Book _._^a-
157
COEOaGHT DEPCsrr.
THE PILGRIM'S VISION.
I
THE
INNOCENTS ABROAD,
THE NEW PILGEIMS' PROGRESS;
BEING SOMK ACCOUNT OF THE STEAMSHIP QUAKER CITY'S PLEASURE
EXCURSION TO EUROPE AND THE HOLY LAND; WITH
DESCRIPTIONS OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS,
INCIDENTS AND ADVENTURES,
AS THEY APPEARED
TO THE
AUTHOR.
WITH TWO HUNDRED AND THffiTY-FOUIl HiLUSTRATIONS.
MARK TWAII^,
(SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.)
(iSgUSD BY SUBSCRIPTION OrTLT, A!TD NOT FOR SALS I IV THE BOOKSTORES. RESDagrTS Or ANY STATB DCSOUKa A COPY SHOUU) ADDRESS THE PUBLISHERS, AND AN AGENT 'WILL CAU. UPON THXM.)
hartford, conn. American Publishing Company. 1897.
V5
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1869, by
AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, In the Cleiik's Office of thk District Court of Connecticut.
copykight, 1897,
By The Amer!!Can Publishing Company
Hartford, Conn.
M.Y M-OST Patient Readei\
AND
M.OST Chai\itable pi\iTic,
This Volume is Affe ctj on ate ly Inscribed-
PEEFAOE.
This book is a record of a pleasure-trip. If it were a record of a solemn scientific expedition, it would have about it that gravity, that profundity, and that impressive incomjjrehensibility which are so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attractive. Yet n(jt- withstanding it is only a record of a pic-nic, it has a jjurpose, which is, to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who travelled in those countries before him. I make small pretence of showing any one how he ought to look at objects of interest beyond the sea — other books do that, and therefore, even if I were competent to do it, there is no need.
I offer no apologies for any departures from the usual style of travel- writing that may be charged against me — for I think I hai t? seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, whether wisely or not.
In this volume I have used portions of letters which I wrote for the Daily Alta California^ of San Francisco, the proprietors of that journal having waived their rights and given me the necessary permission. I have also inserted portions of several letters Avritten for the NcAV York Tribune and the New York Herald.
THE AUTHOR.
San FRANC^sco.
PAOB
1. The QtTAKEE City IX A Storm Frontispiece —
2. Illuminated Title-Page— The Pilgrim's Vision —
8. " I 'll Pay Toir in Paris " 28
4. The Start 80
5. " Good Morning, Sir " 84
6. The Old Pirate 86
7. Dancing Under Difficl-lties , 42
8. The Mock Trial 44
9. "Land, ho!" 49
10. The Capote 52
11. EtriN and Desolation 53
12. Port or Horta, Fatal (Full Page), face page 56
18. " Sekki- Yah ! " 59
14. Beautiful Stranger 64
15. Rook of Gibraltar (Full Page), face page ■. 65
16. ' Queen's Chair ' 67
17. The Oracle 70
18. The Interrogation Point 71
19. Garrison at Ma lab at 72
20. Entertaining an Angel 74
21. "View OF A Street IN Tangier 77
22. Change for a Napoleon , - 81
23. The Consul's Family SS
24. " Poet Lariat " 91
25. First Supper in France 95
26. Painting 96
27. Ringing for Soap 99
28. " Wine, Sir I " 100
29. The Pilgrim 101
80. The Prisoner 108
81. Homeless France (Full Page), face page 106
82. Railroad Official IN France 108
33. " Five Minutes for Eefrerhme s-ts.'" A merica 109
Jllustrations.
PAGE
84. " Thibtt Minutes foe Dinnek." Fbanoe 110
85. The Old Tbavellee Ill
86. A Decided Shave 115
87. A GrAS-TLT SrBSTITUTE IIT
8S. The Thbbe Gitides 119
89. " Ze Silk Magazin " 122
40. Eetuen in "W ae Paint 124
41. Napoleon III 126
42. Abdul Aziz 126
48. The Moegue 132
44. "We took a walk 185
46. The Can-Can 186
46. Geates of Abelaed and Hbloise 141
47. A Paib of Canons of 18th Centuet 142
48. The Peivate Maekiage 144
49. Amekican Drinks 14S
50. EoTAL Honors to a Yankek 150
51. The Gkisette 151
52. Fountain at Versailles 154
53. Women of Genoa 161
54. Petrified Lackey 163
55. Priest and Feiar 164
56. Statue of Columbus 1 68
57. Graves of Sixty Thousand 169
58. EooF AND Spiees of Cathedral at Milan (Full Page), face page 172
59. Centeal Door of Cathbdeal at Milan 178
60. Interioe of Cathedeal at Milan 174
61. Boyhood's Experience 176
62. Treasures of the Cathedral 179
6S. Cathedral at Milan 181
64. La Scala Theatre 184
65. Copying from Old Masters , 191
66. Facial Expression 194
67. The Echo > 196
68. Note Book 197
69. A Kiss for a Franc 198
70. The Fumigation 200
71. LakeComo 202
72. Garden, Lake Como( Full Page), Face Page 204
78. Social Driver 207
74. Wayside Sheine 208
75. Peace and Happiness 209
76. Castle of Count Luigi 210
77. The Wicked Brother 216
78. Disgusted Gondolier 220
79. Cathedral of St. Maek 226
SO. Tub Peg 229
81. " Good-by " 280
82. M'sibur Gor-e-dong 234
S3. Monument to the Doge 236
84. St. Maek. By the Old Mastees 238
85. St. Matthew. By the Old Masters , 238
86. St. Jerome. By the Old Mastees 288
87. St. Sebastian. By the Old Mastees 239
88. St. Unknown. By the Old Masters 289
Illustrations.
PAGE
89. EiALTo Bridge 241
90 Bridge of Sighs 241
91. Florence 245
^2. The Pensioner 246
98. " I Want to go Home " 248
94. The Leaning Tower 250
95. The Contrast 258
96. Italian Pastimes 263
97. Incendiary DocrrMBNT 264
98. A Roman of 1869 26T
99. Mamertine Prison 276
100. Old Roman 278
101. Coliseum of Ancient Rome 281
102. Did not Complain 285
108. Humboldt House 286
104. Dan 288
105. Bronze Statue 289
106. Penmanshlp 291
107. On a Bust 293
108. Vaults of the Convent 299
109. Dried Convent Fruits S02
110. At the Stoke 808
111. At Home. 804
112. Soothing the Pilgrims 309
118. Ascent op Mt. Vesuvius 318
114 Bat of Naples 316
115. The Mustang 319
116. Island of Capki 320
117. Blue Grotto 321
lis. Vesuvius and Bay of Naples (Full Page), face page 828
119. The Descent 325 '
120. Ruins, Pompeii 327
121. FoEUM of Justice, Pompeu 880
122. House, Pompeii 885
123. Steomboli 888
124. View op the Acropolis, looking "West 341
125. " Ho 1" 843
126. The Assault 344
127. The Caryatides 346
128. The Parthenon (Full Page), pace page 348
129. "We Sidled, not Raij 850
130. Ancient Acropolis 852
181. Tail Piece, Ruins 353
182. Queen of Greece 355
133. Palace at Athens 356
134. Street Scene in Constantinople (Full Page) face page 359
135. Goose Rancher 860
136. Mosque op St. Sophia. 363
137. Turkish Mausoleum 365
138. Slandered Dogs 871
189. The Censor on Duty 374
140. Turkish Bath 878
141. Fae-Away-Moses • 382
142. A Fragment 885
143. Tail-Piece— A Memento 886
Illustrations. ix
PA&B
144. Yalta FROM THE Emperor's Palace 392
145. Emperok of Russia 893
146. Tinsel King 399
147. Ship Emperok 404
148. The Reception 405
149. Street Scene in Smyrna 411
150. Smyrna. 413
Ipl. An Apparent Success 416
152. Drifting to Starboard 419
158. ASpoiledNap 420
154. Ancient Amphitheatre at Ephesus 423
155. Modern Amphitheatre at Ephesus 423
156. EuiNS op Ephesus 424
15T. The Journey 425
15S. G-RAVES of the Seven Sleepers 429
159. The Selection 434
160. Camping Out 486
161. Tail Piece— Aeabs' Tents 43T
162. A Good Feeder. 489
163. Interesting Fete 440
164. Sunday School Grapes 442
165. An Old Fogy 445
166. Race with a C'amei ... 446
167. Temple of the Sun 447
168. Ruins of B aalbeo 449
169. Hewn Stones in Quakry 450
170. Mercy 452
171. Patron Saint 458
172. Water Carrier 455
173. View op Damascus, (Full Page) face page 456
174. Street C.\ks of Damascus 460
175. Full Dressed Tourist. 466
176. I.MPROMPTU Hospital 474
177. The Horse " Baalbec " 476
178. Oak of Bashan 479
179. Dangerous Arab 482
180. Grimes on the "War-Path 483
181. Tail-Piece — Bedouin Camp 487
182. Home of Ancient Pomp 489
183. Jack 490
184. A Disappointed Audience 491
185. Fig-Tkee 495
186. " Fare too High " 497
187. Syrian House 504
183. Tiberias and Sea of Galilee 506
189. The Guard 51Q
190. Mount Tabor 521
191. Tail-Piece— Gatheeino Fuel 524
192. Fountain of the Virgin 530
193. " Madonna- LIKE Beauty " 531
194. Putnam Outdone 533
195. The Bastinado , , . 535
196. "IWept" ... 53b
197. Want OF Dignity 539
i98. An Oriental Well 544
X Illustrations,
PAGB
199. Arabs Saluting 545
200. Free Sons of the Desert 546
201. Shechem 552
202. Tail Piece — Gate of Jerusalem 556
203. Beggars in Jerusalem 559
204. Church op the Holy Sepulchre .'. 564
205. Grave of Adam 566
206. View of Jerusalem (Full Page), face page 574
20T. The "Wandering Jew 577
20s. Mosque of Omar 581
209. An Epidemic 589
210. Charge on Bedouins 590
211. Dead Sea 594
212. Grotto op the Natititt (Full Page), pace page 601
213. Jaffa (Full Page), face page 606
214. Rear Eletation of Jack 610
215. Street in Alexandria 611
216. Viceroy of Egypt , gl2
217. Eastern Monarch 614
218. Moses S. Beach 615
219. KooM No. 15 617
220. The Nilometer 620
221 Ascent of the Pyramids 622
222 High Hopes Frustrated 625
223 King's Chamber in the Pyramid, (Full Page), face page 626
224. A Powerful Argument 627
225. Pyramids and Sphyks, (Full Page), face page 629
226. The Relic Hunter -630
227 The Mameluke's Leap 631
228. Would not be Comforted 633
229. Tail Piece, The Traveler 634
230 Hojieward Bound 635
231. Bad Coffee 639
232 Our Friends the Bermudians 640
233. Captain Duncan 641
234 Tail Piece, Finis 651
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Popular Talk of the Excursion — Programme of the Trip — Duly Ticketed for the
Excursion — ^Defection of the Celebrities 19
CHAPTER II.
Grand Preparations — An Imposing Dignitary — The European Exodus — Mr. Blucher's Opinion — Stateroom No. 10 — The Assembling of the Clans — xit Sea at last 26
CHAPTER III.
" Averaging " the Passengers — " Far, far at Sea " — Tribulation among the Patriarchs — Seeking Amusement under Difficulties — Five Captains in the Ship 32
CHAPTER IV.
The POgrims Becoming Domesticated — Pilgrim Life at Sea — " Horse-Billiards " — The "Synagogue" — The Writing School — Jack's "Journal'' — The "Q. C. Club"— The Magic Lantern— State Ball on Deck— Mock Trials- Charades — Pilgrim Solemnity — Slow Music — The Executive Officer De- livers an Opinion 38
CHAPTER Y.
Summer in Mid- Atlantic — An Eccentric Moon — Mr. Blucher Loses Confidence — Tlie Mystery of "Ship Time" — The Denizens of the Deep — " Land- Hol'' — The First Landing on a Foreio-n Shore — Sensation among the Natives — Something about the Azores Islands- -Blucher's Disastrous Din- ner— The Happy Result 47
CHAPTER YI
Solid Information — A Fossil Community — Curious Ways and Customs— Jesuit Humbuggery — Fantastic Pilgrimizing — Origin of the Russ Pavement — Squaring Accounts vrith the Fossils — At Sea Again 55
CHAPTER YII.
A Tempest at Night — Spain and Africa on Exhibition — G-reeting a Majestic Stranger — The PiUars of Hercules — The Rock of Gibraltar — Tiresome Repetition — " The Queen's Chair " — Serenity Conquered — Curiosities of the Secret Caverns — Personnel of Gibraltar — Some Odd Characters — A Private Frolic in Africa — Bearding a Moorish Garrison (without loss of lifej — Yanity Rebuked — Disembarking in the Empire of Morocco 62
CONTKNTS. CHAPTER VIII.
PAOF
The Ancient City of Tangier, Morocco — Strange Siglits — A Cradle of An- tiquity— We become Wealthy — How they Rob tlie Mail in Africa — The Danger of being Opulent in Morocco 76
CHAPTER IX.
A Pilgrim in Deadly Peril — How they Mended the Clock — Moorish Punish- ments for Crime — Marriage Customs — Looking Several ways (or Sunday — Shrewd Practice of Mohammedan Pilgrims — Reverence for Cats — Bliss of being a Consul-General 83
CHAPTER X.
Fourth of July at Sea — Mediterranean Sunset — The " Oracle " is Delivered of an Opinion — Celebration Ceremonies — The Captain's Speech — France in Sight — The Ignorant Native — In Marseilles — Another Blunder — Lost in the Great City — Found Again — A Frenchy Scene 90
CHAPTER XL
G-etting "Used to it " — No Soap — Bill of Fare, Table d'hote — "An American Sir!" — A Curious Discovery — The "Pilgrim" Bird — Strange Companion- ship— A Grave of the Living — A Long Captivity — Some of Dumas' ze- roes— Dungeon of the Famous " Iron Mask." 98
CHAPTKR XTL
A Holiday Flight through France — Summer Garb of the Landscape — Abroad on the Great Plains — Peculiarities of French Cars — French Politeness — American Railway OfBcials — " Twenty Muutes to Dinner!" — Why there are no Accidents— The "Old Travellers"— Still on the Wing— Paris at Last — Frencli Order and Quiet — Place of the Bastile — Seeing the Sights — A Barbarous Atrocity — Absurd Bilhards 105
CHAPTER XIII.
More Trouble — Monsieur Billfinger — Re-Christening the Frenchman — In the Clutches of a Paris Guide — Tlie International Exposition — Fine Military Review — Glimpse of the Emperor Napoleon and the Sultan of Turkey 118
CHAPTER XIV.
The Venerable Cathedral of Notre-Dame— Jean Sanspeur's Addition— Treas- ures and Sacred Relics — The Legend of the Cross— The Morgue— The Outrageous Can- Can — Blondin Aflame — The Louvre Palace — The Great Park — Showy Pageantry — Preservation of Noted Things 130
CHAPTER XV.
French National Burying-Ground — Among the Great Dead— The Shrine of Disappointed Love — The Story of Abelard and Heloise — " English Spoken Here" — " American Drinks Compounded Here " — Imperial Honors to an American — The Over-estimated Grisette — Departure from Paris— A De- liberate Opinion Concerning the Comeliness of American Women 139
CHAPTER XVL
Versailles— Paradise Regained — A Wonderful Park— Paradise Lost— Napole- onic Strategy. 153
Contents, chapter xyii.
PAGE
War — The American Forces Victorious — "Home Again" — Italy in Sight — The " City of Palaces " — Beauty of the G-enoese Women — The " Stub- Hunters " — Among the Palaces — Gifted Guide — Church Magnificence — " Women not Admitted " — How the Genoese Live — Massive Architecture — A Scrap ^of Ancient History — Graves for 60,000 3 59
CHAPTER XYIII.
Flying Through Italy — Marengo — First Glimpse of the Famous Cathedral — Description of some of its Wonders — A Horror Carved in Stone — An Unpleasant Adventure — A Good Man — A Sermon from the Tomb — Tons of Gold and Silver — Some More Holy Relics — Solomon's Temple Rivalled 171
CHAPTER XIX.
"Do Tou Wis zo Haut can be? " — La Scala — Petrarch and Laura — Lucrezia Borgia — Ingenious Frescoes — Ancient Roman Amphitheatre — A Clever Delusion — Distressing Billiards — The Chief Charm of European Life — An Itahan Bath — Wanted: Soap — Crippled French — Mutilated English — The Most Celebrated Painting in the World — Amateur Raptures — Uninspired Critics — Anecdote — A Wonderful Echo — A Kiss for a Franc 1S3
CHAPTER XX.
Rural Italy by Rail — Fumigated, According to Law — The Sorrowing English- man— Night by the Lake of Como — The Famous Lake — Its Scenery — Como compared with Tahoe — Meeting a Shipmate 199
CHAPTER XXL
The Pretty Lago di Lecco — A Carriage Drive in the Country — Astonishing Sociability in a Coachman — A Sleepy Land — Bloody Shrines — The Heart and Home of Priestcraft — A Thrilling Mediaeval Romance — The Birthplace of Harlequin — Approaching Venice . 207
CHAPTER XXIL
Night in Venice — The '■ Gay Gondolier " — The Grand Fete by Moonlight — The
Notable Sights of Venice — The Mother of the Republics Desolate 217
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Famous Gondola — The Gondola in an Unromantic Aspect — The Great Square of St. Mark and the Winged Lion — Snobs, at Home and Abroad — Sepulchres of the Great Dead — A Tilt at the " Old Masters " — A Contra- band Guide — The Conspiracy — Moving Again 228
CHAPTER XXIV.
Down Through Italy by Rail — Idling in Florence — Dante and Galileo — An Ungrateful City — Dazzhng Generosity — Wonderful Mosaics — The Histori- cal Arno — Lost Again — Found Again, but no Fatted Calf Ready — The Leaning Tower of Pisa — The Ancient Duomo — The Old Original First Pendulum that Ever Swung — An Enchanting Echo — A New Holy Sepulchre — A Relic of Antiquity — A Fallen Republic — At Leghorn — At Home Again, and Satisfied, on Board the Ship — Our Vessel an Object of Grave Suspicion — Gen. Garibaldi Visited — Threats of Quarantine 244
Contents.
CHAPTER XXV.
PAGE
The Works of Bankruptcy — Railway G-randeur — How to Fill an Empty Treasury — The Sumptuousness of Mother Church — Ecclesiastical Splen- dor— Magnificence and Misery — G-eneral Execration — More MagniScence — A Good Word for the Priests — Civita Vecchia the Dismal — Off for Rome 255
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Modern Roman on His Travels — The Grandeur of St. Peter's — Holy Relics — Grand View from the Dome — The Holy Inquisition — Interesting Old Monkish Frauds — The Ruined CoHseum — The Coliseum in the Days of its Prime — Ancient Play-biU of a Coliseum Performance — A Roman Newspaper Criticism 1700 Years Old 266
CHAPTER XXVII.
" Butchered to Make a Roman Holiday " — The Man who Never Complained — An Exasperating Subject — Asinine Guides — The Roman Catacombs — The Saint Whose Fervor Burst his Ribs — The Miracle of the Bleeding Heart — The Legend of Ara Coeh 284
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Picturesque Horrors — The Legend of Brother Thomas — Sorrow Scientifically Analyzed — A Festive Company of the Dead — The Great Vatican Museum — Artist Sins of Omission — fhe Rape of the Sabines — Papal Protection of Art — High Price of " Old Masters " — Improved Scripture — Scale of Rank of the Holy Personages in Rome — Scale of Honors Accorded Them — Fos- silizing— Away for Naples 29S
CHAPTER XXIX.
Naples — In Quarantine at Last — Annunciation — Ascent of Mount Vesuvius — A Two-Cent Community — The Black Side of Neapolitan Character — Monkish Miracles — Ascent of Mount Vesuvius Continued — The Stranger and the Hackman — Night View of Naples from the Mountain-side — Ascent of Vesuvius Continued 308
CHAPTER XXX.
Ascent of Vesuvius Continued — Beautiful View at Dawn — Less Beautiful View in the Back Streets — Ascent of Vesuvius Continued — Dwellings a Hundred Feet High — A Motley Procession — BiU of Fare for a Pedler's Breakfast — Princely Salaries — Ascent of Vesuvius Continued — An Aver- age of Prices — The Wonderful " Blue Grotto " — Visit to Celebrated Localities in the Bay of Naples — The Poisoned "Grotto of the Dog" — A Petrified Sea of Lava — The Ascent Continued — The Summit Reached — Description of the Crater — Descent of Vesuvius 315
CHAPTER XXXL
The Buried City of Pompeii — How Dwellings Appear that have been Unoccu- pied for Eighteen Hundred Years — The Judgment Seat — Desolation — The Footprints of the Departed — "No Women Admitted'' — Theatres, Bake- shops, Schools, etc. — Skeletons Preserved by the Ashes and Cinders — The Brave Martyr to Duty — Rip Van Winkle — The Perishable Nature of Fame 327
Contents.
CHAPTER XXXII.
PAGE
At Sea Once More — The Pilgrims all Well — Superb Stromboli — Sicily by Moonlight — ScyUa and Chaiybdis — The " Oracle " at Fault — Skirting the Isles of Greece — Ancient Athens — Blockaded by Quarantine and Relused Permission to Enter — Running the Blockade — A Bloodless Midnight Ad- venture— Turning Robbers from Necessity — Attempt to Carry the Acrop- olis by Storm — We Fail — Among the Glories of the Past — A World of Ruined Sculpture — A Fairy Vision — Famous Localities — Retreating in Good Order — Captured by the Guards — Travelling in Military State — Safe on Board Again 337
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Modern Greece — Fallen Greatness — Sailing Through the Archipelago and the Dardanelles — Footprints of History — The First Shoddy Contractor of whom History gives any Account — Anchored Before Constantinople — Fantastic Fashions — The Ingenious Goose-Rancher — Marvellous Cripples — The Great Mosque — The Thousand and One Columns — The Grand Bazaar of Stamboul 354
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Scarcity of Morals and Whiskey — Slave-Girl Market Report — Commercial Morality at a Discount — The Slandered Dogs of Constantinople — Ques- tionable Delights of Newspaperdom in Turkey — Ingenious Italian Journalism — N"o More Turkish Lunches Desired — The Turkish Bath Fraud — The Narghileh Fraud — Jackplaned by a Native — The Turkish Coffee Fi "d '. 368
CHAPTER XXXV.
Sailing Through the Bosporus and the Black Sea — " Far-Away Moses " — Melancholy Sebastopol — Hospitably Received in Russia — Pleasant Eng- lish People — Desperate Fighting — Relic Hunting — How Travellers Form "Cabinets",... 381
CHAPTER XXXVL
Nine Thousand Miles East — Imitation American Town in Russia — Gratitude
that Came Too Late — To Visit the Autocrat of All the Russias 387
CHAPTER XXXVIL
Summer Home of Royalty — Practising for the Dread Ordeal — Committee on Imperial Address — Reception by the Emperor and Family — Dresses of the Imperial Party — Concentrated Power — Counting the Spoons — At the Grand Duke's— A Charming ViUa — A Knightly Figure — The Grand Duchess — A Grand Ducal Breakfast — Baker's Boy, the Famine-Breeder — Theatrical Monarchs a Fraud — Saved as by Fire — The Governor-Gen- eral's Visit to the Ship — Official "Style " — Aristocratic Visitors — "Mun- chausenizing " with Them — Closing Ceremonies 390
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Return to Constantinople — We Sail for Asia — The Sailors Burlesque the Imperial Visitors — Ancient Smyrna — The "Oriental Splendor" Fraud — The " Biblical Crown of Life " — Pilgrim Prophecy-Savans — Sociable Armenian Girls — A Sweet Reminiscence — "The Camels are Coming, Ha-ha ! " 403
Contents. CHA.PTER XXXIX.
PAGE
Smyrna's Lions — The Martyr Polycarp — The " Seven Churches " — Remains of the Six Smyrnas — Mj^sterions Oyster Mine — Oysters Seeking Scen- ery— A Millerite Tradition — A Railroad Out of its Spliere 412
CHAPTER XL.
Journeying Toward Ancient Ephesus — Ancient Ayassalook — The Villanous Donkey — A Fantastic Procession — Bygone Magnificence — Fragments of History — Tlie Legend of the Seven Sleepers 418
CHAPTER XLL
Vandalism Prohibited — Angry Pilgrims — Approaching Holy Land ! — The "Shrill Xote of Preparation — Distress About Dragomans and Transporta- tion— The " Long Route" Adopted — In Syria — Something about Beirout -A Choice Specimen of a Greek ■' Ferguson " — Outfits — Hideous Horse- flesli— Pilgrim " Style "—What of Aladdin's Lamp ? 430
CHAPTER XLIL
'•Jacksonville," in the Mountains of Lebanon — Breakfasting above a Grand Panorama — The Vanished City — The Peculiar Steed, "Jericho" — The Pilgrim's Progress — Bible Scenes — Mount Hermon, Joshua's Battle- Fields, etc. — The Tomb of ISToah — A Most Unfortunate People 438
CHAPTER XLIII.
Patriarchal Customs — Magnificent Baalbec — Description of the Ruins — Scrib- bling Smiths and Joneses — Pilgrim Fidelity to the Letter of the Law — The Revered Fountain of Baalam's Ass 445
CHAPTER XLIV.
Extracts from Note-Book — Mahomet's Paradise and the Bible's — Beautiful Da- mascus, the Oldest City on Earth — Oriental Scenes within tlie Curious Old City — Damascus Street Car — The Story of St. Paul — The '"Street called Straight " — Mahomet's Tomb and St. George's — The Christian Massacre — Mohammedan Dread of Pollution — The House of Naaman — The Horrors of Leprosy 454
CHAPTER XLV.
The Cholera by way of Variety — Hot — Another Outlandish Procession — Pen- and-ink Photograph of " Jonesborough," Syria — Tomb of Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter — The Stateliest Ruin of All — Stepping over the Borders of Holy Land — Bathing iu the Sources of Jordan — More " Specimen "- Hunting — Ruins of Cesarea-Phihppi — " On This Rock Will I Build my Church " — The People the Disciples Knew — The Noble Steed " Baalbec " — Sentimental Horse Idolatry of the Arabs 465
CHAPTER XLVI.
Dan — Bashan — ^Genessaret — A Notable Panorama — Smallness of Palestine — Scraps of History — Character of the Country — Bedoum Shepherds — Glimpses of the Hoary Past — Mr. Grimes's Bedouins — A Battle-Ground of Joshua — That Soldier's Manner of Fighting — Barak's Battle — The Necessity of Unlearning Some Things — Desolation 478
Contents. CHAPTER XL VII.
FAOS
Jack's Adventure — Joseph's Pit — The Story of Joseph — Joseph's Magnanim- ity and Esau's — The Sacred Lake of Genessaret — Enthusiasm of the Pil- grims— Why We did not Sail on Galilee — About Capernaum — Concerning the Saviour's Brothers and Sisters — Journeying toward Magdala 488
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Curious Specimens of Art and Architecture — Public Reception of the Pilgrims — Mary Magdalen's House — Tiberias and its Queer Inhabitants — The Sa- cred Sea of Galilee — Galilee by Night 503
CHAPTER TLIX.
The Ancient Baths — Ye Apparition — A Distin^, nshed Panorama — The Last Battle of the Crusades — Tlie Story of the Lora '^K'erak — Mount Tabor — What one Sees from its Top — A Memory of a Wonderful Garden — The House of Deborah the Prophetess , 514
CHAPTER L.
'Toward Nazareth — Bitten By a Camel — Grotto of the Annunciation, Nazareth — Noted Grottoes in General — Joseph's Workshop — A Sacred IBowlder — The Fountain of the Virgin — Questionable Female Beauty — Literary Cu- riosities 525
CHAPTER LL
The Boyhood of the Saviour — Unseemly Antics of Sober Pilgrims — Home of the Witch of Endor — Nain — Profanation — A Popular Oriental Picture — Bibhcal Metaphors Becoming steadily More InteUigible — The Shunem Miracle — The "Free Son of The Desert" — Ancient Jezreel — Jehu's Achievements — Samaria and its Famous Siege 537
CHAPTER III.
A Curious Remnant of the Past — Shechem — The Oldest "First Family " on Earth — The Oldest Manuscript Extant — The Genuine Tomb of Joseph — Jacob's Well — Shiloh — Camping witli the Arabs — Jacob's Ladder — More Desolation — Ramah, Beroth, the Tomb of Samuel, the Fountain of Beira — Impatience — Approaching Jerusalem — The Holy City in Sight — Noting its Prominent Features — Domiciled Within the Sacred Walls 551
CHAPTER LIIL
'" The Joy of the Whole Earth " — Description of Jerusalem — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — The Stone of Unction — The Grave of Jesus — Graves of Nicodemus and Josepli of Arimathea — Places of the Apparition — The Finding of the Three Crosses — The Legend — Monkish Impostures — The Pillar of Flagellation— The Place of a Relic— Godfrey's Sword—" The Bonds of Christ " — " The Center of the Earth " — Place whence the Dust was takeu of which Adam was Made — Grave of Adam — The Martyred Soldier — The Copper Plate that was On the Cross — The Good St. Helena — Place of the Division of the Garments^St. Dimas, the Penitent Thief — The Late Emperor Maximilian's Contribution — Grotto wherein the Crosses were Found, and the Nails, and the Crown of Thorns — Chapel of tJie Mocking — Tomb of Melchizedek — Graves of Two Renowned Crusaders — The Place of the Crucifixion 558
Contents. CHAPTER LIV.
PAOB
The "Sorrowful "Way " — The Legend of St. Yeronica's Haadkerchief — An Il- lustrious Stone — House of the Wandering Jew — The Tradition of the "Wanderer — Solomon's Temple — Mosque of Omar — Moslem Traditions — " Women not Admitted " — The Fate of a Gossip — Turkish Sacred Relics — Judgment Seat of David and Saul — G-enuine Precious Remains of Solomon's Temple — Surfeited with Sights — The Pool of Siloam — The Gar- den of Gethsemane and Other Sacred Localities 514
CHAPTEL LV.
Rebellion in the Camp — Charms of Nomadic Life — Dismal Rumors — En Route for Jericho and The Dead Sea — Pilgrim Strategy — Bethany and the Dwell- ing of Lazarus — "Bedouins!" — Ancient Jericho — Misery — The Night March — The Dead Sea — An Idea of What a "Wilderness " in Palestine is — The Holy Hermits of Mars Saba — Good St. Saba — Women not Admit- ted— Buried from the World for all Time — Unselfish Catholic Benevolence — Gazelles — The Plain of the Shepherds — Birthplace of the Saviour, Bethlehem — Church of the Nativity — Its Hundred Holy Places — The Fa- mous " Milk " Grotto — Tradition — Return to Jerusalem — Exhausted. . . . 586
CHAPTER LVI.
Departure from Jerusalem — Samson — The Plain of Sharon — Arrival at Joppa — House of Simon the Tanner — The Long Pilgrimage Ended — Character of Palestine Scenery — The Curse 604
CHAPTER LYIL
The Happiness of being at Sea once more — " Home " as it is in a Pleasure- Ship — "Shaking Hands" with the Vessel — Jack in Costume — His Fa- ther's Parting Advice — Approaching Egypt — Ashore in Alexandria — A Deserved Compliment for the Donkeys — Invasion of the Lost Tribes of America — End of the Celebrated "Jaffa Colony" — Scenes in Grand Cai- ro— Shepheard's Hotel Contrasted with a Certain American Hotel — Pre- paring for the Pyramids 609
CHAPTER LVIIL
"Recherche " Donkeys — A Wild Ride — Specimens of Egyptian Modesty — Mo- ses in the Bulrushes — Place where the Holy Family Sojourned — Distant view of the Pyramids — A Nearer View — The Ascent — Superb View from the top of the Pyramid — "Backsheesh! Backsheesh! " — An Arab Exploit — In the Bowels of the Pyramid — Strategy — Reminiscence of "Holiday's Hill" — Boyish Exploit — The Majestic Sphynx — Things the Author will not Tell— Grand Old Egypt. . , 618
CHAPTER LIX.
Going Home — A Demoralized Note-Book — A Boy's Diary — Mere Mention of Old Spain — Departure from Cadiz — A Deserved Rebuke — The Beautiful Madeiras — Tabooed — In the Delightful Bermudas — An Enghsh Welcome — Good-by to "Our Friends the Bermudians " — Packing Trunks for Home — Our First Accident — The Long Cruise Drawing to a Close — At Home Amen 635
CHAPTER LX. Thankless Devotion — A Newspaper Valedictory — Conclusion. , 638
OHAPTEE I.
FOR montlis the great Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers every where in America, and discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the way of Excursions — its like had not been thought of before, and it compelled that interest which attractive novelties always command. It was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of freight- ing an ungainly steam ferry-boat with youth and beauty and pies and doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer day's laborious frolicking under the impression that it was fun, were to sail away in a great steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday beyond the broad ocean, in many a strange clime and in many a land renowned in history! They were to sail for months over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean ; they were to scamper about the decks by day, filling the ship with shouts and laughter — or read novels and poetry in the shade of the smoke-stacks, or watch for the jelly-fish and the nau- tilus, over the side, and the shark, the whale, and other strange monsters of the deep ; and at night they were to dance in the open air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ball-room that stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bend- ing heavens and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and the magnificent moon — dance, and promenade, and smoke, and sing, and make love, and search the skies for con- stellations that never associate with the " Big Dipper " they
20 A SEDUCTIVE PROGRAMME.
were so tired of; and tliey were to see the ships of twenty navies — the customs and costumes of twenty curious peoples — the great cities of half a world — they were to hob-nob with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes, Grand Moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires !
It was a brave conception ; it was the offspring of a most ingenious brain. It was well advertised, but it hardly needed it : the bold originality, the extraordinary character, the seduc- tive nature, and the vastness of the enterprise provoked com- ment every where and advertised it in every household in the land. Who could read the programme of the excursion with- out longing to make one of the party ? I will insert it here. It is ahnost as good as a map. As a text for this book, noth- ing could be better :
EXCURSION TO THE HOLT LAND, EGYPT, THE CRIMEA, GREECE, AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS OF INTEREST.
Brooklyn, February 1st, 1867.
The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming season, and begs to submit to you the follow nig programme:
A first-class steamer, to be under his own command, and capable of accommo- dating at least one hundred and fifty cabin passengers, will be selected, in which will be taken a select company, numbering not more than three-fourths of the ship's capacity. There is good reason to beheve that this company can be easily made up in this immediate vicinity, of mutual friends and acquaintances.
The steamer will be provided with every necessary comfort, including library and musical instruments.
An experienced physician will be on board.
Leaving New Tork about June 1st, a middle and pleasant route will be taken across the Atlantic, and passing through the group of Azores, St. Michael will be reached in about ten days. A day or two will be spent here, enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these islands, and the voyage continued, and Gibraltar reached in three or four days.
A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful subterraneous fortifications, permission to visit these galleries being readily obtained.
From Gibraltr.r, running along the coasts of Spain and France, Marseilles will be reached in three days. Here ample time will be given not only to look over the city, which was founded six hundied years before the Christian era, and its artificial port, the finest of the kind in the Mediterranean, but to visit Paris during the Great Ex- ^iibition: and the beautiful city of Lyons, lying intermediate, from the heights of
A SEDUCTIVE PROGRAMME. 21
/?hich, on a clear day, Mont Blanc and the Alps can be distinctly seen. Passen- gers who may wish to extend the time at Paris can do so, and, passing down through Switzerland, rejoin the steamer at Genoa.
From Marseilles to Genoa is a run of one night. The excursionists will have an opportunity to look over this, the "magnificent city of palaces," and visit the birth- place of Columbus, twelve miles off, over a beautiful road built by Napoleon I. From this point, excursions may be made to Milan, Lakes Como and Maggiore, or to Milan, Verona, (famous for its extraordinary fortifications,) Padua, and Venice. Or, if passengers desire to visit Parma (famous for Correggio's frescoes,) and Bo- logna, they can by rail go on to Florence, and rejoin the steamer at Leghorn, thus spending about three weeks amid the cities most famous for art in Italy.
From Genoa the run to Leghorn will be made along the coast in one night, and time appropriated to this pointin which to visit Florence, its palaces and galleries; Pisa, its Cathedral and "Leaning Tower," and Lucca and its baths, and Roman amphitheatre ; Florence, the most remote, being distant by rail about sixty miles.
From Leghorn to Naples, (calling at Civita Vecchia to land any who may prefer to go to Home from that point,) the distance will be made in about thirty-six hours; the route will lay along the coast of Italy, close by Caprera, Elba, and Corsica. Arrangements have been made to take on board at Leghorn a pilot for Caprera, and, if practicable, a call will be made there to visit the home of Garibaldi.
Rome, [by rail] Herculaneum, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Virgil's tomb, and possibly, the ruins of Psestum, can be visited, as well as the beautiful surroundings of Naples and its charming bay.
The next point of interest will be Palermo, the most beautiful city of Sicily, which will be reached in one night from Naples. A day will be spent here, and leaving in the evening, the course will be taken towards Athens.
Skirting along the north coast of Sicily, passing through the group of ^olian Isles, in sight of Stromboli and Vulcania, both active volcanoes, through the Straits of Messina, with "Scylla" on the one hand and "Charybdis" on the other, along the east' coast of Sicily, and in sight of Mount -(Etna, along the south coast of Italy, the west and south coast of Greece, in sight of ancient Crete, up Athens Gulf, and into the Piraeus, Athens will be reached in two and a half or three days. After tarrying here awhile, the Bay of Salamis will be crossed, and a day given to Cor- inth, whence the voyage will be continued to Constantinople, passing on the way through the Grecian Archipelago, the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the mouth of the Golden Horn, and arriving in about forty-eight hours from Athens.
After leaving Constantinople, the way will be taken out through the beautiful Bosphorus, across the Black Sea to Sebastopol and Balaklava, a run of about twenty-four hours. Here it is proposed to remain two days, visiting the harboi-s, fortifications, and battle-fields of the Crimea ; thence back through the Bosphorus, touching at Constantinople to take in any who may have preferred to remain there; down through the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles, along the coasts of ancient Troy and Lydia in Asia, to Smyrna, which will be reached in two or two and a half days from Constantinople. A sufficient stay will be made here to give opportunity of visiting Ephesus, fifty miles distant by rail.
From Smyrna towards the Holy Land the course will lay through the Grecian
22 A SEDUCTIVE PROGRAMME.
Archipelago, close by the Isle of Patmos, along the coast of Asia, ancient Pam- phylia, and the Isle of Cyprus. Beirout will be reached in three days. At Beirout time will be given to visit Damascus; after which the steamer wiU proceed to Joppa.
From Joppa, Jerusalem, the River Jordan, the Sea of Tiberias, Nazareth, Beth- any, Bethlehem, and other points of interest in the Holy Land can be visited, and here those who may have preferred to make the journey from Bierout through the country, passing through Damascus, Galilee, Capernaum, Samaria, and by the River Jordan and Sea of Tiberias, can rejoin the steamer.
Leaving Joppa, the next point of interest to visit will be Alexandria, which will be reached in twenty-four hours. The ruins of Caesar's Pa'lace, Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's Needle, the Catacombs, and ruins of ancient Alexandria, will be found worth the visit. The journey to Cairo, one hundred and thirty miles by rail, can be made m a few hour's, and from which can be visited the site of ancient Memphis, Joseph's Granaries, and the Pyramids.
From Alexandria the route will be taken homeward, calling at Malta, Cagliari (in Sardinia,) and Parma (in Majorca.) all magnificent harbors, with charming scenery, and abounding in fruits.
A day or two will be spent at each place, and leaving Parma in the evening, Valencia in Spain will be reached the next morning. A few days will be spent in this, the finest city of Spain.
From Valencia, the homeward course will be continued, skirting along the coast of Spain. Alicant, Carthagena, Palos, and Malaga, will be passed but a mile or two distant, and Gibraltar reached in about twenty-four hours.
A stay of one day will be made here, and the voyage continued to Madeira, which will be reached in about three days. Captain Marrj^att writes: "I do not know a spot on the globe which so much astonishes and delights upon first arrival as Madeira." A stay of one or two days will be made here, which, if time per- mits, may be extended, and passing on through the islands, and probably in sight of the Peak of Teneriffe, a southern track will be taken, and the Atlantic crossed within the latitudes of the Northeast trade winds, where mild and pleasant weather, and a smooth sea, can always be expected.
A call will be made at Bermuda, which lies directly in this route homeward, and will be reached in about ten days from Madeira, and after spending a short time with our friends the Bermudians, the final departure will be made for home, which will be reached in about three days.
Alreadjr, applications have been received from parties in Europe wishing to join the Excursion there.
The ship will at all times be a home, where the excursionists, if sick, will be sur- rounded by kind friends, and have all possible comfort and sympathy.
Should contagious sickness exist in anj^ of the ports named in the programme, such ports will be passed, and others of interest substituted.
The price of passage is fixed at $1,250, currency, for each adult passenger. Choice of rooms and of seats at the tables apportioned in the order in which pas- sages are engaged, and no passage considered engaged until ten per cent, of the passage money is deposited with the treasurer.
A SEDUCTIVE PROGRAMME. 23
Passengers can remain on board of the steamer, at all ports, if they desire, with- out additional expense, and all boating at the expense of the ship.
All passages must be paid for wlien taken, in order that the most perfect arrangements be made for starting at the appointed time.
Applications for passage must be approved by the committee before tickets are issued, and can be made to the undersigned.
Articles of interest or curiosity, procured by the passengers during the voyage, may be brought home in the steamer free of charge.
Five dollars per day, in gold, it is believed, will be a fair calculation to make for all traveling expenses on shore, and at the various points where passengers may wish to leave the steamer for days at a time.
The trip can be extended, and the route changed, by unanimous vote of the passengers.
CHAS. C. DUNCAN,
117 Wall Street, New York, R. R. Gr******, Treasurer.
Committee qs Applications. J. T. H*****, Esq., R. R. G***** Esq., 0. C. DUNCAN.
Committee on selecting Steamer.
Capt. "W. W. S****. Surveyor for Board of Underivriters. C. W. c*******, Consulting Engineer for U. S. and Canada. J. T. H***** Esq. C. C. DUNCAN.
P. S. — The very beautiful and substantial side wheel steamship " Quaker City" has been chartered for the occasion, and will leave New York, June 8th. Letters have been issued by the government commending the party to courtesies abroad.
What was there lacking about that programme, to make it perfectly irresistible ? IS^othing, that any finite mind could •discover. Paris, England, Scotland, Switzerland, Italy — Oaribaldi ! The Grecian archipelago ! Yesuvius ! Constanti- nople ! Smyrna ! The Holy Land ! Egypt and " our friends the Eermudians !" People in Europe desiring to join the Ex- cursion— contagious sickness to be avoided — boating at the expense of the ship — physician on board — the circuit of the globe to be made if the passengers unanimously desired it — the company to be rigidly selected by a pitiless " Committee on Applications" — the vessel to be as rigidly selected by as pitiless a " Committee on Selecting Steamer." Human-
24 ENROLLED AMONG THE "SELECT."
nature could not withstand these bewildering temptations. I hurried to the Treasurer's office and deposited my ten per cent. I rejoiced to know that a few vacant state-rooms were still left. I did avoid a critical personal examination into my character, by that bowelless committee, but I referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the community who would be least likely to know any thing about me.
Shortly a supplementary programme was issued which set forth that the Plymouth Collection of Hymns would be used on board the ship. I then paid the balance of my passage money.
I was provided with a receipt, and duly and officially ac- cepted as an excursionist. There was happiness in that, but it was tame compared to the novelty of being " select."
This supplementary programme also instructed the excur- sionists to provide themselves with light musical instruments for amusement in the ship; with saddles for Syrian travel j green spectacles and umbrellas; veils for Egypt; and substan- idal clothing to use in rough pilgrimizing in the Holy Land. Furthermore; it was suggested that although the ship's library would alford a fair amount of reading matter, it would still be well if each passenger would provide himself with a few guide-books, a Bible and some standard works of travel. A list was appended, which consisted chiefly of books relating to the Holy Land, since the Holy Land was part of the excursion and seemed to be its main feature.
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was to have accompanied the expedition, but urgent duties obliged him to give up the idea. There were other passengers who could have been spared bet-, ter, and would have been spared more willingly. Lieut. Gen. Sherman was to have been of the party, also, but the Indian war compelled his presence on the plains. A popular actress had entered her name on the ship's books, but something inter- fered, and she couldn't go. The " Drummer Boy of the Poto- mac" deserted, and lo, we had never a celebrity left !
However, we were to have a " battery of guns " from the !N"avy Department, (as per advertisement,) to be used in
ENROLLED AMONG THE "SELECT." 25
answering royal salutes ; and the document furnished by the Secretary of the l^avy, which was to make " Gen. Sherman and party " welcome guests in the courts and camps of the old world, was still left to us, though both document and bat- tery, I think, were shorn of somewhat of their original august proportions. However, had not we the seductive programme, still, with its Paris, its Constantinople, Smyrna, Jerusalem, Jericho, and " our feiends the Bermudians ?" What did we care?
CKAPTEE II.
OCCASIONALLY, during the following montli, I dropped in at 117 Wall-street to inquire how the repairing and refurnishing of the vessel was coming on ; how additions to the passenger list were averaging ; how many people the com- mittee were decreeing not " select," every day, and banishing in sorrow and tribulation. I was glad to know that we were to have a little printing-press on board and issue a daily newspaper of our own. I was glad to learn that our piano, our parlor organ and our melodeon were to be the best instru- ments of the kind that could be had in the market. I was proud to observe that among our excursionists were three min- isters of the gospel, eight doctors, sixteen or eighteen ladies, several military and naval chieftains with sounding titles, an ample crop of " Professors " of various kinds, and a gentle- man who had " Commissioner of the United States of America TO Europe, Asia, and Africa" thundering after his name in one awful blast ! I had carefully prepared myself to take rather a back seat in that ship, because of the uncommonly select material that would alone be permitted to pass through the camel's eye of that committee on credentials ; I had schooled myself to expect an imposing array of military and naval heroes, and to have to set that back seat still further back in consequence of it, may be ; but I state frankly that I was all unprepared for this crusher.
I fell under that titular avalanche a torn and blighted thing. I said that if that potentate must go over in our ship, why, I supposed he must — but that to my thinking, when the United
AN OFFICIAL COLOSSUS. 27
States considered it necessary to send a dignitary of tliat ton- nage across the ocean, it would be in better taste, and safer, to take liim apart and cart him over in sections, in several ships.
Ah, if I had only known, then, that he was only a common mortal, and that his mission had nothing more overpowering about it than the collecting of seeds, and uncommon yams and extraordinary cabbages and peculiar bullfrogs for that poor, useless, innocent, mildewed old fossil, the Smithsonian Insti- tute, I would have felt so much relieved.
During that memorable month I basked in the happiness of being for once in my life drifting with the tide of a great popular movement. Every body was going to Europe — I, too, was going to Europe. Every body was going to the famous Paris Exposition — I, too, was going to the Paris Exposition. The steamship lines were carrying Americans out of the vari- ous ports of the country at the rate of four or five thousand a week, in the aggregate. If I met a dozen individuals, during that month, who were not going to Europe shortly, I have no distinct remembrance of it now. I walked about the city a good deal with a young Mr. Blucher, who was booked for the excursion. He was confiding, good-natured, unsophisticated, companionable ; but he was not a man to set the river on fire. He had the most extraordinary notions about this European exodus, and came at last to consider the whole nation as pack- ing up for emigration to France. We stepped into a store in Broadway, one day, where he bought a handkerchief, and when the man could not make change, Mr. B. said :
" iN'ever mind, I'll hand it to you in Paris."
" But I am not going to Paris."
" How is — what did I understand you to say ?"
" I said I am not going to Paris."
" ISTot going to Paris / ISTot g — well then, where in the na- tion are you going to ?"
" Kowhere at all." .
" ITot any where whatsoever ? — not any place on earth but this ?"
28
MR. BLUCHER'S opinion,
" ITot any place at all but just this — stay here all summer.''
My comrade took his purchase and walked out of the store
■without a word — walked out with an injured look upon his
countenance. Up the street apiece he broke silence and said
impressively: " It was a lie — that is my opinion of it !"
"i'LL pay you in FAKIS."
In the fullness of time the ship was ready to receive her pas- sengers. I was introduced to the young gentleman who was to be my room mate, and found him to be intelligent, cheerful of spirit, unselfish, full of generous impulses, patient, consid- erate, and wonderfully good-natured. Not any passenger that sailed in the Quaker City will withhold his indorsement of what I have just said. We selected a state-room forward of
SEA-GOING LODGING'S. 29
the wheel, on the starboard side, " below decks." It had two berths in it, a dismal dead-light, a sink with a wash-bowl in it, and a long, sumptuously cushioned locker, which was to do service as a sofa — partly, and partly as a hiding-place for our things. I^ot withstanding all this furniture, there was still room to turn around in, but not to swing a cat in, at least with entire security to the cat. However, the room was large, for a ship's state-room, and was in every way satisfactory.
The vessel was appointed to sail on a certain Saturday early in June.
A little after noon, on that distinguished Saturday, I reached the ship and went on board. All was bustle and confusion. [I have seen that remark before, somewhere.] The pier was ■crowded with carriages and men ; passengers were arriving and hurrying on board ; the vessel's decks were encumbered with trunks and valises ; groups of excursionists, arrayed in unattractive traveling costumes, were moping about in a driz- zling rain and looking as droopy and woe-begone as so many inolting chickens. The gallant flag was up, but it was under the spell, too, and hung limp and disheartened by the mast. Altogether, it was the bluest, bluest spectacle ! It was a pleas- ure excursion — there was no gainsaying that, because the programme said so — it was so nominated in the bond — but it surely hadn't the general aspect of one.
Finally, above the banging, and rumbling, and shouting and hissing of steam, rang the order to " cast oiF!" — a sudden rush to the gangways — a scampering ashore of visitors — a revolu- tion of the wheels, and we were off — the pic-nic was begun ! Two very mild cheers went up from the dripping crowd on the pier ; we answered them gently from the slippery decks ; the' "-fiag made an effort to wave, and failed ; the " battery of guns " spake not — the ammunition was out.
We steamed down to the foot of the harbor and came to an- chor. It was still raining. And not only raining, but storming. "Outside" we could see, ourselves, that there was a tre- mendous sea on. We must lie still, in the calm harbor, till the storm should abate. Our passengers hailed from fifteen
30
CAST OFF,
THE START.
States ; only a few of them had ever been to sea before ; mani- festly it would not do to pit them against a full-blown tempest until they had got their sea-legs on. Toward evening the two steam-tugs that had accompanied us with a rollicking cham- pagne-party of young I^ew Yorkers on board who wished to bid farewell to one of our number in due and ancient form, departed, and we were alone on the deep. On deep five fathoms, and anchored fast to the bottom. And out in the solemn rain, at that. This was pleasuring with a ven- geance.
It was an appropriate relief when the gong sounded for prayer meeting. The first Saturday night of any other j)lea8- ure excursion might have been devoted to whist and dan- cing ; but I submit it to the unprejudiced mind if it would have been in good taste for us to engage in such frivolities, considering what we had gone through and the frame of mind
"OAST OFF." 31
we were in. "We would have shone at a wake, but not at any thing more festive.
However, there is always a cheering influence about the sea ; and in my berth, that night, rocked by the measured swell of the waves, and lulled by the murmur of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly out of all consciousness of the dreary experiences of the day and damaging premonitions of the fature.
CHAPTER III.
ALL day Sunday at anchor. The storm had gone down a great deal, but the sea had not. It was still piling its frothy hills high in air " outside," as we could plainly see with the glasses. We could not properly begin a pleasure excur- sion on Sunday ; we could not offer untried stomachs to so pitiless a sea as that. We must lie still till Monday. And we did. But we had repetitions of church and prayer-meet- ings ; and so, of course, we were just as eligibly situated as we could have been any where.
I was up early that Sabbath morning, and was early to breakfast. I felt a perfectly natural desire to have a good, long, unprejudiced look at the passengers, at a time when they should be free from self-consciousness — which is at breakfast, when such a moment occurs in the lives of human beings at all.
I was greatly surprised to see so many elderly people — I might almost say, so many venerable people. A glance at the long lines of heads was apt to make one think it was all gray. But it was not. There was a tolerably fair sprinkling of young folks, and another fair sprinkling of gentlemen and ladies who were non-committal as to age, being neither actu- ally old or absolutely young.
The next morning, we weighed anchor and went to sea. It was a great happiness to get away, after this dragging, dispiriting delay. I thought there never was such gladness in the air before, such brightness in the sun, such beauty in the
UNDER WAY "for GOOD." 33
sea. I was satisfied with the picnic, then, and with all its belongings. All my mahcious instincts were dead within me ; and as America faded out of sight, I think a spirit of charity rose up in their place that was as boundless, for the time being, as the broad ocean that was heaving its billows about us. I wished to express my feelings — I wished to lift up my voice and sing ; but I did not know any thing to sing, and so I was obliged to give up the idea. It was no loss to the ship though, perhaps.
It was breezy and pleasant, but the sea was still very rough. One could not promenade without risking his neck ; at one moment the bowsprit was taking a deadly aim at the sun in mid-heaven, and at the next it was trying to harpoon a shark in the bottom of the ocean. What a weird sensation it is to feel the stern of a ship sinking swiftly from under you and see the bow climbing high away among the clouds ! One's safest -course, that day, was to clasp a railing and hang on ; walking was too precarious a pastime.
By some happy fortune I was not seasick. — That was a "thing to be proud of. I had not always escaped before. If there is one thing in the world that will make a man pecu- liarly and insufferably self-conceited, it is to have his stomach btehave itself, the first day at sea, when nearly all his comrades are seasick. Soon, a venerable fossil, shawled to the chin and bandaged like a mummy, appeared at the door of the after •deck-house, and the next lurch of the ship shot him into my arms. I said :
" Good-morning, Sir. It is a fine day."
He put his hand on his stomach and said, " OA, my !" and then staggered away and fell over the coop of a sky- light.
Presently another old gentleman was projected from the •same door, with great violence. I said :
" Calm yourself, Sir — There is no hurry. It is a fine day, Sir."
He, also, put his hand on his stomach and said " Oh, my !'* and reeled away.
3
34
TRIBULATION AMONG THE PATRIARCHS.
In a little while another veteran was discharged abruptly from the same door, clawing at the air for a saving support, I said :
" Good-morning, Sir. It is a fine day for pleasuring. You were about to say — "
"0/i, my!"
I thought so. I anticipated him, any how. I staid there and was bombarded with old gentlemen for an hour perhaps ; and all I got out of any of them was " Oh, my!"
I went away, then, in a thoughtful mood. I said, this is a good pleasure excursion. I like it. The passengers are not garrulous, but still they are sociable. I like those old people,
TRANSGRESSING THE LAWS. 85
but somehow they all seem to have the " Oh, my " rather bad.
I knew what was the matter with them. They were sea- sick. And I was glad of it. We all like to see people sea- sick when we are not, ourselves. Playing whist by the cabin lamps when it is storming outside, is pleasant ; walking the quarter-deck in the moonlight, is pleasant ; smoking in the breezy foretop is pleasant, when one is not afraid to go up there ; but these are all feeble and commonplace compared with the joy of seeing people suffering the miseries of seasickness.
I picked up a good deal of information during the after- noon. At one time I was climbing up the quarter-deck when the vessel's stern was in the sky ; I was smoking a cigar and feeling passably comfortable. Somebody ejaculated :
" Come, now, that won't answer. Read the sign up there — ■
!No SMOKESTG ABAFT THE WHEEL !"
It was Capt. Duncan, chief of the expedition. I went for- ward, of course. I saw a long spy-glass lying on a desk in one of the upper-deck state-rooms back of the pilot-house, and reached after it — there was a ship in the distance :
" Ah, ah — ^hands off ! Come out of that !"
I came out of that. I said to a deck-sweep — but in a low voice :
" Who is that overgrown pirate with the whiskers and the discordant voice ?"
" It's Capt. Bursley — executive officer — sailing-master."
I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of something better to do, fell to carving a railing with my knife. Some-* body said, in an insinuating, admonitory voice :
"JSTow say — my friend — don't you know any better than to be whittling the ship all to pieces that way ? You ought to know better than that."
I went back and found the deck-sweep °.
" Who is that smooth-faced animated outrage yonder in the fine clothes ?"
'That's Capt. L****, the owner of the ship — he's one of the main bosses."
36 TRANSGRESSING THE LAWS.
In the course of time I brought up on the starboard side of the pilot-house, and found a sextant lying on a bench. ]^ow, I said, they " take the sun " through this thing ; I should think I might see that vessel through it, I had hardly got it to my eye when some one touched me on the shoulder and said, deprecatingly :
" I'll have to get you to give that to me. Sir. If there's any
THE OLD PIRATE.
thing you'd like to know about taking the sun, I'd as soon tell you as not — but I don't like to trust any body with that instrument. If you want any figuring done — -^ye- aye. Sir !"
He was gone, to answer a call from the other side. J sought the deck-sweep :
" Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with the sanctL monious countenance?"
"It's Capt. Jones, Sir — the chief mate."
TRANSGRESSING THE LAWS. 37
" "Well. This goes clear away ahead of any thing I ever heard of before. Do you — now I ask you as a man and a brother — do you think I could venture to throw a rock here in any given direction without hitting a captain of this ship ?"
" Well, Sir, I don't know — I think likely you'd fetch the captain of the watch, may be, because he's a-standing right yonder in the way."
I went below — meditating, and a little down-hearted. I thought, if five cooks can spoil a broth, what may not five cap- tains do with a pleasure excursion.
CHAPTEE lY.
WE plowed along bravely for a week or more, and with- out any conflict of jurisdiction among the captains worth mentioning. The passengers soon learned to accommo- date themselves to their new circumstances, and life in the ship became nearly as systematically monotonous as the routine of a barrack. I do not mean that it was dull, for it was not entirely so by any means — but there was a good deal of sameness about it. As is always the fashion at sea, the passengers shortly began to pick up sailor terms — a «ign that they were beginning to feel at home. Half-past six was no longer half-past six to these pilgrims from I^ew England, the South, and the Mississippi Yalley, it was " seven bells ;" eight, twelve and four o'clock were " eight bells ;" the captain did not take the longitude at nine o'clock, but at " two bells." They spoke glibly of the " after cabin," the " for'rard cabin,'* " port and starboard " and the " fo'castle."
At seven bells the first gong rang ; at eight there was break- fast, for such as were not too seasick to eat it. After that all the well people walked arm-in-arm up and down the long promenade deck, enjoying the fine summer mornings, and the seasick ones crawled out and propped themselves up in the lee of the paddle-boxes and ate their dismal tea and toast, and looked wretched. From eleven o'clock until luncheon, and from luncheon until dinner at six in the evening, the employ- ments and amusements were various. Some reading was done ; and much smoking and sewing, though not by the same parties ; there were the monsters of the deep to be looked after
PILGRIM LIFE AT SEA. 39
and wondered at ; strange ships liad to be scrutinized througli opera-glasses, and sage decisions arrived at concerning them ; and more than that, every body took a personal interest in see- ing that the flag was run up and politely dipped three times in response to the salutes of those strangers ; in the smoking- room there were always parties of gentlemen playing euchre, ■draughts and dominoes, especially dominoes, that delightfully harmless game ; and down on the main deck, " for'rard " — for'rard of the chicken-coops and the cattle — we had what was <ialled "horse-billiards." Horse-billiards is a fine game. It affords good, active exercise, hilarity, and consuming excitement. It is a mixture of " hop-scotch " and shuffle-board played with a •crutch. A large hop-scotch diagram is marked out on the deck with chalk, and each compartment numbered. You stand off three or four steps, with some broad wooden disks before you on the deck, and these you send forward with a vigorous thi'ust of a long crutch. If a disk stops on a chalk line, it does not count any thing. If it stops in division l^o. 7, it counts 7 ; in 5, it counts 5, and so on. The game is 100, and four can play at a time. That game would be very simple, playea on a sta- tionary floor, but with us, to play it well required science. We had to allow for the reeling of the ship to the right or the left. Yery often one made calculations for a heel to the right and the ship did not go that way. The consequence was that that disk missed the whole hop-scotch plan a yard or two, and then there was humihation on one side and laughter on the other.
When it rained, the passengers had to stay in the house, of course — or at least the cabins — and amuse themselves with games, reading, looking out of the windows at the very famil- iar billows, and talking gossip.
By 7 o'clock in the evening, dinner was about over ; an hour's promenade on the upper deck followed ; then the gong sounded and a large majority of the party repaired to the after cabin (upper) a handsome saloon fifty or sixty feet long, for prayers. The unregenerated called this saloon the " Syna- gogue." The devotions consisted only of two hymns from the "Plymouth Collection^" and a short prayer, and seldom
40 THE "SYNAGOGUE."
occupied more than fifteen minutes. The hymns were accom- panied bj parlor organ music when the sea was smooth enough to allow a performer to sit at the instrument without being: lashed to his chair.
After prayers the Synagogue shortly took the semblance of a writing-school. The like of that picture was never seen in a ship before. Behind the long dining-tables on either side of the saloon, and scattered from one end to the other of the latter^ some twenty or thirty gentlemen and ladies sat them down under the swaying lamps, and for two or three hours wrote diligently in their journals. Alas ! that journals so volumi' nously begun should come to so lame and impotent a conclu- sion as most of them did ! I doubt if there is a single pilgrim of all that host but can show a hundred fair pages of journal concerning the first twenty days' voyaging in the Quaker City ; and I am morally certain that not ten of the party can show twenty pages of journal for the succeeding twenty thousand miles of voyaging ! At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances in a book ; and he dashes at this work with an enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one days, he will find out that only those rare natures that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a shameful defeat.
One of our favorite youths. Jack, a splendid young fellow with a head full of good sense, and a pair of legs that were a wonder to look upon in the way of length, and straightnesSy, and slimness, used to report progress every morning in the" most glowing and spirited way, and say :
" Oh, I'm coming along bully !" (he was a little given to slang, in his happier moods,) " I wrote ten pages in my journal last night — and you know I wrote nine the night before, and twelve the night before that. Why it's only fun !"
" What do you find to put in it, Jack ?"
jack's "jouknal." 41
" Oh, every thing. Latitude and longitude, noon every day ; and how many miles we made last twenty-four hours ; and all the domino-games I beat, and horse-billiards ; and whales and sharks and porpoises ; and the text of the sermon, Sundays ; (because that'll tell at home, you know,) and the ships we sa- luted and what nation they were ; and which way the wind was, and whether there was a heavy sea, and what sail we carried, though we don't ever carry any, principally, going against a head wind always — wonder what is the reason of that? — and how many lies Moult has told— Oh, everything! I've got every thing down. My father told me to keep that journal. Father wouldn't take a thousand dollars for it when I get it done."
" JS^o, Jack ; it will be worth more than a thousand dollars^ when you get it done."
" Do you ? — no, but do you think it will, though ?"
" Yes, it will be worth at least as much as a thousand dol- lars— when you get it done. May be, more."
" Well, I about half think so, myself. It ain't no slouch of a journal."
But it shortly became a most lamentable " slouch of a jour- nal." One night in Paris, after a hard day's toil in sight- seeing, I said:
" Now I'll go and stroll around the caf^s awhile, Jack, and give you a chance to write up your journal, old fellow."
His countenance lost its fire. He said :
" Well, no, you needn't mind. I think I won't run that journal any more. It is awful tedious. Do you know — I reckon I'm as much as four thousand pages behind hand. I haven't got any France in it at all. First I thought I'd leave France out and start fresh. But that wouldn't do, would it ? The governor would say, ' Hello, here — didn't see any thing in France V That cat wouldn't fight, you know. First I thought I'd copy France out of the guide-book, like old Badger in the for'rard cabin who's writing a book, but there's more than three hundred pages of it. Oh, /don't think a journal's any use — do you ? They're only a bother, ainH they ?"
42
THE Q.
CLUB,
'' Yes, a journal that is incomplete isn't of mucli use, but a journal properly kept, is worth a thousand dollars, — when you've got it done."
"A thousand! — well I should think so. /wouldn't finish it for a million."
His experience was only the experience of the majority of
DANCING UNDEE DIFFICULTIES.
that industrious night-school in the cabin. If you wish to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person, pledge him to keep a journal a year.
A good many expedients were resorted to to keep the excur- sionists amused and satisfied. A club was formed, of all the passengers, which met in the writing-school after prayers and
DANCING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 43
read aloud about the countries we were approaching, and dis- cussed the information so obtained.
Several times the photographer of the expedition brought out his transparent pictures and gave us a handsome magic lantern exhibition. His views were nearly all of foreign scenes, but there were one or two home pictures among them. He advertised that he would " open his performance in the after cabin at ' two bells,' (9, p. m.,) and show the passengers where they shall eventually arrive " — which was all very well, but by a funny accident the first picture that flamed out upon the canvas was a view of Greenwood Cemetery !
On several starKght nights we danced on the upper deck, under the awnings, and made something of a ball-room display of brilliancy by hanging a number of ship's lanterns to the stanchions. Our music consisted of the well-mixed strains of a melodeon which was a little asthmatic and apt to catch its breath where it ought to come out strong ; a clarinet which was a little unreliable on the high keys and rather melancholy on the low orfes ; and a disreputable accordion that had a leak somewhere and breathed louder than it squawked — a more ele- gant term does not occur to me just now. However, the •dancing was infinitely worse than the music. When the ship rolled to starboard the whole platoon of dancers came charging down to starboard with it, and brought up in mass at the rail ; and when it rolled to port, they went floundering down to port with the same unanimity of sentiment. Waltzers spun around precariously for a matter of fifteen seconds and then went skurrying down to the rail as if they meant to go over- board. The Virginia reel, as performed on board the Quaker City, had more genuine reel about it than any reel I ever saw before, and was as full of interest to the spectator as it was full of desperate chances and hairbreadth escapes to the partici- pant. We gave up dancing, finally.
We celebrated a lady's birthday anniversary, with toasts, speeches, a poem, and so forth. We also had a mock trial. No ship ever went to sea that hadn't a mock trial on board. The purser was accused of stealing an overcoat from state-room
/'
44
THE MOCK TRIAL.
No. 10. A judge was appointed ; also clerks, a crier of tlie court, constables, sheriffs ; counsel for the State and for the defendant ; witnesses were subpoenaed, and a jury empaneled after much challenging. The witnesses were stupid, and un- reliable and contradictory, as witnesses always are. The counsel were eloquent, argumentative and vindictively abusive of each other, as was characteristic and proper. The case was
MUCK TRIAL.
at last submitted, and duly finished by the judge with an absurd decision and a ridiculous sentence.
The acting of charades was tried, on several evenings, by the young gentlemen and ladies, in the cabins, and proved the most distinguished success of all the amusement experi- ments.
An attempt was made to organize a debating club, but it was a failure. There was no oratorical talent in the ship.
We all enjoyed ourselves — I think I can safely say that, but
PILGRIM SOLEMNITY, 45
it was in a rather quiet way. "We very, very seldom played the piano ; we played the flute and the clarinet together, and made good music, too, what there was of it, but we always played the same old tune ; it was a very pretty tune — how well I remember it — I wonder when I shall ever get rid of it. We never played either the melodeon or the organ, except at devo- tions— but I am too fast : young Albert did know part of a tune — something about " O Something-Or-Other How Sweet it is to Know that he's his What's-his-]^ame," (I do not re- member the exact title of it, but it was very plaintive, and full of sentiment ;) Albert played that pretty much all the time, until we contracted with him to restrain himself. But nobody ever sang by moonlight on the upper deck, and the congregational singing at church and prayers was not of a superior order of architecture. I put up with it as long as I could, and then joined in and tried to improve it, but this encouraged young George to join in too, and that made a failure of it ; because George's voice was just " turning," and when he was singing a dismal sort of base, it was apt to fly off the handle and startle every body with a most discordant cackle on the upper notes. George didn't know the tunes, either, which was also a drawback to his performances. I said :
" Come, now, George, donH improvise. It looks too egotis- tical. It will provoke remark. Just stick to ' Coronation,' like the others. It is a good tune — you can't improve it any, just off-hand, in this way."
" Why I'm not trying to improve it — and I am singing like the others — just as it is in the notes."
And he honestly thought he was, too ; and so he had no one to blame but himself when his voice caught on the centre occa- sionally, and gave him the lockjaw.
There were those among the unregenerated who attributed the unceasing head- winds to our distressing choir-music. There were those who said openly that it was taking chances enough to have such ghastly music going on, even when it was at its best ; and that to exaggerate the crime by letting George help, was simply flying in the face of Providence. These said that
46 GRUMBLERS.
tlie choir would keep up their lacerating attempts at meloc until tliey would bring down a storm some day that would sii the ship.
There were even grumblers at the prayers. The executive officer said the Pilgrims had no charity :
" There they are, down there every night at eight bells, praying for fair winds — when they know as well as I do that this is the only ship going east this time of the year, but there's a thousand coming west — what's a fair wind for us is a head wind to them — the Almighty's blowing a fair wind for a thou- sand vessels, and this tribe wants him to turn it clear around so as to accommodate one, — and she a steamship at that ! It ain't good sense, it ain't good reason, it ain't good Christianity,, it ain't common human charity. Avast with such nonsense t'*
CHAPTEE Y.
TAKING it "by and large," as the sailors say, we had a pleasant ten days' run from New York to the Azores islands — not a fast run, for the distance is only twenty-four hundred miles — but a right pleasant one, in the main. True, we had head-winds all the time, and several stormy experi- ences which sent fifty per cent, of the passengers to bed, sick, and made the ship look dismal and deserted — stormy experi- ences that all will remember who weathered them on the tumbling deck, and caught the vast sheets of spray that every now and then sprang high in air from the weather bow and swept the ship like a thunder-shower; but for the most part we had balmy summer weather, and nights that were even finer than the days. We had the phenomenon of a full moon located just in the same spot in the heavens at the same hour every night. The reason of this singular con- duct on the part of the moon did not occur to us at first, but it did afterward when we reflected that we were gaining about twenty minutes every day, because we were going east so fast — we gained just about enough every day to keep along with the moon. It was becoming an old moon to the friends we had left behind usj but to us Joshuas it stood still in the same place, and remained always the same.
Young Mr. Blucher, who is from the Far West, and is on his first voyage, was a good deal worried by the constantly changing " ship-time." He was proud of his new watch at first, and used to drag it out promptly when eight bells struck at noon, but he came to look after a while as if he were losing
48 BLUCHER IN TROUBLE.
confidence in it. Seven days out from l!^ew York he came on deck, and said with great decision :
" This thing's a swindle !"
" What's a swindle ?"
" Why, this watch. I bought her out in Illinois — gave $150 for her — and I thought she was good. And, by George, she is o-ood on shore, but somehow she don't keep up her lick here on the water — gets seasick, may be. She skips ; she runs along regular enough till half-past eleven, and then, all of a sudden, she lets down. I've set that old regulator up faster and faster, till I've shoved it clear around, but it don't do any good ; she just distances every watch in the ship, and clatters along in a way that's astonishing till it is noon, but them eight bells al- ways gets in about ten minutes ahead of her any way. I don't know what to do with her now. She's doing all she can — she's going her best gait, but it won't save her. ISTow, don't you know, there ain't a watch in the ship that's making better time than she is : but what does it signify ? When you hear them eight bells you'll find her just about ten minutes short of her score, sure."
The ship was gaining a full hour every three days, and this fellow was trying to make his watch go fast enough to keep up to her. But, as he had said, he had pushed the regulator up as far as it would go, and the watch was "on its best gait," and so nothing was left him but to fold his hands and see the ship beat the race. We sent him to the captain, and he ex- plained to him the mystery of " ship-time," and set his troubled mind at rest. This young man asked a great many questions about seasickness before we left, and wanted to know what its characteristics were, and how he was to tell when he had it. He found out.
We saw the usual sharks, blackfish, porpoises, &c., of course, and by and by large schools of Portuguese men-of-war were added to the regular list of sea wonders. Some of them were white and some of a brilliant carmine color. The nautilus is nothing but a transparent web of jelly, that spreads itself to catch the wind, and has fleshy-looking strings a foot or two
LAND, HOl"
49
long dangling from' it to keep it steady in the water. It is an accomplished sailor, and has good sailor judgment. It reefs its sail when a storm threatens or the wind blows pretty hard, and furls it entirely and goes down when a gale blows. Ordinarily it keeps its sail wet and in good sailing order by turning over and dipping it in the water for a moment. Seamen say the nautilus is only found in these waters between the 35th and 4:5th parallels of latitude.
"laistd, ho!
At three o'clock on the morning of the 21st of June, we were awakened and notified that the Azores islands were in sight. I said I did not take any interest in islands at three o'clock in the morning. But another persecutor came, and then another and another, and finally believing that the general enthusiasm would permit no one to slumber in peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck. It was five and a half o'clock now, and a raw, blustering morning. The passengers were huddled about the smoke-stacks and fortified behind ventilators, and all were wrapped in wintry costumes, and looking sleepy and un^ happy in the pitiless gale and the drenching spray.
4
60 "floees. — fayal!"
T^e island in sight was Flores. It seemed only a mountain of mud standing up out of the dull mists of the sea. But as we bore down upon it, the sun came out and made it a beau- tiful picture — a mass of green farms and meadows that swelled up to a height of fifteen hundred feet, and mingled its upper outlines with the clouds. It was ribbed with sharp, steep ridges, and cloven with narrow canons, and here and there on the heights, rocky upheavals shaped themselves into mimic bat- tlements and castles ; and out of rifted clouds came broad shafts of sunKght, that painted summit, and slope, and glen, with bands of fire, and left belts of sombre shade between. It was the aurora borealis of the frozen pole exiled to a summer land !
We skirted around two-thirds of the island, four miles fi'om shore, and all the; opera-glasses in the ship were called into requisition to settle disputes as to whether mossy spots on the uplands were groves of trees or groves of weeds, or whether the white villages down by the sea were really villages or only the clustering tombstones of cemeteries. Finally, we stood to sea and bore away for San Miguel, and Flores shortly became a dome of mud again, and sank down among the mists and disappeared. But to many a seasick passenger it was good to see the green hills again, and all were more cheerful after this episode than any body could have expected them to be, con- sidering how sinfully early they had gotten up.
But we had to change our purpose about San Miguel, for a storm came up about noon that so tossed and pitched the vessel that common sense dictated a run for shelter. Therefore we steered for the nearest island of the group — Fayal, (the people there pronounce it Fy-all, and put the accent on the first syllable.) We anchored in the open roadstead of Horta, half a mile from the shore. The town has eight thousand to ten thousand inhabitants. Its snow-white houses nestle cosily in a sea of fresh green vegetation, and no village could look prettier or more attractive. It sits in the lap of an amphitheatre of hills which are three hundred to seven hundred feet high, and carefully cultivated clear to their summits — not a foot of soil left idle. Every farm and every acre is cut up into little square
"on shore." 51
inclosures by stone walls, whose duty it is to protect the ^^'ow- ing products from the destructive gales that blow there. These hundreds of green squares, marked by their black lava walls, make the hills look like vast checker-boards.
The islands belong to Portugal, and every thing in Fayal has Portuguese characteristics about it. But more of that anon. A swarm of swarthy, noisy, lying, shoulder-shrugging, gestic- ulating Portuguese boatmen, with brass rings in their ears, and fraud in their hearts, climbed the ship's sides, and various par- ties of us contracted with them to take us ashore at so much a head, silver coin of any country. We landed under the walls of a little fort, armed with batteries of twelve and thirty-two pounders, which Horta considered a most formidable insti- tution, but if we were ever to get after it with one of our tur- reted monitors, they would have to move it out in the country if they wanted it where they could go and find it again when they needed it. The group on the pier was a rusty one — men and women, and boys and girls, all ragged, and barefoot, un- combed and unclean, and by instinct, education, and profession, beggars. They trooped after us, and never more, while we tarried in Fayal, did we get rid of them. We walked up the middle of the principal street, and these vermin surrounded us on all sides, and glared upon us ; and every moment excited couples shot ahead of the procession to get a good look back, just as village boys do when they accompany the elephant on his advertising trip from street to street. It was very flattering to me to be part of the material for such a sensation. Here and there in the doorways we saw women, with fashionable Portuguese hoods on. This hood is of thick blue cloth, attached to a cloak of the same stuff, and is a marvel of ugli- ness. It stands up high, and spreads far abroad, and is unfath- omably deep. It fits like a circus tent, and a woman's head is hidden away in it like the man's who prompts the singers from his tin shed in the stage of an opera. There is no particle of trimming about this monstrous capote, as they call it — it is just a plain, ugly dead-blue mass of sail, and a woman can't go within eight points of the wind with one of them on ; she has
52
A DISASTROUS BANQUET.
to go before tlie wind or not at all. The general style of the capote is the same in all the islands, and will remain so for the
next ten thousand years, but each isl- and shapes its capotes just enough differently from the others to enable an observer to tell at a glance what particular island a lady hails from.
The Portuguese pennies or reis (pro- nounced rays) are prodigious. It takes one thousand reis to make a dollar, and all financial estimates are made in reis. We did not know this until after we had found it out through Blucher. Blucher said he was so happy and so grateful to be on solid land once more, that he wanted to give a feast — said he had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand ban- quet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an excellent dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not deceived him, and then read the items aloud, in a fal- tering voice, while the roses in his cheeks turned to ashes :
" ' Ten dinners, at 600 reis, 6,000 reis !' Kuin and deso- lation !"
" ' Twenty-five cigars, at 100 reis, 2,500 reis V Oh, my sainted mother !"
" ' Eleven bottles of wine, at 1,200 reis, 13,200 reis !' Be with us all !"
" ' Total, twenty-one thousand seven hundred eeis !' The suffering Moses !— there ain't money enough in the ship to pay that bill ! Go — leave me to my misery, boys, I am a ruined community."
I think it was the blankest looking party I ever saw. ]^o body could say a word. It was as if every soul had been
A DISASTROUS BANQUET.
53
stricken dumb. Wine-glasses descended slowly to the table, their contents untasted. Cigars dropped unnoticed from nerve- less fingers. Each man sought his neighbor's eye, but found in it no ray of hope, no encouragement. At last the fearful silence was broken. The shadow of a desperate resolve settled
"ruin and desolation 1"
upon Blucher's countenance like a cloud, and he rose up and said:
" Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I'll never, never stand it. Here's a hundred and fifty dollars. Sir, and it's all you'll get — I'll swim in blood, before I'll pay a cent more."
Our spirits rose and the landlord's fell — at least we thought so ; he was confused at any rate, notwithstanding he had not understood a word that had been said. He glanced from the
54 THE HAPPY RESULT.
little pile of gold pieces to Bluclier several times, and then Went out. He must have visited an American, for, when he returned, he brought back his bill translated into a language that a Christian could understand — thus :
10 dinners, 6,000 reia, or $6.00
25 cigars, 2,500 reis, or „ 2.50
11 bottles wine, 13.200 reis, or 13.20
Total 21,700 reis, or $21.70
Happiness reigned once more in Blucher's dinner party. More refreshments were ordered.
CHAPTER YI.
I THINK the Azores must be very little known in America. Out of our whole ship's company there was not a solitary individual who knew any thing whatever about them. Some of the party, well read concerning most other lands, had no other information about the Azores than that they were a group of nine or ten small islands far out in the Atlantic, something more than half way between ISTew York and Gibraltar. That was all. These considerations move me to put in a paragraph of dry facts just here.
The community is eminently Portuguese — that is to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy. There is a civil gov- ernor, appointed by the King of Portugal ; and also a military governor, who can assume supreme control and suspend the civil government at his pleasure. The islands contain a popu- lation of about 200,000, almost entirely Portuguese. Every thing is staid and settled, for the country was one hundred years old when Columbus discovered America. The principal crop is corn, and they raise it and grind it just as their great- great-great-grandfathers did. They plow with a board slightly shod with iron ; their trifling little harrows are drawn by men and women; small windmills grind the com, ten bushels a day, and there is one assistant superintendent to feed the mill and a general superintendent to stand by and keep him from going to sleep. When the wind changes they hitch on some donkeys, arid actually turn the whole upper half of the mill around until the sails are in proper position, instead of fixing the concern so that the sails could be moved instead of the
56 A CURIOUS PEOPLE.
mill. Oxen tread the wheat from the ear, after the fashion prevalent in the time of Methuselah. There is not a wheel- barrow in the land — they carry every thing on their heads, or on donkeys, or in a wicker-bodied cart, whose wheels are solid blocks of wood and whose axles turn with the wheel. There is not a modern plow in the islands, or a threshing-machine. All attempts to introduce them have failed. The good Cath- olic Portuguese crossed himself and prayed God to shield him from all blasphemous desire to know more than his father did before him. The climate is mild ; they never have snow or ice, and I saw no chimneys in the town. The donkeys and the men, women and children of a family, all eat and sleep in the same room, and are unclean, are ravaged by vermin, and are truly happy. The people lie, and cheat the stranger, and are desperately ignorant, and have hardly any reverence for their dead. The latter trait shows how little better they are than the donkeys they eat and sleep with. The only well- dressed Portuguese in the camp are the half a dozen well-to-do families, the Jesuit priests and the soldiers of the little garri- son. The wages of a laborer are twenty to twenty-four cents a day, and those of a good mechanic about twice as much. They count it in reis at a thousand to the dollar, and this makes them rich and contented. Fine grapes used to grow in the islands, and an excellent wine was made and exported. But a disease killed all the vines fifteen years ago, and since that time no wine has been made. The islands being wholly of volcanic origin, the soil is necessarily very rich. I^early every foot of ground is under cultivation, and two or three crops a year of each article are produced, but nothing is exported save a few oranges — chiefly to England. JSTobody comes here, and nobody goes away. ISTews is a thing unknown in Fayal. A thirst for it is a passion equally unknown. A Portuguese of average intelligence inquired if our civil war was over ? because, he said, somebody had told him it was — or at least it ran in his mind that somebody had told him some- thing like that ! And when a passenger gave an officer of the garrison copies of the Tribune, the Herald, and Times, he was
THE CATHEDRAL. 57
surprised to find later news in them from Lisbon than he had just received by the little monthly steamer. He was told that it came by cable. He said he knew they had tried to lay a cable ten years ago, but it had been in his mind, somehow, that they hadn't succeeded !
It is in communities like this that Jesuit humbuggery flour- ishes. We visited a Jesuit cathedral nearly two hundred years old, and found in it a piece of the veritable cross upon which our Saviour was crucified. It was polished and hard, and in as excellent a state of preservation as if the dread tragedy on Calvary had occurred yesterday instead of eighteen centuries ago. But these confiding people believe in that piece of wood unhesitatingly.
In a chapel of the cathedral is an altar with facings of solid silver — at least they call it so, and I think myself it would go a couple of hundred to the ton (to speak after the fashion of the silver miners,) and before it is kept forever burning a small lamp. A devout lady who died, left money and con- tracted for unlimited masses for the repose of her soul, and also stipulated that this lamp should be kept lighted always, day and night. She did all this before she died, you under- stand. It is a very small lamp, and a very dim one, and it could not work her much damage, I think, if it went out altogether.
The great altar of the cathedral, and also three or minor ones, are a perfect mass of gilt gimcracks and gingv bread. And they have a swarm of rusty, dusty, batterer apostles standing around the filagree work, some on one leg and some with one eye out but a gamey look in the other, and some with two or three fingers gone, and some with not enough nose left to blow — all of them crippled and discour- aged, and fitter subjects for the hospital than the cathedral.
The walls of the chancel are of porcelain, all pictured over with figures of almost life size, very elegantly wrought, and dressed in the fanciful costumes of two centuries ago. The design was a history of something or somebody, but none of us were learned enougli to read the story. The old father,
58 FANTASTIC PILGRIMIZING.
reposing under a stone close by, dated 1686, might have told us if he could have risen. But he didn't.
As we came down through the town, we encountered a squad of little donkeys ready saddled for use. The saddles were peculiar, to say the least. They consisted of a sort of saw-buck, with a small mattress on it, and this furniture cov- ered about half the donkey. There were no stirrups, but really such supports were not needed — to use such a saddle was the next thing to riding a dinner table — there was ample support clear out to one's knee joints. A pack of ragged Por- tuguese muleteers crowded around us, offering their beasts at half a dollar an hour — more rascality to the stranger, for the market price is sixteen cents. Half a dozen of us mounted the ungainly affairs, and submitted to the indignity of making a ridiculous spectacle of ourselves through the principal streets of a town of 10,000 inhabitants.
We started. It was not a trot, a gallop, or a canter, but a stampede, and made up of all possible or conceivable gaits. "No spurs were necessary. There was a muleteer to every donkey and a dozen volunteers beside, and they banged the donkeys with their goad-sticks, and pricked them with their spikes, and shouted something that sounded like ^' Sekki-yah P^ and kept up a din and a racket that was worse than Bedlam itself. These rascals were all on foot, but no matter, they were always up to time — they can outrun and outlast a donkey. Altogether ours was a lively and a picturesque pro- cession, and drew crowded audiences to the balconies wherever we went.
Blucher could do nothing at all with his donkey. The beast scampered zigzag across the road and the others ran into him ; he scraped Blucher against carts and the corners of houses ; the road was fenced in with high stone walls, and the donkey gave him a polishing first on one side and then on the other, but never once took the middle ; he finally came to the house he was born in and darted into the parlor, scraping Blucher off at the doorway. After remounting, Blucher said to the muleteer, " Now, that's enough, you know ; you go slow here-
THE CATASTROPHE.
59
after." But the fellow knew no Englisli and did not under- stand, so he simply said, " Sekki-yah 1 " and the donkey was off again like a shot. He turned a corner suddenly, and Blucher went over his head. And, to speaK truly, every mule stumbled over the two, and the whole cavalcade was piled up
r f
h \L
' ^ 4^;
"sekki-tah!"
in a heap. ISTo harm done. A fall from one of those donkeys is of little more consequence than rolling off a sofa. The donkeys all stood still after the catastrophe, and waited for their dismembered saddles to be patched up and put on by the noisy muleteers. Blucher was pretty angry, and wanted to swear, but every time he opened his mouth his animal did so
60 ORIGIN OF THE RUSS PAVEMENT.
also, and let off a series of brays that drowned all othei sounds.
It was fun, sknrrying around the breezy hills and through the beautiful canons. There was that rare thing, novelty, about it ; it was a fresh, new, exhilarating sensation, this donkey riding, and worth a hundred worn and threadbare home pleasures.
The roads were a wonder, and well they might be. Here was an island with only a handful of people in it — 25,000 — and yet such fine roads do not exist in the United States out- side of Central Park. Every where you go, in any direction, you find either a hard, smooth, level thoroughfare, just sprinkled with black lava sand, and bordered with little gutters neatly paved with small smooth pebbles, or compactly paved ones like Broadway. They talk much of the Russ pavement in 'New York, and call it a new invention— yet here they have been using it in this remote little isle of the sea for two hundred years ! Every street in Horta is handsomely paved with the heavy Russ blocks, and the surface is neat and true as a floor — not marred by holes like Broadway. And every road is fenced in by tall, solid lava walls, which will last a thousand years in this land where frost is unknown. They are very thick, and are often plastered and whitewashed, and capped with projecting slabs of ciit stone. Trees from gardens above hang their swaying tendrils down, and contrast their bright green with the whitewash or the black lava of the walls, and make them beautiful. The trees and vines stretch across these narrow roadways sometimes, and so shut out the sun that you seem to be riding through a tunnel. The pave- ments, the roads, and the bridges are all government work.
The bridges are of a single span — a single arch — of cut stone, without a support, and paved on top with flags of lava and ornamental pebble work. Every where are walls, walls, walls, — and all of them tasteful and handsome — and eter- nally substantial ; and every where are those marvelous pave- ments, so neat, so smooth, and so indestructible. And if ever roads and streets, and the outsides of houses, were perfectly
SQUARING ACCOUNTS. 61
free from any sign or semblance of dirt, or dust, or mud, or uncleanliness of any kind, it is Horta, it is Fayal. The lower classes of the people, in tlieir persons and their domicils, are not clean — but there it stops — the town and the island are miracles of cleanliness.
We arrived home again finally, after a ten-mile excursion, and the irrepressible muleteers scampered at our heels tlirough the main street, goading the donkeys, shouting the everlasting *' Sekhi-yah,^'' and singing " John Brown's Body " in ruinous English.
When we were dismounted and it came to settling, the shouting and jawing, and swearing and quarreling among the muleteers and with us, was nearly deafening. One fellow would demand a dollar an hour for the use of his donkey ; another claimed half a dollar for pricking him up, another a quarter for helping in that service, and about fourteen guides presented bills for showing us the way through the town and its environs ; and every vagrant of them was more vociferous, and more vehement, and more frantic in gesture than his neighbor. We paid one guide, and paid for one muleteer to each donkey.
The mountains on some of the islands are very high. We sailed along the shore of the Island of Pico, under a stately green pyramid that rose up with one unbroken sweep from our very feet to an altitude of T,613 feet, and thrust its summit iibove the white clouds like an island adrift in a fog !
We got plenty of fresh oranges, lemons, figs, apricots, etc. in these Azores, of course. But I will desist. I am not here to write Patent-Office reports.
We are on our way to Gibraltar, and shall reach there five or six days out from the Azores.
OHAPTEE YII.
A WEEK of buffeting a tempestuous and relentless sea ; a week of seasickness and deserted cabins ; of lonely quarter-decks drenched with spray — spray so ambitious that it even coated the smoke-stacks thick with a white crust of salt to their very tops ; a week of shivering in the shelter of the life-boats and deck-houses by day, and blowing suffocating "clouds" and boisterously performing at dominoes in the smoking room at night.
And the last night of the seven was the stormiest of all. There was no thunder, no noise but the pounding bows of the ship, the keen whistling of the gale through the cordage, and the rush of the seething waters. But the vessel climbed aloft as if she would climb to heaven — then paused an instant that seemed a century, and plunged headlong down again, as from a precipice. The sheeted sprays drenched the decks like rain. The blackness of darkness was every where. At long inter- vals a flash of lightning clove it with a quivering line of fire, that revealed a heaving world of water where was nothing before, kindled the dusky cordage to glittering silver, and lit up the faces of the men with a ghastly lustre !
Fear drove many on deck that were used to avoiding the night-winds and the spray. Some thought the vessel could not live through the night, and it seemed less dreadful to stand out in the midst of the wild tempest and see the peril that threatened than to be shut up in the sepulchral cabins, under the dim lamps and imagine the horrors that were abroad on the ocean. And once out — once where they could see the
SPAIN AND AFRICA ON EXHIBITION. 63
ship struggling in the strong grasp of the storm — once where they could hear the shriek of the winds, and face the driving spray and look out upon the majestic picture the lightnings disclosed, they were prisoners to a fierce fascination they could not resist, and so remained. It was a wild night — and a very, very long one.
Every body was sent scampering to the deck at seven o'clock this lovely morning of the 30th of June with the glad news that land was in sight ! It was a rare thing and a joyful, to see all the ship's family abroad once more, albeit the happiness that sat upon every countenance could only partly conceal the ravages which that long siege of storms had wrought there. But dull eves soon sparkled with pleasure, pallid cheeks flushed again, and frames weakened by sickness gathered new life from the quickening influences of the bright, fresh morning. Yea, and from a still more jjotent influence : the worn casta- ways were to see the blessed land again ! — and to see it was to bring back that mother-land that was in all their thoughts.
Within the hour we were fairly within the Straits of Gib- raltar, the tall yellow-splotched hills of Africa on our right, with their bases veiled in a blue haze and their summits swathed in clouds — the same being according to Scripture, which says that " clouds and darkness are over the land." The words were spoken of this particular portion of Africa, I be- lieve. On our left were the granite-ribbed domes of old Spain. The Strait is only thirteen miles wide in its narrowest part.
At short intervals, along the Spanish shore, were quaint- looking old stone towers — Moorish, we thought — but learned better afterwards. In former times the Morocco rascals used to coast along the Spanish Main in their boats till a safe oppor- tunity seemed to present itself, and then dart in and capture a Spanish village, and carry off all the pretty women they could find. It was a pleasant business, and was very popular. The Spaniards built these watchtowers on the hills to enable them to keep a sharper lookout on the Moroccan speculators.
The picture on the other hand was very beautiful to eyes weary of the changeless sea, and bye and bye the ship's com-
64
GREETING A MAJESTIC STRANGER,
pany grew wonderfully cheerful. But while we stood admir- ing the cloud-capped peaks and the lowlands robed in misty gloom, a finer picture burst upon us and chained every eye like a magnet — a stately ship, with canvas piled on canvas till
she was one towering mass of bellying sail! She came speeding over the sea like a great bird. Africa and Spain were forgotten. All homage was for the beautiful stranger. While every body gazed, she swept superbly by and flung the Stars and Stripes to the breeze ! Quicker than thought, hats and handkerchiefs flashed in the air, and a cheer went lip ! She was beautiful be- fore— she was radiant now. Many a one on our decks knew then for the first time how tame a sight his coun- try's fiag is at home compared to what it is in a foreign land. To see it is to see a vision of home itself and all its idols, and feel a thrill that would stir a very river of sluggish blood !
We were approaching the famed Pillars of Hercules, and already the African one, "Ape's Hill," a grand old mountain with summit streaked with granite ledges, was in sight. The other, the great E.ock of Gibraltar, was yet to come. The ancients considered the Pillars of Hercules the head of navi- gation and the end of the world. The information the ancients didn't have was very voluminous. Even the prophets wrote book after book and epistle after epistle, yet never once hinted at the existence of a great continent on our side of the water ; yet they must have known it was there, I should think. In a few moments a lonely and enormous mass of rock,
BEAUTIFUL STRANGER.
THE EOCK OF GIBRALTAR. 65
standing seemingly in the centre of the wide strait and appar- ently washed on all sides by the sea, swung magnificently into view, and we needed no tedious traveled parrot to tell us it was Gibraltar. There could not be two rocks like that in one kingdom.
The Rock of Gibraltar is about a mile and a half long, I should say, by 1,400 to 1,500 feet high, and a quarter of a mile wide at its base. One side and one end of it come about as straight up out of the sea as the side of a house, the other end is irregular and the other side is a steep slant which an army would find very difficult to climb. At the foot of this slant is the walled town of Gibraltar — or rather the town occupies part of the slant. Every where — on hillside, in the precipice, by the sea, on the heights, — every where you choose to look, Gibraltar is clad with masonry and bristling with guns. It makes a striking and lively picture, from whatsoever point you contemplate it. It is pushed out into the sea on the end of a flat, narrow strip of land, and is suggestive of a " gob " of mud on the end of a shingle. A few hundred yards of this flat ground at its base belongs to the English, and then, extending across the strip from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, a distance of a quarter of a mile, comes the " Neutral Ground," a space two or three hundred yards wide, which is free to both parties,
"Are you going through Spain to Paris?" That question was bandied about the sliip day and night from Fayal to Gibraltar, and I thought I never could get so tired of hearing any one combination of words again, or more tired of answer- ing, " I don't know." At the last moment six or seven had sufiicient decision of character to make up their minds to go, and did go, and I felt a sense of relief at once — it was forever too late, now, and I could make up my mind at my leisure, not to go. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind ; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
But behold how annoyances repeat themselves. "We had no sooner gotten rid of the Spain distress than the Gibraltar guides started another — a tiresome repetition of a legend that
66 TIRESOME REPETITIOlSr.
had nothing very astonishing about it, even in the first place : " That high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair ; it is because one of the Queens of Spain placed her chair there when the French and Spanish troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would never move from the spot till the English flag was lowered from the fortresses. If the English hadn't been gallant enough to lower the flag for a few hours one day, she'd have had to break her oath or die up there."
"We rode on asses and mules up the steep, narrow streets and entered the subterranean galleries the Enghsh have blasted out in the rock. These galleries are like spacious railway tunnels, and at short intervals in them great guns frown out upon sea and town through port-holes five or six hundred feet above the ocean. There is a mile or so of this subterranean work, and it must have cost a vast deal of money and labor. The gallery guns command the peninsula and the harbors of both oceans, but they might as well not be there, I should think, for an army could hardly climb the perpendicular wall of the rock any how. Those lofty port-holes afford superb views of the sea, though. At one place, where a jutting crag was hollowed out into a great chamber whose furniture was huge cannon and whose windows were port-holes, a glimpse was caught of a hill not far away, and a soldier said :
" That high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair ; it is because a queen of Spain placed her chair there, once, when the French and Spanish troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would never move from the spot till the English flag was lowered from the fortresses. If the English hadn't been gallant enough to lower the flag for a few hours, one day, she'd have had to break her oath or die up there."
On the topmost pinnacle of Gibraltar we halted a good while, and no doubt the mules were tired. They had a right to be. The military road was good, but rather steep, and there was a good deal of it. The view from the narrow ledge was magnificent ; from it vessels seeming like the tiniest little toy-boats, were turned into noble ships by the telescopes ; and other vessels that were fifty miles away, and even sixty, they
"the queen's chair.
67
said, and invisible to tlie naked eye, could be clearly distin- guished tbrough those same telescopes. Below, on one side, we looked down upon an endless mass of batteries, and on the other straight down to the sea.
"While I was resting ever so comfortably on a rampart, and cooling my baking head in the delicious breeze, an officious guide belonging to another party came up and said :
" Senor, that high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair "-—
" Sir, I am a helpless orphan in a foreign land. Have pity on me. Don't — now donH inflict that most in-FEENAL old legend on me any more to-day I"
There — I had used strong language, after promising I would never do so again ; but the provocation was more than human nature could bear. If you had been bored so, when you had the noble panorama of Spain and Africa and the blue Medi-
68 CURIOSITIES OF THE SECRET CAVERNS.
terranean, spread abroad at your feet, and wanted to gaze, and enjoy, and surfeit yourself with its beauty in silence, you might have even burst into stronger language than I did.
Gibraltar has stood several protracted sieges, one of them of nearly four years duration (it failed,) and the English only captured it by stratagem. The wonder is that any body should ever dream of trying so impossible a project as the taking it by assault — and yet it has been tried more than once.
The Moors held the place twelve hundred years ago, and a stanch old castle of theirs of that date still frowns from the middle of the town, with moss-grown battlements and sides well scarred by shots fired in battles and sieges that are for- gotten now. A secret chamber, in the rock behind it, was discovered some time ago, which contained a sword of ex- quisite workmanship, and some quaint old armor of a fashion that antiquaries are not acquainted with, though it is supposed to be Roman. Roman armor and Roman relics, of various kinds, have been found in a cave in the sea extremity of Gib- raltar ; history says Rome held this part of the country abotit the Christian era, and these things seem to confirm the state- ment.
In that cave, also, are found human bones, crusted with a very thick, stony coating, and wise men have ventured to say that those men not only lived before the flood, but as much as ten thousand years before it. It may be true — it looks reasonable enough — but as long as those parties can't vote any more, the matter can be of no great public interest. In this cave, likewise, are found skeletons and fossils of animals that exist in every part of Africa, yet within memory and tradition have never existed in any portion of Spain save this lone peak of Gibraltar ! So the theory is that the channel between Gib- raltar and Africa was once dry land, and that the low, neutral neck between Gibraltar and the Spanish hills behind it was once > ocean, and of course that these African animals, being over at Gibraltar (after rock, perhaps — there is plenty there,) got closed out when the great change occurred. The hills in
ECCENTEIC SHIPMATES. 69
Africa, across the channel, are full of apes, and there are now, and always have been, apes on the rock of Gibraltar ■ — but not elsewhere in Spain ! The subject is an interesting one.
There is an English garrison at Gibraltar of 6,000 or 7,000 nien, and so uniforms of flaming red are plenty ; and red and blue, and undress costumes of snowy white, and also the queer uniform of the bare-kneed Highlander ; and one sees soft-eyed Spanish girls from San Roque, and veiled Moorish beauties (I suppose they are beauties) from Tarifa, and turbaned, sashed and trowsered Moorish merchants from Fez, and long-robed, bare-legged, ragged Mohammedan vagabonds from Tetouan and Tangier, some brown, some yellow and some as black as virgin ink — and Jews from all around, in gaberdine, skull-cap and slippers, just as they are in pictures and theatres, and just as they were three thousand years ago, no doubt. You can easily understand that a tribe (somehow our pilgrims suggest that expression, because they march in a straggling procession through these foreign places \^ith such an Indian-like air of complacency and independence about them,) like ours, made up from fifteen or sixteen States of the Union, found enough to stare at in this shifting panorama of fashion to-day.
Speaking of our pilgrims reminds me that we have one or two people among us who are sometimes an annoyance. However, I do not count the Oracle in that list. I will explain that the Oracle is an innocent old ass who eats for four and looks wiser than the whole Academy of France would have any right to look, and never uses a one-syllable word when he can think of a longer one, and never by any possible chance knows the meaning of any long word he uses, or ever gets it in the right place : yet he will serenely venture an opinion on the most abstruse subject, and back it up complacently with quotations from authors who never existed, and finally when cornered will slide to the other side of the question, say he has been there all the time, an^ come back at you with your own spoken arguments, only with the big words all tangled, and play them in your very teeth as original with himself. He
70
ECCENTKIC SHIPMATES
reads a chapter in tlie guide-books, mixes tlie facts all up, with his bad memory, and then goes off to inflict the whole mess on somebody as wisdom which has been festering in his brain for years, and which he gathered in college from erudite authors who are dead, now, and out of print. This morning at breakfast he pointed out of the window, and said :
" Do you see that there hill out there on that African coast ? — It's one of them Pillows of Herkewls, I should say — and there's the ultimate one alongside of it."
" The ultimate one — that is a good word — but the Pillars are not both on the same side of the strait." (I saw he had been deceived by a carelessly written sentence in the Guide Book.)
" Well, it ain't for you to say, nor for me. Some authors
states it that way, and some states it differ- ent. Old Gib- bons don't say nothing about it, — just shirks it complete — Gib- bons always done that when he got stuck — but there is Ro- lampton, what does he say ? "Why, he says that they was both on the same side, and Trinculian, and Sobaster, and Syraccus, and Langomarganbl — "
" Oh, that will do— that's enough. If you have got your hand in for inventing authors and testimony, I have nothing more to say-— let them he on the same side."
We don't mind the Oracle. We^rather like him. We can tolerate the Oracle very easily; but we have a poet and a good-natured enterprising idiot on board, and they do distress
THE ORACLE.
ECCENTKIC SHIPMATES.
71
the company. The one gives copies of his verses to Consuls, commanders, hotel keepers, Arabs, Dutch, — to any body, in fact, who will submit to a grievous infliction most kindly meant. His poetry is all ^ery well on shipboard, notwith- standing when he wrote an " Ode to the Ocean in a Storm " in one half-hour, and an " Apostrophe to the Rooster in the Waist of the Ship " in. the next, the transition was considered to be rather abrupt ; but when he sends an invoice of rhymes to the Governor of Fayal and another to the commander-in- chief and other dignitaries in Gibraltar, with the compliments of the Laureate of the Ship, it is not popular with the passengers.
The other personage I have mentioned is young and green, and not bright, not learned and not wise. He will be, though, some day, if he recollects the answers to all his questions. He is known about the ship as the " Interrogation Point," and this by constant use has become shortened to "Interrogation," He has distinguished liimself twice al- ready. In Fayal they pointed out a hill and told him it was eight hun- dred feet high and eleven hundred feet long. And they told him there was a tunnel two thousand feet long and one thousand feet high running through the hill, from end to end. He believed it. He repeated it to every body, discussed it, and read it fi'om his notes. Finally, he took a useful hint from this remark which a thoughtful old pilgrim made :
" "Well, yes, it is a little remarkable — singular tunnel alto- gether— stands up out of the top of the hill about two hundred feet, and one end of it sticks out of the hill about nine hundred !"
Here in Gibraltar he corners these educated British officers and badgers them with braggadocio about America and the wonders she can perform. He told one of them a couple of our gunboats could come here and knock Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea !
"interrogation point."
72
A PRIVATE FROLIC IN AFRICA,
At this present moment, half a dozen of ns are taking a private pleasure excursion of our own devising. We form rather more than half the list of white passengers on board a small steamer bound for the venerable Moorish town of Tan- gier, Africa. l^othing could be more absolutety certain than that we are enjoying ourselves. One can not do other- wise who speeds over these sparkling waters, and breathes the soft atmosphere of this sunny land. Care can not assail us here. We are out of its jurisdiction.
We even steamed recklessly by the frowning fortress of Malabat, (a stronghold of the Emperor of Morocco,) without a
twinge of fear. The whole garrison . , turned out under arms, and assumed / a threatening attitude — yet still we
did not fear. The entire garrison marched and counter, marched, within the rampart, in full view — yet notwithstand- ing even this, we never flinched.
BEARDING THE MOOR IN HIS CASTLE. 73
I suppose we really do not know what fear is. I inquired the name of the garrison of the fortress of Malabat, and they said it was Mehemet Ali Ben Sancom. I said it would be a good idea to get some more garrisons to help him; but they said no ; he had nothing to do but hold the place, and he was competent to do that ; had done it two years already. That was evidence which one could not well refute. There is nothing like reputation.
Every now and then, my glove purchase in Gibraltar last night intrudes itself upon me. Dan and the ship's surgeon and I had been up to the great square, listening to the music of the iine military bands, and contemplating English and Spanish female loveliness and fashion, and, at 9 o'clock, were on our way to the theatre, when we met the General, the Judge, the Commodore, the Colonel, and the Commissioner of the United States of America to Europe, Asia, and Africa, who had been to the Club House, to register their several titles and impoverish the bill of fare ; and they told us to go over to the little variety store, near the Hall of Justice, and buy some kid gloves. They said they were elegant, and very moderate in price. It seemed a stylish thing to go to the theatre in kid gloves, and we acted upon the hint. A very handsome young lady in the store oifered me a pair of blue gloves. I did not want blue, but she said they would look very pretty on a hand like mine. The remark touched me tenderly. I glanced furtively at liiy hand, and somehow it did seem rather a comely member. I tried a glove on my left, and blushed a little. Manifestly the size was too small for me. But I felt gratified when she said :
" Oh, it is just right!" — yet I knew it was no such thing.
I tugged at it diligently, but it was discouraging work. She said :
" Ah ! I see you are accustomed to wearing kid gloves — ^but some gentlemen are so awkward about putting them on."
It was the last compliment I had expected. I only under- stand putting on the buckskin article perfectly. I made another efibrt, and tore the glove from the base of the thumb
74
VANITY EEBUKED.
into the palm of the hand — and tried to hide the rent. She kept up her compliments, and I kept up mj determination to deserve them or die :
"Ah, you have had experience!" [A rip down the back of the hand.] "They are just right for you — your hand is
very small — if they tear you need not pay for them." [A rent across the middle.] " I can always tell when a gentleman under- stands putting on kid gloves. There is a grace about it that only comes with long practice. [The whole after- guard of the glove " fetched away," as the sailors say, the fabric parted across the knuckles, and nothing was left but a melancholy ruin.]
I was too much flattered to make an exposure, and throw the merchandise on the angel's hands. I was hot, vexed, con- fused, but still happy ; but I hated the other boys for taking such an absorbing interest in the proceedings. I wished they were in Jericho. I felt exquisitely mean when I said cheer- fully,-
" This one does very well ; it fits elegantly. I like a glove that fits. No, never mind, ma'am, never mind ; I'll put the other on in the street. It is warm here."
It was warm. It was the warmest place I ever was in. I paid the bill, and as I passed out with a fascinating bow, I thought I detected a light in the woman's eye that was gently ironical ; and when I looked back from the street, and she was laughing all to herself about something or other, I said to my-
ENTERTAINING AN ANGEL.
IN THE EMPIKE OF MOROCCO. T5
self, with withering sarcasm, " Oh, certainly ; you know how to put on kid gloves, don't you ? — a self-complacent ass, ready to be flattered out of your senses by every petticoat that chooses to take the trouble to do it !"
The silence of the boys annoyed me. Finally, Dan said, musingly :
" Some gentlemen don't know how to put on kid gloves at all ; but some do."
And the doctor said (to the moon, I thought,)
" Bat it is always easy to tell when a gentleman is used to putting on kid gloves."
Dan soliloquized, after a pause :
" Ah, yes ; there is a grace about it that only comes with long, very long practice."
" Yes, indeed, I've noticed that when a man hauls on a kid glove' like he was dragging a cat out of an ash-hole by the tail, he understands putting on kid gloves ; he's had ex — "
" Boys, enough of a thing 's enough ! You think you are very smart, I suppose, but I don't. And if you go and tell any of those old gossips in the ship about this thing, I'll never forgive you for it ; that's all."
They let me alone then, for the time being. We always let each other alone in time to prevent ill feeling from spoiling a joke. But they had bought gloves, too, as I did. We threw all the purchases away together this morning. They were coarse, unsubstantial, freckled all over with broad yellow splotches, and could neither stand wear nor public exhibition. We had entertained an angel unawares, but we did not take her in. She did that for us.
Tangier ! A tribe of stalwart Moors are wading into the sea to carry us ashore on their backs from the small boats.
OHAPTEE Till.
^ I ^HIS is royal ! Let those who went up througli Spain -■- make the best of it — these dominions of the Emperor of Morocco suit our little party well enough. We have had enough of Spain at Gibraltar for the present, Tangier is the spot we have been longing for all the time. Elsewhere we liave found foreign-looking things and foreign-looking people, but always with things and people intermixed that we were familiar with before, and so the novelt}^ of the situation lost a deal of its force. We wanted something thoroughly and un- compromisingly foreign — foreign from top to bottom — foreign from centre to circumference — foreign inside and outside and all around — nothing any where about it to dilute its foreign- ness — nothing to remind us of any other people or any other land under the sun. And lo ! in Tangier we have found it. Here is not the slightest thing that ever we have seen save in pictures — and we always mistrusted the pictures before. We can not any more. The pictures used to seem exaggerations — they seemed too weird and fanciful for reality. But behold, they were not wild enough — they were not fanciful enough — they have not told half the story, Tangier is a foreign land if ever there was one ; and the true spirit of it can never be found in any book save the Arabian Niglits. Here are no white men visible, yet swarms of humanity are all about us. Here is a packed and jammed city inclosed in a massive stone wall which is more than a thousand years old. All the houses nearly are one and two-story ; made of thick walls of stone ; plastered outside ; square as a dry-goods box ; flat as a floor on
ORIENTAL WONDERS.
77
top; no cornices; whitewashed all over — a crowded city of snowy tombs ! And th^ doors are arched with the peculiar arch we see in Moorish pictures ; the floors are laid in vari- colored diamond-flags ; in tesselated many-colored porcelain squares wrought in the furnaces of Fez ; in red tiles and broad bricks that time can not wear : there is no furniture in the
VIEW OP A STREET IN TANGIER.
rooms (of Jewish dwellings) save divans — what there is in Moorish ones no man may know ; within their sacred walls no Christian dog can enter. And the streets are oriental — some of them three feet wide, some six, but only two that are over a dozen ; a man can blockade the most of them by extending his body across them. Isn't it an oriental picture ?
There are stalwart Bedouins of the desert here, and stately Moors, proud of a history that goes back to the night of time ; and Jews, whose fathers fled hither centuries upon centuries ago ; and swarthy Rifiians from the mountains — born cut-
78 A FUNNY TOWN.
throats — and original, genuine negroes, as black as Moses ; and howling dervishes, and a hundred breeds of Arabs — all sorts and descriptions of people that are foreign and curious to look upon.
And their dresses are strange beyond all description. Here is a bronzed Moor in a prodigious white turban, curiously em- broidered jacket, gold and crimson sash, of many folds, wrapped round and round his waist, trowsers that only come a little below his knee, and yet have twenty yards of stuff in them, ornamented scimetar, bare shins, stockingless feet, yellow slippers, and gun of preposterous length — a mere soldier ! — I thought he was the Emperor at least. And here are aged Moors with- flowing white beards, and long white robes with vast cowls ; and Bedouins with long, cowled, striped cloaks, and negroes and Riffians with heads clean-shaven, except a kinky scalp-lock back of the ear, or rather up on the after corner of the skull, and all sorts of barbarians in all sorts of weird costumes, and all more or less ragged. And here are Moorish women who are enveloped from head to foot in coarse white robes and whose sex can only be determined by the fact that they only leave one eye visible, and never look at men of their own race, or are looked at by them in public. Here are five thousand Jews in blue gaberdines, sashes about their waists, slippers upon their feet, little skull-caps upon the backs of their heads, hair combed down on the forehead, and cut straight across the middle of it from side to side — the self- same fashion their Tangier ancestors have worn for I don't know how many bewildering centuries. Their feet and ankles are bare. Their noses are all hooked, and hooked alike. They all resemble each other so much that one could almost believe they were of one family. Their women are plump and pretty, and do smile upon a Christian in a way which is in the last degree comforting.
"What a funny old town it is ! It seems like profanation to laugh, and jest, and bandy -the frivolous chat of our day amid its hoary relics. Only the stately phraseology and the meas- ured speech of the sons of the Prophet are suited to a vener-
A CRADLE OF ANTIQUITY. 79
able antiquity like this. Here is a crumbling wall that was old when Columbus discovered America ; was old when Peter the Hermit roused the knightly men of the Middle Ages to arm for the first Crusade ; was old when Charlemagne and his paladins beleaguered enchanted castles and battled with giants and genii in the fabled days of the olden time ; was old when Christ and his disciples walked the earth ; stood where it stands to-day when the lips of Memnon were vocal, and men bought and sold in the streets of ancient Thebes !
The Phcenicians, the Carthagenians, the English, Moors, Romans, all have battled for Tangier — all have won it and lost it. Here is a ragged, oriental-looking negro from some desert place in interior Africa, filling his goat-skin with water from a stained and battered fountain built by the Romans twelve hundred years ago. Yonder is a ruined arch of a bridge built by Julius Caesar nineteen hundred years ago. Men who had seen the infant Saviour in the Yirgin's arms, have stood upon it, may be.
linear it are the ruins of a dock-yard where Caesar repaired his ships and loaded them with grain when he invaded Britain, fifty years before the Christian era.
Here, under the quiet stars, these old streets seem thronged with the phantoms of forgotten ages. My eyes are resting upon a spot where stood a monument which was seen and described by Roman historians less than two thousand years ago, whereon was inscribed :
"We are the Cajta anites. We aee they that have
BEEN DRIVEN OUT OF THE LAND OF CanAAN" BY THE JeWISH
KOBBEE, Joshua."
Joshua drove them out, and they came here, l^ot many leagues from here is a tribe of Jews whose ancestors fled thither after an unsuccessful revolt against King David, and these their descendants are still under a ban and keep to them- selves.
Tangier has been mentioned in history for three thousand years. And it was a town, though a queer one, when Her-
80 STORES AND MERCHANTS.
cules, clad in his lion-skin, landed here, four thousand years ago. In these streets he met Anitus, the king of the country, and brained him with his club, which was the fashion among gentlemen in those days. The people of Tangier (called Tingis, then,) lived in the rudest possible huts, and dressed in skins and carried clubs, and were as savage as the wild beasts they were constantly obliged to war with. But they were a gentlemanly race, and did no work. They lived on the natural products of the land. Their king's country residence was at the famous Garden of Hesperides, seventy miles down the coast from here. The garden, with its golden apples, (oranges,) is gone now — no vestige of it remains. Antiquarians concede that such a personage as Hercules did exist in ancient times, and agree that he was an enterprising and energetic man, but decline to believe him a good, bona fide god, because that would be unconstitutional.
Down here at Cape Spartel is the celebrated cave of Her- cules, where that hero took refuge when he was vanquished and driven out of the Tangier country. It is full of inscrip- tions in the dead languages, which fact makes me think Her- cules could not have traveled much, else he would not have kept a journal.
Five days' journey from here — say two hundred miles — are the ruins of an ancient city, of whose history there is neither record nor tradition. And yet its arches, its columns, and its statues, proclaim it to have been built by an enlightened race.
The general size of a store in Tangier is about that of an ordinary shower-bath in a civilized land. The Mohammedan merchant, tinman, shoemaker, or vendor of trifles, sits cross- legged on the floor, and reaches after any article you may want to buy. You can rent a Avhole block of these pigeon-holes for fifty dollars a month. The market people crowd the market- place with their baskets of figs, dates, melons, apricots, etc., and among them file trains of laden asses, not much larger, if any, than a N^ewfoundland dog. The scene is lively, is pic- turesque, and smells like a police court. The Jewish money-
WE BECOME WEALTHY.
81
CHANGE FOK A NAPOLEON.
changers have their dens close at hand ; and all day long are counting bronze coins and transferring them from one bushel
basket to another. They don't coin much money now-a-days, I think. I sa\v none but what was dated four or five hundred years back, and was badly worn and battered. These coins are not very valuable. Jack went out to get a IsTapoleon changed, so as to have money suited to the general cheapness of things, and came back and said he had " swamped the bank ; had bought eleven quarts of coin, and the head of the firm had gone on the street to negotiate for the balance of the change." I bought nearly half a pint of their money for a shilling myself. I am not proud on account of having so much money, though. I care nothing for wealth.
The Moors have some small silver coins, and also some silver slugs worth a dollar each. The latter are exceedingly scarce — so much so that when poor ragged Arabs see one they beg to be allowed to kiss it.
They have also a small gold coin worth two dollars. And that reminds me of something. When Morocco is in a state of war, Arab couriers carry letters through the country, and •charge a liberal postage. Every now and then they fall into the hands of marauding bands and get robbed. Therefore, warned by experience, as soon as they have collected two dol- lars' worth of money they exchange it for one of those little gold pieces, and when robbers come upon them, swallow it. The stratagem was good while it was unsuspected, but after that the marauders simply gave the sagacious United States "mail an emetic and sat down to wait.
82 CURIOUS REVENUE SYSTEM.
The Emperor of Morocco is a soulless despot, and the great officers under him are despots on a smaller scale. There is no regular system of taxation, but when the Emperor or the Bashaw want money, they levy on some rich man, and he has to furnish the cash or go to prison. Therefore, few men in Morocco dare to be rich. It is too dangerous a luxury. Yanity occasionally leads a man to display wealth, but sooner or later the Emperor trumps up a charge against him — any sort of one will do — and confiscates his property. Of course, there are many rich men in the empire, but their money is buried, and they dress in rags and counterfeit poverty. Every now and then the Emperor imprisons a man who is suspected of the crime of being rich, and makes things so uncomfortable for him that he is forced to discover where he has hidden his money.
ISIiOors and Jews sometimes place themselves under the pro- tection of the foreign consuls, and then they can flout their riches in the Emperor's face with impunity.
OHAPTEE IX.
ABOUT the first adventure we had yesterday afternoon, after landing here, came near finishing that heedless Blucher. We had jnst mounted some mules and asses, and started out under the guardianship of the stately, the princely, the magnificent Hadji Mohammed Lamarty, (may his tribe increase !) when we came upon a fine Moorish mosque, with tall tower, rich with checker-work of many- colored porcelain, and every part and portion of the edifice adorned with the quaint architecture of the Alhambra, and Blucher started to ride into the open door-way. A startling "Hi-hi!" from our camp-followers, and a loud "Halt!" from an English gentleman in the party checked the adventurer, and then we were informed that so dire a profanation is it for a Christian dog to set foot upon the sacred threshold of a Moorish mosque, that no amount of purification can ever make it fit for the faithful to pray in again. Had Blucher succeeded in entering the place, he would no doubt have been chased through the town and stoned ; and the time has been, and not many years ago either, when a Christian would have been most ruthlessly slaughtered, if captured in a mosque. We caught a glimpse of the handsome tesselated pav^ements within, and of the devotees performing their ablutions at the fountains ; but even that we took that glimpse was a thing not relished by the Moorish bystanders.
Some years ago the clock in the tower of the mosque got out of order. The Moors of Tangier have so degenerated that it has been long since there was an artificer among them
84 MOORISH PUNISHMENTS FOE CRIME.
capable of curing so delicate a patient as a debilitated clock. The great men of tlie city met in solemn conclave to consider how the difficulty was to be met. They discussed the matter thoroughly but arrived at no solution. Finally, a patriarch arose and said :
" Oh, children of the Prophet, it is known unto you that a Portuguee dog of a Christian clock-mender pollutes the city of Tangier with his presence. Ye know, also, that when mosques are builded, asses bear the stones and the cement, and cross the sacred threshold. IsTow, therefore, send the Christian dog on all fours, and barefoot, into the holy place to mend the clock, and let him go as an ass !"
And in that way it was done. Therefore, if Blucher ever sees the inside of a mosque, he will have to cast aside his humanity and go in his natural character. We visited the jail, and found Moorish prisoners making mats and baskets. (This thing of utilizing crime savors of civilization.) Murder is punished with death. A short time ago, three murderers were taken beyond the city walls and shot. Moorish guns are not good, and neither are Moorish marksmen. In this in- stance, they set up the poor criminals at long range, like so many targets, and practiced on them — kept them hopping about and dodging bullets for half an hour before they man- aged to drive the centre.
When a man steals cattle, they cut off his right hand and left leg, and nail them up in the market-place as a warning to every body. Their surgery is not artistic. They slice around the bone a little ; then break off the limb. Sometimes the patient gets well ; but, as a general thing, he don't. How- ever, the Moorish heart is stout. The Moors were always brave. These criminals undergo the fearful operation without a wince, without a tremor of any kind, without a groan ! 'No amount of suffering can bring down the pride of a Moor, or make him shame his dignity with a cry.
Here, marriage is contracted by the parents of the parties to it. There are no valentines, no stolen interviews, no riding out, no courting in dim parlors, no lovers' quarrels and recon-
THREE SUNDAYS IN A WEEK. 85
ciliations — no nothing that is proper to approaching matri- mony. The young man takes the girl his father selects for him, marries her, and after that she is unveiled, and he sees her for the first time. If, after due acquaintance, she suits him, he retains her ; but if he suspects her purity, he bundles her back to her father ; if he finds her diseased, the same ; or if, after just and reasonable time is allowed her, she neg- lects to bear children, back she goes to the home of her child- hood.
Mohammedans here, who can afford it, keep a good many wives on hand. They are called wives, though I believe the Koran only allows four genuine wives — the rest are concu- bines. The Emperor of Morocco don't know how many wives he has, but thinks he has five hundred. However, that is near enough — a dozen or so, one way or the other, don't matter.
Even the Jews in the interior have a plurality of wives.
I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several Moorish women, (for they are only human, and will expose their faces for the admiration of a Christian dog when no male Moor is by,) and I am full of veneration for the wisdom that leads them to cover up such atrocious ugliness.
They carry their children at their backs, in a sack, like other savages the world over.
Many of the negroes are hel(l in slavery by the Moors. But the moment a female slave becomes her master's concubine her bonds are broken, and as soon as a male slave can read the first chapter of the Koran (which contains the creed,) he can no longer be held in bondage.
They have three Sundays a week in Tangier. The Moham- medan's comes on Friday, the Jew's on Saturday, and that of the Christian Consuls on Sunday. The Jews are the most radical. The Moor goes to his mosque about noon on his Sabbath, as on any other day, removes his shoes at the door, performs his ablutions, makes his salaams, pressing his fore- head to the pavement time and again, says his prayers, and goes back to his work.
86 SHARP PRACTICE OF MOHAMMEDAN PILGRIMS.
But the Jew shuts up shop ; will not touch copper or bronze money at all ; soils his lingers with nothing meaner than silver and gold ; attends the synagogue devoutly ; will not cook or have any thing to do with fire ; and religiously refrains from embarking in any enterprise.
The Moor who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca is entitled to high distinction. Men call him Hadji, and he is thence- forward a great personage. Hundreds of Moors come to Tangier every year, and embark for Mecca. They go part of the way in English steamers ; and the ten or twelve dollars they pay for passage is about all the trip costs. They take with them a quantity ol food, and when the commissary department fails they " skirmish," as Jack terms it in his sinful, slangy way. From the time they leave till they get home again, they never wash, either on land or sea. They are usually gone from five to seven months, and as they do not change their clothes during all that time, they are totally unfit for the drawing-room when they get back.
Many of them have to rake and scrape a long time to gather together the ten dollars their steamer passage costs ; and when one of them gets back he is a bankrupt forever after. Few Moors can ever build up their fortunes again in one short lifetime, after so reckless an outlay. In order to confine the dignity of Hadji to gentlemen of patrician blood and possessions, the Emperor decreed that no man should make the pilgrimage save bloated aristocrats who were worth a hundred dollars in specie. But behold how iniquity can circumvent the law ! For a consideration, the Jewish money- changer lends the pilgrim one hundred dollars long enough for him to swear himself through, and then receives it back before the ship sails out of the harbor !
Spain is the only nation the Moors fear. The reason is, that Spain sends her heaviest ships of war and her loudest guns to astonish these Moslems ; while America, and other nations, send only a little contemptible tub of a gun-boat occa- sionally. The Moors, like other savages, learn by what they see ; not what they hear or read. We have great fleets in the
CATS FOR DINNER. 87
Mediterranean, but tliej seldom touch at African ports. The Moors have a small opinioti of England, France, and America, and put their representatives to a deal of red tape cir- cumlocution before they grant them their common rights, let alone a favor. But the moment the Spanish Minister makes a demand, it is acceded to at once, whether it be just or not.
Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, about a dis- puted piece of property opposite Gibraltar, and captured the city of Tetouan. She compromised on an augmentation of her territory ; twenty million dollars indemnity in money ; and peace. And then she gave up the city. But she never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had eaten up all the cats. They would not compromise as long as the cats held out. Spaniards are very fond of cats. On the contrary, the Moors reverence cats as something sacred. So the Spaniards touched them on a tender point that time. Their unfeline conduct in eating up all the Tetouan cats aroused a hatred toward them in the breasts of the Moors, to which even the driving them out of Spain was tame and passionless. Moors and Spaniards are foes forever now\ France had a Minister here once who em- bittered the nation against him in the most innocent way. He killed a couple of battalions of cats (Tangier is full of them,) and made a parlor carpet out of their hides. He made his carpet in circles — first a circle of old gray tom-cats, with their tails all pointing towards the centre ; then a circle of yellow cats ; next a circle of black cats and a circle of white ones ; then a circle of all sorts of cats ; and, finally, a centre- piece of assorted kittens. It was very beautiful; but the Moors curse his memory to this day.
"When we went to call on our American Consul-General, to-day, I noticed that all possible games for parlor amusement seemed to be represented on his centre-tables. I thought that hinted at lonesomeness. The idea was correct. His is the only American family in Tangier. There are many foreign Consuls in this place ; but much visiting is not indulged in. Tangier is clear out of the world ; and what is the nse of
88
THE CONSUL'S FAMILY.
visiting when people have nothing on earth to talk about? There is none. So each Consul's family stays at home chiefly, and amuses itself as best it can. Tangier is full of interest for one day, but after that it is a weary prison. The Consul-General has been here five years, and has got enough of it to do him for a century, and is going home shortly. His family seize upon their letters and papers when the mail arrives, read them over and over again for two days or three, talk them over and over again for two or three more, till they wear them out, and after that, for days together, they eat and drink and sleep, and ride out over the same old road, and see the same old tiresome things that even decades of centu- ries have scarcely changed, and say never a single word !
THE CONSULS FAMILY
They have literally nothing whatever to talk about. The ar- rival of an American man-of-war is a god-send to them. " Oh, Solitude, where are the charms which sages have seen in thy face ?" It is the completest exile that I can conceive of. I would seriously recommend to the Government of the United States that when a man commits a crime so heinous
FAREWELL TO TANGIER. 89
that the law provides no adequate punishnieiit for it, they make him Consul-General to Tangier.
I am glad to have seen Tangier — the second oldest town in the world. But I am ready to bid it good bye, I believe.
"We shall go hence to Gibraltar this evening or in the morn- ing ; and doubtless the Quaker City will sail from that port within the next forty-eight hours.
OHAPTEE X.
"TTTE passed the Fourth of July on board the Quaker City,
V V in mid-ocean. It was in all respects a characteristic Mediterranean day — faultlessly beautiful. A cloudless sky ; a refresliing summer wind ; a radiant sunshine that glinted cheerily from dancing wavelets instead of crested mountains of water ; a sea beneath us that was so wonderfully blue, so richly, brilliantly blue, that it overcame the dullest sensibilities with the spell of its fascination.
They even have fine sunsets on the Mediterranean — a thing that is certainly rare in most quarters of the globe. The even- ing we sailed away from Gibraltar, that hard-featured rock was swimming in a creamy mist so rich, so soft, so enchant- ingly vague and dreamy, that even the Oracle, that serene, that inspired, that overpowering humbug, scorned the dinner- gong and tarried to worship !
He said: "Well, that's gorgis, ain't it! They don't have none of them things in our parts, do they ? I consider that them effects is on account of the superior refragability, as you may say, of the sun's diramic combination with the lymphatic forces of the perihelion of Jubiter. What should you think ?"
" Oh, go to bed !" Dan said that, and went away.
" Oh, yes, it's all very well to say go to bed when a man makes an argument which another man can't answer. Dan don't never stand any chance in an argument with me. And he knows it, too. What should you say. Jack ?"
" Now doctor, don't you come bothering around me with that dictionary bosh. I don't do you any harm, do I ? Then you let me alone,"
THE ORACLE IS DELIVERED OF AN OPINION". 91
"poet lariat."
" He's gone, too. "Well, them fellows have all tackled the old Oracle, as they say, but the old man's most too many for 'em. May be the Poet Lariat ain't satisfied with them deductions ?"
The poet replied with a barbarous rhyme, and went below.
" 'Pears that he can't qualify, neither. Well, I didn't expect nothing out oihivi. I never see one of them poets yet that knowed any thing. He'll go down, now, and grind out about four reams of the awfuUest slush about that old rock, and give it to a consul, or a pilot, or a nigger, or any body he comes across first which he can impose on. Pity but somebody 'd take that poor old lunatic and dig all that poetry rubbage out of him. Why can't a man put his in- tellect onto things that's some value ? Gibbons, and Hippo- cratus, and Sarcophagus, and all them old ancient philosophers was down on poets — "
" Doctor," I said, " you are going to invent authorities, now, and I'll leave you, too. I always enjoy your conversation, notwithstanding the luxuriance of your syllables, when the philosophy you offer rests on your own responsibility ; but when you begin to soar — when you begin to support it with the evidence of authorities who are the creations of your own fancy, I lose confidence."
That was the way to flatter the doctor. He considered it a sort of acknowledgment on my part of a fear to argue with him. He was always persecuting the passengers with abstruse propositions framed in language that no man could understand, and they endured the exquisite torture a minute or two and then abandoned the field. A triumph like this, over halt a
92 CELEBRATION CEREMONIES.
dozen antagonists was sufficient for one day ; from that time forward lie would patrol the decks beaming blandly upon al] comers, and so tranquilly, blissfully happy !
But I digress. The thunder of our two brave cannon an- nounced the Fourth of July, at daylight, to all who were awake. But many of us got our information at a later hour, from the almanac. All the flags were sent aloft, except half a dozen that were needed to decorate portions of the ship below, and in a short time the vessel assumed a holiday appearance. During the morning, meetings were held and all manner of committees set to work on the celebration ceremonies. In the afternoon the ship's company assembled aft, on deck, under the awnmgs; the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and the con- sumptive clarinet crippled the Star Spangled Banner, the choir chased it to cover, and George came in with a peculiarly lacer- ating screech on the final note and slaughtered it. I^obody mourned.
We carried out the corpse on three cheers (that joke was not intentional and I do not indorse it,) and then the President, throned behind a cable-locker with a national flag spread over it, announced the " Reader," who rose up and read that same old Declaration of Independence which we have all listened to so often without paying any attention to what it said ; and after that the President piped the Orator of the Day to quar- ters and he made that same old speech about our national greatness which we so religiously believe and so fervently ap- plaud. ISTow came the choir into court again, with the com- plaining instruments, and assaulted Hail Columbia ; and when victory hung M^avering in the scale, George returned with his dreadful wild-goose stop turned on and the choir won of course. A minister pronounced the benediction, and the patriotic little gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July was safe, as far as the Mediterranean was concerned.
At dinner in the evening, a well-written original poem was recited with spirit by one of the ship's cajttains, and thirteen regular toasts were washed down with several baskets of cham- pagne. The speeches were bad — execrable, almost without
THE captain's ELOQUENT ADDRESS. 93
exception. In tact, without any exception, but one. Capt. Duncan made a good speech ; he made the only good speech of the evening. He said :
" Ladies and Gentlemen : — May we all live to a green old age, and be prosperous and happy. Steward, bring up another basket of champagne."
It was regarded as a very able effort.
The festivities, so to speak, closed with another of those miraculous balls on the promenade deck. We were not used to dancing on an even keel, though, and it was only a ques- tionable success. But take it altogether, it was a bright, cheer- ful, pleasant I'ourth.
Toward nightfall, the next evening, we steamed into the great artificial harbor of this noble city of Marseilles, and saw the dying sunlight gild its clustering spires and ramparts, and flood its leagues of environing verdure with a mellow radiance that touched with an added charm the white villas that flecked the landscape far and near. [Copyright secured according to law.]
There were no stages out, and we could not get on the pier from the ship. It was annoying. We were full of enthusi- asm— we wanted to see France ! Just at nightfall our party of three contracted with a waterman for the privilege of using his boat as a bridge — its stern was at our companion ladder and its bow touched the pier. We got in and the fellow backed out into the harbor. 1 told him in French that all we wanted was to walk over his thwarts and step ashore, and asked him what he went away out there for ? He said he could not un- derstand me. I repeated. Still, he could not understand. He appeared to be very ignorant of French. The doctor tried liim, but he could not understand the doctor. I asked this boatman to explain his conduct, which he did ; and then I couldn't understand him. Dan said :
" Oh, go to the pier, you old fool — that's where we want to go !"
We reasoned calmly with Dan that it was useless to speak to this foreigner in English — that he had better let us conduct this business in the French language and not let the stranger see how uncultivated he was.
94 "avez-vous du vin?"
"Well, go on, go on," lie said, " don't mind me. I don't wish to interfere. Only, if you go on telling him in your kind of French he never will find out where we want to go to. That is what I think about it."
"We rebuked him severely for this remark, and said we never knew an ignorant person yet but was prejudiced. The French- man spoke again, and the doctor said :
" There, now, Dan, he says he is going to allez to the douain. Means he is going to the hotel. Oh, certainly — we don't know the French language."
This was a crusher, as Jack would say. It silenced further criticism from the disaffected member. We coasted past the sharp bows of a navy of great steamships, and stopped at last at a government building on a stone pier. It was eas}^ to re- member then, that the douain was the custom-house, and not the hotel. We did not mention it, however. With winning French politeness, the officers merely opened and closed our satchels, declined to examine our passports, and sent us on our way. We stopped at the first caf6 we came to, and entered. An old woman seated us at a table and waited for orders. The doctor said :
" Avez vous du vin ?"
The dame looked perplexed. The doctor said again, with elaborate distinctness of articulation :
" Avez-vous du — vin !"
The dame looked more perplexed than before. I said :
" Doctor, there is a flaw in your pronunciation somewhere. Let me try her. Madame, avez-vous du vin ? It isn't any use, doctor — take the witness."
" Madame, avez-vous du vin — on fromage — pain — pickled pigs' feet — beurre — des cefs — du beuf — horse-radish, sour-crout, hog and hominy — any thing, any thing in the world that can stay a Christian stomach !"
She said :
" Bless you, why didn't you speak English before ? — I don't know any thing about your plagued French !"
The humiliating taunts of the disaffected member spoiled
FIRST SUPPER IN FRANCE.
95
the supper, and we dispatched it in angry silence and got away as soon as we could. Here we were in beautiful France — in a vast stone house of quaint architecture — surrounded by all
FIRST SUPPER IN FRANCE.
manner of curiously worded French signs — stared at by strangely-habited, bearded French people — every thing grad- ually and surely forcing upon us the coveted consciousness that at last, and beyond all question we were in beautiful France and absorbing its nature to the forgetfulness of every thing else, and coming to feel the happy romance of the thing in all its enchanting delightfalness — and to think of this skinny veteran intruding with her vile English, at such a moment, to blow the fair vision to the winds ! It was exasperating.
"We set out to find the centre of the city, inquiring the di- rection every now and then. We never did succeed in making any body understand just exactly what we wanted, and neither did we ever succeed in comprehending just exactly what they
96
LOST. — FOUND.
said in reply — but then they always pointed — they always did that, and we bowed politely and said "Merci, Monsieur," and so it was a blighting triumph over the disaffected member,
any way. He was restive under these victories and often asked : "What did that pirate say?" " Why, he told us which way to go, to lind the Grand Casino." " Yes, but what did he sayf^ "■ Oh, it don't matter what he said — ive understood him. These are educated people — not like that absurd boatman."
"Well, I wish they were edu- cated enough to tell a man a di- rection that goes so7ne where — POINTING. for we've been going around in.
a circle for an hour — I've passed this same old drug store seven times,"
We said it was a low, disreputable falsehood, (but we knew it was not.) It was plain that it would not do to pass that drug store again, though — we might go on asking direc- tions, but we must cease from following finger-pointings if we hoped to check the suspicions of the disaffected member.
A long walk through smooth, asphaltum-paved streets bor- dered by blocks of vast new mercantile houses of cream-colored stone, — every house and every block precisely like all the other houses and all the other blocks for a mile, and all brilliantly lighted, — brought us at last to the principal thoroughfare. On every hand were bright colors, flashing constellations of gas- burners, gaily dressed men and women thronging the side- walks— hurry, life, activity, cheerfulness, conversation and laughter every where ! We found the Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix, and wrote down who we were, where we were born, what our occupations were, the place we came from last, whether we were married or single, how we liked it, how old we were, where we were bound for and when we expected to
A FEENOHY SCEiSiE, 97
get there, and a great deal of information of similar import- ance— all for the benefit of the landlord and the secret police. We hired a guide and began the busine.^s of sight-seeing im- mediately. That first night on French soil was a stirring one. I can not think of half the places we went to, or what we par- ticularly saw; we had no disposition to examine carefully into any thing at all — we only wanted to glance and go — to move, keep moving ! The spirit of the country was upon us. "We sat down, finally, at a late hour, in the great Casino, and called for unstinted champagne. It is so easy to be bloated aristocrats where it costs nothing of consequence! There were about five hundred people in that dazzling place, I suppose, though the walls being papered entirely with mirrors, so to speak, one could not really tell but that there were a hundred thousand. Young, daintily dressed exquisites and young, stylishly dressed women, and also old gentlemen and old ladies, sat in couples and groups about innumerable marble-topped tables, and ate fancy suppers, drank wine and kept up a chattering of con- versation that was dazing to the senses. There was a stage at the far end, and a large orchestra ; and every now and then actors and actresses in preposterous comic dresses came out and sang the most extravagantly funny songs, to judge by their absurd actions ; but that audience merely suspended its chatter, stared cynically, and never once smiled, never once applauded ! I had always thought that Frenchmen were ready to laugh at any thing.
OHAPTEE XI.
~VTT"E are getting foreignized rapidly, and witli facility, » » We are getting reconciled to halls and bed-chambers with unhomelike stone floors, and no carpets — floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness that is death to sentimental musing. We are getting used to tidy, noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover about your back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them ; thankful for a gratuity without re- gard to the amount ; and always polite — never otherwise than polite. That is the strangest curiosity yet — a really polite hotel waiter who isn't an idiot. We are getting used to driv- ing right into the central court of the hotel, in the midst of a fragrant circle of vines and flowers, and in the midst, also, of parties of gentlemen sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking. We are getting used to ice frozen by artificial pro- cess in ordinary bottles — the only kind of ice they have here. We are getting used to all these things ; but we are not getting used to carrying our own soap. We are sufiiciently civilized to carry our own combs and tooth-brushes ; but this thing of having to ring for soap every time we wash is new to us, and not pleasant at all. We think of it just after we get our heads and faces thoroughly wet, or just when we think we have been in the bath-tub long enough, and then, of course, aa annoying delay follows. These Marseillaise make Marseillaise hymns, and Marseilles vests, and Marseilles soap for all the world ; but they never sing their hymns, or wear their vest8;> or wash with their soap themselves.
RINGING FOR SOAP.
99
We have learned to go tlirough the lingering routine of the table d'hote with patience, with serenity, with satisfaction. We take soup ; then wait a few minutes for the fish; a few minutes more and the plates are chang- ed, and the roast beef comes ; another change and we take peas; change again and take lentils ; change and take snail patties (I pre- fer grasshoppers ;) change and take roast chicken and sal- ad; then strawberry pie and ice cream ; then green figs, pears, oranges, green almonds, &c. ; finally coffee. Wine with
every course, of course, being in France. With such a cargo on board, digestion is a slow process, and we must sit long in the cool chambers and smoke — and read French newspapers, which have a strange fashion of telling a perfectly straight story till you get to the " nub " of it, and then a word drops in that no man can translate, and that story is ruined. An em- bankment fell on some Frenchmen yesterday, and the papers are full of it to-day — but whether those sufferers were killed, or crippled, or bruised, or only scared, is more than I can pos- sibly make out, and yet I would just give any thing to know.
We were troubled a little at dinner to-day, by the conduct of an American, who talked very loudly and coarsely, and laughed boisterously where all others were so quiet and well- behaved. He ordered wine with a royal flourish, and said :
R1^,GI^G FOR SOAP.
L.ofC.
100
AN AMEKICAN, SIK
t"
" I never dine without wine, sir," (wliicli was a painful false- hood,) and looked around upon the company to bask in tlie admiration he expected to find in their faces. All these airs
in a land where they wonld as soon expect to leave tlie soup out of the bill of fare as the wine ! — in a land where wine is nearly as
common among all ranks
WINK SIRl
as water ! This fellow said : ""I am a free-born sovereign, sir, an Ameri- can, sir, and I want every body to know it!" He did not mention that he was a lineal descendant of Balaam's ass; but every body knew that without his telling it. We have driven in the Prado — that superb avenue bordered with patrician mansions and noble shade-trees — and have visited the Chateau Boarely and its curious museum. They showed us a miniature cemetery tliere — a copy of the first graveyard that was ever in Marseilles, no doubt. The delicate little skeletons were lying in broken vaults, and had their household gods and kitchen utensils with them. The original of this cemetery was dug up in the principal street of the city a few years ago. It had remained there, only twelve feet under ground, for a matter of twenty-five hundred years, or thereabouts. Romulus w^as here before he built Rome, and thought sometliing of founding a city on this spot, but gave up the idea. He may have been personally acquainted Avith some of these Phoenicians whose skeletons we have been ex- amining.
In the great Zoological Gardens, we found specimens of all the animals the world produces, I think, including a drome- dary, a monkey ornamented with tufts of brilliant blue and'
THE "pilgrim" bird.
101
carmine hair — a very gorgeous monkey he was — a hippopot- amus from the l^ile, and a sort of tall, long-legged bird with a beak like a powder-horn, and close-fitting wings like the tails of a dress coat. This fellow stood up with his eyes shut and his shoulders stooped forward a little, and looked as if he had his hands under his coat tails. Such tranquil stuj)idity, such supernatural gravity, such self-righteousness, and such ineffa- ble self-complacency as were in the countenance and attitude of that gray-bodied, dark-winged, bald-headed, and pre- posterously uncomely bird ! He was so ungainly, so pimply about the head, so scaly about the legs ; yet so serene, so un- speakably satisfied ! He was the most comical looking creature that can be imagined. It was good to hear Dan and the doctor laugh — such nat- ural and such enjoyable laughter had not been heard among our excursionists since our ship sailed away from America. This bird was a god-send to us, and I should be an ingrate if I forgot to make honorable mention of him in these pages. Ours was a pleas- ure excursion ; therefore we stayed with that bird an hour, and made the most of him, "We stirred him up occasionally, but he only unclosed an eye and slowly closed it again, abating no jot of his stately piety of demeanor or his tremendous seriousness. He only seemed to say, " Defile not Heaven's anointed with unsanctified hands." We did not know his name, and so we called him " The Pilgrim." Dan said :
THE PILGRIM.
102 STRANGE COMPANIONSHIP.
" All he wants now is a Plymouth. Collection," The boon companion of the colossal elephant was a com- mon cat! This cat had a fashion of climbing up the ele- phant's hind legs, and roosting on his back. She would sit up there, with her paws curved under her breast, and sleep in the sun half the afternoon. It used to annoy the elephant at first, and he would reach up and take her down, but she would go aft and climb up again. She persisted until she finally conquered the elephant's prejudices, and now they are insep- arable friends. The cat plays about her comrade's forefeet or his trunk often, until dogs approach, and then she goes aloft out of danger. The elephant has annihilated several dogs lately, that pressed his companion too closely.
We hired a sail-boat and a guide and made an excursion to one of the small islands in the harbor to visit the Castle d'If. This ancient fortress has a melancholy history. It has been used as a prison for political offenders for two or three hun- dred years, and its dungeon walls are scarred with the rudely carved names of many and many a captive who fretted his life away here, and left no record of himself but these sad epitaphs wrought with his own hands. How thick the names were ! And their long-departed owners seemed to throng the gloomy cells and corridors with their phantom shapes. We loitered through dungeon after dungeon, away down into the living rock below the level of the sea, it seemed. !Names every where ! — some plebeian, some noble, some even princely. Plebeian, prince, and noble, had one solicitude in common — they would not be forgotten ! They could sufi'er solitude, inac- tivity, and the horrors of a silence that no sound ever dis- turbed ; but they could not bear the thought of being utterly forgotten by the world. Hence the carved names. In one cell, where a little light penetrated, a man had lived twenty- seven years without seeing the face of a human being — lived in filth and wretchedness, with no companionship but his own thoughts, and they were sorrowful enough, and hopeless enough, no doubt. Whatever his jailers considered that he needed was conveyed to his cell by night, through a wicket.
A LONG CAPTIVITY.
103
This man carved the walls of his prison-house from floor to roof with all manner of figures of men and animals, grouped
ill intricate designs. He had toiled there year after year, at his self-appointed task, while infants grew to boyhood — to vigorous youth — idled through school and college — acquired a profession — claimed man's ma- ture estate — married anrl looked back to infancy as to a thing
104 DUNGEON OF THE "IRON MASK."
of some vague, ancient time, almost. But who shall tell how many ages it seemed to this prisoner? With the one, time flew sometimes; with the other, never — it crawled always. To the one, nights spent in dancing had seemed made of minutes instead of hours ; to the other, those self-same nights had been like all other nights of dungeon life, and seemed made of slow, dragging weeks, instead of hours and minutes.
One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses upon his walls, and brief prose sentences — brief, but full of pathos. These spoke not of himself and his hard estate ; but only of the shrine where his spirit fled the prison to worship — of home and the idols that were templed there. He never lived to see them.
The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some bed-cham- bers at home are wide — fifteen feet. We saw the damp, dis- mal cells in which two of Dumas' heroes passed their confine- ment— heroes of " Monte Christo." It was here that the brave Abb6 wrote a book with his own blood ; with a pen made of a piece of iron hoop, and by the light of a lamp made out of shreds of cloth soaked in grease obtained from his food ; and then dug through the thick wall with some trifling instru- ment which he wrought himself out of a stray piece of iron or table cutlery, and freed Dantes from his chains. It was a pity that so many weeks of dreary labor should have come to naught at last.
They showed us the noisome cell where the celebrated " Iron Mask " — that ill-starred brother of a hard-hearted king of France — was confined for a season, before he was sent to hide the strange mystery of his life from the curious in the dungeons of St. Marguerite. The place had a far greater interest for us than it could have had if we had known be- yond all question who the Iron Mask was, and what his his- tory had been, and why this most unusual punishment had been meted out to him. Mystery ! That was the charm. That speechless tongue, those prisoned features, that heart so freighted with unspoken troubles, and that breast so oppressed with its piteous secret, had been here. These dank walls had known the man whose dolorous story is a sealed book forever ! There was fascination in the s]3oL _
CHAPTER XII.
WE have come five hundred miles by rail through the heart of France. What a bewitching land it is ! — What a garden ! Surely the leagues of bright green lawns are swept and brushed and watered every day and their grasses trimmed by the barber. Surely the hedges are shaped and measured and their symmetry preserved by the most architectural of gardeners. Surely the long straight rows of stately poplars that divide the beautiful landscape like the squares of a checker-board are set with line and plummet, and their uniform height determined with a spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, pure white turnpikes are jack-planed and sandpapered every day. How else are these marvels of sym- metry, cleanliness and order attained ? It is wonderful. There are no unsightly stone walls, and never a fence of any kind. There is no dirt, no decay, no rubbish any where — nothing that even hints at untidiness — nothing that ever suggests neglect. All is orderly and beautiful — every thing is charming to the eye.
We had such glimpses of the Rhone gliding along between its grassy banks ; of cosy cottages buried in flowers and shrub- bery ; of quaint old red-tiled villages with mossy mediaeval cathedrals looming out of their midst ; of wooded hills with ivy-grown towers and turrets of feudal castles projecting above the foliage ; such glimpses of Paradise, it seemed to us, such visions of fabled fairy -land !
We knew, then, what the poet meant, when he sang of — •
" — thy cornfields green, and sunny vines, 0 pleasant land of France 1"
106 SUMMER GARB OF THE LANDSCAPE.
And it is a pleasant land. ]^o word describes it so felici- tously as that one. They say there is no word for " home " in the French language. Well, considering that they have the article itself in such an attractive aspect, they ought to manage to get along without the word. Let us not waste too much pity on "homeless" France, I have observed that French- men abroad seldom wholly give up the idea of going back to France some time or other. I am not surprised at it now.
We are not infatuated with these French railway cars, though. We took first class passage, not because we wished to attract attention by doing a thing which is uncommon in Europe, but because we could make our journey quicker by so doing. It is hard to make railroading pleasant, in any country. It is too tedious. Stage-coaching is infinitely more delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts and mountains of the West, in a stage-coach, from the Missouri line to California, and since then all my pleasure trips must be measured to that rare holiday frolic. Two tho\isand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle and clatter, by night and by day, and never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest ! The first seven hundred miles a level continent, its grassy carpet greener and softer and smoother than any sea, and figured with designs fitted to its magnitude — the shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer scenes, and no disposition inspired by them but to lie at full length on the mail sacks, in the grateful breeze, and dreamily smoke the pipe of peace — what other, where all was repose and contentment? In cool mornings, betore the sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime of city toiling and moiling, to perch in the foretop with the driver and see the six mustangs scamper under the sharp snapping of a whip that never touched them ; to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no lords but us ; to cleave the wind with uncovered head and feel the sluggish pulses rousing to the spirit of a speed that pretended to the resistless rush of a typhoon ! Then thirteen hundred miles of desert solitudes ; of limitless panoramas of bewildering perspective ; of mimic cities, of pin- nacled cathedrals, of massive fortresses, counterfeited in the
PEC ULIAKITIES OF FRENCH CARS. 107
eternal rocks and splendid witli the crimson and gold of the setting sun ; of dizzy altitudes among fog- wreathed peaks and never-melting snows, where thunders and lightnings and tem- pests warred magnificently at our feet and the storm-clouds above swung their shredded banners in our very faces !
But I forgot. I am in elegant France, now, and not skur- rying through the great South Pass and the Wind River Mountains, among antelopes and buffaloes, and painted In- dians on the war path. It is not meet that I should make too disparaging comparisons between hum-drum travel on a rail- way and that royal summer flight across a continent in a stage-coach. I meant in the beginning, to say that railway journeying is tedious and tiresome, and so it is — though at the time, I was thinking particularly of a dismal fifty-hour pil- grimage between New York and St. Louis. Of course om* trip through France was not really tedious, because all its scenes and experiences were new and strange ; but as Dan says, it had its " discrepancies."
The cars are built in compartments that hold eight persons each. Each compartment is partially subdivided, and so there are two tolerably distinct parties of four m it. Four face the other four. The seats and backs are thickly padded and cush- ioned and are very comfortable ; you can smoke, if you wish ; there are no bothersome peddlers ; you are saved the infliction of a multitude of disagreeable fellow-passengers. So far, so well. But then the conductor locks you in when the train starts ; there is no water to drink, in the car ; there is no heating apparatus for night travel ; if a drunken rowdy should get in, you could not remove a matter of twenty seats from him, or enter another car ; but above all, if you are worn out and must sleep, you must sit up and do it in naps, with cramped legs and in a torturing misery that leaves you withered and lifeless the next day — for behold they have not that culmi- nation of all charity and human kindness, a sleeping car, in all France. I prefer the American system. It has not so many grievous " discrepancies,"
In I'rance, all is clockwork, all is order. They make no
108
FRENCH POLITENESS,
mistakes. Every third man wears a uniform, ,and whetlieT he be a Marshal of the Empire or a brakeman, he is ready and perfectly willing to answer all your questions with tireless politeness, ready to tell you which car to take, yea, and ready to go and put you into it to make sure that you shall not go astray. You can not pass into the waiting-room of the depot till you have secured your ticket, and you can not pass from its only exit till the train is at its threshold to receive
RAILROAD OFFICIAL IN FRANCE.
you. Once on board, the train will not start till your ticket has been examined — till every passenger's ticket has been inspected. This is chiefly for your own good. If by any possibility you have managed to take the wrong train, you will be handed over to a polite official who will take you whither you belong, and bestow you with many an affable bow. Your ticket will be inspected every now and then along the route, and when it is time to change cars you will know it. You are in the hands of officials who zealously study your welfare and your interest, instead of turning their talents to the invention of new methods of discommoding and snubbing you, as is very often the main employment of that exceedingly self-satisfied monarch, the railroad conductor of America. But the happiest regulation in French railway governmentj
"tiiiety minutes fok dinmek!"
109
i.s — thirty minutes to dinner! 'No five-minute boltings of flabby rolls, muddy coifee, questionable eggs, gutta-percha beef, and pies whose conception and execution are a dark and bloody mystery to all save the cook who created them ! No ; we sat calmly down — it was in old Dijon, which is so easy to spell and so hnpossible to pronounce, except when you civilize it and call it Demijohn — and poured out rich Burgundian wines and munched calmly through a long table d'hote bill of fare, snail-patties, delicious fruits and all, then paid the trifle it cost and stepped happily aboard the train again, without
payI'
BEFORETAKINC
"five minutes fob refreshments." — AMERICA.
if
once cursing the railroad company, A rare ex-perience, and one to be treasured forever.
They say they do not have accidents on these Fi-ench roads, and I think it must be true. If I remember rightly, we passed high above wagon roads, or through tunnels under them, but never crossed them on their own level. About every quarter of a mile, it seemed to me, a man came out and held up a club till the train went by, to signify that every thing was safe ahead. Switches were changed a mile in advance, by pulling 3. wire rope that passed along the ground by the rail, from
110
WHY THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS.
station to station. Signals for the clay and signals for the night gave constant and timely notice of the position of switches.
No, they have no railroad accidents to speak of in France. But why ? Because when one occurs, somebody has to hang for it ! * Not hang, may be, but be punished at least with such vigor of emphasis as to make negligence a thing to be shud- dered at by railroad officials for many a day thereafter. "No blame attached to the officers " — that lying and disaster-breed- ing verdict so common to our soft-hearted juries, is seldom
'thirty minutes fob dinner!" — FRANCE.
rendered in France. If the trouble occurred in the conduct- or's department, that officer must suffer if his subordinate can not be proven guilty ; if in the engineer's department, and the case be similar, the engineer must answer.
The Old Travelers— those delightful parrots who have " been here before," and know more about the country than Louis Napoleon knows now or ever will know, — tell us these things, and we believe them because they are pleasant things to believe, and because they are plausible and savor of the
* They go on the principle that it is better that one innocent man should suffer than five hundred.
THE "old travelers.
lU
rigid subjection to law and order which we beliold about us every where.
But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate, and drivel and lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a few feelers ; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throt- tle-valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth ! Their cen- tral idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you leel insig- nificant and humble in the blaze of their cos- mopolitan glory ! They
will not let you know any thing. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions ; they laugh unfeelingly at your treas- ured dreams of foreign lands ; they brand the statements of your traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities ; they deride your most trusted authors and demolish the fair images they have set up for your willing worship with the pitiless ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast ! But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them for their witless platitudes ; for their supernatural ability to bore ; for their delightful asinine vanity ; for their luxuriant fertility of imagination ; for their startling, their brilliant, their overwhelming mendacity !
By Lyons and the Saone (where we saw the lady of Lyons, and thought little of her jbomeliness ;) by Yilla Franca, Ton- nere, venerable Sens, Melun, Fontainebleau, and scores of other beautiful cities, we swept, always noting the absence of hog'
THE OLD TRAVELER.
112 PARIS AT LAST.
wallows, broken fences, cowlots, unpainted houses and mud, and always noting, as well, the presence of cleanliness, grace, taste in adorning and beautifying, even to the disposition of a tree or the turning of a hedge, the marvel of roads in perfect repair, void of ruts and guiltless of even an inequality of sur- face— we bowled along, hour after liour, that brilliant summer 4ay, and as nightfall approached we entered a wilderness of odorous flowers and shrubbery, sped through it, and then, excited, delighted, and half persuaded that we were only the sport of a beautiful dream, lo, we stood in magnificent Paris!
What excellent order they kept about that vast depot! There was no frantic crowding and jostling, no shouting and swearing, and no swaggering intrusion of services by rowdy hackmen. These latter gentry stood outside — stood quietly by their long line of vehicles and said never a word, A kind of hackman-general seemed to have the whole matter of trans- portation in his hands. He politely received the passengers and ushered them to the kind of conveyance they wanted, and told the driver where to deliver them. There was no " talking back," no dissatisfaction about overcharging, no grumbling about any thing. In a little while we were speeding through the streets of Paris, and delightfully recognizing certain names and places with which books had long ago made us familiar. It was like meeting an old friend when we read '^^ Rue de RivoW'' on the street corner; we knew the genuine vast palace of the Louvre as well as we knew its picture ; when we passed by the Column of July we needed no one to tell us what it was, or to remind ns that on its site once stood the grim Bas- tile, that grave of human hopes and happiness, that dismal prison-house within whose dungeons so many young faces put on the wrinkles of age, so many proud spirits grew humble, so many brave hearts broke.
We secui-ed rooms at the hotel, or rather, we had three beds put into one room, so that we might be together, and then we went out to a restaurant, just after lamp-lighting, and ate a comfortable, satisfactory, lingering dinner. It was a pleasure to eat where every thing was so tidy, the food so well cooked.
SEEING THE SIGHTS. 113
the waiters so polite, and the coming and departing company so moustached, so frisky, so affable, so fearfully and wonder fully Frenchy ! All the surroundings were gay and enliven ing. Two hundred people sat at little tables on the sidewalk, sipping wine and coffee ; the streets were thronged with light vehicles and with joyous pleasure seekers ; there was musio in the air, life and action all about us, and a conflagration of gaslight every where !
After dinner we felt like seeing such Parisian specialties as we might see without distressing exertion, and so we sauntered through the brilliant streets and looked at the daint}^ trifles in variety stores and jewelry shops. Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put imoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and while they writhed, we impaled them, we peppered them, we scarified them, with their own vile verbs and participles.
We noticed that in the jewehy stores they had some of the articles marked " gold," and some labeled " imitation." We wondered at this extravagance of honesty, and inquired into the matter. We were informed that inasmuch as most people are not able to tell false gold from the genuine article, the government compels jewelers to have their gold work assayed and stamped officially according to its fineness, and their imitation work duly labeled with the sign of its falsity. They told us the jewelers would not dare to violate this law, and that whatever a stranger bought in one of their stores might be depended upon as being strictly what it was represented to be. — Yeril}^, a wonderful land is France !
Then we hunted for a barber-shop. From earliest infancy it had been a cherished ambition of mine to be shaved some day in a palatial barber-shop of Paris. I wished to recline at full length in a cushioned invalid chair, with pictures about me, and sumptuous furniture ; with frescoed walls and gilded arches above me, and vistas of Corinthian columns stretching far before me ; with perfumes of Araby to intoxicate my senses, and the slumbrous drone of distant noises to soothe me to
8
114 A BARBAROUS ATROCITY.
sleep. At the end of an hour I would wake up regretfully and find my face as smooth and as soft as an infant's. Depart- ing, I would lift my hands above that barber's head and say, " Heaven bless you, my son !"
So we searched high and low, for a matter of two hours, but never a barber-shop could we see. We saw only wig-making establishments, with shocks of dead and repulsive hair bound upon the heads of painted waxen brigands who stared out from glass boxes upon the passer-by, with their stony eyes, and scared him with the ghostly white of their countenances. We shunned these signs for a time, but finally we concluded that the wig-makers must of necessity be the barbers as well, since we could find no single legitimate representative of the fraternity. We entered and asked, and found that it was even so.
I said I wanted to be shaved. The barber inquired where my room was. I said, never mind where my room was, I wanted to be shaved — there, on the spot. The doctor said he would be shaved also. Then there was an excitement among those two barbers ! There was a wild consultation, and after- wards a hurrying to and fro and a feverish gathering up of razors from obscure places and a ransacking for soap. I!^ext they took us into a little mean, shabby back room ; they got two ordinary sitting-room chairs and placed us in them, with our coats on. My old, old dream of bliss vanished into thin air!
I sat bolt upright, silent, sad, and solemn. One of the wig- making villains lathered my face for ten terrible minutes and finished by plastering a mass of suds into my mouth. I ex- pelled the nasty stuff with a strong English expletive and said, " Foreigner, beware !" Then this outlaw strapped his razor on his boot, hovered over me ominously for six fearful seconds, and then swooped down upon me like the genius of destruc- tion. The first rake of his razor loosened the very hide from my face and lifted me out of the chair. I stormed and raved, and the other boys enjoyed it. Their beards are not strong and thick. Let us draw the curtain over this harrowing scene.
A BARBAROUS ATROCITY.
115
Suffice it that I submitted, and went through with the cruel infliction of a shave by a French barber ; tears of exquisite agony coursed down my cheeks, now and then, but I survived. Then the incipient assassin held a basin of water under my chin and slopped its contents over my face, and into my bosom, and down the back of my neck, with a mean pretense of washing away the soap and blood. He dried my features
A BECrDBD SHAVE.
with a towel, and was going to comb my hair ; but I asked to be excused. I said, with withering irony, that it was sufficient to be skinned — I declined to be scalped.
I went away from there with my handkerchief about my face, and never, never, never desired to dream of palatial Parisian barber-shops any more. The truth is, as I believe I have since found out, that they have no barber shops worthy of the name, in Paris — and no barbers, either, for that matter. The impostor who does duty as a barber, brings his pans and
116 ABSURD BILLIARDS.
napkins and implements of torture to your residence and deliberately skins you in your private apartments. All, I have suffered, suifered, suifered, here in Paris, but never mind — the time is coming when I shall have a dark and bloody revenge. Some day a Parisian barber will come to my room to skin me, and from that day forth, tliat barber will never be heard of more.
At eleven o'clock we alighted upon a sign which manifestly referred to billiards. Joy! We had played billiards in the Azores with balls that were not round, and on an ancient table that was very little smoother than a brick pavement — one of those wretched old things with dead cushions, and with patches in the faded cloth and invisible obstructions that made the balls describe the most astonishing and unsuspected angles and perform feats in the way of unlooked-for and almost impos- sible " scratches," that were perfectly bewildering. We had played at Gibraltar with balls the size of a walnut, on a table like a public square — and in both instances we achieved far more aggravation than amusement. We expected to fare better here, but we were mistaken. The cushions were a good deal higher than the balls, and as the balls had a fashion of always stopping under the cushions, we accomplished very little in the way of caroms. The cushions were hard and unelastic, and the cues were so crooked that in making a shot you had to allow for the curve or you would infallibly put the " English " on the wrong side of the ball. Dan was to mark while the doctor and I played. At the end of an hour neither of us had made a count, and so Dan was tired of keeping tally wdth nothing to tally, and we were heated and angry and disgusted. We paid the heavy bill — about six cents — and said we would call around some time when we had a week to spend, and finish the game.
We adjourned to one of those pretty caf^s and took supper and tested the wines of the country, as we had been instructed to do, and found them harmless and unexciting. They might have been exciting, however, if we had chosen to drink a sufii- ciency of them.
GASTLY EXPEKIENCE,* 117
To close our first day in Paris cheerfully and pleasantly, we /low sought our grand room in the Grand Hotel du Louvre and climbed into our sumptuous bed, to read and smoke — ^but alas !
It was pitiful, In a wliole citj^-full, Gas we liad none.
'No gas to read by — nothing but dismal candles. It was a shame. We tried to map out excursions for the morrow ; we puzzled over French " Guides to Paris ;" we talked disjointedly, in a vain endeavor to make head or tail of the wild chaos of
A GAS-TLT SUBSTITUTE
the day's sights and experiences; we subsided to indolent smoking ; we gaped and yawned, and stretched — then feebly wondered if we were really and truly in renowned Paris, and drifted drowsily away into that vast mysterious void which men call sleep.
* Joke by the Doctor.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE next morning we were up and dressed at ten o'clock. We went to the commissionaire of the hotel — I don't know what a commissionaire is, but that is the man we went to