IIARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. CCXLLJUNE, 1870.VOL. XLI. JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYJNGS IN SPAIN. ~ PAIN, said Talleyrand, is a country in which two and two make five. Seem- ing so to a Frenchman, an American might be pardoned if he believed it a land in which two and two made six, or any other number. An- cient Iberia is certainly a region of the unex- pected. It is full of surprises and disappoint- ments. Nothing ever happens there as one snpposes it will, and the knowledge of to-day is ever contradicted by the experience of to- morrow. For more than three centuries the country has been an enigma, politically, relig- iously, and socially, that no other European na- tion could solve; and its present condition aug- ments its anomaly. Where else could we hope to find a queen without a dominion~ and a king- dom without a king? They who have never visited Spain may wonder; but those who have been there will be incapable of new surprises. The land where yes means no, and im- mediately next weekwhere inn-keepers assure you they have every delicacy, when they know they are besieged hy starvationwhere there are rivers ~vithout bridges, and bridges without riverswhere highwaymen rob you of your last escudo, and then piously commend your soul to Godwhere princely hospitali- ty signifies fleas for hed-fellows and garlic for breakfnstthe land where are all these and many other contradictions soon prepares you for whatever may happen. Land of romance and superstition, of chivalry and bigotry, of Lope de Vega and Cervantes, of Cort~z and the Cid. of Moorish refinement and Gothic rudeness. of the Alhambra and the In- quisition, of heroism and persecution, of art and assassination, of poetry and intrigue, of splendor and squalor, we have all, at some time, built AEOAT~E EN ESPAGNE. Entered according to Act of Congress, in th~ year 1870, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. Voa. XLLNo. 241--i 9 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. gorgeous castles upon your mountain-sides, and viewed with rapture our broad estates watered by the Xenil and Guadaiquivir. We shall never see you as you appeared to us in our youthful dreams, for the outward eye dispels the visions of imagination ruthlessly and for- ever. Your moonlight will never fall so soft, even ir. Andalusia, nor your guitars dop such sweetness, though under the towers of Se- ville, as came to us when reverie blossomed in the rich soil of the heart. The splendors of Cordovas cathedral will lessen when we stand in its marble aisles and the nightingales will never fill. the evening with such music as they did before our wandering feet had borne us to the ancient palace of the Moorish kings. When I first went whirling over the soil (in America we should call it creeping), in the midst of cigarette-smoke that made the corn- partmcnt look like a miniature edition of the Blue Grotto of Capri, and when, trying to smile serenely at the three sallow caballeros opposite, who sat dignifiedly smoking me to death, I heard at thu stations, Vallaclolid, Madrid, Se- ville, Granada, roared out in gutturals fra- grant with garlic, my noble castles crumbled, and the raw wind of the Sierras swept down and chilled my buds of sentiment to death. If quite (lifferent from what fancy and ro- mance had painted it, I was very glad to see Spain, and my memory of it is still most wel- come. Three things I have found needful to a satisfactory visitpatience, politeness, and pe- setas. Armed with these, I could be mildly seraphic on trains that seemed as if they would never start, and could inquire unmoved for accoin- modations at the, homeliest posada. As all travelers know, the impression a strange country makes depends largely on what they see firston the way they enter it. To visit Spain advantageously it is best to go, as I did, from France across the Pyrenees, instead of going, as many do, from Cadiz through picturesque Andalusia to the less favored provinces, ending with the, dreariness and sterility of the Castiles. No two cities on the Continent are more differ- ent than Paris and Madrid; and such quaint and curious towns as Vittoria, Burgos, and Val- ladolid prepared me for the strange kingdom I had entered. No person need he told when he has crossed the confines of the French empire. having done so, I saw at once I was among another people almost in another world. No more the vivacious and mercurial manner of the Gaul greeted me; but in its stead the grave and measured deportment of the representative of half a dozen race~. The train on which I trav- eled, though the creation of French capital, seemed affected by the soil and atmosphere of Spain. Its speed was retarded; it was ham- pered with delays at every station; it became the victim of endless formalities that threatened never to untangle themselves. I discovered I must undergo a certain acclimating process of mind as well as of body. The mood and bear- ing that had served me elsewhere on the Con- tinent would not support me there. I had found that pretended loss of temper and assumed vio JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYJNGS IN SPAIN. 3 lence of manner are beneficial in France, Ger- many, and Italy; but in Spain they only defeat the tourists euds. Peninsular travel is favorable to one of the highest Christian virtues, resignation. This is less difficult to practice the moment one dis- covers it is absolutely necessary. Job would have found his sphere in Spain; at least, the need of exercising his characteristic quality. If the patient are the strong, they who have done Spain should have few weaknesses. I nm confident that I have an outward calmness and a (legree of self-discipline I never owned before I crossed the Pyrenees. I have had my patience tried all the way from Pamplona to Cadiz, from Badajoz to Barcelona, and though I may have lost my temper, I never advertised for its return. Spanish officials are often very provoking; but they wont be hurried, and cant be bullied to advantage. Inn-keepers hold as an artide of faith that their patrons are immor- tal, and that a breakfast ordered at eight in the morning will ans~ver quite as well at the same hour in the evening. But if you use even such mild and allowable oaths as Uarai, (arainba, or Vega usted ci demonjo, you will not help your case. Show a certain energy in politeness, a jerseverance of courtesy, and you will be duly rewarded. I remember at Valladolid that, after ordering a bottle of wine again and again at the Fonda. Universal, and failing to get it in four hours, I sent for the host, and told hini I supposed his crowded house (it had but two more visitors be- sides nsyself) prevented him from attending to me, but that if he would not ke.ep me waiting more than six hours longer, I should esteem him the noblest of gentlemen. The wine came within five minutes, and afterward I had no fur- ther cause to complain of delay. In driving about Bargos I could not inducfi my calesero to go beyond a snails pace until I told him I was in no haste whatever, but that his mule was walking in his sleep; and might fall and hurt himself. He replied, Aluchas gracias, Senor, and whipped up in fine style for the remainder of the afternoon. As respects manners, the Spaniards deem themselves the politest people on the planet, of which they think Spain much the best and by far the most important part. If manners do not make the man on the Peninsula, they go far toward insuring his comfort or its oppo- site. The natives are certainly managed by manners. Any departure from civility, boxy- ever small, is always resented, and strict ob- servation of it attended with remunerative re- sults. One of their proverbs, Politeness gets what money cant purchase, experience has often taught me the truth of. The Spaniards, naturally courteous, expect courtesy from oth- ors, and appreciate it to the fullest. When you travel, never light a cigar or cigarette without offering one to those in the same car- .iage. They wont take it unless urged; but it is the custom of the country; it shows you are a man of the world and of good-breeding. A Spaniard always refuses oncethat is etiquette and you must do likewise; hut when he is invited a second time he accepts. At a cafe or restaurant, if you order coffee, chocolate, or xvine, breakfast or dinner, and there are per- sons at the same table, invite them to join you. It will cost you nothing, for they wont do it; but the invitation will advance vo timation. the u in their es Lifting hat when entering the presence of others is more imperative in Spain than in France or Italy. Not to do so in a diligencia, railway coach, or a room, is thought a viola- tion of good-manners, if not a positive offense. I have seen sensitive Castilians look angry, even fierce, and twirl their mustache with of- fended dignity, when foreigners neglected to raise their hats. But when the careless per- sons remembered, and complied with the de- mand of etiquette, the sallow faces relaxed, and a gleam of good-humor darted out of the jet-black eyes. Hat-lifting and cigar-giving are passports to good treatment every where. Many strangers have made fast friends by such simple means. Should I be sent to Madrid on a diplomatic mission, I should engage a serv- ant specially to elevate my sombrero, and a to- bacconist to supply me constantly with the best of Havanas. By liberal use of both, I think I could manage the ministers as well as the Cortes. The inhabitants of the different provinces~ though they know and care little about each other, all consider themselves Spaniards, and as such are jealous of their dignity and reputa- tion. They are very nice as to their personal honor (pundonor), and regard themselves as gentlemen, whatever their station in life, and the peer of any foreigner, be his position or rank what it may. They often appear cold and reserved; but they are easily won, and once conciliated are extremely obliging. Etiquette is very rigid with them, and never departed from in public. When ycu visit any one form- ally the proper costume is black, as it is with us. If the person you have called on be out, you write on the corner of your card E. P. (en persona), and leave it with the servant. First visits demand marked courtesy, which means nothing unless it is repeated at the second visit. If you are welcome you will be conducted to the best room, placed on the right-hand of the sofa, and your hat treated with as much consid- eration, as yourself, your host seizing it ardently and placing it on a vacant chair. As you take leave of a lady you say, I hurl myself at your feet, Madam (A los pies de usted, Seiora); and she responds, with an eloquent casting down of the eyelids and a graceful sweep of her fan, I kiss your hand, Sir (Beso d misted 1cm mmano, Sen- or), for the reason, perhaps, that neither von aol she intend to do any thing of the kind. Then she looks tender, and uses the phrase, May you depart with God, and continue well (Vago usted con bios que usted lo i~e bienl I 4 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Whereupon you assume a theologically gallant ceiving the former, or offer their hand, or ac- airto be acquired only in Spainand reply, cept the arm of their escort; but they kiss the May you remain with God (~uede usted con latter at coming and going. The striking con D~os)! trast is thought to arise from inherent feminine The name of the Deity occupies a very prom- coquettishness, the dark-eyed Castilians desir- meat place in Peninsular phraseology, and is ing to show men what delights they are de- employed under a variety of circumstances. barred from by reason of their sex. One of Your dearest friend intrusts you to the Divine the reasons assigned hy the women for not giv- keeping as he folds you in his embrace; and ing their hand to their masculine friends is, that the robber does the same when he points his the doing so disarranges their mantilla; and an- blunderbuss at your head, and gently requests other, that it is likely to be mistaken for a mat- you to stand and deliver. rimonial intention. The Spanish men, who Men are treated very differently from women are always saying ill-natured and cynical things by Spanish ladies. These seldom rise on re- about the other sex, declare the mantilla is a u~ ~iIE PROMENAPE, MADRID. - ~----- I JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYJNGS IN SPAIN. 5 much more serious matter than marriage; that an ill-fitting garment is more difficult to man- age than a poor husband. Unless a Spaniard presses you again and again to repeat your visit, and assures yon his house is yours, and it and all it contains at.your disposal, you can conclude you are not xvelcome; that you have not created a favorable impression. Birthdays are made much of, and when they occur formal visits are expected. New-Years is devoted to calls, as on this side of the sea, and presents, remarkable for their fitness rather than value, are often made to those on whom you call. A FLIRTATION IN A WAY-SIDE FOSAIJA. It is etiquette to avoid the appearance of be- ing alone with a lady within doors; so that on entering a drawing-room you must leave the door open, or at least ajar, if she be unattend- ed. Spaniards are jealous and suspicious, and inclined to put the worst construction upon ap- pearances and opportunities. They never trust their women; and for that reason, no doubt, are often deceived. It is the tendency of our na- ture to be no better than the opinion held of us. I have found it wholly beneath the Iberian dignity to be in haste; and as the people have little to do, and less inclination to do it, no one ~. ~ V \ f t4~4J& ac 6 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. is concerned about time. Business, in our sense, is either unknown or thought a foreigninnova- tion; and all engagements in the Peninsula are kept as loosely as some of the Commandments. The Spanish are very reserved and taciturn to strangers; but with their acquaintances they are confidential and talkative. One of the penalties of Peninsular friendship is the amount of time re- quired for its sustainment. To pass your friend in the prado or alameda with a single nod and good-morning would be an offense. You must not only stop; you must inquire with many high-flown compliments after his health, that of his ~vife, his children, and all his near relatives. Unless you exercise some energy, you will be kept a quarter of an hour or more in idle talk; or, perhaps, be carried off to a caf~ to drink a cup of chocolate or a bottle of wine, and discuss the news and scandal of the day. If you meet him near your hotel or lodging-house, you must invite him in, though he is not expected to enter. Should you un- dertake a luncheon or dinner in the house of a friend, eat heartily if you would stand well with him, even if your appetite revolts. You can never convince your host you appreciate his hospitality unless you consume a certain amount of food. The American custom of paying for your acquaintances in a cnfd or restaurant prevails in Spain, though nowhere else on the Conti- nent. You have more latitude there than here; for you have the privilege of settling the bills of ladies you dont know, if you like their appearance, by informing the waiter pri- vately that such is your intention. Formerly gentlemen who went on shopping expeditions were in the habit of paying for every thing their fair friends bought, so that gallantry be- came an expensive luxury. It used to he said in Andalusia, where women are more coquet- tish and extravagant than in the North, that a long purse was needed for a short walk with a lady. The custom is quite bbsolete now; and she who allows you to make purchases for her is supposed to he devoid of high-breeding, if not of unexceptional morals. They say in Se- ville, Women who receive money never pay in the same coin. In the fact that pesetas render excellent service Spain is not dilThrent from the rest of Europe. In Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany you receive perpetual intimations to open your purse; but on the Peninsula you are often led to infer that what you want cant be had on any account. You are constantly met with Quien sabe? Es vaposible; Eso ne puede ser; and the phrases are accompanied with so much gravity and such apparent sincerity that you are inclined to believe them true. But they are merely designed to heighten the effect of removing the difficulties that stand in the way of your pleasure. A few pesetas will melt the most formidable obstacles. The silver key unlocks galleries, churches, palaces, monaster- ies, and the secretest of all secret chambers. We Anglo-Saxons think time is money. The Iberians hold time as nothing, money as every thing. They have an aphorism, somewhat cyn.. ical of course: When the heartis dead to love, it hears the clink of coin and dances to its tune. If a Spaniard of the lower order could be ener- getic, in an American sense, he would be so before the vision of a purse from which he had hopes~ He undergoes a revolution when he has been feed. His face loses its griumness after his palm has been crossed with silver, and he no longer persecutes you with the national Quien sabe? which is intended to have the force of an overwhelming negative. He who journeys be- yond the Pyrenees, and begrudges custodians and servants their propiaa, puts clogs on his feet and scales before his eyes. A judicious and en- lightened employment of money has been to me the best guide. It opened doors that had grown rusty on their hinges, and revealed to me what I should never have suspected. Never fear from the high dignity of an official tkat he will be offended at the offer of money. If he deems it an insult, he will pocket it and be silent. Since the introduction of railways, which, be- ing built, as I have said, by the French, are not the natural outgrowth of the country, and are far in advance of the time, the character of travel is very different from what it was. Rail- ways are destructive to romance and variety of character; but away from the large cities and off the beaten paths, diligencias, muleteers, Ma- ragatos, and the coc/zes de coheres still appeared to me with all their peculiar surroundings. Whenever I could, without serious inconven- ience, travel in the old-fashioned and pictur- esque way, I always did; and I was largely the I gainer by it, for I saw the people, and their cits- toms and peculiarities, as I could never have done otherwise. If one could devote two or three years to Spain, and were as indifferent to physical dis- comfort as the natives, he might take a horse, or rather mulethe national animaland go in pursuit of adventures after the manner of La Manchas knight. Some time I may don a soin- brero, a zamarra (fur jacket), the indispensable alforjas (saddle-bags), in which a Spaniard car- ries every thing, and, mounted on an Andalu- sian steed, accomplish the geography of the Pe- ninsula. But before I undertake that I will describe what I have already seen. Every body who does not go by rail travels by diligencia in Spain, where private convey- ances are almost unknown. When royalty ex- isted there it was content with the diligencia. Don Francisco de Paula, the Infante, so trans- ported himself and his family from the capital to the sea-coast; and the reason Don Enrique gave for not going to Madrid to marry the Queen was, that he found it impossible to secure a place in the vehicle. The diligencia is lum- bering and ungainly enough; but it, furnishes far better company than in France or Italy. I always felt as if I had slipped back to the early part of the century when I found myself rum- JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYINGS IN SPAIN. hung over the Castiles or Granada, inhaling cigarette smoke, dreaming under the soft night of la bella incognitas eyes, or ~vatching the move- merits of the mayoral (guard), who, armed to the teeth, would pass, without the least change, for Jose Maria himself. The guard, like the mounted escort, is usually a retired robher who has heen pardoned and pensioned, and would gladly return to his purse-taking if it were as profitable as it used to be. No doubt there is often an understanding between the guard and escort and the gentlemen of the road (in Spain, as in the United States, every body claims to be a gentlenian, and stealing and throat-cutting are not considered bars to the distinction); and this understanding prevents the plundering of passengers, except in isolated instances. Diii- gencias are sometimes four or five days and nights on the road; and as all the passengers are locked up together, and as Spaniards of both sexes are very susceptible to good-humor, politeness, or a proverb, a person of a philo- sophical turn of mind has an excellent opportu- nity to study manners, character, and costumes. The way-side inns are rarely good; but a grati- Jicaciondta will thicken the chocolate, improve the salad, increase the freshness of the eggs, and whiten the bed-linen amazingly. Various have been the comedies and melodramas that have had the diligencia for a stage; and the haps and mishaps at the posadas furnish variety and zest to the journey, as bacon does to the famous olla podrida. Muleteers are not to be separated from Spain, though they are steadily disappearing before the whistle of the locomotive. They represent the genuine character of the country; seem half Moorish, and are called arrieros, from their arre, arre, which corresponds to our gee up, gee up. I should not have seen Ronda and Gran- ada to advantage without the assistance of the muleteer, who, being constantly on the road, knows every thing that is occurring, and col-- lects a fund of facts and gossip that is invalu- able to the traveler. A more careless, inde- pendent, happy-go-lucky fellow than the arriero I have not found on the Continent. Walking by the side of his patient beasts, or sitting upon his cargo, with his legs hanging over the neck of one of the animals, listening to the disagree- able monotony of the leadefs wooden-clappered bell, or singing dismally a dismal ditty, he was to me the type of the peculiar civilization that surrounds him. He smokes and swears and sings by turns; carries his guitar and his gun, and is ready alike for business gay or business grave, for a serenade or a homicide. The guit- ar and the gun, which are seen together in the Asturias no less than in Granada, and which no Spaniard can get along without, reveal the softness and the sternness, the tender ness and the cruelty, the gallant and the revengeful traits out of the national character. The muleteer is at bottom a fellow of sterling qualities honest, industrious, and good - na- tured, unless affronted, ~vhen he becomes, from his stubborn courage and sinewy frame, a for- midable enemy. The landscape of the coun- try will lack completeness when it loses the muleteers. They make much of its picturesque- ness as they go up the zigzag mountain-paths, now disappearing, now reappearing, and fill the gloomy defiles and aromatic valleys with rude tinkling bells and discordant tunes. Singing seems their favorite occupation; their fondness for vocal exercise arising possibly from supersti- tion (ineradicable from the soil), which holds that singing frightens away evil. If evil owns an ear, especially a cultivated ear, it would nat- urally be alarmed at the high-pitched, shattered notes of the arriero, who, like many lovers of the interdicted, sings much because he ought not to sing at all. Spain is not a laud of melo- dy as Italy is. The voices of the peasants are generally harsh; and the bells, so silvery sweet among the Apennines, are clangorous and grat- ing beyond the Pyrenees. A singular species of muleteer I found to be the Maragato, whose head-quarters are at San Roman in Astorga. He preserves his costunie, customns,and mode of life like the Jew and gip- sy. His origin is questionable; he does not know it himself; but he seems to be a kind of Bedonin, to whom a mule supplies the place of a camel. He is the medium of traffic be- tween Galicia and the Castiles; wears leather jerkins, cloth gaiters, red garters, and a slouch- ing hat, such as is seen in Rembrandts pic- tures of the Dutch burgomasters, whom indeed he much resembles. The attire of the woman Maragata is still more unique, wearing, when she is married, a crescent-shaped head- dress that looks very Moorish. She has her hair unconfined and falling over her shoulders, her bodice cut squarc on the bosom, and her petti- coat, resembling an apron, hangs loosely, is open before and behind, and confined at the back with a bright-colored sash. She is very fond of jewelry and ornaments, and tricks herself out on gala days with huge ear-rings, chains of met- al and coral, medals, crosses, relics, and what- ever she thinks will assist to make her superb. She is a very Oriental and picturesque-looking creature in what is considered full dress, and suggests both the Greek peasant and the Bar- bary Jewess. I was fortunate in witnessing a wedding, which is a very formal and solemn occasion among the Maragatos, and is deemed as mo- mentous there as -when celebrated in Fifth Av- enue, with all the surroundings that tinsel and tintinnabulation can lend. I was informed that those who enter into the state hold it to be the most serious step in life, partaking deeply of a religious character. The ceremonies were pe- culiar, and accompanied with a feast. Many were bidden, and no one absented himself ~vitli- good reason; for it is considered an of- fense to remriin away. When the guests were all assembled, some one was chosen to l)residc, and the president put into an open dish anysum of money he chose. All the other men were 8 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. A )4OTIIEE INVOKING A BLESSING ON BEE CHILB. JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYINGS IN SPAIN. 9 compelled to give the same amount, and the to- tal was handed to the bride as a gift. They have not learned yet to advertise the contribution and the names of the contributors in the newspapers; but that fine custom will come no doubt with larger enlightenment, when they have achieved our own republican simplic- ity of manner. The bride was attired in a soin- bre mantle that covered her like a pall, to which, as she never smiled or displayed the least gayety while under its folds, it may fitly be compared. She wore it all day, and was never to put it on again, I was told, until her husbands death, when it would serve for a gar- ment4 of mourning. Though invited by every one, she did not dance on the day of the cere- mony, always declining very gravely with the words, Not on such an occasion as this. At sunrise the next morning two roasted chickens were brought to the bedside of the married pair, and were eaten without rising, in the presence of witnesses, to typify that their lives were united, and that they were thereafter to have every thing in common. The same evening there was a ball, whch was opened by the bride and bridegroom, but the dance was so slow and serious that it hardly deserved the name. The Maragatos are a melancholy people, and take all their pleasures and recreations as se- riously as if they had been born in America. They can be seen any day with their files of Leon mulesthe best in Spainwalking along the dusty highway to La Corufia, swearing and hurling stones in true arriero style at their pa- tient beasts. They are much less profane than the other muieteers; but the entire class believe violation of the Third Commandment essential to their calling. They assured me that it is im- possible to manage a mule without swearing, and have a saying that an asss ears are made long to catch oaths. The Maragatos seemed to me the least polite of the inhabitants of the Peninsula, and to have a greater dislike to outside barbarians than any of their countrymen, all of whom hold for- eigners as quite superfluous in the plan of crea- tion. It may be for this reason that the Mara- gatos make no effort to prevent their mules from brushing wayfarers or horsemen over the declivities of the mountain-paths, with the pro- jecting baggage strapped on their backs. If they succeeded in crowding a man off in that manner, I doubt if they would stop to learn the consequences, but would comfort them- selves with the thought that no foreigner had a right to interfere with the progress of a well- conditioned mule. The eoche de colleras (coach of horse-collars) is passing away, but I saw and tried it several times in the rural districts and on the public roads, at a distance from the large cities. It is very like the English lumbering vehicle of Queen Annes time, and the French equipage so shapelessly conspicuous in France during Louis XIV. s reign, and which we still see in Vandermeulens pictures representing the state- ly journeys of the pretentious monarch, and in the specimens preserved in the H6tel de Cluny. The coche is as tawdry, awkward, and uncom- fortable as any hidalgo could desire, and so harmonious with the character and claims of many of the inflated old Dons that I do not wonder they have been loth to its surrender. It suggests the sixteenth or seventeenth cen- tury creeping through the nineteenth ; but. is much less an anachronism in Spain than it would be any where else. The coche, drawn by six horses or mules, is under the guidance and direction of the master and his assistant (mozo), both of whom are often fantastically attired in high-peaked hats worn over a bright - colored handkerchief fastened after the manner of a turban, a gay embroidered jacket, plush breeches, a red or yellow sash, and shoes of undressed leather. ln the sash Is the navaja (knife) that all the peasants carry, for ordinary and extraordinary use, for pacific and hostile purposes. No Spaniard of the humbler class is without his knife. He is enamored of offensive weap- ons, seldom going any where without his gun, and never parting company with his blade. He is very dextrous with the navoja. In his hands it is a formidable weapon. He wields it like a gladiator; can hurl it with precision, and drive the blade into a post or a man at a distance generally reckoned safe. He is extremely ig- norant of anatomy as a science; but he under- stands it socially; that is, he knows the exact spot at which to aim a mortal blow, and can reach the heart of his adversary as quickly and surely as any surgeon. The ~aozo, often called elzagal(strong youth), is one of the most energetic of Iberian natures. He is a thorough factotum, and seems incapa- ble of fatigue. One of his most imliortant du- ties is to pick up stones on the highway (all mules on the Peninsula are driven by stones), and discharge them at the beasts during the journey. With this lapideous ammunition he is perpetually supplied, and yet he uses it as lavishly as raw recruits do their cartridges at their first engagement. lie is probably the most accomplished swearer of the whole Jehu class, ~vho are all proficient enough to have a cerulean influence on the atmosphere. The variety and extent of his oaths are astonishing; but he makes no account of his superiority in this regard, and is, I suspect, quite unconscious of his genius for the profane. There is no saint in the calendar and no evil in the Decalogue he does not couple. He anathematizes all created things, and if his invocations were answered he would bring down the universe in fragments upon his irreverent head. The ideal a?xd ex- emplar of the mozo is the mayoral. To be reg- ularly perched on the box and be intrusted with the exclusive guidance of six mules is his highest aspiration, and he believes, with a sort of quadrupedal and vehiculary theology, that the gates of Paradise are just broad enough to ad- 10 HARPEWS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE 4 K. JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYINGS IN SPAIN. 11 mit the cumbersome coach which is the object of his hourly worship. How well I remember the preparation and starting from a way-side posada of the first cocks I rode in! This starting is an event, and illustrative of the country. The attendant circumstances of getting off in the morning were full of drollery. Though it seemed hardly fair for an American to laugh at the people that had so much to do with the discovery of his country, I could not help it. It may have been justifiable for their iuterference in our then rather confused inter- national affairs. At any rate, I enjoyed the elaborate exordium of departure. The harnessing was primitivethe various pieces of rope and leather were laid on the ground like a net, the animals dragged into it, and finally fastened within the mysterious tan- gle. The master then collected the heteroge- neous reins; the mozo gathered a quantity of stones in his sash; the servants and assistants of the yenta, where I had lodged overnight, appeared with sticks, and two or three old wo- men, who are older and homelier in Spain than any where else, came out with their shrill voices, accompanied by a few lean dogs and thirsty loungers, resolved to assist on the occasion. The master shouted, swore, and shook the reins; the mozo shouted louder, swore deeper, and hurled a volley of stoneshe is an ani- mated catapult at such times; the attendants of the inn brandished their sticks, assaulted the beasts, and bellowed vociferously; the female antiques screamed in altissimo; while the loungers gesticulated and made grimaces that would have frightened any animal but a Span- ish mule into mortal speed. This combined clamor and attack, this enforcement of mate- rial logic, finally resulted in the moving of the ponderous coach, which, as it groaned over the uneven highway, resembled a Dutch lugger on wheels. It did not seem that the crazy old vehicle could reach the end of the journey be- fore its absolute dissolution; and I was as much surprised as any well-regulated mind al- lows itself to be in Spain, when I learned that, at the close of the day, it had accomplished twenty-five or thirty miles. The hours were not misspent. I found en- tertainruent in listening to the calling out of the driver to his obdurate beasts. They had sonorous and many-syllabled names, like Balca- tilla, Robidetto, Arthemayor, and Chippimenta, and the last syllable was dwelt upon with a species of operatic quaver that would have elic- ited applause at the Theatre Real of Madrid. The truest and purest representatives of Spain I found, of course, in New and Old Cas- tile. Though the largest provinces in the coun- try, embracing a third of its entirety, and con- taining some of the most ancient and national cities, they have, with a good deal of fine scen- ery, much of the dreariest and sterilest in the kingdom. The mountainous regions include numerous landscapes which render the plains and table-lands (parameras and tierras di campo), without trees, hedges, inclosures, or landmarks, oppressively sad and monotonous. Those plains, like the Siberian steppes, give rest neither to the eye nor to the mind. Dryness is their per- vading feature; and during the summer the soil is parched and scorched by the sun. Jn the Castiles, every object, animate and inani- mate, is literally burned umber. The land, the huts which make up the scattered hamlets, the peasants, the mules, the stews even, and the scant verd ure, are all browna color I ought to approve of for personal reasons, but which in excess may be objectionable artistically. When I first traveled through those spacious provinces, the apparent desolation, the mud - hovels or mud-huts, made of: sun-dried bricks (adobes), the hard-featured, unwashed peasantry toiling in the dusty fields, so oppressed me that I re- peated Che seccatura! again and again as mile after mile of the tawny and barren soil stretch- ed and winked under the blazing sun. The poverty and destitution reminded me of the worst parts of southern Ireland, though in Ulster the land smiles with greenness, and the people are merry in the midst of misfortune. The Castilian peasants seem indolent as they lean upon their spades to watch the passing train or rumbling dihigencia or the perspiring pedestri- analways an object of wonder, for no Span- iard can comprehend how any one should walk if he can help it; but they resume their labor when curiosity is satisfied, and work hard and faithfully and long. They are the least attract- ive to the stranger of all the provincialists in Spain; but they have good and sterling quali- ties, and are probably superior to any of the rest in integrity and character. They improve upon acquaintance; are patient, loyal, hospi- table, and cheerful, with strong domestic tastes, and a keen sense of humor. It is a striking instance of compensation that the people who are compelled to live in such a dreary region, and doomed to endless toil, are entirely contented, and would not exchange their squalid huts for the costliest abodes of Granada and Seville. It is their comfort and their pride that they are Castilians, which means that they have few equals and no superiors. They know nothing of other countries than Spain, and have no desires beyond it. They are in the world, but not of it. Their sphere is bounded by the few acres they cultivate, and their sytapathies confined to the tnembers of their family and their immediate neighbors. Their thoughts rise no higher than their awk- ward head-covering (raoat era), and their cloaks (capes) and over- coats (aageariaas) are the boundaries of their wishes. They have no glass in the rude apertures called windows; they live on chick peas (doers); they bake in the sum- mer and freeze in the winter; they hardly have water enough to drink in the dry season, and would never think of wasting it in washing. But as they are natives of Castile, where, by- the-by, the soap of that name is never seen, 12 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. they are riot unreasonable enough to expect Yes, if i conld have them here. such inferior and vulgar blessings as ease and You wouldnt want to change your resi- abundance. dence, then, for a better condition ? Seeing a stont and manly fellow laboring by How conld we be in better condition if we the road-side one day I lifted my hat, knowing qnitted Castile ? the sensitive dignity of the people, and bade I saw the lusty peasant conid not imagine any him good-morning. He retnrned my saluta- good to exist out of his province, and begging tion, and stopped his work for politeness sake. him to accept a cigar, I rode on, and thanked You have a bard life, I said. Fortune that she had not cast my lot in that We keep onrselves bosy; but we live, aad arid waste. are satisfied. There is a native dignity about the Castilians And vet you have so little. You toil all that is very remarkable. Albeit narrow, igno- day for coarse food and common lodging. rant, and extremely poor, they believe them- Bnt we live in Castile. selves favored of fate. Their manners are often Is that compensation for perpetual labor ? better than those of the prosperous citizens of Oh yes; it is an honor to he born here, and Madrid. They do not beg, nor borrow, nor a glory to till this ancient soil. make pretense, and so far they are gentlemen; Arent von discontented sometimes ? and being gentlemen, they are right in fancying Rarely; but when we are we pray to the themselves without superiors. Virgin, and remember it is vouchsafed to few Burgos is one of the first cities of interest I to be Castilians. visited in Spain. I enjoyed its dullness and de- Couldnt you do better elsewhere than cay after the newness and gayety of Paris, and here ? admired the Gothic cathedral and its spires of Where should we go; are we not already delicate open stone-work. They seemed so fra- in Castile? There is no other place for a true gile that they might be blown away by the wind, Spaniard. which sweeps over the city as if it were bent on Wouldnt you like to have a fine olla, and undoing the pious enterprise of Ferdinand el rich ~vine, and long siestas every day ? santo. Burgos teems with the dubious history FOeNTAIN OF CYI3ELE ON THE raAuo. JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYINGS IN SPAIN. 13 of Rodrigo ItuyDiaz, the redoubtable Cid whose marvelous deeds, as recorded, the Spaniards have fed their national vanity upon for genera- tions. I was shown the castle in which the doughty champion was married, and the City Hall (Uasa del Ayuntiameato) where his hones are preserved with the headless skeleton of his faithful spouse, Ximena. A most energetic gen- ilernan Rodrigo must have heen, not only in life, hut after it, as is proved hy the storysolemnly l)elieved therethat his corpse, in complete armor, mounted on Bahieca, knocked down a Jew at Carde~a, who had the temerity to pluck the hero by the heard. Mrs. Cid, no douht a domestic and quiet-loving lady, fearful of such post-mortem pugnacity, proceeded straightway to put her liege lord underground; and so he was carried to Burgos, where he has, so far as known, behaved himself as a dead gentlemaii ought to. Valladolid, the old capital, seemed a good place to visit, from the satisfaction I experi- enced in quitting it as soon as I had seen its unsightly and unfinished cathedral, its dreary streets, and its ruined buildings. Once, in Madrid, I asked, what almost every body else asks: Why was the capital placed here? Philip II is responsible for the blunder; and the only reason he ever gave was, that Madrid is the geographical ceiitre of Spain. I A STREET PEDDLER. 14 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. have always fancied he was actuated by the ion; but it wouldnt be half as sensible as the malignity that so permeated his nature. He vernacular over the wicket, Youre not good- must have been gratified by reflecting how very looking, and you cant come in. uncomfortable his survivors would be in the I cant commend the hotels of the capital sombre city, whose climate is descrihed as nine on the whole, I think the boarding-houses (casas months Greenland and three mouths Tophet., de huespedes) are superiorbut it is a very fair Madrid is to me the least agreeable capital place for thirsty souls, and none in the wide in Europe, and, with the exception of St. Pe- world is thirstier than your Castilian. The com- tershurg, the dearest. It is the Washington mon remark that they dont drink water on the of the Continent, which no one visits a second Continent does not apply to the Spaniards, the time unless called there by business or detained dryness of the climate producing a like effect l)y destiny. The Spaniards are proud of Mad- upon the inhabitants. I found one of the few rid because it is in Spain, and have told me good things in Madrid to be water, particularly with great unction that it is nearly two thou that from the spring outside of the Puerta sand years older than Rome. I am confident Segovia; although the city is not lacking in it was never heard of until the tenth century; other palatable liquids. The Guadarama snows but still I should think it might have been supply the place of ice, and the half-and-half built before any other city, as a warning not to (ia4j e mit]), made of barley and pounded c1~o- have another like it. It was rejected in turn chos, the clarified verjuice (agraz) mixed with by Iberian, Roman, Goth, and Moor, and might Manzanilla wine, and the beer combined with have been to-day an insignificant town but for lemoii juice (cerbeza con limoa), I thought very the gout and phlegm of Charles V., who was refreshing, and found my opinion momentarily benefited by its rarefied air. I have always confirmed by the natives. In all the public ascribed to the location of the capital at Mad- squares, promenades, cafes, restaurants, and rid, instead of Lisbon, the decline of the coun- theatres, drinks may be had at any moment. try, since it led to the revolt of Portugal and Wherever I walked or lounged men and boys many subsequent ills. Various were the efforts Were going about with matches for lighting to remove the capital from the windy basin on cigars and cigarettes, and with vessels contain- the Mauzanares; but it could not be done. Na- ing water, lemonade, wine, and mixed potables. tions, like individuals, are unable to resist their The Spaniards smoke so constantly that they fate. I should send my friends to Paris and keep thirsty from morning to night, and really my foes to Madrid, where nothing but a vig- pass their days in ~lternations between fire and orous constitution prevents men from being water, or soniething stronger. Emulsions are blown into the nearest cemetery. The deli- great favorites with them in sickness as well as C10115 but pernicious breeze of the Roman Cam- health. The leclie de A Imeadras, a sovereign pagna is nothing to the air of the ancient Ma- remedy for various ills, is almost exactly the joritum, which, as is truly said, will not put out ajieybaXm1 iap,Ialcov ayaOov of Athenteus, and is a candle, but will extinguish life. Many stran- believed to be excellent from its age, which al- gers, broiling in the sun of the Plaza, have ways begets reverence in Spain. been delighted with the coolness the Guada- Beyond certain buildings and certain quar- rama sends them, until they discovered the un- ters, I was hardly repaid as a sight-seer for my dertakers were watching them with professional exertions in the capital. Few of the streets are interest, handsome or impressive, and nearly all of them In my opinion there are but four months, have the gloominess and unchangeable aspect April and May, October and November, favor- that spring from the superabundant bile of the able to a visit, though the Carnival time is the nation. The Puerta del Sol (it is called the gayest, if not the most agreeable season. Gate of the Sun because it was once the east- The Madrilenians, like the Parisians, live in em gate, on which the rising sun shone) is now flats, and have staircases in common; but the a public square in the middle of the city, whence doors to their apartments are thick and strong, the principal thoroughfares radiate. The Pu and provided with wickets through which the ertaMurat perpetrated the butchery of 1808 servant or occupant surveys you before admis- therewas formerly the resort of idlers, gos- sion. I obtained an idea from such precan- sips, and news-mongers, and furnishcd opporto- tions that they consider themselves in a state nity for studying costumes. But modern prog- oY social siege, which is not very far from the ress has brought changes in dress and habits, truth; for every paterfamilias seems imbued and substituted for the place-hunter and adven- with the idea that the external world is only turer the cicerone and mendicant. The former waiting for an opportunity to carry off his wife is not so desirous to be employed as he is in and children, and that it behooves him, there- other countries; but the latter is among the fore, to be perpetually on his guard. Some of most importunate of his tribe. the interiors are desolate enough, and coming I have often heard that Spanish beggars are out of one in the Gaile de Toledo with an Amer- so sensitive that if alms are once refused they ican one day, after being fearfully bored, I sug- will not ask again. I should have been glad to gested placing Dantes familiar Lasciate, etc., find them so. But 1 have had a very different above the door. That would be classical, said my compan- experience. Denial seems to sharpen their en-- ergy; and the only phrase reputed to have an JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYJNGS IN SPAIN. 15 (7 ~K 4 16 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. exorcising power, Will you excuse me, my I brother, for Gods sake ? (Perdone usted por Dios, Herinano?), has had no more effect upon them than would appeals to justice upon New York hackmen. I once thought that the cheer- ful habit our imported beggars have of showing their ulcers and their wounds was born of our inventive atmosl)here. But I have found it is a fashion borrowed from the Peninsula, as all who visit Spain will find likewise. The Puerta, the plazas generally, the Prado, and the Callzs de Alcal~, swarm with the blind, the crippled, and the unfortunates of every sort. He or she who has a hideous scar or sore is sure to display it, knowing, if your heart does not respond to the appeal for charity, that your sensibility will so revolt as to seek protection through the purse. Of course nearly every mendicant is profession- al, and many are impostors, though poverty is so common and employment so scarce in Castile that three-quarters of the Madrilenians might be pardoned for soliciting alms. Such ghastly spectacles of marring and maiming are unus- ual, even in Southern Europe; albeit I suspect not a few of them are artificially produced. I have seen miracles wrought in the secular walks of life that are almost as remarkahle as, though far less numerous than, those recorded by the SPANISH BEGGARS. JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYJNGS IN SPAIN. 17 Church. Sightless wretches who besieged me quartos are charged for their usesit the na- with prayers ia the morning I have discovered tives in the early morning. Spain rises betimes, scanning their reals with a critical eye in the and supplements sleep by the siesta, and partic- afternoon; and one-armed and legless fellows ularly in the afternoon and evening, smoking, sunning themselves in the Prado, would, under reading newspapers, chattin~, and flirting in the my mortal vision, be restored to soundness in grave manner that befits the Castilian. I cant the Buen Retiro Gardens. admire the Prado; it is a hot and dusty place The Plaza Mayor, where executions, autos da when it is not chilly and uncomfortable; but it fd, and royal bull-fights once took place, is a is entertaining to open your mental note-book large square, interesting now from what it has there, and jot down the peculiarities of surround- been. The buildings fronting the Plaza were ing men and women who carry on the soft war leased formerly with the understanding that the that has been waged so perpetually since the balconies and front windows should be given up distinctions of physiology were first i-ecognized. to the nobility when spectacles were presented. The eight fountains of the Prado are handsome, The quarter has been much injured by fires, especially those of Neptune, Apollo, and Cyb- which the priests at one time attempted to ex- ele; and their falling waters are most grateful tiuguish by displaying the Host, but with music when heard under the burning sun. such slender effect as to excite the suspicion The Buen Retiro and Botanical Gardens are that fire is an heretical element, neglected, and have fallen into decay; but the The Prado, the grand boulevard of the capi- Campos Eliseos are well laid out, and much fre- tal, two miles and a half long, is to Madrid quented by both sexes fond of music, dancing, what the Champs Elys~es are to Paris. It was feasting, and fire-works. a meadow once, as the name indicates; but it is The reputation of the Royal Palace drew me now entirely innocent of grass or verdure of any to it. Like most things material and mental, kind, except that supplied by the long lines of it appears better at a distance than upon near trees. Under them, on the iron chairstwo approach. It is a vast building of white stone, roUaJ2AIJ~ UV LTh ifJ,~~iAtJ, Voa. XLI.No, 2412 18 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. one hundred feet high and four hundred and seventy feet each way, marred hy its square port- holes and its ungraceful chimney-pots. The statues that adorn it are poorly executed, and their disproportion often offends. The different saloons are richly frescoed, ornamented with marbles, heavily gilded; hut fine taste is not ohserved where money has been lavished most. The windows overlook the river Mauzanares, sometimes so dry in summer that the hed is act- ually sprinkled to lay the dust; hut the view over the slopes, though they are leveled and ter- raced, is without the beauty and variety the Moors would have givenit, had they had an op- portunity to introduce their attractive if fantas- tic arts. In the Royal Armory I saw as large a col- lection as there is in Europethe armor and arms of all the actual and fabulous heroes and kings of Spain, including the Ferdinands, Phil- ips, Charleses, the Cid, Pelayo, Bernardo del Capio, and almost every warrior of fame in ancient or modern times. Httnnibals, Augus- tus s, and Julius C~sars helmets are preserved; hut their authenticity I questioned, because they betray evidence of having heen made centuries after those disturbers of the public peace had knocked at the door of Olympus and been admitted by Jupiter himself. A singular institution for Madrid is the Mag- dalen Asylum, where I spent several hours. No woman is admitted unless indubitable evidence of her incontinence be given; and those admit- ted are never released, except to marry or be- come nuns. Connected with the asylum is a house of restraint, where women, wedded and single, are sent by their relatives and hus- hands who consider them too susceptible for security. There are no such houses as these outside of the Peninsula; hut persons nublest with faith think they might be extended to other countries with advantage. It may be an argument, however, against the benefit of the establishments, that women placed there are said to he so indignant at the suspicion attaching to them that, when released, they endeavor to earn the meed of their accusation. Husbands who have occasion to be absent from home for any length of time not unfrequently put their wives under the protection of Las Be- cajidas, and take them out when they return. This custom is obsolescent, like the employ- ment of bolts, bars, and duennas. Even the Spaniards have begun to perceive that femi TaE 1~OYAL AIiMORY. JOTTINGS AND JOURNEYINGS IN SPAIN. 19 nine honor must be guarded by moral, not material agencies, and that vulgar compulsion augments the tendency to sin by adding anger to temptation. Before I ever set foot in Spain I knew what a gloomy and unsatisfactory pile the Escorial is. But being there it became my duty as a traveler to visit the monastic palace, lest those who had been before me should say, when I returned: Not see the Escorial? Alas, my friend, you crossed the Pyrenees in vain! Twenty miles from the capital by rail, the desolate character of the country through which I passed was a proper prelude for the inspection of the great granite tomb which a bigoted and cruel monarch reared to his own vanity and superstition. When I saw the sombre edifice frowning in the distance above the savage out- line of the Guadarama, I thoughtHow fitting it is to be the home and grave of Philip II.! The eighth wonder of the world, as it is called, seems like a huge family vault, and casts cold shad- ows even amidst the fierce sun-glare of Castile. Philips ostensible object in its erection was, as we know, to execute the will of his father in constructing a royal burial-place, and also to fulfill a ~ow made to San Loreuzo at St. Quen- tin when the tide of battle had set against him. Loreuzo, according to theologic accounts, was broiled by Valentianus over a slow fire, and to this circumstance we owe the Escorials grid- iron shape, in commemoration of the manner of the saintly martyrdom. My knowledge of history freshened as I wandered through the vast courts. I thought how the saturnine Phil- ip went there after the battle of St. Quentin, for which, by-the-by, he was indebted toPhili- bert of Savoy, and lived fourteen years, the cowl over his crown, dying on the very day, the palace was finished, in such remorse and agony as no one who has read the pages of Sigucuza can fail to remember. When I recall the love Philip had for the Escorial, I can understand how gloomy must have been his temperament without looking into the library for the Titian portrait with its stony eyes and deathlike cold- ness of face. He loved the sacerdotal structure because he built it, because its dismalness sym- pathized with his, because he could boast that from its solitude he could, with a bit of paper, rule the world. A rectangular parallelogram, seven hundred feet long, and five hundred and sixty-four feet broad, composed of gray gran- ite, with blue slates and leaden roofs, it reminds me, in spite of its size, simplicity, and situation, of a modern-day barracks or manufactory of gigantic proportions. Two thousand seven hun- dred feet s~bove the sea-level, it is part of the mountain on which it stands, and seeas a bul- wark against the storms and snows of the Sier- ias, a species of Hospice of St. Bernard on a colossal scale. The architecture is mixed, but the Done style prevails. The various courts represent the interstices of the gridiron, the royal residence the handle, and the four towers at each corner the legs of the implement re versed. The custodians are very voluble as to particulars. They told me it has eleven thou- sand windows (is the number so large because they are so small and out of proportion ?), covers four hundred thousand square feet, has twelve cloisters, sixteen courts, eighty staircases, sixty-five fountains, and three thonsand five hun- dred feet of painting in fresco. Until within the last twenty-fl ye years it was allowed to decay. Since then it has been partially repaired, though it bears numerous weather-beaten traces on ev- ery side. The palace and convent are now used for educational purposes, about three hundred stu- dents being instructed there for priestly and profane pursuits. The small chamber near the oratory is pointed out as the place where the crowned zealot breathed his last, and not far from the high altar the museum of supersti- tion in which he collected thousands of relics of. saints and martyrs. Never was there a greater bigot than Philip. In what he con- ceived to be sacred anatomy he was without an equal, as may be seen from the relicario. The presentation of a so-called martyrs toe or a saints tooth gave him more pleasure than a victory; for he believed that either of those would go far toward the purchase of absolution for his blood-stained soul. After La Houssaye pillaged the Escorial he mixed up the relics in a manner that would have driven Philip to dis- traction if he had been alive; for since then it has been quite impossible to determine to whom the confused fragments of anatomy belong. I remember leaning in the relicario against what I supposed to be a fragment of stone; but dis- covered, from the horror I exciled in the custo- dian, who crossed himself and uttered a confu- sion of prayers and invocations, that I had done something terrible. He explained to me that what I had taken for a stone was the thigh-bone of Saint Dominic or the thorax of Saint Igna- tiusI am very deficient in knowledge of hagi- ographyand that it was one of the most cher- ished relics of Philip, as he phrased it, of blessed memory. He appeared to be as much shocked as astounded when I failed to be impressed with the enormity of my offense, muttered something about the total depravity of heretics, and per- haps secretly sighed for the restoration of the Inquisition. Before I descended to the Pantheon the royal tombI lighted a torch that was handed me, and with difficulty moved over the slippery marble steps. The great family vault is under the high altar, so that the priest who elevates the Host in the church may confer the benefit of the sacred act upon the dead below. Philip II., who really had taste in architecture, made the vault plain; but his son and grandson, on assuming the crown, rendered it tawdry with gilding and variegated marbles, and destroyed the impressive effect it originally had. The Pantheon is an octagon, about forty feet in diameter and about the same height, of dark marble and gilt bronze. On the eight sides 20 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. are twenty-six black marble sarcophagi, exact- ly alike, perhaps to sbow the equality of death and the peership of sovereigns. On tbe right are the monarchs of the past, and on the left are their consortsetiquette snrvives the grave in Spainwith the names of the deceased on each sarcophagus. Vacant niches yawn ex- pectant for the future kings and qneens, whose line was seriously interrupted by the revolution. The urn Isabella would have occupied was shown to me. If she had sought to assert her right it would now he filled, I opine; and it is quite pos- sible she would prefer qniet burial some years hence in Montmartre or P~re In Chaise to the earlier honors of sepulture there. At the first hreak (descanso) in the staircase I was conducted into another burial-place, where more members of the royal familyIsabella of Valois, Don Juan of Austria, and Don Carlos among themsleep their dreamless sleep. Ev- ery body who has read Schillers tragedy sym- pathizes with the unfortunate son of Philip, and is inclined to believe the poetic is the historic account. But all the educated persons in Mad- rid with whom I conversed on the subject de- clare that the princes hatred of his father, who ordered his arrest in l~6S, arose from fits of temper, caused by a fall from his horse six years before, which impaired both his mind and body. They referred me to Raumur for proof that he never loved his step-mother, and that both he and she died natural deaths. In the cloisters and court-yardsunpleasant and the walls badly paintedI saw nothing to detain me, and I was glad to hurry to the han- dle of the gridiron (el nzaago de la parrilla), which is, as I have said, the royal residence. The rooms of state are poorly furnished, and so uninviting that I do not wonder the mon- archs, after spending a few weeks there, hast- ened to the fair but artificial gardens of San Idlefonso. The kings, queens, and courtiers were always accessible to the monks, and prac- ticed outward austerities, while their private lives were licentious and shameless. They were theologic epicures, sinning for the pleasure of confessing, and breaking the Commandments for the honor of absolution. The rooms Don Carlos occupied awoke new pity for blin; but the indignation I felt against his father was softened when I stood in the humble apartment where Philip was carried, in his mental and physical agony, that be might gaze upon the altar he bad dishonored, and profane with bigot lips the crucifix Charles V. had kissed with ex- piring breath. With all the shadows and suggestions of the Escorial around me, I thought, This is indeed like Spain. So proud in feeling, so poor in performance; so fearful of innovations, so over- borne by the ancient; she stands among nations as this monkish palace, in the midst of sun-glare and desolation, a dark metnory of the past and an awful warning for the future. THE PANTHEON IN THE ESOOHIAT. THE MYSTERIES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. 21 THE. MYSTERIES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. nor the least trace of any mist or haze in any art of the sky. And yet the atmosphere at such a time as this is perhaps more than usually loaded with I water! One indication of the fact that the atmos- phere is at such a time more than usually load- ed with water is, .that the ground is more th~ n usually dry. A very large part of the moisture which the soil ordinarily contains has been con- stantly ascendingduring the warm days, or weeks perhaps, that have passedinto the air. The same process has also been going on from all the snrfaces of water. The ponds and riv- ers and brooks are all low. A large portion of their natural and ordinary supply of water has been olatilized by the warmth of the sun, and now floats in the air in the form of an invisible vapor. And yet, though the atmosphere contains an unusually large supply of watery particles at such a time, we call it dry. And we do right to call it so, though perhaps, strictly speaking, it would be more proper to call it d ~iing. The dampness or dryness of an atmosphere, in its effects upon animal or vegetable substances ex- posed to it, does not depend upon the absolute quantity of water which it holds in solution so much as upon its disposition to give up what it has, or, on the other hand, to retain it and sorb more. If the atmosp ere has but little water in suspension in it, but is in a condition to deliver up and deposit what it has upon an object exposed to it, we call it a wet atmosphere. The day when such a state of things exists we call a wet day, though perhaps it would he more strictly accurate to say a wetting day. At any rate, that is what we mean. ribbon, which, like other such fabrics, in its ordinary state of exposure to atmospheric I influences, is never wholly free from wateror, in other words, which is never perfectig dry,* and can not be made so without great difficulty, and only by a very nice and careful chemical processwaved in such an atmosphere, imbibes more water than it had before, and perhaps re- ceives enough to make it feel sensibly damp to the touch. On the other hand, if the atmosphere has a great quantity of water in suspension, but still is in such a condition that,instead of being in- clined to surrender what it has, it thirsts, so to speak, for more, then we call it a dry atmos- l)here; not meaniug,~ however, strictly speak- ing, that it is dry in itself but drying in its effects upon bodies exposed to it. TilE ELECTRIC SPARK. ~ That is to say, it is never perfectly dry, if we mean by that perfeetlyfreefrom water. In common parlance we call any substance dry when it contains so little O N a summers morning, when the barometer water that it does not communicate what it has to has been high and the sun has been warm any other substance brought into contact with it. It for several successive days, we sometimes find, is perfectly proper to use the word in this sense, ro- vided we understand that it does not denote absolute at ten oclock, that not a cloud is to be seen, destitutiea ef water.

THE MYSTERIES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. 21 THE. MYSTERIES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. nor the least trace of any mist or haze in any art of the sky. And yet the atmosphere at such a time as this is perhaps more than usually loaded with I water! One indication of the fact that the atmos- phere is at such a time more than usually load- ed with water is, .that the ground is more th~ n usually dry. A very large part of the moisture which the soil ordinarily contains has been con- stantly ascendingduring the warm days, or weeks perhaps, that have passedinto the air. The same process has also been going on from all the snrfaces of water. The ponds and riv- ers and brooks are all low. A large portion of their natural and ordinary supply of water has been olatilized by the warmth of the sun, and now floats in the air in the form of an invisible vapor. And yet, though the atmosphere contains an unusually large supply of watery particles at such a time, we call it dry. And we do right to call it so, though perhaps, strictly speaking, it would be more proper to call it d ~iing. The dampness or dryness of an atmosphere, in its effects upon animal or vegetable substances ex- posed to it, does not depend upon the absolute quantity of water which it holds in solution so much as upon its disposition to give up what it has, or, on the other hand, to retain it and sorb more. If the atmosp ere has but little water in suspension in it, but is in a condition to deliver up and deposit what it has upon an object exposed to it, we call it a wet atmosphere. The day when such a state of things exists we call a wet day, though perhaps it would he more strictly accurate to say a wetting day. At any rate, that is what we mean. ribbon, which, like other such fabrics, in its ordinary state of exposure to atmospheric I influences, is never wholly free from wateror, in other words, which is never perfectig dry,* and can not be made so without great difficulty, and only by a very nice and careful chemical processwaved in such an atmosphere, imbibes more water than it had before, and perhaps re- ceives enough to make it feel sensibly damp to the touch. On the other hand, if the atmosphere has a great quantity of water in suspension, but still is in such a condition that,instead of being in- clined to surrender what it has, it thirsts, so to speak, for more, then we call it a dry atmos- l)here; not meaniug,~ however, strictly speak- ing, that it is dry in itself but drying in its effects upon bodies exposed to it. TilE ELECTRIC SPARK. ~ That is to say, it is never perfectly dry, if we mean by that perfeetlyfreefrom water. In common parlance we call any substance dry when it contains so little O N a summers morning, when the barometer water that it does not communicate what it has to has been high and the sun has been warm any other substance brought into contact with it. It for several successive days, we sometimes find, is perfectly proper to use the word in this sense, ro- vided we understand that it does not denote absolute at ten oclock, that not a cloud is to be seen, destitutiea ef water. 22 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. A ribbon waved in such an atmosphere as this will be found, by the application of nice tests, to have less moisture in its texture than before. The air, though heavily charged with aqueous vapor, is still unsatisfied, and demands more. To supply this want it takes up water wherever it can find it, and thus dries, or tends to dry, all moist bodies. We accordingly call it a dry, meaning a drying, atmosphere. An instrument contrived to indicate the de- gree of moisture contained in the atmosphere is cnlled an hygrometer. There are different instruments of this character, which act on very different principles. Perhaps the most simple are those in which a slender cord, or even a single filament of some animal or veg- etable substance, is employed to denote, by its contractions and elongations, the degree of moisture which acts npon it. The hygrome- ter of Saussure (Fig. 1) shows this instrument in its most simple form. Tbe filament, con- sisting usually of a hair properly prepared, being fixed at one end, and passing round a pulley at the other, moves the index as it shrinks or expands, according to the hygro- metrical condition of the atmosphere around it. Fig. 2 is an instrument acting on the same principle, but in an improved form. The fila- ment is lengthened by means of the pulleys, so as to make the movements of the needle more sensible; and the whole is so arranged as to be put into a case of the form of a watch, to be carried in the pocket. The spiral spring seen below acts to hold the needle at the point indi- cated by keeping the filament at all times in a state of gentle tension. A hygrometrical instrument often takes the form of a toy, as in Fig. 3, where the cowl of the monk serves as the index, by being drawn up over his head or allowed to fall back, ac- cording to the state of the atmosphere, as in- dicated by the expansions and contractions of a hygrometrical fila- ment concealed in the figure. Such toys are made in a great variety of forms, al- though it is almost always the figure of a monk that appears in them. The monk is chosen, it is to be pre- sumed, not out of any disrespect to his holy vocation, but simply on account of the conven- ience of his peculiar head-dress for the move- ment necessary. Perhaps, however, there are some forms of a ladys hood which might an- siver equally well. But to return to the weather. On such a summers day as that to which we were referring, the capacity of the air for absorbing aqueous vapor is very high. The chief condition of this high capacity is warmth warm air having the power of taking up wa- ter much more rapidly, and holding a much larger quantity in solution or suspension, than cold. In consequence of this increased capac- ity, water has been rising into it in vast quan- titiesfrom the ground, from the surfaces of ponds and streams, and from every other source of supply. Still it is not satisfied; or, to speak without a metaphor, it is not saturated. It de- mands more. If there should he a mist or a cloud any where in the sky, it dissolves it at once. It drinks it, as it were, to quench its thirst. So, too, if water is sprinkled upon the ground at such a time, or upon a board, or upon a rock, the atmosphere drinks it with great avidity. Loaded though it be already with moisture,it still thirsts for more, and eagerly seizes upon all that comes within its reach. This state of things continues usually, on such a day as we have supposed, and in such a climate as that of the United States, until about noon, and then a phenomenon takes place which is of a most mysterious and indeed inexplicable character, and one which, were we not so famil- iar with it, would excite our wonder and as- tonishment in the highest degreenamely, the formation, usually in the western sky, of large, rounded, and perfeetlywell defined clouds. The wonder is twofold. First, why the clouds should be formed at all; and secondly, why they should be marked by such distinct, sharp, and well-defined boundaries. Fig. 2.uveaoMsTsa OF MONMER. Fig. 3.TILE MONK. Fig. 1.uYeRoMETSR OF SAUSSURE. THE MYSTERIES oF A THUNDER-ShOWER. 23 First, why should such clouds be form- ed at all? We can easily imagine that the atmosphere might, after taking up great quantities of moisture in a warm day, or in a succession of warm days, un- dergo some gradual change, such as be- coming more cold, or more dense, or more rare, or in other respects different in con- dition from what it was before, and so he inclined to give up its water. But we should have expected that this change would he gradualthat we should see at first only a faint general haze, which would slowly increase as the change in ciani. the condition of the air producing it went on. Such a general change in the condition causes them to fall to the earth, they become of the atmosphere, and such a wide-spread rain. The nature of the globules, however, is tendency to precipitate moisture, does actually the same in both cases, and the manner in take place sometimes, prodncin~ the appear- which they are formed is the same. ances which we observe when we say there is a Thus the air, which during the whole of the storm gathering, forenoon of a hot summers day seems to have We can also understand how, when the air an insatiable thirst for water, so as to drink up near the earth has been warmed by the sun, and hold in an invisible form all that it can oh- and has become loaded with moisture, as in the tam, suddenly, at or about noon, changes its case we have supposed, there might be a cold condition within certain well-defined limits, stratum above, which, by some change in the and begins to release its hold upon it. The currents of the upper air, might be caused to particles then becoming liquid water once more, Iass over it and to d~p iato it, as it were, and join together, and, by their mutual attraction, chill a portion of the warm air along the line, arrange themselves into globules, which float in or rather ser/hce, of junction, and so cause it to the air, forming mists or clouds, until they he- deposit its moisture. This would produce thin come large enough to descend to the earth as strata of smooth, or sometimes more or less rain. feathery, clouds, known to the meteorologists as What can be the reason of this change? If strati and cirri, such as we often see in a sum- it took place at night, after the sun had gone mers day spread over the whole expanse of down, we should not have been surprised. We the sky. should have inferred that the withdrawal of the But what the influence or agency can he to beams of the sun, by cooling the air, din. Ished cause the atmosphere to change its condition so its capacity for water, and caused it to surren- suddenly in the middle of the day, at the time der a part of its charge. But why should such when the rays of the sun are most powerful, so a condensation take place during the day? And that, from manifesting an abundant capacity for in the middle of the (lay, too, just as the beams taking up and holding perfectly in solution all of the sun have become most intense, and their the water within its reach, it suddenly begins influence on the atmosphere, and on the capac- to give it up with the utmost rapidity and pro- ity of the atmosphere for water, are most pow- fumseness, is one branch of the mystery which erful? the phenomena of a thunder-shower involve. But, secondly, suppose a catise to he discov- A cloud is nothing else than an assemblage ered why thus, in the middle of a hot day, and of small globnles or vesicles of water. When under a meridian sun, the air should all at once the globules are very small, so that they float change its condition, and begin so rapidly to in the atmosphere, they form simply a cloud, surrender the water which a few hours before When they increase in size, so that their wei~ht it had evinced so great an eagerness to absorb, there remains another and a still greater mystery, namely, Why the tendency to condensation should manifest itself only in certain circumscribed spaces in the at- mosphere, within which the precipitation of the moisture should go on with such rapidity as to form a dense and opnqre mass, sometimes almost wholly impervious to the rays of the sun, while immediately without themthe boundary being dis- tinct, sharp, and exceedingly well defined the atmosphere should remain as cle r and pellucid as ever. If we look at the outline of one of these rounded summer sluAl. clouds, we shall see that nothing could be 24 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. more sharply defined. The condensation seems to take effect fully and in all its force quite up to the line. Beyond the line, and at the very instant that it is passed, the phenomenon ceases suddenly and entirely. There is here no con- densation at all. The air continues as clear and transpareut as ever. Indeed, the landscape painter finds no form in nature that he has to delineate with an out- line more sharp and clear than that of a sum- mer cloud of this character; and so well de- fined are the surfaces which bound the area of condensation that they will actually reflect sound, prodncing echoes and reverberations, like a precipice of rocks or a solid wall. These surfaces always assume rounded forms. Now, whenever in nature we find any phenom- enon develop rounded or spherical forms, there is usually indicated a cause or agency bearing some relation to a centre. It is attraction to- ward a centre, or radiation from a centre, or some other influence or action analogous to these. Thus, in the present case, it would seem that there were centres in the atmosphere, in which at such a time a tendency to condensa- tion is developed by some mysterious means, and that the condensation thus commenced spreads uniformly in all directions, pro- ceeding, however, in such a manner as to preserve a distinct and well-defined boundary between the space to which the condensation extends and that beyond. Sometimes this process goes on for a time, and then the action is reversed. The atmosphere seems to recover again its disposition to absorb instead of giving up moisture, and the cloud grows gradu- ally smaller, and finally fades away and disappears. In other cases the process proceeds with increasing energy. The surrendering of water by the air goes on with such rapidity that great drops are formed by millions, which descend to the earth in a shower so copious as sometimes to deluge the whole country over which the cloud is formed. And yet an hour, perhaps, be- fore that same air on that same day, and under that same sun, was almost as eager to take up from the earth that same water, or its equivalent, as it is now to throw it down. Whenever, in the study of nature, we encounter a phenom- enon which seems inexplicable, so that, after looking into it and around it with the closest scru- tiny that we can exercise, we can find no means of explaining it, we always experience a cer- tain relief in our perplexity if we can find some other difficulty which seems analogous to it. Next to finding the solution of a mystery, it would seem that we are most pleased with finding a duplicate of it. Two analogous difficulties are less perplexing to us than one standing alone, which fact, though it may seem paradoxical, is not at all surprising; for in finding the second example of the mys- tery we always imagine that we have taken an important step toward discovering the secret of the first. We have the advantage of this relief in the present case; for we find, when we watch the conditions under which water in freezingehanges from a liquid to a solid form, on the surface of a lake or river, or in a vessel upon the table, that a phenomenon presents itself which is strikingly similar to that which we have ob- served to take place in the air while it was changing from a gaseous to a liquid form. Observe what takes place upon the surface of a sheet of water when it commences to freeze. The air above it grows colder and colder until it gets below the freezing-point. It is equally cold at every portion of the surface of the wa- ter, and we might have expected that the water would begin to freeze at the same time and in the same manner at every part. But it is not CUHULI. 5TMATI AND CIRRI AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. THE MYSTERIES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. so. It begins to freeze at the edges or around the little leaves or sticks that may be floating on the surface, and from these points crystals shoot in various directions among the liquid particles, the sides and terminations of the crystals being limited by distinct and perfectly well defined lines separatiug the ice from the liquid water around it, just as the clouds had been cir- cumscribed by definite limits and bounds dividing them from the transparent air around them. Why does not the water begin to so- lidifv at once universally all over the sur- face of the lake, so as to produce a gen- eral thickening of the water, with minute par- ticles of ice, formed in every part like a cloudy precipitate in a chemical solution? The solid- ification never does take place in this general manner. There is a part where the water is frozen into a solid mass, and a part beyond where it remains entirely liquid. The former gradually spreads and extends over the latter; but during the process the line of demarka- tion between what is liquid and what is solid remains perfectly distinct and well defined, so much so that when at last the shooting crys- tals converging from the circumference toward the centre are ready to meet there, having so- lidified in their progress almost the whole sur- face of the sheet, the little space which still re- mains to be closed retains its water to the very last moment in the same condition of perfect fluidity as at first. Thus there seems a strong analogy between the manner in which liquid water becomes solid by freezing in a bowl, and that in which gaseous water becomes liquid by condensation in the summer sky, in this respectnamely, that in both cases the process goes on, not by a dif- fused and general action pervading the whole mass, but by a sort of radiation proceeding from centres, in the progress of which a distinct line of demarkation is kept up from the beginning to the end, between what is brought into the new condition, whether liquid or solid, and that which yet remains in the old. There is one striking difference between the visible results in the two cases, and that is that in the process of congelation from the liquid state the particles of water join each other in such a manner as to produce long pointed crys- tals, bounded by straight lines and sharp angles; whereas in condensation from the air they group themselves in masses which assume rounded forms, like the convolutions of smoke. But this difference depends, no doubt, on the fact that in the latter case the condensed masses being fluid themselves, and floating freely in a fluid atmosphere, are fiee to take any form which the various attractions and other forces to which they are exposed tend to impart to them; while in the former the particles are held by the solidity which is the special characteristic of their new state in the precise positions which they first assumed in the act of entering it. The philosophy of these processes is by no means yet fully understood; but it is well known that the singular effects connected with them are due, in a very considerable degree, to the action of a very mysterious and hidden cause which we call electricity. There is abundant and di- rect proof that the agency of electricity is con- cerned in the process of crystallization in all cases; and there is still more striking and im- pressive proof of itspresence, and of its exercis- ing a most energetic action, in the formation of summer clouds. The mode of action may, how- ever, be extremely different in the two cases. There certainly is a very great difference in the manner in which thjs mysterious agent mani- fests its presence and power to human observa- tion in the one and in the other. Electricity is the name we give to the un- known cause of certain very curious and re- markable effects which we see produced in na- ture. We know nothing whatever in relation to this cause, except the effects which it pro- duces. The imagination is continually strug- gling to look beyond these effects, and to forni some conception of a material substance which may exist, in fact, independently of them, and which, by its movements, or in some other way, may produce them. But this is vain. We know nothing, and can know nothing, but the effects. The effects properly grouped and classified form ~vhat we call the science of elec- tricity. But the effects themselves are all that, strictly speaking, can he the objects of our knowledge. It is necessary to understand thus where the limit lies in respect to the knowledge which we may hope to acquire of natural phenomena, in order that we may not be misled by the phrase- ology which, on account of the poverty of lan- guage, it is necessary for us to useor at least extremely convenient to usein describing the phenomena. We speak of electricity as mov- ing from place to placeof its strikingof its being diffused over a surface, or concentrated in a point. We designate it as a fluid. In- deed, it has been extensively believed to be really a fluidone of very great tenuity and elastic force. But whether the phenomena which we witness really result from the pres- ence and progressive motions of such a fluid, or from the vibrations or undulations propagated TuE muunus. 26 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. through other material media, or whether they are produced in some other mode wholly be- yond the experience of man, and, hy conse- quence, entirely incomprehensihie to him, is not known. All that we know is that there is a peculiar energy, universally diffused through nature, existing sometimes in a dormant state and sometimes in a condition of the most in- tense and energetic nction. For convenience of language we speak of it as a suhstauee, and represent it as moving from J)lace to place. But all that is to he understood hy this is that an energy exists, and is transmitted, without at all pretending to know precisely under what form or in what way. It is found that the condensation of water in the summer sky, such as we have descrihed, is always attended hy a great development of this unseen and mysterious energyhe it fluid, vi- a a bration, force, or whatever else we choose to call it. The more rapid the condensation the more copiously is the electricity developed. Which is the cause and which is the effect, it is impossihle to say; hut the two phenomena accompany each other in a very remarkable manner. This connection hetween the development of electricity and the condensation of aqueous va- por, which was for a long time known only to exist in the case of the thunder-cloud, has since heen found to he universal. The attention of scientific men was called strongly to this suh- ject hy an incident which occurred to an en- gineer in charge of a locomotive near Newcas- tle, in England, in 1840. This engineer hap- pened to pass one hand very near the cloud of vapor which was issuing from the escape-pipe of his engine, at the instant when the other was TIlE MYSTERIES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. 27 in contact with a metallic handle attached to some part of the ma- chinery. The comhination happen- ed to he such as to make his hody part of an electric circuit, and he experienced a sudden and quite pow- erful shock. This incident led to a more thor- ough study of the electrical phenom- ena connected with the condensation of water, and it was found that elec- tricity could he excited in any quan- tity hy this means. The engraving represents a machine or engine con- structed hy Armstrong for this pur- pose. It consists of a holler mount- ed upon insulating columns, pro- vided, as usual, with fire-hox, water- gauge, safety-valve, and smoke-pipe, and also furnished with an appara- tus hy which jets of the steam may he thrown upon a system of metallic points connected with an insulated conductor. The operation of such a machine as this is very powerful, though, for ohvious reasons, it is not a convenient one for practical use. In the case of the condensation of vapor in the atmosphere, so long as the cloud remains small, the pres- ence of the electricity does not man- ifest itself hy any outward sign; but when it hecomes large and very dense, and especially when it is rap- idly formed, the electric energy hecomes ex- cessive, and it produces two effects strikingly manifest to the sensesa hrilliant chain of forked and glittering light dazzling the eye, and a series of tremendous detonations and re- verherations overpowering the ear. The di- rection of the line of light is often toward the earth, and hy the very remarkahle effects which are produced at the termination of it we know that in some way or other a force of very extraordinary intensity has heen transmitted from the cloud to the ground. The discharges, as we term them, take place sometimes in very quick succession, showing that the electric energy is very abundantly de- veloped, and in such cases the condensation of water goes on in an equally extraordinary man- ner. This state of things continues for several hours. The two effects-namely, the develop- ment of electricity and the condensation of wa- tergo on together, the one keeping pace, to all appearance, exactly with the other. The electricity, as it is developed, discharges itself in glittering lines of light darting through the air. The water descends, hy its gravitation, to the earth in a deluging shower. I)nring all this time the cloud moves slowly on from west to east, increasing all the while in density and extent, until the heavens are hlack with it, and the earth for a region of many miles is thrown into (leep shadow. At length the energy of this douhle action, that of the development of electricity and the condensation and precipitation of water, seems to reach and pass its maximum, and then grad- ually to subside. The descent of the water becomes less copious. The dashes and detona- tions produced by the electricity become more rare. Finally they cease altogether. The rain-drops cease to fall. The air, from having been ~o ready to give up the moisture xvhich it had held in solution, resumes its former tend- ency to absorb it. Tbe remaining globules which continue floating in the cloud are dis- solved. The cloud itself is thus gradually dhninished, and finally disappears; and tbe portion of the atmosphere which it occupied, though perhaps that portion has in the interval been made to traverse a considerable extent of country, hecosnes as transparent and pellucid as hefore, while perhaps at a few miles dis- tance the same process is just commencing anew, from some new centreto go through rhe same course of (leveloping electricity, and condensing water in the most rapid and ener- getic manner within a certain circumscrihed and well-defined space, for a certain limited time; and then at length, after exhausting its energy, restoring every thing again to its pris- tine serenity and repose. The eye is subject to a singular illusion in watching the progress of the thunder-clouds which are formed in the ~vest in a summer s AaMsTaoaes MAcninE. 28 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. any great extent of country the State of New York, for in- stancethe people of Albany, of Utica, of Rochester, and of Buffalo all see them high in the air. The people of Al- bany, it is true, looking west, in the direction of Utica, see the clouds close to the hori- zon, and they might imagine that at Utica they were really lying near the ground. But the people of Utica see them high in the air. They, in their turn, looking still farther west, toward Rochester, see another group of clouds near the hori- zon, which they too, in turn, might 5U~~O5O to he in fact close to the ground. Thus it is along the whole line. Eac~. set of ohservers sees that their own clouds at high, and might easily imagine, under the in- fluence of an optical illusion, that those which lie at a dis- tance from them are low. Nor Is this ilh~sion confined to the case of clouds. The top of the mast of a ship two hundred feet ahove the water, seen at a certain disL nec from the observer, just P~OP5 above the horizon, and at a little greater distance it sinks helow it altogether. If it were a thousand feet high, it woi id only he necessary to remove it to a greater distance to hring it down as close to the horizon as before. If, now, there were a hail of fire placed upon the top of day. They seem to he formed low in the hon- such a mast, and then if in the night the ship zen, and to rise as they come on. Bitt this ap- were to advance rapidly from its distant posi- parent lowness of position and subsequent ris- tion toward the station of the observer, the hail ing is all an illusion, the clouds being actually would seem to rise in the sky, growing larger at the same height above the surface of the and largeralso as it approached, precisely like earth all the time. the electric clouds, while yet, in fact, it would This is shown to be trite by several consid- remain at the same distance above the surface erations. In the first place, if the apparent of the water all the time. rising of the clouds were a real rising, then The apparent rising of the cloud, therefore, they must have been formed near the ground and also a great portion of its apparent increase at the place from which the observer at any in size, are optical illusions. point sees them appear to rise; in which case In the same manner, a bird or flock of birds, the people living at that placewhich can only flying toward us at a great altitude, appear to be usually at a distance of eight or ten miles he a.t a comparatively low elevation when they from the station of the observerwould see first come into view, and to rise as they ap- them foriaisiq all around them, at or near the preachwhile really they are traversing the surface of the earth, as fogs sometimes form on country at the same level. low grounds in autumn mornings. Bitt this is The same principle applies to fixed as well never the case. The thunder-clouds produced as moving points in the sky, making those that on a sultry summer afternoon never, to any are near us appear high, and those that are observer, seem near the ground, except when more remote lower. This produces the arched they are at a distance from where he stands, appearance of the heavens, almost the whole Thus, when thunder-clouds are formed over of which is due to this optical illusion. EFFECTS or ~uz nisciiARez. THE MYSTERIES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. 29 We say almost the whole of it, for a level stratum, as of clouds for example, spread over the sky at a certain distance from the earth, would have a slight curvaturethat is, a curva- ture corresponding to that of the surface of the globe; but this curvature is too small to have any sensible effect in producing the appearance of a dome. The dome-like aspect which the sky presents is thus a grand optical illusion. The light and heat which are so strikingly manifested sometimes in electric discharges from the clouds are not properties, directly, of the electricity itseW but effects developed hy it in other substances. While the electricity remains quiescent in the cloud, the darkness and coldness of the cloud are not at all dimin- ished by its presence. It is only when it is transmitted throu~h the air, or through some other resistin~ medium, that light and heat ap- pear. They are not inherent in the electricity itself, hut are produced in some way by the disruption of the resisting substances through which it passes. Just as the flint and steel, cold in themselves, develop an intense heat by the friction produced when they are brought into collision. This truth, that the heat and light which ac- companies an electric discharge from the clouds are affections, not of the electrical energy it- self, but of other substances on which this en- ergy acts in passing through or over them, is abundantly confirmed by experiments which are made with electricity artificially excited. So long as a quantity of electricity remains in a quiescent state on the surface of a conductor or of a Leyden-jar, no matter how great the quantity may be, or how highly concentrated, it produces no warmth in the substance retain- ing it, nor does it cause it to emit any light. But when this same supply, thus accumulated, is made to pass through the air, it emits an in tonse light, and produces a degree of heat suf- ficient to fuse metals. The electricity of the cloud, then, after being gradually accumulated in connection with the process of condensation, at last transmits itself through the air, either to the earth or to some other cloud; and in so doing, either by the force of friction or disruption, or by some oth- er means to us unknown, produces an intense degree of light and heat. The light, especial- ly at night, illumines the whole heavens, and the heat infiames or fuses ahuost every thing that comes in its way. The track of the electricity through the air, in the case of a discharge from the clouds, is not usually straight; but its course, as it ap- pears to the eye, is a zigzag, with many sharp, angular turns, and sometimes irregularly radi- ating branches. The duration of the light is very short, even upon the retina of the eye, but it is very much shorter in reality; for the eye retains an impression of light for a sensible rind after the external light which produced it has disappeared. We see this in the well- known experiment of whirling a lighted stick in the air, which produces upon the eye the im- pression of a continued circle of fire, while the real light is only a point, and not any circle at all. It is made a circle on the retina by that organs retaining the impression which the point makes in any given part of the circuit, until the said point, in revolving, returns to that part again. The flash, then, in the case of an electrical discharge, is very much more nearly instanta- neous, in fact, than it appears to the eye. And, strange as it may seem, the actual duration of it has been measured. The result of this meas- urement shows that to say that the light emit- ted by the spark is gone in a second, or a half of a second, or a tenth of a second, is enormous- ly to exaggerate its duration. To say that it endures for the millionth part of a second is to multiply the actual length of the period a thou- sand times; that is to say, the light has been proved to be so exceedingly brief in its dura- tion, that there might be five hundred repeti- tions of it, with an equal interval of total dark- ness after every flash, in the nziiioatk part of a second! The first effect, undoubtedly, which will he produced on the minds of most readers in re- ceiving such a statement as this will he the conviction that all pretensions to having com- puted, and still more to having measured, such portions of duration as this must be futile, and the results wholly fanciful and imaginary. But the very nice calculations of mathematicians and philosopherscalculations which would at first view seens as extraordinary as thishave been abundantly verified in so many instances, as for example in the motions and disturbing forces of the heavenly bodies, as to entitle those who make them to claim from mankind at large some de- gree of confidence in the results which they an- nounce to us, in cases where we have not the opportunity to verify them. zazc~iuo RAMIFIcATIONS. 30 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. In this case, however, although fe~v persons have the means at hand of verifying the calcu- lation, the principle on which it is made can he rendered so far intelligible as to show that it is possible to measure accurately an endless series of periods of duration that are all, in respect to minuteness, infinitely beyond the cognizance of our senses; thus doing, in respect to time, what the microscope enables us to do in respect to extension. It would be somewhat difficult to describe fully the apparatus used, and the method of using it for accomplishing this result; but a general idea of the principle on vvhich it op- erates can be very easily communicated. Imagine, then, that the hands of a common clock are removed, and that the works within are connected with the face of the clock, so as to cause the face itself to revolve with a mod- erate rapidityfor example, at the rate of one revolution in each minute. Suppose, now, that a sheet of paper is pasted upon the glass of the clock-case, so as to hide the revolving dial or face entirely from view, excepting at one small round spot near the top, where a hole had been cut in the paper before it was put upon the glass. We will suppose that the hole is in such a position as that the character XII. should be seen through it when the dial is in its natural position. If, now, a person standing before the clock looks through the hole in the paper, and the clock face begins to revolve, moving backward, that is from right to left, he will see the numbers pass in succession, behind the opening, in the order I., II., III., and so on. If, now, the observer remains in his position, with his eyes open for one minute, he will see the whole series of the hours come into view. If he keeps his eyes open only for a quarter of a minute, he will see only a quarter of the se- ries. And so, convursely, it would be easy by this contrivance to ascertain how long he kept his eyes open in nny particular instance, from knowing how large a part of the series he saw. If he were to say, I opened my eyes just as the XII. was leaving the field of view, and shut them again just as the II. was coming into it, we might say, then you must have kept them open for one-sixth part of a minute; for the dial makes one revolution a minute, and it was one-sixth part of the circumference that you saw. It is obvious that the principle would be the same if the dial were to revolve once in a sec- ond; for then it would be for the sixth part of a second that the observers eyes would have been open, if he saw the spaces extending from XLI. to II. The princivle would be the same; but it would be impossible to operate at this speed with the human eye, on account of its not being quick enough in receiving and giv- ing up the light which strikes the retina, and in transmitting the impressions to the mind. It is plain, however, that if the eye were quick and sensitive enough, the method would be equally applicable to a revolution of once in a second, or a hundred times in a second, or at any other rate ~vhatever. If the observer saw all the hours from XII. to VI. while the dial was revolving at the rate of a thousand times in~ a second, which is, of course, at the rate of one revolution in the thousandth part of a second, we should know thai his eyes were open for just one-half that period of time; and so ~vith any other portion of tbe cir. cumference of the dial which might come into view. Now although the sensitiveness of the human eye is not quick enough for such an operation, we have an agency at our command that is. There is a photographic arrangement by means of which an impression from light may be taken in an inconceivably short space of time. So quick is it, indeed, that a cannon-ball, at the in- stant of its leaving the mouth of the cannon, when it is wholly invisible to the human eye, will leave a distinct image of itself upon the photographic surface as it passes by an opening in a screen opposite to which the photographic instrument is placed. Now imagine that instead of the living ob- server the photographic apparatus above re- ferred to is placed before the clock. The room is dark. An arrangement is made for produc- ing an electric spark at such a point in front of the clock as that the light from it shall shine through the opening in the paper, and illumin- ate such a portion of the dial-plate behind as shall be in the act of passing daring the continu- ance of the liqlst. The arrangements being all thus made, and the dial-plate being set in extremely rapid mo- tion, the electric discharge is at length made. The light from it shines through the opening and illuminates the passing portion of the disk. The portion so illuminated impresses its image indelibly upon the photographic screen, which, being made to move rapidly in a contrary di- rection, receives the different portions of the impression upon different portions of its sur- face; and thus, after the experiment is con- cluded, shows precisely how long the illumina- tion of the spark continued. It will be of course understood that in the above explanation no attempt is made to de- scribe precisely the exact form of the appara- tus used, but only to illustrate the principle on which it operates, with a view of showing the reader that the idea of making such extremely minute measurements of .time as have been re- ferred to is perfectly practicable, instead of being wholly absurd, as it might at first appear. Although the light produced by the electric spark, even in its effect upon the eye, is so nearly instantaneous in its duration, the sound, in the case of discharges from the clouds in the sky, is greatly prolonged. The sound com- mences, when the discharge is near, with a series of terrific detonations following each other in quick succession, and is followed by long, rolling reverberations and echoes which are continued for a considerable time. This THE MYSTERJES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. 31 prolongation of a sound, which is produced by one single and instantaneous impulse, is dne to two causes. The first cause is the difference of the time which is required for the sounds produced in different parts of the track of the electric dis- charge to come in to the ear. Sounds may take place, in fact, at the same absolute mo- ment of time, and yet come home in succes- sion to the ear of any listener. They must do so, in fact, if they take place at different dis- tances from the ear; and the intervals between them, as heard, will depend upon these relative distances. For example, let us suppose that four can- nons are placed in a row upon a plain, at dis- tances of a mile from each other, and that an observer is stationed in the same line, but at the distance of one mile from the end of the row. Suppose, now, that by means of a given signal, or by a galvanic wire passing along the line, all four of the cannons are discharged at the same instant of time, the observer would by no means, in such a case, hear them together. There would be a distinct interval between the several sounds as they reached his ear, on ac- count of the fact that the sound of the first would have to pass through a distance of only one mile, while the second would have a jour- ney to make of two miles, the third of three, and the fourth of four. Now, as sound travels at the rate of a little more than a thousand feet in a second, which is not far from a mile in five seconds, the observer would hear the re- ports at intervals of about five seconds each; and a period of twenty seconds would elapse before all the sounds would come in. To apply this reasoning to the case of an electric discharge from the clouds let us sup- pose that an observer stands to the east~vard of a cloud, and at the distance of a mile from it, and that the electric discharge passes from one cloud to another, the latter being situated a mile to the westward of the former. Now, al- though the discharge should actually pass ~cross. this interval in an instant; and the sounds which it would produce would be actually simultane- ous in all parts of the line, or at least so near- ly simultaneous that there would be no appre- ciable difference, in actual fact, between the beginning and the end of it, still, as in the case of the simultaneous sounds produced by the reports of the line of cannons, the different portions of it would come in succession to the ear. Five seconds would elapse after the flash before the beginning of the clap of thunder would be heard, and then five seconds more would be required to bring the whole length of the sound, so to speak, fnlly in, and that with- out making any account whatever of echoes and reverberations. This fact, that sound moves through the air in a summers day at about the rate of a mile in five seconds, gives us a very convenient and sufficiently accurate mode of measuring the dis- tance from us of any electric discharge from the clouds which we witness, by counting the number of seconds that intervene bet~veen the flash and the commencement of the sound of the thunder, and then reckoning a mile of dis- tance for every five of the number of seconds so ascertained. The seconds may be observed by means of a watch or clock, or otherwise, accurately enough, by beating seconds with the hand, or slow counting. When a thunder- cloud is coming on, it will be found that the LIGILTYLNO STRIKLNO A TREE. 32 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. interval between the flash and the sound di- minishes as the cloud draws near and then in- creases again after it has passed by. The second canse by which the sonad of thunder, which in reality consists only of one single and instantaneous explosion, is so pro- longed is found in the echoes and reverbera- tions produced by reflections of the sound, from forests, precipices of rocks, faces of mountains, and, more than all the rest, from the surfaces of the clouds themselves. The fact that clouds are capable of reflecting sound and producing an echo is abundantly proved by the firing of gunsthe sound created by heavy artillery be- ing often much prolonged, and made sometimes to resemble very closely a roll of thunder, when there are heavy clouds in the sky. A peal of thunder, as it strikes the ear, con- sists often not of a continued roll, as if the echoes were reflected from a range of surfaces at nearly equal distances from each other, but of a series of rattling detonations, and loud and heavy bursts of sound, following each other in quick and irregular succession. These sharp and heavy claps, which burst forth at intervals in the midst of the general peal of reverberations, may be occasioned either by echoes coming from some particular- large surface of the cloud, or else from some portion of the line of the discharge which lies, as it is mathematically expressed, at right angles te the axis of the eye. This will be made plain by a brief ex- planation. If the track of the lightning is in a line running directly from or directly toward the ob- server, then the sound will come to him, as has been al- ready explained, by a gradual roll, that from the nearest end of the line reaching the ear first, and the rest in succession. If, on the other hand, the di- rection of the line of discharge is across the observers line of vision, so that all parts of it are pretty nearly at an equal distance from him, then the whole sound will come to his ears at the same time, and the effect will be one loud overpowering peal, to he fol- lowed by a succession of sim- ilar peals, as the sound shall be returned by the echoes. But in point of fact the track of the lightning is seldom or never entirely in a line run- ning directly to or from the observer, nor directly across such a line; but, running in a zigzag as it does, its course lies partly in one of these directions and partly in the other. The result will obviously be that the peal of thunder, as it reaches the ear, will consist of sharp and rattling bursts of sound following each other in quick succession, and passing gradually into the more continuous and distant reverberations. We have seen thus how the repeated bursts and long-continued reverberations of sound in thunder are derived from one single instanta neous explosion, which is all that is directly produced by the electrical discharge. We now have to inquire in what way the electricity op- erates in awakening this elementary detonation. It is simply by intensely heating the air along its passage, so as to occasion a sudden rarefac- tion and subsequent collapse of it, and this pro- duces the sound. It acts thus in a manner very similar to that of gunpowder, which gives a re port when it is fired by means of a sudden and violent expansion of the air, followed by an equally violent return, the shock of which pro- duces the sound. THE MYSTERIES OF A THUNDER-SHOWER. By the mechanical effects of electricity are meant its power to produce a rending, tearing, or disrnption of any kind in the substances through which it passes. The engrav- ing below shows the effect produced by a very powerful discharge from an electric battery through a mass of sol- id glass. Analogous effects result from its transmission through any medium that re- sists its passage. It is sup- posed, however, that it pro- duces these effects, as it awak- ens sound, by suddenly and violently expanding the air or other elastic flnids which it finds in the pores of the sub- stances disrupted. In this. respect, too, its action is like that of gunpowder. It seems not to be capable of exercising any impulsive force of its own. The heav- iest electrical discharge di- recteA against the slightest film of gold-leaf will not im- part any motion to it, and yet a slight discharge will make a hole through a thick piece of pasteboard. But on ex- amining the hole it is always found that the substance of the pasteboard is protruded on both sides, showing that the perforation has been effected not by an impulse from with- out, but by an explosive force from within. This explosive force is the sudden expansion of the air and aqueous vapor contained in the pores of the pasteboard by the intense heat developed by the electric spark in passing through. When, therefore, we speak of lightning strik- ing, we do not mean that it produces any of the effects of a blow. It simply heats its way, and all the mechanical effects which it produces are due to the sudden evolution of this heating, and the explosive expansion which it gives to any gases which it may meet in its track. Its effects upon the bodily organization of men and of animals are various, according to msRuvvIuN 01 Voi. XLI.No. 2413 33 the part of the system through which, in its ap- parent caprice, it chooses its way. In the year 1866 a coast guard was blinded by a discharge from the clouds as he was walking his rounds along the cliffs, on the coast of Scotland, watch- ing for smugglers. He was made so complete- ly blind that he was obliged to wait till he could obtain assistance, by his cries for help, in order to be guided home. Sometimes a person thus struck is merely stunned, and soon recovers from the shock. At other times life is com- pletely and instantaneously destroyed. The heat which electricity thus developes in passing, by sudden discharges, through the at- mosphere is of very great intensity. It not only expands air and water so as to split trees and break down chimneys, but it will often set wood and other combustibles on fire, and even fusc metals and vitrify sand. A most extraordina- ry result sometimes ensues from this vitrifying power of electricity in the production of what are called faigui-ites. vas ~ATU1iAL aIesITNIae-lioD. 34 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. In particular localities, where the soil consists of sand of a cer- tain quality, and the electricity enters it in a discharge from a cloud, the expansion of the air in the sand along its track as it de- scends into the ground drives out the sand in every direction, and the heat at the same time vitrifies it, so as to prevent its. return. The resnlt is a long tnhe, usu- ally an inch or two in diameter, and often branching out into cu- rious ramifications. Such tubes extend sometimes two or three feet into the ground. The inte- rior surface of them is fonnd to he glazed or vitrified, while the outside is formed of sand. These tubes can sometimes, by careful management, be taken out entire. Many of them have thus been taken out, and preserved in mu- seums as curiosities. It is said LIGETHING ATTEAOTED ]3Y 5raaAM5 UPON THE GROUND. that vitrified channels of this char- acter have in some instances been traced, more tance of twenty or thirty. feet. The electric or less distinctly, throngh the sand for a dis- discharge is guided in its course by the facil- ities for its passage which it finds in its way. Water and the metals ai~e the chief conduct- ors, and they have accordingly, in general, great influence in determining the course of the discharge. It is sometimes the water that is contained in the pores and vessels of a tree; sometimes,probahly, that which is falling through the air;. and sometimes even that flow- ing in rivulets along the surface of the ground, that guides it on its way. Sometimes the electric force is so attracted. as it were, by the facilities of this kind which it finds in its track, that it passes from the atmos- phere to the earth gently and by slow degrees, gliding so quietly that, except at night, there is I nothing to indicate its movement. The light- ning - rod, with the sharp metallic points in which it terminates above, owes its efficiency, in a great measure, to this principle ; and a natural lightning-rod is sometimes formed by a tree, the electricity being gathered from the at- mosphere by every pointed leaf among the fo- liage, and flowing thence to the ground in a se- ries of harmless flashes, of so feeble an intensi- ty that only night and darkness can bring them FULGU ITE. into view. TWO MOODS. I PLUCKED the harehells as I ~vent Mellowed to silver-sounding speech; Singing along the river-side . And still I sang it oer and oer, The skies above were opulent . The world is sweet for evermore Of sunshine. Ah! whateer betide, rhe world is sweet, is sweet, I cried Perhaps, to-day, some other one, That morning by the river-side. Loitering along the river-side, Content beneath the gracious sun, The curlews called along the shore; May sing, again, Whateer betide, The boats put out from sandy beach; The world is sweet. I shall not chide, Afar I heard the breakers roar, Although my song is done.

34 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. In particular localities, where the soil consists of sand of a cer- tain quality, and the electricity enters it in a discharge from a cloud, the expansion of the air in the sand along its track as it de- scends into the ground drives out the sand in every direction, and the heat at the same time vitrifies it, so as to prevent its. return. The resnlt is a long tnhe, usu- ally an inch or two in diameter, and often branching out into cu- rious ramifications. Such tubes extend sometimes two or three feet into the ground. The inte- rior surface of them is fonnd to he glazed or vitrified, while the outside is formed of sand. These tubes can sometimes, by careful management, be taken out entire. Many of them have thus been taken out, and preserved in mu- seums as curiosities. It is said LIGETHING ATTEAOTED ]3Y 5raaAM5 UPON THE GROUND. that vitrified channels of this char- acter have in some instances been traced, more tance of twenty or thirty. feet. The electric or less distinctly, throngh the sand for a dis- discharge is guided in its course by the facil- ities for its passage which it finds in its way. Water and the metals ai~e the chief conduct- ors, and they have accordingly, in general, great influence in determining the course of the discharge. It is sometimes the water that is contained in the pores and vessels of a tree; sometimes,probahly, that which is falling through the air;. and sometimes even that flow- ing in rivulets along the surface of the ground, that guides it on its way. Sometimes the electric force is so attracted. as it were, by the facilities of this kind which it finds in its track, that it passes from the atmos- phere to the earth gently and by slow degrees, gliding so quietly that, except at night, there is I nothing to indicate its movement. The light- ning - rod, with the sharp metallic points in which it terminates above, owes its efficiency, in a great measure, to this principle ; and a natural lightning-rod is sometimes formed by a tree, the electricity being gathered from the at- mosphere by every pointed leaf among the fo- liage, and flowing thence to the ground in a se- ries of harmless flashes, of so feeble an intensi- ty that only night and darkness can bring them FULGU ITE. into view. TWO MOODS. I PLUCKED the harehells as I ~vent Mellowed to silver-sounding speech; Singing along the river-side . And still I sang it oer and oer, The skies above were opulent . The world is sweet for evermore Of sunshine. Ah! whateer betide, rhe world is sweet, is sweet, I cried Perhaps, to-day, some other one, That morning by the river-side. Loitering along the river-side, Content beneath the gracious sun, The curlews called along the shore; May sing, again, Whateer betide, The boats put out from sandy beach; The world is sweet. I shall not chide, Afar I heard the breakers roar, Although my song is done. FREDERICK THE GREAT. 35 FREDERICK THE GREAT. NO. VITTHE CAMPAIGN OF MOLLWITZ. FREDERICK, returning to Berlin from his six weeks campaign in Silesia, remained at home but three weeks. He had recklessly let loose the dogs of war, and must already have begun to he appalled in view of the possible results. His embassadors at the various courts bud utterly failed to secure for him any alliance. England and some of the other powers were mauifestly unfriendly to him. Like Frederick himselg they were all disposed to consult mere- ly their own individual interests. Thus infin enced, they looked calmly on to see how Fred- crick, who had thrown into the face of the young queen of Austria the gage of hattle, would meet the forces which she, with great en- ergy, was marshaling in defense of her realms. Frederick was manifestly and outrageously in the wrong. The chivalry of Europe was in sympathy with the young and beautiful queen, who, in- experienced, afflicted by the tlcath of her father, and about to pass through the p~rils of mater- nity, had been thus suddenly and rudely as- FREDERiCK ON THE rsaan Os BAUMOARTEN.

FREDERICK THE GREAT. 35 FREDERICK THE GREAT. NO. VITTHE CAMPAIGN OF MOLLWITZ. FREDERICK, returning to Berlin from his six weeks campaign in Silesia, remained at home but three weeks. He had recklessly let loose the dogs of war, and must already have begun to he appalled in view of the possible results. His embassadors at the various courts bud utterly failed to secure for him any alliance. England and some of the other powers were mauifestly unfriendly to him. Like Frederick himselg they were all disposed to consult mere- ly their own individual interests. Thus infin enced, they looked calmly on to see how Fred- crick, who had thrown into the face of the young queen of Austria the gage of hattle, would meet the forces which she, with great en- ergy, was marshaling in defense of her realms. Frederick was manifestly and outrageously in the wrong. The chivalry of Europe was in sympathy with the young and beautiful queen, who, in- experienced, afflicted by the tlcath of her father, and about to pass through the p~rils of mater- nity, had been thus suddenly and rudely as- FREDERiCK ON THE rsaan Os BAUMOARTEN. 36 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. sailed by one who should have protected her with almost a brothers love and care. Every court in Europe was familiar with the fact that the father of Maria Theresa had not only hu- manely interceded in the most earnest terms for the life of Frederick, but had interposed his imperial authority to rescue him from the scaf- fold with which he was threatened by his un- natural parent. Frederick found that he stood quite alone, and that he had nothing to depend upon but his own energies and those of his com- pact, well-disciplined army. It would seem that Frederick was now dis- posed to compromise. He authorized the sug- gestion to be made to the court at Vienna, by his minister, count Gotter, that he was ready to withdraw from his enterprise, and to enter into alliance with Austria, if the queen would surrender to him the duchy of Glogan only, which was but a small part of Silesia. But to these terms the heroic young qneen would not listen. She justly regarded them but as the proposition of the highway robber, who offers to leave one his watch if he will peaceably sur- render his purse. Whatever regrets Frederick might have felt in view of the difficulties in which he found himself involved, not the slight- est indication of them is to be seen in his cor- respondence. He had passed the Rubicon. And now he summoned all his energiessuch energies as the world has seldom, if ever, wit- nessed before, to carry out the enterprise upon which hn had so recklessly entered, and from which he could not without humiliation with- draw. On the 19th of February, 1741, Frederick, having been at home but three weeks, again left Berlin with reinforcements, increasing his army of invasion to sixty thousand men, to complete the conquest of Silesia by the capture of the three fortresses which still held out against him. On the 21st he reached Glogau. After carefully reconnoitring the works, he left directicns with prince Leopold of Dessau, who commanded the Prussian troops there, to press the siege with all possible vigor. He was fear- ful that Austrian troops might soon arrive to the relief of the place. The king then hastened on to Schweidnitz, a. few miles west from Breslan. This was a small town, strongly fortified, about equally dis- tant from the three beleaguered fortresses Neisse, Brieg, and Glogan. The young mon- arch was daily becoming more aware that he had embarked in an enterprise which threat- ened him with fearful peril. He had not only failed to secure a single ally, but there were indications that England and other powers were in secret deliberation to join against him. He soon learned that England had sent a gift or loan of a million of dollarsa large sum in those daysto replenish the exhausted treasury of Maria Theresa. His minister in Russia also transmitted to him an appalling rumor that a project was ~ contemplation by the king of England, the king of Poland, Anne, regent of Russia, and Maria Theresa to unite, and so partition the Prussian kingdom as to render the ambitious Frederick powerless to disturb the peace of Europe. The general motives which influenced the great monarchies in the stupendous war which was soon evolved are sufficiently manifest. But these motives led to a complication of intrigues which it would be alike tedious and unprofitable to attempt to unravel. Frederick wished to enlarge his Lilliputian realms, and become one of the powers of Eu- rope. This he could only do by taking ad- vantage of the apparent momentary weakness of Austria, and seizing a portion of the ter- ritory of the young queen. In order to accom- plish this, it was for his interest to oppose the election of Maria Theresas husband, the grand duke Francis, as emperor. The imperial crown placed upon the brow of Francis would invest Austria with almost resistless power. Still, Frederick was ready to promise his earnest con- currence in this arrangement if Maria Theresa would surrender to him Silesia. He had even moderated his terms, as we have mentioned, .to a portion of the province. France had no fear of Prussia. Even with the addition of Silesia, it would be compara- tively a feeble realm. But France did fear the supremacy of Austria over Europe. It was for the apparent interest of the court of Ver- sailles that Austria should be weakened, and, consequently, that the husband of the queen should not be chosen emperor of Germany. Therefore France was coming into sympathy with Frederick, and was disposed to aid him in his warfare against Austria. England was the hereditary foe of France. It was one of the leading objects in her diplo- macy to circumvent that power. Our great- grandfathers, writes Carlyle, lived in per- petual terror that they would be devoured by France; that French ambition would overset the Celestial Balance, and proceed next to eat the British nation. Strengthening Austria was weakeidug France. Therefore the sym- pathies of England were strongly with Austria. In addition to this, personal feelings came in. The puerile little king, George II., hated im- placably his nephew, Frederick of Prussia, which hatred Frederick returned with interest. Spain was at war with England, and was ready to enter into an alliance with any power which would aid her in her struggle with that formidable despot of the seas. The czarina, Anne of Russia, die dthe28th of October, 1740, just eight days after the death of the emperor. She left, in the cradle, the infant czar Iwan, her nephew, two months old. The father of this child was a brother of Fred- ericks neglected wife Elizabeth. The mother was the Russian princess Catharine of Meck- lenburg, now called princess Anne, whom Fred- erick had at one time thought of applying for as his wife. Russia was a semi-barbaric realm just emerging into consideration, and FREDERICK THE GREAT. 37 no one could tell by what influences it would be swayed. The minor powers could be con- trolled by the greaterconstrained by terror or led by bribes. Such, in general, was the state of Europe at this time. Austria was rapidly marshaling her hosts, and pouring them through the defiles of the mountains to regain Silesia. Her troops still held three important fortressesNeisse, Brieg, and Glogan. These places were, however, closely blockaded by the Prussians. Though it was midwinter, bands of Austrian horsemen were soon sweeping in all directions, like local war tempests borne on the wings of the wind. Wherever there was an unprotected baggage- train or a weakly defended post they came swooping down to seize their prey, and vanished as suddenly as they had appeared. Their num- bers seemed to be continually increasing. All the roads were swept by these swarms of ir- regulars, who carefully avoided any serious en- gagement, while they awaited the approach of the Austrian army, which was gathering its strength to throw down to Frederick the gaunt- let on an open field of battle. Much to Fredericks chagrin he soon learned that a body of three hundred foot and three hundred horse, cantiously approaching through by-paths in the mountains, had thrown itself into Neisse, to strengthen the garrison there. This was on the 5th of March. But six days before a still more alarming event had oc- curred. On the 27th of February Frederick, with a small escort, not dreaming of danger, set out to visit two small posts in the vicinity of Neisse. He stopped to dine with a few of his officers in the little village of Wartha, while the principal part of the detachment which accompanied him continued its movement to Banmgarten. The leader of an Austrian hand of five hun- dred dragoons was on the watch. As the de- tachment of one hundred and fifty horse ap- proached Baumgarten the Austrians from their ambuscade plunged upon them. There was a short, sharp conflict, when the Prussians fled, leaving ten dead, sixteen prisoners, one stand- ard, and two kettle-drums in the hands of the victors. The king had just sat down at the dinner-table when he heard, at the distance of a few miles, the tumult of the musketry. He sprang from the table, hurriedly mustered a small force of forty hussars and fifty foot, and hastened toward the scene. Arriving at the field he found it silent and deserted, and the ten men lying dead upon it. The victorious Austrians, disappointed in not finding the king, bore their spoils in triumph to Vienna. It was a very narrow escape for Frederick. Had he then been captured it might have changed the history of Europe, and no one can tell the amount of blood and woe which would have been averted. It is perhaps not strange that Frederick should have imbibed a strong feeling of antipa- thy to Christianity. In his fathers life he had witnessed only its most repulsive caricature. While making the loudest protestations of pie- ty, Frederick William, in his daily conduct, had manifested mainly only every thing that is hateful and of bad report. Still, it is quite evi- dent that Frederick was not blind to the dis- tinction between the principles of Christianity, as taught by Jesus and developed in His life, and the conduct of those who, professing His name, trampled those principles beneath their feet. In one of his letters to Voltaire, dated Cirey, August 26, 1736, Frederick wrote: May you never be disgusted with the sci- ences by the quarrels of their cultivators; a race of men no better than courtiers; often enough as greedy, intriguing, false, and cruel as these. And how sad for mankind that the very interpreters of Heavens commandmentsthe theologians I meanare sometimes the most dangerous of all! professed messengers of the Divinity, yet men sometimes of obscure ideas and pernicious behavior, their soul blown out with mere darkness, full of gall and pride in proportion as it is empty of truths. Every thinking being who is not of their opinion is an atheist; and every king who does not favor them will be damned. Dangerous to the very throne, and yet intrinsically insignificant. I respect metaphysical ideas. Rays of lightning they are in the midst of deep night. More, I think, is not to be hoped from meta- physics. It does not seem likely that the first principles of things will ever be known. The mice that nestle in some little holes of an im- inense building know not whether it is eternal, or who the architect, or why he built it. Such mice are we. And the Divine architect has never, that I know of, told His secret to one of us. Notwithstanding these sentiments, the king sent throughout Silesia a supply of sixty Prot- estant preachers, ordained especially for the work. Though Frederick himself did not wish to live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ, it is very evident that he did not fear the influence of that gospel upon his Silesian subjects. Very wisely the Protestant preachers were directed carefully to avoid giv- ing any offense to the Catholics. They were to preach in barns and town-halls, in places where there was no Protestant church. The salary of each was one hundred and fifty dol- lars a year, probably with rations. They were all placed under the general superintendence of one of the army chaplains. Every day it became more clear that Maria Theresa was resolved not to part with one inch of her territory, and that the Austrian court was thoroughly roused in its determination to drive the intrusive Prussians out of Silesia. Though Frederick had no scruples of conscience to prevent him from seizing a portion of the domains of Maria Theresa, his astonishment and indignation were alike aroused by the rumor that England, Poland, and Russia were con~ 38 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. tainly succeed. I hope you will put off no lon- ger. Otherwise the blame of all the mischief that might arise out of longer delay must lie on you alone. On the 8th of March Leopold summoned all his generals at noon, and informed them that Glogan, at all hazards, must be take night. The most minute directions were given to each one. There were to be three attacks one up the river on its left bank, one down the river on its right bank, and one on the land side perpendicular to the other two. The mo- ment the clock on the big steeple in Glogan should give the first stroke of midnight the three columns were to start. Before the last stroke should be given they were all to be upon the silent, rapid advance. Count Wallis, who was intrusted with the defense of the place, had a garrison of about a thousand men, with fifty-eight heavy guns and several mortars, and a large amount of ammu- nition. Glogan was in the latitude of fifty-two, nearly six degrees north of Quebec. It was a cold wintry night. The ground was covered with snow. Water had been thrown upon the glacis, so that it was slippery with ice. Prince Leopold in person led one of the columns. The sentinels upon the walls were not alarmed un- til three impetuous columns, like concentra- ting tornadoes, were sweeping down upon them. They shouted To artns! The soldiers, roused front sleep, rushed to their guns. Their light- ning flashes were instantly followed by wars deepest thunders, as discharge followed dis- charge in rapid succession. But the assailants were already so near the walls that the shot passed harmlessly over their heads. Without firing a gun or uttering a sound these well-drilled soldiers of Frederick William hewed down the palisades, tore out the chevaux-de-frise, and clambered over the glacis. With axe and petard they burst open the gates and surged into the city.. In one short hour the gallant deed was done. But ten of the assailants were killed and forty- eight wounded. The loss of the Austrians was more severe. The whole garrison, one thou- sand sixty-five in number, and their materiel of war, consisting of fifty brass cannons, a large amount of ammunition, and the military chest, containing thirty-two thousand forms, fell into the hands of the victors. To the inhabitants of Glogan it was a matter of very little moment whether the Austrian or the Prussian banner I Leopold of Anhault-Dessan was one of the most floated over their citadel. Neither party paid extraordinary men of any age. His life was hut a much more regard to the rights of the people constant whirlwind of battle, almost from his birth in igre, to his death in 174T. His face was of the than they did to those of the mules and the color of gunpowder, and his fearless, tumultuous horses. soul was in confurmity with the rugged body in which But to Frederick the importance of the it was encased. The whole character of the man achievement was very great. The exploit may he inferred from the following prayer, which it is said he was accustomed to offer before entering hat- was justly ascribed to his general direction. tie: 0 God I assist our side. At least, avoid assist- Thus he obtained a taste of that military re- lug the enemy, and leave the result to~ me. Leo- nown which he had so greatly coveted. The pold, called the Old Dessa, ,and his son, the Yeun~i king wa Leepold, were of essential service to Frederick in his s, at this time, at his head-quarters at wars. Pages might be filled illustrative of the char- Schweidnitz, about one hundred and twenty acter of this eccentric man. miles from Glogan. A courier, dispatched umn - templating the dismemberment of his realms. An army of thirty-six thousand men, nader the old duke Leopold of Dessan, was immediately dispatched by Frederick to G6tten, on the front- iers of Hanover, to seize upon that continental possession of the kingof England upon the slight- est indication of a hostile movement. George II. was greatly alarmed by this menace. Frederick found himself plunged into the midst of difficulties and perils which exacted to the ntmost his energies both of body and of mind. Every moment was occupied in strengthening his posts, collecting magazines, recruiting his forces, and planning to circum- vent the foe. From the calm of Reinbeck he found himself suddenly tossed by the surges of one of the most terrible tempests of conflict which a mortal ever encountered. Through night and storm, almost without sleep and with- out food, drenched and chilled, he was gallop- ing over the hills and through the valleys, climb- ing the steeples, fording the streams, wading the morasses, involved in a struggle which now threatened even the crown which he had so re- cently placed upon his brow. Had Frederick alone suffered, but few tears of sympathy would have been shed in his behalf. But his ambi- tion had stirred up a conflict which was soon to fill all Europe with the groans of the dying, the tears of the widow, the wailings of the or- phan. Frederick deemed it of great importance to gain immediate possession of Glogan. It was bravely, defended by the Austrian commander, count Wallis, and there was hourly danger that an Austrian army might appear for its relief. Frederick, in the intensity of his anxiety, as he hurried from post to post, wrote from every stopping-place to young Leopold, whom he had left in command of the siege, urging him im- mediately to open the trenches, concentrate the fire of his batteries, and to carry the place by storm. I have clear intelligence, he wrote, that troops are actually on the way for the rescue of Glogan. Each note was more im- perative than the succeeding one. Ga the 6th of March he wrote from Oblan: I am certainly informed that the enemy will make some attempt. I hereby, with all distinctness, command that so soon as the pe- tards are come you attack Glogau. And you must make your dispositions for more than one attack, so that if one fail the other shall cer FREDERICK THE GREAT. 39 mediately from the captured town, communica- ted to him, at five oclock in the afternoon, the glad tidings of the hrilliant victory. Frederick was overjoyed. In the exuherance of his satisfaction he sent prince Leopold a pres- ent of ten thonsand dollars. To each private soldier he gave haIfa guinea, and to the officers sums in proportion. To the old duke of Des- saner, father of the young prince Leopold, he wrote: The more I think of the Giogan husiness the more important I find it. Prince Leopold has achieved the l)rettiest military stroke that has heen done in this century. From my heart I congratulate you on having such a son. In holduess of resolution, in plan, in execution, it is alike admirahle, and quite gives a torn to my affairs. Leaving a sufficient force to garrison Glogau, the king ordered all the remaining regiments to he distrihnted among the other important posts; while prince Leopold, in high favor, joined the king at Sch~veidnitz, to assist in the siege of Neisse. Frederick rapidly concentrated his forces for the capture of Neisse hefore the Austrian army should march for its relief. He thought that the Austrians wotdd not he ahle to take the field hefore the snow should TuE ASSAULT ON GLOOAU. 40 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. disappear and the new spring grass should come, affording forage for their horses. But general Neipperg, the Austrian com- mander-in-chief, proved as watchful, enterpris- ing, and energetic as Frederick. If is scouting bands swarmed in all directions. The Prussian foraging parties were cut oW their reconnoi-~ trers were driven back, and all the movements of the main body of the Austrian army were veiled from their view. General Neipperg, hearing of the fall of Glogau, decided, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather and the snow, to march immediately, with thirty thousand men, to the relief of Neisse. His path led through mountain defiles, over whose steep and icy roads his heavy guns and lumbering ammunition wag- ons were with difficulty drawn. At the same time Frederick, unaware of the movement of the Austrians, prepared to push the siege of~eisse with the utmost vigor. Leav- ing some of his ablest generals to conduct the operations there, Frederick himself marched, with strong reinforcements, to strengthen gen- eral Schwerin, who was stationed amQng the Jagerndorf hills, on the southern frontier of Silesia, to prevent the Austrians from getting across the mountains. Marching from Ottma- chau the king met general Schwerin at Nen- stadt, half-way to Jagerndorf, and they returned together to that place. But the swarming horse- men of general Neipperg were so bold and watch- ful that no information could be obtained of the situation or movements of the Austrian army. Frederick, seeing no indications that general Neipperg was ~ttempting to force his way through the snow-encumbered defiles of the MAP ILLUSTRATING TIlE MOLLWITZ CAMPAIGN. FREDERICK THE GREAT. 41 mountains, prepared to return, and, with his of artillery and baggage wagons, was surging concentrated force, press with all vigor the like an inundation through the streets of Stei siege of Neisse. nau, the village tookfire and wasburned to ashes. As he was npon the point of setting off, With great difficulty the artillery and powder seven Austrian deserters came in and report- were saved, being entangled in the narrow ed that general Neippergs full army was ad- streets, while the adjoining houses were en- vancing at but a few miles distance. Even as veloped in flames. The night was intensely they were giving their report sounds of musket- cold. The Prussian army bivouacked in the ry and cannon announced that the Prussian out- open frozen fields. posts were assailed by the advance-guard of the General Neipperg, as his men were weary foe. The peril of Frederick was great. Had with their long march, did not make an attack, Neipperg known the prize within his reach the but allowed his troops a short season of repose escape of the Prussian king would have been in the enjoyment of the comforts of Neisse. almost impossible. Frederick had but three or The next morning, the 6th, Frederick contin- four thousand men with him at Jagerndorf, and ned his retreat to Friedland, ten miles farther only three pieces of artillery with forty rounds north. He was anxious to get between the of ammunition. Bands of Austrian cavalry on Austrians and Ohlau. He had many pieces fleet horses were swarming all around him. Sel- of artillery there, and large stores of ammuni- dom in the whole course of his life was Frede- tion, which would prove a rich prize to the Aus- rick placed in a more critical position. triaiss. It was Fredericks intention to cross It was soon ascertained that the main body the river Keisse at a bridge at Sorgan, eight of the Anstrian army was fifteen miles to the miles from Friedland. But the officer in charge southwest, at Freudenthal, pressing on toward there had been compelled to destroy the bridge, Neisse. General Neipperg, without the slight- to protect himself from the Austrian horsemen, est suspicion that Frederick was any where in who in large numbers had appeared npon the his vicinity, had sent aside a reconnoitring par- opposite banks. Prince Leopold was sent with ty of skirmishers to ascertain if there were any artillery and a strong force to reconstruct the Prussians at Jagerndorf. General Neipperg, at bridge and force the passage. But the Austrian Freudenthal, was as near Neisse as Frederick dragoons were encountered in such numbers that was at Jagerndorf. the enterprise was found impossible. There was not a moment to be lost. Gener- Frederick therefore decided to march down al Neipperg was moving resolutely forward with the river twenty miles farther, to Lowen, where a cloud of skirmishers in the advance and on there was a good bridge. To favor the opera- his wings. With the utmost exertions Frede- tion, prince Leopold, with large divisions of the rick immediately rendezvoused all his remote ~rmy and much of the baggage, was to cross posts, destroying such stores as could not hasti- the Neisse on pontoons at Michelau, a few ly be removed, and by a forced march of twenty- miles above Lowen. Both passages were sue- five miles in one day reached Neustadt. Gen- cessfnlly accomplished, and the two columns ef- eral Neipperg was marching by a parallel road fected a junction on the west side of the river about twenty miles west of that which the Pins- on the 8th of April. The blockade of Brieg sians traversed. At Neustadt the king was still was abandoned, and its blockading force united twenty miles from Neisse. With the delay of with the general army. but a few hours, that he might assemble all the General Neipperg had now left Neisse. But Prussian bands from the posts in that neighbor- he kept himself so surrounded by clouds of hood, the king again resumed his march. He skirmishers as to render his march entirely in- had no longer any hope of continuing the siege visible. Frederick, anxious to unite with him of Neisse. His only aim was to concentrate all his troops under the prince of Holstein Beck, his scattered forces, which had been spread over advanced toward Grottkau to meet that divi- an area of nearly two thousand square miles, sion, which had been ordered to join him. The and, upon some well selected field, to trust to prince had been stationed at Frankenstein, with the uncertain issues of a general battle. There a force of about eight thousand, horse and foot. was no choice left for him between this course But the Austrian scouts so occupied all the and an ignominious retreat, roads that the king had not been able to obtain Therefore, instead of marching upon Neisse, any tidings from him whatever. the king directed his course to Steinan, twenty It was Saturday, the 8th of April. A blind- miles east of Neisse. The siege was abandoned, ing, smothering storm of snow swept over and the whole Prussian army, so far as was pos- the bleak plains. Breasting the gale, and sible, was gathered around the king. On the wading through the drifts, the Prussian troops fifth of April Frederick established his head- tramped along, unable to see scarcely a rod be- quarters at Steinan. On that same day gen- fore them. At a little hamlet called Leipe the eral Neipperg, with the advanced corps of his van-guard encountered a band of Austrian has- army, triumphantly entered Neisse. Appre- sars. They took several captives. From them hensive of an immediate attack, Frederick made they learned, much to their chagrin, and not a all his arrangements for a battle. In the con- little to their alarm, that the Austrian army was fusion of those hours, during which the whole already in possession of Grottkau. Prussian army, with all its vast accumulation Instantly the Prussian troops ~vere ordered to 42 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. the right about. Rapidly retracing their steps through the streets of Leipe, much to the sur- prise of its inhabitants, they pressed on seven miles farther toward Ohlau, and encamped for the night. The anxiety of Frederick in these hours when he was retiring before the foe, and when there was every probability of his incur- ring disgrace instead of gaining honor, must have been dreadful. There was no sleep for him that night. The Prussians were almost surrounded by the Austrians, and it was quite certain that the morrow would usher in a bat- tle. Oppressed by the peril of his position, the king during the night wrote to his brother Au- gustus William, who was at Breslan, as follows. The letter was dated at the little village of Pogerell, where the king had taken shelter. My DEAREST BROTHER,The enemy has just got into Silesia. We are not more than a mile from them. To-morrow must decide our fortune. If I die, do not forget a brother who has always loved you most tenderly. I recom- mend to you my most dear mother, my domes- tics, and my first battalion. Eichel and Schub- macher are informed of all my testamentary wishes. Remember me always, hut console yourself for my death. The glory of the Prussian arms and the honor of the House have set me in ac- tion, and will guide me to my last moment. You are my sole heir. I recommend to you, in dying, those whom I have the most loved dur- ing my lifeKeyserling, Jordan, Wartensleben, Hacke, who is a very honest man, Fredersdorf, and Eichel, in whom you may place entire con- fidence. I bequeath eight thousand crowns ($6000) to my domestics. All that I have elsewhere depends on you. To each of my brothers and sisters make a present in my name; a thousand affectionate regards to my sister at Baireuth. You know what ~ think on their score; and you know, better than I can tell you, the tenderness and all the sentiments of most inviolable friend- ship with which I am, dearest brother, your faithful brother and servant till death, FREDERICK. To his friend Jordan, who was also in Bres- lan, he wrote: Mv DEAR JoRDAN,We are going to fight to-morrow. Thou knowest the chances of war. The life of kings is not more regarded than that of private people. I know not what will happen to me. If my destiny is finished, remember a friend who loves thee always tenderly. If Heaven pro- long my days, I will write to thee after to-mor- row, and thou shalt hear of our victory. Adieu, dear friend; I shall love thee till death. FREDERICK. It is worthy of notice that there is no indica- tion that the king sent any word of affectionate remembrance to his neglected wife. It is a remarkable feature in the character of the em- peror Napoleon I. that in his busiest campaigns rarely did a day pass in which he did not write to Josephine. He often wrote to her twice a day. Sunday morning, the 9th, dawned luridly. The storm raged unabated. The air was so filled with the falling snow that one could not see the distance of twenty paces; and the gale was piling up large drifts on the frozen plains. Neither army could move. Neipperg was in advance of Frederick, and had established his head-quarters at the village of Mollwitz, a few miles northwest cf Pogerell. He had there- fore got fairly between the Prussians and Oh- lan. But Frederick knew not where the Aus- trian army was. For six-and-thirty hours the wild storm drove both Prussians and Austrians to such shelter as could be obtained in the sev- eral hamlets which were scattered over the ex- tended plain. Frederick dispatched messengers to Oblan to summon the force there to his aid; the mes- sengers were all captured. The Prussians were now in a deplorable condition. The roads were encumbered and rendered almost impassable by the drifted snow. The army was cut off from its supplies, and had provisions on hand but for a single day. Both parties alike plundered the poor inhabitants of their cattle, sheep, and grain. Every thing that would burn was seized for their camp-fires. We speak of the carnage of the battle-field and ofien forget the misery which is almost invariably brought upon the helpless inhabitants of the region through which the armies move. The schoolmaster of Mcli- witz, a kind, simple-hearted, accurate old gen- tleman, wrote an account of the scenes he wit- nessed. Under date of Mollwitz, Sunday, April 9, he writes: Country, for two days hack, was in new alarm by the Austrian garrison of Brieg, now left at liberty, who sallied out upon the villages about, and plundered black cattle, sheep, grain, and whatever they could come at. But this day in Mollwitz the whole Austrian army was upon us. First there went three hundred bus- sars through the village to Grilningen, who quartered themselves there, and rushed hither and thither into houses, robbing and plunder- ing. From one they took his best horses; from another they took ljnen, clothes, and other fur- nitures and victual. Genei~al ~4eipperg halted here at Mollwitz with the whole army before the village, in mind to quarter. And quarter was settled, so that a plow-farmer got four to five companies to lodge, and a spade-farmer two or three hundred cav- alry. The houses were full of officers, and the fields full of horsemen and baggage; and all around you saw nothing hut fires burning~. The wooden railings were instantly torn down for fire-wood. The hay, straw, barley were eaten away, and brought to nothing. Every thing from the barns was carried omit. As the whole FREDERICK THE GREAT. 43 army could not lodge itself with us, eleven hun- dred infantry quartered at Laugwitz. Bkrz- dorf got four hundred cavalry; and this day no- hody knew what would come of it. Monday morning the storm ceased. There was a perfect calm. For leagues the spotless snow, nearly two feet deep, covered all the ex- tended plains. The anxiety of Frederick had been so great that for two nights he had not heen able to get any sleep. He had plunged into this war with the full assurance that he was to gain victory and glory. It now seemed in- evitable that he was to encounter hut defeat and shame. At the earliest dawn the whole army was in motion. Ranked in four columns, they cau- tiously advanced toward Oblan, ready to de- ploy instantly into line of hattle should the en- emy appear. Scouts were sent out in all di- rections. But, toiling painfully through the drifts, they could obtain no reliable information. The spy-glass revealed nothing but the winding- sheet of crisp and sparkling snow, with scarcely a shruh or a tree to hreak the dreary view. There were no fences to he seennothing but a smooth, white plain, spreading for miles around. The hamlet of Mollwitz. where general Neip- perg had established his head - quarters, was about seven miles north from Pogerell, from which point Frederick was marching. At the distance of a few miles from each other there were several wretched little hamlets, consisting of a few low, thatched, clay farm-houses clus- tered together. General Neipperg was not attempting to move in the deep snow. He, however, sent out a reconnoitring party of mounted hussars under general Rothenburg. Ahout two miles from Mollwitz this party encountered the advance- guard of the Prussians. The hussars, after a momentary conflict, in which several fell, re- treated and gave the alarm. General Neip- perg was just sitting down to dinner. The Prus- sian advance waited for the rear columns to come up, and then deployed into line. As the Austrian hussars dashed into the village of Moll- witz with the announcement that the Prussians were on the march, had attacked them, and killed forty of their number, general Neipperg dropped knife and fork, sprang fuomn the table, THE nieur BEFORE MOLLWITZ. 44 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. and dispatched couriers in all directions, gallop- ing for life, to concentrate his troops. His force was mainly distributed about in three villages, two or three miles apart. The clangor of trump- ets and drums resounded; and by the greatest exertions the Austrian troops were collected from their scattered encampments, and formed in two parallel lines, about two miles in length, facing the Prussians, who were slowly advanc- ing in the same order, wading through the snow. Each army was formed with the infantry in the cehtre and the cavalry on the wings. Frederick was then but an inexperienced soldier. He sub- sequently condemned the want of military abil- ity which he displayed npon this occasion. We approached, he writes, marshal Neip- pergs army withont being discovered by any one man living. His troops were then cantoned in three villages. But at that time I had not suf- ficient experience to know how to avail myself of such an opportunity. I ought immediately to have ordered two of my columns to snrround the village of Mollwitz, and then to have at- tacked it. I ought at the same instant to have detached my dragoons with orders to have at- tacked the other two villages, which contained the Austrian cavalry. The infantry, which should have followed, would have prevented them from mounting. If I had proceeded in this way I am convinced that I should have totally destroyed the Austrian army. It was now about noon. The sun shone brightly on the glistening snow. There was no wind. Twenty thousand peasants, armed and drilled as soldiers, were facing each other upon either side, to engage in mutual slaughter, with no animosity between themno cause of quar- rel. It is one of the unrevealed mysteries of Providence, that any one man should thus have it in his power to create such wide-spread death and misery. The Anstrians had a splendid body of cavalry, eight thousand six hundred in number. Frederick had but about half as many horsemen. The Prussians had sixty pieces of artillery, the Austrians hut eighteen. The battle soon began, with its tumult, its thunder-roar of artillery and musketry, its gush- ing blood, its cries of agony, its death convul- sions. Both parties fought with the reckless courage, the desperation, with which trained soldiers, of whatever nationality, almost always fight. The Prussians advanced, in their long double line, trampling the deep snow beneath their feet. All their banners were waving. All their bands of music were pealing forth their most martial airs. Their sixty pieces of artillery, well in front, opened a rapid and deadly fire. The thoroughly - drilled Prussian artillerymen dis- charged their guns with unerring aim, breaking gaps in the Austrian ranks, and with such won- derful rapidity that the nnintermitted roar of the cannons drowned the sound of drums and trumpets. 1 Military Instructions, p. 113. The Austrian cavalry made an impetuous charge upon the weaker Prussian cavalry on the right of the Prussian line. Frederick com- mnandcd here in person. The Prussian right wing was speedily routed, and driven in wild retreat over the plain. The king lost his pres- ence of mind and fled ingloriously with the fu- gitives. General Schulenberg endeavored, in vain, to rally the disordered masses. He re- ceived a sabre slash across his face. Drenched in blood he still struggled, unavailingly, to ar- rest the torrent, when a bullet struck him dead. The battle was now raging fiercely all along the lines. General R6mer, in command of the Austrian cavalry, had crushed tile right wing of the Prussians. Resolutely he followed up his vic- tory, hotly chasing the fugitives in the wildest disorder far a~vay to the rear, capturing nine of their guns. Who can imagine the scene? There were three or four thousand horsemen put to utter rout, clattering over the plain, impetu- ously pursued by six or seven thousand of the finest cavalry in the world, discharging pistol- shots into their flying ranks, and raining down upon them sabre blows. The young king, all unaccustomed to those horrors of war which he had evoked, was swept along with the inundation. The danger of his falling, in the midst of the general carnage, or of his capture, which was, perhaps, still more to be dreaded, was imminent. His friends en- treated him tQ escape for his life. Even mar- shal Schwerin, the veteran soldier, assured him that the battle was lost, and that he probably could escape capture only by a precipitate flight. Frederick, thus urged, leaving the main body of his army as he supposed in utter rout, with a small escort, put spurs to his steed in the at- tempt to escape. The king was well mounted on a very splendid bay horse. A rapid ride of fifteen miles in a southerly direction brought him to the river Neisse, which he crossed by a bridge at the little town of Lowen. lmnme- diately after his departure prince Leopold dis- patched a squadron of dragoons to accompany the king as his body-guard. But Frederick fled so rapidly that they could not overtake him, and in the darkness, for night soon approached, they lost his track. Even several of the few who accompanied him, not so well mounted as the king, dropped off by the way, their horses not being able to keep up with his swift pace. It was Fredericks alma to reach Oppein, a small town upon the river Oder, about thirty miles from the field of battle. He supposed that one of his regiments still held that place. But this regiment had hurriedly vacated the post, and had repaired with all its baggage to Pampitz, in the vicinity of Mollwitz. Upon the retirement of this garrison a wandering party of sixty Austrian hussars had taken possession of the town. Frederick, unaware that Oppeln was in the. hands of tile enemy, arrived, with the few of his suit who had been able to keep up with him, FREDERICK THE GREAT. 45 Battle of MO L LW I T Z, Aprtl 10, 1141. a. Advance of Prussians. b. Where Rothenburg met the Hussars. c. Prussian Infantry. d d. Cavalry. e. Austrian Infantry. fit. Cavalry. gg. Retreat of Austrians. about midnight before the closed gates of the town. Who are you ? the Austrian senti- nels inquired. We are Prussians, was the reply, accompanying a courier from the king. The Austrians, unconscious of the prize within their grasp, and not knowing how numerous the Prussian party might be, instantly opened a musketry fire upon them, through the iron gratings of the gate. Had they but thrown open the gate, and thus let the king enter the trap, the whole history of Europe might have been changed. Upon apparently such trivial chances the destinies of empire~ and of the world depend. Fortunately, in the darkness and the confusion, none were struck by the bullets. At Oppela there was a bridge across the Oder hy which the king hoped to escape with his regiment to the free country beyond. There he intended to summon to his aid the army of thirty-six thousand men which he had sent to Gdtten under the Old iDessauer. The dis- charge of the musketry of the Austrians blasted even this dismal hope. It seemed as though Frederick were doomed to drain the cup of misery to its dregs. And his anguish must have been intensified by the consciousness that he deserved it all. But a few leagues behind him the bleak, snow-clad plains, swept by the night-winds, were strewed with the bodies of seven or eight thousand men, the dying and the dead, innocent peasant boys torn from their homes, whose butchery had been caused by his own selfish ambition. The king, in utter exhaustion from hunger, sleeplessness, anxiety, and misery, for a mo- ment lost all self-control. As with his little band of fugitives he vanished into the gloom of the night, not knowing where to go, he ex- claimed, in the bitterness of his despair, 0 my God, my God, this is too much 1 Retracing his steps in the darkness some fif- teen miles he returned to Lowen, where, by a bridge, a few hours before, he had crossed the Neisse. Taught caution by the misadven- ture ~t Oppeln, he reined up his horse, before the morning dawned, at the mill of Hilhersdorf, about a mile and a half from the town. The king, upon his high-blooded charger, had out- ridden nearly all his escort; but one or two were now with him. One of these attendants he sent into the town to ascertain if it were still held by the Prussians. Almost alone he wait- ed under the shelter of the mill the return of his courier. It was still night, dark and cold. The wind, sweeping over the snow-clad plains, causel the exhausted, half-famished monarch to shiver in his saddle. There is a gloom of the soul far deeper than any gloom with which nature can ever ho shrouded. It is not easy to conceive of a mor- tal placed in circumstances of greater mental suffering than was the proud, ambitious young monarch during the boor in which lie waited, in terror and disgrace, by the side of the mill, for the return of his courier. At length the clatter of hoofs was heard, and the messenger came back, accompanied by an adjutant, to announce to the king that the Prossians still held Lowen, and that the Prussian army had gained a s~qnal vwtori, at Miollwitz. Who can imagine the conflicting emotions of joy and wretchedness, of triumph and shame, of relief and chagrin, with which the heart of Frederick must have been rent! The army of Prussia had triumphed, under the leadership of his generals, while he, its young and ambi- tious sovereign, who had unjustly provoked war that he might obtain military glory, a fugitive from the field, was scampering like a coward over the plains at midnight, seeking his own safety. Never, perhaps, was there a more sig- nal instance of a retributive providence. Fred- erick knew full well that the derision of Europe would be excited by caricatures and lampoons of the chivalric fugitive. Nor was he deceived in his anticipations. There was no end to the ridicule which was heaped upon Frederick, gal- loping, for dear life, from the battle-field in one direction, while his solid columns were advanc- ing to victory in the other. His sarcastic foes were ungenerous and unjust. But when do foes, wielding the weapons of ridicule, ever pretend even to be just and generous? The king, upon receiving these strange and unexpected tidings, immediately rode into Low- 46 HAIIPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. en. It was an early hour in the morning. He entered the place, not as a king and a conquer- or, hut as a starving fugitive, exhausted with fatigue, anxiety, and sleeplessness. It is said that his hunger was so great that he stopped at a little shop on the corner of the market-place, where widow Pauzern, served him with a cup of coffee and a cold roast fowl. Thus slightly refreshed, the intensely humiliated young king galloped hack to his victorious army at Mollwitz, having been absent from it, in his terror-stricken flight, for sixteen hours. The chagrin of Frederick, in view of this ad- venture, may he inferred from the fact that, during the whole remainder of his life, he ~vas never known to make any allusion to it what- ever. After the king, swept away in the wreck of his right wing of cavalry, had left the field, and was spurring his horse in his impetuous flight, his generals in the centre and on the left, in command of infantry so highly disciplined that every man would stand at his post until he died, resolutely maintained the battle. Frederick XVilliam had drilled these men for twenty years, as men were never drilled before or since, con- verting them into mere machines. They were wielded by their officers as they themselves handled their own muskets. Five successive cavalry charges these cast-iron men resisted. They stood like rocks dashing aside the torrent. The assailing columns melted before their ter- rible firethey discharging five shots to the Austrians two. After the fifth charge, the Austrians, dispir- ited, and leaving the snow plain crimsoned with the blood and covered with the bodies of their slain, withdrew out of ball range. Torn and exhausted, they could not be driven by their officers forward to another assault. The bat- tle had now lasted for five hours. Night was at hand, for the sun had already set. The re- pulsed Anstrians were collected in scattered and confused bands. The experienced eye of general Schwerin saw that the honr for deci- sive action had come. He closed up his ranks, ordered every hand to play its most spirited air, and gave the order, Forward. An Austrian offleer, writing the next week, describes the scene. LIGHT OF FREHEHIcK. FREDERICK THE GREAT. 47 I can well say, he writes, that I never in my life sn w any thing more beautiful. They marched with the greatest steadiness, arrow straight and their front like a line, as if they had been npon parade. The glitter of their clear arms shone strangely in the setting snn, and the fire from them went on no otherwise than a continned peal of thunder. The spirits of onr army sank altogether, the foot plainly giving way, the horse refusing to come forward all things wavering toward dissolution. The Austrians had already lost, in killed, wounded, and missing, four thousand four hun- dred and ten men. And though the Prussians had lost four thousand six hundred and thir- teen, still their infantry lines had never for a moment wavered; and now, with floating ban- ners and peals of music, they were advancing with the strides of conquerors. Thus circumstanced, general Neipperg gave the order to retreat. At the double quick, the Austrians retired hack through the street of Mollwitz, hurried across the river Lugwitz hv a hridge, and, turning short to the south, con- tinued their retreat toward Grottkau. They left behind them nine of their own guns, and eight of those which they had captured from the Prussians. The Prussians, exhausted hy the long battle, their cavalry mostly dispersed and darkness already enveloping them, did not attempt any vigorous pursuit. They bivouacked on the grounds, or quartered themselves in the villages frotn which the Anstrians had fled. On Wednesday, April 12, two days after the battle, Frederick ~vrote to his sister Wilheltnina, from Ohlau, as follows: My DEAREST SIsTER,I have the satisfac- tion to inform you that we have yesterday to- tally beaten the Austrians. They have lost more than five thousand men in killed, wound- ed, and prisoners. We have lost prince Fred- erick, hrother of margraf Karl; general Schu- leuherg, Wartensleben of the carabineers, and many other officers. Our troops did miracles, and the result shows as much. It was one 01 1 ~ was the day before. But it is not surprising that the bewildered young king should have been somewhat confused in hts dates. K FREDELUCK AT THE ILL. HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. the rudest battles fought within the memory of man. I am sure you will take part in this happi- ness, and that you will not doubt the tenderness with which I am, dearest sister, yours wholly, yREDERIcK. The kings intimate friend Jordan had ac- companied him as far as Breslau. There he remained, anxiously awaitiug the issue of the conflict. On the 11th, the day succeeding the battle, he wrote from Breslan to the king, as follows: SutE,Yesterday I was in terrible alarms. The sound of the cannon heard, the smoke of powder visible from the steeple-tops here, all led us to suspect that there was a battle going on. Glorious confirmation of it this morning. Nothing but rejoicing among all the Protestant inhabitants, who had begun to be in apprehen- sion from the rumors which the other party took pleasure in spreading. Persons who were in the battle can not enough celebrate the cool- ness and bravery of your Majesty. For myse~ I am at the overflowing point. I have run about all day announcing this glorious news to the Berliners who are here. In my life I have never felt a more perfect satisfaction. One finds at the corner of every street an orator of the people, celebrating the warlike feats of your Majestys troops. I have often, in my idleness, assisted at these discourses; not artistic elo- quence, it must be owned, but gushing full from the heart. Frederick immediately sent an announce- ment of the victory to his friend Voltaire. It does not appear that he alluded to ~is own ad- ventures. Voltaire received the note when in the theatre at Lisle, while listening to the first performance of his tragedy of Ma/~omet. He read the account to the audience between the acts. It was received with great applause. You will see, said Voltaire, that this piece of Mollwitz will secure the sdccess of mine. Vous verrez que cette piece de Mollwitz fera rtfussir la miene. The distinguished philosopher Maupertuis accompanied Frederick on this campaign. Following the king to the vicinity of the field of battle, he took a post of observation at a safe distance, that he might witness the specta- cle. Carlyle, in his peculiar style of word- painting, describes the issue as follows: The sage Maupertuis, for example, had climbed some tree, or place of impregnability, hoping to see the battle there. And he did see it much too clearly at last! In such a tide of charging and chasing on that Right Wing, and round all the field in the Prussian rear; in such wide bickering and boiling of Hors~eurreats, which fling out round all the Prussian rear- quarters such a spray of Austrian Hussars for one element, Maupertuis, I have no doubt, wishes much he were at home doing his sines and tangents. Au Austrian Hussar party gets sight of him on his tree or other stand-point (Voltaire says elsewhere he was mounted on an ass, the malicious spirit !)too certain the Aus- trian Hussars got sight of him; his purse, gold watch, all he has of movable, is given frankly; all will not do. There are frills about the man, fine laces, cloth; a goodish yellow wig on him for one thing. Their Slavonic dialect, too fa- tally intelligible by the pantomime accompany- ing it, forces sage Maupertuis from his tree or stand-point; the big red face flurried into scar- let, I can fancy, or scarlet and ashy-white mix- ed; and Let us draw a veil over it. He is next seen shirtless, the once very haughty, blus- tery, and now much humiliated man; still con- scious of supreme acumen, insight, and pure science; and though an Austrian prisoner and a monster of rags, struggling to believe that he is a genius, and the Trisrnegistus of mankind. What a pickle! While in this deplorable condition Mauper- tuis was found by the prince of Lichtenstein, an Austrian officer who had met him in Paris. The prince rescued him from his brutal captors and supplied him with clothing. He was, how- ever, taken to Vienna as a prisoner of war, where he was placed on parole. Voltaire, whose unamiable nature was pervaded by a very mark- ed vein of malignity, made himself very merry over the misfortunes of th.e philosopher. As Maupertuis glided about the streets of Vienna for a time in obscurity, the newspapers began to speak of his scientific celebrity. He was thus brought into notice. The queen treated him with distinction. The grand duke Francis drew his own watch from his pocket, and pre- sented it to Maupertuis in recompense for the one he had lost. Eventually he was released, and, loaded with many presents, was sent to Brittany. In the account which Frederick gave, some years after, of this campaign, in his Histoire de Mons Temps, he wrote: The contest between general Neipperg and myself seemed to be which should commit the most faults. Mollwitz was the school of the king and his troops. That prince reflected pro- foundly upon all the faults and errors he had fallen into, and tried to correct them for the future. VANITY OF VANITIES. Au, woe is me for pleasure that is vain. Ah, woe is me for glory that is past: Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last, Glory that at the last bringeth no gain! So saith the sinking heart; and so again It shall say till the mighty angel-blast Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast, And showering down the stars like sudden rain. And evermore men shall go fearfully, Bending beneath their weight of heaviness; And ancient men shall lie down wearily, And strong men shall rise up in weariness; Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly, Saying one to another, How vain it is I

HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. the rudest battles fought within the memory of man. I am sure you will take part in this happi- ness, and that you will not doubt the tenderness with which I am, dearest sister, yours wholly, yREDERIcK. The kings intimate friend Jordan had ac- companied him as far as Breslau. There he remained, anxiously awaitiug the issue of the conflict. On the 11th, the day succeeding the battle, he wrote from Breslan to the king, as follows: SutE,Yesterday I was in terrible alarms. The sound of the cannon heard, the smoke of powder visible from the steeple-tops here, all led us to suspect that there was a battle going on. Glorious confirmation of it this morning. Nothing but rejoicing among all the Protestant inhabitants, who had begun to be in apprehen- sion from the rumors which the other party took pleasure in spreading. Persons who were in the battle can not enough celebrate the cool- ness and bravery of your Majesty. For myse~ I am at the overflowing point. I have run about all day announcing this glorious news to the Berliners who are here. In my life I have never felt a more perfect satisfaction. One finds at the corner of every street an orator of the people, celebrating the warlike feats of your Majestys troops. I have often, in my idleness, assisted at these discourses; not artistic elo- quence, it must be owned, but gushing full from the heart. Frederick immediately sent an announce- ment of the victory to his friend Voltaire. It does not appear that he alluded to ~is own ad- ventures. Voltaire received the note when in the theatre at Lisle, while listening to the first performance of his tragedy of Ma/~omet. He read the account to the audience between the acts. It was received with great applause. You will see, said Voltaire, that this piece of Mollwitz will secure the sdccess of mine. Vous verrez que cette piece de Mollwitz fera rtfussir la miene. The distinguished philosopher Maupertuis accompanied Frederick on this campaign. Following the king to the vicinity of the field of battle, he took a post of observation at a safe distance, that he might witness the specta- cle. Carlyle, in his peculiar style of word- painting, describes the issue as follows: The sage Maupertuis, for example, had climbed some tree, or place of impregnability, hoping to see the battle there. And he did see it much too clearly at last! In such a tide of charging and chasing on that Right Wing, and round all the field in the Prussian rear; in such wide bickering and boiling of Hors~eurreats, which fling out round all the Prussian rear- quarters such a spray of Austrian Hussars for one element, Maupertuis, I have no doubt, wishes much he were at home doing his sines and tangents. Au Austrian Hussar party gets sight of him on his tree or other stand-point (Voltaire says elsewhere he was mounted on an ass, the malicious spirit !)too certain the Aus- trian Hussars got sight of him; his purse, gold watch, all he has of movable, is given frankly; all will not do. There are frills about the man, fine laces, cloth; a goodish yellow wig on him for one thing. Their Slavonic dialect, too fa- tally intelligible by the pantomime accompany- ing it, forces sage Maupertuis from his tree or stand-point; the big red face flurried into scar- let, I can fancy, or scarlet and ashy-white mix- ed; and Let us draw a veil over it. He is next seen shirtless, the once very haughty, blus- tery, and now much humiliated man; still con- scious of supreme acumen, insight, and pure science; and though an Austrian prisoner and a monster of rags, struggling to believe that he is a genius, and the Trisrnegistus of mankind. What a pickle! While in this deplorable condition Mauper- tuis was found by the prince of Lichtenstein, an Austrian officer who had met him in Paris. The prince rescued him from his brutal captors and supplied him with clothing. He was, how- ever, taken to Vienna as a prisoner of war, where he was placed on parole. Voltaire, whose unamiable nature was pervaded by a very mark- ed vein of malignity, made himself very merry over the misfortunes of th.e philosopher. As Maupertuis glided about the streets of Vienna for a time in obscurity, the newspapers began to speak of his scientific celebrity. He was thus brought into notice. The queen treated him with distinction. The grand duke Francis drew his own watch from his pocket, and pre- sented it to Maupertuis in recompense for the one he had lost. Eventually he was released, and, loaded with many presents, was sent to Brittany. In the account which Frederick gave, some years after, of this campaign, in his Histoire de Mons Temps, he wrote: The contest between general Neipperg and myself seemed to be which should commit the most faults. Mollwitz was the school of the king and his troops. That prince reflected pro- foundly upon all the faults and errors he had fallen into, and tried to correct them for the future. VANITY OF VANITIES. Au, woe is me for pleasure that is vain. Ah, woe is me for glory that is past: Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last, Glory that at the last bringeth no gain! So saith the sinking heart; and so again It shall say till the mighty angel-blast Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast, And showering down the stars like sudden rain. And evermore men shall go fearfully, Bending beneath their weight of heaviness; And ancient men shall lie down wearily, And strong men shall rise up in weariness; Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly, Saying one to another, How vain it is I THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN. 49 THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN.* IN this Magazine~ have been given accounts of three notable voyages performed in the canoe Rob Roy by Mr. Macgregor. He now gives an account of a new trip in the Rob Roy, mainly through waters hallowed by sacred asso- ciations. We follow Mr. Macgregor in styling the boat in which these voyages were made as the Rob Roy ; although, in fact, each was performed in a different canoe, built expressly for the work which it was designed to perform, the leading idea in all being to furnish the greatest amonnt of accommodation in the least possible space, nadwith the leastpossihle weight. The canoe Rob Roy Number Four was to traverse waters where no dwellings were to be found on shore; the crew (that is, Mr. Mac- gregor) must, if need were, sleep on hoard the craft; and so something had to be sacrificed in order to furnish a commodious cabin. Mr. Macgregor we judge to be a muscular Christian of about six feet in height, with shoulders and hips corresponding. He laid himself flat on his back, and had himself measured for his ca- noe. Men are measured for garments and for coffins; but this is the first time where we have heard of a mans being measured for a hoat. This Rob Roy was a good fit for Mr. Macgreg- The Bob Roy on the Jordan, Nile, Red Sea, end Gen- nesareth, etc.: a Canoe Cruise in Palestine and Egypt, aud the Waters of Damascus. With Maps aud Illus- trations. By J. MAcaaaaon, M.A. Harper and Broth- ers. t 6ruise of the Rob Roy through S7entral Europe: Oc- tober, 1866.The Rob Roy in the Baltic: September, l86T.The Voyage Alone in the Eaglish Channel: May, 1868. Von. XLI.No. 2414 or, and is probably the smallest boat ever built which a man could make his home, sailing in it long and far, and sleeping on board comfort- ably. It is fourteen feet long, two feet two inches wide, and a foot deep, built of oak, with a cedar deck. Including mast (for which the lower joints of a fishing-pole were used), sails, and paddle, the weight is seventy-two pounds. About half the deck is cut away, leaving a well in which the crew sits while rowing or sailing. To fit up the cabin at night, two bits of wood are set up at the fore-part of the well, and connected at the tops by a cross-piece of bamboo. Upon this cross-piece the paddle is laid, one end resting upon the stern. Three feet of the deck consist of movable boards; these are taken up, laid upon the paddle, and form the roof; over all is thrown a light water- proof cloth, and the cabin is complete. The fitting-up is simple. The pillow, says Mr. Macgregor, is, of course, our clothes- bag, and for a bed there is an air-cushion three feet long and fourteen inches broad, with ribs across it, so made that it will not collapse. This bed is particularly comfortable, and, be- sides, answers for several other purposes. Its diminutive size has been ridiculed; but if you will try you will find that when the hips and shoulders are supported the rest of the body needs no support at all, except the head, which has a pillow, and the heels, which can rest on a roll of the top-sail. Some of the other purposes served by the bed are thus described: When traveling under a hot sun I place this bed behind me, with one end on deck, and the AT HOME ON THE ROB nov.

THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN. 49 THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN.* IN this Magazine~ have been given accounts of three notable voyages performed in the canoe Rob Roy by Mr. Macgregor. He now gives an account of a new trip in the Rob Roy, mainly through waters hallowed by sacred asso- ciations. We follow Mr. Macgregor in styling the boat in which these voyages were made as the Rob Roy ; although, in fact, each was performed in a different canoe, built expressly for the work which it was designed to perform, the leading idea in all being to furnish the greatest amonnt of accommodation in the least possible space, nadwith the leastpossihle weight. The canoe Rob Roy Number Four was to traverse waters where no dwellings were to be found on shore; the crew (that is, Mr. Mac- gregor) must, if need were, sleep on hoard the craft; and so something had to be sacrificed in order to furnish a commodious cabin. Mr. Macgregor we judge to be a muscular Christian of about six feet in height, with shoulders and hips corresponding. He laid himself flat on his back, and had himself measured for his ca- noe. Men are measured for garments and for coffins; but this is the first time where we have heard of a mans being measured for a hoat. This Rob Roy was a good fit for Mr. Macgreg- The Bob Roy on the Jordan, Nile, Red Sea, end Gen- nesareth, etc.: a Canoe Cruise in Palestine and Egypt, aud the Waters of Damascus. With Maps aud Illus- trations. By J. MAcaaaaon, M.A. Harper and Broth- ers. t 6ruise of the Rob Roy through S7entral Europe: Oc- tober, 1866.The Rob Roy in the Baltic: September, l86T.The Voyage Alone in the Eaglish Channel: May, 1868. Von. XLI.No. 2414 or, and is probably the smallest boat ever built which a man could make his home, sailing in it long and far, and sleeping on board comfort- ably. It is fourteen feet long, two feet two inches wide, and a foot deep, built of oak, with a cedar deck. Including mast (for which the lower joints of a fishing-pole were used), sails, and paddle, the weight is seventy-two pounds. About half the deck is cut away, leaving a well in which the crew sits while rowing or sailing. To fit up the cabin at night, two bits of wood are set up at the fore-part of the well, and connected at the tops by a cross-piece of bamboo. Upon this cross-piece the paddle is laid, one end resting upon the stern. Three feet of the deck consist of movable boards; these are taken up, laid upon the paddle, and form the roof; over all is thrown a light water- proof cloth, and the cabin is complete. The fitting-up is simple. The pillow, says Mr. Macgregor, is, of course, our clothes- bag, and for a bed there is an air-cushion three feet long and fourteen inches broad, with ribs across it, so made that it will not collapse. This bed is particularly comfortable, and, be- sides, answers for several other purposes. Its diminutive size has been ridiculed; but if you will try you will find that when the hips and shoulders are supported the rest of the body needs no support at all, except the head, which has a pillow, and the heels, which can rest on a roll of the top-sail. Some of the other purposes served by the bed are thus described: When traveling under a hot sun I place this bed behind me, with one end on deck, and the AT HOME ON THE ROB nov. 50 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. middle of it is tied around my breast, so as to bring the upper end just under the long back leaf of my sun-helmet. It thus becomes an excellent protector against sun-stroke, especial- ly when my course was toward the north, and my back was thus turned to the sun. Often I went ashore with the bed still dangling from my waist behind, while the wondering natives gazed at the Giaour with his air-bag tail. The bed was useful, too, when I sat upon wet sand or grass or gravel; and it was always a good life-buoy in case of an upset. On the 30th of October, 1868, the Rob Roy was landed from the steamer at Port Said, then a town of bustling wooden shanties which had sprung up from the sand at the mouth of the Suez Canal. Mr. Macgregors first purpose was to explore this canal, then to paddle upon the Red Sea and the Nile, and afterward to try the Syrian lakes and rivers. We pass briefly over the six weeks spent in Egypt. For twenty-five miles the canal is ex- cavated through the shallow lake Menzaleh. The narrow sand-bank which separates the lake from the Mediterranean had not yet been cut through, and the Rob Roy was hauled across, and launched upon the motionless waters of the lake. It soon got entangled among the mud- banks; and the sharp little ragamuffins of an Arab village came scampering down in hopes of backshish. They wallowed in the mud- dy water, their little round heads-looking like smooth cocoa-nuts, with only a single hair-lock left on the top of the shaven crown, by which lock, according to Mohammedan belief; the Prophet will drag them into Paradisebobbing above the surface. They made themselves quite disagreeably familiar, and the canoe stood a fair chance of being overset. But Mr. Macgregor understands how to manage boys. Selecting the stoutest and noisiest of the crowd, he hired him as policeman, paying him a months wages in advance. This advance was but a penny, and for this the lad made the others drag the canoe, with all the crew aboard, a long way through the shallows. This they did cheer- fully, evidently thinking it a jolly lark, how- ever that may be expressed in Arabic. It is to behopedthat the penny was fairly divided among the crowd; though how they could have car- ried it is doubtful, since there could be no pock- ets in the suit of black mud which constituted their sole garment. This same difficulty after- ward came nuder Mr. Macgregors observation near Damascus. He gave a penny to a naked urchin, who held it a moment in his hand, and then requested the donor to put it by for him until he had finished his sports. The waters of the canal being perfectly still, and each kilometer marked, gave Mr. Mac- gregor an opportunity to measure accurately his rate of paddling. He found that he could make a hundred double strokes, right and left, in five minutes, and that these would propel the canoe 542 yards, being at the rate of not quite four miles an hour, and that he could easily keep it up for eight hours out of the twenty-four. At night, while passing through the shallow lagoons, the canoe was drawn up on the sand, and worked back and forth until it rested firm- ly, when the cabin was set up, and the voyager retired to rest. The loneliest spot was always chosen for this purpose, and a visitor seldom appeared. Once, however, on Lake Timneb, one came. He proved to be a jackall, who had probably been attracted by the smell of the sup- per which Mr. Macgregor was cooking by means A LARK ON LAKE MENzALEII. THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN. I of his lamp. Flamingoes ahonnd in these la- goons; and a comical sight was the manner in which they managed to take flight when dis- turhed by the canoe. Up one springs from the ooze in which he had been wading, his long legs dangling upon the surface of the water upon which he walks, while his wings are strug- gling in the air, and his neck is stretched out in front. It is only after a long and doubtful scramble between earth, water, and air that the scrimp little hody, with its pretty pink wings, can finally manage to carry off the long legs and snake-like neck. Mr. Macgregors anticipations of the success of the Suez Canal are far from sai~guine. A hole in the sand, he says, is an excellent place for sinking capital. You can always dig it deep if people will pay the diggers. You can even keep it clear if you pay dredges rather than dividends. When Europe or Asia or Af- rica is at war, of course the canal is closed, and the expenses go on and the earnings stop. But so far as concerns England, v have always got at Aden the cork in the other end of the bot- tle. We imagine, however, that in case of a war between France and England, the cork would be easily drawn out. At Cairo Mr. Macgregor wit- nessed a scene characteristic of the civilization which is heing in- troduced into Egypt. There is, he says, knocking down, building up, opening out, plant- ing, fencing, painting, cleaning, almost civilizing the old Egyptian capital. Great gangs of work- men are all day toiling here at reconstruction. Puny children, herded in long flocks by cruel task-masters, who flog them with long sticks, are carrying on their heads straw baskets full of earth and stones. As they march they sing; but it is in a rhythm of slav- ery. The strongest repression of ones feelings is scarce enough to keep us from knocking that wretch over who has just belabored with his bludgeon a tender little girl. The evening brings a short relief even to the woe of these hapless little ones. They sit round in a circle with their baskets before them, while the roll- call is droned over hy a task-master who can read. Early in Decemher Mr. Macgregor, with the Rob Roy on board, embarked on a steamer from Alexandria for Beyrout, in Syria, in order to begin his exploration of the sacred waters: Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus ; the Jordan, hallowed for evermore for that its waters wet in baptism the head of Him who for us men and for our salvation came down A amour ots LAKE lezazALEn. FLAMINeozs TA~I~O WINO. HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 52 from heaven and was incarnate ; of the Lake stay to visit some of these. Here is a printing- of Gennesareth, around which cluster so many press where the blind make Bihies for the blind, of His mightiest works and wonderful teach- in raised characters, to he read by the fingers ings; of the river Kishon, that ancient river, instead of the eyes. One of the most interest- which swept away the hordes of Sisera, with ing sights which he saw in Beyront was a hlind their nine hundred chariots of iron. man reading~ the Bible to a group of cripples Beyrout is the one living town of Syria. seated around him. Its roads and streets are far better kept than The French are quietly and almost imper- most of those in Alexandria or Cairo; its houses ceptibly laying their hands upon Syria, fore- are altogether superior externally to those of seeing the time when the Mediterranean will Egypt. Schools have within a few years been he a French lake. French steamers, main- established here, by missionaries from abroad. tamed by government subsidies, run all along Mr. Macgregor found time during his two days the cdast; French sign-hoards hang over thc IDE ROIl EOY OR LEJIANON. SLAVE CHILDREN AT CAIRO. / THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN. 0 SOURCE OF THE ABANA. shops; French Napoleons are the common coin. Within ten years the French have built a fine road from Beyrout a hundred miles south- eastward to Damascus. This road is the only one in all Syria fairly passable for a wheeled vehicle; although it is said that some one has recently rode in a carriage from Joppa to Jeru- salem. This French road, says Mr. Mac- gregor, is excellent; it is all marked down in kilometers, very well kept, and rolled down, fenced, and drained. But the toll of three francs for each mule is enough to deter hun- dreds of these from using the road; so they plod on their way along the old worn out, steep, muddy, slippery, winding bridle-path, which runs for miles along the carriage-way; and thus you see strings of heavy-laden asses, cam- els, and mules toiling along among boulders and sharp rocks, with their drivers ankle-deep in mud, while even the fiat surface of the new road is used by a scant few, and no cart or car- riage goes upon it except as a part of the Com- panys monopoly. It is a miserable sight, and this gift of France to Syria is like a crust to a toothless heggar. But this road is not a gift of France to Syria. It is a part of the grand scheme which is some day, not far remote, to make Egypt and Syria, like Algeria, a part of the French Empire. In its far-reaching extent tbis project of France is only to he compared with that of Russia for the ultimate acquisition of the shores of the Black Sea and the Bosphorus. Over this French road Mr. Macgregor pro- posed to transport the Rob Roy until the head waters of the Abana were reached. His first purpose was to have the canoe home upon mens shoulders, two carrying it, and two oth- ers as reserves. But the first days trial in crossing the snowy Lebanon proved that this plan was futile; and the Roh Roy was placed in a covered wagon; and so, crossing Mount Lebanon, the White Mountains, whose sum- mits rise to the height of 10,000 feet, over- topping by two-thirds our own New England White Mountains, then descending into the fer- tile plain of Crelo-Syria, then again climbing the lower range of Anti-Lehanon, leaving the lofty peak of Hermon to the South, the canoe- ist reached Am Fiji, a source of the ancient Abana, now called the Barada, the river which runs through Damascus. This source of the Ahana is in a dark dell shadowed by rugged cliffs. Here stand the ruins of two. old temples, and the massive stones of an arch from out of which bursts a co- pious stream, which, after tumbling over rocks and boulders for seventy yards, plunges into a deep gorge where it meets another branch, the two forming the Abana. Near the village of Doomar, midway between Fiji and Damascus, ten miles from each, the Rob Roy was launched upon the river. Tidings of the approach of the canoe had reached Damascus by telegraph, and ninny persons had ridden out to witness the event. The river here resembles a swift Scotch salmon stream, with high snow-clad mountains on one side, and on the other bluff rocks, with here and there a bit of green wood- ed sward. The stream, now probably for the first time traversed by a human being, whirls through the deep gorge, sometimes obstructed by half-prostrate trees, whose branches inter- lace in the water. while their roots hold fast to IIARI~ERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. the bank. here a heavy rock overhangs on the left, while the right shore is of soft tund. The ~vhole picture of this is presented in an in- stant, as you round a point, and the decision mast be instantly made, or the current itself will (lecide. Strong to the left hand; seize that boagh with the right Swing round a qnarter-circle, thcn dock the head for ten see- ends nader tha.t thorn and shoot across below the second tree; drift under the third, and five strokes will free as surely 1 The gorge passed safely, the canoe was borne through a thick~t of trees, with magnificent snowy crags behind them. The river is about sixty yards wide; but grows narrower every fnrlong, for little canals lead off the water to iirigate the cultivated fields. At least twenty times the canoeist had to jump ont, and could only keep his footing in the swift cnrrent by the aid of a strong pole. Sometimes the boat had to be dragged ashore and hauled around some impassable obstruction. Now it was a clump of fallen trees; now a dam and mill-race. It took five hours to reach a point which is only 00000 OF Tue AOANA. THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN. 55 an hours walk by the road which runs near by, often in plain sight. At last, writes Mr. Macgregor, the gorge loosened its hold upon us, a~d the canoe soon floated along the now placi I river, while Damascusold Damascus gleamed out brilliant before me in the evening light, with its groves of green and white shining walls and airy minarets, a glorious scene. The far-famed approach to this city from the ~vest, which unfolds to the traveler all its gentle beau- ty from a lofty hill, I had well remembered nine- teen years ago. That is one of the sights of the world; but the sudden emerging now from rapids and rocks and dense jungles into the broad day, with such a picture before me, was more striking by far than the other view. And no~v, he continues, the river itself seemed tired of the struggle, and it gurgled, almost sleeping, between the green river banks. There a most pleasant repast was spread on the soft grass, and the little knot of wondering Turks which soon collected was good proof that even Moslems, with all their apathy, could not help looking at a boat on the river. Then the Rob Roy glided into the town itself, under the bridges, round the dripping aqueducts, past the barracks, close up to the Pachas palace; and two men carried her weary hull safe to the hotel, with colors flying, my dragoman, Hany, singing, mud-splashing Moslems wondering, and the hotel folks bowing. There on the cool water of the fountain in the court-yard I placed the canoe, with her blue sails set, and her gold- en flag reposing. Soon began the long line of visitors; each one as he left sent in a dozen friends to see. Even the Pacha of Damascus came, and the English Consul; and the Arabic newspapers gravely chronicled the arrival of the canoe in the same page with the movements of the Greek iron-dads, stirring up their fires then for a European war. Of Damascus, the oldest inhabited city on the globe, Mr. Macgregor says little, and that little not altogether complimentary. Damns- cus,~ he says, has never yet, I think, been well described; and the reason may be that the traveler who has enough acuteness to paint a good word-picture of the town has sense enough to see that it is a sentimental humbug. In vain he tries to feel an admiration which he can not support by the appearance of the place. It may be the oldest, but in wet weather it is surely the filthiest of towns. It may be rich, but the mud-walls are what you see, and not the wealth. n disappointment; its situation is its chief beauty, and once inside it you can not realize that outside these dirty lanes, tumble-down walls, gloomy shops, and crooked bazars are the lovely groves, the gush- ing fountains, the teeming gardens, and the glorious hills. But the Rob Roy had come hither to solve a problem which had long ago presented itself to Mr. Macgregor. Twenty years before, he had looked over the plain of Damascus from the chapel whence the first view is caught. Iii the distance he saw two huge aerial pillars. These he was told were sand-clouds, whirled aloft by the breeze, and that they were coursing over a silent and desolate region, almost unknown, through which ran the river Abana, which, though it had run there for ages, and had been described in prose and sung in verse, melted away in the desert, ho~v and where nobody knew. The Rob Roy had come to solve this mys- tery, by following the Abana down to its end. But, though this end was known to be in a morass hardly a score of miles from the city, nobody could give any reliable information. All agreed, however, that the morass or lake of Ateiheh was impenetrable; full of whirl- pools which sucked people down; of hyenas, panthers, and wild-hoars, which ate people up; of fevers, agnes, snakes, jungle, sun-strokes, and many other horrible things. As a preliminary, Mr. Macgregor took a ride of a few miles eastward of Damascus along the course of the Abana. The speed of the river was moderate, for it was running through a plain; but its course was intricate, for it branched out into numerous channels, of which only one could be the right one, and nobody could tell which that one was. All these chan- nels were for the purpose of irrigation. It is only by a ride of this sort, says he, that one can appreciate the richness and beauty of the Damascus plain, or can understand the marvel- ous ingenuity and perseverance with which the Abana has been led through the desert to water it. In Egypt, indeed, the sluices and canal- ettes are intricate enough, but nothing to what is done here. Banks, dams, lashers, and weirs seem to force the water into every nook of she country; to force it underground, and, as it were, even up bill, until every available drop has been wrung out for use. Below the shady groves, athwart bright, level mends, oozing over, murmuring beneath, and softly hurrying by, there is water every where, and nearly all this from that one river which has fed millions of people for ages of time; and if that river stopped, Damascus would perish. As a result of his inquiries and observations, Mr. Macgregor decided to try the Abana with his canoe; and where it could not float, to have it conveyed on land. How this was to be done in a region where there was no such thing as a road was a question. After deep cogitation a very simple plan was devised. A couple of poles, a little longer than the canoe, were placed two feet apart, and fastened together by side- pieces. Upon this frame the Rob Roy, wrapped up in carpets, was lashed. This frame, holding the canoe, was tied upon the back of a stout horse, whose hack was padded with a bag of straw, by way of cushion. And so wherever the horse could go, the canoe went safely with him. A little eastward of Damascus the Rob Roy was launched upon the Abana, now grown lazy enough. The channel led through groves and 56 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. orchards, meadows and ozier beds. Sleepy called a pond, for here, in the centre of a dense tortoises toppled down the banks; lazy land- jungle, is an open body of clear water; and near crabs crawled out of sight; ducks, too fat to fly, its edge is an island of a few acres, upon which scnttled off into the brakes. This region is are the massive walls of four strong buildings, thickly peopled, and the inhabitants would run in which no man has dwelt for untold genera- or ride for miles to follow the strange sight of a tions. Wild-boars are its only inhabitants, and boat, the first which has ever traversed these the surface was torn up by their deep ruts. waters. Upon its borders, half buried in slime, were At length the Rob Roy, sometimes on water, huge stones, ruined walls, and what look like and sometimes on horseback, got down to the the piers of a bridge, squared and cut for na- lagoon of Ateibeb, half land, half water, and all known purposes, by nnknown men, at a time un- mnd, in which the Abana finally loses itseW hard- known. Tbis deserted island appears to have ly twoscore miles from the point where it bursts been a fortress; but tbere is no record that be- from the snowy mountains into the plain. Here fore Mr. Macgregor any man has seen it since was a wide sea of sballow water, concealed by history has been written. The reeds surround- grass in tufts, like an Jrisb bog, and witb soft, de- ing the island are furrowed by boar tracks, ceptive mud, deep holes, and trickling stream- along which the Rob Roy could be propelled; lets. Hundreds of cattle stood up to their but the animals who made them were not seen. stomachs in water; our mules plunged deep Lake Hijaneh having been explored, Mr. above their girths, and the men sank down re- Macgregor wished to take a look at the remains peatedly. One of the little donkeys disappeared of the Giant Cities, in the region toward the under water, head, ears, and every thing; but a south which the Bible styles Argob the stone clever muleteer caught him by the tail, and we countryand Bashan, wherein of old dwelt the pulled him out. But by dint of much wading giant Og, whose bedstead was of iron, nine cubits and paddling, the real month of the Abana was long. Over this region the Turks hold merely found; and here was passed the Christmas nominal control. After traveling a couple of night of 1868. After all, the party were only days over bleak stony hills and dry river-courses, twenty miles from a great city, and they had they saw what in the distance looked like an ir- brought materials for an orthodox Christmas regular mass of rock and stone a mile in length dinner. There were, among other things, a the ruins of the commoner houses; but at the stuffed turkey and a plum-pudding swimming extremity were fifty or sixty structures almost in the flames of brandy, uninjured. The walls of these, five or six feet Leaving the Ateibeb Marsh, the Rob Roy was thick, were of blocks of basalt, some of them borne on horseback ten miles southward to Lake well cut and polished. Many were two stories Hijaneh, in which the Pharpar, the other so- high, and some three. But every thing was of called river of Damascus, loses itself. The stone. The rafters, twelve or fourteen feet Pharpar does not, however, run by the city. long, were of stone; the stairs and floors of Ateibeh is simply a morass; Hijaneh may be stone; there were stone mangers in the stables THE ATETEEH MARSH. THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN. 57 stone cooking-places and troughs in the kitch- ens. The very doors and window-shutters were solid slabs of stone. The outer door of the house which they occupied was seven feet high and six inches thick, composed of two leaves, opening inward, moving upon stone pivots, yet so nicely balanced that they could be opened and shut with a finger. The window was fur- nished with a stone shutter four feet high, open- ing outward. How old these structures are no one knows. In the court-yard of one is a Greek inscription hearing date five centuries before Christ. Returning to the Pharpar, the Rob Roy was launched upon its winding waters. It is cer- tainly the crookedest of riversbend within bendso that one had to paddle seven or eight miles in order to accomplish what would be a mile in a straight line. On New-Years Day, 1869, Mr. Macgregor returned to Damascus, and the next day set out to recross the mountains in search of the head waters of the Jordan. The Jordan and the Ahana rise on opposite sides of the range of Anti-Lebanon, their head waters almost over- lapping. Neither sends a drop of water to the sea, the one being lost in the deep gorge of the Dead Sea, and the other disappearing in the marsh of Ateiheb. Skirting a upur of Mount Hermon they wound up a steep crooked path, amidst slippery rocks, projecting trees, loose stones, and deceitful mud. Two men could hardly hold the Rob Roy in its place upon the horses back, as it swayed to and fro in the cold blasts which swept down from the snowy summits. On the fourth day they pitched their tents at Rukleh, a town hemmed in by piles of sharp gray rocks, tumbled together in wild confusion. Climbing these, one perceives that in the olden time every nook of these jagged heights had been occupied. There were end- less winding avenues, gardens hanging upon steeps, retaining-walls to sustain the soil wher- ever a few square roods of space could thus be secured. Temples and altars and tombs har- bored in clefts of the rock, all showed that Life, and its follower Death, had peopled these re- gions now so desolate. These remains go far to justify the accounts given in the text of the He- hrew Scriptures of the dense population which, in the time of the monarchy, once occupied all Palestine. Still onward went the Rob Roy, mostly on horseback, but often borne by hand. The lay of the land showed that they must now he ap- proaching the sources of the Jordan. They searched here and there, finding spring upon spring, whose waters were soon lost. At~ last, in a lonely field, one was discovered from which flowed a little brook. This grew grad- ually larger, and at length tumbled, in a pretty little cascade, over a low ledge of rock, and ran away in a bright dancing stream. This, which Mr. Macgregor styles Am Bob Roy, Rob Roy Fountain, he regards as the true source of the Jordan; that is, the farthest point from which a constant stream makes its way. This young Jordan, here called the Hasbany, is a pretty brook, growing larger and larger until it spreads into a pool. The natives averred this to be a thousand feet deep; but upon being sounded, the line touched bottom at the depth of eleven feet. Upon this pool the Rob Roy was first launched upon the Jordan. But the canoe had to be carried past a little cascade, which turns a mill, and then the stream is crossed by a nar- row stone bridge, and then the Rob Roy fairly commenced her downward voyage. 5TONE DOOR IN ~A5IIA 58 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. The river was still too narrow for paddling, neylugs upon earth. sear this place it was and Mr. Macgregor, pole in hand, now mounted that Peter made the confession, Thou art the astride of the canoe, and now wading and drag- Christ, the Son of the living God, and received ging it after him, managed to make way for a the reply, ~Thou art Peter, and upon this rock space. At length the brook, now swollen by a will I build my church. sndden storm into a headlong torrent, rushed The modern representative of C sarea Phi- through a ravine where the canoe could not lippi is the insignificant village of Banias (an live; and the Rob Roy was borne overland to Arabic corruption of Paneos, the city of Pan, another branch, the head of which forms wbat for to this heathen deity was dedicated the fount- is historically known as the source of the Jor- am hard by, which is one of the three recognized dan. The region is far from a peaceful one. sources of the Jordan, and by many esteemed Not long before the bodies of three men had the principal one). This fountain bursts forth been found under a tree hard by. At a place, in front of a deep cavern which pierces the foot now called Tell el Kady, once Dan, the extreme of a steel) limestone cliff. The stream flowing northernmost limits of the kingdom ~f Israel, from this fountain soon loses itself in a wide this historic Jordan bursts forth in a noble morass, dotted here and there with patches of spring, said to be the largest single source in bright water. the world. rhe Tell is a great mound, al- After a course of half a dozen miles the most square, the sides being from 250 to 300 stream (here called the Leddan), flowing from yards. In one corner is the spot where it is the fountain at Tell ci Kady, unites with the said King Jeroboam set up one of the two Banias; and three miles below they are joined calves of gold, which the Israelites were to re- by the Ilasbany. Of these streams, says bard as the gods which had brought their fa- Thomson, she Leddan is far the largest, the thers up out of the land of Egypt. This mound Banias the most beautiful, the Hasbany the resembles the rim of a volcanic crater, sloping longest. The united river now for the first inward into a tangled thicket, around which is tune takes the name of Jordan, the I)escend- yet a low dais, pparently the remains of an errightly due both to the fast flow and enor- amphitheatre. Out of this the water rushes nious fall of the river, which also descends deep- into a circular basin a hundred feet wide. The or into the bowels of the earth than any other Rob Roy was set afloat upon this pool, which river in the world. Macgregor was assured was bottomless. He To the meeting of the waters the Rob Roy ~ounded it ~vith a pole, and found its depth to was borne on horseback. The explorers put up be just five feet. for a night at a little mill. The host had come One inure so-called Source of the Jordan, to this place a year before, lie ~vas a Chris- had yet to be visited. This is at Banias, an tian, and four of his children had been massa- hours ride eastward from Tell el Kady. The cred not long before by the Mussuhanas. The way lies through a well-wooded region, whose only survivor was a beautiful girl of ten, with flue clumps of oak give it an almost park-like a happy angelic look. Her father held out her character. Soon the traveler finds himself little right hand to show how it was gashed and among beautiful ruinsbridges, walls, and pros- scarred, and worthless for needle-work. In the trase pillarsthe remains of the city of C~sarea room was a heap of corn, and steelyards to Philippi. This was probably the extreme north- weigh it; but not an article of furniture except ward point reached by our Saviour in his jour- a single straw mat. Soon a party of half a nooazu AiieuiTzcTcza. THE HOE ROY ON THE JORDAN. 119 dozen Arabs entered. They had come to buy gunpowder of the miller. He pulled out an old canvas sack upon which Mr. Macgregor had been leaning, smoking his pipe. The 1)owder was lying perfectly loose in the sack. One of the visitors was also smoking a nargilleb. Each of the Arabs flashed a pinch of the powder in his rusty gun; and all began chaffening and wrangling over their purchases as they were weighed out. Some put the powder into bits of paper, others into goat-skin bags, and others placed it loosely in their pockets. The river for some miles runs through the lagoon known as the Lake of Huleb. Herds of buffaloes and horses were browsing on the luscious green grass. The few hamlets are curiously various in their architecture. here is a stone house with a flat roof; then a mud- wall, with a round top of reed matting; then dwellings with mats for the side walls and roofs sb ped like a pulpit cushion, the tassels repre- sented by heavy stones tied with straw ropes to keep the roof in place; then are l)lack Arab tents, with woven reeds at the sides; and then regular tents: every variety of tent and thatch and mud and mat combined. The Rob Roy was launched upon the Jordan; the stream, about a hundred feet wide, running swiftly on a course almost as winding as that of the Pharpar. Mr. Macgregor sent his attend- ants with the animals to skirt the edge of the morass, while he alone in the canoe undertook to paddle down the river. He had gone a fe~v miles when all at once he saw a head peering over the dense fringe of canes. Then there was a yell, replied to by answering yells; and soon a cro~vd appeared on the banks, dancing and shouting ferociously. The current bore the canoe along too rapidly for them to keep up with it; but they cut across the bend, and sa- luted the stranger with a harmless shower of clods. At the next bend the crowd, now in- creased to half a hundredmen, women, and childrenwere ahead. At the bend the voy- ager was again saluted by a fresh shower of missiles, and the cry, in Arabic, To land! to land ! He made a polite bow, and answered Inyleez, Englishman, and paddled along. Half a dozen brawny fellows flung off their gar- ments arid plunged into the water, swimming, dog-fashion, in a splendid manner; but yet they were no match for the canoe. At the next bend they were still further ahead, and ready for action. They had drawn up in a line, some standing waist-deep in the water, others swimming. Mr. Macgregor floated close to one of the swimmers, splashed him in the face with the paddle, and slipped past him. The crowd on shore set up a laugh. One stout fellow made a magnificent dive from the bank and came up by the stern of the canoe, with his arm over the deck. The Englishman shoved him off with his paddle, saving, in the best Arabic at his command, Thanks ! as though he had received sonic signal service, lie had run the blockade; but it was of no avail. The bank was lined by an ever-increasing crowd. Some had spears, some ox-goads, others huge round-headed clubs. Another shower of mis- siles came harmlessly, not one hitting even the canoe. Then arose a cry: Barode! baroda! The gun! the gun ! and in an instant Macgregor saw several long guns pointed at him. But only one of the fellows seemed at all inclined to fire. This one looked as though he meant business. He examined his pnimiag, cocked his piece, and brought the muzzle to bear, at a TILE non ROY A PRIZE. 60 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. range of hardly a score of feet. A vigorons agreeable. He showed her his canoe with all stroke of the paddle and a shot from the gnn its fittings-bed, lamp, compass, and cooking ap- were simultaneous the ball splashing close paratus. The woman, who was quite refined astern. The chase was clearly up; the canoe and very intelligent, was lost in amazement, stopped. Not fair to use a gun! shouted and full of compassion, when he coniplained the canoeist. But the water was now full of that he, a stranger and alone, was losing all the naked swimmers. Suddenly the canoe ~as fine sunshine. She brought in her husband, l)ulled down from behind. The same big fel- that he also might see the wonderful canoe. low who had a few minutes before made the While Macgregor was showing it, he managed magnificent dive had got hold of it with one to open his hand so that the sheikh might see a band, while in the other he brandished the gold Napoleon. Skweik-s-sk, whispered shank-bone of a buffalo. He made a pass with the Arab; and the Englishman knew that the it, which was warded off by the paddle. But bargain was as good as made. by this time others had laid hold, and the Rob But who ever heard of an off-hand bargain Roy was a prize, with Arabs? The council of the sheikh came Backshish! was now insinuated. Yes; in, with their decision: You cant go to-day, but to the sbeikh. Meanwhile, Macgregor but shall have a horse to-morrow. The nego- commenced parleying with his chief captor, af- tiation went on; but on the part of the Arabs it fectionately patting hi1 bare black poll, as one always came back to the one point back- pats the head of a mastiff. Not fair to use shish. All this time no food had been offered to that, said he, pointing to the bone club. Not the stranger. To eat together, and especially fair to use that, replied the Arab, pointing to to take salt together, is the one inviolate pledge the paddle. The fellow became pacified, and of amity. Macgregor undertook to gain this was highly elate when the prisoner formally pledge. He set his little cooking apparatus in appointed him as his protector. Macgregor operation, and soon, by the help of preserved now tried his skill at charming the mob, who soup, had a dish ready. Its flavor fell pleas- had begun to grow good-natured; but there is antly on the Arab olfactories. Then he opened nothing so uncertain as the temper of a mob. a little boxa snuff-box, in factfilled with a I am English, he said. Friends, they white granular substance looking like powdered answered. One Englishmanholding up sugar. This he offered to the sheikh, who one flngerall the rest Arabs, he continued, placed a little in his mouth. In an instant holding up both hands. The crowd was tickled, Macgregor had swallowed the remainder, and and set up a laugh, in which the captive joined gave the Arab a hearty thump on the back. heartily. One little imp of mischief tried to The sheikh made a rather wry face. What break up the harmony. Seizing a huge lump is it? Is it sugar ? asked the by-standers. of mud, she dashed it down upon the canoe. No; its salt, replied the sheikh. The stran- It was an even chance yet which side the mob ger had fairly eaten salt with the Arab, in his would take. But Macgregor was equal to the own tent, and so for a whole day he had be- occasion. With a look more of sorrow than of come the guest of the sheikh, who was bound anger, he pointed silently at the great muddy by the most stringent code of his race to pro- spot on the clean top of the canoe. The an- tect him at all hazards, even though he had been tives looked on for a moment in silence; and the murderer of his own son. then, as by a single impulse, they seized the Now came a bit of by-play as to the way in girl and carried her off; but the sound of which the yellow Napoleon should pass from heavy thwacks and loud screams evinced that the English traveler to the Arab sheikh. The she was undergoing severe discipline, transfer must be made, but in such a way that In the confusion the captive almost succeed- no injunction should reach it, and nobody ed in making off; but was again captured. Re be able to testify how it was done. Traveler refused to quit the canoe; and, before he fair- and sheikh find themselves alone. Travelers ly knew what was going on, he found himself hand, holding the coin, slips accidentally into and canoe lifted bodily out of the water, and that of sheikh. Sheikh pushes it away, with borne up the steep, muddy bank, and off to the virtuous, but very gentle, indignation. All this tent of the sheikb, in which the canoe was de- time the parties of the first part and of the sec- posited. Macgregor, with grave courtesy, ad- ond part stand side by side, looking straight vanced to the sheikh, shook his hand, informed ahead, their hands behind their backs, never him that he was an English traveler on his way fairly separated. The yellow representative of to the lake, and would rest in the tent until the the French Emperor is somewhere among those sun was cooler. The sheikh went out to con- ten fingers. Now one five had it; then the oth- sult with his cabinet; in an hour he caine back, er five. At length the Englishman found his saying, You can not go to the lake. I hand empty; but we do not think he can testify, must. Impossible, replied the sheikh, with of his own knowledge, whither the Napoleon a little wink of the eye. Macgregor replied by went. a wink, and went out. The Englishman saw At all events the sheikh went away to talk that the Arab was open to an arrangement. with his cabinet. He did not reappear; but The wife of the sheikh now came in, and the premier announced the decision: You Macgregor laid himself out to make himself can go to-morrow. But this did not at all THE ROB ROY ON THE JORDAN. 61 suit Macgregor. He had bought the court, and every body knew it. So he pulled out an old copy of tbe Times, merely saying, To-morrow! No! Im English ; and went on reading the newspaper. In five minutes an official ap- peared, announcing that the traveler might leave at once. This did not quite satisfy the captain of the Rob Roy. He insisted that the Arabs must carry the canoe back to the river. This was done with as munch formality as the case admitted. The Rob Roy with its indomitable commander was again set afloat upon the Jordan, amidst the congratula- tions of the Arabs. But the days adventures were by no means over. The canoe somehow got out of the true river channel, and was involved in the thick reeds of the marsh, through which there was no possibility of making way. So hack the Rob Roy had to go; and the captain was lodged in the place which he had left in the morning not, however, in the tent of the sheikh, who was somewhat ashamed that some of his people had tried to get hackshish after he had made things right. Instead of the royal abode, Mr. Macgregor supped in the tent of the prem- ier, with a lar~e and distinguished circle of Arabs. Prominent among the guests was a lively youngster to whom Macgregor took spe- cial fancy, which was not lessened when he learned that this was the identical person who had all the morning kept his gun trained at the voyagers head. Macgregor went to rest, with all sorts of schemes for escape running through his head. Toward morning he heard a distant shout, Rob Roy ! An answering response was given; and soon Hany, the faithful dragoman, came upon the scene, followed by the rest of the Englishmans attendants. It was beautiful to see how Hany took mat- ters into his own hands. He made the old premier hestir himself; called up all the Arabs, and gave them a sound rating. One of them demurred a little, and got kicked for his im- pudence. Hany managed to pick a bit of ap- parent quarrel with another of Macgregors attendants, Latoof by name, who had failed to he prompt in blacking the masters boots. Dont mind this, whispered the dragoman to his employer, Latoof and I have arranged it all. To the Arabs Hany was contemptuous; to the Englishman apparently most ahject. You see, he exclaimed to the natives, how like grasshoppers you are before me; yet I am the slave of the Howajaand him you have dared to insult! Mr. Macgregor ventured to intimate that this was all humbug. Hanys reply was sharp to the point: Without humbug we could never manage these men. Hany fairly took the Arabs down. He got up for them a rather sumptuous repast, at which the English Lord had to sit and feign hunger. For all this he had to pay. The amount was not very exor- bitant. I had, he says, a feast, and a lodg- ing, and porters, and protection, and excellent fun; and all for the very reduced tariff of lOs. 4d. On the lagoon, where he re-emharked next day, Macgregor saw a native afloat on a bundle of reeds, which he punted along with a long pole, his spear sticking up like a mast. This was the first native water-craft which he saw in Syria, and it and five little hoats on Lake Gen- nes~ reth prohably make up every vessel in the country. The lagoon, at its lower end, term- inates in the little Lake Heolebthe biblical Waters of Merom. After several fruitless at- tempts to follow the Jordan through the marsh, Mr. Macgregor had the Rob Roy borne over- land to the lake, which he circumnavigated, and was rewarded by the discovery of the spot where the river enters it. The stream is bordered on each side by a wall of papyrus, the stems stand- ing so thick that a bird can not penetrate, and the utmost exertions could only force the sharp bows of the canoe a yard into the dense thick- et. Mr. Macgregor is apparently the only man who for centuries has seen this mouth of the Jordan. Lake Hooleh is 150 feet above the level of the ocean. Ten miles below, in a straight line, is the Lake of G~mnesareth, which lies 653 feet below the ocean level. In ten miles therefore, the Jordan falls 800 feet. The river soon be- comes a roaring torrent in which no boat could live. The Rob Roy was therefore borne by land, keeping as nearly as possible to the chan- nel of the river; and was safely set afloat upon RAFT ON TAKE IIOOLEII. 62 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. the lake hallowed for evermore by the presence of Him who often sailed upon its waters and trod its shores. The sacred sea or lake is designated in Scrip- ture by four names. These, with some merely orthographical variations, are, Chinnereth, Genuesareth, Galilee, and Tiberias. Its shape is alm~t like that of a pear, the stem being at its lower extremity. Its extreme length is about fourteen miles; greatest breadth, seven miles. Its average depth is about 100 feet, the deepest soundings 160 feet. It occu- pies the first of the great depressions by which the valley of the Jordan sinks below ocean level. The Rob Roy was for a whole fortnight employ- ed inthe navigation and circumnavigation of this lake. Mr. Macgrcgor paddled around and across it; and his narrative forms a most valu- able addition to our stores of information re- specting one of th~ most interesting portions of the Holy Land. The lake itself remains ui~- changed. It is still swept over by sudden storms as it was almost nineteen centuries ago, when the Saviour walked upon its waters. One snch storm the Rob Roy encountered, ftarrow- ly escaping wreck. In the days of our Lord its waters were flecked by the boats of fisher- men. A generation after, Josephus got to- gether, as he says, 230 little boats for an enter- prise against the Romans. Not long after, if we may believe him, there was a great naval battle fought upon the lake, the water of which was colored with blood, and the shore strewn, with corpses. If after that, for seventeen cen- turies, there were vessels on the lake, history has no record of them. But if the waters are unchanged, the country around is altered. Sav- ing the flea-bitten town of Tiberias, there is no place of ancient note whose site can be positive- ly identified. Capernaum, the own city, the home of our Lord, lay somewhere upon the western shore of the lake; but where no man can now certainly say. Robinson places it at one point, Thomson at another; Macgregor agrees with Robinson. The whole length of the Jordan, measuring in a direct line, is 120 miles ; or about 200 miles, measuring the windings of channel. From the Lake of Genuesareth to the mouth is 70 miles, in which the river descends about 650 feet, and falls into the Dead Sea 1300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, fifty miles distant. Could a channel be cut between the two waters, a narrow lake nearly 200 miles long would be formed, more than 3000 feet deep in its lowest part. The Jordan was never navigable, and it appears to have been only twice descended in a boat: in 1847, by the English Lieutenant Molyneux, who lost his life on the Dead Sea; and in 1848, by the American Lieutenant Lynch. The Rob Roy could easily have gone down to the Dead Sea; but that has been oft- en described, and the passage, as shown by Lynch, presents nothing which can not be seen from the banks. Mr. Macgregor had gone mainly to see what could be seen only in a boat, and what no boat had ever done before. So, after venturing a few miles down as far as to the rapids, where Lynch with his two heavy boats was detained for hours, but which the Rob Roy passed in a few minutes, the canoe Was once more put on horseback, and borne over the plain of Esdraelon, past Nazareth and Cana, to the Bay of Acre, and embarked on the ancient river Kishon and the Belus, famous as the spot where, according to doubtful story, glass was first discovered. Then, after a land journey to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, Mac- gregor shipped his canoe to Alexandria, and thence back to England, reaching Southampton on the 9th of April, 1869six months, to a day, from the time when it had set out. A STOILM OK eENNEsAaETIi. TIlE HOT CURRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 63 THE hOT CURRENT OF TIlE ATLANTIC. A NEW ThEORY OF ITS FOUNTAIN AND FLOOD. OF all the works of the Creation, Adam only excepted, not one has attracted more in- terest than the Sea. Although every hlade of grass, however tiny, is in itself a museum of wonders, defying the highest human and an- gelic art to reproduce it, yet, hy the testimony of Scripture, the master-pieces of the Divine Craftsman are, emphatically, in the rlcep. If the geologist traces His mysterious foot- prints in subterranean sl~ to an(l sandstone, and the telescopist sees him in the heavens afar o~r, it has heen reserved for the humble geog- rapher to draw nearer, within the very sound of His footfall, whether He marches by in the ~teady sea-current, or whether, as of old at Gennesareth, He walks upon the stormy waves; for His way is in the sea, and his path is in the great waters Fietted and tossed, as it is, hy many and conflicting forces, the Ocean is to he viewed as an organic mass, living, breathing, instinct with vitality, as tinily as the plant or the animal. Its vast surface, to use the image of Sclilei- den, rises and falls as if it had been gifted with the power of a gentle respiration. Seem- ingly impressihle and sensitive to the faintest breeze that fans it, with stately grandeur it rolls calmly on in its appointed channels in the very teeth of the hurricane, and against the fury of the typhoon and the cyclone. Mythol- ogy represented it as the plaything of an im- potent deity, obedient to his trident; modern poetry paints it as an ungoverned and implaca- ble giant; true science reckons it, however, as a part of the terrestrial machinery, simple yet grand, so contrived and so regulated that all its movements, Quam fluctus diversi, quarn mare conjuncti, comhine to ren- der the earth a fit abode for man. It is from this stand l)eint, which, we shalV assume, science has attained, that we now pro- pose to consider one of the most remarkable of all oceanic phe- notnena The Ge/f Stream oft/a Atlantic. The winter of 1S69, through- out the British Isles, was mark- ed hy an extraordinary display of mild and genial weather. Early in the year, however, arid, strange to relate, at the very time when those halmv influ- ences, which have been so gen- erally conceded to the agency of the Gulf Streatn, were felt to he most potent an(l paranmount, the Royal Geographical Society entertained a serious discussion as to whether there he any such thing as a Gulf Stream. Meta- physicians tell us of one of their number, the unhappy victim of his own specu- lations, who, in the ardor of his conviction that existence could he affirmed only of mind, act- ually denied that he had a hotly. It is, there- fore, not without some countenance and paral- lel, that these geographers (for blessings sel- (loin hrighten except as they take their flight) should challenge as a myth a living reality, and one which, in its benign and salutary offices to them, has no equal but the Sun. But, had no such challenge passed, and no such question been mooted, the greatly increased interest and importance of the subject, which has been il- lumined only by an occasional an(l straggling ray of light since Sir John Herschels article in he Encyclopedia Britannica, ten years ago, render its revival almost a necessity. Of course the intelligent reader will not expect, within the narrow limits of a magazine article, an elaho- mate or scientific treatise. But no pains will he spared to make every topic introduced clear to the mind even of the inquirer least accustomed to pursue such investigations. I regard it as proved, wrote Columbus, in the diary of his third voyage to the New World, when seeking to enter the tropics near the me- ridian of Ierueriffe, that the waters of the sea tauve from east to ~vest as do the heavens; that is to say, like the apl)arent motion of the sun, moon, and stars. However we may explain this westerly flow of the vas~wntery masses in the equatorial seas, the fact remains as one of the best attested and most unquestioned of oceanic phenomena. Over the torrid and hiqrmid wastes both of the Pacific and Atlantic, sweeps this mighty anti majestic stream, stealy, per- A seuMAziNa VOLCANIC LULV1LON.

TIlE HOT CURRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 63 THE hOT CURRENT OF TIlE ATLANTIC. A NEW ThEORY OF ITS FOUNTAIN AND FLOOD. OF all the works of the Creation, Adam only excepted, not one has attracted more in- terest than the Sea. Although every hlade of grass, however tiny, is in itself a museum of wonders, defying the highest human and an- gelic art to reproduce it, yet, hy the testimony of Scripture, the master-pieces of the Divine Craftsman are, emphatically, in the rlcep. If the geologist traces His mysterious foot- prints in subterranean sl~ to an(l sandstone, and the telescopist sees him in the heavens afar o~r, it has heen reserved for the humble geog- rapher to draw nearer, within the very sound of His footfall, whether He marches by in the ~teady sea-current, or whether, as of old at Gennesareth, He walks upon the stormy waves; for His way is in the sea, and his path is in the great waters Fietted and tossed, as it is, hy many and conflicting forces, the Ocean is to he viewed as an organic mass, living, breathing, instinct with vitality, as tinily as the plant or the animal. Its vast surface, to use the image of Sclilei- den, rises and falls as if it had been gifted with the power of a gentle respiration. Seem- ingly impressihle and sensitive to the faintest breeze that fans it, with stately grandeur it rolls calmly on in its appointed channels in the very teeth of the hurricane, and against the fury of the typhoon and the cyclone. Mythol- ogy represented it as the plaything of an im- potent deity, obedient to his trident; modern poetry paints it as an ungoverned and implaca- ble giant; true science reckons it, however, as a part of the terrestrial machinery, simple yet grand, so contrived and so regulated that all its movements, Quam fluctus diversi, quarn mare conjuncti, comhine to ren- der the earth a fit abode for man. It is from this stand l)eint, which, we shalV assume, science has attained, that we now pro- pose to consider one of the most remarkable of all oceanic phe- notnena The Ge/f Stream oft/a Atlantic. The winter of 1S69, through- out the British Isles, was mark- ed hy an extraordinary display of mild and genial weather. Early in the year, however, arid, strange to relate, at the very time when those halmv influ- ences, which have been so gen- erally conceded to the agency of the Gulf Streatn, were felt to he most potent an(l paranmount, the Royal Geographical Society entertained a serious discussion as to whether there he any such thing as a Gulf Stream. Meta- physicians tell us of one of their number, the unhappy victim of his own specu- lations, who, in the ardor of his conviction that existence could he affirmed only of mind, act- ually denied that he had a hotly. It is, there- fore, not without some countenance and paral- lel, that these geographers (for blessings sel- (loin hrighten except as they take their flight) should challenge as a myth a living reality, and one which, in its benign and salutary offices to them, has no equal but the Sun. But, had no such challenge passed, and no such question been mooted, the greatly increased interest and importance of the subject, which has been il- lumined only by an occasional an(l straggling ray of light since Sir John Herschels article in he Encyclopedia Britannica, ten years ago, render its revival almost a necessity. Of course the intelligent reader will not expect, within the narrow limits of a magazine article, an elaho- mate or scientific treatise. But no pains will he spared to make every topic introduced clear to the mind even of the inquirer least accustomed to pursue such investigations. I regard it as proved, wrote Columbus, in the diary of his third voyage to the New World, when seeking to enter the tropics near the me- ridian of Ierueriffe, that the waters of the sea tauve from east to ~vest as do the heavens; that is to say, like the apl)arent motion of the sun, moon, and stars. However we may explain this westerly flow of the vas~wntery masses in the equatorial seas, the fact remains as one of the best attested and most unquestioned of oceanic phenomena. Over the torrid and hiqrmid wastes both of the Pacific and Atlantic, sweeps this mighty anti majestic stream, stealy, per- A seuMAziNa VOLCANIC LULV1LON. 64 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. ennial, and as unfailing as the stars in their courses. In the Pacific, notwithstanding it must needs find its impeded way through the meshes of the Polynesian archipelagoes, it yields to no resistance, presses on to the shores of the palmy Philippines and Formosa, whence it pours its floods, in part, to the north, off the coasts of Japan, and in part through the China, Celehes, nud Java seas, into the hasin of the Indian Ocean. Some have supposed that, originally, these channel-ways to the south were made hy the westwardly washing of the water, rending Australasia from the continent of Asia. The hreadth of the equatorild cur- rent of the Pacific exceeds three thousand miles. The equatorial current of the Atlantic, which chiefly concerns us now, has its genesis near the coasts of Senegamhia and Liheria, on the west of Africa. It sets out in its movement to the west with no ohstacles in its route. The Cape Verd Islands, within two days easy sail PuOSPJIORE5cENT SEA. THE HOT CURRENT 01? THE ATLANTIC. 65 of the coast of Africa, are wide - opened for its passage. Even herc, however, where the current impinges on the islands, the breakers are said to be peculiarly grand. But from this point, in constantly increasing volume and velocity, and moving in something like the arc of a great circle, it rolls on for 2850 miles, until its limpid billows break in foam over the eastern shores of the Lesser and Windward Antilles. These islands, to the number of for- ty-seven, stand out in bold array, formed into a crescent-shaped rampart, as if erected for the very purpose of disputing the passage of the great current into the Caribbean Sea. Could all these barriers be removed, the passage-way into that sea on the east would be less than five hundred miles wide. The huge island bastions, however, arrest and divert a vast quantity of the water, which, baffled here, issues northward in a mass of great importance. Enough water, notwithstanding the insular obstacles, has been forced throngh them to form a strong continu- ation of the old stream in the Caribbean Sea. This, regaining some of its lost momentum, runs rapidly on toward the Gulf of Mexico. Fragment as it is of the original current, it passes through the Yucatan Channel in such force and size as to have led Sir John Herschel to venture the assertion that the excavation of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea is an evident effect of the continued and power- ful action of the set of the great South Atlantic current, and which, unless counteracted by oth- er causes, must sooner or later cut through the Isthmus of Darien.~~ The breadth of the equatorial current of the Atlantic at its commencement is 160 miles; opposite Cape Palmas it is 360 miles; when the current has crossed the ocean it is over 1000 miles. Bearing in mind what has now been ad- vanced, the reader is in position to see the rise of that marvelous and mysterious flow of wa- ters which, issuing from the Gulf of Mexico with the speed and prowess of a mighty courser, hastens northward with freight more precious than the wealth of the Indies. Its name is the Gulf Stream. The cautious pen of Ansted de- scribes it as a great and wide stream of heat- ed water, larger than all the rivers of the world together, running in a definite channel through colder water of a different color, so that when a ship enters the stream, in smooth water, one may see the bows dashing the spray from the warm and dark blue waters she is entering, while the stern is still within the pale green and cold waters of the banks of Newfound- land. Clear as is this description, it gives us but a poor idea of the reality. The Gulf Stream, indeed, beggars all efforts at portray- al. To see it rolling in its grandeur is not enough to enable the beholder to understand its wonder or conceive its power. The mind can take these in only when it can weigh and measure those facts and forces which lie con- cealed below the surface, and over which the VOL. XLLNo. 241.5 oldest tar may sail all unconscious and uncon- cerned. Our knowledge of the sea, even in the limited area we are now considering, is by no means perfect or exact. But, after all, we are not shut up to skepticism or imagination. It can not be said, as some seem to think, that we know as little of the great river in the ocean as iDe Soto knew of the Mississippi when he first saw it in its glory. The United States Coast Survey, under its renowned head and director, Lieutenant A. D. Bache, has long since given to the world the nicely-charted re- sults of its arduous and untiring labors in ther- mometrical and other deep-sea surveys, long protracted in the North Atlantic. These re- sults, compared with others before and since obtained, in the hands of scientific workmen and able interpreters, have been as seed long sown, now ripening, and whose fruit is ready to be gathered. And, just here, it may be well to remark that, in bringing to light the myste- ries of the Gulf Stream, if we shall succeed in so doing, the entire system of oceanic circula- tion, with its wondrous adaptations, is at the same time and necessarily revealed. As already intimated, the Gulf Stream has been described as a river in the ocean. Nor is the expression a mere figure of rhet- oric. As rivers maintain, their marked pecul- iarities, from their sourCes to their mouths, so does this majestic flow of waters. The classic Tiber was not more tenacious of its yellow sands, nor is the White Nile of its chaste and snowy floods, the Arve of its gray, nor the Andean Salado of its brackish taste, than is the Gulf Stream, in~ts vast course, of all that characterizes its volume as it bursts forth from its fountain in the Gulf of Mexico. From this point the stream cuts for itself a noble channel in the arc of a great circle, right through the body of the Atlantic Ocean. Turning neither to the right nor to the left, but obeying the un- seen and irresistible impulse of the earths re- tation, it sweeps on with a velocity greater than that of the Mississippi, and with a volume more than a thousand times as large. No obstacle, not even the rocky islet, lies in its path for more than twelve hundred miles. The Grand Bank of Newfoundlanda submarine plateau, rising within 100 fathoms of the surface of the oceanis barely, if at all, grazed by the extreme western skirt of the current. From Newfound- land its. track again is clear as far as the bold- est and most skillful sailor has ever traced it into the polar basin. The banks and the bottom of the Gulf Stream are of cold water, but its volume is of warm. As it issues through the Narrows of Bemini its temperature is 860. But after it has run over a thousand miles to the north it still retains its tropical heat. When her Britannic Majestys ship, The Nile, in May, 1861, sailed from the harbor of Halifax for Bermuda, under Admiral Sir Alexander Milne, that officer, as he entered the Gulf Stream, found the water at the stern of his vessel at a temperature of 400, while be- 66 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. fore her bows the thermometer in the Stream stood at 700. The heat actually set free in a winters day hy the Gulf Stream is enotigh to warm up the whole column of atmosphere resting upon France and the British Isles from the freezing-point to summer heat. It would be easy to show that the thermal treasures borne on its bosom to the North Atlantic would be (to use the words of another) suf- ficient, if utilized, to keep in constant blast a cyclopean furnace capable of sending forth a stream of molten iron as large in volume as the discharge of the mightiest river. When the southwest winds take up the vesicles of vapor in which these treasures are stored, and waft them to England, the amount of latent heat set free by precipitation overhead in one day is com- puted to equal that created by the combustion of all the coal consumed in the island annually.* If no more heat was received than is due to the position of the islands in respect of latitude, the mean winter temperature of Shetland would be only 30, and that of London 17~. According to the observations of the Scottish Meteorolog- ical Society, however, the mean winter temper- atures of these places are respectively 390 and 370Shetland being thus benefited 36~ and London 200. In Iceland and on the Nor- wegian coast, we learn from the same high authority, the increase of heat thus accruing is very much greater. To all such places, along the path of the Gulf Stream, even with- in the arctic circle, the vast current may be re- garded as both a repository and dispenser of the suns warmth given out in summer, and of the genial and vitalizing forc~ which clothe equa- torial lands with a sea of foliage. So true is this that several of the isochimenals, or lines of equal winter temperature, are bent and car- ried by the Gulf Stream sixteen hundred miles northward of their normal position! This de- flection of isochimehals in the northern hemi- sphere is due to the fact that the Stream makes its warmth felt most sensibly in January, just as the hyperborean flow from the Antarctic Ocean is coldest in July, deflecting the iso- thermals from their normal position the most in that month. This peculiar distribution of the winter climate of the British Isles, as i the comes known, is brought into requisition by the skillful physician in the treatment of diseases. The patient needing a milder air is no longer sent to the sonthward, unless directed to the west end of the island; and the weak constitu- tion recuperates almost as rapidly at Shetland, or on the west coast of Scotland, as in any part of England, except from the Isle of Wight west- ward around the Cornish Peninsula. To speak of the early productions of the soil here is al- most unnecessary. At Penzance, in Cornwall, the equable character of the English climate is most strikingly developed. Penzance is the gar- den of the English vegetable markets. Green peas and early potatoes spring out of the ground Maurys Physical Geography, p. 48, Sd ed. in February, and are on the table in May, and every variety ofsimilarvegetable growth at these early dates. Trees and plants, indigenous only to the tropics, often remain in the ground all winter without injury. Oranges, lemons, myr- tles, camellias, magnolias, the Mexican agave, require no protection from frost. So that Hum- boldt spoke of it as the Montpellier of the North. But time and space would fail us to accumu- late the evidences of the thermal forces and the balmy influences which demonstrate the exist- ence and climatic agency of the Gulf Stream. It clothes Ireland with her robe of emerald, and England and Western Scotland with verd- ure. If from its smoky waters the fog rises to hide the rays of the sun, it does for England what the sun, in that latitude, can not do. It fructifles her soil, tempers her skies; it puts re- newed vigor into the arms of her brawny me- chanics, and gives the bloom to her maidens cheeks. The Icelander also rejoices in its prox- imity. And the poor Norwegian, at the North Cape itself, in midwinter, exults in the fact that his harbors are kept open and his shores delivered from the severe tyranny of the Frost King. The waters of the Gulf Stream are highly colored. As far away from the straits of Florida as the coasts of the Carolinas they are of an indigo-blue. Their line of junction with the surrounding sea can be easily discerned with the naked eye. Often, it is said, one half of the vessel may he perceived floating in Gulf Stream water, while the other half is in common water of the seaso sharp is the line and such the want of affinity between those wa- ters, and such, too, the reluctance, so to speak, on the part of those of the Gulf Stream to min- gle with the littoral waters of the sea. The explanation of this peculiar phenomenon, though important, is difficult. Sir John Iler- schel contended that it is due to reflection of the suns light from the sea bottom of great depth, and the deepness of the blue increases, where there is nothing to foul the water, with the depth. Mrs. Somerville states, too, that the reason the Gulf Stream loses its indigo hue near Newfoundland is that the water is shallow. It is said that the lightilluminating the Grotto of Capri, in the Bay of Naples, is very blue; so also the color of the water in the Grotto of Van- cluse. The Rhone, it is also said, where it issues from the Lake of Geneva, is intensely blue, its color far surpassing that of the bluest sea. But this interpretation of the indigo hue of the great tropical cnrrent seems unsatisfac- tory. Off the Carolina coasts, where it is bluest, the depth of the ocean is not over a thousand fathoms,while off the Grand Bank of Newfound- land it suddenly falls to a depth of four thou- sand fathomsa fact which interferes with Mrs. Somervilles statement. It is hard to see how the facts in the case can be accounted for by Herschels solution. For we have the edges of the Gulf Stream so sharply defined that the THE HOT CURRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 67 green water or cold banks of the stream are visible from a ships deck. The two bodies of water, the green and the blue, moving side by side, though in opposite directions, have a bot- tom of the same depth. The discovery of copper in sea-water has sug- gested to some that the blueness of the Gulf Stream was due to the presence of cuprate of ammonia. But chemical analysis of sea-water shows that this ingredient enters into it in less than the proportion of one part in a thousand. The author before quoted, in his Physical Geography of the Sea, takes the ground that the color of the sea is determined by its salt- ness. The salt-makers, he tells us, are in the habit of judging of the richness of the sea- water in salt by its colorthe greener the hue, the fresher the water. At the salt-works of France, and along the shores of the Adriatic, where the salines are carried on by the proc THE D lET OF TilE GULF & TIIEA2I. 65 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. ess of solar evaporation, there is a series of vats or pools, through which the water is passed as it comes from the sea, and is reduced to the briny state. The longer it is exposed to evap- oration the salter it grows, and the deeper is the hue of its blue, until crystallization com- mences, when the no~v deep blue water puts on a reddish tint.* This seems consistent with what has, so far, been revealed of the great oceanic currents. The saline theory, as it may be called, proceeds upon the known solar evap- oration the hot stream has undergone in the Gulf of Mexico. The great equatorial cur- rent of the Atlantic is blue; that of the Pacific, long under the sun, on reaching Japan, is called by the Japanese Kuro-Siwo The Black Stream. The solution of the problem may be found to differ from all answers that have been yet given. The surface water both in the Indian and Pacific oceans is often highly colored. Patches, red, brown, and white, are found stretching as far as the eye can reach, the water of which, when taken up and care- fully examined under the microscope, is found to be full of the animalculm having the colors in question. Along the shores of the Red Sea a red matter is washed up, which Ehrenberg proved to be of vegetable growth. The same phenomenon occurs in the Yellow Sea, where yellow spots have been found. Captain King- man, in lat. 8~ 46 5., long. 1050 30 E., a few years ago passed through a tract of water 23 miles in breadth, and of unknown length, so full of minute phosphorescent organisms as to present at night the aspect of a boundless plain covered with snow. Some of these ani- inals were serpents of six inches in length, transparent, of gelatinous film, and highly lu- minous. These were taken in a fork of the equatorial current of the Pacific. Another sea-captain, in the Gulf Stream, off the coast of Florida, some years ago, fell in with a school of young sea-nettles, and, bound as he was to England, he was five or six days in sail- ing through them; sixty days afterward, on his return-trip, he again fell in with them, recog- nizing them as the same, as, on both occasions, he frequently hauled up bucketfuls and exam- ined them. The Gulf Stream is freighted with these creatures. To use Irvings figure, they appear to be clad in brilliant coats of maiL They mostly shine when excited by the agita- tion of the water, or when struck, as by an oar. One of them, more than an inch in length, when thrown down on the deck of a ship, bursts into a glow so strong as to appear like a lump of white-hot iron. In the storm, at midnight, the Gulf Stream, in the mechanical dash of its bil- lows, glares and burns with their fiery radiance, as if it were a sea .f flame, and thus obtains the name which has been given it The Milky- Way in the Sea. When the microscope has done its work with these insects, we believe it will be found that they decide the color of the mighty current. We have dwelt here because, whatever solu- tion shall prevail in the settlement of this ques- tion, one thing is established, viz., the indi- viduality and insulation of the Gulf Stream in mid - ocean, and its adaptedness to preserve through its long course those strange qualities which mark and distinguish it from surround- ing waters, as if by the brush of an artist upon a painted ocean. The eye of the traveler is arrested by no feat- ure of the great river in the Atlantic more than by the sharpness of its edges. Its water refuses to mingle with that around it. Won- derful as this is, other streams exhibit the same stubbornness. The red flood of the Missouri and the inky waters of the upper Mississippi are distinguishable for several miles after their confluence. In the offings of the Balize, sometimes as far out as a hundred miles or more from the land, we are told by the author of the Physical Geography of the Sea, pud- dles or patches of Mississippi water may be ob- served on the surface of the sea with little or none of its brine mixed with it. To this antipathy toward mingling with any foreign water, so strikingly evinced and dis- played by the Gulf Stream, we must add an all-important fact. Nowhere, so far as we have any reason to believe, does it in any part of its course, unless near or within the arctic basin, come in contact with the solid and highly heat- conducting projections of the earths crust. The coasts of the United States and the shoals of Nantucket do not, as was once supposed, touch, much less turn it or shape its direction. If, now and then, it is slightly invaded or im-. pinged upon by the polar current coming down at Newfoundland, not even does the Grand Bank itself reach to the Gulf Stream, or rob it of its heat. For the Grand Bank is the haunt of the codfish and other sea life that can not endure warm water, and, coming from higher latitudes, swarm only in their native temperature. The bottom of the bank, too, being two hundred fathoms deep, is overswept, if at all approached, by the westernmost and extremely shallow fringe of the stream, in this latitude not over one hundred fathoms deep. It has long been observed, moreover, that the water of the Stream distributes itself in the northern ocean into lay- ers, with alternations of warm and cold water. And it is probable, as has been suggested by a great master of hydrography, that this stratifi- cation of the aqueous masses assists in protect- ing the tropical streams of the ocean. Captain Silas Bent, the authority just re- ferred to, thus explains it: It is a natural ar- rangement of waters of different specific gravi- ties; that of the lowest temperature, being the densest, clings to the bottom; the warmest wa- ter, from the salt it contains, being next in weight, overlies the first; and then the cool flesh water floats sometimes on the surface (as The water of the brine-springs of Cheshire, En- gland, when pumped up is perfectly clear and freefrom particles in suspension. It is of clear sea-green cob or.MUsPEATTs C!~ernistry, p. 104. THE HOT C1~RRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 69 Captain Rodgers mentioned to me he had seen it northeast of Behrings Strait), and is carried with and becomes a part of the current imme- diately underlying it. This arrangement, he thinks, too, a wise provision of nature, by which the warm current is insulated, as it were, to pre- vent the loss of its temperature, while passing to the high latitudes. Such are some of the more striking linen- meats an all-wise God has graved upon this mighty effluent from the torrid zone of the earth. As long since as Anghieras day and that of Sir II. Gilbert (1523), the Gulf Stream has excited curious inquiry and wonder.* Many have been the attempts to unravel its philosoph- ical mysteries. With greatly increased and in- creasing light, the subject has not yet been re- moved from the field of conjecture. Early theorists explained it by assuming that the hot current bursting through the Straits of Florida and bounding northward was due to the dis- charge of The Father of Waters into the Gulf of Mexico. It was contended that the velocity of the Mississippi and the velocity of the great Stream were the same, and that both were sensitive to the same vicissitudes. Captain Livingston disproved the credibility of this view, by proving that the volume of wa- ter emptied into the Gulf was only one three- thousandth part of that running out. Lightly and hastily, however, as this refuted theory has been dismissed, it was countenanced by some remarkable facts which have never received an explanation and scarcely a comment, but which, as we shall presently see, are not to be despised or forgotten. In place of the hypothesis he had overturned, Livingston substituted one equally, if not more untenable, that the velocity of the Gulf Stream is due to the motion of the sun in the ecliptic, and the influence he has on the waters of the Atlantic. According to this view, a sort of yearly tide was conceived to be the true pa- rent of the Gulf current. The suns apparent motion would affect the North Atlantic only if in such a way at allfor a few months in the year, and could never thus generate a ceaseless and perennial tide, which, as has been beauti- fully said, in the severest droughts never fails, and in the mightiest floods never overflows. About the year 1770 the fertile and untiring brain of Benjamin Franklin, conscious of the magnitude of the subject, and its importance to the fortunes of the colonial commerce, began to busy itself in the study of Atlantic hydrog- raphy. He first offered a solution of the prob- lem which bore any marks of plausibility. His opinion was widely repeated, and became deep- ly rooted in the mind of sea-faring men, and as it is substantially identical with the latest the- ory advancedthat of Sir John F. W. Herschel deserves special consideration. Dr. Franklin maintained that the Gulf Stream is the escaping of the waters that have * Humboldts Cosmos, vol. i. been forced into the Caribbean Sea by the northeast trade-winds, and that it is the press- ure of those winds upon the water which drives up into that sea a head, as it were, for this Stream. Whether this be true or not, it is unquestionably well supported by oceanic phe- nomena. Admiral Smyth, in his work on the Mediterranean, states that a continuance of gusty gales in the Sea of Tuscany has been known to raise its surface no less than twelve feet Above its ordinary level. It is well known that in the Indian Ocean and China Sea the waters are driven alternately backward and for- ward by the monsoons. It is the southwesterly monsoon that causes inundations in the Ganges, and a tremendous surf on the coast of Coro- mandel. The historic student will recall those rises in the German Ocean which, created by westerly winds, beat against the dykes of Hol- land, and which, in the desperate struggle for Netherland liberty, were used by the great Will- iam of Orange against the armies of Spain. Nautical annals have recorded one of those fear- ful storms that sweep over the West Indies, so violent that, as with resistless besom, it arrest- ed the Gulf Stream, forced back its mighty flood, and piled up its waters in the Gulf of Mexico to the height of thirty feet. The ship Ledbury Snow gallantly attempted to ride out the hurricane. When it abated she found her- self high up on the dry land, and discovered that she had let go her anchors among the tree- tops of Elliotts Key. The Florida Keys, it is said, were inundated many feet, and the scene presented in the Gulf Stream was never sur- passed in awful sublimity. The water thus dammed up rushed out with a frightful velocity against the fury of the gale, producing a sea that beggared description. ~ But amidst all such magnificent displays of the power of the winds, the theory advanced first by Franklin, and afterward revived, with a somewhat new dress and under the sanction of his own name, by Sir John Herschel, has never been received as conclusive. For reasons which we shall presently state, it rests upon a partial induction of the facts known. A fourth and last explanation of the great phenomenon of the Gulf Stream was offered to the public in 1855, by Lieutenant Matthew F. Maury. Although admitting that the pressure of the trade-winds may assist to give the Gulf Stream its initial velocity, he showed that, for hundreds of miles after it comes out of the Gulf of Mexico and enters the Atlantic, the The tropical trade-wind of the Pacific, in which exists one of the greatest of oceanic currents, is first found moving slowly near to the Galapagos Islands, where it produces but a slight effect on the water of the ocean. The Thames, during a strong wind, is raised above its tidal mark. When the wind has for some time blown strongly from Suez, at the head of the Red Sea, it is said that the water of thht sea has been forced southward to so great a degree as to leave the bed of the sea almost fordable, though at other times it is deep.Ho~anss on Atmospheric Change, p. 1184. 70 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. great current sets against the trade-winds, and for part of the way inns right in the winds eye. He alleged, moreover, that the famous Japan cnrrent the Gulf Stream of the Pa- cificdoes the same; and that the vast set of water from the Indian Ocean, known as the Mo- zambique Cnrrent, runs to the south, against the southeast trade-winds, and changes not with the monsoons. Rejecting the hypothesis of Franklin as inconclusive, and as inconsistent with many facts that had come to light since Franklins views were propounded, he reasoned in this wise: The mean annual fall of rain on the entire surface of the earth is estimated at about five feet. To evaporate water enough annually from the ocean to cover the earth on an average five feet deep with rain is one of the offices of the grand atmospherical machine. This water is evaporated principally from the torrid zone. Supposing it all to come from thence, we shall have encircling the earth a belt of ocean three thousand miles in breadth, from which this atmosphere evaporates a layer of water annually sixteen feet in depth. Here, then, is a vast equatorial trough or lake, six- teen feet deep, three thousand miles broad, and twenty-four thousand miles long, ever empty- ing and ever filling. Evaporation destroys the equilibrium of the sea, and in the endeavor of the water to occupy this enormous space and restore equilibrium, all the waters north and south of this space are set in motion. To this cause of circulation was added the increased specific gravity of equatorial and Gulf of Mex- ico water, salter and heavier from being longer under the sun than the water of higher and cooler latitudes; which, it was argued, account- ed for the northward tendency of the great stream. The effect of moderate winds, as the trades, said the author, is to cause what may be called a drfft of the sea, rather than a cur- rent. Drift is confined to surface waters, and the trade-winds of the Atlantic may assist in creating the Gulf Stream by drifting the waters, which have supplied them with vapor, into the Caribbean Sea. But, admit never so much of the water which the trade-winds have played upon to be drifted into the Caribbean Sea, what should make it flow thence, with the Gulf Stream, to the shores of Europe? It is because of the difference in the sPecific gravity of sea- water in an intertropical sea on one side, as compared with the specific gravity of water in northern seas and frozen oceans on the other, that they so flow. In a word, whatever alters the specific gravity of the sea, whether the tem- perature, or evaporation, or the tiny secretion of the myriad hosts of sea-shells, is a current-pro- ducing agent. We have already intimated that the philos- ophy of the Gulf Stream involves the elucida- tion of all oceanic currents, and we beg the reader, therefore, to bear with us as we consid- er these antagonistic theories. The time has come when the interests of science, navigation, and commerce demand that this whole question shall be transferred from the region of theory into that of certitude. Rightly to estimate and appreciate the circu- lation of the Atlantic, or of any ocean, we must obtain some notion of its bed, and also of its littoral outline. The Atlantic must be con- ceived of us a vast channel, or, as geographers often name it, The Atlantic Canal. The opposite shores of this ocean, in both hemi- spheres, appear to have once been in adherence, but by some grand subterranean upheaval to have been rent asunder, and in the open gap the ocean water rushed in. The bottom of the Atlantic greatly affects the movement and circulation of its waters, and es- pecially of the Gulf Stream. Extending from the arctic circle to the icy barrier that girds the antarctic continent, its length is 140 de- grees of latitude, or nearly 10,000 miles; and its width, between the two great continents it lave~, varies from 800 miles (between Green- land and Norway) to 1500 miles (between Bra- zil and Sierra Leone), and, at its widest part, 3600 miles (between Florida and the shores of Africa). It is therefore an irregular, elongated valley. It is over the diagonal of this valley that the Gulf Strean~ is projected. The sub-basins of the Atlantic have been very distinctly traced. The elevated rim of its north- ern basin ha~ been thus ably defined and delin- eated by Ansted: Starting from Iceland on the east side, and proceeding southward, we find the Faroe Isl- ands, the mountains of Scotland, Wales, and France, the Western Pyrenees, the coast of Portugal nad Spain, the Atlas, and the Azores. From this point a multiplicity of shoals and banks, crossing the ocean and terminating with the great bank of Newfoundland, form a de- pressed rim. In this way we find an almost continuous chain of mountain land, either sub- aerial or submarine, reaching finally to Green- land and returning to Iceland. This forms the Northern Atlantic basin.* The central basin of the stormy ocean is equally as well marked as the northern. Be- ginning with the submarine mountains off New- foundland, running to the Azores, and thence through Madeira to the Canaries and the Cape Verde, and thence westward, we pass by the island of Fernando de Noronha to Cape Sr. Roque. The floor of the Atlantic, as determined by deep soundings, consists of a series of descend- ing steps. Wide-extended and flat terraces stretch out beyond the present shores, and are succeeded by steep cliffs dropping down nine thousand feet. For the distance of two hun- died and thirty miles from the coast of Ireland there is a slope of about six feet in a mile, or twelve inches in a thousand feet. In the next twenty miles there is a sudden descent of nine thousand feet, after which, for twelve hundred miles, all the bottom is nearly level. This is the * Ansteds Physical Geography, p. 129. THE HOT CURRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 71 celebrated telegraphic plateau. By a succession of drops we finally reach the greatest depths of the Atlantic, at least thirty thousaadfeet, which, on the American side of the ocean, is some dis- tance south of the great bank of Newfoundland. We are now on vantage-ground from which to survey the whole field of discussion before us; and we are in possession of facts which, rightly read, unravel much of the mystery still clinging to the Gulf Stream and Atlantic ciren- lation. Livingstons theos~r, we have already seen-, is to be rejected, because it explains a phenomenon of ceaseless and perennial con- tinuance by a cause which acts efficiently, if it acts at all, only for a part of the year, and then is withdrawn. Happily, we think, for the cause of science, we are reduced to a choice of the two remaining hypothesesthe Franklin- Herschel theory, and that of Maury. Of these two it is impossible to form any combination. It is impossible to reconcile them. The dy- namics of the Gulf Stream, says Herschel, have of late, in the work of Lieutenant Maury, already mentioned, been made a sub- ject of much (we can not but think mis- placed) wonder, as if there could be any pos- sible ground for doubting that it owes its ori- gin entirely to the trade-winds. Let us put this to the test. The trade-winds of the northern hemisphere, in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, com- mence to blow from the tropic of Cancer, and reach the equatorial zone from the northeast, at an angle with the equator of 240. The trade-wind belt, or the terrestrial girdle, swept by these air-currents so eeaselessly, is three thousand miles broad, extending to 230 north latitude, and to a still lower southern latitude. But this belt is not stationary.* It is obedient to the apparent motion of the sun, and moves and vibrates up and down on the earths surface, as the sun declines to either side of the line. When he shines vertical- ly on Cancer (June 21), the trade-wind belt is shifted nearly eight hundred miles to the north. When, again, he is vertical to the tropic of Capricorn (December 21), the south- ern edge of the belt is eight hundred miles south of Capricorn. At the equinoxes, of course, the sun being directly overhead at the equator, the belt is commensurate with the intra-tropical regions, transgressing them nei- ther toward the North Pole nor toward the South Pole. Without discussing the theories of the trade - winds, these are the agents on which Franklin and herschel rely for their Gulf Stream theory. According to Maurvs theory the Gulf Stream may derive its mi- tial velocity from the trade-winds; but it re- jects the Hersehelian statement that, if there * Columbus first fell in with the trade-winds on Sep- tember 14, 1492, inst after leaving the islands of Ferro and Gomera in the Canaries, latitude 28 ~north. He would have met them several hundred miles farther north had he passed on the meridian of t~ ~~- two months earlier. The trades in September have re- ceded with the declination of the sun. were no atmosphere, there would be no Gulf Stream, or any other considerable ocdanic cur- rent whatever. * We have already seen that the main equa- torial current of the Atlantic is a considerable one, and likewise that of the Pacific. But it is impossible to account for either of these tre- mendous streams which flow from east to west (as Columbus so long ago pointed out) by evap- oration, temperature, or difference in specific gravity. However these forces may come into play in the production of the Gulf current, they can never be assigned as the dynamical agents for the equatorial current. If it should be urged against Herschels view that the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, from being longer nuder the sun, are heavier than the waters in the East At- lantic, then it would follow that the equatorial current ought to flow from west to east, just - contrary to its known course. Were there, however, no atmosphere, the axial revolution of the earth would never cause the ocean sur- face any friction with surrounding matter. But the moment the globe began to revolve in its at- mospheric envelope, the fluid and mobile parti- cles of the sea, impinging on the air, suffered re- action, and began to flow westward, as we now find. The waters which flow equator-ward along the shores of Senegambia, in which the equato- rial current of the Atlantic has its genesis, may have a westwardly motion from the same force which guides the trade-wind to the west; but, at the very utmost, this could only avail until these waters have reached the equator. There the circumferential velocity of the earth is great- est, and the westwardly set would be stopped, were there no other powers and forces to urge it on toward the Antilles. The trade-winds are, therefore, the only agencies which can supply this perpetual motion to the equatorial current. And this much must be conceded to Herschels doctrine; but no more. Not to reiterate what has been already advanced against it, we vainly demand of it to meet known facts. In the dead of winter, for instance, when the trade-wind belt is removed mostly below the equator, certainly below the tropic of Cancer, how is it that the Gulf Stream, in unabated majesty, and with un- diminished volume, ceases not to issue from the Gulf of Mexico? How is it that, even then, it forces its way beyond the tropic of Cancer, be- yond the British Isles, and far within the arc- tic circle, keeping the harbor of Hammesfest, near the North Cape, free of ice? More than this, in the summer, when the Gulf Streams velocity is greatest, and while it is rushing through the Straits of Florida in its greatest volume, the trade-winds in the East and Middle Atlantic receive a serious check and drawback. Then it is the Desert of Sa- hara drinks in the fiery rays of the sun. The air over its vast area is heated, and rises toward the clouds in columnar masses. Beneath, ,a vacuum is created; and from all sides of the * Herschel, Art. ~T, Physical Geography, 8th ed. Encyclopedia Britannica. 72 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. arid and blazing waste there is an in-draught of air. The monsoons, in a word, are now pre- vailing. The trade-winds, which propel the waters of the sea into the equatorial current, are overmatched by the counteracting mon- soons. So mighty are the influences of these periodical winds that even those formed on the deserts of Arabia have been distinctly tracked into Austria and other parts of Europe. The monsoons of the Indian Ocean, so famous, are of six months duration in the year, and sweep a sea zone more than two thousand miles broad. The effect of the suns heat on the great Desert of Sahara and the sun-burnt shores of Africa is to turn back and divert the trades of the Eastern Atlantic. And this monsoon influence extends out to sea over a thousand miles! If it were possible to settle questions such as the one before us by the simple imprimatur of great and honored names, like Herschels, we should not have ventured to challenge his theory, or test it with the opinions of others, far less with our own reasoning. Exception may possibly be taken to the state- ment that Herschels and Franklins theories are substantially the same. We are not un- aware that the English philosopher, in account- ing for the Gulf Stream or other ocean current, thinks it not essential for him to assume or prove the existence of what is called a head of water. lie very justly remarks: A cir- culation in a closed area, produced by an im- pulse acting horizontally on the surface water, may perfectly well coexist with a truly level course of each molecule. What may be and what is are two very different matters. Dis- missing all opposing views with an assertion of his own opinion, Herschel has not hereby in- creased his scientific fame. He suggests no reconciliation between his theory and the many known phenomena at war with its assumptions. In truth, his hypothesis was defunct when he espoused it, and it has heen as much as even his great name could do to galvanize it into a transient, unnatural vitality. What, then, are THE FORCES GENERATING THE GULF STREAM? First, it seems clear that the initial velocity is given by the momentum of the equatorial cur- rent, flowing westward under the impact of the trade-winds. This is but feeble, and would soon be spent. A second cause is the differ- ence in specific gravity of the equatorial water and the polar water. This is equally true of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Baltic Sea. The density of the Baltic is: Highest yet recorded 1.0232 Lowest 1.0003 Average of the West Baltic 1.0112 Average of the East Baltic 1.0042 The average deneity of the waters of the At- lantic is considerably higher than of these frigid yet lighter seas. The specific gravity of the Atlantic is, for the average, 1.0266. The heavy waters of the Gulf of Mexico, as we shall soon see, above the average Atlantic density, by a law of hydrostatics, would seek an exchange with the lighter, though icy, waters of the Bal- tic, were there no other point of the sea with which they might change place. But if we compare the specific gravity of Gulf Stream wa- ter with that of Arctic Ocean water, we perceive that, besides the Baltic, the vast polar basin it- self offers to the mass of equatorial water a hydrostatical inducement that will take no de- nial. The mean ~ecific gravity of the Arc- tic Ocean water (according to the long-contin- ued and elaborate experiments of Commander Rodgers), reduced to the freezing-point (27.2~ Fahrenheit) of sea-water, was 1.0263. The specific gravity of the Gulf Stream water, re- duced to the same temperature (27.2~), was 1.0303. If these be taken as specimens of the water of torrid and frigid zones, it would ap- pear that the waters of intertropical seas have fifteen per cent, more salt in them than the sur- face water of the Arctic Ocean has. i The specific gravity of the Gulf Stream water on the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude is found to be thirty per cent, heavier than the sea-water along the American coasts, which is cold, and in every way marked as an effluent from the arctic. But Rodgers, in his experiment, by reducing the polar water to a low temperature (27.2~ Fahrenheit), chilled it far below the degree at which he found it, which, in latitude 720 2 north, was nearly 480 in temperature by the thermometer. This, of course, would some- what affect the inference to be drawn theoret- ically from what has been said. In his investi- gations north of Behrings Strait, in 1855, he found that, in point of fact, the water was in layers, alternating with warm, cool, and hot, and be thus labels these layers: Warm and light water on the top, cool in the middle, but hot and heavy at the bottom. The temperature of the sea near Scotland, according to Alexander Buchan, off the Ork- ney Islands, is 45~50 Fahr.; off the Shetland lslands is 48.40 Fahr.; mouth of the Firth of Forth is 47~50 Fahr. The Gulf Stream water which passes the Orkney Islands, giving them the mild winter alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, has ascended from the ocean floor many hundred feet since it left its fountain in the Gulf of Mexico. For Lieutenant Bache found, off Cape Florida, about 12 nautical miles east from the light-house, at the depth of 450 fathoms, the temperature was forty-nine degrees Fahr- enheit. in June, 1852. (See Baches Notes on Gulf Stream.) Beneath this depth the ther- mometer suddenly fell to 350! The reason, of course, was that the banks and bed of the Gulf Stream are here of cold water. If it be asked, Why does the Gulf Stream remain on top? we answer: While in the polar basin, the water which moved as a surface and ice-bearing cur- rent to the south, along the shores of Greenland * Consult The Physical Geography of the Sea, p. 202, 225, and 220. THE HOT CURRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 73 and Newfoundland, was lighter than the equatori- al water. On its passage, by mingling with the northward flowing water (both surface and un- dercurrent), it is every hour becoming salter and salter, and hence heavier and heavier. On reaching the banks of Newfoundland, this ice-bearing and berg-drifting flow meets the tropical and salty waters from the Gulf and equator, and from them obtains the salt to give to its chilly mass a superior specific gravity. Before meeting the equatorial water; that from the pole lacked specific gravity or density. Robbing the hot water of its salt, and thus be- coming the heavier body, it drops down to the sea-bottom, and underruns the warm water all the way to the shores of Cuba, where it is found at great depths, and known by its icy tempera- ture of 350! We have not commented upon the cold water bed, and the banks of cold water, which form the channel for the great equatorial or Gulf current. The reader will see that no constant stream can move into the polar basin without keeping it in ceaseless motion, and forcing an equal body of water out of it. This, of course, takes place in both hemispheres, and the refi nis from the two poles conspire in keeping up the oceanic circulation. Could a sea-wall, however, be built of solid masonry, connecting Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, and another be built in the Arctic Ocean, thus cutting off the Atlantic from all polar communication, the present system of currents would be only modified, not destroyed. For, the weight of the hot seas exceeding that of the cold, the forces of hydrostatical equilibrium would come into play. This physical law has been beautifully likened to a MAGIcIAN IN THE SEA. Standing midway between the pole and the equator, he strikes first the hot water and then the cold with his wand. The hot water going to the pole and the counter-stream going to the equator feel and obey the stroke, and thus for ages have kept up their ceaseless cir- culation and their perennial fullness. Another co-operative agency in sustaining the movement of the stream is THE BONNY WEST WINDS. After passing to tie north o~ the trade-wind belt, in latitude 24~ north, the volume of the Gulf Stream receives a new impetus from the drifting impact of the southwest and the famous bonny west winds. These, for nine days in every twelve, blow steadily over the North At- lantic, and sweep its waters, in a surface move- ment, toward the British Isles and Northwest- ern Europe. These winds have descended from the upper regions of the atmosphere in the torrid zone, and are the antitrades, which, according to Kanes observations, largely pre- vail even into the polar basin. If, as we have seen, the trade-winds were the efficient cause of the equatorial current (though not of the Gulf Stream), it is very clear the antitrades, which, by a law of meteorology, must ~ their counter-currentwe say, it is clear the antitrades (were they to blow as steadily as the trades) must impel northward and eastward the whole mass of Gulf water, and any other with it, with the same force the trades give to the equatorial water. Did the antitrades blow due north, the shores of Greenland and Ice- land would bloom and blossom with the flora of the Antilles. But these winds deflect the vast equatorial flow somewhat to the east, and cause it to trend toward the shores of Norway. But the stream is not turned away from its course, because it is moving in obedience to other calls more potential than wind. It uses the wind as a servant, and not as a master. Like the noble ship, whose course is at right- angles to the breeze which is received on her quarter, the equatorial Gulf water curves grace- fully toward the track charted out for it by the Lawgiver of hydrostatics. Such are, we believe, the forces which alone can be enumerated as propelling the equatorial Gulf mass into the polar receptacle. There are other forces at work, no doubt, in assisting and accelerating this flow of hot wa- ter and in promoting oceanic circulation. The tiny sea-shell and the swarming myriads of the deep play an important part. The vast floods of fresh water from the grand river systems of America are factors in the result. The storms of the Atlantic, which are traced in numbers to the Gulf Stream flow, conspire to hasten its movement and swell its volume. The Stream is called by sailors The Weather-.Breedera doubtful appellation. Its path is, indeed, fear- fully visited by the terrors of the deep. Storms, squalls, hurricanes, water-spouts, lightning and thunder, in the words of R. H. Dana, give continual and terrific variety to this stupendous ocean current. Truly it is grand, in the deep silence of midnight, to pace the deck and listen to the roaring noise of the Gulf Stream as it travels on its ceaseless course. Along its way the caverns of the deep are doubtless thickly strewn with the wrecks of ages. But not from any agency of its own, and rather because the storms of the Atlantic seem to love this high- way. Mr. Espy has shown that the storms of the United States, and even those which arise in the Mississippi Valley, travel east, and often march out to sea to join the Gulf Stream. The Smithsonian Institute has mapped one of the latter, which, beginning at Galveston, Tex- as, after a long circuit by the Lakes, finally joined the favorite Stream by way of Nova Scotia.* These occasional phenomena ought to be reckoned among the causes of the Gulf Streamvolume and velocitybut not of its genesis or its perpetual circuit. IS THE GULF STREAM CRADLED OVER A VOLCANO? We have seen that all the way from the coasts of Africa the water which feeds the ev- er-flowing fountain of the Gulf Stream has been See the Bureau (Chicago) for January, 1870. 74 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. under the fiery blaze of an equatorial sun. It is highly probable that, after reaching the Gulf of Mexico, this water receives a vast quantity of heat from a subterranean furnace. The vast plateau or Mexican table-land is rent by a most singular crevice, through which the internal fire of the earth finds vent. From the Gulf to the Pacific Ocean stretches this fissure, in a line about sixteen miles south of the city of Mexico. Along this parallel rises a long row of active volcanoes, conspicuous among them Orizaba, with its ever-fiery crater, seen like a star in the darkness of the night, Popocatepetl, Tux- tla, Toluca, and Iztaccihuatl, forming a volcanic circus around the city of the Montezumas. Not far off is the volcanic cone of Jorullo, which suddenly appeared and rose on the night of September 29, 1759, to the height of 1683 feet above the plain. This is only one out of six mountains that have been thrown up in this region by plutonic forces since the middle of the last century. It has, therefore, suggested itself to geographers that the vast basin of the Mexican Gulf in many places of very great depth, reposes upon a seething mass of volcanic fires. We can not now stop to consider this at length, but are loth to pass it by. The subject is so full of interest, and bears so powerfully upon the hydrostatic theory of the Gulf Stream, that we venture to press it upon the reader by the following beautiful and forceful passage from the work of Mangin, whose Mysteries of the Ocean is so universally admired: The solar heat, undoubtedly, does not act alone upon this caidron of the Mexican Gulf ~vhich is every where surrounded with coasts and islands bristling with semiextinct craters, still agitated by frequent earthquakes, and be- traying to the careful observer the glowing fur- nace seething beneath the waves. Who knows but that it is to the operation of the submarine fires that the Gulf Stream, sprung from this estuary, owes the force of irresistible expansion, closely analogous to the detention of vapor, which enables it to force a passage through the mass of waters even to the arctic circle? Who knows but that it draws from this same furnace the enormous provision of heat which it lavishes on its circumference (parcours), and enough of which remains in the end to melt the ices of the polar sea? At all events, it is curi- ous to see another, and nearly as powerful a current, starting from that point of our hemi- sphere whose meteorological and geological con- ditions are nearly the same as those of the Gulf of Mexico. I refer to that other great artery of warm salt-water which rises in the Bay of Bengal, in the centre of another circle of fire, and on a bed which the internal convulsions of the globe have besprinkled with volcanic isl- ands. * Almost at the moment of writing these words (February 19), the telegraph announces an * Mysteries of the Ocean, p. 110. earthquake at San Francisco, coming from the southeastthe very quarter in which lie buried the cyclopean furnaces described. Late disturbances around the mouths of the Missis- sippi and the sudden elevation and agitation of waters in the Bayou Plaquemine, two years ago, confirm what is here advanced.* Two points in the discussion of the subject remain to be considered. But they are para- mount, and, we believe, of novel interest and importance. One of these is THE IIECURVATION. Our maps and charts frequently give to the blue, tepid stream a decided easterly, and afterward southerly, curve from tho Nantucket Shoals and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland toward the A~ores. That there is a movement of the water giving an appearance of truth to this idea is not to be questioned. The Sar- gasso Sea of Columbus, the centre of whirl, as in the eddy, to use a popular expression, fully attests the rotation of waters in the At- lantic; and it is plain the Gulf Stream must furnish a share of the revolving tide. But we are not to mistake a drift by the antitrade- winds, however wide, for the mass which makes the Gulf Stream. It follows as a corollary from the true doctrine of the Gulf Stream formation that it can never pause or turn aside in its course till it has obeyed the hydrostatical cull from the polar basin. It is restless till it rests there. The recurvation toward the Azores is necessarily a mere drifta pellicle qf water. Could this be skimmed from the surface, we should see, beneath, the onward-flowing mass of tropical water, rushing, in undisturbed and un- ruffled majesty and grandeur, toward its north- ern and arctic goal. Every observer has noted how the stream widens after passing the Caro- lina coasts, and it is always argued that the vol- ume is the same that issued through the Nar- rows of Bemini, but has only become thinner. * Hopicins, a distinguished writer on this subject, thus argues: The distance of the equatorial surface of the ocean from the centre of gravil.y is, say, about thirteen miles more than that of the polar surface, and, were gravity the only force that was constantly in ac- tion, the water of the equator, notwithstanding any in- fluence of wind, would run dou~n to the poles, just as water will ordinarily run down a bill. But this is pre- vented by centrifugal force, which, to a certain extent, counteracts the attraction of gravitation; and the nat ural level of the water of the ocean in every latitude, when undisturbed by wind, is determined partly by both gravity and centrifugal force. The centrifugal force of the earth, however, compared with the force of gravity, is as 1 to 289. Before the centrifugal force could equal the force of gravity, the earth would have to increase its rotative velocity 11 times. (See Smiths Mechanics.) If, then, the equatorial water is moved toward the poles by gravity, it has a fall of 12 miles in 8000. The Amazon River only. falls 12 feet in the last 700 miles of its course; and the La Plata 11 feet in 400 miles. The reader can apply these figures for himself. He can easily see that the trade-winds, blow- ing from the tropics toward the equator, alone serve to prevent the equatorial waters from rushing toward the poles in torrential velocity. But the wind can not reach the deep sea, and hence can not retard the un- seen and submarine flow of the water. THE HOT CURRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 75 There are many reasons for rejecting this view, which, we believe, is the universally accepted notion. A single but sufficient one is the vol- ume of water which unites with the Gulf Stream some time aftei it leaves Cape Florida. There, too, its depth is not more than 370 fathoms in some places, according to Lieutenant Bache, who, in his Report of the Coast Survey (1855), states: The existence of the water of the po- lar current below those of Lhe Gulf Stream was established by Lieutenant-Commanding Craven, who found the temperature of surface water at 82c, but in 370 fathoms he found it to be but two degrees, of Fahrenheits scale, above the freezing-point of fresh water (340), p. 6. But elsewhere, by the same authority (1852), he fixes the depth of the stream on the Charleston section at from three hundred to five hundred fathoms ! Thus it seems, in flowing from the Gulf to Charleston, it has not oalq widened bet deepened its bed! Off hatteras, at 525 fathoms, the tem- perature was only 540 I We adduce these facts to show that the sur- face flow or drift, in the recurvation, is no test or index of the true course of the current it- self. To ascertain this, we must feel to the bottom of the warm set and discover the cold- water channel (over which it moves) with the bulb of the thermometer. It may be well for the navigator to know every eddy and drift of the sea; but the thermometer only can reveal the hidden mechanism and wheel-work be- neath the waves. Meantime the physical law of hydrostatics which gives birth to the great current must be allowed to be the decisive and controlling shaper of its course. The phenomenon of the Sargasso Sea by no BASIN OF THE NORTH ATLANTIO. 76 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. means proves a recurvation of the Gulf Stream. This weedy sea shoots its fibres down deep into the ocean. In some cases, says Fay, the stems are 800 feet long and nearly a foot in di- ameter. The weed is not always floating, but sometimes grows up from a submarine plateau. This vegetation evidently rests in a circle of comparative tranquillity; but it is by no means necessary to suppose, as some have done, that it marks a centre around which every portion of the North Atlantic must revolve. The slight- est rotation of surface water around it would fully explain its stationary character, especially when we reflect on the great length of its stems shooting down to great depths, and occasionally serving, with its roots, to anchor the swimming field securely in its position. THE TOTAL GULF STREAM VOLUME is the most important problem for geographical science now to solve. Little or no attention has been given to its solution, save only to determ- ine the mass of water running through the Flor- ida pass. Vast as this is, and sufficient to form a thousand such rivers as the Mississippi at New Orleans, it is but a part, and the smaller part, of the true Gulf Stream, as that tropical current is recognized on its way to Europe. It seems strange that those who have refuted so ably the Franklin and Herschel theory, and who argue that the issue from the Gulf of Mexico is caused by evaporation of equatorial waters and the con- sequent alteration of specific gravity by the salt, should never have suggested that other masses of equatorial water (besides those in the Gulf of Mexico) would obey hydrostatic laws and seek to preserve equilibrium ~vith the polar seas. Reasoning upon the facts now adduced, the writer of this article has been led to the convic- tion that the Gulf Stream proper has scarcely gotten beyond the coasts of Carolina when it receives an enormous accession of tropical wa- ter. It seemed to him unaccountable that the vaster flow of the main equatorial current, which moves from the shores of Africa in an ever-widening sheet, should, when arrested by the Antilles, send off no tributary to the ma- jestic current from the Gulf of Mexico. It is clear that the trade-winds can alone generate and keep in perpetual flow the equatorial or westerly current. But their force can not ex- tend to great depths beneath the surface of the sea; and hence this current can not be so deep as if it were set in motion, like the Gulf Stream, by the force of specific gravity. The force of the ~vinds would be comparatively su- perficial; bnt the forces of specific gravity would be both superficial and submarine. It is, there- fore, not inconceivable that, while the broad equatorial current is rolling to the ivest as a surface flow, there is another and mighty mass moving beneath it, to the northwest, as an un- dercurrent. The Gulf of Mexico has been com- pared to a boiler or caidron, in which the water has been evaporated by the sun and be- come heavy enough to force its way out in search of lighter water. But may not this fig- ure be extended, as Dove did extend it, to ap- ply to the whole equatorial sea-basin? As the equatorial surface water gets warmer and salt- er it sinks by its weight, and thus drops down beneath the line at which the trade-winds can affect its motion. In other words, as it grows heavy it falls out of the westward set of the equatorial current. It is no longer under any constraint, save that which the law of hydro- statics imposes. Having a high specific grav- ity, there is no reason why it should not, just as the Gulf Stream proper, and acting under the same impulse, move to higher latitudes in search of lighter and interchangeable masses. Seen or unseen, we know, as surely and cer- tainly as we know that the tropical sun is hot, that some such movement must take place, and take place on a grand scale; and we might show that this movement, sooner or later, must conspire and fall in with the movement of the Gulf Stream itself. Let us see what this movement is. Were the globe in a state of quiescence, and had no daily revolution on its axis, the entire volume of the Gulf Stream would, after leaving Florida, run nearly due north, laying the eastern shores of our conti- nent. But experie-ace and observation show that its course is otherwise. The axis of the Gulf Stream is found, by actual measurement, to lie 80 statute miles from Charleston. The American shore, north of Charleston, project- ing, the axis is 50 miles from Cape Hatteras, 210 miles from Sandy Hook, and 240 miles from Nantucket though the warm water reaches nearer the shore, on an average 50 miles. And thus the Stream, which ran near the Everglades of Florida, on the 80th meridian of west longi- tude, has, before reaching Newfoundland, ob- tained an easting of more than twenty-five de- grees. This is not due to its being deflected by the coasts, nor yet even by any shoals or sand-banks whatever. If we except the sur- face influence of the antitrades, already alluded. to winds blowing from the southwestthis easting of the Stream water is due solely to the earths rotation. Every thing upon the surface of the globe at the equator is carried toward the east, at the rate of about 69 miles in four minutes. But if we recede to the north or south of this line the eastern velocity is so di- minished that at the latitude of 600 it is reduced to one-half~ and at 820 it is reduced to one- eighth of its original amount. The rotative velocity to the east, of an object on the equa- tor, is ~ of a mile per second, and 1000 miles per hour. It is easy, therefore, to see that, as equatorial lyater having an easterly velocity so great is borne to higher latitudes where the velocity is less, it will trend to the east. The drift-wood and floating sea-weed are found, therefore, on the European side of the Gulf Stream. The bamboos, the relics of carved wood and trunks of trees, conveyed to the isl- ands of Fayal, Flores, and Corvo, contributed to the discovery of America by confirming Chris- THE HOT CURRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 77 topher Columbus in his belief of the existence of Western Indies on the other side of the At- lantic. If we take the illustration of a rail- road in our hemisphere, running north and south, we may understand this easterly drift. It is said to be a well-known fact to engineers that when the cars are going north the tenden- cy, at great speed, is to run off on the east side; but when the train is going south the tendency is to run off on the west side ,i.e., always on the right-hand side. By the same law the d& bris and drift on the Mississippi are said to seek the right bank of the river. The effect of the earths diurnal rotation is, too, universally ad- mitted to give the westerly direction to the northeast trades in the northern hemisphere (blowing from Cancer to the equator), and also the direction of the southeast trades in the southern hemisphere. The Gulf Stream issues from its source in the Gulf of Mexico through the Bahama Chan- nel. For a few miles it moves nearly north. Current-bottles have been found on the east coast of Florida which had been thrown from ships cruising in the Gulf of Mexico. One of these from the steamer Walker, of the United vERTICAL SECTIOn OF TIlE ROETH ATLAHTIC. -J 78 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. States navy, cast overboard in the longitude of Mobile Bay, and in the latitude of the Pass a lOutre, at the mouth of the Mississippi, was found just south of Mosquito Inlet; and anoth- er, from the steamer 6orwin, east-northeast from Cape Florida Light, was picked up on the bench near Jupiter Inlet. But from Bemini the course of the current describes the path of a trajectory. The water, which at first was moving eastward with the earth, at the rate of nearly 800 miles an hour, is every moment coming to latitude of less easterly motion, and hence it falls to the east. And thus the whole mass is moving on a fixed ,zathematical line, and according to the resultant of the two forces which act upon it. Like every agent employed by nature, says Felix Julien, in his Les Harmonies de la lifer, it has a mission to fulfill, an important r6le to dis- charge. Nothing, therefore, can divert it from its intended aim. Its route is unchangeable; it is traced beforehand, and as precisely and clearly indicated as the elliptic orbit which our planet describes around its central star. Like heat, light, electricityin a word, like all fluids in motion which no obstacle arreststhe waters of the Gulf Stream follow the shortest line which they can trace from the place of their birth to the allotted limit of their career. On our globe, as every body knows, the shortest distance be- tween two given points is the arc of a great cir- cle; such a curve is exactly described by the great current which issues from the Bahamas, links Newfoundland to the British Isles, and proceeds, while turning round to the north of Western Europe, to lose itself in the polar re- gions. Through this apparent digression we hope to usher the reader into the clear sunshine of observed and unquestioned fact. It has been proved that the Gulf waters and all the equa- torial sea is acted.npon by two classes of force. 1. The forces which are set in play by solar radiation, evaporation, and inequality of tem.. perature in different latitudes. 2. The easter- ly momentum of the water from diurnal rota- tion of the earth. How far are these forces ef- fective? The notion has long prevailed that the current which passes out through the Flor- ida pass corresponds to the portion of the great equatorial current which passes into the Gulf of Mexico, between the West Indian Islands and the peninsula of Yucatan. But we have seen already how the Antilles meet and resist the equatorial current, and, especially, how the Windward Islands stand out in bold and cres- cent-shaped opposition, like immense barriers, forty-seven in number, just athwart the path of the great westward flow, diverting its tepid mass toward the northwest. The water thus diverted, if obedient to hydrostatic law, must inevitably find its way outside of the West In- (han Archipelago, and thus join the other por- tionwhich, having run the gauntlet of the islands, has in the mean time made the circuit of the Gulfafter it issues from the Florida and Bemini straits. The width of this off- shoot very greatly exceeds that of the Bemini current or the Gulf Stream proper. We say the Gulf Stream proper, although future ex- plorations may show this to be a misnomer, and may demonstrate that if the larger mass is entitled to give name to the current, what is now known as the Gulf Stream shall be or ought to be denominated The Antilles Current. A study of the subject, we are convinced, will fix and settle the existence of such a northerly flow beyond a doubt. We believe it can be proved that such a mass of equatorial water, equal to the issue at Bemini, both in volume and velocity, moves to the northwest and enters the lat- ter as a coefficient power. Although this ques- tion seems never to have entered into the in- vestigations of navigators and hydrographers, they have occasionally rendered, unconscious- ly, testimony which goes far to determine it. On his large physical chart of the Atlantic, Al- exander Keith Johnston has recorded, North- west hranch of equatorial current of Atlantic: extends frequently to latitude 200 north, some- times to the polar limits of the northeast trade- winds. The longitude on this chart for this branch current is between the 30th and 45th meridians west of Greenwich; and its breadth is given as six hundred milesfully fift eeu times as broad as the Gulf current at Bemini. (Keith Johnston. Plate XII. Physical Atlas.) The same representation is made on the large and beautiful chart of the world (Mercators) of Berghaus, published at Gotha. These two authorities would, if unsupported, give credi- bility to the view now presented. Another evidence that the Bemini or Florida stream receives an immense acquisition on its way to Newfoundland is furnished by the deep- sea soundings of the United States Coast Sur- vey. On its emergence from the Gulf of Mex- ico it has a breadth of fourteen leagues (42 miles) and a depth of two thousand feet. As it flows beyond the Bahamas it grows wider and wider, and if it received no affluent it should, as it expands in surface, diminish in depth. This is not found to be the case. It both widens and deepens! here we have Lieutenant Baches figures. At the bottom of the stream he has shown us the thermometer stands at 340 off Florida. Off Charleston, where its surface is three or four times as broad as off Bemini, the cold water of the bottom is reached between 300 and 500 fathoms, or say 2800 feet, an increase of its original depth. Some of the experiments off the Carolinas showed that at 525 fathoms its bottom had not been reached. Before it has attained the offlugs of Cape Hat- teras its volume is over 375 miles in width, nearly ten times ~vhat it was off Florida. The careful observations of the Coast Survey give: Off Cape Hatteras the temperature at 525 fathoms was only 540 Fahr.; at 425 fathoms it was over 600 Fahr. ! (See Bache on the Dis- trihution of Temperature in and near the Gulf Stream off the Coasts of the United States.) And off Cape Henry other examinations proved THE HOT CURRENT OF THE ATLANTIC. 79 that at the depth of 500 fathoms the bottom had not yet been found, for the temperature was as high as 52g. Behold, then, the Bemini stream has grown into nwre than tenfold its original volume! How, too, we might ask, was it that Bache found off Hatteras, at a depth of 425 fathoms, a body of water over 60~ ? Was this not a portion of the l~ot and heavy water from the equatorial or Antilles current marked by Keith Johnston as the Northwest branch of the equatorial current ? Diverted and de- flected by the crescent formation of the West Indies, this mass (several times larger than what is known as the Gulf Stream at Bemini) moved to the northwest under a triple impact. A part of it remains on the surface and unites with the Gulf Stream as a surface drift, de- scribed in the Physical Geo~graphy of the Sea (p. 47, 141, 8th edition). And the remainder and larger part, becoming heavy from evapora- tion under a hot and copper sky, sinks down and moves off as an undercurrent to commingle its briny fiQod and its kindred elements with the original current from the Gulf. If further proof of this is needed, the writer refers the reader to some remarkable facts which have been long recorded, but are evidently ex- plicable only by the view now offered. The Coast Survey Report for 1858 (p. 220) shows that the easterly set of the Gulf Stream, through the keys of Florida, disappears during the regular summer trade-winds. In cross- ing from Key West to Havana the Gulf Stream runs much stronger on the Cuban side. The oldest and most skillful and experienced pilots have testified that, during the season of the summer trades, the winds seem to block up the outlet from the Gulf; and numbers of these seamen assert that not unfrequently, at this time, they can detect no Gujf Stream at all. From no less an authority than Commodore Bainbridge, we learn thgt on one occasion, while cruising off Cape Florida, his vessel was drifted to the west. In other words, the cur- rent ofBemini was running back into the Gulf of Mexico, instead of running out of it. These facts receive confirmationfromtheir exact agree- ment with Livingstons theorya theory, it is true, long ago disprovedbut doubtless having these observations or similar ones for their basis. It is incredible that the Bemini current should linger and the Gulf Stream roll on, in unslack- ened speed and undiminished volume, unless we concede that, north of Bemini, it receives a mighty affluent. During the summer trades spoken of the thermal equator is moved north- ward, and, with the thermal equator, the equa- torial current itself. It is, therefore, easy to see how the true Gulf Stream at this season may, under peculiar circumstances, be repre- sented as moving in a northwesterly and after- ward in a northeasterly curve, not out of the Gulf of Mexi~o, but from the shores of the Windward and Lesser Antilles. A glance at the picture of the vertical see- tion of the North Atlantic will satisfy us of the correctness of this reasoning. The passage for the supply of th~ Bemini stream, between Yu- catan and Cuba, is hut a triflingjbsse compared with the magnificent opening of the Antilles, or northwest branch of the equatorial current, off the Windward Islands. The one is two thousand feet deep, the other fifteen thousand feet deep, and the width of the latter is still greater, proportionately. The tooth of run- ning water is very sharp. Is it possible that the equatorial current in deep sea has, by ero- sion, cleft and opened a channel-way through the Atlantic bed to the northwest and north? It would seem so; for, if the liquid ocean were dried up, we should see, according to the results of soundings by the Hydrographic Bureau, just such an excavation. From the northern shores of the island of St. Pedro (latitude 20 N., and longitude 280 W.), in a line running northwest, and very close to the Windward and Lesser An- tilles, and thence around the ~vest of the Ber- mudas, the basin of the great Atlantic Canal, as Ansted calls it, is cut and gashed by a deep lon- gitudinal valleya canal in a canal. This inner and central channel is very deep, averaging thir- ty-five hundred fathoms. Its sides are elevated from the sea-bed to within only eighteen hun- dred fathoms of the surface. There is thus found in depths of the ocean a submarine cana4 so to speak, extending from the equa- tor toward the pole, already traced through fortyfive degrees of north latitude. Indeed, it may be said to have been traced even to a greater distance south of the line. Its mean breadth at the greatest depth exceeds three hundred miles. If, as Ansted has so striking- ly remarked, the form and depth of the Atlan- tic bottom have a great influence on the move- ments of its waters, we may almost assume that we have here a clew to the motion of the equatorial current deflected by the Antilles. The latter would then enter the Gulf current in about the latitude of the Bermudas, which is in exact agreement and correspondence with the thermometric soundings of the Coast Sur- vev. This reasoning is strongly corroborated by a singular and, on other grounds than those now presented, an inexplicable fact. Vast patches and fields of the Sargasso Sea are brought into the Gulf Stream and borne across the ocean. These fragments of long kelp are drifted even so far as the Strait of Dover. It is not un- usual in the months of July and August, says the same distinguished English geographer late- ly quoted, to see large quantities of drifted weed in crossing the channel between Folke- stone and Boulogne. In perfectly fine weather the water is sometimes almost as much covered with vegetation in these seas as in the imme- diate neighborhood of the great Sargasso Sea itself. The floating masses of algm have evi- dently been torn off from the southwestern bor- ders of the weedy sea by some passing cerrent uniting with the Gulf current. The southwest- 80 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. em borders of the Sargasso face the Antilles, and are separated from the northeastern shores of these islands by a narrow sea not over three hundred and fifty miles widea width insuffi- cient to allow the passage of the northwest branch of the equatorial current, according to Keith Johnston six hundred miles wide. It is a physical impossibility that the weed, finding its way into the English Channel, could get there except in the way mentioned. For the northern edge of the Sargasso Sea is thirteen hundred miles south of the so-called recurva- tion of the Gulf Stream and of its easterly drift. And any other oceanic surface currents or drifts in the North Atlantic wonld bear the weed far away from the shores of England. The dislodged matter, it is probable, is influ- enced by the southwest winds (the antitrades) to depart from the normal track of the Gulf Stream and veer to the eastward. How far the Gujf Stream has been traced into the arctic basin is one of the most interesting inquiries of modern geography. We have al- ready seen its climatic influences extending be- yond the charmed circle of the North, and in dead of winter keeping open the Norwegian harbor of Hammerfest, in latitude 720 north. (We allude to the subject as throwing light upon the hypothesis of the Gulf Stream volume now advanced.) It is owing to the Gulf Stream,~~ says Arthur Mangin, in his magnificent work, Mysteries of the Ocean, that, in the north of Spitzbergen, the limit of eternal ice and snow, instead of sinking to the very level of the sea, maintains itself at a point fully 550 feet above (page 115). The Devils Huck, a considerable elevation in Spitzbergen, has its summit contin- nally shrouded in fog. Lord iDufferin, while sailing in the yacht Foam, distinctly perceived the Gulf Stream water 140 miles from the little island near Spitzbergen known as Bear or Cher- ry Island. Laing, in his account of a voyage to the former, says the climate is not entirely destitute of vegetation, and some plants are found which convey a faint representation of a more southern country (page 57). But these islands stand related to the Gulf Stream flow only as Boston or New York do. They receive only an occasional and fitful ben- efit from the tepid waters. The climate of Iceland likewise, though mild- er than Greenland, is much more vigorous than that of the corresponding latitude on the east- ern side of the Atlantic. Seventeen of the Faroe Islands are habitable: they are rugged, mountainous, and. rocky, and the intervening currents are deep and rapid. The inner har- bor of Hammerfest, says Laing, though sel- dom agitated by winds, was never seen frozen over. In 1808, the captain of this harbor states, there were seen two hundred sail riding in it at one time. Codfish, which are prepared by exposure to the sun, are ready for market in Hammerfest in three days, while the same proc- ess of preparation in Ne~vfoundland requires, in the best weather, at least five days. The ob served range of the thermometer at this Nor- wegian city, during the stay of some weeks of the voyager quoted, was between 750 and 80~ Fahr. From the North Cnje it flows onward, says a celebrated French writer, to console the poleto create that warm, or rather that un- frozen, sea which has been recently discovered.* With the facts which have been now set be- fore the reader, he is able to form for himself an intelligent opinion of the correctness of the entire reasoning which is advanced in this arti- cle. The last-mentioned facts concerning the extent to which the energy of the Gulf Stream has been distinctly traced seem, reflexively, to indicate its nature, its cause, and its volume. The hypothesis of the Total Gulf Stream Volume is here, the writer believes, propound- ed and demonstrated for the first time. The views he has enfoi~ced are his own, and for no- thing, either in their conception or expression, is any one responsible but himself. He has, however, diligently sought light from every quar- ter. Having addressed a distinguished naviga- tor who sailed under Commodore Wilkes, and ~vas afterward the honored hydrographer of Commodore Perrys Japan Expedition, and who has, perhaps, more than any living sailor, been led to examine the subject, and having laid be- fore him the substance of the hypothesis, the following indorsement was received: The theory (of the Gulf Stream), so far as the question of its having its origin from the Gulf of Mexico between Florida and Cuba is concerned, has, with me, like yourself, been the subject of a good deal of reflection; and I feel sure observations will prove that it re- ceives accessions from the northern part of the equatorial current, which, passing to the north of San Domingo and east end of Cuba, meets the outflow (to the eastward) from the Gulf, and acts as a wall or fender to turn the latter (the Gulf Stream proper) short to the north- ward, along the east coast of Florida; while the reciprocal action against itself carries the water of this northern part of the equatorial current also to the northward, to give addi- tional volume to the Gulf Stream. These two masses of water, being of nearly the same tem- perature (that from the Gulf being probably the hottest, from having been longer under the sun), mingle more or less freely. This brief but pertinent and comprehensive reply has encouraged the publication of this paper, in the belief that science will soon de- monstrate that the Antilles current goes to swell the great current from the Gulf, perform- ing for it the office which, according to ancient fable, the classic Alpheus of the Peloponnesus, flowing under the sea, performed for the hum- bler stream of Arethusa. The late deep-ocean dredgings, by Professors Carpenter and Thom- son, go so far as to prove the existence of an unbroken sheet of icy water spread over the dark floor of the deep. The marine life is * Michelats La Mar. The allusion is to Kanes Open Sea. TRANSMUTATION. 81 every where, at 2400 fathoms, influenced by an arctic coldness; and, if we are informed aright, the results of their labors all show the interchange of polar and equatorial waters. If we have succeeded in the aim of the argument, the Gulf Stream and all oceanic currents are seen in new light, and clothed with new dig- nity and grandeur. What the exact mass of the Antillian tribu- tary may be must be determined by the dili- gent use of the deep-sea sounding apparatus. Meantime we can see, as in noonday clearness, that the grand system of oceanic circulation, from pole to equator, is kept up, to use the figure of the eloquent Julien, as precisely and unchangeably as our planet describes the el- liptic orbit around its central star. We see enough to know that the limpid and limitless equatorial ocean is precipitated upon the polar basin. We see enough to convince us that the Gulf Stream is not a myth. Above all, we behold the wheels of the ter- restrial machinery in motionevery breeze that blows, every wav& that rolls, even the volcanic fire beneath the sea, conspiring to make good to man the dominion of the earth, and to in- state him in the possession of every inch of the Heaven-given heritage, from pole to pole. TRANSMUTATION. JT was nearly sunset of a clear summers day when in the large, comfortable, but una- dorned kitchen of an old-fashioned farm-house, which stood almost by itself on a rather lonely and isolated by-road, an elderly woman was seated alone. The woman was not positively ill-looking in any marked degree, although the restless, furtive glances of her cold, sharp, watery blue eyes, and a nervous twitching about the thin, closed lips, might have been held suggestive of low craft in purpose and asperity in temper. Com- monplacecommonplace to the last degree I would have been the epithet most likely to have been applied to her by the chance observer. Yes, commonplace she most certainly was, from the thin locks of rusty, yellow-gray hair, even to the down-trodden and shapeless shoes. You have seen fifty just such women, no doubt, and you will probably see fifty more just like her; for it is a common pattern to be found ev- ery wheretall and angular, high-shouldered, hollow-chested, sallow, thin, and stooping. Her dress was a rusty black alpaca, scarred and stained with the wear of many months, and a cap and neck-handkerchief which, if clean- liness is next to godlinessas our nursery or- acles used to tell us it wascertainly did not denote her as holding a very conspicuous place on the roll of immaculate purity! But all these little minuthe, though they may serve to call up the woman before your imagin- ation, are nothing per se;. they were only the rather exaggerated peculiarities of her age, sex, rank, andposition, and mightwellhave been pass- VOL. XLI.No. 241.6 ed over with the innocent and not unfriendly re- mark quoted above, Yes, very commonplace ! But what made the woman repellent, and gave to her an individuality, was the all-per- vading vulgarity of look and manner which in- vested her like a mantle from head to foot; and a lurking something in her glance, half-cum~ing, half-fearful, as if the vicious will was only held in check by the cowardly spirit. She sat in her high-backed wooden chair at some distance from the open window, and was restlessly trifling with a letter. She had taken it out of her pocket two or three times, reading it over carefully, and with an evident effort, as if painfully striving to make herself mistress of its contents by rote, and returned it each time with a reflective and doubtful expression on her face. And now she had again drawn it forth, and re-read it; and then, having folded it, and replaced it in its envelope, she was (after a fashion not uncommon among persons to whom the advent of a letter is an infrequent occur- rence) matching closely together the torn edges of the envelope, and smoothing and pressing the letter to make it look as if it had not been open- ed; though all the while she thus idly trifled with it, the changing expression of her face de- noted perplexed and possibly conflicting emo- tions. At last her reflections seemed to have reach- ed a definite conclusion; for suddenly raising her head, and turning in the direction of the open window, she called, in a sharp, querulous voice, Ma-hit-a-bell,, Yes in, came the immediate answer from outside the window; and the voice of the un- seen speaker was that of a young girl, sweet and musical in its tone; but the manner was crisp and tart, almost defiant. There was silence for some minutes, while the trifling with the letter still went on; and then, as if suddenly remembering that her call had not been properly attended to, the woman called again, with eveti greater asperity than before, Ma-hit-a-bell and again came the same short, defiant answer Yes m I What do you keep saying Yes in for, with- out coming, when I call you, Hitty? Where are you, hey ? Outside the window. Where did you spose I was What are you about out there? what are you doing ? Watering the flowers, and picking the bugs off the squashes, I guess; and theres an awful lot of them I Didnt you hear me calling of you ? Yes ~ Then why in the world didnt von come in? You did not tell me to, did you ? Well, if I didnt, you knowed well enough I wanted you. Im sure I didnt; you didnt say sohow was I to know it ? Well, then, you know it now, dont yer?

TRANSMUTATION. 81 every where, at 2400 fathoms, influenced by an arctic coldness; and, if we are informed aright, the results of their labors all show the interchange of polar and equatorial waters. If we have succeeded in the aim of the argument, the Gulf Stream and all oceanic currents are seen in new light, and clothed with new dig- nity and grandeur. What the exact mass of the Antillian tribu- tary may be must be determined by the dili- gent use of the deep-sea sounding apparatus. Meantime we can see, as in noonday clearness, that the grand system of oceanic circulation, from pole to equator, is kept up, to use the figure of the eloquent Julien, as precisely and unchangeably as our planet describes the el- liptic orbit around its central star. We see enough to know that the limpid and limitless equatorial ocean is precipitated upon the polar basin. We see enough to convince us that the Gulf Stream is not a myth. Above all, we behold the wheels of the ter- restrial machinery in motionevery breeze that blows, every wav& that rolls, even the volcanic fire beneath the sea, conspiring to make good to man the dominion of the earth, and to in- state him in the possession of every inch of the Heaven-given heritage, from pole to pole. TRANSMUTATION. JT was nearly sunset of a clear summers day when in the large, comfortable, but una- dorned kitchen of an old-fashioned farm-house, which stood almost by itself on a rather lonely and isolated by-road, an elderly woman was seated alone. The woman was not positively ill-looking in any marked degree, although the restless, furtive glances of her cold, sharp, watery blue eyes, and a nervous twitching about the thin, closed lips, might have been held suggestive of low craft in purpose and asperity in temper. Com- monplacecommonplace to the last degree I would have been the epithet most likely to have been applied to her by the chance observer. Yes, commonplace she most certainly was, from the thin locks of rusty, yellow-gray hair, even to the down-trodden and shapeless shoes. You have seen fifty just such women, no doubt, and you will probably see fifty more just like her; for it is a common pattern to be found ev- ery wheretall and angular, high-shouldered, hollow-chested, sallow, thin, and stooping. Her dress was a rusty black alpaca, scarred and stained with the wear of many months, and a cap and neck-handkerchief which, if clean- liness is next to godlinessas our nursery or- acles used to tell us it wascertainly did not denote her as holding a very conspicuous place on the roll of immaculate purity! But all these little minuthe, though they may serve to call up the woman before your imagin- ation, are nothing per se;. they were only the rather exaggerated peculiarities of her age, sex, rank, andposition, and mightwellhave been pass- VOL. XLI.No. 241.6 ed over with the innocent and not unfriendly re- mark quoted above, Yes, very commonplace ! But what made the woman repellent, and gave to her an individuality, was the all-per- vading vulgarity of look and manner which in- vested her like a mantle from head to foot; and a lurking something in her glance, half-cum~ing, half-fearful, as if the vicious will was only held in check by the cowardly spirit. She sat in her high-backed wooden chair at some distance from the open window, and was restlessly trifling with a letter. She had taken it out of her pocket two or three times, reading it over carefully, and with an evident effort, as if painfully striving to make herself mistress of its contents by rote, and returned it each time with a reflective and doubtful expression on her face. And now she had again drawn it forth, and re-read it; and then, having folded it, and replaced it in its envelope, she was (after a fashion not uncommon among persons to whom the advent of a letter is an infrequent occur- rence) matching closely together the torn edges of the envelope, and smoothing and pressing the letter to make it look as if it had not been open- ed; though all the while she thus idly trifled with it, the changing expression of her face de- noted perplexed and possibly conflicting emo- tions. At last her reflections seemed to have reach- ed a definite conclusion; for suddenly raising her head, and turning in the direction of the open window, she called, in a sharp, querulous voice, Ma-hit-a-bell,, Yes in, came the immediate answer from outside the window; and the voice of the un- seen speaker was that of a young girl, sweet and musical in its tone; but the manner was crisp and tart, almost defiant. There was silence for some minutes, while the trifling with the letter still went on; and then, as if suddenly remembering that her call had not been properly attended to, the woman called again, with eveti greater asperity than before, Ma-hit-a-bell and again came the same short, defiant answer Yes m I What do you keep saying Yes in for, with- out coming, when I call you, Hitty? Where are you, hey ? Outside the window. Where did you spose I was What are you about out there? what are you doing ? Watering the flowers, and picking the bugs off the squashes, I guess; and theres an awful lot of them I Didnt you hear me calling of you ? Yes ~ Then why in the world didnt von come in? You did not tell me to, did you ? Well, if I didnt, you knowed well enough I wanted you. Im sure I didnt; you didnt say sohow was I to know it ? Well, then, you know it now, dont yer? 82 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Yes in! Very well, Im coming. Heres oneto make ready, And twoto prepare; Threeto go slam-bang, And fourto be there 1 snng the sweet but saucy voice, as, suiting her action to her words, the singer placed her hand lightly upon the low window-sill, and with one agile bound sprnng into the room, and repeat- ing the words be there, stood before the wo- man; and, certainly, a stranger-looking object never entered a room in stranger way! She was a slight, hnt well-grown girl, of possi- blytwelve orthirteen yearsjust at the age when young girls are usually most awkward~ when the rapid development of length of limb rather pnz- zles the youthful possessor as how to use grace- fully the sudden and unlooked-for elongation; but the untrammeled freedom of Hittys coun- try life, the entire absence of all artificial train- ing, and a naturally healthy organization, had given to the girl this advantage, that her free motions, though often startling in their sudden- ness, had all the natural grace which we see ofrenest in the unconscious movements of in- fancy; and although her abrupt entrance into the room could not by any means be considered elegant, still it was so light and free as not to be ungraceful; and the pose of her head and her whole attitude, as she stood with folded hands before the woman who had summoned her, was easy, piquant, and saucy. In person she was tall and slight; her natu- rally fair skin was sun-burnt and covered with unsightly freckles up to the very roots of her immense crop of red hair, which was drawn back from off her forehead and braided into two stiff, cable-like braids, so tightly as to give the impression that the curve of her arched eyebrows was the result of the unnatural ten- sion. These stiff and unyielding braids stuck out, one behind each ear, and were terminated at their extremities by coarse twine strings, to prevent the possibility of their nubraiding in the least. The object of this strange and most unbecoming mode of arranging her hair, Rutty would most probably have explained, was to keep it out of mischief for it was eternally bothering ! But these extremely rigorous measures would have seemed to fail in their accomplishment, for they had not served to keep it from the inroads of hay-seed and this- tle-down, with which its red surface was pro- fusely peppered. There were two good points in the girls face which not even tan and freckles could disguise clear, deep, liquid blue eyes, now flashing with scornful mirth, hut wearing a look of wist- ful tenderness in their blue, violet depths; and a well-formed mouth, fresh and dewy, but wear- ing now a smile of contemptuous indifference. The rest of her person was invested in a scant, coarse, blue-checked garment, with long sleeves, made much like a butchers frock, which descended from her chin even to the bottom of her clothes. It was evident, as they remained thus for a moment, looking each in the others face, that the stronger and higher mind of the child had already asserted its supremacy over that of her companion; and that while she regarded her with saucy indifference, and dislike only kept in check by a sense of what was due to the require- ments of the fifth commandment, the woman re- garded her with mingled and ill-concealed dread and aversion. Ma-hit.a-bel ! she began again, as if doubtfully. What m I I never saw sich a gal as you are, never! I declare youre enough to kill any body to have you round; you come into that winder jest like a great bear! Did I ? said the girl, carelessly. I won- der at that, for I dont think I ever saw a bear, and I dont know how he would look; but I know just how a wolf looks, in Little Red Riding-hood, you know; and Ive seen some- body, she added, fixing her eyes meaningly upon the face of the listendr, and thus giving an unpleasant personality to the remark, who looked just like him! Why, in bed, you know, I could hardly tell the difference. Ah, poor dear little Red Riding-hood, I always did pity you Ma-hit-a-bel Cutter! said the woman, an- g41.y, youre the very sauciest gal I ever saw in my life Yes in, I know it; but youve said that a dozen times before. Could not you mnke an effort, and get on a little ? Yes, Hitty; Ive got something to say to you. Oh, Lordy! Granmother, dont! Dont what ? Dont say something to me. I hate to be said something to; and, besides, I have not got the time to spare. The hugs will eat your squashes all up, if you keep me here; theres lots of in, I tell you now; they are eating on the right hand, eating on the left. I give you fair warning, they are hard at it; you must not blame me! Never mind the squashes; I dont care for them. You dont? Well, I am surprised! I thought you did. Well, then, if you dont, I dont; so up and at it, bugsfree and easy go in and win Hitty, I never saw sich an outrageous gal as you are in my life! No; I spose you never did; and I wish, with all my heart, you had never seen this one; but, there, if the sermon has got to be preached, do give out your text and go ahead; Im ready; come on. And she flung herself down upon the unpainted floor as she spoke, nud snatching up a venerable gray cat which came purring around her, she very unceremoniously turned the patient animal upside down, laying her upon her back between her knees; then grasping one of the creatures front and one of its back paws TRANSMUTATION. 83 in each hand, as it lay upon her lap, she nodded and bowed to it, as the great, gray-green eyes opened and looked up into her face, talking to it the while as if it had been a petted child: Now, Morgiana Longtail, my darling cat, do be quiet, and behave yourself as you should do. Your grandmother has got something to say to you; so be good, and listen, I tell you. Now, grandmother, all ready; get on as fast as convenient, will you ? Well, Hitty, I want to tell youIve got a letter. Have you? Well; and cant you make out to read it ? Read it! yes, of course lean. Oh! you can, can you ? said the girl, with indifference. I supposed you couldnt, and wanted me to read it for you. If you have read it, what do you want me for ? Because, said the woman, doggedly, the letter concerns you. Concerns me ? said Ilitty, raising herself up, while her face flushed, and a look of blend- ed curiosity and anxiety replaced the former listlessness of her manner. From the select- men, or the school-committee, I bet: about that old window I broke in the school-house. Well, I did break it, she added, while the hot crimson flush rose to the roots of her red hair I did break it, and I aint going to deny it. It was an accident, and Im sorry for it, and I didnt mean to do it; but I did break itand now, what are they going to do to me about it? The letter is not from the school-commit- tee, nor the selectmen neither, Hitty. Oh! it is not, is not it ?so much the bet- ter, then, said the girl, relapsing into her for- mer mood and attitude. Well, said the woman, regarding her with a sort of hesitation, why dont you ask me who it is from? Oh! I dont much care to know; if you are going to tell me, I suppose you will with- out my asking; and if not, I dont think asking all day would make you tell me. Well, Hitty, the letter comes from your graufather. My grandfather! Whew! thats a likely story to tell! Dead men dont often write let- ters, I guess; at least not to little girls like me, that ever I heard of. Your granfather is not dead, Hitty. Isnt ?then youve told me many a whack. er! Why, you always said that he was dead. I never did. No? No ! You did, now. Oh, come; thats a little too much! Youtoldmethat he died in California; with the cholera infantum, I think you said it was. I say I never did; cholera infantum, in- deed! Nonsense, Hitty; you oughter know better, great gal as you are. Cholera infan- tum! nobody but babies has it; it was the chol era morbus. I told you that my husband died of that in Californy; thats what I told you, and thats so. Well, have it cholera morbus, if you like that any better. I suppose it wont make much difference to any of us now; but was not he the old man there ? said the girl, indicating by a rather supercilious nod of her head a melan- choly and smoke-stained silhouette, in an oval, black frame, which adorned the fire-place wasnt tbat your husband, Deacon Josh Cut- ter ? Yes; but he was not your granfather. He wasnt? Good gracious! hallelujar chorus! and so forth. Now is not that splendid ? Im sure I dont know why you should say so; he was a very excellent man, a deacon of Mr. Webbers church; and when he died Oh yes ! interrupted the girl, eagerly; I know all that; youve told me that, time and time again; but I dont fancy his looksI nev- er did, and I never shall, and I cant help it. I dunno why not, Im sure; I only wish you had half his good looks. Thank you; half would be enough for me, I guess, said the girl, casting another mock- reflective look at the black and white memento of departed worth. I really think half of his nose and half his queue would be quite as much as I could venture to accept. I would not wish to be too grasping, more especially as it seems I have no claim upon him; but if the deacon was your husband, as you have just said, may I venture to inquire how did it chance that he was not my grandfather ?that seems to strike me as a little peculiar. How was that ? Because, said the woman, regarding her anxiously, I am not your grandmother. Glory and praise ! shouted the girl, turn- ing a somersault upon the floor; thats the greatest news yet. I declare the newspaper man ought to get out an extra. Hurrah! John Browns soul is marching on, I guess; and so is mine. Oh, excuse me, my darling Kitty! I hope I didnt jam your little, pre- cious old paws; but I couldnt help it; such news doesnt come every day in the year, does it? And now, Mrs. Cutter, having gone so far, and told me who were not my grandpa- rents (for which I thank you from the bottom of my heart), may I ask you to go a little far- ther, and tell me who my grandfather who writes the letter is ? His name is Arnold. The old Harry! said the girl, now fairly beside herself with excitement; and bully for you, Grandfather Arnold! No, said the widow, that was his father; his name is not Harry, its Edard; your gina- father is Judge Arnold. Edward Arnold! repeated the delighted girl; oh, what a sweet name! sounds just like a novel or a poem, I declare if it dont; it seems to do one good to speak it. A judge, too.; then, I suppose that he is a gentleman, aint he ? 84 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. I guess he thinks so. And I dare say he is right; and now, Mrs. Cutter (it seemed to give the child pleasure to substitute these words instead of grandmo- ther), I will read the letter from my grandfa- ther Arnold ;! and she reached out her hand for the letter. No, you dont, nuther, said the woman, cautiously withdrawing the letter from the reach of the eager hand. This letter is to me, not to you. Didnt you say it was from my grandfa- ther? Well, yes; that is, its from his agenthis lawyer, I spose that is. And is it not about me? You said it was. Yes; and Im going to read it to you, at least some parts ont, if you will ever hold your tongue long enough. Then Mrs. Cutter put on her glasses again, fussily wiping and adjusting them with a slow delay, torturing to the impatient Hitty; and having had some practice in spelling out its contents half a dozen times before, which prac- tice had, however, not made her perfect, she managed to read as follows: Mas. Pzzsis CUTTEII,I am directed byJudge Ar- nold to inform you that having returned to this coun- try after his long absence, and intending to re-estab- lish himself in his own home, he means to take charge of his grand-daughter himself. As your quarterly al- lowance for the board and use of the young lady has been regularly paid(hum, hum)interpolated the incautious reader, finding she was entering upon pri- vate grounds (that isnt it, let me see) I inclose a check for (no, that does not concern you either) to meet any extras(why, where in the world is it? oh, here it is I) he wishes Miss Belle Linzee to be at the station in your village at 11 a.~e., Thursday, June 16, where she will find a messenger to bring her to L in the cars, where her governess will be wait- ing to receive her, and take her home at once. I am, etc., etc., WILLIAM R. PARKINsON. It ~yould have been a study for a painter, could he have seen the girl as she sat upon the floor, with wide eyes and parted lip~s, listening almost breathlessly to this, to her amazing letter, not one word of which escaped her, although she was too much bewildered to comprehend and arrange it all in her mind. Who is the young lady, Mrs. Cutter ? speaking almost reverentially. Why, you, you born goose; who clse should it be? Me a young lady? I look like one, dont I ? as putting the cat gently aside, she sprung up and looked down upon herself in silence, while her red lips quivered, and tears of real feeling dimmed for one moment the lustre of her clear blue eyes. But it was but for a mo- ment; her whole life had taught her lessons of self-control, and she had recovered herself be- fore her companions slow perception had re- marked her unusual excitement. Well, she said, I dont quite understand. It says a messenger will be sent for herwhat does that mean, I wonder: what is a messen- ger? Is it a man or a woman? - I dont know. I guess it means a constable, dont it? Thats worse than the selectmen; do you sup- pose they will put me in handcuffs, as they did the poor fugitive slaves ? she asked, apprehen- sively, for her unguided and miscellaneous read- ing of sensational novels had filled her mind with a crude mass of ideas which her secluded life had never served to assort or rectify. And then, the young lady is to be met by her gov- erness; do you know what sort of thing a gov- erness is, Mrs. Cutter ? Well, yes; I reckon it means a sort of schoolmarm, at home in the house; and I guess youve got to be screwed pretty tight by her yes, night and day too, I take it, said Mrs. Cutter, maliciously. And I should think it would need it, said the child, gravely and reflectively; theres an awful sight to do, certainly. I vow I dont envy her her job; shell find shes got her match, I guess. Well, next, what was that about a Miss Belle Liuzee ?whos she ? Why, who in the world do you spose, you little fool? You, of course. But my name is not Belle Liuzee, is it? Like enough! Your father was a Linzee, I know; and they used to call your mother Mabel. Of all the ridiclous names I ever heard, thats the beatemest! I dont think so; its a lovely name; I like it. But what did you call me Hitty for ?~aj~ch a vulgar, hateful name Well, I suppose Mabel is short for Mahit- able, aint it ? No, indeed! no such thing; not the least like it in the world! And so you tucked in the Hitty, did you? I dont thank you. Yes, I did; Hitty is a good, useful, sensi- ble name, and I spose your folks dropped it out by mistake. No mistake at all; Ill answer for that. You may keep your old Hitty; I dont want it. And pray, why did you call me Cutter, if my name was Liuzee? Wheres the mistake there ? I didnt; you called yourself so when you was little, and I thought it was jest as well. I dont; but that is a matter of taste, per- haps, and I like my own name best. But, one thing more, and again the lips and eyes quiv- ered with emotion; you spoke of my mother. Oh! tell ~ne true; did I ever have a father and mother of my own, as other girls have ?oh, tell me that! Of course you had. I never see such a born fool as you are, Hitty! How did you think you came into the world? I spose you thought you growed right up out of the ground like a mushroom, didnt you ? I might well have thought so, from the way in which II havebeenreared, said the girl, bitter- ly. But tell me this: are my parents living ? I dunno; I guess not. Come to think ont, I know yer fathers dead; he was. killed. I know that much. TRANSMUTATION. 8o Killed? echoed the little listener, with horror in her look and tone. What! in the war Laws, no! some accident; I dont justly remember what it was. I spose I knew at the time; hut Ive forgot now. But I know that when he died, your mother went crazy, or had fits, or went into the consumption, or some- thing or other terrible bad, but I cant tell you just what; and thats why they went abroad. And I reckon shes dead too, and so the old gent has come home and wants you. The dear old man! said the child, with a gush of tenderness never felt before. And now, how in the world came I here? What am I to you ? Nothing. The girls face brightened. My daughter she was your nurse, and when your folks broke up, and went off all of a sudden, as it were, they had to leave you with her; and she come home to live with me. And when she w~ took away from me, the agent didnt seem to know justly what to do with you, and so I said Id keep you. Then, said the girl, drawing herself up, with a natural, hut very unconscious, assump- tion of new-born dignity thenI have really been your hoarder all this time, instead of your slave, as I have been made to believe, have I? And I dare say you have heen well paid for all you were supposed to be doing for me. Well, yes; I dont say but what your folks has been liberal enough. They have paid me all I asked; for I always told them you was an awful limb to manage; and so you are Thank you, Mrs. Cutter, for your flatter- ing remarks about me; perhaps the time is coming when I may be able to repay you for all kindness. And now, when am I to go ?did it say? The letter says Thursday, the 16th. Yes; and to-day is Tuesday. The day after to-morrow, then. If you are ready. I dunno any reason why you shouldnt go then; do you ? Me? no, indeed! I only wish I knew there was no reason why I shouldnt go now, to-night ! Well! you are civil ; Ill say that for you. No, Mrs. Cutter; as we have never in- dulged ourselves in that sort of thing, it is hardly worth while, as I am going so soon, to make a beginning of it now; so, as I have a good deal to think about, I will leave you for the present. Catching up the old cat again in her arms, Hitty left the room as she had entered it, through the window, and running at full speed to work off some of her superabundant excite- ment, she fled to a secluded and shady nook, under some old apple-trees which, by long use, she had learned to regard as her own peculiar sanctum, and there flinging herself at full length upon the grass, she dandled the patient cat high above her head, and broke forth: Kitty! Kitty! Kitty! Kitty! my only com fort and my true confidante; what a day this has been! Can you understand it all, my furry friend? If you do, it is more than I can. I think little Prince Silverwings or Cinderellas dear old godmother must be round in the neigh- borhood somewheres. Let me see: in the first place, old Josh Cutter, my grandfather that was, was never my grandfather at all! and Mrs. Cutter, my grandmother that is, is not my grandmother at all !three cheers and an extra thanksgiving for that, Morgiana Long- tail !then, my grandfather Arnold, that never was my grandfather, is going to be my grand- father for evermore. And Ive had a father and mother like other folksnh! would to Heaven I had them now! Thats the only sad part of it; but then, Pussy, you know it is so respectable and comfortable to have had them at all that I ought not to mind thatit seems as if it would be ungrateful in me, dont it? And then, I am not Hitty Cutter at alloh! what a hateful name that was !but Im Belle Linzee; and IrA a young lady! a young lady!! a young lady! ! !Pussy! do you comprehend that fact? Oh! well may you open your great gray eyes, and whisk your beautiful tail. (Bless your heart, my darling, did I squeeze you too hard? Excuse me, dearest, ~vont you?) You see this is a day~ of mighty changes; it seems to me the world is tipping upside down; and if I dont hold you tight and fast, Im afraid in five minutes you will turn into a dog, and bark in my face; and you know I never did like dogs much better than you did, did I? In this way the excited and jubilant girl ran on, until she was fairly breathless and weary; and then dismissing the cat (who was not sorry to be released), she sat down to reflect seriously upon all that had occurred, or all that seemcd likely to occur. This gave her full occupation until bedtime. The next morning Hitty awoke early, as was her wont, and after she had fully convinced her- self that yesterday was a reality, and not, as she almost feared, a splendid dream, she set herself busily to work, for she felt she had much of im- portance to perform. And first, she emanci- pated her tame robin, whom she had cured of a broken leg, and heard with unmixed pleasure his glad, rejoicing song, as he soared aloft on the free blue air. Next, she disenthralled her pet squirrel; and though she could not by any possibility replace the fine, bushy tail which he had lost in a neighbors rat-trap, and the loss of which important appendage, by materially depreciating his market value, had made him hers, yet she saw him run up a tree, in a rather rudderless and unbalanced manner to be sure, but still very glad to be able to run at large at allthough the truth was, his largeness was re- duced nearly one-half by the abduction of his splendid caudal extremity. Then she carried her blind hen, with its one miserable chicken, as a present to little Sammy Twist, the millers little lame boyexplaining to him, with great amplitude and exactness, HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. that though Cuddie was a splendid hen to lay and to setindeed, seemed rather to like sneh sedentary employments, perhaps becanse hy rea- son of her blindness she had not so many re- sources in the out-of-door lineand was always remarkably lucky in hatching out, still, as from that aforesaid infirmity she was not good at rearing her young ones, rarely bringing more than one or two of a brood up to maturity, she informed him of a bright idea which she had been meditating uponnamely, to form a part- nership between Cuddie and some other good, respectable hen, and let Cuddie do all the lay- ing and hatching business, and be the sleep- ing partner, and the other to be the active partner, bringing up the chickens and doing all the running and collecting duty of the firm. But fully enjoining it upon little Sammy, and impressing it well upon his young and ductile mind, that poor Cuddie was to be respected none the less, but rather the more, on account of the infirmity, which was clearly her misfor- tune, and not her fault; and having seen the virtuous but ill-fated Cuddie. safely bestowed in a pen, so that he~r one remaining chick could not stray away and vex her maternal bosom, she felt satisfied that she had done her best for her poor dependent. This done she walked a mile and a half with her mud-turtle in her hand, carrying him carefully inverted on his shell, with his snaky head, flabby, spotted paws, and ridic- ulous file-like tail, thrust out in all directions, and wagging in wonder and alarm, to the very spot from whence she brought him; stopping two or three times on her road, however, to kindly set her little captive down to let him re- cover himself a little, fearing his inverted mode of progress might give him the headache; and ~s soon as he regained his wits enough to try to walk, catchinghim up and resumingherjourney; and had at last the pleasure of giving him back, whole and entire (and doubtless with enlarged ideas), to the muddy joys of the swampy bog from whence he came, and where she probably supposed and fondly hoped that he would find that There were his young barbarians all at play. Then returning, she stopped in the village, and invested her whole amount of currency (three cents) in a couple of lemons, not quite so fresh as could be desired, but certainly cheap at the price; and as she loitered through the shabby little garden she gathered a few of the early-ripened flower seeds, as the sole reminis- cence of all she had ever known of elegance and refinement in her early home. After their frugal dinner was over, Mrs. Cut- ter, wooed to an unwonted liberality by the large amount of the check which had been sent her, took the little girl to the village shop, and purchased her an outfit, consisting of a pair of coarse stockings, a cheap, tawdry-colored shawl, printed on muslin de lame, and a pair of stur- dy, low-cost leather boots; and at the earn- est solicitation of poor Ilitty, and remembering it was for the last time, she munificently added a pair of bright, lemon-colored cotton gloves, costing one shilling. Hitty did cast longing looks upon a cheap red sunshade, feeling that the possession of it would give the finishing-touch of grace and ele- gance to her appearance on the coming day; but she did not dare to ask for it, for the pres- ent expenditure had been lavish in the ex- treme, in comparison with any thing which she had ever known before; and with a childs generous recklessness of pecuniary matters, she had already forgotten the few words Mrs. Cut- ter had blunderingly let slip about the check; which was no doubt intended for the childs benefit, but which the womans rapacious spirit had chosen to believe was mennt as a honus for herself. Then returning home thoroughly tired out with the fatigue and excitement of the day, both mental and physical, our young heroine retired at once to the miserable little attic, which she was to occupy, as she fondly hoped, but one night more; but, even tired as she was, the poor little thing kept herself awake with difficulty, and by main force, until she had performed one more act of preparation. Her freckles their name was legion had always shocked her own sense of beauty and refinement, and had drawn upon her many times the mortifying remarks of others. She hated them, but, with a fierce disdain born of her distasteful surroundings, she had made no effort to get rid of them, stolidly accepting them as only one among the many crosses of her daily life. But now a new ambition was stirring with- in her, and remembering a recipe once hupart- ed to her by an older and pitying school-mate, she had determined to try it; and having pro- cured a cup of milk, she squeezed the lemon juice into it, and rubbed her face, neck, and hands with the mixture. This was all well enough, had poor Hitty been contented with a small and gradual re- moval of the enemy; but, eager for victory, flushed by partial success, and believing, like many older persons, that if a little of a thing is good, a good deal of it will be better, she grew absolutely furious in her application, and rubbed and squeezed and squeezed and rubbed, until her fair and tender skin, which is always the sort naturally most a prey to these unsightly in- vaders, was almost excoriated, and red to the very roots of her hair. Then, with a mental hope that the morning would find her Oer all victorious, she flung herself on her bed, and as soon as her flaming face, which stung like nettles, per- mitted, she sunk into dreamless sleep. But, alas! the morning did not justify her hopes, for the fair skin, resenting the harsh treatment it had undergone, was one universal pink flush, like a case of incipient scarlet-fever, and drew upon its owner the notice of even the unob- servant Mrs. Cutter, who remarked, in coaster- TRANSMUTATION. 87 nation, Why, Hitty! child alive! what in na- ter have yer been a-doing to yourself? Your face is as red as a heet, and you look for all the world like a new-skinned eeL This was not a pleasant observation exactly, in the ears of a young lady just coming out. But, fortunately for the girls peace of mind, her life had not served to foster personal vanity; and though she was sorry to look worse than usual upon such an important occasion, still she did not suffer it to distress her. So she hathed her yet tingling face in warm milk and water, and pow- dered it with flour, and then proceeded to dress herself for her entrance upon her new life, and the journey, the first stage of which was to he performed on foot. At nine she was~ ready, dressed in her best, with her hair nicely combed, and braided tight- er than ever, but two bits of yellow string taking the place of the twine; her dress, a limp faded lawn, with the tawdry shawl of many colors; the stiff boots, redolent of the odor of leather; a cheap hat of no particular fashion, with a few feathers in it, which poor Caddie might have recognized had her visual organs been more per- fect; and the bright-colored gloves, which, be- ing an altogether new adornment to her, she wore with reverence, keeping her fingers all wide apart, and stiff as a star-fish in their unac- customed stateliness; a good-sized cotton hand- kerchiet with a high-colored border of red and blue, being carried gingerly between her thumb and finger. But, ahl there was one hard part- ing still to be got through with: poor Morgi- ann, the cat, the only living thing she had ever regarded as a friend and companion, and upon whom her young heart had expended a wealth of love worthy of a far more appreciative object. Half a dozen paroxysms of love, regret, and tenderness had the patient old creature already been subjected to since the letter had been re- ceived; half a dozen times had her little mis- tress indulged the thought of taking the old cat with her on her long journeyh la Whittington but then, as her good sense told her, the cases were not exactly alike in all points. Whitting- ton was his own master, and totally independ- ent; and she was not. Then, Whittington had no grandfather Arnold, no governess, and no messenger to consult the wishes of; and she had! There were persons in the world, it was said, who did not care for cats; inde~d, she had heard of one individual who really dis- liked them. It seemed almost incredible, but it might be true, and the messenger might be one of that strange sort; and the idea of Mor- giana as a traveling companion had to be given up. Now she bore the long-tailed treasure to the gate in her arms for the last time, tearsreal, honest tearsdimming her blue eyes, but men- tally rejoicing that the unconscious creature, now purring so contentedly in her arms, knew not the sad eternity of the separation, and thns escaped the pang which wrung her own bosom. Then, with a last fond embrace, so ardent that the poor cat couldnt help responding with a low wail of pain (fairly squeezed out of her), Hitty placed her upon her favorite post of ob- servation (the gate-post), and turned away for- ever, hastening after Mrs. Cutter, who, all re- gardless of this tender parting, was half-way down the lane. It was some consolation to the sorrowing child to reflect that she had made the best provision she could for the affliction of the grieving and faithful cat, by engaging their next - door neighbor, a kindly single woman, and, therefore, perhaps more amenable to the soft appeal, to have a look-out for the poor, desolated animal, and if she pined badly under the separation, to solace her woes with an oc- casional cup of milk; but we regret to have to say, destructive as it is to the romance of our story, that, the attachments of the feline race being rather local than personal, Morgiana nev- er seemed to need the consolations of friend- ship thus provided for her; but continued to maintain her post and her flesh, perhaps the latter rather the better, from not being sub- jected to the daily exercise, the turnings and twistings, to which her young mistresss love had always exposed her. Few remarks were exchanged by the ill-as- sorted and unloving companions during their long walk through green lanes and dusty high- ways to the distant station, for no sympathy had ever existed between them. The avaricious old woman, trusting to the prolonged absence of the childs natural protectors, and a prey to sinful greed, had stinted the helpless little one left in her charge in every possible way, and had devoted the ample allowance paid her quarterly for the childs use to her own enrichment; and burdened with the knowledge of the wrong thus done the unconscious girl, she had come to re- gard her with dread and aversion. She had always had a terror of a final ad- justment of accounts, and now she was men- tally congratulating herself on her good luck that the girl had been sent for rather than re- claimed in person, for she felt that a personal interview with Judge Arnold might, and prob- ably would, call up some inconvenient explana- tions, while she knew enough of his liberality from her daughters long and well-paid service in his family to fear any future investigation from him on the score of money-matters; thus her thoughts were busy with the Past, and her tongue silent. On the other side, Hitty (or Belle, as we shall now call her), who had never received from her one loving look or word, had always shrunk away from her with instinctive disgnst and aversion, treating her as rudely as her supposed claim upon her as he~ grandmother seemed to render admissible; and now busy with dreams, hopes, and wonders of all which the Future was bringing to her, was equally si- lent. They reached the station, where their unus- ual appearance called forth some observations, 88 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. which, fortunately, they did not hear, and sat down to rest themselves and wait for the ex- pected up train. It came at length, and little Belle eagerly eyed every one that came up in it; but she saw no one at all answering to her expectations of what her grandfathers messenger would be like to beindeed, it would have been difficult to find such a person in real life. A tall, stern- looking man with fierce whiskers, dressed in a single-breasted, befrogged coat buttoned up to the chin, with a cockade on his hat, a badge upon his breast, spurs upon his heels, and gold- lace and buttons sprinkled over his person ad libitum /a something between an English beadle and a Yankee militia captain. But, alas no such person appeared; and Belle, who would now have even welcomed the handcuffs, grew wildly anxious. Present- ly the train started upon its onward way, and no one had appeared to claim her; and the eyes of the poor child filled with drops of mor- tification and bitter disappointment. Mrs. Cutter, though secretly anxious and disappointed herself, saw the discomfort of her young companion and enjoyed it. Come, child, she st~id aloud as she rose from her seat; I guess we may as well mog home again. Aint no use in setting here all day, as I know of. You neednt have been in such a fuss to get here airly. Its clear you aint going to be sent for this day, any how. I guess yer granfather aint in sich a mighty hurry to see you as you sposed he was. Come As Mrs. Cutter spoke a well-dressed, quiet- looking woman; who had been sitting unob- served a little behind them, rose and came hastily across the room to them, saying to Mrs. Cutter as she drew near, Excuse me. But can I be right? Are you Mrs. Cutter ? Yes in, yes in, said Belle, pressing forward before the widow could reply, and speaking for her in quick, breathless tones yes in, yes in, she isshes Mrs. Persis Cutter. Thats her name; and Im Belle Linzee. And are you the messenger that my graudfather Arnold wrote he would send for me Yes, my dear, said the stranger, regard- ing the droll little figure before her with its strange garb and eager, flushed face in evident surprise and consternation, I am. There is a letter I was to give you, Mrs. Cutter. And now, Miss Belle, the down train will be along in two or three minutesI am going to the door to look for it. When you have bidden your friend here good-by, you will join me there, if you please. It was evident that grandfathers messen- ger had withdrawn from motives of delicacy, not wishing to be a check upon what she doubt- less expected would be a tender farewell; but Mrs. Cutter and Belle had no such intentions. A cold good-by from each, and a tremulous give my love to dear old Morgee ! from Belle, terminated their last interview. And Belle re joined her new guardian some time before the down train appeared in sight. As the cars came thundering up to the sta- tion-house, the messengerfor Belle knew no other name for hertook her little charge by the hand, and, entering them, took a good seat for her, and then took one for herself at some little distance from her, but where she could keep her full in view; for, to tell the truth, the well-dressed and well-trained servant was rather ashamed of the bizarre dress and rustic appearance of her young mistress. This arrangement, by condemning the little girl to total silence, gave her time for much re- flection. She had never before, since her ear- liest recollection, been in a steam-car, nor in- deed in any vehicle of any sort beyond a farm- er s market wagon, and even that was a pleas- ure not often enjoyed. So that this new ex- perience would of itself have occupied all her thoughts had there been no more urgent call for them; but now she was so intent upon the future, and what it was to bring forth for her, that the present seemed to be annihilated for her, and she scarcely noticed by what mode her progress was being made. The ride was a long one and the weather very warm, and the poor child, who could have walked or run a dozen miles without fatigue, grew cramped and weary with the unnatural constraint. But she bore it bravely, made no complaints, and asked no questionsit was her grandfathers messenger, and she was taking her to him; and if she had been kept riding all night, the faith and hope in her brave little heart would have sustained her. The nicely-dressed and respectable woman who had her in charge was to her an object of respect and admiration, amounting almost to awe; for she was, in dress and bearing, very far beyond any thing the child had ever seen beforea decidedly great lady to her; and she gave herself up to her guidance without one questioning doubt. At last, late in the summer afternoon, they reached their place of destinationat least so far as they were to go in the carsand the weary girl was glad to leave her seat and stretch her cramped and benumbed limbs. There, Miss Belle, said her conductress as they stepped fi-om the cars there they are, you see, waiting for us. There is your grandpapas carriage. Her grandfathers carriagehers! She who had thanked Farmer Twitchel, with a humble courtesy, for a ride in his empty hay - cart! Why, it seemed to her that the very heavens must be breaking up and falling in glory about her feet as, looking in the direction indicated by her companion, she actually saw a stylish, well-appointed family-carriage, with a pair of sleek iron-gray horses, waiting in the distance. Remember, Belle was not a connoisseur in carriages, this being the first equipage of the kind she had ever beheld; and wonder not if she felt through all her being that the golden TRANSMUTATION. 89 coach in which the cat-loving Whittington was borne through the streets of great London town, in all the full-blown honors of his lord mayoralty, was not a circumstance compared to this one! Taking the hand of the girl who, between awe and weariness, walked as if in a glorious bnt bewildering vision, the woman led her on toward the carriage. There, said she; that is Mrs. Montrav- ers. And who is she ? faltered poor Belle. Why, she is yonr governess, dear! And snch a nice, pleasant lady! Im sure yon will like her; you can not help it. See, she is com- ing to meet you. And as she spoke, a stylish and elegant woman, of cornmanding presence, dressed in a rich shawl, and that (to Belle) oft- en heard of but seldom seen luxnry, a silk dress, descended from the carriage, and came toward them. And this is Miss Belle Linzee ? she said, inquiringly, as her astonished gaze rested upon the finshed face and shrinking figure of our poor little heroine; and her first verdict was, Good Heavens, what a little savage ! But as she met the mild, imploring glance of the sweet blue eyes, so softly pleading and full of tenderness, her heart corrected the jndgment her taste had rendered, and she said to herself, Poor, neglected little thing! and stooping, she gently took the little yellow, cottage-gloved hand in hers, and lightly kissed the crimson cheek. This way, my dear, she said, and in a moment more Belle was beside her in the lux- urious carriage. As the coachman resumed his reins, and the high - stepping grays moved homeward, Mrs. Montravers looked again into the face of the little stranger by her side. Yon are very tired, my dear, are you ? she asked, kindly. Yes in; no in, faltered poor Belle. I dont knowm; I dont think Im just tired; hut Im not used to ridingandand my head be- gins to ache a good deal. Im sure it does, said her pitying compan- ion, seeing the evident exertion the child was making to control herself. It is a long ride for you, and the day has been very warm, and I am sure you must be tired. Suppose you take off your hat, and rest your head upon my shoul- derthereso. And, suiting the kind action to the kind words, she gently removed the feath- ered monstrosity, and putting her arm round the now fairly sobbing girl, drew her toward her, and rested the throbbing temples on her shoulder. Oh dear, kind, good lady ! sobbed weary little Belle. How very, very good you are to me! Nobody was ever so kind to me before. Oh, said the lady, with an encouraging smile, you are going to be my little girl now, you know; and I hope we shall be very good friends togetheryou and I. I am sure that I shall like you, said Belle, fervently. Theres no doubt about that; I am sure I cant help it; but Im afraid I shall give you lots of trouble. I am such anignorant little girl. I do not know any thing. Ive nev- er been taught to do any thing; and I do not know what to say or how to behave; but if you will try to teach me I will do just what you tell me, and love you dearly dearly! That is all I can ask of you, my dear child. But you are too tired to talk now. Sit still, and rest your poor head. We shall soon be at home now, and you shall have some tea, and go to bed; and to-Thorrow we will talk of all this. And the obedient girl, fairly overcome by her mental excitement and bodily fatigue, nestled down into a heavy drowse, which was neither sleep nor wakefulness, conscious only of a grand and perfect contentment. When the carriage stopped she was so far asleep that she had to be lifted out; and as she was led on she saw as in a dream the lighted hall, the pictured walls, the richly - carpeted stairs, the beautiful and flagrant flowers upon the various landings; and enchanted castles, eastern bowers, and fairy palaces seemed more than verified. At last they paused in a small but luxurious room, and then, when some cool- ing lotion had been applied to her face to re- lieve the flush which her new friend naturally attributed to the heatof the summer day, Belle had some tea, toast, simple cake, and preserve. Very simple the repast was, but to her inexpe- rienced taste it seemed like nectar and ambro- sin! Not the far-famed Jelly of stars, and a dish of hnmmin~ -birds tongues, which old-fashioned hospitality used to covet for the delectation of its most honored guests, could have been more acceptable to her. When this needed refreshment was over Belle was allowed to go to her luxurious cham- ber; and so tired was she, the unwonted serv- ices of a maid to help her undress were not re- jected, or indeed scarcely noticed. You will not be afraid to sleep here alone, will you, my dear ? questioned the governess, kindly. I sleep in the next room, and shall keep my door open. Afraid? Oh dear! no in. And sleepy Belle Laughed a laugh of merry scorn, as she thought of the lonely little attic, up un- der the roof, where she had slept alone through summers heat and winters cold; when the howling wintry storms beat upon the old roof, which creaked and shivered in the fierce blast, and where the rats and mice scrabbled and squeaked in the decaying walls. Mrs. Montravers lingered a moment to turn down the gas to a slumberous light, and before she left the room the little tired traveler was lost in a dreamless sleep. In the morning Belle woke at her usual ear- ly hour, but the house seemed preternaturally still, and the windows of her room were dark- 90 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. ened with shades and curtains; and as she had no chores, as Mrs. Cutter called her services, to perform, that she knew of, she did not ven- ture to rise, particularly as a peep through the open door, into the other chamber, showed her her kind governess still fast asleep; so she lay still and reviewed her position. It was strange how the sun of prosperity had already thawed the frozen soil of this little des- olate heart and called into bloom some of the sweet traits of the childs character! While with Mrs. Cutter, her love of truth and justice, her innate perception of the pure and good, and her natural and instinctive love of the beauti- ful, had been so outraged and disgusted by all her surroundings that in very scorn she had adopted a harsh, defiant tone, defending her- self from the evils she could not conquer by opposing to them a fierce recklessness and a saucy wit; but now, in the more genial atmos- phere of refinement and love, she had at once laid down her arms, and exhibited only the beautiful traits of her sweet, generous, and truthful nature; and, as she lay waiting the summons to rise, she made up her mind to be as wax in the kind hands of her governess. After a time which seemed interminable to her, whose eagerness counted moments as hours (and when her enforced inaction had wearied her nearly as much as her journey), she heard a slight stir in the next room, then a distant bell tingled, and the stately messenger of the day before, who was, in truth, only ladys-maid, entered the next room. Mrs. Montravers spoke to her in a low voice, and coming to the door, she looked in. Oh! you are awake, then, Miss Belle ? Yes in. Mrs. Montravers sends her love and coin- pliments to you, and says Good-morning to you; and, if you please, she does not want you to rise until she comes in. Yes in. The woman smiled at Belles rustic polite- ness. ~ My name is Rachel, she said, sug- gestively, and withdrew. Rachel! Her name was Rachel, very likely; but how could a little country girl like Belle dare to call her sosuch an elegant lady, and so much older than she was too !it seemed pre- posterous. Why, she might as well call the reverend Parson Stoddard, her minister, Le- ander, and his wife, the ministers lady, Eu- nice Irene !what fearful profanation! She grew red to think of it. Soon Mrs. Montravers and Rachel came into the room, and Belles toilet was begun. The cooling wash of the night before had removed the flush of victory which had followed the forcible extermination of the hated freckles and tan, and rested by a long nights sleep, and re- fleshed by her luxurious morning bath, she was fresh as a rose, and stood revealed in the fair and brilliant red and white which make youth so beautiful. It was evident that her coming had been an- ticipated, and her wants provided for: money, taste,andjudgmenthadbeenfreelyexpended; ready, skillful hands had been at work; and ar- ticles of luxury and beauty seemed springing up for her use on every hand. The delicate French boots, the silken stockings, the rich lace, the embroidery and fine linen, to which other girls of her rank are accustomed from infancy, and which from long use seem scarcely any luxuries at all to them, were all, to her inex- perienced eyes and keen perception of the beau- tiful, objects of real enjoyment; but the watch- ful governess saw with pleasure that no per- sonal vanity had any part in her delight. It was the beauty of each article in itself, not its effect upon hers, which she seemed to rojoice in. And now, Miss Belle, said Rachel, yon will sit down, if you please, and let me arrange your hair. And the obedient gill seated her- self at once. What magnificent hair ! said the admiring operator, as, having removed the yellow strings and untwisted the stiff braids, she saw the rich masses of red gold fall shimmering through her hand. What, my red stuff? asked Belle, looking up in unaffected wonder. (Belle did not know how the edicts of mighty Fashion had glorified the once-despised hue.) Why, I always think it is awful! Mrs. Cutter said it was hateful, and if I did not take care it would burn the house up! I have cut it off close to my head two or three times; but it was of no use, it only grew all the thicker and curled all the tighter, so I just let it alone, and let it grow. I am very glad you did, my dear, said the smiling governess, who was superintending this first toilet. The red stuff was in skillful hands now, however. A careful brushing and a tasteful adjustment by fingers fully competent to their task, and the shining masses, drawn away from the brow in the waving lines of beauty, fell in a profusion of loose curls over the girls plump white shoulders and round arms. Asimple white robe of delicate material and tasteful fashion, and a lustrous blue silk sash, completed the dress, and the two officiating priestesses exchanged delighted glances at the result of their labors, as Belle took the offered hand of her governess and turned from the room without one glance into the tall mirror which seemed to stand waiting for her. At every turn on the stairs she stopped in wonder and admiration of the exquisite flower- ing plants, and inhaled their sweet odors with exclamations of delight. As they reached the drawing-room door, Mrs. Montravers stopped to speak to a servant, and signed to Belle to enter alone. As she walked up the spacious and elegant room, almost in awe at all the splendors surrounding her, a young and beautiful girl, about her own age, advanced from the adjoining room to meet her. Belle was unprepared for this; she turned hastily THE RUNNING TURF IN AMERICA. 91 hack, and, shy and trembling, regained the hand of her friend. Who is that ? she asked, in a low, breath- less whisper. Who, my dear ? That beautiful yonng lady ia the other room. Is she my sister? Does she live here ? Yes, my dear, said Mrs. Montravers, smil- ing; that is the young lady of the house. Come, and let me introduce you to her. And she led Belle, blushing and shy, and half afraid to look up, directly before the great mirror before she discovered her mistake. Why, is it me ? she said, when the truth revealed itself to her. Am I so pretty as that? Oh! my dear friend, what have you doue to me? You have really made me look like a young lady. How did you do it ? You are a young lady, my dear Belle; you were born a young lady, and I trust you will always behave like one; but now come into the other room, and we will have our breakfast. After breakfast Mrs. Montravers took Belle through the rooms, and pointed out to her the pictures and statuary. The pictures of her father and mother, taken soon after marriage, moved her to tears of filial tenderness, and she returned to them again and again in loving interest. Mrs. Cutter told me, she said, in a tearful voice, that my father died by some accident, she couldnt tell me what. Can you tell me Yes, my dear. I have heard that your pa- rents were riding out, when their horses took fright and ran, and your father was thrown out and instantly killed; but this, of course, was years ago, before I knew any thing of the fain- ilv. Belles lips trembled to ask about her mother, but the swelling tears prevented her. Her gov- erness had already told her that her grandfather was still at some watering-place, and would not probably reach home under another week; at which the child was half sorry, half glad, for she felt she had time for improvement before his return; and to be what he would wish her to be was the one great object of her ambi- tion. The next day Mrs. Montravers took her ~ for a long drive; and on their return the elder lady went up to change her dress, but little Belle, seeing some new flowers which the gar- dener had just arranged on the piazza, flung off her hat and stopped to admire them. She had been bending with clasped hands and delighted eyes, lost in the contemplation of a beautiful tuberose, when, as she turned hastily away (with one of her old sudden motions), she turned near- ly into the arms of a fine-looking, middle-aged gentleman, who had been standing silently ob- serving her, with quite as much admiration as she had accorded to the flowers. Now, Belles ideas of her grandfathers per- sonal appearance had naturally, but uncon- sciously, been formed upon the model of Dea- con Josh Cutters profile over the chimney- piece; and comprised, of course, as its compo- nent partsold age, a wig, a queue, a ruffle- bosomed shirt, and a bottle nose; modified, of course, in the individual. And it never occurred to her that the elegantly dressed and hand- some man before her, deficient in all these im- portant particulars, could be her grandfather. I beg your pardon, Sir, she said, retreat- ing hurriedly, but blushing and beautiful in her timid confusion. Mabel Arnold! her very~ self I protest! said the gentleman, gazing at her in wondering admiration. Oh no, Sir! said the child, gently and gravely; that was my dear mother; I am only Belle Liuzee. If you will walk into the drawing-room, if you please, I will call Mrs. Montravers; my grandfather has not come yet. Your grandfather has come, you little an- gel! and you did not know him, said the gen- tleman, catching her in his arms. My dar- ling! my darling! Why! you axe your mother over again. I declare! I scarcely know if it is Mabel or Belle; whether you are my child, or grandchild. Let me be both to you, dear grandfather! said Belle, caressingly, twining her arms round his neck, and pressing her soft cheek to his. No, no, my pet! said the delighted pa- rent; dont aim at too much. I think I can love you quite enough as my grandchild; but I forget, you have not seen your mother yet. Oh yes; indeed I have ! said Belle, in trembling tones, while tears dimmed the soft lustre of her eyes. I go and stand before her sweet picture very, very often. Her picture? Nonsense! Come here! and he threw open the drawing-room door. Belle saw a slight, graceful figure, in wid- ows weeds, standing with clasped hands be- fore the picture of Howard Linzee. Mabel ! shouted the happy grandfather. See here! Our Belle and in another in- stant the one deep longing of Belles heart was gratified. She was claspad in the arms of her mother, and her cup of earthly happiness had sparkled to the brim. THE RUNNING TURF IN AMERICA. IT is traditional, if not a well-authenticated fact that horse-racing was known in Amer- ica prior to the defeat of General Braddock, in 1753. Virginia and Maryland were the places where first the people began to think about de- veloping the speed of the horse. In that early period quarter-racing was most in vogue, and it is safe to assert that sport, rather than the improvement of the equine, was the incentive to action. Fearnought, imported into Virginia in March, 1764, was regarded as the Godolphin Arabian of America. If we may believe the old chronicle~, be certainly was a superior horse. He was a bay, 15 hands 2~ inches high, and 92 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. was foaled in 1755, being bred by Mr. Warren. He was got by Regulus, and his dam Silvertail, a mare descended from the Darley Arabian. Fearnought was bred to the best mares in the country, and the result was a better class of horses than had formerly been seen on this side of the Atlantic. But Jolly Roger had left his impress upon the stock of Virginia prior to the importation of Fearnought. He was a chestnut, got by Roundlicad, and out of a sister to Wilkie mare by Crofts Partner. His seventh dam was the Burton Barb mare. He was foaled in 1741, and brought to this country by Mr. Craddock. He died in Greenville County, Virginia, in 1772, aged thirty-one years, leaving speedy but not over-stout sons and daughters. Janus, by O~d Janus, the latter a son of the Godolphin Ara- bian, was imported into Virginia in 1752, and did good service in the stud. Both Janus and Jolly Roger are entitled to much credit when we come to trace the history of the blood-horse of America. They are the first links in the chain which binds the present to the past. They sowed seed which has brought forth good fruit. Their blood mingled with coarser cur- rents, and gave a shade of purity and richness to these currents. So whcn Fearnought made his appearance in Virginiacame from the Old to the New World with the pride of aristocratic lineagehe was not called upon to dissipate his powers through unknown channels. There was a base to work upon, for Janus and Jolly Roger had not lived in vain. Many of their immediate descendants had reached the age of maturity, and they were prepared to receive, blend with their own, and perpetuate the blood of the son of Regulus. Fearnought conferred stoutness and qualities of endurance upon his stock, which led to trials of speed at longer distances than bad been the fashion before. Mares of pure blood were also imported from England, among which was the celebrated Cub mare, the dam of Slamerkin; and breeding was carried on with great success in the Old Dominion until it was interrupted by the war of the Revolution. After the war new importations were made, among which may be mentioned as the most celebrated the stall- ions Medley and Messenger. From Virginia the blood and racing fever extended into Mary- land, and then into the Carolinas. Charles- ton for many years was a great racing centre. Horses were matched against each other as far back as 1734; but the contests were not of a character to exercise much influence upon the problem of breeding, if, indeed, at that time breeding was regarded in the light of a prob- lem. The Newmarket Course was inaugurated at Charleston, February 19, 1760, under the man- agement of Mr. Thomas Nightingale, a York- shire man by birth. Several other courses were opened in different parts of South Carolina, and racing became something of a popular pastime, though the sports were what in this modern day we would forcibly, if not elegantly, denom- inate the scrub order. About 1772, Flimnap, a bay stallion by South out of a Cygnet mareCygnet by the Godoiphin Arabianwas imported into South Carolina by Mr. Mansell. He was quite a celebrity in his day, and his blood served to en- rich our stock. Though small, being but four- teen hands and a half inch high, he was strong and hardy. Josiah Quincy, who visited Charles- ton in 1773, made a brief note in his journal: March 8.Spent day in viewing horses, rid- ing over the town, and receiving complimentary visits. March 16.Spent the morning, ever since five oclock, in perusing public records of the Province, etc., etc.; am now going to the famous races. The races were well perform- ed; but Flimnap beat Little David (who had won the last sixteen races) out and out. The last heat the former distanced the latter. The first four-mile heat was performed in eight minutes and seventeen seconds, being four miles. 2000 were won and lost at this race, and Flimnap sold at public vendue the same day for 300 sterling. At the races I saw a fine collection of excellent though very high- priced horses, and was let a little into the sin- gular art and mystery of the turf. When South Carolina was invaded by the soldiers of Lord Cornwallis, frequent attempts were ma4e to secure from the farm of Major Harleston Flimnap as a prize, for the fame of the horse had spread throughout the two armies. But all efforts to get possession of the stallion proved unsuccessful. Flimnap eventually was sent into North Carolina, where he remained until the British soldiers were withdrawn from the other Carolina. And to this day many of the pedigrees of the best horses of America trace back to this small but hardy son of South and the Cygnet mare. When the war closed a new impulse was given to the sports of the turf. Among the gentlemen from South Carolina who now took an active interest in racing were General Hamp- ton, Colonel Alston, Colonel Washington, Col- onel MPherson, Major Thompson, Mr. Sum- ter, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Wigfall, Mr. William Moultrie, and Mr. Singleton. The season of 1786 opened brilliantly at the Newmarket Course. The turf became the fashionable amusement of the hour, and the era that then and there dawned is referred to as a gold- en age of racing in the State of South Caro- lina. A chronicler of that period writes en- thusiastically of the gatherings on the New- market Course: Whether we consider the elevated character of the gentlemen of the turf; the attraction that the races possessed at that time, and for many subsequent years, for all sorts and conditions of menyouth anticipa- ting its delights for weeks beforehand, the sternness of age relaxing by their approach, lovers becoming more ardent, and young dam- sels setting their caps with greater taste and dexteritythe quality of the company in at- THE RUNNING TURF IN AMERICA. 93 tendance; the splendid equipages; the liver- led outriders that were to be seen daily on the course; the gentlemen attending the races in fashionably London made clothes, buckskin breeches, and top-boots; the universal interest pervading all classes, from the judge upon the bench to the little school-boy with his sachel on his back; the kind greetings of the town and country; the happy meetings of old friends whose residences were at a distance, affording occasions of happy intercourse and festivity; the marked absence of all care, except the care of the horses; the total disregard of the value of time, except by the competitors of the races, who did their best to save and economize it every thing combined to render race-week in Charleston emphatically the carnival of the State, when it was unpopular, if not impossible, to be out of spirits, and not to mingle with the gay throng.. The picture is a glowing one, but it is not complete until we add that clergymen and learned judges sat side by side when the horses were running, taking a deep interest in the con- test and the animated scene around them. We see much of the style and good feeling de- scribed at Jerome Park on gala days; but the fashions have slightly changed between 1786 and this year of grace 1870. Instead of gentle- men appearing on the course in tight breeches and top-boots, they introduce their servants to the gaping crowd in this peculiar garb. The history of the Newmarket Course closes with the year 1791, for in 1792 the South Caro- lina Jockey Club took possession of the Wash- ington Course, the following gentlemen being the original proprietors: General C. C. Flack- ney, General Washington, OBrien Smith, John Wilson, James Ladson, William Alston, H. M. Rutledge, Gabriel Manigault, General Reed, Colonel Mitchell, General Wade Hampton, James Burn, Captain White, L. Campbell, Will- iam Moultrie, General MFherson, Colonel MFherson, Colonel Morris, E. Fenwick, and William MCleod. The Jockey Club increased in strength ns the years went by; and, up to the breaking out of the war caused by the firing on Fort Sumter, the history of the Washington Course was a his- tory of uninterrupted success. The races were the fashionable event of the year, and the race- week was one of gayety and royal display. But one meeting was held each year, always com- mencing on the first Wednesday in February and continuing throughout the week. On Wednesday the Jockey Club gave their annual dinnera dinner which brought together all the choice, convivial spirits of the State; and Fri- day evening was set apart for the great Jockey Club ball. No expense was spared in the effort to make this ball the social event of the season, and success always attended the effort. Bright, very bright is the picture; but the brightness faded when Beauregard rallied the people around his standard and rode forth to battle. Charleston suffered terribly, as we all kno~v, by the war; and now the glory of the South Caro- lina Jockey Club and the Washington Course is a feature of the past. We understand, how- ever, that IDr. John B. Irving, the former secre- tary of the club, has been making an effort to re- organize the shattered forces, with the hope of inaugurating a new turf era at Charleston in the autumn of 1870. Immediately subsequent to the Revolution racing stables were established in Virginia and Maryland, as well as in South Carolina. Among the early patrons of the turf in Virginia were Colonel John Tayloe and the Messrs. Hoomes, Selden, and Johnson. Upon the turf roll of Maryland we find the names of Governors Ogle, Ridgely, Wright, Lloyd, and Sprigg. Racing has been truly named the sport of kings ; and wherever it has flourished in Amer- ica it has received the support of our wealthiest citizens and most eminent men. More than eighty years ago race-courses were established at Petersburg. and Richmond. When the two quarter nags, Twigg and Folly Williams, were rivals, and engaged in frequent battles, owing to the absence of currency, tobacco was freely wagered upon the races, sometimes as much as one hundred thousand pounds depending upon a single contest. Although we can trace racing back to the very infancy of our history, the turf was not conducted on a systematic plan until about the year 1815; at least, records of running prior to this date are not authentic. The people of New York, like those of the more southern States, indulged in racing before they even dreamed of going to war with Great Britain; but there was little organization, and the result of each contest was not officially recorded. Mr. Herbert, better known as Frank Forester, expressed himself very emphatically upon this subject. To draw a parallel, as nearly as I can draw one, he wrote, I regard the old Virginia turf, prior to the fifteenth year, at least, of the nineteenth century, as neither more nor less authentic than that of England up to the time of English Eclipse; and I con- sider that the era of the importation and cover- ing of Diomed and Messenger in the United States as parallel to that of OKellys wonder- ful stallion in the Old Country. From the day when the sons and daughters of tl~ese noble animals began to run upon the turfs of England and the tracks of America, all is plain and on record, so that who runs may read. American Eclipse, got by Duroc out of Mil- lers Damsel, by Messenger, was foaled at Do- zons, Queens County, Long Island, May 25, 1814, just one year in advance of that from which Mr. Herbert dates the authentic era of the turf in this country. And this bright era of the turf did not close until about the year 1845. The South met the North in wholesome rival- ry, and the fruits of the rivalry, conducted un- der such men as Johnson, Tayloe, Van Mater, Wade Hampton, Bingaman, Stevens, Living- ston, Stockton, Jones, and Gibbons, were ap 94 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. parent in the wide dissemination of blood, and the improvement of the thorough-bred horse. Long Island was the chosen battle-ground of the champions, and year after year the tracks there resounded with the drum roll of feet. Our limits will not allow us to trace the his- tory of the blood-horse, link by link, from the earliest times down to the present. Volumes are required to make the annals of the turf complete. We make pretension to only a glance at the his- tory of racing, desiring to show the vitality of the sport, and the prominence it has enjoyed. There were race meetings in the vicinity of New York anterior to 1819; but it was not un- til that year that the people of Gotham seemed to take a lively interest in the transactions of the turf. In 1819 an association was formed, and a course established at Bath, Long Island; but the location was not most desirable, and in 1821 the same association purchased a plot of ground eight miles from Brooklyn, and inau- gurated it as the Union Course. Large purses were now offered for speed contests, and racing was established on a respectable and firm basis. The Union Course stands prominently on the page of history, since it was the theatre of some of the grandest turf battles ever decided on American soil. The great race between Henry and American Eclipse, if no other had been run on the track in Queens County, would have given an enduring fame to the Union Course. The racing career of American Eclipse had been one series of brilliant successes. He was a Northern-bred horse, and as such was the ri- val of Southern studs. The turfmen of Vir- ginia, Maryland, and South Carolina regarded him with envy, and they sought to defeat, if not to disgrace him. In 1822, so great was his fame, and so feverish the racing pulse, that the gentlen~en of the South made a bold effort to humble Northern pride. Mr. James J. Har- rison, of Brunswick, Virginia, challenged Mr. Van Ranst to run his horse American Eclipse against Sir Charles, overthe Washington Course at Charleston, four-mile heats. The challenge was promptly accepted, each gentleman staking $5000 on his horse, and fixing the 20th day of November for the race. Sir Charles having met with an accident, Mr. Harrison was obliged to pay forfe~it; but he offered to run his horse a single four-mile heat against Eclipse, for $1500 a side. This offer was accepted by Mr. Van Ranst; the horses were prepared for the race, and the Northern champion achieved an easy victory, Sir Charles breaking down on the last mile. The South felt humiliated; and in the even- ing of the same day, that Napoleon of the turf; William R. Johnson, Esq., of Petersburg, Vir- ginia, pledged himself to produce a horse, on the last Tuesday in May, 1823, to run four-mile heats against Eclipse over the Union Course, Long Island, for $20,000, $3000 forfeit. On the part of several gentlemen from the North this challenge was promptly accepted by Mr. John C. Stephens. Such, in brief, are the facts which led to the most exciting race ever run on this continent. Throughout the long winter nights the pro- posed match was the subject of earnest discus- sion and speculation; the North was pitted against the South, and the event aroused sec- tional prejudices and appealed to sectional pride. A battle between two great armies could not have excited deeper anxiety than this race between Henry and Eclipse. The 27th day of May, 1823, dawned in beauty, and by twelve oclock it is estimated that not less than sixty thousand people had assembled at the Union Course. The Southern party had brought five horses with them; and from this five, Henry, a son of Sir Archy, and out of a mare by the great Diomed, was selected as the competitor of Eclipse. John Richards, a four-year-old, was Colonel Johnsons favorite, and Ilenry his second choice; but the former having fallen lame, the fortunes of the Southern gentlemen were staked upon the latter. The race was run amidst the wildest enthusiasmHenry winning the first heat by half a length. Mr. Purdy, an experienced jockey, and one who had piloted Eclipse to many victories, changed places in the saddle with Crofts for the second heat; and when it was observed that Purdy was astride the son of Duroc, we are told that Northern hope revived. Eclipse was a horse that r~e- quired punishment to force him to his speed; though not so fleet of foot as henry, he was a horse of great stoutness, and it was this stout- ness which made him invincible in a four-mile struggle. Purdy understood this fact full well; and when they received the word for the second heat he drove the chestnut forward, giving Hen- ry no respite. The tactics were good, and they won the second heat. At this stage of the battle the excitement was most intense, for a heat had been placed to the credit of each contestant. One more strug- gle, and the race would be over, and victory would perch either upon the banner of the North or that of the South. A few fleeting minutes, and the pride of one section would be exalted, while the hop.es of the other section would be blasted. Thousands trembled in the balance; and not thousands only, but the glory of victory or the shame of defeat. Arthur Tay- lor, a skillful rider and a trainer of experience, mounted Henry for the third heat, the boy Wal- den not having ridden him with sufficient tact in the former heat to receive the admiration of the backers of the son of Sir Archy. Purdy took the lead at the start, and making good use of his whip and spurs, kept Eclipse hard at work throughout the four miles. Henry made a gallant struggle for the front, but the hardy champion of the North could not be passed; and Henry was too weak, in the last halfmile of the race, to astonish the multitude with one of his marvelous flights of speed down the home- stretch. He lost the race, and the North was exultant; while Southern hearts felt sore, and Southern pride was humbled. THE RUNNING TURF IN AMERICA. 95 Over two hundred thousand dollars changed hands at the Union Course on that 27th day of May, 1823. . And that night mail packets and mail couriers carried the news south, north, and west from New York. In every country town the people gathered in great numbers, hours before the courier could possibly arrive, in eager anticipation of the news. The race created national interest, and it was regarded as a contest of national importance. Those were the palmy days of the turf, and the Union Course was then in the zenith of its fame. General Ridgely of Baltimore, Captain Cox of Washington, and John Allen, Esq., of Philadelphia, were the judges of the race; and they reported that the first heat was run in 7 minutes 37~ seconds, the second heat in 7 mm- utes 49 seconds, and the third in S minntes 24 seconds; thus making the aggregate time 23 minutes 50~ seconds, which is equivalent to an average of about one mile in 1 minute 59 sec- onds. American Eclipse, as an aged horse, be- ing nine years old ii~ the spring of 1823, car- ried 126 pounds, while Henry was burdened with 108 pounds; the advantage in weight clearly being on the side. of the former, since the latter was his junior by five years. This great four-mile match led to much speculation before it was decided on Long Island soil in the presence of a vast multitude of people; and after the race the history of the struggle led to almost endless discussiona discussion which is kept up even until this day. It is maintained by one party that had Purdy been in the saddle from the start Henry would not have won the first heat, and that eight miles instead of twelve would have finished the race. Another party insist that Eclipse would have been defeated had Colonel Johnson been on the ground to di- rect the running of the race. They argue that Henry was badly managed in the second heat, and that this bad management lost him the race. Both sides are plausibly argued, and we simply mention the fact without presuming to decide the controversy. Certainly, the South- ern gentlemen maintained confidence in the son of Sir Archy in spite of his defeat; for they offered to make a new match, Henry to run a race of four-mile heats against American Eclipse, in the fall of 1823, for any sum from twenty to fifty thousand dollarsa proposition which was firmly declined by the Northern party. The Virginians were of the opinion that the absence of Colonel Johnson from the Union Course on the 27th of May was the main cause of Hen- rys defeat; and this opinion was strengthened when the Eclipse party declined to enter into a second match. But why was the Napoleon absent on that eventful day? Ay, why? Simply because he was too weak to resist temptation. He attend- ed a supper-party the night before the race, met convivial friends, and wine and lobsters made him a helpless invalid when his strength should have been greatest, his nerves calmest, and his intellect most unclouded. That brilliant but, eccentric man, Hon. John Randolph, of Roan- oke, witnessed the race between the champions, and he was the author of the since often quoted remark, It was not Eclipse, but the lobsters, that beat Henry. Apropos of Randolph, the Virginia statesman was a careful breeder, and one of the most devoted patrons of the turf. His horses were usually trained and run by his friend, W. R. Johnson. Randolphs peculiari- ties and sarcastic tongue made him enemies on the turf, as well as in political circles. Al- though he provoked the distinguished Ken- tuckian, Henry Clay, a patron of the turf, like himself, to stand face to face with him in a duelistic encounter solely that he might gratify his inordinate greed of notoriety, we can not forget how chivalrously he received Clays fire. This duel made him the warm friend of the sage of Ashland; and when Randolph, weak and dying, visited the Senate chamber for the last time, his soul shone out in all its true no- bility, and he paid a touching and beautiful tribute to the oratorical powers of the great Kentuckian, in asking to be raised up from the sofa in order that he might for the last time on earth hear Henry Clay speak. These were his words: Raise me up; I wish to listen to that voice once more. Beautiful, are they not, especially when we think of them in connection with the arrogance of the patrician reliresenta- tive from Virginia to Speaker Clay in the winter of 181516? The game qualities of American Eclipse were transmitted by him to his descendants. His daughter Ariel was one of the greatest racers ever on the turf. In her memorable career she run fifty-seven races, aggregating 345 miles, and was a winner forty-two times. She was bred in 1822 at Flatbush, Long Island; her dam was by Financier, her grandam Empress by imported Baronet, and her great-grandam by imported Messenger. She .was a very handsome mare, a gray, of good proportions, fine action, and about fifteen hands high. Her greatest race, or at least the one which attracted the most attention, was with General William Wynns bay mare Flirtilla by Sir Archy, dam by Robin Redbreast. When it was announced that the Northern mare Arid was matched against the Southern mare Flirtilla, a race of three -mile heats, for $20,000, an enthusiasm was awakened in the two sections surpassed only by the great conflict between Henry and Eclipse. The same strains of blood were brought together, for Flir- tilla was the half-sister of Henry, and Ariel the daughter of Eclipse. The race was run on the Union Course, Oc- tober 31, 1825, in the presence of the largest turf-gathering on Long Island since the battle fought by the two chestnuts on that never-to- be-forgotten 27th day of May. Arid was but three years old, while Flirtilla was five; so the advantage of age this time was on the side of the South. Colonel Johnson trained Flirtilla, and he directed her running in the match, hav- ing learned prudence, and to avoid lobster sup- 96 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. pers. on the eve of battle. Ariel won the first heat, and Flirtilla the second and third, thus retrieving the honor of the South. The time of the running in this race was very good, both of the animals exhibiting qual- ities of speed and endurance qualities that challenge the admiration of the turfman, and qualities that the breeder always aims to com- bine. Famous as a racer, Ariel was next to a failure in the breeding stud. Her first colt was foaled in 1832; it was a filly, and strongly inbred, the gray mare having been bred back to her own sire, American Eclipse. Ariel pro- duced two other colts, but none of them ever achieved much of a reputation on the turf. It is thought by many who have given seri- ous study to the problem that a long and trying career as a racer renders a mare nnfit for the breeding stud. The course of training is very severe, and, if it is kept up for a series of years, it is claimed that it has an injurious effect upon the reproductive powers. Be the argument true or not, certain it is that the produce of many of our most celebrated race-mares have failed to reflect honor upon their dams. Mary Randolph, a gray mare of excellent breeding, sixteen hands high, got by Gohanna, a son of Sir Archy, foaled in March, 1829, was a brilliant performer on the turf; but in the stud she was a total failure. She ran in nothing but heat races, and in all she had to struggle to win. For two years the strain upon her nervous system was kept up, and when she was retired from the turf the glory of her life was at an end. She replenished the earth with the fruit of her womb; but not one of her offspring was worthy to wear the crown that she had won for herself. Fashion, the chestnut mare, the daughter of imported Trustee and Bonnets o Blue, by Sir Charlesshe who as- tonished the world by her gameness and marvel- ous speedwas on the turf for about ten years, during which time she ran many hard races, but did not give satisfaction as a brood-mare. Her first three colts were worthlessa fact that may partially be accounted for on the theory that consanguinity of blood impairs constitu- tional vigor; for Fashion, for three successive years, was bred to Mariner, her half-brother. Her fourth foal, Young Fashion, by imported Monarch, proved a good brood-mare,but was not highly successful as a racer. Her eighth colt, Dangerous, by imported Bonnie Scotland, was a successful turf horsewas dangerous not simply in name, but on the field of battle. Facts, we see, are somewhat conflicting; but without going to the extreme that Mr. Bleak- iron, an eminent English breeder, goes, who has frequently said that he would rather have the sister of a Derby winner for a brood-mare than the Derby winner herself, we may safely claim that a long audarduous career on the turf is calculated to weaken rather than improve the breeding powers of an animal. And when the life of the reproductive powers has been tempo- rarily impaired by the ordeal of training, rest and the act of generation for two or three succeeding years seem to restore wasted or restricted vital- ity. Alice Corneal, the dam of the immortal Lexington, came of good racing l~lood, and was a fine race-mare herself; but owing to her bad temper, when at the post waiting for the tap of the drum, she was early withdrawn from the turf. She passed through no exhausting ordeal as a racer, and as a brood-mare she was a suc- cess. But Lexington was her fifth foal. Reel, the dam of Lecompte, Prioress, and Stark; and Picayune, the dam of Doubloon, Lou Dore, etc., were promising racers in their early forms; but breaking down young, and going into the stud, they were made famous through their de- scendants. Had neither met with an accident, we question not but that both would have won laurels on the race-course, and possibly would have failed to make reputations as brood-mares. These facts do not stamp the turf as an agency injurious to horse-flesh; but they impress upon us the importance of practicing moderation in racing, as we are required to be moderate in all things. Whether or not any one of the sixty thou- sand people who thronged Union Course on the day that Henry was pitted against Eclipse, in the hour of wild excitement, saw visions of future greatness through the union of the blood of the two champions, it would be idle to guess. But the currents did flow together, and the re- sult was a marvel, named Black Maria. This mare was bred by Henry hall, of Harlem, New York; was foaled June 15, 1826. She was got by American Eclipse, and her dam was the celebrated Lady Lightfoot, by Sir Archy; and Sir Archy, the reader will not forget, was the sire of Henry. Two days afier Black Maria opened her young eyes upon this fair earth she was left motherless, Lady Lightfoot dying from. the effects of a violent cold. The handsome black filly developed into a grand racing-mare. She was on the turf six years, during which time she started twenty-five times, and won thirteen races. Eleven of her contests were three and four mile heats. Her purse ~vin- nings alone amounted to nearly $15,000. I-her most memorable race was for the Jock- ey Club purse of $600, four-mile heats, over the Union Course, Saturday, October 13, 1832. Four startedLady Belief, Slim, by Flying Childers, Black Maria, and the nonpareil Tri- fle. Black Maria won the first heat, made a dead heat with Trifle for the second; the third heat was taken by Trifle, the fourth by Lady Relief, and the fifth and race by the dashing daughter of Eclipse and Lady Lightfoot. The track was heavy, and yet, to achieve a victory, twenty miles had to be run. We wonder if there is a horse on the turf to-day that could stand up under such a per- formance as this? We fear not; for, unfortu- nately, the English dash system of racing has become too popular on this side of the Atlan- tic for the good of our stock. We have learn- ed to look too much for speed, and to pay too little attention to the more valuable quality of WAMPUNSUNG GAP. 97 endurance. The speedy horse, without lasting powers, is simply ornamental. The horse that can go fast and long is not only ornamental hut useful. He is of some practical account, even when no longer able to carry the colors to the front, when opposed by younger and more nim- ble companions. It is a sad commentary upon our system of racing when a purse for a con- test of four milesa four-mile dash, not heats, please bear in mindfails to secure a run wor- thy of the name of race. In the age of such renowned racers as Timo- leon, Florizel, Maid of the Oaksthe ancestors of Eclipse, Medoc, Boston, and Lexingtonthe age of Oscar, First Consul, Hickory, Sir Archy, Duroc, and Millers Damsel, Washington had her race-course, and it was the arena of many brilliant exploits. Gentlemen of education, po- sition, opulence, were the patrons of the turf, and many drove out in coaches-and-four to wit- ness the games. The Washington city race-course was laid out in 1802, on the Holmead Farm, about two miles north of the Presidents house. It was managed by a jockey club composed of the leading citizens of the capital, Colonel Tayloe for a number of years being the president of the club. Among the most distinguished mem- bers of the club was Hon. Gabriel iDuvall, Judge of the United States Supreme Court, by the ap- pointment of President Madison. Judge Du- vall, after his retirement from office, being then an old man, was in the habit of riding on horse- back from his residence, a distance of twelve miles, to the National Course, witnessin gthe races, and then returning home in the saddle. He must have been vigorous in his age to have found pleasure in such a journey as this. Mr. Tayloe is authority for an amusing an- ecdote affecting the Judge: Duvall and his friend Giles were members of Congress when that body sat in Philadelphia, and both were boarders of Mrs. G , ~vhose daughter was neither young nor taciturn. The two mem- bers of Congress were accustomed, when con- versing by themselves, to speak lightly of the talkative maiden lady. In after-years Duvall and Giles met in Washington, one as the Comp- troller of the Treasury under President Mad- ison, the other the great debater in the Senate, when the latter inquired of the former, What has become of that dd cackling old maid, Jenny G ? She is Mrs. Duvall, Sir, was the surprising and stately reply. The National Course was often graced by the Presidents, from Jefferson down to Van Buren. General Jackson took the liveliest interest in the races. He once started one of his colts on this course, entered in the name of his private seeretary~ Major Donelson, but was much cha- grined to suffer defeat by Commodore Stock- tons imported Langford. John Quincy Ad- ams was also fond of the sports of the turf. One time he walked out to the course from the Presidential mansion, saw the race decided, and then walked back again. This was in the Voa. XLI.No. 241.7 most glorious era of the turf~ when the wealth and fashion of the city rolled to and from the races in equipages that reminded the traveler of the royal displays of Europe. Possibly Mr. Adams, occupying the highest office within the gift of the nation, sought to set an example of republican simplicity by trudging along quietly on foot when others dashed by in their car- riages, each aiming to outshine his or her neigh- bor with costly and gorgeous trappings. The second epoch of the National Course at Washington was from the year 1822 up to about 1844. During this period the course resound- ed with the footfalls of such horses as Eclipse, Sir Charles, Boston, Blue Dick, Fashion, and Revenue. As at Charleston, so at Washing- ton there were Jockey Club dinners and Jockey Club balls, attended by the beauty and fashion of the land. The last president of the club was Governor Samuel Sprigg, of Maryland. In 1844 the prosperity of the turf at Washington began to decline; and in 1846, after a few sick- ly, spasmodic efforts to inaugurate a fresh era, racing was abandoned on the National Course. The men, like the horses, who gave to it its re- nown are now sleeping in their graves, and we remember its glory as only a dream of the past. Since the war one or two attempts have been made to revive racing at the city of Washing- ton, but each attempt proved abortive. The right kind of men have not taken hold of the matter, and it is not surprising that failure should attend their efforts. The turf is a pas- time depending for support upon the purest, and, at the same time, the wealthiest, men of the country. It is an expensive amusement, requiring a heavy outlay of money to keep up a racing-stable. And as the sport is so open to qi~estion, men of bQnor and position must be its chief directors, in order that the charac- ter of the sport may be colored by the charac- ter of the gentlemen connected with it. Racing is not knavish, in the abstract; but, unfortu- nately, the knaves too often make it the medi- um of carrying out their knavish designs upon the public. When men of position and integ- rity are at the head of the turf the pastime is the noblest in the world; but in the hands of sharpers it is the most corrupt institution that ever blackened the age of civilization. WAMPUNSUNG GAP. YESTERDAY I stumbled upon some news of Wampunsung Gap. It appears that the mining interest there is looking up, and that during the late season there was a wonderful yield of pure ore. I didnt so much mind the prosperous condition of the place, although it has my good wishes always, but the name touched me a little, and brought back a throng of memories. Wampunsung Gap! I cut the paragraph out, and sent it.to some friends of mine, who will look upon it with interest; then I indulged in a little retrospection. It seems only the other day that Dolph got back from

WAMPUNSUNG GAP. 97 endurance. The speedy horse, without lasting powers, is simply ornamental. The horse that can go fast and long is not only ornamental hut useful. He is of some practical account, even when no longer able to carry the colors to the front, when opposed by younger and more nim- ble companions. It is a sad commentary upon our system of racing when a purse for a con- test of four milesa four-mile dash, not heats, please bear in mindfails to secure a run wor- thy of the name of race. In the age of such renowned racers as Timo- leon, Florizel, Maid of the Oaksthe ancestors of Eclipse, Medoc, Boston, and Lexingtonthe age of Oscar, First Consul, Hickory, Sir Archy, Duroc, and Millers Damsel, Washington had her race-course, and it was the arena of many brilliant exploits. Gentlemen of education, po- sition, opulence, were the patrons of the turf, and many drove out in coaches-and-four to wit- ness the games. The Washington city race-course was laid out in 1802, on the Holmead Farm, about two miles north of the Presidents house. It was managed by a jockey club composed of the leading citizens of the capital, Colonel Tayloe for a number of years being the president of the club. Among the most distinguished mem- bers of the club was Hon. Gabriel iDuvall, Judge of the United States Supreme Court, by the ap- pointment of President Madison. Judge Du- vall, after his retirement from office, being then an old man, was in the habit of riding on horse- back from his residence, a distance of twelve miles, to the National Course, witnessin gthe races, and then returning home in the saddle. He must have been vigorous in his age to have found pleasure in such a journey as this. Mr. Tayloe is authority for an amusing an- ecdote affecting the Judge: Duvall and his friend Giles were members of Congress when that body sat in Philadelphia, and both were boarders of Mrs. G , ~vhose daughter was neither young nor taciturn. The two mem- bers of Congress were accustomed, when con- versing by themselves, to speak lightly of the talkative maiden lady. In after-years Duvall and Giles met in Washington, one as the Comp- troller of the Treasury under President Mad- ison, the other the great debater in the Senate, when the latter inquired of the former, What has become of that dd cackling old maid, Jenny G ? She is Mrs. Duvall, Sir, was the surprising and stately reply. The National Course was often graced by the Presidents, from Jefferson down to Van Buren. General Jackson took the liveliest interest in the races. He once started one of his colts on this course, entered in the name of his private seeretary~ Major Donelson, but was much cha- grined to suffer defeat by Commodore Stock- tons imported Langford. John Quincy Ad- ams was also fond of the sports of the turf. One time he walked out to the course from the Presidential mansion, saw the race decided, and then walked back again. This was in the Voa. XLI.No. 241.7 most glorious era of the turf~ when the wealth and fashion of the city rolled to and from the races in equipages that reminded the traveler of the royal displays of Europe. Possibly Mr. Adams, occupying the highest office within the gift of the nation, sought to set an example of republican simplicity by trudging along quietly on foot when others dashed by in their car- riages, each aiming to outshine his or her neigh- bor with costly and gorgeous trappings. The second epoch of the National Course at Washington was from the year 1822 up to about 1844. During this period the course resound- ed with the footfalls of such horses as Eclipse, Sir Charles, Boston, Blue Dick, Fashion, and Revenue. As at Charleston, so at Washing- ton there were Jockey Club dinners and Jockey Club balls, attended by the beauty and fashion of the land. The last president of the club was Governor Samuel Sprigg, of Maryland. In 1844 the prosperity of the turf at Washington began to decline; and in 1846, after a few sick- ly, spasmodic efforts to inaugurate a fresh era, racing was abandoned on the National Course. The men, like the horses, who gave to it its re- nown are now sleeping in their graves, and we remember its glory as only a dream of the past. Since the war one or two attempts have been made to revive racing at the city of Washing- ton, but each attempt proved abortive. The right kind of men have not taken hold of the matter, and it is not surprising that failure should attend their efforts. The turf is a pas- time depending for support upon the purest, and, at the same time, the wealthiest, men of the country. It is an expensive amusement, requiring a heavy outlay of money to keep up a racing-stable. And as the sport is so open to qi~estion, men of bQnor and position must be its chief directors, in order that the charac- ter of the sport may be colored by the charac- ter of the gentlemen connected with it. Racing is not knavish, in the abstract; but, unfortu- nately, the knaves too often make it the medi- um of carrying out their knavish designs upon the public. When men of position and integ- rity are at the head of the turf the pastime is the noblest in the world; but in the hands of sharpers it is the most corrupt institution that ever blackened the age of civilization. WAMPUNSUNG GAP. YESTERDAY I stumbled upon some news of Wampunsung Gap. It appears that the mining interest there is looking up, and that during the late season there was a wonderful yield of pure ore. I didnt so much mind the prosperous condition of the place, although it has my good wishes always, but the name touched me a little, and brought back a throng of memories. Wampunsung Gap! I cut the paragraph out, and sent it.to some friends of mine, who will look upon it with interest; then I indulged in a little retrospection. It seems only the other day that Dolph got back from 95 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. college, and I stood looking at him with amaze- 1 mentsuch a great, glorious Apollo as he had ripened into! such hair and eyes! Such a straight nose, and wonderful white teeth! It seemed something to be thankful for, to have been able to help such a magnificent fellow in any way; and from calling him my half-broth- er, I took to dubbing him with the full kinship. He was my fathers son, born tohim late in life by the fair young creature who spent her last breath in bringing Dolph into the world. Fa- ther shortly after sickened and died; and it was long before I could forgive the young ur- chin for being the cause of all this woe in the household. But poverty is an excellent tonic; and the wolf almost stood at the door when the two great gloomy bills were settled. I couldnt even afford the luxury of grief. But it ~vas a great thing to be able to step into my fathers shoesI dont say I filled them as well as he, nor do I think I shuffled along as easily. It was tough work at times; I got grizzled and gaunt, and stiff and angular; and the Poly- phemia Merivale that looked at me in the glass wasnt very pleasing to the eye. But then, I had managed to scrape through all these years. Youth, troublesome and way- wardunreasonable, yearning youth was safely behind me, and here was Dolph, a great, hand- some fellow home from college. Ive brought home Teddy Delaney with me, Polly, said Adolphus; hes my best friend, and a capital fellow in every way. Any friend of my brothers is heartily wel- come, I said, holding out to him my hand. Teddy made a great salnam, nnd we all went out to supper, where Teddy and I fell into a strain of unconscious adulation, and let fall a great many admiring words of the young gen- tleman who did the honors of my poor jittle home so gracefully. Shortly this adulation became a habit, and Adolphus accepted it as his due; so that, when it was withheld from him, he, in a measure, took umbrage. After he had spent three months in the coal business, six in real estate, a year in a government office, and then began to talk of going out to Wampunsung Gap, the fact dawned upon me that this brother of mine was a little vacillating. Better stay where you are, I said. A rolling stone gathers no moss. And the ganging foot is aye getting, rejoined Adolphus. Im sick of hanging around home. A fellow with an adventurous turn of mind cant stand it. It 11 do very well for Teddy; he likes it. Small bla~ne to him, said Teddy, scrib- bling away for dear life. I can see the lad now, with his handsome, ugly facea face that only a few could see much beauty in; but those few, having discerned the charm, found it irre- sistible. His mop of reddish-brown hair hang- ing down about his neck; his projecting fore- head, full of suggestive bumps; his nondescript of a nose; and his great, gray, womanish eves! I can see him at the old table, scribbling away with his little nervous hand, jotting down in a most abominable caligraphy the pleasant and pretty fancies with which his brain was teem- ing. For Teddy was a great help and comfort to me. When I finished one of my stiff; pun- gent articlesforcible perhaps, and to the point, but sadly lacking in eloquence and feelingI handed it over to Teddy, and lo! with a few magic touches here and there, the wilderness was made to blossom as a rose, and the Ham- mersville Herald became famous in its way. Then in the poets corner, once in a while, ap- peared a wondrous bit of rhyme, full of a vaga- bond genius, delicious with color and tender- ness, and glowing with warmth and feeling. Straightway it was copied into some powerful journal, and the nice little words neatly printed over it, From the Ilammersville herald. So, thanks to Teddy, we were getting on. Of course it is all out now. The way I got a living all these years was by editing a country newspaper; and now that the country was be- coming a town, I was proprietor as well as ed- itor, and Teddy was my comrade and assistant. We lived aloneDolph, Teddy, and Iin an old brown house on the outskirts of Hammers- ville; and every thing went well with us, until Dolph, getting tired of his government office, talked of going out to Wampunsung Gap with a mining expedition. Be it ever so humble, theres no place like hum, sang Teddy, in a rich Milesian tone. Thats all very well in its way, said Adolphus; but I havent much appetite for humility in any shape. Id like a taste of the good things of life with the rest of them. What are the good things of life ? asked Teddy. Isnt there something in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day? said Adolphus, veiling his covetousness nuder a quotation. Theres something very tormenting in it, I should fancy, said Teddy. God preserve me from the experience. I dont much care for fine linen; and I know purple would he trying to my complexion. As for faring sumptuously, Id rather have a crust in comfortwouldnt you, Polly? I grunted out something in reply, and Dolph sauntered off to his business. A month or two later there was a great stir and hustle in Hammersville; and there appear- ed, in one of the columns of our paper, a Jen- kinsish article stating that the rich and beauti-. ful young widow, Mrs. Diana Debrell, would shortly take possession of her imposing mansion on the hill; and as her term of mourning had expired, there might be a few festivities ex- pected upon this occasion. Later there appeared many more Jenkinsish articles describing the predicted festivities, and that winter was a merry one in Hammersville. The rich, young, and lovely widow seemed also to be amiable and good-natured, and invited WAMPUNSIJNG GAP. 99 every body she li~ked without regard to caste. Adoiphus said no more about Wampunsung Gap, aud the mining expeditioa went off with- out him. He took to wearing purple and fine linen, and Teddy declared, with his usual lack of envy, that purple became Dolph so mightily that it was a thousand pities he shouldnt wear it forever. In the mean time Teddy had his hair cut off as an effort at come- liness; but stopped there, because the poor fel- low saw that the experiment was a failure. Faith, theres something in the theory that a man is but one remove from an apeeh, Polly ? he said, looking in the glass dolefully. Then seeing the horror and dismay I exhibit- ed at his shorn locks, he cried out, cheerily: Dont mind, Polly dear. Im a second Samson. Theyll grow again directly. Dont bother with Delilabs, Samson, I said. Teddy blushed, poor lad, innocently enough. Here comes the Samson that delights this Delilah, he said, as Doiph came up the gar- den path. If thats a pun, Teddy, said I, indignant- ly, its a more wretched one than youve per- petrated this many a day. Its the truth! said Teddy. All Ham- mersville declares that Doiph has found favor in the eves of the beautiful widow. What a handsome couple they are, to be sure ! he add- ed, with a sigh. Well, its better than going out to Wam- punsung Gap, I said. While we were looking out of the window, a pretty little phaeton stopped at the garden gate, and Doiph started back, lifting his hat gracefully to the fair occupant, and hastening to assist her in alighting. Then he went on down the road, and the widow walked up to the house. What does the fair Diana want here at this hour in the morning? I said, turning to Teddy. The lad had suddenly darted from the window, his face in a flame. Tnt, man, I said, snappishly, shell not come into the sanctum, you know. I suppose shes going to propose for Adolphusthe age is so progressive. Ill give my consent with more eagerness than dignity, Im afraid. A knock at the door startled us both. Dont let her come in! said Teddy, rum- pling his hair in affright. I think I also made an effort to improve my toilet by taking off an apron that I had been using for a pen-wiper. She cant eat you, Teddy, said I; and, besides, you look better in that jacket than you do in your dress-coat. With your neckcloth untied that way, and flowing free, you bear a great resemblance to Lord Byron. Come in! I added, boldly. And there entered the most enchanting figure in the worlda god- dess, imperial and gloriousVenus, not as she rose from the sea, but attired in the very latest fashionMrs. Diana Debrell! Oh, Miss Merivale, she said, looking about her curiously, Ill go right away again! I wouldnt interfere with your literary duties for the world! But your brother said I might come in. Just like his impudence! I replied. But as long as youre here, you may as well stay. Teddy began making an ingenious detour of the room, ambitious of getting out of the door without attracting attention to himself; and had already his hand upoft the knob, when the fair widow turned and smiled sweetly upon him. Oh, Mr. Delaney, pray dont let me drive you away ! she said. Teddy was rooted to the spot, burning and blushing in a pitiable state of delighted embar- rassment. I want a favor of Miss Merivale, she pur- sued, in the most mellifluous of accents, and perhaps you can help me in coaxing her to con- sentall Ilammersville have made up their minds that they will have it as a crowning fes- tivitybut Im afraid shell think Im very bold. I own I was a little taken aback. Can it be possible, I thought, that she has really come to smooth the way for the wedding? Already I had the leading points of an editorial in my mind entitled, Progress, when she turned to Teddy, and said, softly: We want a charade, you knowan origin- al charade. A charade ! said Teddy. Ah, yes; I know; of coursea charade ! And what may that be? said I. Per- haps, if you know so well, youll tell me some- thing about it; but I tell you beforehand, if its any thing in the shape of a conundrum, you couldnt come to a worse person.~~ Its a kind of parlor drama, said Teddy, constructed out of one word. You take each syllable and make an act of it; then the whole forms a word, and the audience guesses it. Its a capital amusementwe used to play at it sometimes when I was Teddy stopped, blushing furiously. Speak out, man, said I; when you were in Ireland, you mean. Mr. Delaneys family, madam, I said, turuing to the widow, at present only occupy the left wing of the battle- ments on the ramparts of the ruins in the cas- tle Espagne. They have to climb up by a lad- der now, and its a little inconvenient; but the view is beautiful when you climb over the tur- ret to the to~ver, and look over the moat. In happier days there were great festivites there the Lord Lieutenant himself sojourned there. once when he was belated at a hunt; and, if theres any obligation about it, its thought to be on the noblemans side. The hereditary title of the family is The Delaney Dun; but my friend here scorns every thing of that kind. Hes a sort of bonnet-rouge, and pays his debts honestly enough to make his ancestors bones rattle in their coffins. The widow looked at me open-eyed, not un- derstanding a word that I said; but, somehow, 100 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. when she left us, I discerned a little reverence twilight. Lady Angelica seated at her writ- in the bow she gave to Teddy. ing-desk, her head resting upon her hand, an I turned to him, laughingly, when she went expression of deep sadness npon her face. En- away, hut there was a great look of reproach ter Ignatius, disguised as a peddlerrough coat, in his face, and his eyes flamed with indigna- green goggles, etc. He contemplates the scene tion. before him, and thus apostrophizes the idol of I didnt think youd he capable of it, Poly- his heart: Do I see thee again, oh, my be- phemia, he said. And when he called me by loved? What madness is this that seizes upon my whole name I knew he was in earnest, my brain? What agony is this that assails my Id rather youd have struck me with the heart? Can I not resign thee, then, sweet cm- ruler than made fun of me that way before press of my heart? Ab, let me enter paradise, her! let me bask in the warmth of thy presence for Tnt, you goose, said I; it was she I was one little moment more, and I shall be gone making sport of. forever! A smothered sob falls upon the ear And how could you ? he said, with solemn of Lady Angelica; she starts, and, turning sud- amazement. Isnt she beautiful? Was there denly, discovers in the peddler at her feet her ever so glorious a creature? Did you notice long-lost lover Ignatius. her eyes, Polly? So deep, and dark, and lu- Surely it was a touching and pathetic episode mimious! And the sweet, short upper lip, and in the play. The subdued light, the enchanting the graceful poise of her head! And her hand figure of Mrs. Debrell seated at her writing oh, Polly, did you look at her hand? If you table, her beautiful face half turned from the could make sport of a creature like that, theres admiring audience, the folds of her deliciously nothing too sacred for you! fitting, marvelously trimmed robe lying yards Shes very handsome, Teddy, said I; and, behind her. It fills me with indignation now, to mollify his wrath, I consented to assist in to think that Dolph couldnt bear to wear the writing the charade, peddlers disguise. The day after the Hammersville Herald came You wretched peacock! I cried, indig- out Teddy and I shut ourselves up in the sane- nautly; arent you contented with turning tum; and, although I say it who ought not into a seraph afterward, and blazing down say it, we made an excellent days work of it. upon the audience in top-boots and a slashed The charade was certainly a success, doublet ? The fact is, Teddy, said I, well have to But the whole thing is such wretched twad- take to writing for the stage; theres absolute dle, he replied, with brutal frankness. Come genius in this little thing. now, confess, Teddy; have the manliness to say Well, if there isnt genius in it, its ingenious, what von think. said Teddy. After that I kept the ruler in my I think its beautiful, said dear old Ted- hand, and he made no more puns that day. dy; of course its a little boshy in parts, but The difficulty was to make Adolphus study that only serves to show off the tragical points his part. Of course he had to be the hero. I with effect. suggested to Mrs. Debrell that if she wanted The tragical points Teddy rehearsed charm- the thing to go off handsomely, shed better ingly. Coming in with a lantern in his hand, consent to throw over Adolphus, and give Ted- and discovering Ignatius at the feet of Lady dy the character. Hidalgo, he istorn with remorse when he finds If you want the elder Kean back again, it is his preserver and benefactor. said I toher, there you have him in Terence But what mattered it how well Teddy did his Delaney. I tell you, Diana (wed grown pret- part, or that Diana rivaled Mrs. Siddons, when ty intimate by this time), if youll have Ted- neither threats nor entreaties could prevail upon dy for the hero well astonish Hammersville ! Adolphus to go through one rehearsal with or- But Mr. Delaneys so ugly, she said, pout- dinary creditwhen day after day passed by, ingly, the beautiful costume will be quite and the eventful night was at hand, and he per- thrown away on him; hes nice, I know, but sisted in lounging in and out of the scenes with- hes so ugly, she repeated, idiomatically. out life or interest, slurring over the touching Oh, said I, you think so, do you? Well, and pathetic parts, and turning the tragic points let Adolphus have it, then. of the play into buffoonery? It was too late to Hes so handsome and talented, said Di- draw back. It was well known that an original dna, blushing brightly; he cant help but do charade, by Miss Polyphemia Merivale, was to every thing charmingly! be performed at the mansion of Mrs. Diana De- Its a free country, said I, and every brell. All Hammersville was on tip-toe with body has a right to an opinion; hut 1 think, enthusiastic expectancy. The die ~vas cast, madam, your swan is a goose. my reputation was at stake, and yet Adolphus He was worse than a goose, he was a donkey, persisted in saying that it was time enough to and a conceited donkey at that, make an ass of himself when the time came! Let me quote just one little scene in the cha- At last the night came, and I found myself rade, to show the rock upon which we were in the luxurious home of the beautiful widow, wrecked, breathing an atmosphere tempered byhot steam, SceneLady Angelicas drawing-room. Time and made fragrant with spoils from the hot- WAMPUNSUNG GAP. 101 house, treadinb ruthlessly on master-pieces of art in the shape of carpets, gazing upon wonder- ful paintings and statues, and reclining upon divans that would have delighted the heart of a Turk. But, truth to say, all this magnificence was thrown away upon me. I was like a fish out of watermy black silk dress cut me in the arm-holes, a collar rasped my neck painfully, and some necessity in the shape of hair gave me a fearful pang when I moved my head. Id ratheroh how infinitely rather !have been at home. in the dear old battered, manuscript-lit- tered, ink-stained sanctum. When the house began to fill, and taking shelter upon the stage, I peeped out from a corner of the curtain upon the sea of faces in the great drawing-room, and actually heard the musicians commence the lit- tle operatic morceau that was to precede the charade, I confess that an ignominious cow- ardice prompted me to make my way out of the back-door, and fly homeward as fast as my trembling legs could carry me. It might look a little eccentric, I said to myself; but cant a literary woman be a little odd if she likes ? I was upon the point of gathering up my skirts for a retreat, when Teddy came up to me with the manuscript. He was happy enough, dear lad, his face glowing, and his eyes shining joy- fully. It was plain to be seen he wasnt out of his element if I was, and for, that night at least he was quite worthy of the long line of pedigree belonging to Castle Espagne. Youll act as prompter, wont you, Folly ? he whispered, giving me the paper. Whats the use, Teddy ? I groaned. Those that know their parts know them, and those that dont, dont! You can take a horse to the water, but you cant make him drink ! Ah, Folly, lets do the best we can, said the dear boy, and I took the paper without a word. Then the bell tinkled, the music ceased, and up went the curtain. This act went off capitally. It was confined to Lady Angelica and her waiting-maid, and the beauty and cos- tumes alone of the amateurs would have en- chanted the audience. A night scene, in the second act, followed, where Teddy, in a Spanish cloak, sombrero hat, and lantern, made a decided hit. At last the eventful moment approached, and after an in- stant of agonizing suspense, I saw Dolph lounge into the gentlemans dressing-room, with the green goggles in his hand, and the rough coat of the peddler thrown over his arm. The bell tinkled and the scene opened, disclosing the fair Lady Angelica seated at her writing-desk, her brow upon her hand. Never had Diana looked so enchantingly lovely. A murmur of admiration arose from the a~~dience; an appre- ciative silence reigned in the room. Ah, thought I, if only Dolph can go through his part decently, all will be well. My heart beat high with hope when he passed me and went upon the stage. The rough coat completely enveloped him, a pair of great boots went half- way up his legs, and a red handkerchief and green goggles effectually concealed his hand- some face. So far, all was good. Do I see thee again ? he said, very slow- ly, and ~vithout a particle of feeling; but I didnt so much mind that. Do I see thee again ? he repeated, musingly; then he paused, standing in a graceful enough attitude; but I was painfully cognizant he was trying to remem- ber his part. Do I see thee again ? he shouted, in a sort of ~rolonged roar that I hoped he meant for emotion; but he paused again. Ab, what a fratric~idal heart I had at that moment! What is the cause of this agony ? he at last stammered out, and then must needs re- peat it again What is the cause of this agony ? he said, in quite an argumentative tone, that caused a wag in the corner to shake his head and whisper, he didnt know. Why, said the wretched Dolph, do I feel in thisthis devil of a state ? he added, and of course the audience burst into a roar. He walked over to the wing where I was stand- ing. Give me a cue, he said. Cant you see Ive forgot it ? Such a rage ~velled up in my heart at that moment that I Was choked. One little mo- ment more, I whispered, frantically leaping to the last words of his part. A little more ! he roared out, and the audience listened with some degree of respect. A little more ! he repeated, in a hopelessly stupid tone, and floundered ngain. A little more of kin and less than kind, said Teddy, in my ear. Diana was pale as death at her writing-desk, and I flaming as a coal at the wing. Come off! said Teddy, signaling to Doiph to fly from the stage. Dianas head sank for a moment, then lifted itself proudly again. I think at that moment she trusted to Teddy. Give me the toggery ! said Teddy, pull- ing the boots from Dolphs legs and wrapping himself in the peddlers cloak. Well change parts, he whispered, hur- riedly, and do you, Folly, post Dolph up in mine. All he has to do is to come in with the cloak and lantern, and shout, Ah, villain! But in Heavens name be careful of the lan- tern, for its filled with kerosene ! Then Ted- dy leaped upon the stage. Do I see thee again, oh, my beloved ? cried the sonorous voice of dear old Teddy, and a roseate flush overspread the face of Diana. I took heart of grace and threw aside my man- uscript to listen. What sweet madness is this that seizes upon my brain ? he cried, in the richest of monotones. Can I not resign thee, then, sweet empress of my soul? Ah, let me enter paradise, let me bask in the warmth of thy presence for one little moment more, and I shall be gone forever ! He threw himself at her feethis voice broke into a sobthe dis- guise was thrown aside-~it was her lover, Igna- tins! 102 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. Truly Teddy was an alluring fellow just then; there was that in his face that was better than beautythere was genius, and feeling, and heartthere was goodness! Diana took up her part with earnestness and graceher voice was melody itself; her great dark eyes shone luminously; not a word did she forget. As she held out to him her charm- ing hand, Teddy gazed upon her with rapture. The agony of his abnegation, of his ~mmola- tion of self; was quite lifelike and real; he burst into a rhapsody of eloquence that startled and delighted the audience. They applauded rap- turously. Dianas voice trembled in the re- ply; nothing could exceed the sweetness and majesty of her expression. Oh, Dolph, I whispered, in an agony of hope and trepidation, surely you can say the two words, Ah, villain! But take care of the lantern, I beg of you You have saved me from an act of mad- ness, said Lady Angelica. Oh, how I love your brave generosity Its your turn, Dolpb, I whispered, and he went on the stage. Ab, villain ! shouted Adolphus, and, hor- ror of horrors, he actually brandished the lan- tern over his head. Out tumbled the lamp, and falling upon the floor, a tongue of flame seized upon the drapery at his feet, and rapidly licked up fold after fold of the beautiful robe of Diana. Shrieks of aifright burst from the audience! All was confusion and dismay. Dolph and I sprang forward to save Diana, but Teddy was first. She fell into his arms, pale and unconscious, but quite unhurt, thanks to the friendly coat of the peddler that lay with- in reach of Teddys frantic grasp. The flames were soon extinguished, and a crowd of sym- pathizing friends rushed upon the stage. Give her to me, Teddy, I said, and get home as fast as you can. Your hair is burned off this side of your head, and your face is all black and singed. Tell me, boytell me truly, are you hurtare you badly burned? Come home and get some salve on your poor hands! For in truth the boys flesh was of more conse- quence to me than that of the most beautiful woman in the world. Never mind the salve, Folly, said Teddy, Im thinking of salv-ation just now. And in the face of this most atrocious pun he put Diana into my arms and went home. Then I put her into the arms of her housekeeper, and went after him, followed by Dolph, who insisted that it was all the fault of the lantern. To fill a lantern with kerosene ! he said, in- dignantly. Who ever heard of such a thing? We found Teddy walking about the floor, his face swollen and red, his hands blistered and raw, his right eye completely closed, and not a vestige of eyebrow or eyelash about him. This pitiable sight touched Dolph to the heart. He would much rather have been killed out- right than disfigured thus seriously, and he judged Teddy by himself. Youll never forgive me, said Dolph. Id kill any body that was the cause of such a calamity to me. Youve done me a great service, uncon- sciously, said Teddy. Then seeing a look of stolid amazement upon Dolphs face, lie added: I was such an insignificant fellow before, you know, if it leaves a decent scar, people may turn to look at me once in a while. I dont see what we wanted of the lantern, at all, said I; when the horse is gone theres no use shutting the stable-door; but what was the use of the lantern ? Didnt Folly put it in the play ? said Dolph. It was an interpol-ation of Providence, said Teddy, with a villainous accent upon the pol. The next morning nothing would do but he must come down into the sanctum. What will you do there, you singed monk- ey ? I said. You cant write, and you can hardly see. But I can dictate, said Teddy; and I wont have the editorials spoiled; and oh, Polly, let me come down and sit by you! Youre the only one thats fond of me in the world I helped him down, and we grew quite merry together, in spite of his pain, for I didnt see much use in spoiling his bravery by crying over him; but in my heart of hearts I honored and loved him the more that he bore his pangs like an Indian. My head was bent over the paper, and I was slinging the ink furiously around me, when sud- denly a little tap at the door startled us. It cant be the printers boy; and Dolph never knocks, said Teddy, in an agonized whisper. Oh, Folly, I think Ill run! Youll have to make a charge over some- bodys body, then, I replied, for theres only the one door. Come in! I added; and I con- fess I gulped down a strong exclamation, when, upon the threshold, we saw Diana, as bright and beautiful as ever; more bright and beauti- ful, for, upon seeing the battered and bandaged Teddy, her face became enchanting with emo- tion, a glow leaped into her cheek. Once, twice, she opened her lips as if to speak, but her voice faltered. Hishiseyes, at last she stammered out. Oh! theyre not hurt, are they ? Then, with- out waiting for an answer, she went over to the poor lad, and put both her hands tenderly upon his. Youve saved my life, Mr. Delaney, she said; but Id rather have lost it than that you should lose your eyes ! He~ own filled with tears. I spilled a great dab of ink on my article. Tell her you can see, Teddy, said I. Just as well as ever, said Teddy; and Im very thankful to God for it, just now, at least. As to saving your life, Mrs. Debrell, it was only a lucky chance threw the boon to me. I happened to be nearest you, and the cloak was within my reach. WAMPUNSUNG GAP. 103 Teddy was pale as death, but he spoke brave- ly, and with his old merry accent. Im glad it was you ! said Diana, still hold- ing his hands. Id rather owe my life to you than any one in the world Dolph entered just then, and Diana went up to him and commenced bantering him about his awkwardness with the lantern. All my carpet ruined, and my pretty dress; the statue of Cupid and Psyche broken to at- oms; and such an awful odor of kerosene Presently Dolph and she went away, and walked down the garden path together. Polly, Polly, said Teddy, if theres any whisky or brandy in the honse, give me a bit, for I think Im going to faint. And no wonder, said I, reaching down a glass from the mantle. Why hadnt the wo- man more sense than take hold of a mans hand, when the touch was agony to him ? Ah ! said Teddy, why was the tonch de- nied me? But through these triple bands of linen I felt it; I swear to you, Polly, I feel it still. Polly, Polly, miserable wretch that I am, how is it that I dare love__ Dolph put in his head at the door. Im going home with Diana, Folly, he said. Shes asked me, and I cant very well refuse; and say, I think, on the way, Ill pro- pose. Its all a fellow can do, you know; and I may as well have it over with. Dont wait lunch for me. And Doiph went down to the phaeton that was waiting for him at the gate. You were saying, Teddy, said I, holding a glass of punch to his lips, that you loved somebody It was you, PollyI love you ! Dont he unhappy, then, said I, for your passion is reciprocated. Theres no necessity for any thing feeding on your damask cheek on my account. Its a damaged cheek, just now, Polly; and it never was a damask one. But theres Dolph; hes all roses and lilies ! And daffydowndillies, said I; and hes gone to take tea in the arbor. Who says that all men are created free and equal ? said Teddy, fiercely. Were tram- meled from our birth. Why is one man made like an Apollo, and another like an ape ? Why is one man given brains, and another none So that the one with brains may suffer the most, said Teddy. These bitter words sounded very strangely from his lips, so we kept silence for a while. As Teddy and I were alone, I determined to have something nice and warm brought to us in the sanctum; but just as the table was laid for two, and we were waiting for a delicious little game-pie to be heated, who should stalk in but Dolph? I sawfrom the look of his face that he had been rejected. If ever mortified vanity was depicted any where, it was there. Shes thrown me over, he said, with his usual frankness, scowling down upon Teddy and me. There was a struggle in Teddys face between relief and sympathy; but he said nothing. Shes a cursed coquette, pursued Adol- phus; but she cant play fast and loose with me; shell never get another chance, never! its a pity to be too hard upon her, said I. Dont be cruel, Dolph But he never noticed the sarcasm at all. Shell find out Im not the man to be trifled ~vith ! he said, as we sat down to the table. Ill tell you what, said 1)olph, helping himself to half the pie; Pm sick of this sort of thing; Im going out to Wampunsung Gap For a man thats crossed in love, said I, you have an excellent appetite. Fair play with the pie, Dolph; share and share alike, you know. It was quite an unexpected ~Aeasure having you to lunch, and we werent quite pre- pared for it. Seven days after Dolph came home with a complete trappers outfit. lIe said he didnt intend to confine himself to mining; there was nothing like having two strings to ones bow. When he told me hed given up the government office, I began to believe that he might possibly go to Wampunsung Gap; and the womanly part of my nature stirred a little, as it will at parting with one you are in the habit of fraternizing with. I found out I was a little fond of Doiph, and petted the great handsome fellow to his hearts content. Teddy had got over his inju- ries, and had given up hoping for the distinction of a scar; his eyebrows and eyelashes were be- ginning to grow, and his hands were well as ever; but he seemed unable to settle himself to write. There was no bantering at the table, and Dolpli ate all the dainties himself, for Teddy had no appetite, and I was out of sorts. The fair widow had flitted away somewhere, and the great house was closed, and somehow a cloud hung over every thing. One day the cloud resolved itself into a thunder-bolt of this kind. Dolph had gone out hunting for a rubber cover for his new rifle, and Teddy and I were alone in the sanc- tum. I was writing away, pretending never to notice Teddy, but once in a while stealing a look at his gruesome face as he shadowed it with his hand. Polly, said Teddy, suddenly, I wish youd let me go with Dolph! I dropped my pen and looked at him. To Wampunsung Gap ? I gasped. Yes, Polly dear, its the only thing that 11 save me! Im getting unfit for any thingi want to go, Polly; oh, my good friend, my comrade, my more than sister, be generous to me The boys arms were about me, his face close to mine. i drew down his head and whispered in hisear, Stay!. Take hope! Who knows ? But he drew back, flushing painfully. No, Polly, it is impossible! Hope would be in- sanity! 104 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. From that hour it was settled. In ten days they were gone, Doiph and Teddygone to Wampunsung Gap! Fancy it, ye who can, the old brown house without them! Faucy the miserable, lonely woman, gaunt and grizzled, forlorn and deso- late, as destitute of joy as the stuffed owl over the sanctum door! To eat, and drink, and sleep, to dip ones pen in gall and writenh, it was sad! A month later a great joy leaped up in my heart only to vanish, and leave it more deso- late than ever. There was a tremendous bus- tle at the doorthe little servant burst into ac- clamations of delight. She bounded into the sanctum nnrebuked. Oh, maam, she said, her face in a flame, heres Mr. Adolphus home again! My legs refused to hold me. I sat down, but looked eagerly at the door. Dolph came in and embraced me warmly. I still looked at the door. Teddy ? I said, interrogatively, and half rising to my feet. Well, yon see, Folly, said Dolph, Teddy would go on. To Wampunsung Gap ? I said, sinking back in my chair. Yes, said Dolph. The fact is, its mad- ness! The Indians are as thick out there as blackberries in August. Twenty-seven men were scalped and left in one place on the plains. I had an offer to go into the lumber business, and I took it up. I offered Teddy a half interest, but he would go on. Heres a letter he sent you. I read the letter without even wiping my spectacles. After all what mattered it? I knew I never should see him again. DEAn Poaay,To confess the truth Im longing to go back. I never saw any thing so dreary in my life as this long waste of prairie, and the grass is so high now that you can fancy it quivering with redskins; but I feel somehow as if tt would be cowardly to re- treat, and weve heard so touch from Wampunsung Gap Id like to see it. When I get there Ill write you a glowing letter for the Hereld, and in the mean time Ill send you some scraps jotted down by the way- side. This, for your ear, dearest of Pollys, Ive got over the old weak paling despair altogetherIm a man ag~ in, ready to do all that a man can do. Away down in my heart is the old passion: love is hard to kill, dear; but Im none the worse for it. As for my scalp, I shall tell my red brethren Im not an ordinary hairy person, Im liter-heiry; perhaps itll save the wretched mop that seems destined to come to grief. Always, my incomparable Iolly, Your devoted Tznny. That was the last scrap of his dear old hiero- glyphics that came to me. Days and weeks fled by, Doiph went off to his lumbering, and married the rich lumber proprietors daughter. The fair widow came back to her mansion on the hill. I was alone again in the old brown housealone with the serving-maid, now rap- idly strengthening into a sturdy woman. I watched and waited for the postmans ring, and scanned the letters at first with a trem- bling hand and a choking in the throat; but after a while quite hopelessly and mechanically. There were none from Wampunsung Gap, not even the glowing descriptive one. I gave him plenty of time, even allowing for accidents. I was lavish in hope and patience; but all was useless, the boy was dead! It made me mad when Dolph insisted that he might be alive. Alive, I said, and not write to me Well, but, hang it, Polly, when a fellow is journeying about that way, meeting with all sorts of adventure, he dont get a chance. Teddy isnt a fellow, hes a gentleman, Dolph, I said; and if he was alive, hed write to me as a gentleman ought. You see, Diana~, I said (turning to the widow, who was kind enough to spend some of her time with me), the Delaneys of Castle Espagne are of the old chivalrous, knightly order, that would scorn to keep a poor old woman like me in an agony of suspense. Teddys without fear and without reproach, wherever he may be, that you may be sure of. One night we sat in ihe sanctum alone, Diana and I, and suddenly We heard a long, loud wail outside; it was a melancholy shriek enough, and Diana fell back almost fainting. Whats the matter, child ? said I, hasten- ing over to her; for she had got to be dear to me for her own sake aswell as for that of some- body else. Oh, perhaps its the Banshee! she said, lifting her great eyes to mine swimuting with tears. Ive heard that, when any one be- longing to one of those old. Irish families dies, the Banshee is sure to come to their home and lament overthem. I think its Pluto, the tom-cat, said I; and then I was ashamed to keep up the story of Teddys ancestry any longer, and, however it was, I told her every thing I knew of him that he was the soul of honor, and the brightest, cheeriest, bravest, best lad that ever walked, and that his great love for her h4d cost him his life. I brought out his letter and showed it t her, and I gave her a beautiful little poem he wrote to her eyes, and put into her hand a sketch of her profile that he drew from the sanctum window. But why didnt he stay at home and tell me, if he cared for me so much ? she said, in- nocently enough, and then she blushed very brightly. When I saw the flames ready to devour me that night I stretched out ~ny arms to him, and, as he wrapped the peddlers cloak about me, he whispered, Dont be afraid, dar- ling; and I wasnt afraid. I knew hed save me; but the next morning you saw how cold. he was. I couldnt say more than I did, Polly; hut it didnt matter; and now hes been mur-. dered by those dreadful Indians. Oh, Polly, why dont they kill them all ? Im coaxing the government to, all I can, Diana; but since Teddys gone the Hammers- ville Herald hasnt much influence. And all this time I never shed a tear for the lad! It seemed as if all within me was a great WAMPUNSUNG GAP. 105 arid desert, and not a life-spring to be found. The wound gaped wide, refusing to be healed. Day after day I sat in the sanctum, my only companions Pluto, the big black cat, and the stuffed owl over the door; and if Diana had not taken compassion on me, and once in a while come over, Id have turned to stone. One blustering March day I expected her to tea, and as the light began to wane, I stood by the window wondering if shed dareventure out in a snow-storm, for the flake~s began to gather and whirl madly about. I hoped she would, for all that day I had been unspeakably lonely and sad. I turned away from the window and sat down by the table again; but I couldnt read, I couldnt write, I couldnt think. In truth, I was tired and wretchedly out of sorts. Hearing a step in the hall, I was glad to think it was iDoiph, and called out to him to come in. But a stranger entered; a brown, burly man, with green spectacles, and a wonderful amount of hirsute appendages; his hair hung down about his shoulders, and a tangled beard near- ly reached to his waist. I thought he was a Mussulman, and bowing gravely, motioned him to a seat. I was about calling for strong cof- fee, and sending Hannah next door to borrow some pipes, when he took from the pocket of his coat a package. Madam, said he, in an accent that was not quite American, and yet not Oriental, I am from Wampunsung Gap ! I fell back motionless, stretching out my hand for the package. Its my painful duty, madam, said the man, in a sepulchral tone, to break to you a melan- choly piece of news, and to deliver into your hands this package. Give me the package, I said, and never mind the news. Its the first time I ever heard of a person in your pursuit that didnt care for news, he said. I hope the paper hasnt gone to the dogs ? But I know the news, I said. Ive felt all day as if something was going to happen to methe worst of the blow is over. God has prepared me for it, Sir; but dont say it, for I cant bear it. I know my boy is dead, and these are his last words to me; but dont say it, Sir; Im getting old, and Ive suffered great ly. Give me the package, Sir, in Heavens name! A sudden pallor overspread the face of the stranger. He half arose from his chair. Bebe calm, madam, he said, his voice breaking a little out of the gruffness. I want to be certain youre the person Im to give it to. Are you Polyphemia Merivale ? Yes, yes, I replied, impatiently. He took off his gloves, and I saw that his hands were brown and weather-beaten, but sin- gularly small, and ah, how familiarly nervous they looked! Editor-in-chief of the Hammersville Her- aid? he said. I nodded eagerly, for I couldnt speak. IIbe calm, madam, I beg of you. I I will give you the package, but I beseech of you to be calm. I looked at him fixedly. It seemed to me that I should awake pretty soon, and find it all a dream. My heart thumped up and down in my breast. I saw through the spectacles a pair of great loving gray eyes, filled with hon- est tears. If it had been a dream, it would have been merciful to have let me die there and then. Bebecalm, he repeated, getting upon his feet, his voice breaking into a sob; bebe hang it, Folly, eaht you be c lin ? Then he threw away his spectacles and caught me to his heart. Oh, ye who have suffered, who, after long grief and pain, find the arms of your true love round you once againonly ye can tell the un- speakable joy of that moment l I was long past forty; what then? Is there no powerful love but the one? You spoiled it all, said Teddy; you wouldnt be calm, do what I might. I was go- ing to make you show me the mole on your left arm; but, in truth, Pohly, my heart was full to bursting. Oh, Polyphemia Merivale! my dear old Polly, thank God you are alive and well! And how is Dolph? Married? Dont be afraid to tell me, dear. Its all gone; the old passion is burned outnot even a cin- der left. Ive been a captive among the In- dians, Pohly; and what with fire-water and the treachery of the whites, theyve got sadly de- moralized, and theyre not a nice set of people to live with. Theyre a little drunken, and dirty, and given to lying and stealing, and a few other sins. Ive been a medicine-man, Polly, and Ive killed a few of them with the aid of Providence. But Ive written it all out for the Herald. Its a beautiful thing. It 11 bring tears to your eyes. Sensational, von know, with an impossible Indian princess in it, just to show, you know, what they might be, if they were the old imaginary heroic race. Ive scraped up a goodish bit of money, Polly, and well spend every penny of it on the Herald, and live in the old sanctum, like gods together, Polly, heedless of mankind. Then you dont care for Diana, Teddy ? Not a straw, dear, except as one human creature cares for another. We all love one another, I hope, Polly. Im sorry for her, poor thing ! said I. Why, why, whats the matter ? said Teddy. Dont keep me in suspense, Polly. Out with it at once. Shesheshes alive, Pohly ? Oh yes, alive and well, and beautiful as ever, and wonderfully sweet and kind. Its a pity for her; it is, indeed. Has she married unhappily, Polly ? No, she isnt married at all; but she might have been, if Id known your character better. Now, Polly, what upon earth do you mean? Havent I been tortured enough? Ive had my 100 HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. scalp hanging by only one hair many a time. Theres tattooing all over me from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot. A fire was built on my stomach once, and would have been lighted if some horse-stealing Camanches hadnt spoiled the sport of my captors. Dont torture me any more, Polly. Tell me at once. Whats the matter with Diana ? Why, the fact is, Teddy, I thonght you loved her, you know, and Ive been fool enough to teach her to love you. Shes coming here to tea to-night, and youd better keep out of her way. Theres no use breaking her heart. Youve taught her to love me, and shes coming here to tea ? repeafed Teddy, growing red and pale by turns. Yes; if youd staid at home you might have married her long ago. I! Diana! Folly, youre the soul of honor. Youyou wouldnt deceive me. Oh, best and dearest of Pollys, Im the happiest man alive Then he suddenly got upon his feet, and rais- ing his hands devoutly to Heaven, he lifted up his voice, and gave vent to one of the wildest yells it was ever my fate to listen to. It raised the hair on my head, and froze the blood in my body; it echoed and re - echoed about every rafter in the old house; it set the glasses to jingling in the cupboard in the kitchen; and the maid came running up to see what was the matter. I was paralyzed, and stood looking at him in horror,