedom (within limits) for
granted, and with like inconsequence we pray.

It must, I think, be admitted that the belief, delusive or
warranted, is efficacious in itself. Whether generated in
the brain by the nerve centres, or whatever may be its
origin, a force coincident with it is diffused throughout the
nervous system, which converts the subject of it, just
paralysed by despair, into a vigorous agent, or, if you will,
automaton.

Now, those who admit this much argue, with no little force,
that the efficacy of prayer is limited to its reaction upon
ourselves. Prayer, as already observed, implies belief in
supernatural intervention. Such belief is competent to beget
hope, and with it courage, energy, and effort. Suppose
contrition and remorse induce the sufferer to pray for Divine
aid and mercy, suppose suffering is the natural penalty of
his or her own misdeeds, and suppose the contrition and the
prayer lead to resistance of similar temptations, and hence
to greater happiness, - can it be said that the power to
resist temptation or endure the penalty are due to
supernatural aid? Or must we not infer that the fear of the
consequences of vice or folly, together with an earnest
desire and intention to amend, were adequate in themselves to
account for the good results?

Reason compels us to the latter conclusion. But what then?
Would this prove prayer to be delusive? Not necessarily.
That the laws of Nature (as argued above) are not violated by
miracle, is a mere perversion of the accepted meaning of
'miracle,' an IGNORATIO ELENCHI. But in the case of prayer
that does not ask for the abrogation of Nature's laws, it
ceases to be a miracle that we pray for or expect: for are
not the laws of the mind also laws of Nature? And can we
explain them any more than we can explain physical laws? A
psychologist can formulate the mental law of association, but
he can no more explain it than Newton could explain the laws
of attraction and repulsion which pervade the world of
matter. We do not know, we cannot know, what the conditions
of our spiritual being are. The state of mind induced by
prayer may, in accordance with some mental law, be essential
to certain modes of spiritual energy, specially conducive to
the highest of all moral or spiritual results: taken in this
sense, prayer may ask, not the suspension, but the enactment,
of some natural law.

Let it, however, be granted, for argument's sake, that the
belief in the efficacy of prayer is delusive, and that the
beneficial effects of the belief - the exalted state of mind,
the enhanced power to endure suffering and resist temptation,
the happiness inseparable from the assurance that God hears,
and can and will befriend us - let it be granted that all
this is due to sheer hallucination, is this an argument
against prayer? Surely not. For, in the first place, the
incontestable fact that belief does produce these effects is
for us an ultimate fact as little capable of explanation as
any physical law whatever; and may, therefore, for aught we
know, or ever can know, be ordained by a Supreme Being.
Secondly, all the beneficial effects, including happiness,
are as real in themselves as if the belief were no delusion.

It may be said that a 'fool's paradise' is liable to be
turned into a hell of disappointment; and that we pay the
penalty of building happiness on false foundations. This is
true in a great measure; but it is absolutely without truth
as regards our belief in prayer, for the simple reason that
if death dispel the delusion, it at the same time dispels the
deluded. However great the mistake, it can never be found
out. But they who make it will have been the better and the
happier while they lived.

For my part, though immeasurably preferring the pantheism of
Goethe, or of Renan (without his pessimism), to the
anthropomorphic God of the Israelites, or of their theosophic
legatees, the Christians, however inconsistent, I still
believe in prayer. I should not pray that I may not die 'for
want of breath'; nor for rain, while 'the wind was in the
wrong quarter.'  My prayers would not be like those
overheard, on his visit to Heaven, by Lucian's Menippus: 'O
Jupiter, let me become a king!'  'O Jupiter, let my onions
and my garlic thrive!'  'O Jupiter, let my father soon depart
from hence!'  But when the workings of my moral nature were
concerned, when I needed strength to bear the ills which
could not be averted, or do what conscience said was right,
then I should pray. And, if I had done my best in the same
direction, I should trust in the Unknowable for help.

Then too, is not gratitude to Heaven the best of prayers?
Unhappy he who has never felt it! Unhappier still, who has
never had cause to feel it!

It may be deemed unwarrantable thus to draw the lines between
what, for want of better terms, we call Material and
Spiritual. Still, reason is but the faculty of a very finite
being; and, as in the enigma of the will, utterly incapable
of solving any problems beyond those whose data are furnished
by the senses. Reason is essentially realistic. Science is
its domain. But science demonstratively proves that things
are not what they seem; their phenomenal existence is nothing
else than their relation to our special intelligence. We
speak and think as if the discoveries of science were
absolutely true, true in themselves, not relatively so for us
only. Yet, beings with senses entirely different from ours
would have an entirely different science. For them, our best
established axioms would be inconceivable, would have no more
meaning than that 'Abracadabra is a second intention.'

Science, supported by reason, assures us that the laws of
nature - the laws of realistic phenomena - are never
suspended at the prayers of man. To this conclusion the
educated world is now rapidly coming. If, nevertheless, men
thoroughly convinced of this still choose to believe in the
efficacy of prayer, reason and science are incompetent to
confute them. The belief must be tried elsewhere, - it must
be transferred to the tribunal of conscience, or to a
metaphysical court, in which reason has no jurisdiction.

This by no means implies that reason, in its own province, is
to yield to the 'feeling' which so many cite as the
infallible authority for their 'convictions.'

We must not be asked to assent to contradictory propositions.
We must not be asked to believe that injustice, cruelty, and
implacable revenge, are not execrable because the Bible tells
us they were habitually manifested by the tribal god of the
Israelites. The fables of man's fall and of the redemption
are fraught with the grossest violation of our moral
conscience, and will, in time, be repudiated accordingly. It
is idle to say, as the Church says, 'these are mysteries
above our human reason.'  They are fictions, fabrications
which modern research has traced to their sources, and which
no unperverted mind would entertain for a moment. Fanatical
belief in the truth of such dogmas based upon 'feeling' have
confronted all who have gone through the severe ordeal of
doubt. A couple of centuries ago, those who held them would
have burnt alive those who did not. Now, they have to
console themselves with the comforting thought of the fire
that shall never be quenched. But even Job's patience could
not stand the self-sufficiency of his pious reprovers. The
sceptic too may retort: 'No doubt but ye are the people, and
wisdom shall die with you.'

Conviction of this kind is but the convenient substitute for
knowledge laboriously won, for the patient pursuit of truth
at all costs - a plea in short, for ignorance, indolence,
incapacity, and the rancorous bigotry begotten of them.

The distinction is not a purely sentimental one - not a
belief founded simply on emotion. There is a physical world
- the world as known to our senses, and there is a psychical
world - the world of feeling, consciousness, thought, and
moral life.

Granting, if it pleases you, that material phenomena may be
the causes of mental phenomena, that 'la pensee est le
produit du corps entier,' still the two cannot be thought of
as one. Until it can be proved that 'there is nothing in the
world but matter, force, and necessity,' - which will never
be, till we know how we lift our hands to our mouths, - there
remains for us a world of mystery, which reason never can
invade.

It is a pregnant thought of John Mill's, apropos of material
and mental interdependence or identity, 'that the uniform
coexistence of one fact with another does not make the one
fact a part of the other, or the same with it.'

A few words of Renan's may help to support the argument. 'Ce
qui revele le vrai Dieu, c'est le sentiment moral. Si
l'humanite n'etait qu'intelligente, elle serait athee. Le
devoir, le devouement, le sacrifice, toutes choses dont
l'histoire est pleine, sont inexplicables sans Dieu.'  For
all these we need help. Is it foolishness to pray for it?
Perhaps so. Yet, perhaps not; for 'Tout est possible, meme
Dieu.'

Whether possible, or impossible, this much is absolutely
certain: man must and will have a religion as long as this
world lasts. Let us not fear truth. Criticism will change
men's dogmas, but it will not change man's nature.

CHAPTER XXVII

MY confidence was restored, and with it my powers of
endurance. Sleep was out of the question. The night was
bright and frosty; and there was not heat enough in my body
to dry my flannel shirt. I made shift to pull up some briar
bushes; and, piling them round me as a screen, got some
little shelter from the light breeze. For hours I lay
watching Alpha Centauri - the double star of the Great Bear's
pointers - dipping under the Polar star like the hour hand of
a clock. My thoughts, strange to say, ran little on the
morrow; they dwelt almost solely upon William Nelson. How
far was I responsible, to what extent to blame, for leading
him, against his will, to death? I re-enacted the whole
event. Again he was in my hands, still breathing when I let
him go, knowing, as I did so, that the deed consigned him
living to his grave. In this way I passed the night.

Just as the first streaks of the longed-for dawn broke in the
East, I heard distant cries which sounded like the whoops of
Indians. Then they ceased, but presently began again much
nearer than before. There was no mistake about them now, -
they were the yappings of a pack of wolves, clearly enough,
upon our track of yesterday. A few minutes more, and the
light, though still dim, revealed their presence coming on at
full gallop. In vain I sought for stick or stone. Even the
river, though I took to it, would not save me if they meant
mischief. When they saw me they slackened their pace. I did
not move. They then halted, and forming a half-moon some
thirty yards off, squatted on their haunches, and began at
intervals to throw up their heads and howl.

My chief hope was in the coming daylight. They were less
likely to attack a man then than in the dark. I had often
met one or two together when hunting; these had always
bolted. But I had never seen a pack before; and I knew a
pack meant that they were after food. All depended on their
hunger.

When I kept still they got up, advanced a yard or two, then
repeated their former game. Every minute the light grew
stronger; its warmer tints heralded the rising sun. Seeing,
however, that my passivity encouraged them, and convinced
that a single step in retreat would bring the pack upon me, I
determined in a moment of inspiration to run amuck, and trust
to Providence for the consequences. Flinging my arms wildly
into the air, and frantically yelling with all my lungs, I
dashed straight in for the lot of them. They were, as I
expected, taken by surprise. They jumped to their feet and
turned tail, but again stopped - this time farther off, and
howled with vexation at having to wait till their prey
succumbed.

The sun rose. Samson was on the move. I shouted to him, and
he to me. Finding me thus reinforced the enemy slunk off,
and I was not sorry to see the last of my ugly foes. I now
repeated my instructions about our trysting place, waited
patiently till Samson had breakfasted (which he did with the
most exasperating deliberation), saw him saddle my horse and
leave his camp. I then started upon my travels up the river,
to meet him. After a mile or so, the high ground on both
banks obliged us to make some little detour. We then lost
sight of each other; nor was he to be seen when I reached the
appointed spot.

Long before I did so I began to feel the effects of my
labours. My naked feet were in a terrible state from the
cactus thorns, which I had been unable to avoid in the dark;
occasional stones, too, had bruised and made them very
tender. Unable to shuffle on at more than two miles an hour
at fastest, the happy thought occurred to me of tearing up my
shirt and binding a half round each foot. This enabled me to
get on much better; but when the September sun was high, my
unprotected skin and head paid the penalty. I waited for a
couple of hours, I dare say, hoping Samson would appear. But
concluding at length that he had arrived long before me,
through the slowness of my early progress, and had gone
further up the river - thinking perhaps that I had meant some
other place - I gave him up; and, full of internal 'd-n' at
his incorrigible consistency, plodded on and on for - I knew
not where.

Why, it may be asked, did I not try to cross where I had
intended? I must confess my want of courage. True, the
river here was not half, not a third, of the width of the
scene of my disasters; but I was weak in body and in mind.
Had anything human been on the other side to see me - to see
how brave I was, (alas! poor human nature!) - I could have
plucked up heart to risk it. It would have been such a
comfort to have some one to see me drown! But it is
difficult to play the hero with no spectators save oneself.
I shall always have a fellow-feeling with the Last Man:
practically, my position was about as uncomfortable as his
will be.

One of the worst features of it was, what we so often
suffered from before - the inaccessibility of water. The sun
was broiling, and the and soil reflected its scorching rays.
I was feverish from exhaustion, and there was nothing,
nothing to look forward to. Mile after mile I crawled along,
sometimes half disposed to turn back, and try the deep but
narrow passage; then that inexhaustible fountain of last
hopes - the Unknown - tempted me to go forward. I
persevered; when behold! as I passed a rock, an Indian stood
before me.

He was as naked as I was. Over his shoulder he carried a
spear as long as a salmon rod. Though neither had foreseen
the other, he was absolutely unmoved, showed no surprise, no
curiosity, no concern. He stood still, and let me come up to
him. My only, or rather my uppermost, feeling was gladness.
Of course the thought crossed me of what he might do if he
owed the white skins a grudge. If any white man had ever
harmed one of his tribe, I was at his mercy; and it was
certain that he would show me none. He was a tall powerful
man, and in my then condition he could have done what he
pleased with me. Friday was my model; the red man was
Robinson Crusoe. I kneeled at his feet, and touched the
ground with my forehead. He did not seem the least elated by
my humility: there was not a spark of vanity in him.
Indeed, except for its hideousness and brutality, his face
was without expression.

I now proceeded to make a drawing, with my finger, in the
sand, of a mule in the water; while I imitated by pantomime
the struggles of the drowning. I then pointed to myself;
and, using my arms as in swimming, shook my head and my
finger to signify that I could not swim. I worked an
imaginary paddle, and made him understand that I wanted him
to paddle me across the river. Still he remained unmoved;
till finally I used one argument which interested him more
than all the rest of my story. I untied a part of the shirt
round one foot and showed him three gold studs. These I took
out and gave to him. I also made a drawing of a rifle in the
sand, and signified that he would get the like if he went
with me to my camp. Whereupon he turned in the direction I
was going; and, though unbidden by a look, I did not hesitate
to follow.

I thought I must have dropped before we reached his village.
This was an osier-bed at the water's side, where the whole
river rushed through a rocky gorge not more than fifty to
sixty yards broad. There were perhaps nearly a hundred
Indians here, two-thirds of whom were women and children.
Their habitations were formed by interlacing the tops of the
osiers. Dogs' skins spread upon the ground and numerous
salmon spears were their only furniture. In a few minutes my
arrival created a prodigious commotion. The whole population
turned out to stare at me. The children ran into the bushes
to hide. But feminine curiosity conquered feminine timidity.
Although I was in the plight of the forlorn Odysseus after
his desperate swim, I had no 'blooming foliage' to wind
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. Unlike the
Phaeacian maidens, however, the tawny nymphs were all as
brave as Princess Nausicaa herself. They stared, and
pointed, and buzzed, and giggled, and even touched my skin
with the tips of their fingers - to see, I suppose, if the
white would come off.

But ravenous hunger turned up its nose at flirtation. The
fillets of drying salmon suspended from every bough were a
million times more seductive than the dark Naiads who had
dressed them. Slice after slice I tore down and devoured, as
though my maw were as compendious as Jack the Giant Killer's.
This so astonished and delighted the young women that they
kept supplying me, - with the expectation, perhaps, that
sooner or later I must share the giant's fate.

While this was going on, a conference was being held; and I
had the satisfaction of seeing some men pull up a lot of dead
rushes, dexterously tie them into bundles, and truss these
together by means of spears. They had no canoes, for the
very children were amphibious, living, so it seemed, as much
in the water as out of it. When the raft was completed, I
was invited to embark. My original friend, who had twisted a
tow-rope, took this between his teeth, and led the way.
Others swam behind and beside me to push and to pull. The
force of the water was terrific; but they seemed to care no
more for that than fish. My weight sunk the rush bundles a
good bit below the surface; and to try my nerves, my crew
every now and then with a wild yell dived simultaneously,
dragging the raft and me under water. But I sat tight; and
with genuine friendliness they landed me safely on the
desired shore.

It was quite dark before we set forth. Robinson Crusoe
walked on as if he knew exactly where my camp was. Probably
the whole catastrophe had by this time been bruited for miles
above and below the spot. Five other stalwart young fellows
kept us company, each with salmon spear in hand. The walk
seemed interminable; but I had shipped a goodly cargo of
latent energy.

When I got home, instead of Samson, I found the camp occupied
by half a dozen Indians. They were squatted round a fire,
smoking. Each one, so it seemed, had appropriated some
article of our goods. Our blankets were over their
shoulders. One had William's long rifle in his lap. Another
was sitting upon mine. A few words were exchanged with the
newcomers, who seated themselves beside their friends; but no
more notice was taken of me than of the mules which were
eating rushes close to us. How was I, single-handed, to
regain possession? That was the burning question. A
diplomatic course commanded itself as the only possible one.
There were six men who expected rewards, but the wherewithal
was held in seisin by other six. The fight, if there were
one, should be between the two parties. I would hope to
prove, that when thieves fall out honest men come by their
own.

There is one adage whose truth I needed no further proof of.
Its first line apostrophises the 'Gods and little fishes.'  
My chief need was for the garment which completes the rhyme.
Indians, having no use for corduroy small clothes, I speedily
donned mine. Next I quietly but quickly snatched up
William's rifle, and presented it to Robinson Crusoe, patting
him on the back as if with honours of knighthood. The
dispossessed was not well pleased, but Sir Robinson was; and,
to all appearances, he was a man of leading, if of darkness.
While words were passing between the two, I sauntered round
to the gentleman who sat cross-legged upon my weapon. He was
as heedless of me as I, outwardly, of him. When well within
reach, mindful that 'DE L'AUDACE' is no bad motto, in love
and war, I suddenly placed my foot upon his chest, tightened
the extensor muscle of my leg, and sent him heels over head.
In an instant the rifle was mine, and both barrels cocked.
After yesterday's immersion it might not have gone off, but
the offended Indian, though furious, doubtless inferred from
the histrionic attitude which I at once struck, that I felt
confident it would. With my rifle in hand, with my suite
looking to me to transfer the plunder to them, my position
was now secure. I put on a shirt - the only one left to me,
by the way - my shoes and stockings, and my shooting coat;
and picking out William's effects, divided these, with his
ammunition, his carpet-bag, and his blankets, amongst my
original friends. I was beginning to gather my own things
together, when Samson, leading my horse, unexpectedly rode
into the midst of us. The night was far advanced. The
Indians took their leave; and added to the obligation by
bequeathing us a large fresh salmon, which served us for many
a day to come.

As a postscript I may add that I found poor Mary's address on
one of her letters, and faithfully kept my promise as soon as
I reached pen and ink.

CHAPTER XXVIII

WHAT remains to be told will not take long. Hardships
naturally increased as the means of bearing them diminished.
I have said the salmon held out for many days. We cut it in
strips, and dried it as well as we could; but the flies and
maggots robbed us of a large portion of it. At length we
were reduced to two small hams; nothing else except a little
tea. Guessing the distance we had yet to go, and taking into
account our slow rate of travelling, I calculated the number
of days which, with the greatest economy, these could be made
to last. Allowing only one meal a day, and that of the
scantiest, I scored the hams as a cook scores a leg of roast
pork, determined under no circumstances to exceed the daily
ration.

No little discipline was requisite to adhere to this
resolution. Samson broke down under the exposure and
privation; superadded dysentery rendered him all but
helpless, and even affected his mind. The whole labour of
the camp then devolved on me. I never roused him in the
morning till the mules were packed - with all but his blanket
and the pannikin for his tea - and until I had saddled his
horse for him. Not till we halted at night did we get our
ration of ham. This he ate, or rather bolted, raw, like a
wild beast. My share I never touched till after I lay down
to sleep. And so tired have I been, that once or twice I
woke in the morning with my hand at my mouth, the unswallowed
morsel between my teeth. For three weeks we went on in this
way, never exchanging a word. I cannot say how I might have
behaved had Fred been in Samson's place. I hope I should
have been at least humane. But I was labouring for my life,
and was not over tender-hearted.

Certainly there was enough to try the patience of a better
man. Take an instance. Unable one morning to find my own
horse, I saddled his and started him off, so as not to waste
time, with his spare animal and the three mules. It so
happened that our line of march was rather tortuous, owing to
some hills we had to round. Still, as there were high
mountains in the distance which we were making for, it seemed
impossible that anyone could miss his way. It was twenty
minutes, perhaps, before I found my horse; this would give
him about a mile or more start of me. I hurried on, but
failed to overtake him. At the end of an hour I rode to the
top of a hill which commanded a view of the course he should
have taken. Not a moving speck was to be seen. I knew then
that he had gone astray. But in which direction?

My heart sank within me. The provisions and blankets were
with him. I do not think that at any point of my journey I
had ever felt fear - panic that is - till now. Starvation
stared me in the face. My wits refused to suggest a line of
action. I was stunned. I felt then what I have often felt
since, what I still feel, that it is possible to wrestle
successfully with every difficulty that man has overcome, but
not with that supreme difficulty - man's stupidity. It did
not then occur to me to give a name to the impatience that
seeks to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.

I turned back, retraced my steps till I came to the track of
the mules. Luckily the ground retained the footprints,
though sometimes these would be lost for a hundred yards or
so. Just as I anticipated - Samson had wound round the base
of the very first hill he came to; then, instead of
correcting the deviation, and steering for the mountains, had
simply followed his nose, and was now travelling due east, -
in other words, was going back over our track of the day
before. It was past noon when I overtook him, so that a
precious day's labour was lost.

I said little, but that little was a sentence of death.

'After to-day,' I began, 'we will travel separately.'

At first he seemed hardly to take in my meaning. I explained
it.

'As well as I can make out, before we get to the Dalles,
where we ought to find the American outposts, we have only
about 150 miles to go. This should not take more than eight
or nine days. I can do it in a week alone, but not with you.
I have come to the conclusion that with you I may not be able
to do it at all. We have still those mountains' - pointing
to the Blue Mountain range in the distance - 'to cross. They
are covered with snow, as you see. We may find them
troublesome. In any case our food will only last eight or
nine days more, even at the present rate. You shall have the
largest half of what is left, for you require more than I do.
But I cannot, and will not, sacrifice my life for your sake.
I have made up my mind to leave you.'

It must always be a terrible thing for a judge to pass the
sentence of death. But then he is fulfilling a duty, merely
carrying out a law which is not of his making. Moreover, he
has no option - the responsibility rests with the jury; last
of all, the sufferer is a criminal. Between the judge's case
and mine there was no analogy. My act was a purely selfish
one - justifiable I still think, though certainly not
magnanimous. I was quite aware of this at the time, but a
starving man is not burdened with generosity.

I dismounted, and, without unsaddling the mules, took off
their packs, now reduced to a few pounds, which was all the
wretched, raw-backed, and half-dead, animals could stagger
under; and, putting my blanket, the remains of a ham, and a
little packet of tea - some eight or ten tea-spoonfuls - on
one mule, I again prepared to mount my horse and depart.

I took, as it were, a sneaking glance at Samson. He was
sitting upon the ground, with his face between his knees,
sobbing.

At three-and-twenty the heart of a man, or of a woman - if
either has any, which, of course, may be doubtful - is apt to
play the dynamite with his or her resolves. Water-drops have
ever been formidable weapons of the latter, as we all know;
and, not being so accustomed to them then as I have become
since, the sight of the poor devil's abject woe and
destitution, the thought that illness and suffering were the
causes, the secret whisper that my act was a cowardly one,
forced me to follow the lines of least resistance, and submit
to the decrees of destiny.

One more page from my 'Ride,' and the reader will, I think,
have a fair conception of its general character. For the
last two hours the ascent of the Blue Mountains had been very
steep. We were in a thick pine forest. There was a track -
probably made by Indians. Near the summit we found a spring
of beautiful water. Here we halted for the night. It was a
snug spot. But, alas! there was nothing for the animals to
eat except pine needles. We lighted our fire against the
great up-torn roots of a fallen tree; and, though it was
freezing hard, we piled on such masses of dead boughs that
the huge blaze seemed to warm the surrounding atmosphere.

I must here give the words of my journal, for one exclamation
in it has a sort of schoolboy ring that recalls the buoyancy
of youthful spirits, the spirits indeed to which in early
life we owe our enterprise and perseverance:

'As I was dozing off, a pack of hungry wolves that had
scented us out set up the most infernal chorus ever heard.
In vain I pulled the frozen buffalo-robe over my head, and
tried to get to sleep. The demons drew nearer and nearer,
howling, snarling, fighting, moaning, and making a row in the
perfect stillness which reigned around, as if hell itself
were loose. For some time I bore it with patience. At
length, jumping up, I yelled in a voice that made the valley
ring: You devils! will you be quiet? The appeal was
immediately answered by silence; but hearing them tuning up
for a second concert, I threw some wood on the blazing fire
and once more retired to my lair. For a few minutes I lay
awake to admire a brilliant Aurora Borealis shooting out its
streams of electric light. Then, turning over on my side, I
never moved again till dawn.'

The first objects that caught my eye were the animals. They
were huddled together within a couple of yards of where we
lay. It was a horrible sight. Two out of the three mules,
and Samson's horse, had been attacked by the wolves. The
flanks of the horse were terribly torn, and the entrails of
both the mules were partially hanging out. Though all three
were still standing with their backs arched, they were
rapidly dying from loss of blood. My dear little '
Strawberry' - as we called him to match William's 'Cream' and
my mare were both intact.

A few days after this, Samson's remaining horse gave out. I
had to surrender what remained of my poor beast in order to
get my companion through. The last fifty miles of the
journey I performed on foot; sometimes carrying my rifle to
relieve the staggering little mule of a few pounds extra
weight. At long last the Dalles hove in sight. And our cry,
'The tents! the tents!' echoed the joyous 'Thalassa!
Thalassa!' of the weary Greeks.

CHAPTER XXIX

'WHERE is the tent of the commanding officer?' I asked of the
first soldier I came across.

He pointed to one on the hillside. 'Ags for Major Dooker,'
was the Dutch-accented answer.

Bidding Samson stay where he was, I made my way as directed.
A middle-aged officer in undress uniform was sitting on an
empty packing-case in front of his tent, whittling a piece of
its wood.

'Pray sir,' said I in my best Louis Quatorze manner, 'have I
the pleasure of speaking to Major Dooker?'

'Tucker, sir. And who the devil are you?'

Let me describe what the Major saw: A man wasted by
starvation to skin and bone, blackened, almost, by months of
exposure to scorching suns; clad in the shreds of what had
once been a shirt, torn by every kind of convict labour,
stained by mud and the sweat and sores of mules; the rags of
a shooting coat to match; no head covering; hands festering
with sores, and which for weeks had not touched water - if
they could avoid it. Such an object, in short, as the genius
of a Phil May could alone have depicted as the most repulsive
object he could imagine.

'Who the devil are you?'

'An English gentleman, sir, travelling for pleasure.'

He smiled. 'You look more like a wild beast.'

'I am quite tame, sir, I assure you - could even eat out of
your hand if I had a chance.'

'Is your name Coke?'

'Yes,' was my amazed reply.

'Then come with me - I will show you something that may
surprise you.'

I followed him to a neighbouring tent. He drew aside the
flap of it, and there on his blanket lay Fred Calthorpe,
snoring in perfect bliss.

Our greetings were less restrained than our parting had been.
We were truly glad to meet again. He had arrived just two
days before me, although he had been at Salt Lake City. But
he had been able there to refit, had obtained ample supplies
and fresh animals. Curiously enough, his Nelson - the
French-Canadian - had also been drowned in crossing the Snake
River. His place, however, had been filled by another man,
and Jacob had turned out a treasure. The good fellow greeted
me warmly. And it was no slight compensation for bygone
troubles to be assured by him that our separation had led to
the final triumphal success.

Fred and I now shared the same tent. To show what habit will
do, it was many days before I could accustom myself to sleep
under cover of a tent even, and in preference slept, as I had
done for five months, under the stars. The officers
liberally furnished us with clothing. But their excessive
hospitality more nearly proved fatal to me than any peril I
had met with. One's stomach had quite lost its discretion.
And forgetting that

Famished people must be slowly nursed,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst,

one never knew when to leave off eating. For a few days I
was seriously ill.

An absurd incident occurred to me here which might have had
an unpleasant ending. Every evening, after dinner in the
mess tent, we played whist. One night, quite by accident,
Fred and I happened to be partners. The Major and another
officer made up the four. The stakes were rather high. We
two had had an extraordinary run of luck. The Major's temper
had been smouldering for some time. Presently the deal fell
to me; and as bad luck would have it, I dealt myself a
handful of trumps, and - all four honours. As the last of
these was played, the now blazing Major dashed his cards on
the table, and there and then called me out. The cooler
heads of two or three of the others, with whom Fred had had
time to make friends, to say nothing of the usual roar of
laughter with which he himself heard the challenge, brought
the matter to a peaceful issue. The following day one of the
officers brought me a graceful apology.

As may readily be supposed, we had no hankering for further
travels such as we had gone through. San Francisco was our
destination; but though as unknown to us as Charles Lamb's
'Stranger,' we 'damned' the overland route 'at a venture';
and settled, as there was no alternative, to go in a trading
ship to the Sandwich Islands thence, by the same means, to
California.

On October 20 we procured a canoe large enough for seven or
eight persons; and embarking with our light baggage, Fred,
Samson, and I, took leave of the Dalles. For some miles the
great river, the Columbia, runs through the Cascade
Mountains, and is confined, as heretofore, in a channel of
basaltic rock. Further down it widens, and is ornamented by
groups of small wooded islands. On one of these we landed to
rest our Indians and feed. Towards evening we again put
ashore, at an Indian village, where we camped for the night.
The scenery here is magnificent. It reminded me a little of
the Danube below Linz, or of the finest parts of the Elbe in
Saxon Switzerland. But this is to compare the full-length
portrait with the miniature. It is the grandeur of the scale
of the best of the American scenery that so strikes the
European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one
has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river - as
one may easily do in America - one begins to sigh for the
Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a
white-bait dinner at the end of it.

The day after, we descended the Cascades. They are the
beginning of an immense fall in the level, and form a
succession of rapids nearly two miles long. The excitement
of this passage is rather too great for pleasure. It is like
being run away with by a 'motor' down a steep hill. The bow
of the canoe is often several feet below the stern, as if
about to take a 'header.'  The water, in glassy ridges and
dark furrows, rushes headlong, and dashes itself madly
against the reefs which crop up everywhere. There is no
time, one thinks, to choose a course, even if steerage, which
seems absurd, were possible. One is hurled along at railway
speed. The upreared rock, that a moment ago seemed a hundred
yards off, is now under the very bow of the canoe. One
clenches one's teeth, holds one's breath, one's hour is
surely come. But no - a shout from the Indians, a magic
stroke of the paddle in the bow, another in the stern, and
the dreaded crag is far above out heads, far, far behind;
and, for the moment, we are gliding on - undrowned.

At the lower end of the rapids (our Indians refusing to go
further), we had to debark. A settler here was putting up a
zinc house for a store. Two others, with an officer of the
Mounted Rifles - the regiment we had left at the Dalles -
were staying with him. They welcomed our arrival, and
insisted on our drinking half a dozen of poisonous stuff they
called champagne. There were no chairs or table in the
'house,' nor as yet any floor; and only the beginning of a
roof. We sat on the ground, so that I was able
surreptitiously to make libations with my share, to the
earth.

According to my journal: 'In a short time the party began to
be a noisy one. Healths were drunk, toasts proposed,
compliments to our respective nationalities paid in the most
flattering terms. The Anglo-Saxon race were destined to
conquer the globe. The English were the greatest nation
under the sun - that is to say, they had been. America, of
course, would take the lead in time to come. We disputed
this. The Americans were certain of it, in fact this was
already an accomplished fact. The big officer - a genuine
"heavy" - wanted to know where the man was that would give
him the lie! Wasn't the Mounted Rifles the crack regiment of
the United States army? And wasn't the United States army
the finest army in the universe? Who that knew anything of
history would compare the Peninsular Campaign to the war in
Mexico? Talk of Waterloo - Britishers were mighty fond of
swaggering about Waterloo! Let 'em look at Chepultapec. As
for Wellington, he couldn't shine nohow with General Scott,
nor old Zack neither!'

Then, WE wished for a war, just to let them see what our
crack cavalry regiments could do. Mounted Rifles forsooth!
Mounted costermongers! whose trade it was to sell 'nutmegs
made of wood, and clocks that wouldn't figure.'  Then some
pretty forcible profanity was vented, fists were shaken, and
the zinc walls were struck, till they resounded like the
threatened thunder of artillery.

But Fred's merry laughter diverted the tragic end. It was
agreed that there had been too much tall talk. Britishers
and Americans were not such fools as to quarrel. Let
everybody drink everybody else's health. A gentleman in the
corner (he needed the support of both walls) thought it
wasn't good to 'liquor up' too much on an empty stomach; he
put it to the house that we should have supper. The motion
was carried NEM. CON., and a Dutch cheese was produced with
much ECLAT. Samson coupled the ideas of Dutch cheeses and
Yankee hospitality. This revived the flagging spirit of
emulation. On one side, it was thought that British manners
were susceptible of amendment. Confusion was then
respectively drunk to Yankee hospitality, English manners,
and - this was an addition of Fred's - to Dutch cheeses.
After which, to change the subject, a song was called for,
and a gentleman who shall be nameless, for there was a little
mischief in the choice, sang 'Rule Britannia.'  Not being
encored, the singer drank to the flag that had braved the
battle and the breeze for nearly ninety years. 'Here's to
Uncle Sam, and his stars and stripes.'  The mounted officer
rose to his legs (with difficulty) and declared 'that he
could not, and would not, hear his country insulted any
longer. He begged to challenge the "crowd."  He regretted
the necessity, but his feelings had been wounded, and he
could not - no, he positively could not stand it.'  A slight
push from Samson proved the fact - the speaker fell, to rise
no more. The rest of the company soon followed his example,
and shortly afterwards there was no sound but that of the
adjacent rapids.

Early next morning the settler's boat came up, and took us a
mile down the river, where we found a larger one to convey us
to Fort Vancouver. The crew were a Maltese sailor and a man
who had been in the United States army. Each had his private
opinions as to her management. Naturally, the Maltese should
have been captain, but the soldier was both supercargo and
part owner, and though it was blowing hard and the sails were
fully large, the foreigner, who was but a poor little
creature, had to obey orders.

As the river widened and grew rougher, we were wetted from
stem to stern at every plunge; and when it became evident
that the soldier could not handle the sails if the Maltese
was kept at the helm, the heavy rifleman who was on board,
declaring that he knew the river, took upon himself to steer
us. In a few minutes the boat was nearly swamped. The
Maltese prayed and blasphemed in language which no one
understood. The oaths of the soldier were intelligible
enough. The 'heavy,' now alarmed, nervously asked what had
better be done. My advice was to grease the bowsprit, let go
the mast, and splice the main brace. 'In another minute or
two,' I added, 'you'll steer us all to the bottom.'

Fred, who thought it no time for joking, called the rifleman
a 'damned fool,' and authoritatively bade him give up the
tiller; saying that I had been in Her Majesty's Navy, and
perhaps knew a little more about boats than he did. To this
the other replied that 'he didn't want anyone to learn him;
he reckon'd he'd been raised to boating as well as the next
man, and he'd be derned if he was going to trust his life to
anybody!'  Samson, thinking no doubt of his own, took his
pipe out of his mouth, and towering over the steersman, flung
him like a child on one side. In an instant I was in his
place.

It was a minute or two before the boat had way enough to
answer the helm. By that time we were within a dozen yards
of a reef. Having noticed, however, that the little craft
was quick in her stays, I kept her full till the last, put
the helm down, and round she spun in a moment. Before I
could thank my stars, the pintle, or hook on which the rudder
hangs, broke off. The tiller was knocked out of my hand, and
the boat's head flew into the wind. 'Out with the sweeps,' I
shouted. But the sweeps were under the gear. All was
confusion and panic. The two men cursed in the names of
their respective saints. The 'heavy' whined, 'I told you how
it w'd be.'  Samson struggled valiantly to get at an oar,
while Fred, setting the example, begged all hands to be calm,
and be ready to fend the stern off the rocks with a boathook.
As we drifted into the surf I was wondering how many bumps
she would stand before she went to pieces. Happily the water
shallowed, and the men, by jumping overboard, managed to drag
the boat through the breakers under the lee of the point. We
afterwards drew her up on to the beach, kindled a fire, got
out some provisions, and stayed till the storm was over.

CHAPTER XXX

WHAT was then called Fort Vancouver was a station of the
Hudson's Bay Company. We took up our quarters here till one
of the company's vessels - the 'Mary Dare,' a brig of 120
tons, was ready to sail for the Sandwich Islands. This was
about the most uncomfortable trip I ever made. A sailing
merchant brig of 120 tons, deeply laden, is not exactly a
pleasure yacht; and 2,000 miles is a long voyage. For ten
days we lay at anchor at the mouth of the Columbia, detained
by westerly gales. A week after we put to sea, all our fresh
provisions were consumed, and we had to live on our cargo -
dried salmon. We three and the captain more than filled the
little hole of a cabin. There wasn't even a hammock, and we
had to sleep on the deck, or on the lockers. The fleas, the
cockroaches, and the rats, romped over and under one all
night. Not counting the time it took to go down the river,
or the ten days we were kept at its mouth, we were just six
weeks at sea before we reached Woahoo, on Christmas Day.

How beautiful the islands looked as we passed between them,
with a fair wind and studding sails set alow and aloft.
Their tropical charms seemed more glowing, the water bluer,
the palm trees statelier, the vegetation more libertine than
ever. On the south the land rises gradually from the shore
to a range of lofty mountains. Immediately behind Honolulu -
the capital - a valley with a road winding up it leads to the
north side of the island. This valley is, or was then,
richly cultivated, principally with TARO, a large root not
unlike the yam. Here and there native huts were dotted
about, with gardens full of flowers, and abundance of
tropical fruit. Higher up, where it becomes too steep for
cultivation, growth of all kind is rampant. Acacias,
oranges, maples, bread-fruit, and sandal-wood trees, rear
their heads above the tangled ever-greens. The high peaks,
constantly in the clouds, arrest the moisture of the ocean
atmosphere, and countless rills pour down the mountain sides,
clothing everything in perpetual verdure. The climate is one
of the least changeable in the world; the sea breeze blows
day and night, and throughout the year the day temperature
does not vary more than five or six degrees, the average
being about eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. In
1850 the town of Honolulu was little else than a native
village of grass and mat huts. Two or three merchants had
good houses. In one of these Fred and Samson were domiciled;
there was no such thing as a hotel. I was the guest of
General Miller, the Consul-General. What changes may have
taken place since the above date I have no means of knowing.
So far as the natives go, the change will assuredly have been
for the worse; for the aborigines, in all parts of the world,
lose their primitive simplicity and soon acquire the worst
vices of civilisation.

Even King Tamehameha III. was not innocent of one of them.
General Miller offered to present us at court, but he had to
give several days' notice in order that his Majesty might be
sufficiently sober to receive us. A negro tailor from the
United States fitted us out with suits of black, and on the
appointed day we put ourselves under the shade of the old
General's cocked hat, and marched in a body to the palace. A
native band, in which a big drum had the leading part,
received us with 'God save the Queen' - whether in honour of
King Tamy, or of his visitors, was not divulged. We were
first introduced to a number of chiefs in European uniforms -
except as to their feet, which were mostly bootless. Their
names sounded like those of the state officers in Mr.
Gilbert's 'Mikado.'  I find in my journal one entered as
Tovey-tovey, another as Kanakala. We were then conducted to
the presence chamber by the Foreign Minister, Mr. Wiley, a
very pronounced Scotch gentleman with a star of the first
magnitude on his breast. The King was dressed as an English
admiral. The Queen, whose ample undulations also reminded
one of the high seas, was on his right; while in perfect
gradation on her right again were four princesses in short
frocks and long trousers, with plaited tails tied with blue
ribbon, like the Miss Kenwigs. A little side dispute arose
between the stiff old General and the Foreign Minister as to
whose right it was to present us. The Consul carried the
day; but the Scot, not to be beaten, informed Tamehameha, in
a long prefatory oration, of the object of the ceremony.
Taking one of us by the hand (I thought the peppery old
General would have thrust him aside), Mr. Wiley told the King
that it was seldom the Sandwich Islands were 'veesited' by
strangers of such 'desteenction' - that the Duke of this
(referring to Fred's relations), and Lord the other, were the
greatest noblemen in the world; then, with much solemnity,
quoted a long speech from Shakespeare, and handed us over to
his rival.

His Majesty, who did not understand a word of English, or
Scotch, looked grave and held tight to the arm of the throne;
for the truth is, that although he had relinquished his
bottle for the hour, he had brought its contents with him.
My salaam was soon made; but as I retired backwards I had the
misfortune to set my heel on the toes of a black-and-tan
terrier, a privileged pet of the General's. The shriek of
the animal and the loss of my equilibrium nearly precipitated
me into the arms of a trousered princess; but the amiable
young lady only laughed. Thus ended my glimpse of the
Hawaian Court. Mr. Wiley afterwards remarked to me: 'We do
things in a humble way, ye'll obsairve; but royalty is
royalty all over the world, and His Majesty Tamehameha is as
much Keng of his ain domeenions as Victoria is Queen of
Breetain.' The relativity of greatness was not to be denied.

The men - Kanakas, as they are called - are fine stalwart
fellows above our average height. The only clothing they
then wore was the MARO, a cloth made by themselves of the
acacia bark. This they pass between the legs, and once or
twice round the loins. The WYHEENES - women - formerly wore
nothing but a short petticoat or kilt of the same material.
By persuasion of the missionaries they have exchanged this
simple garment for a chemise of printed calico, with the
waist immediately under the arms so as to conceal the contour
of the figure. Other clothing have they none.

Are they the more chaste? Are they the less seductive -?
Hear what M. Anatole France says in his apostrophe to the
sex: 'Pour faire de vous la terrible merveille que vous etes
aujourd'hui, pour devenir la cause indifferente et souveraine
des sacrifices et des crimes, il vous a fallu deux choses:
la civilisation qui vous donna des voiles, et la religion qui
vous donna des scrupules.'  The translation of which is
(please take note of it, my dear young ladies with 'les
epaules qui ne finissent pas'):

'Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter.'