Transcriber’s Note
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A [list] of these changes is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been maintained. A [list] of inconsistently spelled and hyphenated words is found at the end of the text. The original book used both numerical and symbolic footnote markers. This version follows the original usage.
A NEW AND ORIGINAL
PLAN FOR READING APPLIED TO THE
WORLD’S BEST LITERATURE
FOR CHILDREN
BY
CHARLES H. SYLVESTER
Author of English and American Literature
VOLUME EIGHT
New Edition
Chicago
BELLOWS-REEVE COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1922
BELLOWS-REEVE COMPANY
CONTENTS
For Classification of Selections, see General Index, at end of Volume X
ILLUSTRATIONS
RINGROSE AND HIS BUCCANEERS[1-1]
Just two days after we took possession of the town of Santa Maria, we departed thence on Saturday, April 17th, 1680. We all embarked in thirty-five canoes, which we had taken while lying at anchor at the front of the town. Thus we sailed, or rather rowed, down the river in quest of the South Sea upon which Panama is seated. Our prisoners, the Spaniards, begged very earnestly that they might be permitted to go with us and not be left to the mercy of the Indians, who would show them no favor and whose cruelty they so much feared, but we had such difficulty in finding boats for ourselves that we could assist them little. However, they found soon after either logs or old canoes, so that they were able to come along with us.
It was my misfortune to have a canoe which was very heavy and consequently sluggish. Because of this we were left behind the rest a little way, there being only four men beside myself in the boat. As the tide fell it left several shoals of sand naked, and hence we, not knowing the location of the channel amongst such a variety of streams, steered for over two miles into a shoal where we were forced to lie by until high water came. As soon as the tide began to turn, we rowed away, but in spite of all our endeavors, we could neither find nor overtake our companions. At ten o’clock, when the tide became low, we stuck an oar in the sands and by turns slept in our canoe, where we were pierced to the skin by the showers that fell in the night.
The next morning, as soon as the day had come, we rowed away down the river in pursuit of our people, and after going about two leagues we were so fortunate as to overtake them at an Indian landing place, where they had been taking in water. They told us that we would not find water again for six days, and that we must without fail fill our jars. Although we made what haste we could, by the time our jars were filled our friends had all departed and were already out of sight. Such is the nature of the pirates; they care not in the least whom they lose or leave behind.
We rowed after them as fast as we possibly could, but all in vain, for here in the mouth of the river the islands were so numerous that it was very easy for us to lose them a second time. After much trouble and toil we did at last find the mouth of the river, but here the tide was again coming in, so that though we were within a stone’s throw from the mouth of the river, we could not go through it, but were forced to put ashore and wait for better water. Accordingly we hauled our canoe close by the bushes and fastened it to a tree which the tide had almost covered.
As soon as the tide began to turn, we rowed away again, crossing the Gulf of Miguel. Here we had a very hard time fighting the waves, which dashed against our canoe and might easily have filled and overwhelmed it, for the boat was nearly twenty feet long and not over one and a half broad where it was widest. At dark we landed on an island where we had the most sorrowful resting place I ever experienced in my whole life. It rained impetuously all night long, in so much that we were wet from head to foot and had not one dry thread about us; and so violent was the rain that we could not keep any fire going to warm or dry ourselves. Not one minute’s sleep did we get during the whole night, and our plight was indeed an awful one, remote from our companions and wholly destitute of all human comfort. As morning broke, our plight was little relieved, for a vast sea surrounded us on one side, and on the other we could see nothing but high mountains and rocks. Our boat was but an eggshell, and we had few clothes to defend us from the weather. In fact, not one of us at that time had a shoe to his foot.
Wet and cold as we were, however, we put forth to sea and rowed away, passing several islands. In the open sea the smallness of our vessel put us again in deadly peril, and it always required one man and sometimes two to bail out the water that came over the sides of the boat. When we had struggled for some time with these difficulties, and when we were near one of the smaller islands, a huge wave overturned our boat and we were all forced to swim for our lives, but did manage to get to shore, where soon our canoe was thrown after us. All our bread and fresh water were spoiled, but as our guns were lashed to the boat and were kept in waxed cases, we lost none of them. Our first business was to take them out and clean them.
Scarcely had this been done when we saw another boat suffering from the same misfortune at a little distance from us. The persons thus cast ashore proved to be six Spaniards from the garrison at Santa Maria who had followed us to escape the Indians. Presently they joined us, and we built a fire, broiled our meat on the coals, and all ate amicably together. We were suffering terribly for water, as we had none to drink and knew not where to get any. Fortunately our canoe was thrown on edge and very little injured, but the one on which the Spaniards came split itself against the rocks, being old and slender, and was broken into a hundred pieces.
My company was now much discouraged and wished to return, but after much persuasion I induced them to go forward at least one day longer, saying I would then be willing to do whatever they saw fit. About the time they concluded to follow me, our watchman espied an Indian, who as soon as he knew he had been seen, ran hastily to the woods. Immediately I sent two of my companions after him. Finding he was one of our friendly Indians, they followed him along the shore to where seven more of his companions with a great canoe were resting on the seashore. By means of signs I asked him what had become of my companions, and the Indians assured us that if we would take their boat instead of our own, we would overtake our friends before morning.
We were rejoicing over this news when the Indians noticed that six of the men of our company did not seem to be of the same language and kind as ourselves. We told them they were Wankers, which is the name the Indians commonly give to the Spaniards. Their next question was, “May we kill those Spaniards?” I answered them, “By no means; I will not consent to have it done.” To this the Indians seemed to consent, but after a little while, when my back was turned, some of my company, thinking to oblige the Indians, beckoned to them to kill the Spaniards. Perceiving their danger, the Spaniards made a great outcry, which I heard, and I turned around in time to save their lives. Although I was able to accomplish this, I could not prevent them, however, from taking one of the Spaniards as a slave. To the others, however, I gave the canoe in which I came and bade them to get away as speedily as possible in order to save their lives from the Indians.
Then joining company with the Indians we entered a very large canoe, which was able to carry at least twenty men more easily than our canoe could carry five. Moreover the Indians had also fitted a good sail to the canoe, so that, having a fresh breeze, we set sail and moved rapidly away, to the infinite joy and comfort of our hearts. In one place we ran into a heavy sea, which was caused by a strong current and the heavy winds, and many times our boat was filled with spray. Again at night it rained heavily for several hours and was very dark.
About nine o’clock we discovered two fires on the shore of the mainland. The Indians began to shout and to cry out joyously that these fires were made by their companions. Accordingly we made for the shore as fast as we could drive, but as soon as we had reached it about sixty Spaniards, armed with clubs and other arms, rushed out into the breakers, laid hold of our canoe on both sides and pulled it out of the water. Thus were we all taken and made prisoners. I laid hold of my gun, thinking to defend myself, but it was all in vain, for four or five of them stopped and overpowered me. The Indians leaped overboard and got away very nimbly into the woods, though my companions were too much amazed to make any attempt to escape.
Our captors could speak neither French nor English, but I was able to talk, in Latin, with one of them who seemed more intelligent than the rest, and from him I learned that these were Spaniards who had been put ashore by our other boats for fear that some of them might escape and warn Panama that we were on our way to capture it. For this reason the Spaniards were much rejoiced at taking us, and they designed to treat us very severely for plundering their town of Santa Maria.
But even while the Spaniard was talking to me, there came in a poor wretch that I had saved from the Indians. When he reported how kindly I had treated him and the rest of his companions, the captain rose from his seat and embraced me, saying, “You Englishmen are very friendly enemies and good people, but the Indians are rogues and a treacherous nation. Come and sit by me and eat of the victuals which your companions left us when they turned from shore.” For the kindness I had shown their countrymen, the Spaniards agreed to give us our lives and liberty, but it was only after long persuasion that I could induce them to spare the lives of the Indians. However, I accomplished this and was bidden to take my canoe and go in God’s name, with the wish that we might be as fortunate as we had been generous.
Having found the Indians, we took our departure soon after, although the Spaniards invited us to stay with them longer. All that night it rained very hard and we found no place where we could land. About ten o’clock the next morning, however, after a night of rowing and paddling, we espied a canoe coming toward us at great speed. The men in it proved to be of our old English company, who supposed us to be Spaniards and were coming to attack us. They had given me and my companions up for lost, but now we were all mutually rejoiced, and were soon reunited on the shore of a deep bay which lay concealed behind a point of rocks.
On the morning of the second day after, that is, on the twenty-third of April, the day sacred to Saint George, our patron of England, we came before sunrise within view of the city of Panama, which makes a pleasant show to vessels that are at sea. At that time there lay at anchor near the Island of Perico, which is distant about two leagues from Panama, five great ships and three smaller men-of-war called The Little Fleet. The latter, it appeared, had been suddenly manned with a design to fight us and prevent us from making any further attempts upon the city or seacoast.
Accordingly, as soon as they spied us, they instantly weighed anchor and came directly to meet us. Two of our boats were very heavy and could not row as fast as the canoes, and accordingly we were already far in advance. There were five canoes in this company, and among them only thirty-six men in a very unfit condition to fight, being tired and worn with so much rowing. The enemy sailed toward us directly before the wind, and we feared greatly lest they should run us down. So we rowed straight up into the “wind’s eye,” as the sailors say, and got close to windward of them. While we were doing this, other of our boats in which were thirty-two more men overtook us, so that altogether we were sixty-eight men engaged in the fight that day.
In the three vessels of the Little Fleet that opposed us were altogether two hundred and seventy-eight men, of whom more than two hundred were native Spaniards, the rest being Indians or Mulattoes. The commanders of these ships had issued orders that no quarter was to be given to any of the buccaneers. But such bloody commands as these seldom or never prosper.
The canoe of Captain Sawkins and that wherein I was were much to the leeward of the rest. The third of the Spanish ships came between us two and fired on me to the windward and on Captain Sawkins to the leeward, wounding with these broadsides four men in the Captain’s canoe and one in mine. Nevertheless, he paid so dear for his passage between us that he was not very quick in coming about again and trying it a second time; for with our first volley we killed several of his men upon the decks. Thus we got to the windward of the enemy as our other canoes had already done. At this moment the Admiral of the Little Fleet came up with us suddenly, scarcely giving us time to charge, and thinking to pass by us with as little damage as the first of his ships had received, or even less. But it fell out much worse for him, for we were so fortunate as to kill the man at the helm, so that his ship ran into the wind and her sails lay “a-back” as the mariners say. This gave us time to come up under the stern of his vessel, and firing continually into the vessel we killed as many as came to the helm, and cut in two his mainsail and brace.
At this time the third Spanish vessel was seen coming up to the aid of the Admiral’s ship. Captain Sawkins left the latter to our four canoes and rowed away to meet the oncoming Spaniards. The dispute or fight between them was very hot, as they lay close together, and fought from one side of the deck to the other, both giving and receiving death as fast as they could charge. Meanwhile the first ship tacked about and came up to relieve the Admiral. We determined to prevent this design, and two of our canoes, Captain Springer’s and my own, stood out to meet the new arrival, who made direct upon the Admiral, who stood upon the quarter-deck waving at him with a handkerchief what to do. But we met him in the middle of his way, and came so close to him that if he had not turned his course, we should have been on board him. As it was, we killed so many of his crew that the vessel had scarcely men enough left alive and unwounded to carry her off. Fortunately for them, the wind sprang up fresh, and they were able to sail away and save their lives.
Having put to flight the vessel which was to relieve the Admiral, we turned about and with a loud halloo joined our friends in the other boat, and came so close under the stern of the Admiral’s ship that we wedged up the rudder and at the same time killed both the Admiral and the chief pilot. Seeing how disabled their ship was, and disheartened by the slaughter, for at least two-thirds of their men had been killed and many others wounded, they cried for quarter, which had several times been offered them, but had been always stoutly denied. So we took possession of the Admiral’s ship and put on board all our wounded men, including Captain Harris, who had been shot through both his legs. As soon as this was done, we instantly sent some of our ships to go and aid Captain Sawkins, who had been fighting against the second Spanish ship. Indeed, to give our enemies their due, no men in the world ever fought more bravely than these same Spaniards.
Coming up close under the Spaniard’s side, we gave him a full volley of shot and expected to have a like return from him, but of a sudden we saw his men that were abaft the mast, blown up in the air, some of them falling into the deck and others into the sea. This disaster was no sooner seen by their valiant Captain than he leaped overboard, and in spite of all our shot succeeded in rescuing some of his men, although he was much burned in both his hands himself. But while he was rescuing these men to reinforce the ship and renew the fight, another jar of powder took fire and blew up several others upon the forecastle.
Under cover of the smoke from these explosions. Captain Sawkins led his men on board and took the ship. Soon after I went on board myself, and indeed, such a miserable sight I never saw in my life. For not one man was to be found but was either killed, desperately wounded or horribly burned with powder, in so much that their black skins were turned white in several places where the powder had torn it from their flesh and bones.
Having compassionated their misery, I afterwards went on board the Admiral’s ship, and here what I saw did much astonish me, and would scarcely be believed by others than ourselves who saw it. There were found on this ship only twenty-five men alive, where before the fight there were four-score and six. And out of these twenty-five men, only eight were able to bear arms, all the rest being desperately wounded, and by their wounds totally unable to make any resistance. Their blood ran down the decks in whole streams, and scarcely one place in the ship was free from blood.
Having once possessed ourselves of two vessels of the little fleet, Captain Sawkins asked the prisoners how many men there were on the largest ship that we could see lying in the harbor of Perico, and also how many were upon the smaller ships. Peralta, the heroic captain of the second vessel, tried to dissuade Sawkins from attacking the Spanish vessels at anchor, saying in the biggest one alone there were three hundred and fifty men, and that all the other vessels would be found too well provided for defense against the small number of the buccaneers. One of the Spaniards, however, who lay dying on the deck, told Captain Sawkins that there was not a single man on board any one of the great ships in the harbor, for they had all been drawn away to fight on the ships of the Little Fleet. Believing the dying man’s story, we sailed into the harbor and went on board the ships, finding, as we had been told, not one person there. They had set on fire the biggest ship and made a hole in her hull, but we put out the flames and stopped the leak. All our wounded were then placed on this ship, which for a time became our hospital.
Having counted up our own loss and damages, we found eighteen of our men killed and twenty-two wounded.
The three captains against whom we fought were esteemed by the Spaniards as the bravest in the South Seas, nor was this reputation undeserved by them, as may easily be seen from the story of this bloody battle. We began the fight about a half hour after sunrise, and by noon had finished the battle. While Captain Peralta was our prisoner, he would often break out and say: “Surely you Englishmen are the valiantest in the whole world, and always design to fight in the open; while all other nations have invented all kinds of ways to barricade themselves and fight as close as possible”; and yet notwithstanding, we killed more of the enemy than they have of us.
The journal of Basil Ringrose is a very interesting document, and we should enjoy following it to the end if we had the space and if it were not for the fact that he devotes so much space to information that is valuable chiefly to a sailor. Accordingly it seems best to give a brief summary of his journal in our own words:
Captain Peter Harris, whom Ringrose calls “a brave and stout soldier and a valiant Englishman, born in the county of Kent,” died of his wounds, and they buried him with the usual honors of war—a volley from all their guns.
The buccaneers captured the five ships that lay near the Island of Perico and divided the spoils among themselves. Within the next two or three days, however, dissensions arose among them, and Captain Coxon, taking with him a large number of men together with most of the Indian allies, deserted the expedition and returned. During this time Captain Sharp was absent, and after the departure of Coxon, Captain Sawkins was chosen to command. For some weeks the buccaneers remained in the Bay of Panama, capturing vessels and ravaging the adjacent islands.
While they were at Taboga, the governor of Panama sent a message to Captain Sawkins inquiring why he came to this locality. Captain Sawkins replied, “We came to assist the Indian King of Darien, who is the true lord of Panama and all the country round about. Since we came so far, there seems to be no reason why we should not have some satisfaction. Accordingly, if you will send us five hundred pieces of eight for each man and a thousand for each commander and will promise no longer to annoy the Indians or deprive them of their liberty, we will go away peaceably: otherwise, we will stay here, get what we can and cause all the damage possible to you.”
In answer to this, the governor inquired by messenger—“From whom do you have your commission and to whom shall I complain for the damages which you have already done?”
The reply of Captain Sawkins to this message was prompt and decisive, for he said, “All my company have not yet arrived, but as soon as they come, we will visit you at Panama and bring our commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time you may read them as plain as the flame of gunpowder can make them.”
On the 22nd of May, Captains Sawkins and Sharp took with them about sixty men and attacked the town of Pueblo Nueva. The buccaneers found that the inhabitants of this town were well prepared for the defense. They had cut down great trees and laid them across the narrow river which led to their town in such a way as to prevent the ascent of any boats.
Sawkins and his followers landed at the mouth of the river and made their way by land until they reached some heavy breastworks which had been thrown up by the Spaniards. With undaunted courage, Sawkins stormed the defenses, and was killed at the head of his men. His loss was a sad one to the pirates, because they regarded him as their most valiant leader, and because, next to Captain Sharp, he was best beloved by them. In fact, his loss meant the desertion of a number more of the buccaneers, who left their companions and returned over land, as Captain Coxon and his officers had done.
Thus all the adventurers who wished to remain in the South Seas and still further ravage the coast of South America, elected Captain Sharp commander-in-chief, and vowed themselves to be faithful to him in all things. A large number, however, of the pirates deserted, preferring the dangers of land travel in the rainy season to continued adventure in the South Seas.
Basil Ringrose was among those who were tired of the expedition and wished to return home, but he finally decided to remain with Captain Sharp because of the great difficulties he foresaw in returning by the shorter way.
It was the last day of May when the mutineers departed, and it was on the sixth of June, a dark and rainy day, that they set sail on the long and adventurous voyage. Almost from the start they met with most vexatious delays which gave an opportunity for the Spanish on shore to send ahead news of their coming. In consequence of this, they were almost everywhere expected, and most of the towns which were unable to defend themselves succeeded in concealing their wealth, provisions and supplies so that the buccaneers were unable to seize treasures of any great value. As a whole, the voyage was a disappointment, but from time to time the adventurers succeeded in taking sufficient food and occasionally gold and silver in such quantities that the voyage was somewhat profitable to those who survived.
The journal of Ringrose is full of interesting little details, which show how exciting the trip must have been, and how great were the perils and privations of its followers.
In one place we find them anchored for four or five days, trying to dry their sails so that they could be able to take them down and repair the hull of their ship, yet all the time the rain fell in such torrents that they were unable to work. At another place he tells of killing a snake which was fourteen inches in circumference and eleven feet in length. On this part of the coast they saw every day whales and grampuses, which often came and dived under the ship, and although the men fired at them several times, the bullets rebounded from their tough skins. At this place, too, the best food consisted of Indian conies, snakes, oysters, periwinkles, a few small turtles and a variety of small fish.
Again, we find some of the most valuable of the men dying from malignant fevers, and all suffering from want of provisions. For a long time they had nothing but flour and water, and then again they were able to revel in small particles of meat, with a good supply of sugar which they took from some of the mills along the coast. Now and then they seized a flock of goats, and then for days the feasting was continuous, while the surplus flesh was salted and stored away for future use.
On the 24th of August they discovered a vessel some distance from them, and because of the darkness, ran very close to it before they were discovered. When they were within hail, they called in Spanish to the ship and commanded it to lower its sails. “Not we,” replied the Spaniards; “we will soon make you lower your own.” The pirates immediately fired upon them, and they responded at a lively rate from their own guns. For half an hour or more the fight was very brisk, and undoubtedly would have lasted much longer had not the buccaneers been fortunate enough to kill the man at the helm, after which no one of the Spaniards dared to take his place, and the ship drifted aimlessly. About the same time another lucky shot tore off the mainsail, and seeing their helpless condition, the Spaniards begged for quarter and gave up their ship. Afterwards they declared that they fought the pirates only out of bravado, for they had agreed on a wager before they left shore to do so in case they met with Captain Sharp. Although the fight was short, the pirates themselves had suffered considerable damage to their ship, and several of their men were sadly wounded.
The captain of the captured vessel gave the buccaneers a great deal of information as to what had happened after they left Panama, and also as to the preparations which were being made to defend the towns against the adventurers, and to capture the vessel if possible whenever it appeared.
At Tumbes they heard that this was the first settlement made by the Spanish after Panama, and that at the time of the settlement a priest went ashore with a cross in his hand, while ten thousand Indians gathered on the hillsides and stood watching him. As he landed, two lions came out of the woods toward him, but when he laid the cross gently over their backs, they fell down and worshiped him; moreover, two tigers following did the same thing. The Indians seeing these wonderful things recognized the power of the Christian religion and at once embraced it.
By the end of October they were near the Fort of Hilo on the coast of Peru, far south of the equator. Here at night they anchored about two miles from the village, while they sent four canoes with fifty men in them to seize and plunder the town. In the morning they discovered by the flags which the men had put out, that the town was in the hands of the English. Accordingly, all the men that could be spared from the ship landed and learned that the enemy had been put to flight after a few volleys had been exchanged. In the town they secured great quantities of pitch and tar, besides oil, wine, flour and several other kinds of provisions. Most of the Spaniards had fled to the hills, and the pirates were afraid that at any moment they might be attacked. About sixty men were sent out to search the valley and the country round about the town. The whole region was found to be very pleasing, thickly set with groves of figs, olives, oranges, lemons and other fruits. About four miles up the valley appeared a great sugar factory, where sugar, oil and molasses were found in abundance. The mill was deserted, and the pirates were unable to capture any of the inhabitants, though from time to time the Spaniards were seen marching along the hilltops whence they tumbled down great stones and fired at random among the buccaneers.
At the sugar factory, under a flag of truce, the Spaniards promised to deliver eighty beef cattle at the port the next day by noon as a ransom for the building. Captain Sharp accordingly sent word that no violence was to be offered to those who brought the beeves down to the ship.
The next morning, the Spaniards, bearing a flag of truce, came to Captain Sharp and told him that sixteen of the cattle were already at the port, and the rest would be there the next morning. Accordingly, the raiders began their retreat to the sea, expecting to re-embark on the ship. Ringrose thought that at least twenty men should be left behind at the sugar house for a lookout to keep watch of the Spaniards, but he was overruled on this and all went on to the port, where, however, no cattle were found, nor was there evidence that any effort had been made to bring them. The next morning Captain Sharp went again to the hills and met the Spaniards, who promised that the cattle would certainly be there by night, and accordingly it was decided to wait one day more. The next morning the experience was repeated, but that day passed without any of the beeves appearing, and on the following morning the pirates marched to the village and burned not only the sugar mill but all of the buildings round about, breaking the machinery and destroying all of the oil and other provisions which they could not carry away.
This done, they returned to the port by a new route over the mountains, and in doing so escaped an ambuscade which would inevitably have destroyed them all. As it was, they reached the shore only to find more than three hundred cavalrymen charging upon them from the north. As quickly as possible the buccaneers threw themselves into a posture of defense and charged to meet the advancing horsemen. The horsemen retreated as the pirates advanced, with the intention of leading the latter away from the village and the rocks near the port. Detecting the stratagem, the pirates returned to the port, and a battle at long range commenced, which lasted the entire day. Meanwhile the Spaniards had been receiving continuous reinforcements, and appeared in numbers on the hills on all sides, so that the pirates, fearing they would be overpowered by force of numbers, resolved that night to escape and sail away from the coast which had brought them so much trouble. Nevertheless, they had gathered a great quantity of provisions, which were very acceptable under the circumstances.
Early in December the buccaneers had another series of exciting experiences at the town of La Serena. Here a force was landed and sent toward the city, but it quickly discovered that the inhabitants had been warned of the approach of the pirates and were rallying to defend themselves, led by a troop of a hundred Spanish horse. The advance guard of the buccaneers, however, was able to rout the Spaniards and drive them from the town. At a short distance away, however, the cavalry rallied, and appeared ready to offer battle in a more favorable place, but the pirates brought up their reinforcements, and when they offered to attack the Spaniards, the latter fled again. A third time they formed and a third time retreated. This method of fighting they continued until the English were drawn far away from the town, which was evidently the plan of the Spaniards, although they lost three of their officers and several horses. The buccaneers, abandoning the chase, crossed the green fields and waded the irrigating streams which enclosed them, finding here and there a house, but all destitute of both inhabitants and provisions. The Spaniards had taken good care that little should be left for the pirates. Near the town they found fine fruit orchards and gardens, and regaled themselves with strawberries, which are described as being big as walnuts and very delicious to the taste. In fact, everything about the place pleased them, excepting the fact that most of the valuables had been transported and hidden. It appeared, too, that the Spaniards, fearing a revolt among their Chilian slaves, had killed nearly all of them. Nevertheless a few were found who served as guides and showed the pirates where much plate and many kinds of valuable goods had been stored away.
The buccaneers spent that night in the village, and the next morning the Spaniards came bearing a flag of truce and offered to treat with their conquerors. The buccaneers finally agreed to depart, providing a ransom of ninety-five thousand pieces of eight was paid. This was promised by the inhabitants, and it was agreed that it should be paid the next day.
That night an earthquake shook the surrounding country and badly frightened the pirates, who were sleeping in one of the largest churches. Moreover, during the night the Spaniards turned the mountain streams through the streets of the town, apparently hoping to drive out the buccaneers, or at least to prevent the burning of the town.
Until noon the next day the pirates waited for the ransom, but when it did not appear they were satisfied that the Spaniards had never intended to pay it, and accordingly the buccaneers burned the town and retreated to the coast. Here they found that the Spaniards had tried to burn the ship by rather an extraordinary stratagem. They took the hide of a horse, blew it up till it floated like a great bladder, and upon it put a man who paddled himself under the stern of the ship. Here he crammed oakum, brimstone and other combustibles between the rudder and the sternpost, and set the whole on fire. In a few moments the vessel was covered with smoke, and in the confusion the Spaniard escaped. However, his plot was not successful, for the pirates had the good fortune to discover the cause of the fire and put it out before any serious damage was done.
Three weeks later, the pirates visited the island of Juan Fernandez, where they spent several days and where they celebrated their Christmas holiday by firing three volleys of shot. They found an abundance of goats on the island and were able to replenish their larder. The water supply was excellent, but at one time when Ringrose with nine of his companions in two canoes had landed to fill their jars, a storm came up which prevented them from returning to the ship. The wind grew so violent that the ship itself was forced to sail out into the open sea. About noon, Ringrose and his companions tried to follow the ship, but were driven back upon the shore by a raging sea. Early in the evening they tried a second time, and got some little distance from land, but the waves were so violent that they were forced to throw overboard all their jars of water to lighten their boats. Even then they were unable to reach their ship, but went ashore in the darkness and hauled up their canoes. They were unable to rest where they landed because of the great numbers of noisy seals that troubled them exceedingly. Therefore they went higher up into the islands, kindled a fire and spent a wet, hungry and uncomfortable night. All about them were the nests and roosting places of a multitude of birds, one of which fell down into their fire and was killed. Early the next morning they put to sea again, and finally found their ship half a league from them at anchor in a bay which furnished them a better anchorage than any they had previously discovered. More days were spent in taking on water, chopping wood, catching fish and killing goats. Terrible storms struck them, and the death of one of their mates made the stay an unhappy one.
Here they were told the story of a man who was cast upon this island, the only one saved from a large ship, and who lived five years there before any one came to carry him off. This was probably Alexander Selkirk, from whose adventures on the island Defoe wrote his Robinson Crusoe. Ringrose tells us that he on a trip into the island one day found cut in the bark of a tree a cross with several letters beside it, and that on the same tree he cut his own name with a cross above it. On the twelfth of January, seeing three ships which appeared to be men-of-war sailing toward them, they hurriedly left the island, abandoning there one of their Indian allies because he could not be found in time. Thus a second Man Friday was deposited upon Robinson Crusoe’s island.
While at the island, some of the buccaneers mutinied, deposed Captain Sharp, and chose Watling to be their commander. When they left the island they went directly to the coast and made a second attempt upon the town of Arica, but they were beaten off with a great loss of men, among the killed being Captain Watling. After their return to the ship, Sharp was again chosen captain, and remained as such until the end of the voyage.
It seems that about the first of February, Ringrose was taken sick, and that thereafter he was unable to keep a constant diary, so that our accounts of the remainder of the voyage are brief and broken.
In March, sick and discouraged by the misfortunes they had met, the buccaneers decided not to continue the voyage, but to land, abandon their ship and return home across the continent. For one reason and another, however, they delayed leaving the ship, and continued to work their way north until about the middle of April. Forty-seven of the men who had been discontented all along were then put ashore, while the rest of the party decided to remain loyal to Captain Sharp, and to go home around the southern part of the continent. Before the mutineers were put ashore, the ship had come north almost to the equator, so that the journey of the deserters was materially lessened. Two of the mutineers reached the Isthmus, crossed it and subsequently published some brief accounts of their experiences.
Sharp’s vessel cruised about in the vicinity of the equator, raiding small towns and capturing Spanish vessels, and piling up a large amount of treasure, until the end of August, when the buccaneers turned south with a determination to make the voyage home as quickly as possible.
About the twentieth of September they passed the Tropic of Capricorn, and by the middle of October they were almost opposite the Straits of Magellan. On this voyage they had kept most of the time far away from the coast, and had landed only when necessary to re-stock their ship with water and provisions.
In the wildest kind of weather they searched the rocky coast, trying to find the opening into the Strait of Magellan, but were unable to do so. Provisions ran low, and many times they feared actual starvation little less than destruction by storms and hidden rocks. Most of them were sick, and all were discouraged. At last they abandoned the idea of going through the straits, and sailed south around Tierra del Fuego through rain and fogs and frost.
About the middle of November they were able to turn their course to the north, and from that time we find them working steadily forward, till, on the twenty-eighth of January, they sighted the island of Barbados. Here they were told that peace was declared between Spain and England, but as they saw one of the British men-of-war lying at anchor, they did not dare to put into the harbor, fearing they would be seized as pirates, for throughout their whole expedition they had had no commission. Still they were overjoyed to see some of their countrymen again and to talk with them, as they did with the mariners on some of the small vessels that were putting out from the island.
They set free at this place a negro who had served them as shoemaker, giving him his liberty because he had worked so faithfully. Besides this, they presented Captain Sharp with a mulatto body servant as a mark of the respect and admiration they had for his skill in conducting them through so many dangerous adventures. Then they divided the last of their prize money and started a fund for the celebration of their return. As a nucleus, there were a hundred pieces of eight, prize money which they could not divide satisfactorily. To this they added the price of a little Spanish dog which they had found on one of their prizes, and which they had fed and cared for to the present time. Captain Sharp bought the dog, paying forty pieces of eight for him, with the understanding that the money should go into the “jollification fund.”
On the thirtieth of January they sighted the island of Antigua, and sent a canoe on shore to get tobacco and find out whether the governor would permit them to come into port. They found everybody excepting the governor willing and anxious to see them, but the latter flatly denied them entry. Accordingly, the ship was given to those of the pirates who had lost all their money at play, while the remainder separated themselves into two groups and took passage for England.
Ringrose and thirteen of his companions reached England on the twenty-sixth of March. There they were tried for piracy in the South Seas, at the instigation of the Spanish ambassador, but were not convicted. On the most serious charge they were released on the plea of self-defense, as it was claimed that the Spaniards had fired first upon them. Three of Sharp’s crew were tried at Jamaica. One pleaded guilty and was hanged, but the other two fought their cases in court and were finally acquitted for lack of evidence.
[1-1] This selection is taken from The Dangerous Voyage and Bold Attempts of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and Others, written in 1685 by Basil Ringrose, one of the pirates who sailed with Captain Sharp.
The expedition was organized with a general design to pillage and plunder on the Isthmus of Darien and the continent of South America. At the original rendezvous there were seven ships containing four hundred and seventy-seven men under the command of experienced pirate captains. The natural leaders were Captains Coxon, Sawkins and Sharp. At first the expedition met with comparatively little opposition, and they captured the town of Santa Maria, but the plunder was so small here that they were dissatisfied with what they were doing and decided again to take and plunder Panama. It is at this point that we take up the narrative of Ringrose.
Where the account appears in the first person, it is practically as it came from the pen of Ringrose, though omissions have been made and occasionally the phraseology has been changed.
DAVID CROCKETT
Unique among the characters in American history and one of the most interesting men of pioneer days was David Crockett, who was born on the 17th of August, 1786, in the backwoods district of what has since become the State of Tennessee. His father, who was of Irish parentage, during his youth lived with his parents in Pennsylvania, but afterwards moved to North Carolina and thence into the Tennessee country. David’s grandparents were both murdered in their own house by the Creek Indians. At the same time, one uncle of David’s was badly wounded, and a second, a younger one, who was deaf and dumb, was captured by the Creeks and kept in captivity for seventeen years, when he was met and recognized by an elder brother, who purchased him from the Indians that held him. Hearing of such atrocities must have affected the young David, and undoubtedly accounts for some of the fierce hatred which the backwoodsman felt for the Creeks, and the callous way in which he looked upon their sufferings when later he fought against them with the militia from his neighborhood.
David had five brothers and three sisters; his father was a poor man who tried farming and other pioneer occupations, who built a mill and lost it in a freshet just as it was completed, and who finally established a little roadhouse or tavern on one of the Tennessee trails. So poor were they that much schooling was impossible for the children, yet David was sent at the proper time, and applied himself diligently for a few days to his letters. However, he was so unfortunate as to quarrel with one of his older companions who little realized the savage nature of the newcomer. That night Davy lay in wait for the larger boy and set upon him so fiercely and beat him so unmercifully that he was soon ready to cry for quarter. On the way home Davy persuaded his brothers to say nothing about the fight, and the next morning instead of going to school, he ran off into the woods, where he stayed until the children returned at night. He kept this up for several days, fearing to return to school and take the whipping he knew he must get from his teacher. In the end his father heard that he was playing truant, and tried to force the boy back to school. Davy refused to go, and when his father tried to punish him, ran away from home and engaged himself to a drover. He was fifteen years old before he returned to his home, and then he had changed so much that his parents did not recognize him, and it was some time before one of his sisters discovered who he really was. They received him joyfully, and thereafter, until he reached his majority, he worked faithfully for his father, paying off the latter’s indebtedness and assisting the family in every possible way.
His life during this time was that of a backwoods boy, working hard and finding his recreation in hunting, fishing and the sports of the border. It was during this time that he acquired the over-powering taste for hunting in the woods, that lasted all his life. During these years, too, he developed that sturdy manhood which carried him through many trying ordeals. Though he never had schooling, and his conversation and writings were lacking in grammar, yet his speech was full of a sharp, rude wit, and his ideas were characterized by shrewd common sense.
Davy’s motto, adopted early in life, was, “Be sure you are right, then go ahead,”—words that his own career made famous.
When the Creek War broke out, Crockett volunteered, and he served as soldier and spy till peace was declared. His experiences there we will let him tell himself, as he wrote them in his autobiography. (See [page 37].)
After his return from the Creek War, he was elected to Congress in 1826 and in 1828. He was defeated in 1830 and re-elected in 1832. When he was first elected he knew very little about the government, and was totally ignorant of his duties as a member of Congress, but here again his good common sense and bright mind came to his aid; and although he worked under great disadvantages, yet he won respect and admiration from the other law-makers. He was always a curious and noticeable figure in Washington, both on account of his dress, which was similar to that of his backwoods companions, and because of his manner, which was as strange as his clothes. Such a man could not help being noticed, and on a trip which he made to Philadelphia, New York and Boston, he was received everywhere kindly and added not a little to his fame.
He was defeated at the close of his third term in Congress, and being stirred by the exciting news that came from Texas, he left his home in Tennessee and went West to join those men who were fighting the Mexicans in an endeavor to make Texas really a free and independent state.
He kept a journal during this trip, and in it he describes very entertainingly his companions and their experiences. Among them were three curious characters: a bee hunter, who was well known through Texas and who left his wife Kate at Nacogdoches; a fierce old man, who had been a pirate and had abandoned the sea for more exciting events on shore; and a quaint gambler, whom Crockett picked up near the Mississippi and persuaded to abandon the petty shell game by which he was getting small sums from the people he met on the way. The real name of this man Crockett never told, but assigned to him the nickname “Thimblerig.”
We shall tell of the fall of the Alamo in another place ([page 141]), but Crockett’s connection with it is so intimate that we must borrow a little from his diary.
We find him writing at San Antonio on the nineteenth of February in high spirits, although he confesses to a shortage of provisions, but hopes to satisfy his appetite with fighting if in no other way. On the twenty-third the enemy came in sight, and the little garrison resolved to defend the Alamo to the last extremity. They made a large national flag of thirteen stripes, red and white alternately on a blue ground, with a large white star in the center, and between the points the word “Texas.” When the flag was raised, the bee hunter sang in his wonderfully mellow voice the following patriotic song, that roused the enthusiasm of his hearers to the highest pitch:
“Up with your banner, Freedom,
The champions cling to thee;
They’ll follow where’er you lead ’em,
To death, or victory;—
Up with your banner, Freedom.
Tyrants and slaves are rushing
To tread thee in the dust;
Their blood will soon be gushing,
And stain our knives with rust;—
But not thy banner, Freedom.
While stars and stripes are flying,
Our blood we’ll freely shed;
No groan will ’scape the dying,
Seeing thee o’er his head;—
Up with your banner, Freedom.”
For the next nine days, Crockett gives an account of their privations and sufferings, their brave and successful defense, and the marked execution they were able to make among the Mexicans who showed themselves within range. On the third of March they had given up all hopes of receiving assistance from without, and had promised to fight to the last extremity, and in dying kill as many of their foes as possible.
His entry for the fourth of March is substantially as follows: “Shells have been falling into the fort like hail during the day, but without effect. About dusk this evening we saw a man running toward the fort pursued by about a dozen Mexican cavalry. The bee hunter immediately recognized him as the old pirate who had gone to Goliad for assistance, and calling to two others, the bee hunter sallied out of the fort to the relief of the old man, I following close after. Before we reached him the Mexicans were close upon his heels. He stopped suddenly, turned short upon his pursuers, discharged his rifle, and saw one of his enemies fall from his horse. After running a short distance again, the old pirate, finding that he would be taken and cut to pieces, turned fiercely, and to the amazement of the enemy clubbed his gun and dashed among them like a wounded tiger. By the time we reached him, his pursuers had fled like sparrows, and in the ardour of the moment we followed them some distance, not seeing that our retreat was cut off by another detachment of cavalry. Nothing was to be done but to fight our way through. We were all of the same mind. They were about twenty in number and stood their ground while we dashed among them, and for about five minutes a bloody conflict ensued. Then a detachment was seen coming from the fort to our relief, and the Mexicans scampered away, leaving eight of their men dead upon the field. We did not escape unscathed, for both the pirate and the bee hunter were mortally wounded, and I received a saber cut across the forehead.
“The old man died without speaking as soon as we entered the fort. We bore my young friend to his bed, dressed his wounds, and I watched beside him. He lay without complaint or manifesting pain, until about midnight, when he spoke. I asked him what he wanted. ‘Nothing,’ he replied with a sigh that seemed to rend his heart, and his eyes filled with tears as he continued his ‘Poor Kate of Nacogdoches; her words were prophetic, Colonel,’ Then he sang in a low voice,—
‘But toom’ cam’ the saddle, all bluidy to see,
And hame cam’ the steed, but hame never cam’ he.’
“He spoke no more, and a few minutes afterward died. Poor Kate, who will tell this to thee?”
The last entry in Crockett’s diary bears date March fifth. It is as follows:
“Pop, pop, pop! Bom, bom, bom! throughout the day.——No time for memorandums now.——Go ahead!——Liberty and independence forever!”
Before daybreak the next morning, the final assault was made on the Alamo, and when Santa Ana entered in person, after the terrible butchery, only six men, among whom was Colonel Crockett, were found alive. The Colonel stood alone in an angle of the fort, the barrel of his broken rifle in his right hand, and in his left a huge Bowie knife dripping blood. Across his forehead was a terrible gash, while around him lay a barrier of dead Mexicans who had fallen at his hands. At his feet lay the body of his friend Thimblerig with his knife driven to the hilt in the throat of a Mexican, and his left hand clenched in his hair.
“General Castrillon was brave and not cruel, and disposed to save the prisoners. He marched them up to that part of the fort where stood Santa Ana and his murderous crew. The steady, fearless step and undaunted tread of Colonel Crockett, on this occasion, together with the bold demeanour of the hardy veteran, had a powerful effect on all present. Nothing daunted, he marched up boldly in front of Santa Ana, and looked him sternly in the face, while Castrillon addressed ‘his Excellency,’—‘Sir, here are six prisoners I have taken alive; how shall I dispose of them?’ Santa Ana looked at Castrillon fiercely, flew into a violent rage, and replied, ‘Have I not told you before how to dispose of them? Why do you bring them to me?’ At the same time his brave officers plunged their swords into the bosoms of their defenceless prisoners. Colonel Crockett, seeing the act of treachery, instantly sprung like a tiger at the ruffian chief, but before he could reach him a dozen swords were sheathed in his indomitable heart; and he fell, and died without a groan, a frown on his brow, and a smile of scorn and defiance on his lips. Castrillon rushed from the scene, apparently horrorstruck, sought his quarters, and did not leave them for several days, and hardly spoke to Santa Ana after.”
It is only fair to say that the account which we have quoted above is denied by some authorities, who say that Crockett was killed before ever Santa Ana entered the Alamo.
DAVID CROCKETT IN THE CREEK WAR
ABRIDGED FROM HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I was living ten miles below Winchester when the Creek warriors commenced their open hostilities by a most bloody butchery at Fort Mimms. There had been no war among us for so long that but few who were not too old to bear arms knew anything about the business. I for one had often thought about war and had often heard it described, and I did verily believe in my own mind that I couldn’t fight at all; but my after-experience convinced me that this was all a notion, for when I heard of the mischief which was done at the fort, I instantly felt like going, and I had none of the dread of dying that I expected to feel.
In a few days a general meeting of the militia was called for the purpose of raising volunteers; and when the day arrived for that meeting, my wife, who had heard me say I meant to go to war, began to beg me not to turn out. It was mighty hard to go against her arguments, but my countrymen had been murdered, and I knew that the next thing would be that the Indians would be scalping the women and children all about there if we didn’t put a stop to it. I reasoned the case with her as well as I could, and told her that if every man would wait till his wife got willing to let him go to war, there would be no fighting done until we would all be killed in our houses; that I was as able to go as any man in the world; and that I believed it was a duty I owed to my country. Whether she was satisfied with this reasoning or not, she didn’t tell me; but seeing I was bent on it, all she did was to cry a little and to turn about to her work. The truth is my dander was up and nothing but war should bring it right again.
I went to Winchester where a muster was to be. When the men were paraded, a lawyer by the name of Jones addressed us; informing us he wished to raise a company, and that then the men should meet and elect their officers. I believe I was about the second or third man that stepped out; but on marching up and down the regiment a few times we found we had a large company.
We volunteered for sixty days, as it was supposed our services would not be longer needed. A day or two after this we met and elected Mr. Jones our Captain, and also elected our other officers. We then received orders to start on the next Monday week; the time arrived, I took a parting farewell of my wife and two little boys, mounted my horse and set sail to join my company. Expecting only to be gone a short time, I took no more clothing with me than I supposed would be necessary; so that if I got into an Indian battle, I might not be pestered with any unnecessary plunder to prevent my having a fair chance with them. We all met and went ahead till we passed Huntsville and camped at a large spring called Beaty’s Spring. Here we stayed several days, in which time the troops began to collect from all quarters. At last we mustered about thirteen hundred strong; all mounted volunteers and all determined to fight, judging from myself, for I felt wolfish all over. I verily believe the whole army was of the real grit.
While we remained at the spring, a Major Gibson came and wanted some volunteers to go with him across the Tennessee River and into the Creek nation to find out the movements of the Indians. He came to my Captain and asked for two of his best woodsmen and such as were best with the rifle. The Captain pointed me out to him, and said he would be security that I would go as far as the major would himself, or any other man.
I willingly engaged to go with him, and asked him to let me choose my own mate to go with me, which he said he would let me do. I chose a young man by the name of George Russell, son of old Major Russell of Tennessee. I called him out, but Major Gibson said he thought he hadn’t beard enough to please him—he wanted men, not boys. I must confess I was a little wrathy with this, for I know’d George Russell and I know’d there was no mistake in him and I didn’t think that courage ought to be measured by the beard; for here a goat would have the preference over a man. I told the major he was on the wrong scent; that Russell could go as far as he could, and I must have him along. He saw I was a little wrathy and said I had the best chance of knowing, and agreed it should be as I wanted it.
We took our camp equipage and mounted our horses; and thirteen in number, including the major, we cut out. We crossed the Tennessee River and then traveled about seven miles further, and took up camp for the night. The next morning, Major Gibson and myself concluded we should separate and take different directions to see what discoveries we could make; so he took six of the men and I five. We were to meet that evening where the roads came together, fifteen miles the other side of the house of a Cherokee Indian named Dick Brown.
I and my men then started and went on to the place of meeting, but Major Gibson was not there. We waited till almost dark, but still he didn’t come. We left the Indian trail a little distance and turning into the head of a hollow, we struck up camp. We stayed next morning till after breakfast; but in vain, for still the major didn’t come.
We started ahead and went about twenty miles to the house of a man by the name of Radcliff. He was a white man, but had married a Creek woman, and lived just in the edge of a Creek nation. He had two sons, large, likely fellows; and a great deal of potatoes and corn; so we fed our horses and got dinner with him. But he was bad scared all the time; he told us that there had been ten painted warriors at his house only an hour before, and if we were discovered there, they would kill us, and his family with us. I replied to him, that my business was to hunt for just such fellows as he had described, and I was determined not to go back until I had done it.
Our dinner being over we saddled up our horses and made ready to start; but some of my small company I found were disposed to return. I told them if we were to go back we should never hear the last of it; and I was determined to go ahead. I know’d some of them would go with me and the rest were afraid to go back by themselves; and so we pushed on to the camp of some friendly Creeks, which was distant about eight miles. The moon was about at the full, and the night was clear; we therefore had the benefit of her light from night to morning, and I knew if we were placed in such danger as to make retreat necessary, we could travel by night as well as in the daytime. It was after dark when we got to the camp, where we found about forty men, women and children.
They had bows and arrows, and I turned to shooting with their bows by the pine light. In this way we amused ourselves very well for a while, but at last a negro, who had been talking to the Indians, came to me and told me they were very much alarmed, for the Red Sticks, as they called the war party of the Creeks, would come and find us there; and if so, we should all be killed. I directed him to tell them that I would watch, and if one would come that night, I should carry the skin of his head home to make me a moccasin. When he made this communication, the Indians laughed aloud.
At about ten o’clock that night, we all concluded to try to sleep a little, but that our horses might be ready for use, we tied them up with their saddles on them and put everything in readiness in case in the night our quarters should get uncomfortable. We laid down with our guns in our arms, and I had just gotten into a dozing sleep when I heard the sharpest scream that ever escaped the throat of a human creature. It was more like a wrathy painter[42-1] than anything else. The negro understood, and he sprang to me, for though I heard the noise well enough, yet I wasn’t wide awake enough to get up; so the negro caught me and said the Red Sticks was coming. I arose quickly then and asked what was the matter. Our negro talked with the Indian, who had just fetched the scream, and learned from him that he had come into camp as a runner, and said that the war party had been crossing the Coosa River all day at the Ten Islands and was going then to meet Jackson. This news very much alarmed the friendly Indians, who were in the camp, and they were all off in ten minutes.
I felt bound to make this intelligence known as soon as possible to the army which we had left; and so we all mounted our horses and put out in a long lope to make our way back to that place. We were about sixty-five miles off. We went on to the Cherokee town we had visited on our way out, having called at Radcliff’s, who was off with his family. At the town we found large fires burning, but not a single Indian was to be seen. They were all gone, and it appeared we must be in great danger. We therefore stayed only a short time in the light of the fires about the town, preferring the light of the moon and the shade of the woods.
We pushed on till we got again to old Mr. Brown’s, which was still about thirty miles from where we had left the main army. When we got there, the chickens were just at the first crowing for day. We fed our horses, got a morsel to eat ourselves, and again cut out.
About ten o’clock in the morning we reached the camp, and I reported to Colonel Coffee the news. He didn’t seem to mind my report a bit, and this raised my dander higher than ever; but I know’d I had to be on my best behavior, and so I kept it all to myself; though I was so mad that I was burning inside like a tar-kiln, and I wonder that the smoke hadn’t been pouring out of me at all points. Major Gibson hadn’t yet returned, and we all began to think he was killed.
The next day, though, the major got in, and brought a worse tale than I had, though he stated the same facts as far as I went. This seemed to put our colonel all into a fidget; and it convinced me clearly of one of the hateful ways of the world. When I made my report, it wasn’t believed because I was no officer: I was no great man, but just a poor soldier; but when the same thing was reported by Major Gibson! why, then it was all as true as preaching, and the Colonel believed it, every word.
He therefore ordered breastworks to be thrown up nearly a quarter of a mile along; and sent an express to General Jackson, requesting him to push on like the very mischief, for fear we should all be cooked up to a cracklin before they could get there. “Old Hickory-face” made a forced march on getting the news, and on the next day he and his men got into camp with their feet all blistered from the effects of their swift journey. The volunteers therefore stood guard all together to let them rest.
About eight hundred of the volunteers, and of that number I was one, were sent on through Huntsville so as to get on the Indians in another direction. After we passed Huntsville, we struck the Tennessee River at Melton’s Bluff. The river is here about two miles wide, and has so rough a bottom in many places as to be dangerous. At this place we left some of the horses with their feet held fast in the crevices of the rocks; their riders went on foot.
We pushed on till we got to what was called the Black Warrior’s town, which stood near the very spot where Tuscaloosa now stands. This Indian town was a large one, but when we arrived we found the Indians had all left it, scared off no doubt by our arrival. There was a large field of corn standing out with a pretty good supply in some cribs. Without delay we secured the corn as well as a fine quantity of dried beans, which were very acceptable to us. Then we burned the town and left the place.
The next day we were entirely out of meat. I went to Colonel Coffee, who was then in command of us, and asked his leave to hunt when we marched. He gave me leave, but told me to take mighty good care of myself. I turned aside to hunt, and had not gone far when I found a deer that had just been killed, for his flesh was still warm and smoking. From this I was sure that the Indians who had killed it had been gone only a few minutes, and though I was never much in favor of one hunter stealing from another, yet meat was so scarce in camp, I just took up the deer on my horse before me and carried it on till night.
I could have sold it for almost any price I would have asked, but this wasn’t my rule either in peace or war. Whenever I had anything and saw a fellow-being suffering, I was more anxious to relieve him than to benefit myself; and this is one of the true secrets of my being a poor man to this day. I gave all my deer away except a small part I kept for myself and just sufficient to make a good supper for my mess. We had to live mostly on parched corn.
The next night I told my mess I would again try for some meat; so I took my rifle and cut out, but hadn’t gone far when I discovered a large gang of hogs. I shot one of them down in his tracks, and the rest broke directly toward the camp. In a few minutes the guns began to roar as bad as if the whole army had been in an Indian battle, and the hogs to squeal as bad as the pig did when the devil turned barber. I shouldered my hog and went on to camp, and when I got there I found they had killed a good many hogs and a fine fat cow into the bargain. The next morning we marched on to a Cherokee town and gave the inhabitants an order on Uncle Sam for the cow and the hogs we had killed.
The next day we met the main army and all went on to Radcliff’s. There we found he had hid all his provisions, and learned that, when I was out as a spy, he had sent a runner to the Indian camp with the news that the Red Sticks were crossing at Ten Islands in order to scare me and my men away with a false alarm. To make some atonement for this, we took the old scoundrel’s two big sons with us, and made them serve through the war.
We marched to the Ten Islands on the Coosa River, where we established a fort and sent out spy companies. They soon made prisoners of Bob Catala and his warriors, and in a few days brought news of some Indians in a town about eight miles off. So we mounted our horses, and put out for that town under the direction of two friendly Creeks.
When we got near the town, we divided, one of our pilots going with each division. Thus we passed on each side of the town, keeping near to it until our lines met at both sides. We then closed up at both ends so as to surround it completely, and sent Captain Hammond to bring on the affray. When he came near the town, the Indians saw him, raised a yell and came running at him like so many red devils. The main army was now formed in a hollow square around the town, to which Hammond retreated till the Indians came within reach. We then gave them a fire and they returned it, after which they ran back into their town, when we began to close on it. The Indians soon saw they were on our property, and wanted us to take them prisoners. Their squaws and children would run and take hold of us as they could, and give themselves up. I saw seven squaws at a time holding on to the hunting-shirt of one man. We took all prisoners that came out to us in this way. I saw some warriors, however, run into a house until I counted forty-six of them. We pursued them until we got near the house, when we saw a squaw sitting in the door. She placed her feet against the bow she had in her hand, took an arrow, raised her feet, drew with all her might and let the arrow fly at us, killing Lieutenant Moore, I believe. His death so enraged us all that she was fired on, and at least twenty balls were blown through her. This was the first man I ever saw killed with a bow and arrow. We now shot them down like dogs, and then set the house on fire, burning it with the forty-six warriors inside.
I remember seeing an Indian boy, who was shot down near the house. His arm and thigh were broken, and he was so near the burning house that his flesh was fairly cooking. In this situation he was still trying to crawl along, but not a murmur escaped him, though he was only twelve years old. When an Indian’s dander is up, he would sooner die than make a noise, or ask for quarter.
The number that we took prisoners being added to the number we killed amounted to one hundred and eighty-six, while five of our men were killed. We then returned to our fort, but no provisions had yet reached us, and we had been for some time on half rations. For several days we remained there almost starving, as all our beef was gone. Then we commenced eating beef hides, and consumed every scrap we could lay our hands on, before we received orders for marching.
We crossed the Coosa River, and when we had come near to Fort Taladega, we met eleven hundred painted warriors, the very choice of the Creek nation, who had shut up the friendly Indians in the fort, and threatened that if they did not come out and fight against the whites, they would lose their fort, ammunition and provisions. The friendly Indians had asked three days to consider their answers, and had immediately started a runner to Captain Jackson, and it was the receipt of this message that had caused us to come over.
The Creeks from their spies had discovered us coming, and told the friendly Indians that we had a great many fine horses and blankets and guns and everything else, and if they would come out and help whip Captain Jackson, they should share the plunder. This they promised to do.
About an hour after sunrise in the morning, piloted by some friendly Indians, we came near the fort and divided as we had done in our former battle; so as to form around the Indians, as before, a hollow square. This time we sent Major Russell and Captain Evans with their companies to bring on the battle.
When they got near the fort, they saw that the top of it was lined with friendly Indians crying out as loud as they could roar—“How-de-do, brothers! How-de-do!” They kept this up till Major Russell had passed by the fort and was moving on toward the besiegers.
The Creeks had concealed themselves under the bank of a branch that run partly around the fort, in the manner of a half moon. They were all painted as red as scarlet, and were just as naked as they were born. Russell could not see them, and was going right into their circle; although the friendly Indians on the top of the fort were trying every plan to show him his danger. He could not understand them, but at last two of them jumped from the fort, ran and took his horse by the bridle, and pointing, told him there were thousands of Creeks lying under the bank. This brought his company to a halt.
At the same moment the Creeks fired on them and came rushing forth from their hiding place like a cloud of Egyptian locusts, and screaming like all the young devils had been turned loose with the old devil at their head. Russell’s company jumped from their horses and hurried into the fort, while their horses ran up to our line, which by this time was come into full view.
The warriors came yelling on until they were within shot of us, when we fired and killed considerable of them. They then broke like a gang of steers, and ran across to the other line, where they were again fired on. And so we kept them running from one line to the other, constantly under a heavy fire, until we had killed upwards of four hundred of them. They fought with guns and also with their bows and arrows, but at length they made their escape through a part of our line, which was made up of drafted militia. We lost fifteen of our men, as brave fellows as ever lived or died. We buried them all in one grave, and started back to our fort, but before we got there two more of our men died with wounds they had received.
We now remained at the fort a few days, but as no provisions came, we were all liable to perish. The weather also began to get very cold, our clothes were nearly worn out, and our horses getting very feeble and poor; so we proposed to General Jackson to let us return home, get fresh horses and fresh clothing, and so be prepared for another campaign. The sixty days for which we had enlisted had long gone out. The General, however, issued his orders against it. Nevertheless, we began to fix for a start home, but the General placed his cannon on a bridge we had to cross, and ordered out his regulars and drafted men to keep us from passing. But when the militia started to guard the bridge, they would shout back to us to bring their knapsacks along when we came, for they wanted to go as bad as we did. We moved on till we reached the bridge, where the General’s men were all strung along on both sides, but we all had our flints ready picked, and our guns ready, so that if we were fired upon, we might fight our way through or all die together. When we came still nearer the bridge, we heard the guards cocking their guns, and we did the same; but not a gun was fired nor a life lost. When we had passed the bridge, no further attempt was made to stop us. The General said we were the worst volunteers he had ever seen. That we would volunteer and go out and fight, and then that we would volunteer and go home again in spite of the devil.
After we had procured fresh horses and a more suitable supply of clothing, a few of us pushed on to the army again. I joined Major Russell’s company of spies and overtook General Jackson, where we established Fort Williams. Then we pushed on to the Horseshoe bend of the Tallapoosa River, where we began to find Indian signs in plenty.
Here we struck up camp for the night; but about two hours before day we heard our guard firing and were all up in little or no time. We mended up our camp fires and then fell back into the dark, expecting to see the Indians pouring in, and intending, when they should do so, to shoot them by the light of our own fires. It so happened, however, that the Indians did not rush in as we expected, but commenced a fire on us as we were. This we returned and continued to shoot as well as we could in the dark, guided only by the flash of the Indians’ guns. When day broke, the Indians disappeared, but they had killed four of our men and wounded several. Whether we killed any of the Indians or not, we could not tell, for it is their custom to carry off their dead whenever they can. We buried ours all in one grave and laid logs over them and set them afire, so that the savages might not find them when they returned, as we knew they would do, to scalp the slain.
We made some horse-litters for our wounded, and took up our retreat. We had to cross a large creek, and when about half our men were over, the Indians commenced firing and kept it up very warmly. They hid themselves behind a large log and could kill one of our men, who were in open ground and exposed, with almost every shot. At this trying moment two of our colonels left their men, and by a forced march crossed the creek out of the reach of the fire. Here Governor Carroll distinguished himself by a greater bravery than I ever saw in any other man. In truth, I believe that if it hadn’t been for Carroll, we should all have been genteelly licked that time; with part of our men on one side of the creek and part on the other, and the Indians all the time pouring it in on us as hot as fresh mustard is to sore skin. I know I was mighty glad when the savages quit us, for I began to think there was one behind every tree in the woods.
Soon after this, an army was raised to go to Pensacola, and I determined to go again with them, for I wanted a small taste of British fighting and supposed I would find it there. I joined old Major Russell again and followed on after the main army with about a hundred and thirty men in our company. We crossed the river near where I had crossed when I first went out; then we passed through the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations to what is called the Cut-off at the junction of the Tom Bigby with the Alabama River.
This place is near the old Fort Mimms where the Indians committed the great butchery at the commencement of the war. The fort was built right in the middle of a large old field; and before the massacre the people had been there so long and lived so quietly that they didn’t apprehend any danger at all, and had therefore become quite careless. A small negro boy, whose business it was to bring up the calves at milking time, had been out for that purpose, and on coming back he said he saw a great many Indians. At this the inhabitants took alarm, closed their gates and put out guards who continued to watch for a few days. Finding that no attack was made, they concluded the little negro had lied, and again threw their gates open and sent out their hands to work their fields. The same boy set out again on the same errand, and returned in great haste and alarm, and informed them he had seen the Indians as thick as trees in the woods. He was not believed, but was tied up to receive a flogging for the supposed lie. In fact he was actually getting badly licked at the very moment when the Indians came in a troop. They were loaded with rails with which they stopped all the portholes of the fort on one side, and then they fell to cutting down the picketing. Those inside the fort had only the bastion to shoot from, and as fast as one Indian would fall, another would catch up his ax and chop away until they succeeded in cutting down enough of the picketing to permit them to enter. Then they rushed through and immediately commenced scalping without regard to age or sex. Having forced the inhabitants up to one side of the fort, they carried on the work as a butcher would in a slaughter pen.
This scene was partly described to me by a young man who was in the fort when it happened. He said that he saw his father and mother, his four sisters and the same number of brothers all butchered in the most shocking manner, and that he made his escape by running over the heads of the crowd to the top of the fort, and then jumped off and ran into the woods. He was closely pursued by several Indians until he came to a small bayou, across which there was a log. He knew the log was hollow on the under side, so he slipped off and hid himself. He said he heard the Indians walk over him, back and forward several times. Nevertheless he remained quiet there until night, when he came out and finished his escape.
We left our horses at the Cut-off and hurried on foot over the eighty miles to Pensacola, where our arrival was hailed with great applause; though we were a little after the feast, for they had taken the town and fort before we got there. The next morning we started back toward old Fort Mimms, where we remained two or three days until General Jackson and the main army set out for New Orleans; while we, under the command of Major Russell, turned south to attack the Indians on the Scamby River.
At Fort Montgomery, about a mile and a half from old Fort Mimms, we remained for some days, where we supplied ourselves pretty well with beef by killing wild cattle, which had formerly belonged to the people who had perished in the fort. At last we moved out on the Scamby River, near which we camped a thousand men, of whom about two hundred were Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians. The Indians had all along proposed to cross the river, and thinking it might be well for them to do so, Major Russell and I with fifteen other men went with them, and early the next morning set out from the river bank. We soon came to a place where the whole country was covered with water, and it looked like a sea. We didn’t stop for this, but just put in like so many spaniels and waded on, sometimes up to our armpits, until we reached the pine hills about a mile and a half away. Here we struck up a fire to warm ourselves, for it was cold and we were chilled through. Again we moved on, keeping our spies out; two to our left near the bank of the river, two straight before us, and five others on our right.
We had gone in this way about six miles up the river, when our spies on the left came to us, leaping about like so many old bucks, and informed us that they had discovered a camp of Creek Indians and that we must kill them. Here we paused for a few minutes, and the prophets pow-wowed over their men awhile and then got out their paint and painted them all according to their custom when going into battle. Then they brought their paint to old Major Russell and said to him, that as he was an officer he must be painted too. He agreed, and they painted him just as themselves. We let the Indians understand that we white men would first fire on the camp and then fall back so as to give the Indians a chance to rush on them and scalp them. The Chickasaws marched on our left hand and the Choctaws on our right, and thus we moved on till we came in hearing of the camp. On nearer approach we found they were on an island, and we could not get to them.
While we were chatting about this matter we heard some guns fired, and in a very short time after a keen whoop. With that we all broke like quarter-horses for the firing. There we met our two front spies, who said they had met two Creeks who were out hunting their horses, and as there was a large cluster of green bay bushes exactly between them, they were within a few feet of meeting before either was discovered. Our spies, speaking in the Shawnee tongue, said they were escaping from General Jackson, who was at Pensacola, and that they wanted to know where they could get something to eat. The Creeks told them that nine miles up the Conaker River was a large camp of Creeks where they had cattle and plenty to eat; and that their own camp was on an island about a mile off, just below the mouth of the Conaker. Then the four struck up a fire, smoked together, shook hands and parted. One of the Creeks had a gun, but the other had none. As soon as they had parted, our Choctaws turned around and shot down the one that had the gun. When the other started to run off, they snapped at him several times, but as the gun missed fire, they ran after him and one of them clubbed him to death with the gun. In doing so they broke the gun, but they fired off the one the Creek had had, and raised a whoop of victory. When we reached them they had cut off the heads of both the Indians and stood ready to scalp them.
Moving on, we came to where a Spaniard, together with a woman whom we supposed to be his wife, and four children, had all been killed and scalped. It was now late evening, and we came down to the river bank opposite the Indian camp, where some friendly Creeks who were with us said they would decoy the Indians from the island. Although they could not call the Indians over, they did succeed in learning that a canoe belonging to the Indians was on our side of the river. Soon we found it, and forty of our warriors crossed over to take the camp. When they arrived they found only one man in the camp, and he escaped; but they captured two squaws and ten children.
For some time after this we marched about, and had several skirmishes with the Indians, in which we killed several of them. We suffered most from lack of food, and were very hard put to it to keep soul and body together; but by hunting a great deal, we managed to live till we met some East Tennessee troops who were on the road to Mobile, and my youngest brother was with them. They had plenty of corn and provisions, and I remained with them until next morning.
Nothing more that is worthy of the reader’s attention transpired till I was safely landed at home once more with my wife and children. I found them, however, doing well, and though I was only a rough sort of a backwoodsman, they seemed mighty glad to see me, however little the quality folks might suppose it. For I do reckon we love as hard in the backwoods country as any people in creation.
[42-1] The name painter is a corruption of panther, and is applied in the United States to the cougar or American lion.
AMERICA
By Samuel Francis Smith
Note.—This poem, which is now considered by many to be the great national hymn of the United States, was sung first at a Fourth of July celebration for children in the Park Street Church, Boston.
The author was born in Boston in 1808, and graduated from Harvard University in the same class with Oliver Wendell Holmes. When Smith wrote America he was a student in the Andover Theological Seminary. Many years after they had left college, Dr. Holmes at a reunion of his class read his famous poem The Boys. In it he alludes to Samuel Francis Smith as follows:
“He chanted a song for the brave and the free;
Just read on his medal ‘My country, of thee.’”
My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountain side
Let freedom ring.
My native country, thee—
Land of the noble free—
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills,
My heart with rapture thrills
Like that above.
Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom’s song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break—
The sound prolong.
Our fathers’ God, to thee,
Author of liberty,
To thee we sing:
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by thy might,
Great God, our King.
Perhaps few who know America and who sing it well understand it thoroughly.
There are a few historical allusions in it. Who were the pilgrims? Why did the pilgrims take pride in the land? Does the author mean Puritans when he says pilgrims?
The first stanza turned into prose might read something as follows: I sing of thee, my own country, the sweet land of liberty. Let all the people who live in this land where our fathers died, in this land which was the pilgrims’ pride, sing songs of freedom till they ring from every mountain side.
In the second stanza the poet in his religious fervor thinks of the hills as being like temples. He calls America the land of the noble free, meaning the noble freemen. Sometimes this line is printed with a comma after the word noble. Then the line means land of the noble man, the free man. The stanza as a whole might be rendered into prose after this manner: I love thee, my country, thou land of the noble free, and I love thy name; I love, too, thy rocks, rills, woods and templed hills, and my heart thrills with rapture like that which is felt by the angels above.
The meaning of the third stanza is clearer if we put it into prose as follows: Let music swell grandly on the breeze, and let the sweet song of freedom ring from all the trees; let every human being sing the song; let all living things join in the chorus. Let even the rocks break the silence and prolong the music with their echoes.
The last stanza means this: O Thou great God, who protected our fathers in the wilderness and who created for them and their descendants the liberty we enjoy, to Thee we offer this devout song and prayer: “Through all the coming centuries may our land be free, and do Thou, great God our King, protect us by Thy far-reaching power.”
We should learn to think of a song like this as a unit, a perfect whole, and the following summary will aid us in so doing:
First stanza—I sing this song about my country, and may such songs of freedom ring everywhere within it.
Second stanza.—I love my country and every good thing in it devotedly.
Third stanza.—Let every one join in songs of freedom.
Fourth stanza.—We sing praises to God, and ask Him to protect us, and keep freedom forever ours.
THE RETREAT OF CORTES[63-*]
By William H. Prescott
There was no longer any question as to the expediency of evacuating the capital. The only doubt was as to the time of doing so, and the route. The Spanish commander called a council of officers to deliberate on these matters. It was his purpose to retreat on Tlascala, and in that capital to decide according to circumstances on his future operations. After some discussion, they agreed on the causeway of Tlacopan as the avenue by which to leave the city. It would, indeed, take them back by a circuitous route, considerably longer than either of those by which they had approached the capital. But, for that reason, it would be less likely to be guarded, as least suspected; and the causeway itself, being shorter than either of the other entrances, would sooner place the army in comparative security on the mainland.
There was some difference of opinion in respect to the hour of departure. The daytime, it was argued by some, would be preferable, since it would enable them to see the nature and extent of their danger, and to provide against it. Darkness would be much more likely to embarrass their own movements than those of the enemy, who were familiar with the ground. A thousand impediments would occur in the night, which might prevent them acting in concert, or obeying, or even ascertaining, the orders of the commander. But, on the other hand, it was urged that the night presented many obvious advantages in dealing with a foe who rarely carried his hostilities beyond the day. The late active operations of the Spaniards had thrown the Mexicans off their guard, and it was improbable they would anticipate so speedy a departure of their enemies. With celerity and caution, they might succeed, therefore, in making their escape from the town, possibly over the causeway, before their retreat should be discovered; and, could they once get beyond that pass of peril, they felt little apprehension for the rest.
The general had already superintended the construction of a portable bridge to be laid over the open canals in the causeway. This was given in charge to an officer named Magarino, with forty soldiers under his orders, all pledged to defend the bridge to the last extremity. The bridge was to be taken up when the entire army had crossed one of the breaches, and transported to the next. There were three of these openings in the causeway, and most fortunate would it have been for the expedition, if the foresight of the commander had provided the same number of bridges. But the labor would have been great, and the time was short.
At midnight the troops were under arms, in readiness for the march. Mass was performed by Father Olmedo, who invoked the protection of the Almighty through the awful perils of the night. The gates were thrown open, and, on the first of July, 1520, the Spaniards for the last time sallied forth from the walls of the ancient fortress, the scene of so much suffering and such indomitable courage.
The night was cloudy, and a drizzling rain, which fell without intermission, added to the obscurity. The great square before the palace was deserted, as, indeed, it had been since the fall of Montezuma. Steadily, and as noiselessly as possible, the Spaniards held their way along the great street of Tlacopan, which so lately had resounded to the tumult of battle. All was now hushed in silence; and they were only reminded of the past by the occasional presence of some solitary corpse, or a dark heap of the slain, which too plainly told where the strife had been hottest. As they passed along the lanes and alleys which opened into the great street, or looked down the canals, whose polished surface gleamed with a sort of ebon lustre through the obscurity of the night, they easily fancied they discerned the shadowy forms of their foe lurking in ambush, and ready to spring on them. But it was only fancy; and the city slept undisturbed even by the prolonged echoes of the tramp of horses, and the hoarse rumbling of the artillery and baggage trains. At length, a lighter space beyond the dusky line of buildings showed the van of the army that it was emerging on the open causeway. They might well have congratulated themselves on having thus escaped the dangers of assault in the city itself, and that a brief time would place them in comparative safety on the opposite shore. But the Mexicans were not all asleep.
As the Spaniards drew near the spot where the street opened on the causeway, and were preparing to lay the portable bridge across the uncovered breach which now met their eyes, several Indian sentinels, who had been stationed at this, as at the other approaches to the city, took alarm and fled, rousing their countrymen by their cries. The priests, keeping their night watch on the summit of the teocallis, instantly caught the tidings and sounded their shells, while the huge drum in the desolate temple of the war-god sent forth those solemn tones, which, heard only in seasons of calamity, vibrated through every corner of the capital. The Spaniards saw that no time was to be lost. The bridge was brought forward and fitted with all possible expedition. Sandoval was the first to try its strength, and, riding across, was followed by his little body of cavalry, his infantry, and Tlascalan allies, who formed the first divisions of the army. Then came Cortes and his squadrons, with the baggage, ammunition wagons, and a part of the artillery. But before they had time to defile across the narrow passage, a gathering sound was heard, like that of a mighty forest agitated by the winds. It grew louder and louder, while on the dark waters of the lake was heard a plashing noise, as of many oars. Then came a few stones and arrows striking at random among the troops. They fell every moment faster and more furious, till they thickened into a terrible tempest, while the very heavens were rent with the yells and war cries of myriads of combatants, who seemed all at once to be swarming over land and lake!
The Spaniards pushed steadily on through this arrowy sleet, though the barbarians, dashing their canoes against the sides of the causeway, clambered up and broke in upon their ranks. But the Christians, anxious only to make their escape, declined all combat except for self-preservation. The cavaliers, spurring forward their steeds, shook off their assailants, and rode over their prostrate bodies, while the men on foot with their good swords or the butts of their pieces drove them headlong again down the sides of the dike.
But the advance of several thousand men, marching, probably, on a front of not more than fifteen or twenty abreast, necessarily required much time, and the leading files had already reached the second breach in the causeway before those in the rear had entirely traversed the first. Here they halted, as they had no means of effecting a passage, smarting all the while under unintermitting volleys from the enemy, who were clustered thick on the waters around this second opening. Sorely distressed, the vanguard sent repeated messages to the rear to demand the portable bridge. At length the last of the army had crossed, and Magarino and his sturdy followers endeavoured to raise the ponderous frame-work. But it stuck fast in the sides of the dike. In vain they strained every nerve. The weight of so many men and horses, and above all of the heavy artillery, had wedged the timbers so firmly in the stones and earth, that it was beyond their power to dislodge them. Still they laboured amidst a torrent of missiles, until, many of them slain, and all wounded, they were obliged to abandon the attempt.
The tidings soon spread from man to man, and no sooner was their dreadful import comprehended, than a cry of despair arose, which for a moment drowned all the noise of conflict. All means of retreat were cut off. Scarcely hope was left. The only hope was in such desperate exertions as each could make for himself. Order and subordination were at an end. Intense danger produced intense selfishness. Each thought only of his own life. Pressing forward, he trampled down the weak and the wounded, heedless whether it were friend or foe. The leading files, urged on by the rear, were crowded on the brink of the gulf. Sandoval, Ordaz, and the other cavaliers dashed into the water. Some succeeded in swimming their horses across. Others failed, and some, who reached the opposite bank, being overturned in the ascent, rolled headlong with their steeds into the lake. The infantry followed pell-mell, heaped promiscuously on one another, or struck down by the war clubs of the Aztecs; while many an unfortunate victim was dragged half-stunned on board their canoes, to be reserved for a protracted, but more dreadful death.
The carnage raged fearfully along the length of the causeway. Its shadowy bulk presented a mark of sufficient distinctness for the enemy’s missiles, which often prostrated their own countrymen in the blind fury of the tempest. Those nearest the dike, running their canoes alongside, with a force that shattered them to pieces, leaped on the land, and grappled with the Christians, until both came rolling down the side of the causeway together. But the Aztec fell among his friends, while his antagonist was borne away in triumph to the sacrifice. The struggle was long and deadly. The Mexicans were recognized by their white cotton tunics, which showed faint through the darkness. Above the combatants rose a wild and discordant clamor, in which horrid shouts of vengeance were mingled with groans of agony, with invocations of the saints and the Blessed Virgin, and with the screams of women; for there were several women, both natives and Spaniards, who had accompanied the Christian camp. Among these, one named Maria de Estrada is particularly noticed for the courage she displayed, battling with broadsword and target like the staunchest of the warriors.
The opening in the causeway, meanwhile, was filled up with the wreck of matter which had been forced into it, ammunition wagons, heavy guns, bales of rich stuffs scattered over the waters, chests of solid ingots, and bodies of men and horses, till over this dismal ruin a passage was gradually formed, by which those in the rear were enabled to clamber to the other side. Cortes, it is said, found a place that was fordable, where, halting, with the water up to his saddle girths, he endeavoured to check the confusion, and lead his followers by a safer path to the opposite bank. But his voice was lost in the wild uproar, and finally, hurrying on with the tide, he pressed forward with a few trusty cavaliers, who remained near his person, to the van; but not before he had seen his favorite page, Juan de Salazar, struck down, a corpse, by his side. Here he found Sandoval and his companions, halting before the third and last breach, endeavouring to cheer on their followers to surmount it. But their resolution faltered. It was wide and deep; though the passage was not so closely beset by the enemy as the preceding ones. The cavaliers again set the example by plunging into the water. Horse and foot followed as they could, some swimming, others with dying grasp clinging to the manes and tails of the struggling animals. Those fared best, as the general had predicted, who traveled lightest; and many were the unfortunate wretches, who, weighed down by the fatal gold which they loved so well, were buried with it in the salt floods of the lake. Cortes, with his gallant comrades, Olid, Morla, Sandoval, and some few others, still kept in the advance, leading his broken remnant off the fatal causeway. The din of battle lessened in the distance; when the rumor reached them, that the rearguard would be wholly overwhelmed without speedy relief. It seemed almost an act of desperation; but the generous hearts of the Spanish cavaliers did not stop to calculate danger, when the cry for succour reached them. Turning their horses’ bridles, they galloped back to the theatre of action, worked their way through the press, swam the canal, and placed themselves in the thick of the mêlée on the opposite bank.
The first grey of the morning was now coming over the waters. It showed the hideous confusion of the scene which had been shrouded in the obscurity of night. The dark masses of combatants, stretching along the dike, were seen struggling for mastery, until the very causeway on which they stood appeared to tremble, and reel to and fro, as if shaken by an earthquake; while the bosom of the lake, as far as the eye could reach, was darkened by canoes crowded with warriors, whose spears and bludgeons, armed with blades of “volcanic glass,” gleamed in the morning light.
The cavaliers found Alvarado unhorsed, and defending himself with a poor handful of followers against an overwhelming tide of the enemy. His good steed, which had borne him through many a hard fight, had fallen under him. He was himself wounded in several places, and was striving in vain to rally his scattered column, which was driven to the verge of the canal by the fury of the enemy, then in possession of the whole rear of the causeway, where they were reinforced every hour by fresh combatants from the city. The artillery in the earlier part of the engagement had not been idle, and its iron shower, sweeping along the dike, had mowed down the assailants by hundreds. But nothing could resist their impetuosity. The front ranks, pushed on by those behind, were at length forced up to the pieces, and, pouring over them like a torrent, overthrew men and guns in one general ruin. The resolute charge of the Spanish cavaliers, who had now arrived, created a temporary check, and gave time for their countrymen to make a feeble rally. But they were speedily borne down by the returning flood. Cortes and his companions were compelled to plunge again into the lake, though all did not escape. Alvarado stood on the brink for a moment, hesitating what to do. Unhorsed as he was, to throw himself into the water, in the face of the hostile canoes that now swarmed around the opening, afforded but a desperate chance of safety. He had but a second for thought. He was a man of powerful frame, and despair gave him unnatural energy. Setting his long lance firmly on the wreck which strewed the bottom of the lake, he sprung forward with all his might, and cleared the wide gap at a leap! Aztecs and Tlascalans gazed in stupid amazement, exclaiming, as they beheld the incredible feat, “This is truly the Tonatiuh,—the child of the Sun!”—The breadth of the opening is not given. But it was so great, that the valorous Captain Diaz, who well remembered the place, says the leap was impossible to any man. Other contemporaries, however, do not discredit the story. It was, beyond doubt, a matter of popular belief at the time; it is to this day familiarly known to every inhabitant of the capital; and the name of the Salto de Alvarado, “Alvarado’s Leap,” given to the spot, still commemorates an exploit which rivaled those of the demi-gods of Grecian fable.
Cortes and his companions now rode forward to the front, where the troops, in a loose, disorderly manner, were marching off the fatal causeway. A few only of the enemy hung on their rear, or annoyed them by occasional flights of arrows from the lake. The attention of the Aztecs was diverted by the rich spoil that strewed the battle-ground; fortunately for the Spaniards, who, had their enemy pursued with the same ferocity with which he had fought, would, in their crippled condition, have been cut off, probably, to a man. But little molested, therefore, they were allowed to defile through the adjacent village of Popotla.
The Spanish commander there dismounted from his jaded steed, and sitting down on the steps of an Indian temple, gazed mournfully on the broken files as they passed before him. What a spectacle did they present! The cavalry, most of them dismounted, were mingled with the infantry, who dragged their feeble limbs along with difficulty; their shattered mail and tattered garments dripping with the salt ooze, showing through their rents many a bruise and ghastly wound; their bright arms soiled, their proud crests and banners gone, the baggage, artillery, all, in short, that constitutes the pride and panoply of glorious war, forever lost. Cortes, as he looked wistfully on their thinned and disordered ranks, sought in vain for many a familiar face, and missed more than one dear companion who had stood side by side with him through all the perils of the Conquest. Though accustomed to control his emotions, or, at least, to conceal them, the sight was too much for him. He covered his face with his hands, and the tears which trickled down revealed too plainly the anguish of his soul.
[63-*] Note.—Hernando Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, sailed from Cuba, which he had assisted in subduing, for the mainland, where he landed in the spring of 1519. After tarrying on the coast for a time, and founding the city of Vera Cruz, he started inland, passing first through the country of the Tlascalans, who were easily induced to submit to him, and who became his most faithful native allies. By November, 1519, the Spaniards had reached the city of Mexico, the capital of the Aztecs, and here they established themselves.
The chief of the Aztecs, Montezuma, determined not to offer serious opposition to the Spaniards, but Cortes was distrustful of the Aztecs, and managed to secure possession of Montezuma, whom he kept as a hostage. Called from the city of Mexico by an expedition which had been sent against him from Cuba, Cortes returned as soon as possible, only to find that the Aztecs had adopted a more aggressive policy. His men were surrounded and attacked as soon as they entered the city, and the attacks were kept up from day to day. Finally, when Montezuma died, it became clear to Cortes that a longer stay in the city would be impossible. This extract from Prescott’s The Conquest of Mexico tells the story of the retreat.
BATTLE OF IVRY
By Lord Macaulay
Note.—When Henry of Navarre became king of France as Henry IV, he found that a part of his subjects, under the duke of Mayenne, refused to submit to him. On March 14, 1590, he won over his enemies a splendid victory at Ivry. In his speech to his soldiers before the battle he called upon them to rally to his white plume, if at any time they lost sight of the standard.
Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!
And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre!
Now let there be the merry sound of music and the dance,
Through thy cornfields green and sunny vines, oh! pleasant land of France.
And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters,
Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters.
As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy,
For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.
Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war;
Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry and King Henry of Navarre.
Oh! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day,
We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array;
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,
And Appenzel’s stout infantry, and Egmont’s Flemish spears,
There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land,
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand;
And as we looked on them, we thought of Seine’s empurpled flood,
And good Coligni’s hoary hair all dabbled with his blood;
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war,
To fight for his own holy name and Henry of Navarre.
The King is come to marshal us, in all his armor drest,
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest;
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye,
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing,
Down all our line, in deafening shout, “God save our lord, the King.”
“And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may—
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray—
Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war,
And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.”
Hurrah! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled din
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin!
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across St. Andre’s plain,
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies now, upon them with the lance!
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest;
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while like a guiding star,
Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.
Now, God be praised, the day is ours! Mayenne hath turned his rein,
D’Aumale hath cried for quarter, the Flemish Count is slain,
Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale;
The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags and cloven mail;
And then we thought on vengeance, and all along our van,
“Remember St. Bartholomew,” was passed from man to man;
But out spake gentle Henry then, “No Frenchman is my foe;
Down, down with every foreigner, but let your brethren go.”
Oh! was there ever such a knight in friendship or in war,
As our sovereign lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre.
Ho! maidens of Vienna,—ho! matrons of Luzerne,
Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return.
Ho! Philip, send for charity, thy Mexican pistoles,
That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen’s souls.
Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright;
Ho! burghers of St. Généviève, keep watch and ward to-night;
For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,
And mocked the counsel of the wise and the valor of the brave.
Then glory to his holy name from whom all glories are;
And glory to our sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre.
THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE
For some time the Greeks had known that danger was threatening them, and in 480 B. C. they learned that it was well-nigh at their gates. Xerxes, the “Great King,” whose heralds when announcing a decree began with the words, “All people and nations and languages,” whose resources both of men and of treasures were more than could be estimated, was gathering his forces to proceed against Greece; and many were the rumors as to the size of his army.
“There were twelve hundred and seven great ships; and in each ship there were two hundred rowers and thirty fighting men. Also he had of smaller ships, having fifty oars or under, three thousand, and in each of these, taking one with another, there were eighty men. Therefore the whole number of the men that served on the ships was five hundred and seventeen thousand and six hundred. Of foot soldiers there were seventeen hundred thousand, and of horsemen eighty thousand, and of Arabs riding on camels and of Libyans that fought from chariots twenty thousand. There were also one hundred and twenty ships of Greeks that dwelt in Thrace and in the islands thereof, and in these twenty and four thousand men. To these must be added foot soldiers of the Thracians, the Pæonians, the Macedonians, and others. And the sum of the whole was two million six hundred and forty-one thousand six hundred and ten. And of all this great host there was none fitter to be the ruler for beauty and great stature than King Xerxes himself. Of those that followed the camp, and of the crews of the provision ships and other vessels of transport, the number was more rather than less than the number of the fighting men. As for the women that ground the corn, and others that came with the army, and the horses and beasts of burden, and dogs, their number can not be told.”
What could the Greeks do against so many? And yet when the envoys of King Xerxes came to the Greek states, demanding from each earth and water, as a sign that Xerxes was lord of land and sea, all the states but Thessaly, which Xerxes would enter first, refused. The Greek states were not always on friendly terms one with another; but the great danger that threatened them now united them in one common object—to repel the Persian invader and to save their temples and their idols from desecration. A council, at which were present deputies from all the Greek states, was held on the Isthmus of Corinth, and plans for defense were considered.
There were two narrow passes through which Xerxes would have to come before he should find himself in Greece proper, and it was evident that it was at such places as these that the few Greeks could best withstand the numerous Persians. To Tempe, therefore, the northernmost of these passes, a body of troops was hastily despatched, but they soon returned declaring that the defense of the pass was out of the question. All agreed then that the best plan would be to guard Thermopylae, which led from Thessaly into Locris. To-day a swampy plain almost three miles broad lies between Mount Œta and the Maliac Gulf, but in ancient times there was but a stretch of sand not more than fifty feet wide at its broadest part, and in some places so narrow that a single wagon could scarce pass along it. The Greek fleet was posted off the coast to prevent the Persians from landing men beyond the pass, and a company was at once gathered for the defense of Thermopylae and put under the command of Leonidas, King of Sparta.
“Now, the Greeks that abode the coming of the Persians in this place were these—three hundred Spartans, heavy-armed men; and men of Tegea and Matinea a thousand, from each five hundred, and from Orchomenus one hundred and twenty, and from the rest of Arcadia a thousand. From Corinth there came four hundred, and from Phlius two hundred, and from Mycenae eighty. So many came from the Peloponnesus; of the Bœotians there came seven hundred from Thespiae and four hundred from Thebes. Besides these there had come at the summons the Locrians of Opus with all the men that they had, and a thousand Phocians.”
All of the Greeks knew that they were setting out on a dangerous enterprise, but to the Spartans it meant more than that. Leonidas himself felt that he was going to his death, for the oracle at Delphi had foretold that Sparta should be saved if one of her kings should perish, and Leonidas was more than willing to make this sacrifice for his state. His three hundred followers, trained from childhood to look upon death as infinitely preferable to defeat, had, with that courage which has made their name an epithet indicating the highest sort of bravery, celebrated their funeral games before setting out. When they came to the pass of Thermopylae, they found a new cause for fear. This was the path which led over the mountains, and which made possible a descent of the enemy to the rear of those stationed in the pass. However, Leonidas was assured that this mountain track was practically unknown, and that the entrance to it was very difficult to find; so when he had sent a band of Phocians to guard it, he thought little more about it. Many of the soldiers, however, felt that they were being subjected to danger unnecessarily, and insisted that they be allowed to retreat to the Isthmus of Corinth. As this would have guarded only the Peloponnesus and have left the other states at the mercy of the Persians, Leonidas determined that they should remain where they were and await the onset of the enemy.
While they lay encamped in the pass, a scout sent by Xerxes rode up to see how strong the enemy were, and how they were employing their time. In front of and on the walls were a number of the Greeks engaging in games and combing out their long hair. Surprised to see so few men, and to see those few busying themselves in such an apparently unnecessary way, the scout rode back and made his report to the Persian king. Now there was in the camp of Xerxes one Demaratus, who had formerly been King of Sparta, but who had been driven out and had joined himself to the Persian court. Xerxes sent for him and, describing to him what he considered the foolishness of the Greeks, asked what it might mean. In reply Demaratus said, “Thou hast heard from me, O King, the truth concerning these men before this, even when we were first beginning this war; but when thou heardest it thou didst laugh at me, though I told thee that which I knew would surely come to pass. For indeed, O King, I strive always with my whole heart to tell thee the truth. Hear, therefore, yet again what I say. These men are come hither to contend with us for the pass; and this they now prepare to do; and they have this custom among them, that when they are about to put their lives in peril they adorn their heads with exceeding care. Know, also, O King, that if thou canst subdue these men, and such others of their nation as have been left behind in Sparta, there is no nation upon the earth that will abide thy coming or lift up a hand against thee; for this city that thou now fightest against is the most honorable in all Greece, and these men are the bravest.”
Incredulously Xerxes asked, “In what manner will these men, being so few, as we know them to be, fight with my great army?”
Demaratus replied, “O King, deal with me as with a liar if everything fall not out even as I have said.”
After this, Xerxes allowed four days to pass, thinking that perhaps the Greeks would come to their senses and flee. “But on the fifth day, seeing that they were not departed, but as it seemed to him, were full of impudence and folly, he grew angry, and sent against them the Medes and the Cissians, giving them a command that they should take these Greeks alive and bring them before him. But when these men came up and fell upon the Greeks, many of them were slain. Then others came up into their places and ceased not from fighting, though indeed they suffered a very grievous slaughter, so that it was manifest to all men, and more especially to the King, that though he had very many that bore arms, yet had he but few men of war. And this battle endured throughout the whole day.”
For two days the troops of Xerxes, even his great Ten Thousand, who were known as the Immortals, hurled themselves upon the Greeks, but they accomplished nothing, for they fought in a narrow place, where their greater numbers were of no help to them; and their spears were shorter than those of the Greeks, so that they were easily thrust through before they could come close enough to harm an enemy. Three times, it is said, while his troops were being driven backward, did Xerxes spring in despair from his throne at the sight of the peril of his army.
But on the evening of the second day there came to the camp of the Persian King a man named Ephialtes. On being ushered into the presence of Xerxes, this man admitted that he was a Greek, and proposed that for a great reward he should lead the Persian army over the hidden mountain path, and bring them to the rear of the Greek defenders. Of course Xerxes accepted the offer, and sent off one of his generals with a detachment to follow Ephialtes over the mountain path. In the morning the Phocians who had been set to guard this path were awakened by the sound of rustling in the underbrush and rushed from their camp only to see a detachment of Persian soldiers close upon them. Resolving to sell their lives dearly, they fled to the top of the mountain, where they thought that they might have the advantage of position over their enemies; but the Persians, paying no attention to them, passed on down the mountain to fall upon the brave defenders of Thermopylae.
The Greeks in the pass knew when morning dawned of the danger that awaited them, for Megistias the soothsayer told of it, and certain messengers running before the Persians confirmed his prophecy. “Then the Greeks held a council, considering what they should do; and they were divided; for some would not leave the post where they had been set, and others were very eager to depart. And when the council was broken up, some departed, going each to their own cities, and others made ready to abide in the pass with Leonidas. Some say, indeed, that Leonidas sent away them that departed, having a care for their safety; but it did not become him and the Spartans that were with him, he said, to leave their post that they had come to keep at the first. And indeed it seems fit to be believed that Leonidas, seeing that the others were faint-hearted and would not willingly abide the peril, bade them go, but that he himself held it to be a shameful thing to depart. For he knew that he should get for himself great glory by abiding at his post, and that the prosperity of Sparta should not be destroyed.”
The allies, therefore, with the exception of the Thespians and the Thebans, departed, and the brave remainder prepared themselves for their death. Hitherto, Leonidas had stood on the defensive in order to spare the lives of his men, but now, knowing that death must come, he desired only to work as great havoc among the Persians as possible, and he therefore marched his men out before the wall and fell upon the vanguard of the Persian army. It does not seem strange that the hired soldiers should have feared to meet this little band of Greeks, and indeed it is told that the Persian captains were obliged to go behind their troops and with whips scourge them to the fight. Many of the Persians were forced into the sea and so died; some were trodden under foot, and thousands fell by the hands of the Greeks. But it was not only the Persians who fell in this fierce struggle; Leonidas was one of the first who was slain, and many other Spartans fell with him.
But the death of their leader did not demoralize the Greeks—it only made them more reckless and more desperate. At length they saw that the end was close at hand; the “Immortals,” who had come in the night over the mountain, had arrived, and were ready to fall upon their rear. Closely pressed by the Persians, they drew back to the narrowest part of the pass, where they had fought on the preceding days, and there made their last stand. Their spears were broken, their swords were dulled; but even had their weapons been still of the best, it would have availed them little, for the Persians, all too well acquainted now with the Greek daring, refused to close with their enemies. In their well-nigh useless armour, which had been hacked from their limbs during their earlier encounters, the Greeks stood on a little hillock and braved the shower of Persian arrows and javelins. By the time the sun went down there remained not one of all the Grecian band, but before their death they had succeeded in slaying twenty thousand of the enemy. Xerxes inquired of Demaratus, in whose word he had come to have more confidence since witnessing the events of the last three days, whether there were many more men at Sparta like these; and when he was told that there were thousands, he realized that perhaps even his mighty army might not be a match for them. That all Greeks were not like the Spartans who had fallen at Thermopylae; that all Greek leaders were not as brave and as devoted as Leonidas—these facts Xerxes did not realize. The struggle which had proved so fatal to so many of his men had shown him that he was not so irresistible, and had thereby done much for the Greeks.
Where the Greeks fell they were buried, and in after years pillars were set up to commemorate their bravery. One, in honor of those who fell before the allies were sent away, bore the words:
“Four times a thousand men from Pelops’ land
Three thousand times a thousand did withstand.”
While over the Spartans by themselves there stood another column which bore the words,
“Go tell the Spartans, thou that passeth by,
That here, obedient to their law, we lie.”
MARCO BOZZARIS
By Fitz-Greene Halleck
Note.—Marco Bozzaris, a Greek patriot of Suli, threw himself heart and soul into the Greek struggle for freedom. On August 20, 1823, he led a night attack against the Turks, who were encamped on the site of ancient Platæa. The Greek army was but a handful in comparison with that of the Turks, but the Turks were thrown into utter confusion, and the attacking party won a complete victory. Bozzaris, however, was killed in the final attack.
At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power.
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch’s signet-ring,
Then pressed that monarch’s throne—a king;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden’s garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,—
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian’s thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Platæa’s day;
And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arms to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far, as they.
An hour passed on, the Turk awoke;
That bright dream was his last;
He woke—to hear his sentries shriek,
“To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!”
He woke—to die midst flame, and smoke,
And shout and groan, and sabre-stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightning from the mountain-cloud;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:
“Strike—till the last armed foe expires;
Strike—for your altars and your fires;
Strike—for the green graves of your sires,
God, and your native land!”
They fought—like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain:
They conquered—but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night’s repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, death,
Come to the mother’s, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born’s breath;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption’s ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet song and dance and wine,—
And thou art terrible; the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.
But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet’s word,
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come when his task of fame is wrought;
Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought;
Come in her crowning hour,—and then
Thy sunken eye’s unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight
Of sky and stars to prisoned men;
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh
To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind, from woods of palm,
And orange-groves, and fields of balm,
Blew o’er the Haytian seas.
Bozzaris! with the storied brave
Greece nurtured in her glory’s time,
Rest thee; there is no prouder grave,
Even in her own proud clime.
She wore no funeral weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,
Like torn branch from death’s leafless tree,
In sorrow’s pomp and pageantry,
The heartless luxury of the tomb.
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone.
For thee her poet’s lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
Of thee her babes’ first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch and cottage bed.
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears.
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys,—
And even she who gave thee birth,—
Will, by her pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh;
For thou art freedom’s now, and fame’s,—
One of the few, the immortal names
That were not born to die.
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM
By Edgar Allen Poe
We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.
“Not long ago,” said he at length, “and I could have guided you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about three years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man—or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of—and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a very old man—but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy?”
The “little cliff,” upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme and slippery edge—this “little cliff” arose, a sheer, unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth, so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky—while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the distance.
“You must get over these fancies,” said the guide, “for I have brought you here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that event I mentioned—and to tell you the whole story with the spot just under your eye.
“We are now,” he continued in that particularizing manner which distinguished him—“we are now close upon the Norwegian coast—in the sixty-eighth degree of latitude—in the great province of Nordland—and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher—hold on to the grass if you feel giddy—so—and look out, beyond the belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea.”
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian geographer’s account of the Mare Tenebrarum. A panorama more deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horridly black and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against it its white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever. Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible a small, bleak-looking island; or, more properly, its position was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped. About two miles nearer the land arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks.
The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. Although at the time so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction—as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.
“The island in the distance,” resumed the old man, “is called by the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm, Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off—between Moskoe and Vurrgh—are Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names of the places—but why it has been thought necessary to name them at all, is more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear anything? Do you see any change in the water?”
We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current which set to the eastward. Even while I gazed this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed—to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea as far as Vurrgh was lashed into ungovernable fury; but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into frenzied convulsion—heaving, boiling, hissing—gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except in precipitous descents.
In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radical alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the whirlpools one by one disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam became apparent where none had been seen before. These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance, and entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly—very suddenly—this assumed a distinct and definite existence in a circle of more than a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the wind an appalling voice, half-shriek, half-roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.
The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an excess of nervous agitation.
“This,” said I at length, to the old man—“this can be nothing else than the great whirlpool of the Maelstrom.”
“So it is sometimes termed,” said he. “We Norwegians call it the Moskoe-strom, from the island of Moskoe in the midway.”
The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception of either the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene—or of the wild, bewildering sense of the novel which confounds the beholder. I am not sure from what point of view the writer in question surveyed it, nor at what time; but it could neither have been from the summit of Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are some passages of this description, nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details, although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle.
“Between Lofoden and Moskoe,” he says, “the depth of the water is between thirty-five and forty fathoms; but on the other side, toward Ver (Vurrgh) this depth decreases so as not to afford a convenient passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on the rocks, which happens even in the calmest weather. When it is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity, but the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea is scarce equaled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts—the noise being heard several leagues off, and the vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its attraction it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom and there beat to pieces against the rocks, and when the water relaxes the fragments thereof are thrown up again. But these intervals of tranquillity are only at the turn of the ebb and flood, and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its violence gradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and its fury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norway mile of it. Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not guarding against it before they were within its reach. It likewise happens frequently that whales come too near the stream, and are overpowered by its violence, and then it is impossible to describe their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro. This stream is regulated by the flux and reflux of the sea—it being constantly high and low water every six hours. One morning, in the year 1645, it raged with such noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on the coast fell to the ground.”
In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of the vortex. The “forty fathoms” must have reference only to portions of the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or Lofoden. The depth in the center of the Moskoe-strom must be immeasurably greater; and no better proof of this fact is necessary than can be obtained from even the sidelong glance into the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the highest crag of Helseggen. Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the bears; for it appeared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing that the largest ship of the line in existence coming within the influence of that deadly attraction could resist it as little as a feather the hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.
The attempts to account for the phenomenon now wore a very different and unsatisfactory aspect. The idea generally received is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among the Ferroe Islands, “have no other cause than the collision of waves rising and falling at flux and reflux against a ridge of rocks and shelves, which confines the water so that it precipitates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher the flood rises the deeper must the fall be, and the natural result of all is a whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which is sufficiently known by lesser experiments.” These are the words of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Kircher and others imagine that in the center of the channel of the Maelstrom is an abyss penetrating the globe, and issuing in some very remote part—the Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in one instance. This opinion, idle in itself, was the one to which, as I gazed, my imagination most readily assented; and, mentioning it to the guide, I was rather surprised to hear him say that, although it was the view almost universally entertained of the subject by the Norwegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As to the former notion, he confessed his inability to comprehend it; and here I agreed with him—for, however conclusive on paper, it becomes altogether unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunder of the abyss.
“You have had a good look at the whirl now,” said the old man, “and if you will creep round this crag so as to get in its lee, and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-strom.”
I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.
“Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in the habit of fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all violent eddies at sea there is good fishing at proper opportunities if one has only the courage to attempt it, but among the whole of the Lofoden coastmen, we three were the only ones who made a regular business of going out to the islands, as I tell you. The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the southward. There fish can be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore these places are preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance, so that we often got in a single day what the more timid of the craft could not scrape together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate speculation—the risk of life standing instead of labor, and courage answering for capital.
“We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes’ slack to push across the main channel of the Moskoe-strom, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack water again, when we weighed and made for home. We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for going and coming—one that we felt sure would not fail us before our return—and we seldom made a miscalculation upon this point. Twice during six years we were forced to stay all night at anchor on account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too boisterous to be thought of. Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of everything (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently that at length we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if it had not been that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross currents—here to-day and gone to-morrow—which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where, by good luck, we brought up.
“I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we encountered ‘on the grounds’—it is a bad spot to be in, even in good weather—but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the Moskoe-strom itself without accident; although at times my heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack. The wind sometimes was not as strong as we thought it at starting, and then we made rather less way than we could wish, while the current rendered the smack unmanageable. My eldest brother had a son eighteen years old, and I had two stout boys of my own. These would have been of great assistance at such times in using the sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing, but somehow, although we ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones get into the danger—for, after all is said and done, it was a horrible danger, and that is the truth.
“It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth day of July, 18—, a day which the people of this part of the world will never forget—for it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens; and yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from the southwest, while the sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was to follow.
“The three of us—my two brothers and myself—had crossed over to the islands about 2 o’clock P. M., and had soon nearly loaded the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were more plentiful that day than we had ever known them. It was just seven by my watch when we weighed and started for home, so as to make the worst of the Strom at slack water, which we knew would be at eight.
“We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and for some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger, for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was most unusual—something that had never happened to us before—and I began to feel a little uneasy without exactly knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but could make no headway at all for the eddies, and I was put upon the point of proposing to return to the anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with a singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.
“In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon us—in less than two the sky was entirely overcast—and what with this and the driving spray it became suddenly so dark that we could not see each other in the smack.
“Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describing. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but, at the first puff both our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed off—the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it for safety.
“Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon water. It had a complete flushed deck, with only a small hatch near the bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten down when about to cross the Strom, by way of precaution against the chopping seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once—for we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the fore-mast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this—which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done—for I was too much flurried to think.
“For some moments we were completely deluged, as I say, and all this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When I could stand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still keeping hold with my hands, and thus got my head clear. Presently our little boat gave herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming out of the water, and thus rid herself in some measure of the seas. I was now trying to get the better of the stupor that had come over me, and to collect my senses so as to see what was to be done, when I felt somebody grasp my arm. It was my elder brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard—but the next moment all this joy was turned to horror—for he put his mouth close to my ear, and screamed out the word ‘Moskoestrom!’
“No one will ever know what my feelings were at that moment. I shook from head to foot, as if I had had the most violent fit of the ague. I knew what he meant by that one word well enough—I knew what he wished to make me understand. With the wind that now drove us on we were bound for the whirl of the Strom, and nothing could save us!
“You perceive that in crossing the Strom channel, we always went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, and then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack—but now we were driving right upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane as this! ‘To be sure,’ I thought, ‘we shall get there just about the slack—there is some little hope in that’—but in the next moment I cursed myself for being so great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew very well that we were doomed had we been ten times a ninety-gun ship.
“By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or perhaps we did not feel it so much as we scudded before it, but at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute mountains. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every direction it was still as black as pitch, but nearly overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky—as clear as I ever saw, and of a deep bright blue—and through it there blazed forth the full moon with a luster that I never before knew her to wear. She lit up everything about us with the greatest distinctness—but, O God, what a scene it was to light up!
“I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother—but, in some manner which I could not understand, the din had so increased that I could not make him hear a single word, although I screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook his head, looking as pale as death, and held up one of his fingers as if to say ‘listen!’
“At first I could not make out what he meant—but soon a hideous thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was not going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. It had run down at seven o’clock! We were behind the time of the slack, and the whirl of the Strom was in full fury!
“When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to slip from beneath her—which appears very strange to a landsman—and this is what is called riding, in sea-phrase. Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly, but presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with it as it rose—up—up—as if into the sky. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. And then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up I had thrown a quick glance around—and that one glance was all sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-strom whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead—but no more like the everyday Moskoe-strom, than the whirl as you now see it is like a mill-race. If I had not known where we were, and what we had to expect, I should not have recognized the place at all. As it was, I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched themselves together as if in a spasm.
“It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek—such a sound as you might imagine given out by the waste-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels letting off their steam all together. We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought of course that another moment would plunge us into the abyss—down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between us and the horizon.
“It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves.
“It may look like boasting—but what I tell you is truth—I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own individual life in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God’s power. I do believe that I blushed with shame when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man’s mind in such extremity, and I have often thought since that the revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a little light-headed.
“There was another circumstance which tended to restore my self-possession, and this was the cessation of the wind, which could not reach us in our present situation—for, as you saw yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general bed of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high, black, mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a heavy gale you can form no idea of the confusion of mind occasioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, deafen, and strangle you, and take away all power of action or reflection. But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these annoyances—just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom is yet uncertain.
“How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge. All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My brother was at the stern, holding on to a small empty water-cask which had been securely lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck that had not been swept overboard when the gale first took us. As we approached the brink of the pit he let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from which, in the agony of his terror, he endeavored to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him attempt this act—although I knew he was a madman when he did it—a raving maniac through sheer fright. I did not care, however, to contest the point with him. I knew it could make no difference whether either of us held on at all, so I let him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask. This there was no great difficulty in doing, for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even keel, only swaying to and fro with the immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position when we gave a wild lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was over.
“As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent I had instinctively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed my eyes. For some seconds I dared not open them, while I expected instant destruction, and wondered that I was not already in my death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had ceased; and the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before while in the belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along. I took courage, and looked once again upon the scene.
“Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.
“At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately. The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed view from the manner in which the smack hung on the inclined surface of the pool. She was quite upon an even keel—that is to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel with that of the water—but this latter sloped at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our beam-ends. I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in this situation than if we had been upon a dead level, and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we revolved.
“The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity. This mist or spray was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of the funnel as they all met together at the bottom, but the yell that went up to the heavens from out of that mist I dare not attempt to describe.
“Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had carried us a great distance down the slope, but our farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round we swept—not with any uniform movement—but in dizzying swings and jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards—sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward at each revolution was slow but very perceptible.
“Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes, barrels, and staves. I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our company. I must have been delirious, for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below. ‘This fir tree,’ I found myself at one time saying, ‘will certainly be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears’—and then I was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant ship overtook it and went down before. At length, after making several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all, this fact—the fact of my invariable miscalculation—set me upon a train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavily once more.
“It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from present observation. I called to mind the great variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-strom. By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the most extraordinary way—so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance of being stuck full of splinters—but then I distinctly recollected that there were some of them which were not disfigured at all. Now I could not account for this difference except by supposing that the roughened fragments were the only ones which had been completely absorbed—that the others had entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or, for some reason, had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not reach the bottom before the turn of the flood came, or of the ebb, as the case might be. I conceived it possible, in either instance, that they might thus be whirled up again to the level of the ocean, without undergoing the fate of those which had been drawn in more early, or absorbed more rapidly. I made also three important observations. The first was that, as a general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent; the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical and the other of any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere; the third, that between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical and the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape I have had several conversations on this subject with an old schoolmaster of the district, and it was from him that I learned the use of the words ‘cylinder’ and ‘sphere.’ He explained to me—although I have forgotten the explanation—how what I observed was in fact the natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments, and showed me how it happened that a cylinder swimming in a vortex offered more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty than an equally bulky body of any form whatever.
“There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in enforcing these observations and rendering me anxious to turn them to account, and this was that at every revolution we passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a vessel, while many of these things which had been on our level when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little from their original station.
“I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself securely to the water-cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I attracted my brother’s attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about to do. I thought at length that he comprehended my design, but, whether this was the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his station by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him, the emergency admitted of no delay, and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings which secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the sea without another moment’s hesitation.
“The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is myself who now tell you this tale—as you see that I did escape—and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have further to say, I will bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might have been an hour or thereabout after my quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid succession, and bearing my loved brother with it, plunged headlong at once and forever into the chaos of foam below. The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew gradually less and less violent. By degrees the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-strom had been. It was the hour of the slack—but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel of the Strom, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast into the ‘grounds’ of the fishermen. A boat picked me up, exhausted from fatigue and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old mates and daily companions, but they knew me no more than they would have known a traveler from the spirit-land. My hair, which had been raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They say, too, that the whole expression of my countenance had changed. I told them my story—they did not believe it. I now tell it to you, and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden.”
A Descent into the Maelstrom is a remarkable example of forcible description as well as of artistic skill in the setting.
I. The first third of the story is an introduction to the main tale. The story itself might seem to be sufficiently exciting, but it would have much less power if it began where the old man commences to tell the tale. Notice what Poe throws into his introduction:
1. He represents the tale as told to himself by an old man with white hair, weakened limbs and unstrung nerves that tremble at the least exertion. The old man claims to be frightened at a shadow, yet he is able to throw himself down to rest with the weightier portion of his body hanging over a precipice and held back from the slippery edge of the cliff of black shining rock, some sixteen hundred feet high, merely by the power of his elbows thrust into the earth. The position is so perilous that the hearer throws himself at full length upon the ground, clinging to the shrubs around him and scarcely daring to glance upward at the sky. Besides the precarious position in which the men are placed, fierce winds that seem to shake the very foundations of the mountain cause thrills of terror to the onlooker.
2. The guide points out the scene of his terrible experience.
3. The author describes the sea, the islands and the location of the whirlpool.
4. Then follows a description of the water in the conflicting channels.
5. Suddenly the circular whirlpool appears, and from the awful height the observers are able to look down into the mouth of the terrific funnel.
6. More description follows, showing what happens to objects caught within the fierce grasp of the revolving waters.
7. Reference is made to ancient accounts of the whirlpool.
8. He makes some effort to explain the causes which would produce such fearful currents so furiously in action, but finds himself unable to arrive at a satisfactory explanation.
Such sights, such a discussion, such a perilous position in which to listen, make the hearer susceptible to the slightest impression.
II. The story proper is told in the most convincing, matter-of-fact way, yet we are conscious all the time that the language of the old man is rather that of a trained writer than of an ignorant fisherman, and here Poe sacrifices the personality of his hero to vividness of incident. What he wishes to accomplish is to impress us with a terrible experience. He does not care to make us see the narrator as a man, yet the story is not devoid of touches of strong human interest; if it were it would be less powerful. The fisherman and his brothers will not take with them their sons on their perilous fishing trip. The youngest brother is carried away in the first blast of the tempest with the mainmast to which he had bound himself. The oldest brother selfishly drives our hero from the ring in the deck.
There are remarkable touches of realism in the story. It was just seven by the old man’s watch when they started for home; later, when the tempest is upon them, it is discovered that the watch had run down at seven o’clock, and they are behind the time of the slack water in the whirlpool.
III. Vividly descriptive phrases abound in the narration, and figures of speech give powerful interest to the imagination.
“We came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream.”
“The roaring noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek—such a sound as you might imagine given out by the waste-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels letting off their steam all together.”
“How foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own individual life in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God’s power.”
“We were now, in a great measure, rid of these annoyances—just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom is yet uncertain.”
IV. It is meant that our interest should center in the story itself. Accordingly, when the narrator has finished his tale the story is finished. We are not further interested in the listener, or in the old man.
V. It is almost unnecessary to say that the tale is pure fiction, and an example of brilliant exaggeration. As a matter of fact the maelstrom is a whirlpool lying where Poe places it, and it has been made noted by many other accounts than this of Poe, most of which are exaggerated, but none of them so brilliant in execution as Poe’s. The difference between high tide and low tide in this vicinity is very great, and every twelve hours vast masses of water must be moved into the fiord and out again through narrow channels and rough rocks. The currents resulting are dangerous to navigation, and there are numerous whirlpools and eddies besides the great maelstrom itself. Ordinarily, however, ships traverse the passage without danger; but when in conjunction with high tide the winds blow fiercely, the sea for miles around becomes highly perilous to small vessels.
PERE MARQUETTE
By Jared Sparks[121-1]
It is generally believed that the Mississippi River was first discovered by Ferdinand de Soto, as early as 1541. The accounts of his expedition in Florida are so highly exaggerated, so indefinite, and in many parts so obviously false, that little more can be inferred from them, than that he passed far into the country, had many combats with the natives, and finally died in the interior. The probability is so strong, however, that he and his party actually crossed the Mississippi, that it has usually been assumed as a historical fact.
The first Europeans, however, who are certainly known to have discovered and explored this river, were two Frenchmen, Father Marquette[121-2] and M. Joliet, in the year 1673. Marquette was a native of Picardy, and Charlevoix calls him “one of the most illustrious missionaries of New France,” adding, that he travelled widely, and made many discoveries besides that of the Mississippi. He had resided some time in Canada, and attained a proficiency in the languages of the principal native tribes who resided in the regions bordering on the Upper Lakes. The first settlement of the old town of Michillimackinac, in 1671, is ascribed to his exertions and influence.
The Indians had given many accounts of a great river at the west, which flowed southwardly, and which they called Mississipy, as the word is written by Marquette. It became a matter of curious speculation, what course this river pursued, and at what place it disembogued itself into the sea. There were three opinions on this subject. First, that it ran towards the southwest, and entered the Gulf of California; secondly, that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico; and thirdly, that it found its way in a more easterly direction, and discharged itself into the Atlantic Ocean somewhere on the coast of Virginia. The question was not less important in a commercial and political view, than interesting as a geographical problem.
To establish the point, and to make such other discoveries as opportunities would admit, M. de Frontenac, the governor of Canada, encouraged an expedition to be undertaken. The persons to whom it was intrusted, were M. Joliet, then residing at Quebec, and Father Marquette, who was at Michillimackinac, or in the vicinity of that place. Marquette wrote an account of his tour, and voyage down the Mississippi, which was sent to France, and published eight years afterwards in Paris. From this account the following particulars are chiefly taken. In some parts the translation is nearly literal, and all the prominent facts are retained.
On the 13th of May, 1673, Father Marquette and M. Joliet, with five other Frenchmen, embarked in two canoes, with a small provision of Indian corn and smoked meat, having previously acquired from the Indians all the intelligence they could afford respecting their proposed route.[123-3]
The first nation[123-4] through which they passed, was the Folles Avoines (Wild Rice),[123-5] so called from the grain of that name, which abounds in the rivers and marshy lands. This plant is described as growing about two feet above the water, resembling European oats, and is gathered by the savages during the month of September. The ears are dried, separated from the chaff, and prepared for food either by pounding into meal, or simply boiling the grain in water.
The natives, having been made acquainted by Father Marquette with his design of visiting the most remote nations, and preaching to them the Gospel, did their utmost to dissuade him from it, representing the cruelty of some of the tribes, and their warlike state, the dangerous navigation of the river, the dreadful monsters that were found in it, and, finally, the excessive heat of the climate.
He thanked them for their good advice, but declined following it; assuring them, that, to secure the success of his undertaking, he would gladly give his life; that he felt no fear of the monsters they described; and that their information would only oblige him to keep more on his guard against surprise. After having prayed, and given them some instructions, he parted from them, and arrived at the Bay of Puans,[124-6] now called Green Bay, where considerable progress had been made by the French priests in the conversion of the Indians.
The name of this bay has a less unpleasant meaning in the Indian, than in the French language, signifying also salt bay, which induced Father Marquette to make strict researches for salt springs in this vicinity, but without success. He concluded, therefore, that the name was given to it in consequence of the ooze and mud deposited there, from whence, as he thought, arise vapors, that produce frequent and violent thunder storms. He speaks of this bay as about thirty leagues long and eight leagues wide at its entrance, gradually contracting towards its head, where the flux and reflux of the tides, much like those of the sea, may be easily observed.
Leaving this bay, they ascended the river, since known as Fox River, that empties into it. At its mouth, he says, the river is broad and deep, and flows gently; but, as you advance, its course is interrupted by rapids and rocks; which he passed, however, in safety. It abounds with bustards,[125-7] ducks, and teal, attracted by the wild rice, which grows there.
Approaching the village of Maskoutins,[125-8] or nation of fire, he had the curiosity to taste the mineral water of a stream in its vicinity. The village consisted of three several nations, namely, Miamis, Maskoutins, and Kikabeaux. The first were the most friendly and liberal, and the finest looking men. Their hair was long over their ears. They were good warriors, successful in their expeditions, docile, and fond of instruction. They were so eager to listen to Father Allouez,[125-9] when he was among them, that they allowed him no repose, even in the night. The Maskoutins and Kikabeaux were coarser, and less civilized; their wigwams were constructed of rushes (birch bark being scarce in this country), and might be rolled up in bundles and carried where they pleased.
In visiting these people, Father Marquette was much gratified at seeing a large cross erected in the center of the village, decorated with thank-offerings to the Great Spirit, for their success during the last winter. The situation of the village was striking and beautiful, it being built on an eminence, whence the eye overlooked on all sides a boundless extent of prairie, interspersed with groves and forests. The soil was good, producing abundantly Indian corn, grapes, and plums.
Immediately on their arrival, Father Marquette and M. Joliet assembled the chiefs, and explained to them the objects of their expedition, expressing their determination to proceed at all risks, and making them some presents. They requested the assistance of two guides, to put them in their way; which request the natives readily granted, returning for their presents a mat, which served them as a bed during the voyage. The next day, being the 10th of June, the two Miamis, their guides, embarked with them in sight of all the inhabitants of the village who looked with astonishment on the hardihood of seven Frenchmen in undertaking such an expedition.
They knew that within three leagues of the Maskoutins was a river, which discharged itself into the Mississippi; and further, that their course must be west southwest; but so many marshes and small lakes intervened, that the route was intricate; the more so, as the river was overgrown with wild rice, which obstructed the channel to such a degree, that it was difficult to follow it. On this account their guides were necessary, who conducted them safely to a portage, which was about two thousand seven hundred paces across.[126-10] The guides aided them in transporting their canoes over the portage to the river, which ran towards the west, and then they left them and returned.
The travellers quitted the waters, which flow towards Quebec, five or six hundred leagues from that place, and embarked on an unknown stream.[127-11] This river was called Mescousin (Wisconsin). It was very broad, but its bottom was sandy, and the navigation was rendered difficult by the shoals.[127-12] It was full of islands, overgrown with vines; and the fertile banks through which it flowed were interspersed with woods, prairies, and groves of nut, oak, and other trees. Numbers of bucks and buffaloes were seen, but no other animals. Within thirty leagues of their place of embarkation, they found iron mines, which appeared abundant and of a good quality. After continuing their route for forty leagues, they arrived at the mouth of the river, in forty-two degrees and a half of latitude;[127-13] and on the 17th of June, they entered with great joy the waters of the Mississippi.
This river derives its source from several lakes in the north. At the mouth of the Mescousin its channel was narrow, and it flowed onwards with a gentle current. On the right was seen a chain of high mountains,[127-14] and on the left fertile fields interrupted by islands in many places. They slowly followed the course of the stream to the south and southwest, until, in forty-two degrees of latitude,[128-15] they perceived a sensible change in the surrounding country. There were but few hills and forests. The islands were covered with beautiful trees.[128-16]
From the time of leaving their guides, they descended the two rivers more than one hundred leagues, without discovering any other inhabitants of the forest, than birds and beasts. They were always on their guard, kindling a fire on the shore towards evening, to cook their food, and afterwards anchoring their canoes in the middle of the stream during the night. They proceeded thus for more than sixty leagues[128-17] from the place where they entered the Mississippi, when, on the 25th of June, they perceived on the bank of the river the footsteps of men, and a well-beaten path leading into a beautiful prairie. They landed, and, leaving the canoes under the guard of their boatmen, Father Marquette and M. Joliet set forth to make discoveries. After silently following the path for about two leagues, they perceived a village, situate on the margin of a river, and two others on a hill, within half a league of the first. As they approached nearer, they gave notice of their arrival by a loud call. Hearing the noise, the Indians came out of their cabins, and, having looked at the strangers for a while, they deputed four of their elders to talk with them, who slowly advanced. Two of them brought pipes ornamented with feathers, which, without speaking, they elevated towards the sun, as a token of friendship. Gaining assurance from this ceremony, Father Marquette addressed them, inquiring of what nation they were. They answered, that they were Illinois, and, offering their pipes, invited the strangers to enter the village; where they were received with every mark of attention, conducted to the cabin of the chief, and complimented on their arrival by the natives, who gathered round them, gazing in silence.
After they were seated, the calumet[130-18] was presented to them, and while the old men were smoking for their entertainment, the chief of all the Illinois tribes sent them an invitation to attend a council at his village. They were treated by him with great kindness, and Father Marquette, having explained to him the motives of this voyage, enforcing each part of his speech with a present, the chief in reply expressed his approbation; but urged him, in the name of the whole nation, not to incur the risks of a further voyage, and rewarded his presents by the gift of a calumet.
The council was followed by a feast, consisting of four courses, from each of which they were fed with much ceremony; and afterwards they were conducted in state through the village, receiving many presents of girdles and garters from the natives. The following day, they took leave of the chief, promising to return in four moons, and were accompanied to their canoes, with every demonstration of joy, by more than six hundred savages.
Before leaving this nation, Father Marquette remarked some of their peculiarities. The name Illinois, in the native language, signifies men, as if implying thereby, that other tribes are brutes in comparison, which in some sense Father Marquette thought to be true, as they were more civilized than most of the tribes. Their language, on the borders of the river, was a dialect of the Algonquin, and was understood by Father Marquette. In the form of their bodies the Illinois were light and active. They were skilful in the use of arms, brave, but mild and tractable in disposition. They were entirely ignorant of the use of leather, and iron tools, their weapons being made of stone, and their clothing of the skins of wild beasts. The soil was rich and productive, and game abundant.
After this peaceful interview with the natives, the voyagers embarked again, and passed down the stream, looking out for the river Pekitanoni (Missouri), which empties into the Mississippi from the northwest.
They observed high and steep rocks, on the face of which were the figures of two monsters, which appeared as if painted in green, red, and blue colors; frightful in appearance, but so well executed, as to leave Father Marquette in doubt, whether they could be the work of savages, they being also at so great a height on the rocks as to be inaccessible to a painter.[131-19]
As they floated quietly down a clear and placid stream, conversing about the figures they had just passed, they were interrupted by the sound of rapids before them; and a mass of floating timber, trunks and branches of trees, was swept from the mouth of the Pekitanoni with such a degree of violence, as to render the passage dangerous. So great was the agitation, that the water was thereby made very muddy, and it did not again become clear.[132-20] The Pekitanoni is described as a large river flowing into the Mississippi from the northwest, with several villages on its banks.
At this place Father Marquette decided, that, unless the Mississippi altered its previous course, it must empty its waters into the Gulf of Mexico; and he conjectured from the accounts of the natives, that, by following the stream of the Pekitanoni, a river would be discovered, which flowed into the Gulf of California.[132-21]
About twenty leagues south of the Pekitanoni, and a little more to the southeast, they discovered the mouth of another river, called Ouabouskigou (Ohio), in the latitude of thirty-six degrees; a short distance above which, they came to a place formidable to the savages, who, believing it the residence of a demon, had warned Father Marquette of its dangers. It proved nothing more than a ledge of rocks, thirty feet high, against which the waves, being contracted by an island, ran with violence, and, being thrown back with a loud noise, flowed rapidly on through a narrow and unsafe channel.
The Ouabouskigou came from the eastward, where the country was thickly inhabited by the tribe of Chuouanons, a harmless and peaceful people, much annoyed by the Iroquois, who were said to capture them as slaves, and kill and torture them cruelly.
A little above the entrance of this river were steep banks, in which the boatmen discovered iron ore, several veins of which were visible, about a foot in thickness, portions of it adhering to the flint-stones; and also a species of rich earth, of three different colors, namely, purple, violet and red, and a very heavy red sand, some of which, being laid on an oar, left a stain during fifteen days. They here first saw tall reeds, or canes, growing on the shores, and began to find the maringouins (mosquitoes) very troublesome; the attacks of which, with the heat of the weather, obliged the voyagers to construct an awning of the sails of their canoes.
Shortly afterwards they saw savages armed with muskets, waiting their approach on the bank of the river. While the boatmen prepared for a defence, Father Marquette presented his calumet and addressed them in Huron, to which they gave no answer, but made signals to them to land, and accept some food. They consequently disembarked, and, entering their cabins, were presented with buffalo’s meat, bear’s oil, and fine plums. These savages had guns, hatchets, knives, hoes and glass bottles for their gunpowder. They informed Father Marquette, that he was within ten days’ journey of the sea; that they purchased their goods of Europeans, who came from the east, that these Europeans had images and beads, played on many instruments, and were dressed like himself; and that they had treated them with much kindness. As they had no knowledge of Christianity, the worthy Father gave them what instruction he could, and made them a present of some medals. Encouraged by the information received from these savages, the party proceeded with renewed ardor on their voyage, between banks covered with thick forests, that intercepted their view of the prairies; in which, however, they heard at no great distance the bellowing of buffaloes. They also saw quails upon the shores, and shot a small parrot.
They had nearly reached the thirty-third degree of latitude,[134-22] steering toward the south, when they discovered a village on the river’s side, called Metchigamea. The natives, armed with bows and arrows, clubs, and tomahawks, prepared to attack them; some in canoes, trying to intercept their course, others remaining on shore. Father Marquette in vain presented his calumet of peace. They were ready to attack, when the elders, perceiving at last the calumet, commanded the young warriors to stop, and, throwing their arms at the feet of the strangers, as a sign of peace, entered their canoes, and constrained them to land, though not without some uneasiness.
As the savages were not acquainted with any of the six languages spoken by Father Marquette, he addressed them by signs, until an old man was found, who understood a little Illinois. Through this interpreter, he explained their intention of going to the borders of the sea, and gave the natives some religious instruction. In reply they answered that whatever information he desired might be obtained at Akamsca (Arkansas), a village ten leagues lower down the river; and presented them with food. After passing a night of some anxiety, they embarked the following morning with their interpreter; a canoe with ten savages preceding them. About half a league from Akamsca, they were met by two canoes full of Indians, the chief of whom presented his calumet, and conducted them to the shore, where they were hospitably received and supplied with provisions. Here they found a young man well acquainted with the Illinois language, and through him Father Marquette addressed the natives, making them the usual presents, and requesting information from them respecting the sea. They answered, that it was within five days’ journey of Akamsca, that they knew nothing of the inhabitants on its borders, being prevented by their enemies from holding intercourse with these Europeans; that their knives and other weapons were purchased partly from the eastern nations, and partly from a tribe of Illinois, to the westward; that the armed savages whom the travellers had met, were their enemies; that they were continually on the river between that place and the sea; and that, if the voyagers proceeded further, great danger might be apprehended from them. After this communication, food was offered, and the rest of the day was spent in feasting.
These people were friendly and hospitable, but poor, although their Indian corn produced three abundant crops in a year, which Father Marquette saw in its different stages of growth. It was prepared for food in pots, which, with plates and other utensils, were neatly made of baked earth by the Indians. Their language was so very difficult, that Father Marquette despaired of being able to pronounce a word of it. Their climate in winter was rainy, but they had no snow, and the soil was extremely fertile.
During the evening the old men held a secret council. Some of them proposed to murder the strangers, and seize their effects. The chief, however, overruled this advice, and, sending for Father Marquette and M. Joliet, invited them to attend a dance of the calumet, which he afterwards presented to them as a sign of peace.
The good Father and his companions began now to consider what further course they should pursue. As it was supposed that the Gulf of Mexico extended as far north as thirty-one degrees and forty minutes, they believed themselves not to be more than two or three days’ journey from it,[136-23] and it appeared to them certain, that the Mississippi must empty itself into that gulf, and not into the sea through Virginia, at the eastward, because the coast of Virginia was in the latitude of thirty-four degrees, at which they had already arrived; nor yet into the Gulf of California, at the southwest, because they had found the course of the river to be invariably south. Being thus persuaded that the main object of their expedition was attained; and considering, moreover, that they were unable to resist the armed savages, who infested the lower parts of the river, and that, should they fall into the hands of the Spaniards, the fruits of their voyage and discoveries would be lost, they resolved to proceed no further, and, having informed the natives of their determination and rested another day, they prepared for their return.
After a month’s navigation on the Mississippi, having followed its course from the forty-second to the thirty-fourth degree of latitude, they left the village of Akamsca, on the 17th of July, to return up the river. They retraced their way, slowly ascending the stream, until, in about the thirty-eighth degree of latitude, they turned into another river (Illinois), which abridged their route and brought them directly to Lake Illinois (Michigan). They were struck with the fertility of the country through which that river flowed, the beauty of the forests and prairies, the variety of the game, and the numerous small lakes and streams which they saw. The river was broad and deep, and navigable for sixty-five leagues, there being, in the season of spring and part of the summer, only half a league of portage between its waters and those flowing into Lake Illinois. On its banks they found a village, the inhabitants of which received them kindly, and, on their departure, extorted a promise from Father Marquette to return and instruct them.[138-24] One of the chiefs, accompanied by the young men, conducted them as far as the lake; whence they proceeded to the Bay of Puans, where they arrived near the end of September, having been absent about four months.[138-25]
Such is the substance of Father Marquette’s narrative; and the whole of it accords so remarkably with the descriptions of subsequent travellers, and with the actual features of the country through which he passed, as to remove every doubt of its genuineness. The melancholy fate of the author, which followed soon afterwards, was probably the reason why his expedition was not in a more conspicuous manner brought before the public.[139-26]
In addition to this narrative, nothing is known of Marquette, except what is said of him by Charlevoix. After returning from this last expedition, he took up his residence, and pursued the vocation of a missionary, among the Miamis in the neighborhood of Chicago.[139-27] While passing by water along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan towards Michillimackinac, he entered a small river, on the 18th of May, 1675.[139-28] Having landed, he constructed an altar, performed mass, and then retired a short distance into the wood, requesting the two men, who had charge of his canoe, to leave him alone for half an hour. When the time had elapsed, the men went to seek for him and found him dead. They were greatly surprised, as they had not discovered any symptoms of illness; but they remembered, that, when he was entering the river, he expressed a presentiment that his voyage would end there. To this day the river retains the name of Marquette. The place of his grave, near its bank, is still pointed out to the traveller; but his remains were removed the year after his death to Michillimackinac.[140-29]
[121-1] Jared Sparks was born in 1789, and was one of the most industrious of our early historians, for he collected documents, edited them, and wrote untiringly on American biography. Some of his work is not considered very reliable, but he contributed a great deal of valuable information in rather a pleasing way. This sketch of Marquette’s expedition is particularly interesting, as he followed so closely the report of the great missionary.
[121-2] Father Marquette, the famous Jesuit explorer and missionary, was born in France in 1637. He was sent as a missionary to Canada, and in 1668 founded the mission of Sault Sainte Marie. In 1673, when he was ordered by Count Frontenac to join Joliet and find and explore the Mississippi, he was in charge of a new mission at Mackinaw.
[123-3] “The joy that we felt at being selected for This Expedition animated our Courage, and rendered the labor of paddling from morning to night agreeable to us.”—Marquette.
[123-4] The wild rice people were the Menominees, who lived on the river that now bears that name and which forms part of the boundary between Wisconsin and Michigan. Father Marquette went out of his way to see these friendly Indians, whose name Menominee means simply wild rice.
[123-5] This wild rice still grows in the streams and lakes of northern Wisconsin and Michigan, still clogs the courses of the rivers and is still gathered by the scattered Indians of that vicinity.
[124-6] The name puans in French signifies ill-smelling.
[125-7] There are no bustards in North America. The writer probably saw wild geese with the ducks.
[125-8] It is not known certainly where this village was located, but it may have been near the present city of Berlin or Princeton.
[125-9] Father Allouez arrived at the Sault Sainte Marie in 1668, and was engaged in missionary work between lakes Superior and Michigan. It is probable that he had visited the Indians the year before.
[126-10] The Fox and Wisconsin river systems approach within a mile and a half of each other at Portage, Wisconsin. The land is low and swampy, and in flood times the current sometimes sets from one river into the other. The government constructed a canal across this narrow divide, which, you see. Marquette described and measured quite accurately.
[127-11] Marquette writes: “Thus we left the Waters flowing to Quebec, four or five hundred leagues from here, to float on those that would thenceforth take us through strange lands. Before embarking thereon, we began all together a new devotion to the blessed Virgin Immaculate, which we practiced daily, addressing to her special prayers to place under her protection, both our persons and the success of our voyage; and, after mutually encouraging one another, we entered our Canoes.”
[127-12] Now, as then, the shifting sand bars make navigation of the Wisconsin difficult and impracticable, although the government has spent large sums of money in trying to improve it.
[127-13] The latitude Marquette gives is about right. 43° is practically correct.
[127-14] “High mountains,” as we now understand the phrase, is an exaggerated term to apply to the bold bluffs about three or four hundred feet high on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, south of McGregor.
[128-15] This is a little south of Savanna, Ill., if Marquette’s latitude is right.
[128-16] Sparks has not given us the whole of the famous journal. Among other interesting things in this connection Marquette writes: “When we cast our nets into the water we caught sturgeon, and a very extraordinary kind of fish. It resembles the trout, with this difference, that its mouth is larger. Near its nose—which is smaller, as are also the eyes—is a large bone, shaped like a woman’s corset-bone, three fingers wide and a cubit long, at the end of which is a disk as wide as one’s hand. This frequently causes it to fall backward when it leaps out of the water.” This was the paddle fish, or spoonbill sturgeon.
[128-17] This was in about 41° latitude.
[130-18] The calumet was a pipe that usually consisted of a bowl of red stone and a long reed stem. In this the Indians smoked tobacco, passing the pipe from one to another in token of peace and friendship. To hold up the calumet was a signal of peace.
[131-19] These monsters Marquette further described thus: “They are as large as a Calf, they have Horns on their heads like those of deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger’s, a face somewhat like a man’s, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending in a fish’s tail.” These figures were on the face of a bluff near Alton, Ill.
[132-20] What Father Marquette did not understand was, that the Missouri brought the mud from far to the northwest and poured it into the clearer waters of the Mississippi. The character of the rivers has not changed in this respect.
[132-21] To us this seems a curious supposition, and Father Marquette had little idea what it would mean to the hardy explorer who should go up the Missouri, cross the mountains and find the head waters of the Colorado. Trace such a route on a map of the United States, and read an account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
[134-22] This was near the mouth of the Saint Francis River, in Arkansas.
[136-23] As a matter of fact, they were more than seven hundred miles from the gulf.
[138-24] This village was called Kaskaskia, and was situated about seven miles below the present city of Ottawa. There was another Kaskaskia to the south and west that became more famous.
[138-25] This journey must have been about twenty-five hundred miles long, and when we consider the smallness of the party, the frailty of their two boats and the savage wildness of both the country and its inhabitants, the accomplishment seems one of the greatest in the history of American exploration.
[139-26] In this connection it is interesting to know that Joliet, who was really the explorer in charge of the expedition, spent the winter preparing a full report of his journey, which he illustrated with carefully drawn maps, and in the spring started for Quebec with them. In passing through La Chine Rapids his canoe was wrecked, and Joliet barely escaped with his life. His precious reports and maps were lost in the rushing waters. Father Marquette’s comparatively brief journal and his map form the only original records of the expedition, and they are preserved at St. Mary’s College, Montreal. The humble priest who sought only to carry his religion to the savages becomes the historian, while the ambitious explorer is hardly remembered in connection with the wonderful journey.
[139-27] Always delicate, his health was grievously broken by his severe labors and privation, and his efforts to keep his promise to the Illinois were attended by terrible sufferings. The winter was passed in a bleak hut, and on his return journey he was not able to walk much of the time.
[139-28] This river was the one on which the city of Ludington, Michigan, is now built.
[140-29] The final resting place of the bones of Marquette is the little village of Saint Agnace, in the mainland of the northern peninsula of Michigan, west of Mackinac Island. A simple monument in the midst of a little park marks his grave.
THE FALL OF THE ALAMO
Texas began its struggle for independence from Mexico in September, 1835, driven to it by the fact that under the rule of the new republic their treatment was little better than it had been while Mexico herself was under the Spanish control. No sooner, however, had the Texans declared their independence than General Cos led a large detachment into the state and determined to drive out of it those Americans who had settled there. The Mexican general met with so fierce a resistance that he was compelled to take refuge behind the walls of the Alamo in San Antonio de Bexar.[141-1] He had seventeen hundred men, but in spite of this fact the two hundred and sixteen Texans under General Burlison stormed the place, captured the Mexican general and sent him under parole to his brother-in-law, the famous Santa Ana.[141-2]
A garrison of about a hundred and sixty men under the joint command of Colonel Travis[142-3] and Colonel Bowie[142-4] was in the Alamo in February of 1836. About this time there came to the Alamo David Crockett[142-5] of Tennessee, a famous hunter, warrior and politician, who had already represented his district in Congress, where he distinguished himself by his rough and powerful oratory.
On the afternoon of February 22nd, a large force of Mexicans under General Santa Ana arrived at San Antonio, and the next morning demanded an unconditional surrender of the fort and its garrison. Although the Texans were taken almost completely by surprise, Travis answered the demand with a cannon shot, and the Mexicans raised the red flag which signified “no quarter.”
The next morning the following proclamation was issued by Colonel Travis:
To the people of Texas and
all Americans of the world.
“Commandancy of the Alamo, Bexar,
“February 24, 1836.
“Fellow Citizens and Compatriots,—I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Ana. I have sustained a continued bombardment and cannonade for twenty-four hours and have not lost a man. The enemy have demanded a surrender at discretion; otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword if the fort is taken. I have answered the summons with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then I call on you in the name of liberty, patriotism, and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all despatch. The enemy are receiving reënforcements daily, and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. Though this call may be neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honour and that of his country. Victory or death!
“(Signed) W. BARRETT TRAVIS,
“Lieut.-Col. Com’t.”
When the Mexicans were first seen in San Antonio the defenders of the Alamo were thrown into a panic, for no one dreamed that enemies were in the vicinity; yet no one of the hardy garrison thought of flight, and after the first surprise was over, order was quickly restored and everything put in readiness for a bitter contest. The possible conflict of authority between Colonel Bowie and Colonel Travis was prevented by the fact that the former had been stricken with pneumonia and was lying in the hospital, a very sick man.
It was soon found that the siege lines of the enemy were not so close but that messengers might be sent through. One or two privates were despatched to bring assistance, but none succeeded in doing so. On the twenty-ninth of February it was resolved to send Captain Seguin, who spoke Spanish fluently, and who might by his own personal influence accomplish what the simple messages alone seemed unable to do. Seguin had no horse of his own, so he went to Colonel Bowie and borrowed his equipment, though the latter was so ill that he scarcely recognized the man who made the request. After a perilous ride, in which they were fired upon by the Mexicans, Seguin and his single aid succeeded in reaching the camp of volunteers which was forming at Gonzales. Here he induced thirty-six men to leave the camp and proceed to the Alamo, which they entered, thus raising the number of defenders to about a hundred and ninety. On the third of March,[144-6] Travis sent another courier with a letter to his governor. In this he stated the situation calmly, urged him to assist him, and closed with the following words: “The bearer of this will give your honorable body a statement more in detail, should he escape through the enemies’ lines. God and Texas! Victory or death.“
For about ten days Travis held the little fort under a storm of cannon balls, which really were more alarming than destructive, for few, if any, of the defenders were killed or wounded. Travis felt that they had been almost miraculously preserved, and in all the hardy company was born a feeling that they could not lose in this terribly one-sided contest. Every day they looked to the northward, hoping to see relief coming, and every night turned in disappointment to the little rest that was allowed them. They fought manfully, wasting no ammunition and making every shot count. Until the final assault, the execution done by the guns was overwhelmingly in favor of the Texans.
The Mexicans had fixed on the morning of the sixth of March for the final assault. Their infantry met, between midnight and dawn, at convenient distances from the fort, in four columns. To each column was assigned a commanding officer with a second to take his place in case the first was disabled. Some of the columns were provided with scaling ladders, axes and other implements by which they might mount the wall or open breaches in it. The cavalry was stationed at different points surrounding the fort, so that they would be able to cut off any fugitives who might escape from the fort. The attack was probably led by General Castrillon, a Spaniard, who had already had a brilliant military career.
It is not thought that Santa Ana engaged personally in the assault, as it is known that before the advance was made, he was stationed with several bands of music and a batterv about five hundred yards south of the Alamo, and that from this point he gave the bugle-signal for the advance. At double-quick time the columns advanced simultaneously against the little fort, one rushing through a breach which had already been made in the walls at the north, a second storming the chapel and a third scaling the west barrier.
General Cos, who had been captured by the Texans the year before and who was released on parole, broke his word of honor and led the storming column against the chapel. All this had been so planned that the several columns should reach the walls of the fort just as the coming dawn gave light enough to guide their movements. When the hour came, the bugle sounded, and the Mexicans, maddened by their losses and determined to avenge themselves on this courageous little troop, rushed forward to the walls while their bands played the assassin music that signified “no quarter.”
It is difficult to give an orderly account of the conflict which followed, but some incidents stand out boldly. General Cos was repulsed from the chapel, and the column which attacked the north wall was badly cut before it succeeded in making an entrance. Here at the breach they met Colonel Travis in person, and here after the action he was found dead with a bullet hole through his head, and by his side a Mexican officer pierced to the heart by a sword still held in the hand of the dead Texan. On the west side the walls were scaled, and after bitter fighting the garrison, driven from the outer defenses, took refuge in the low barracks and other buildings, where, being more united, they could fight to better advantage. However, there was no easy means of communication between the buildings, and thus the surviving Texans soon were broken up into small groups, fighting desperately against the overwhelming numbers of the Mexicans. There was no need of leadership, however, or of direction from officers. The Mexicans purposed to allow no quarter, and nothing remained for the Texans except that each man should fight to the last, doing as great execution as he could before finally falling under the weight of numbers.
Again and again the enemy charged upon the little buildings, while from the windows and loop-holes the crack of rifles and the whiz of bullets showed that the living defenders were still active. It is not exaggerating to say that the assailants fell in heaps, for around each little building and before the long barracks the carnage was dreadful. One by one, however, the buildings were carried at the point of the bayonet, and the little groups of Texans broken up and destroyed.
The last point to yield was the chapel, which seems to have been held by a somewhat larger force than any of the other buildings. However, after the parade grounds were cleared and the other companies destroyed, it was possible to burn the most of the fort and thus batter it down and kill its brave defenders.
It is said that toward the close of the struggle in the chapel, Lieutenant Dickinson was seen to leap from one of the windows with a small child in his arms, and that both were shot as they leaped. This was perhaps the last act in the great tragedy, for if any were alive in the chapel after the lieutenant made his attempted escape, they were quickly bayonetted where they stood.
With the dead and dying strewn around, Santa Ana entered the fort. What he saw there, we cannot attempt to describe, but a few things we must mention. In his own room they found Colonel Bowie dead in his bed, where he had lain too sick to rise; but he had had strength to use his weapons, for four Mexicans had fallen, shot to death in the room, while a fifth lay across the bed with the Colonel’s terrible knife sticking in his heart. Near the door of the magazine it is said that they found Major Evans, the master of ordnance, shot down with a burning match in his hand, before he could fire the powder and blow the fort and his enemies into the air.
Upon a high platform in one corner, there was a small cannon which was turned upon the Mexicans in the fort and did terrible execution. Who handled it is not exactly known, but near it were found the bodies of David Crockett and five of his companions. It is said, though possibly without much foundation, that when Santa Ana stepped into the courtyard he found Crockett and his companions still fighting.
Concealed in one of the rooms under some mattresses, five men were found, and under a bridge crossing an irrigating ditch another was discovered. All these were immediately shot by the orders of Santa Ana, and so hastily and excitedly was it all done that a Mexican was killed with them by accident. The wife of Lieutenant Dickinson, a negro servant of Travis, and a few Mexican women were the only human beings whose lives were spared.
Thus fell the Alamo. In thinking of this bloody tragedy, we must remember that these were simple citizens, bound together by no tie save their affection for one another and their loyalty to a state of whose independence they were as yet ignorant, for though Texas was then the “Lone Star State,” no intimation of the Texas declaration of independence had reached Travis or his devoted followers. According to the report of General Santa Ana, the action lasted but thirty minutes from the time the enemy entered the walls till the resistance was completely quelled.
So many false reports have been made of the number engaged in this struggle that it is impossible even now to tell definitely. We do know that the number of Texans was less than two hundred, and it is probable that about twenty-five hundred Mexicans were engaged in the assault. All the Texans were killed, and from the various accounts we are led to infer that about five hundred Mexicans fell, a number which shows that the defense of the Texans was indeed fierce and bloody.
The history of our country does not show any incident of greater bravery or more heroic self-sacrifice, and it is hardly to be conceived that such a defense will ever be excelled. This was no disciplined force fighting under trained officers, but a group of simple, manly men, not agreeing in all things, but united with the one idea of fighting against cruelty and oppression.
On the Capitol grounds at Austin, Texas, a monument was erected in 1891 to the heroes of the Alamo. On it is this inscription:
“Thermopylæ had her messenger of defeat:
The Alamo had none.”
[141-1] At this time San Antonio had a population of about seven thousand Mexicans, a small proportion of whom were favorable to the Texan cause. The majority had no particular leaning toward either side, but were willing to make the best terms they could. The San Antonio River separated the town from the Alamo village and fort, or mission, as it was originally called. The Alamo proper was a stone structure built during the first settlement of that locality by the Spaniards, who intended it as a refuge for the colonists in case of attacks by the hostile Indians. A wall two and a half feet thick and eight feet high surrounded the stone structure and enclosed an area of two or three acres. It wras so large that it could not have been properly garrisoned by less than a thousand men, and the walls were not thick enough to make it a strong fortification.
[141-2] Santa Ana was one of the most famous of Mexican soldiers and politicians. He was prominent as a leader in the expulsion of the Spaniards, and finally became president of the republic. When Texas seceded, he advanced into that territory, but after his victory at the Alamo was decisively defeated and captured at San Jacinto by General Houston. After he had recognized the independence of Texas, he was released, and twice afterwards he served as president of Mexico.
During our war with that country, the Mexicans under his command were several times defeated, and Santa Ana resigned his commission. In 1853 he was for the last time made president, but before his term expired he was for a third time driven from his country in disgrace.
[142-3] William B. Travis, after serving as a scout, had been appointed lieutenant-colonel and sent by the Texan governor to relieve Colonel Neill at the Alamo. The volunteers there were not willing to accept Travis as higher than second in command, but wished to elect their own colonel. In response to this feeling, Neill issued an order for the election of a lieutenant-colonel, and was about to make his departure, but the Texans seeing his purpose resented it and threatened Neill’s life unless he yielded to their demands. Accordingly, under his direction James Bowie was elected full colonel, and when Travis reached the garrison he found Bowie in full command. Travis brought with him a company of regular recruits, but it was evident that trouble might soon arise between the rival commanders.
[142-4] This Colonel Jas. Bowie had been a popular leader of the Texans, and had already defeated a large Mexican force. It is said that in one of his battles he broke his sword, but fought so desperately and successfully with the stump that afterwards he designed from the broken blade the terrible knife, which was known during the Mexican War and the Rebellion as the “Bowie knife.”
[142-5] David Crockett is so interesting a character that a longer account of him is given on [page 29] of this volume.
[144-6] The people of Texas assembled in a general convention at Washington on the Brazos River, and issued their declaration of independence from Mexico on the second of March, 1836. That same day, General Sam Houston called attention to the perilous position of the garrison at the Alamo, saying, “Independence is declared; it must be maintained. Immediate action united with valor alone can achieve the great work.” This “immediate action” was too late for the brave men in the Alamo.
THE ALHAMBRA
By Washington Irving
Note.—The Alhambra is now a beautiful ruin, but at one time it was the great fortified palace of the Moors and the place where they made their last stand against the Christian Spaniards. From its beautiful courts the Moorish defenders were at last driven, and with their departure the Mohammedan faith ceased as a power in Europe.
The palace occupied but a portion of the space within the walls of the fortress, which in the time of the Moors was capable of containing an army of forty thousand men.
After the kingdom had passed into the hands of the Christians, the castle was occasionally inhabited by the Castilian monarchs. Early in the eighteenth century, however, it was abandoned as a court residence, its beautiful walls became desolate, and some of them fell to ruin, the gardens were destroyed, and the fountains ceased to play.
In 1829 Washington Irving lived for some time within the walls of the Alhambra and studied its history and the legends of Spain. These he has embodied in a charming book, from which we draw a description of the Alhambra.
We now found ourselves in a deep, narrow ravine, filled with beautiful groves, with a steep avenue and various footpaths winding through it, bordered with stone seats and ornamented with fountains. To our left, we beheld the towers of the Alhambra beetling above us; to our right, on the opposite side of the ravine, we were equally dominated by rival towers on a rocky eminence. These, we were told, were the Torres Vermejos, or Vermilion towers, so called from their ruddy hue. No one knows their origin. They are of a date much anterior to the Alhambra. Some suppose them to have been built by the Romans; others, by some wandering colony of Phœnicians. Ascending the steep and shady avenue, we arrived at the foot of a huge square Moorish tower, forming a kind of barbican, through which passed the main entrance to the fortress. This portal is called the Gate of Justice, from the tribunal held within its porch during the Moslem domination, for the immediate trial of petty causes; a custom common to the Oriental nations, and occasionally alluded to in the sacred Scriptures.
The great vestibule, or porch of the gate, is formed by an immense Arabian arch of the horseshoe form, which springs to half the height of the tower. On the keystone of this arch is engraven a gigantic hand. Within the vestibule, on the keystone of the portal, is engraven, in like manner, a gigantic key. Those who pretend to some knowledge of Mohammedan symbols affirm that the hand is the emblem of doctrine, and the key of faith; the latter, they add, was emblazoned on the standard of the Moslems when they subdued Andalusia, in opposition to the Christian emblem of the cross.
It was a tradition handed down from the oldest inhabitants, and which our informant had from his grandfather, that the hand and key were magical devices on which the fate of the Alhambra depended. The Moorish king who built it was a great magician, and, as some believed, had sold himself to the devil, and had laid the whole fortress under a magic spell. By this means it had remained standing for several hundred years, in defiance of storms and earthquakes, while almost all the other buildings of the Moors had fallen to ruin and disappeared. The spell, the tradition went on to say, would last until the hand on the outer arch should reach down and grasp the key, when the whole pile would tumble to pieces, and all the treasures buried beneath it by the Moors would be revealed.
After passing through the barbican we ascended a narrow lane, winding between walls, and came on an open esplanade within the fortress, called the Plaza de los Algibes, or Place of the Cisterns, from great reservoirs which undermine it, cut in the living rock by the Moors, for the supply of the fortress. Here, also, is a well of immense depth, furnishing the purest and coldest of water, another monument of the delicate taste of the Moors, who were indefatigable in their exertions to obtain that element in its crystal purity.
In front of the esplanade is the splendid pile commenced by Charles V, intended, it is said, to eclipse the residence of the Moslem kings. With all its grandeur and architectural merit, it appeared to us like an arrogant intrusion, and passing by it we entered a simple, unostentatious portal, opening into the interior of the Moorish palace.
The transition was almost magical; it seemed as if we were at once transported into other times and another realm, and were treading the scenes of Arabian story. We found ourselves in a great court paved with white marble and decorated at each end with light Moorish peristyles. It is called the court of the Alberca. In the center was an immense basin, or fish-pool, a hundred and thirty feet in length by thirty in breadth, stocked with goldfish, and bordered by hedges of roses. At the upper end of this court rose the great tower of Comares.
From the lower end, we passed through a Moorish archway into the renowned Court of Lions. There is no part of the edifice that gives us a more complete idea of its original beauty and magnificence than this; for none has suffered so little from the ravages of time. In the center stands the fountain famous in song and story. The alabaster basins still shed their diamond drops, and the twelve lions which support them cast forth their crystal streams as in the days of Boabdil. The court is laid out in flower-beds, and surrounded by light Arabian arcades of open filigree work, supported by slender pillars of white marble.
The architecture, like that of all the other parts of the palace, is characterized by elegance rather than grandeur, bespeaking a delicate and graceful taste, and a disposition to indolent enjoyment. When we look upon the fairy tracery of the peristyles and the apparently fragile fretwork of the walls, it is difficult to believe that so much has survived the wear and tear of centuries, the shocks of earthquakes, the violence of war, and the quiet, though no less baneful, pilferings of the tasteful traveler. It is almost sufficient to excuse the popular tradition that the whole is protected by a magic charm.
On one side of the court a portal richly adorned opens into a lofty hall paved with white marble, and called the Hall of the Two Sisters. A cupola or lantern admits a tempered light from above, and a free circulation of air. The lower part of the walls is incrusted with beautiful Moorish tiles, on some of which are emblazoned the escutcheons of the Moorish monarchs: the upper part is faced with the fine stucco work invented at Damascus, consisting of large plates cast in molds and artfully joined, so as to have the appearance of having been laboriously sculptured by the hand into light relievos and fanciful arabesques, intermingled with texts of the Koran, and poetical inscriptions in Arabian and Celtic characters. These decorations of the walls and cupolas are richly gilded, and the interstices paneled with lapis lazuli and other brilliant and enduring colors. Above an inner porch is a balcony which communicated with the women’s apartment. The latticed balconies still remain, from whence the dark-eyed beauties of the harem might gaze unseen upon the entertainments of the hall below.
It is impossible to contemplate this once favorite abode of Oriental manners without feeling the early associations of Arabian romance, and almost expecting to see the white arm of some mysterious princess beckoning from the balcony, or some dark eye sparkling through the lattice. The abode of beauty is here, as if it had been inhabited but yesterday—but where are the Zoraydas and Linderaxas!
On the opposite side of the Court of Lions is the hall of the Abencerrages, so called from the gallant cavaliers of that illustrious line, who were here perfidiously massacred. There are some who doubt the whole truth of this story, but our humble attendant, Mateo, pointed out the very wicket of the portal through which they are said to have been introduced, one by one, and the white marble fountain in the center of the hall, where they were beheaded. He showed us also certain broad, ruddy stains in the pavement, traces of their blood, which, according to popular belief, can never be effaced. Finding we listened to him with easy faith, he added that there was often heard at night, in the Court of the Lions, a low, confused sound, resembling the murmurings of a multitude; with now and then a faint tinkling, like the distant clank of chains. These noises are probably produced by the bubbling currents and tinkling falls of water, conducted under the pavement through the pipes and channels to supply the fountains; but according to the legend of the son of the Alhambra, they are made by the spirits of the murdered Abencerrages, who nightly haunt the scene of their suffering, and invoke the vengeance of Heaven on their destroyer.
From the Court of Lions we retraced our steps through the court of the Alberca, or great fish-pool, crossing which, we proceeded to the tower of Comares, so called from the name of the Arabian architect. It is of massive strength and lofty height, domineering over the rest of the edifice and overhanging the steep hillside, which descends abruptly to the banks of the Darro. A Moorish archway admitted us into a vast and lofty hall, which occupies the interior of the tower and was the grand audience chamber of the Moslem monarchs, thence called the hall of Ambassadors. It still bears the traces of past magnificence. The walls are richly stuccoed and decorated with arabesques, the vaulted ceilings of cedar wood, almost lost in obscurity from its height, still gleam with rich gilding and the brilliant tints of the Arabian pencil. On three sides of the saloon are deep windows, cut through the immense thickness of the walls, the balconies of which look down upon the verdant valley of the Darro, the streets and convents of the Albaycin, and command a prospect of the distant Vega. I might go on to describe the other delightful apartments of this side of the palace; the Tocador or toilet of the Queen, an open belvedere on the summit of the tower, where the Moorish sultanas enjoyed the pure breezes from the mountain and the prospect of the surrounding paradise; the secluded little patio or garden of Lindaraxa, with its alabaster fountain, its thickets of roses and myrtles, of citrons and oranges; the cool halls and grottoes of the baths, where the glare and heat of the day are tempered into a self-mysterious light and a pervading freshness.
An abundant supply of water, brought from the mountains by old Moorish aqueducts, circulates throughout the palace, supplying its baths and fish-pools, sparkling in jets within its halls, or murmuring in channels along the marble pavements. When it has paid its tribute to the royal pile, and visited its gardens and pastures, it flows down the long avenue leading to the city, trinkling in rills, gushing in fountains, and maintaining a perpetual verdure in those groves that embower and beautify the whole hill of the Alhambra.
While the city below pants with the noon-tide heat, and the parched Vega trembles to the eye, the delicate airs from the Sierra Nevada play through the lofty halls, bringing with them the sweetness of the surrounding gardens. Everything invites to that indolent repose, the bliss of Southern climes; and while the half-shut eyes look out from shaded balconies upon the glittering landscape, the ear is lulled by the rustling of groves and the murmur of running streams.
The reader has had a sketch of the interior of the Alhambra, and may be desirous of a general idea of its vicinity. The morning is serene and lovely; the sun has not gained sufficient power to destroy the freshness of the night; we will mount to the summit of the tower of Comares, and take a bird’s-eye view of Granada and its environs.
Come, then, worthy reader and comrade, follow my steps into this vestibule ornamented with rich tracery, which opens to the hall of Ambassadors. We will not enter the hall, however, but turn to the left, to this small door, opening in the wall. Have a care! here are steep winding steps and but scanty light. Yet, up this narrow, obscure and winding staircase the proud monarchs of Granada and their queens have often ascended to the battlements of the tower to watch the approach of Christian armies or to gaze on the battles in the Vega. At length we are upon the terraced roof, and may take breath for a moment, while we cast a general eye over the splendid panorama of city and country, of rocky mountain, verdant valley and fertile plain; of castle, cathedral, Moorish towers and Gothic domes, crumbling ruins and blooming groves.
Let us approach the battlements and cast our eyes immediately below. See—on this side we have the whole plan of the Alhambra laid open to us, and can look down into its courts and gardens. At the foot of the tower is the Court of the Alberca with its great tank or fish-pool bordered with flowers; and yonder is the Court of Lions, with its famous fountain, and its light Moorish arcades; and in the center of the pile is the little garden of Lindaraxa, buried in the heart of the building, with its roses and citrons and shrubbery of emerald green.
That belt of battlements studded with square towers, straggling round the whole brow of the hill, is the outer boundary of the fortress. Some of the towers, you may perceive, are in ruins, and their massive fragments are buried among vines, fig-trees and aloes.
Let us look on this northern side of the tower. It is a giddy height; the very foundations of the tower rise above the groves of the steep hillside. And see, a long fissure in the massive walls shows that the tower has been rent by some of the earthquakes which from time to time have thrown Granada into consternation; and which, sooner or later, must reduce this crumbling pile to a mere mass of ruin. The deep, narrow glen below us, which gradually widens as it opens from the mountains, is the valley of the Darro; you see the little river winding its way under embowered terraces and among orchards and flower gardens. It is a stream famous in old times for yielding gold, and its sands are still sifted occasionally in search of the precious ore. Some of those white pavilions which here and there gleam from among groves and vineyards were rustic retreats of the Moors, to enjoy the refreshment of their gardens.
The airy palace with its tall white towers and long arcades, which breast yon mountain, among pompous groves and hanging gardens, is the Generaliffe, a summer palace of the Moorish kings, to which they resorted during the sultry months, to enjoy a still more breezy region than that of the Alhambra. The naked summit of the height above it, where you behold some shapeless ruins, is the Silla del Moro, or seat of the Moor; so called from having been a retreat of the unfortunate Boabdil during the time of an insurrection, where he seated himself and looked down mournfully upon his rebellious city.
A murmuring sound of water now and then rises from the valley. It is from the aqueduct of yon Moorish mill nearly at the foot of the hill. The avenue of trees beyond is the Alameda along the bank of the Darro, a favorite resort in evenings, and a rendezvous of lovers in the summer nights, when the guitar may be heard at a late hour from the benches along its walks. At present there are but a few loitering monks to be seen there, and a group of water carriers from the fountain of Avellanos.
You start! ’Tis nothing but a hawk we have frightened from his nest. This old tower is a complete brooding-place for vagrant birds. The swallow and martlet abound in every chink and cranny, and circle about it the whole day long; while at night, when all other birds have gone to rest, the moping owl comes out of its lurking place and utters its boding cry from the battlements. See how the hawk we have dislodged sweeps away below us, skimming over the tops of the trees, and sailing up to ruins above the Generaliffe.
Let us leave this side of the tower and turn our eyes to the west. Here you behold in the distance a range of mountains bounding the Vega, the ancient barrier between Moslem Granada and the land of the Christians. Among the heights you may still discern warrior towns, whose gray walls and battlements seem of a piece with the rocks on which they are built; while here and there is a solitary atalaya or watch-tower, mounted on some lofty point, and looking down as if it were from the sky, into the valleys on either side. It was down the defiles of these mountains, by the pass of Lope, that the Christian armies descended into the Vega. It was round the base of yon gray and naked mountain, almost insulated from the rest, and stretching its bald, rocky promontory into the bosom of the plain, that the invading squadrons would come bursting into view, with flaunting banners and the clangor of drums and trumpets. How changed is the scene! Instead of the glittering line of mailed warriors, we behold the patient train of the toilful muleteer, slowly moving along the skirts of the mountain.
Behind that promontory is the eventful bridge of Pinos, renowned for many a bloody strife between Moors and Christians; but still more renowned as being the place where Columbus was overtaken and called back by the messenger of Queen Isabella just as he was departing in despair to carry his project of discovery to the court of France.
Behold another place famous in the history of the discoverer; yon line of walls and towers, gleaming in the morning sun in the very center of the Vega; the city of Santa Fe, built by the Catholic sovereigns during the siege of Granada, after a conflagration had destroyed their camp. It was to these walls that Columbus was called back by the heroic queen, and within them the treaty was concluded that led to the discovery of the Western World.
Here, toward the south, the eye revels on the luxuriant beauties of the Vega, a blooming wilderness of grove and garden, and teeming orchards, with the Xenil winding through it in silver links and feeding innumerable rills, conducted through ancient Moorish channels, which maintain the landscape in perpetual verdure. Here are the beloved bowers and gardens and rural retreats for which the Moors fought with such desperate valor.
Beyond the embowered region of the Vega you behold, to the south, a line of arid hills down which a long train of mules is slowly moving. It was from the summit of one of those hills that the unfortunate Boabdil cast back his last look upon Granada and gave vent to the agony of his soul. It is the spot famous in song and story, “The last sigh of the Moor.”
Now raise your eyes to the snowy summit of yon pile of mountains, shining like a white summer cloud on the blue sky. It is the Sierra Nevada, the pride and delight of Granada; the source of her cooling breezes and perpetual verdure, of her gushing fountains and perennial streams. It is this glorious pile of mountains that gives to Granada that combination of delights so rare in a southern city: the fresh vegetation and the temperate airs of a northern climate, with the vivifying ardor of a tropical sun, and the cloudless azure of a southern sky. It is this aërial treasury of snow, which, melting in proportion to the increase of the summer heat, sends down rivulets and streams through every glen and gorge of the Alpuxarras, diffusing emerald verdure and fertility throughout a chain of happy and sequestered valleys.
These mountains may well be called the glory of Granada. They dominate the whole extent of Andalusia, and may be seen from its most distant parts. The muleteer hails them as he views their frosty peaks from the sultry level of the plain; and the Spanish mariner on the deck of his bark, far, far off on the bosom of the blue Mediterranean, watches them with a pensive eye, thinks of delightful Granada, and chants in low voice some old romance about the Moors.
But enough, the sun is high above the mountains, and is pouring his full fervor upon our heads. Already the terraced roof of the town is hot beneath our feet; let us abandon it, and descend and refresh ourselves under the arcades by the fountain of the Lions.
HERVÉ RIEL
By Robert Browning
Note.—This poem of Browning’s furnishes its own historical setting; it gives date and places and names. All, in fact, that it does not tell us is that the battle at Cape la Hogue was a part of the struggle between England and France undertaken because Louis XIV of France would not acknowledge William III as king of England.
The poem is written in characteristic Browning style. You have read in the earlier volumes An Incident of the French Camp, How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, and the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and are therefore familiar with Browning’s custom of leaving out words, using odd, informal words which another man might think out of place in poetry, and employing strange, sometimes jerky, meters.
On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French—woe to France!
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro’ the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.
’Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;
Close on him fled, great and small,
Twenty-two good ships in all;
And they signalled to the place,
“Help the winners of a race!
Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick or, quicker still,
Here’s the English can and will!”
Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;
“Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?” laughed they:
“Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored,
Shall the ‘Formidable’ here with her twelve and eighty guns
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,
Trust to enter where ’tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,
And with flow at full beside?
Now, ’tis slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring? Rather say,
While rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!”
Then was called a council straight.
Brief and bitter the debate:
“Here’s the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow
All that’s left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,
For a prize to Plymouth Sound?
Better run the ships aground!”
(Ended Damfreville his speech).
Not a minute more to wait!
“Let the Captains all and each
Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!
France must undergo her fate.
Give the word!” But no such word
Was ever spoke or heard;
For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these—
A captain? A lieutenant? A mate—first, second, third?
No such man of mark, and meet
With his betters to compete!
But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet,
A poor coasting-pilot he, Hervé Riel the Croisickese.
And, “What mockery or malice have we here?” cries Hervé Riel:
“Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?
Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell
’Twixt the offing here and Grève where the river disembogues?
Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying’s for?
Morn and eve, night and day,
Have I piloted your bay,
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.
Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!
Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there’s a way!
Only let me lead the line,
Have the biggest ship to steer,
Get this ‘Formidable’ clear,
Make the others follow mine,
And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well,
Right to Solidor past Grève,
And there lay them safe and sound;
And if one ship misbehave,
Keel so much as grate the ground,
Why, I’ve nothing but my life—here’s my head!” cries Hervé Riel.
Not a minute more to wait.
“Steer us in, then, small and great!
Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!” cried its chief.
Captains, give the sailor place!
He is Admiral, in brief.
Still the north-wind, by God’s grace!
See the noble fellow’s face,
As the big ship with a bound,
Clears the entry like a hound,
Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea’s profound!
See, safe thro’ shoal and rock,
How they follow in a flock,
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground.
Not a spar that comes to grief!
The peril, see, is past,
All are harbored to the last,
And just as Hervé Riel hollas “Anchor!”—sure as fate
Up the English come, too late!
So, the storm subsides to calm:
They see the green trees wave
On the heights o’erlooking Grève.
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm.
“Just our rapture to enhance,
Let the English rake the bay,
Gnash their teeth and glare askance,
As they cannonade away!
‘Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!”
How hope succeeds despair on each captain’s countenance!
Out burst all with one accord,
“This is Paradise for Hell!
Let France, let France’s King
Thank the man that did the thing!”
What a shout, and all one word,
“Hervé Riel!”
As he stepped in front once more,
Not a symptom of surprise
In the frank blue Breton eyes,
Just the same man as before.
Then said Damfreville, “My friend,
I must speak out at the end,
Though I find the speaking hard.
Praise is deeper than the lips:
You have saved the King his ships,
You must name your own reward.
’Faith our sun was near eclipse!
Demand whate’er you will,
France remains your debtor still.
Ask to heart’s content and have! or my name’s not Damfreville.”
Then a beam of fun outbroke
On the bearded mouth that spoke,
As the honest heart laughed through
Those frank eyes of Breton blue:
“Since I needs must say my say,
Since on board the duty’s done,
And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?—
Since ’tis ask and have, I may—
Since the others go ashore—
Come! A good whole holiday!
Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!”
That he asked and that he got—nothing more.
Name and deed alike are lost:
Not a pillar nor a post
In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;
Not a head in white and black
On a single fishing smack,
In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack
All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell.
Go to Paris: rank on rank
Search the heroes flung pell-mell
On the Louvre, face and flank!
You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel.
So, for better and for worse,
Hervé Riel, accept my verse!
In my verse, Hervé Riel, do thou once more
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife, the Belle Aurore!
THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
By Lord Byron
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it?—No; ’twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet—
But, hark!—that heavy sound breaks in once more
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier that before!
Arm! Arm! it is—it is—the cannon’s opening roar!
Within a windowed niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear.
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rushed into the field, and, foremost, fighting, fell.
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne’er might be repeated; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips—“The foe! They come! They come!”
And wild and high the “Cameron’s gathering” rose!
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:—
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instills
The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan’s, Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears!
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with nature’s tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,—alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Of living valor, rolling on the foe
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay,
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms,—the day
Battle’s magnificently-stern array!
The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse,—friend, foe,—in one red burial blent.
HOW THEY TOOK THE GOLD-TRAIN[180-1]
By Charles Kingsley[180-2]
A fortnight or more has passed in severe toil;[180-3] but not more severe than they have endured many a time before. Bidding farewell once and forever to the green ocean of the eastern plains, they have crossed the Cordillera; they have taken a longing glance at the city of Santa Fé, lying in the midst of rich gardens on its lofty mountain plateau, and have seen, as was to be expected, that it was far too large a place for any attempt of theirs. But they had not altogether thrown away their time. Their Indian lad[181-4] has discovered that a gold-train is going down from Santa Fé toward the Magdalena; and they are waiting for it beside the miserable rut which serves for a road, encamped in a forest of oaks which would make them almost fancy themselves back again in Europe, were it not for the tree-ferns which form the undergrowth; and were it not, too, for the deep gorges opening at their very feet; in which, while their brows are swept by the cool breezes of a temperate zone, they can see far below, dim through their everlasting vapor-bath of rank hot steam, the mighty forms and gorgeous colors of the tropic forest.
They have pitched their camp among the tree-ferns, above a spot where the path winds along a steep hill-side, with a sheer cliff below of many a hundred feet. There was a road there once, perhaps, when Cundinamarca[181-5] was a civilized and cultivated kingdom; but all which Spanish misrule has left of it are a few steps slipping from their places at the bottom of a narrow ditch of mud. It has gone the way of the aqueducts, and bridges, and post-houses, the gardens and the llama-flocks of that strange empire. In the mad search for gold, every art of civilization has fallen to decay, save architecture alone; and that survives only in the splendid cathedrals which have risen upon the ruins of the temples of the Sun.
And now, the rapid tropic vegetation has reclaimed its old domains, and Amyas and his crew are as utterly alone, within a few miles of an important Spanish settlement, as they would be in the solitudes of the Orinoco or the Amazon.
In the meanwhile, all their attempts to find sulphur and nitre have been unavailing; and they have been forced to depend after all (much to Yeo’s[182-6] disgust) upon their swords and arrows. Be it so: Drake[182-7] took Nombre de Dios and the gold-train there with no better weapons; and they may do as much.
So, having blocked up the road above by felling a large tree across it, they sit there among the flowers chewing coca, in default of food and drink, and meditating among themselves the cause of a mysterious roar, which has been heard nightly in their wake ever since they left the banks of the Meta. Jaguar it is not, nor monkey: it is unlike any sound they know; and why should it follow them? However, they are in the land of wonders; and, moreover, the gold-train is far more important than any noise.
At last, up from beneath there was a sharp crack and a loud cry. The crack was neither the snapping of a branch, nor the tapping of a woodpecker; the cry was neither the scream of the parrot, nor the howl of the monkey,—
“That was a whip’s crack,” said Yeo, “and a woman’s wail. They are close here, lads!”
“A woman’s? Do they drive women in their gangs?” asked Amyas.
“Why not, the brutes? There they are, sir. Did you see their basnets glitter?”
“Men!” said Amyas in a low voice, “I trust you all not to shoot till I do. Then give them one arrow, out swords, and at them! Pass the word along.”
Up they came, slowly, and all hearts beat loud at their coming.
First, about twenty soldiers, only one-half of whom were on foot; the other half being borne, incredible as it may seem, each in a chair on the back of a single Indian, while those who marched had consigned their heavier armor and their arquebuses into the hands of attendant slaves, who were each pricked on at will by the pikes of the soldier behind them.
“The men are made to let their ordnance out of their hands.”
“Oh, sir, an Indian will pray to an arquebus not to shoot him; be sure their artillery is safe enough,” said Yeo.
“Look at the proud villains,” whispered another, “to make dumb beasts of human creatures like that!”
“Ten shot,” counted the businesslike Amyas, “and ten pikes.”
Last of this troop came some inferior officer, also in his chair, who, as he went slowly up the hill, with his face turned toward the gang which followed, drew every other second the cigar from his lips, to inspirit them with those ejaculations which earned for the Spaniards of the sixteenth century the uncharitable imputation of being the most abominable swearers of all Europeans.
“The blasphemous dog!” said Yeo, fumbling at his bowstring, as if he longed to send an arrow through him. But Amyas had hardly laid his finger on the impatient veteran’s arm, when another procession followed, which made them forget all else.
A line of Indians, Negroes, and Zambos, naked, emaciated, scarred with whips and fetters, and chained together by their left wrists, toiled upwards, panting and perspiring under the burden of a basket held up by a strap which passed across their foreheads. Yeo’s sneer was but too just; there were not only old men and youths among them, but women; slender young girls, mothers with children running at their knee; and, at the sight, a low murmur of indignation rose from the ambushed Englishmen, worthy of the free and righteous hearts of those days, when Raleigh could appeal to man and God, on the ground of a common humanity, in behalf of the outraged heathens of the New World; when Englishmen still knew that man was man, and that the instinct of freedom was the righteous voice of God; ere the hapless seventeenth century had brutalized them also, by bestowing on them, amid a hundred other bad legacies, the fatal gift of negro-slaves.
But the first forty, so Amyas counted, bore on their backs a burden which made all, perhaps, but him and Yeo, forget even the wretches who bore it. Each basket contained a square package of carefully corded hide; the look whereof friend Amyas knew full well.
“What’s in they, captain?”
“Gold!” And at that magic word all eyes were strained greedily forward, and such a rustle followed, that Amyas, in the very face of detection, had to whisper—
“Be men, be men, or you will spoil all yet!”
The last twenty, or so, of the Indians bore larger baskets, but more lightly freighted, seemingly with manioc, and maize-bread, and other food for the party; and after them came, with their bearers and attendants, just twenty soldiers more, followed by the officer in charge, who smiled away in his chair, and twirled two huge mustachios, thinking of nothing less than of the English arrows which were itching to be away and through his ribs. The ambush was complete; the only question how and when to begin?
Amyas had a shrinking, which all will understand, from drawing bow in cold blood on men so utterly unsuspicious and defenseless, even though in the very act of devilish cruelty—for devilish cruelty it was, as three or four drivers armed with whips, lingered up and down the slowly staggering file of Indians, and avenged every moment’s lagging, even every stumble, by a blow of the cruel manati-hide, which cracked like a pistol-shot against the naked limbs of the silent and uncomplaining victim.
Suddenly the casus belli,[186-8] as usually happens, arose of its own accord.
The last but one of the chained line was an old gray-headed man, followed by a slender graceful girl of some eighteen years old, and Amyas’ heart yearned over them as they came up. Just as they passed, the foremost of the file had rounded the corner above; there was a bustle, and a voice shouted, “Halt, Señors! there is a tree across the path!”
“A tree across the path?” bellowed the officer, while the line of trembling Indians, told to halt above, and driven on by blows below, surged up and down upon the ruinous steps of the Indian road, until the poor old man fell groveling on his face.
The officer leaped down, and hurried upward to see what had happened. Of course, he came across the old man.
“Grandfather of Beelzebub, is this a place to lie worshiping your fiends?” and he pricked the prostrate wretch with the point of his sword.
The old man tried to rise; but the weight of his head was too much for him; he fell again, and lay motionless.
The driver applied the manati-hide across his loins, once, twice, with fearful force; but even that specific was useless.
“Gastado, Señor Capitan,” said he, with a shrug. “Used up. He has been failing these three months!”
“What does the intendant mean by sending me out with worn-out cattle like these? Forward there!” shouted he. “Clear away the tree, Señors, and I’ll soon clear the chain. Hold it up, Pedrillo!”
The driver held up the chain, which was fastened to the old man’s wrist. The officer stepped back, and flourished round his head a Toledo blade, whose beauty made Amyas break the Tenth Commandment on the spot.
The man was a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, high-bred man; and Amyas thought that he was going to display the strength of his arm, and the temper of his blade, in severing the chain at one stroke.
Even he was not prepared for the recondite fancies of a Spanish adventurer, worthy son or nephew of those first conquerors, who used to try the keenness of their swords upon the living bodies of Indians, and regale themselves at meals with the odor of roasting caciques.
The blade gleamed in the air, once, twice, and fell: not on the chain, but on the wrist which it fettered. There was a shriek, a crimson flash—and the chain and its prisoner were parted indeed.
One moment more, and Amyas’s arrow would have been through the throat of the murderer, who paused, regarding his workmanship with a satisfied smile; but vengeance was not to come from him.
Quick and fierce as a tiger-cat, the girl sprang on the ruffian, and with the intense strength of passion, clasped him in her arms and leaped with him from the narrow ledge into the abyss below.
There was a rush, a shout; all faces were bent over the precipice. The girl hung by her chained wrist: the officer was gone. There was a moment’s awful silence; and then Amyas heard his body crashing through the tree-tops far below.
“Haul her up! Hew her to pieces! Burn the witch!” and the driver, seizing the chain, pulled at it with all his might, while all springing from their chairs, stooped over the brink.
Now was the time for Amyas! Heaven had delivered them into his hands. Swift and sure, at ten yards off, his arrow rushed through the body of the driver, and then, with a roar as of a leaping lion, he sprang like an avenging angel into the midst of the astonished ruffians.
His first thought was for the girl. In a moment, by sheer strength, he had jerked her safely up into the road; while the Spaniards recoiled right and left, fancying him for the moment some mountain giant or supernatural foe. His hurrah undeceived them in an instant, and a cry of “English! Dogs!” arose, but arose too late. The men of Devon had followed their captain’s lead: a storm of arrows left five Spaniards dead, and a dozen more wounded, and down leapt Salvation Yeo, his white hair streaming behind him, with twenty good swords more, and the work of death began.
The Spaniards fought like lions; but they had no time to fix their arquebuses on the crutches; no room, in that narrow path, to use their pikes. The English had the wall of them; and to have the wall there, was to have the foe’s life at their mercy. Five desperate minutes, and not a living Spaniard stood upon those steps; and certainly no living one lay in the green abyss below. Two only, who were behind the rest, happening to be in full armor, escaped without mortal wound, and fled down the hill again.
“After them! Michael Evans and Simon Heard; and catch them, if they run a league.”
The two long and lean Clovelly men, active as deer from forest training, ran two feet for the Spaniard’s one; and in ten minutes returned, having done their work; while Amyas and his men hurried past the Indians, to help Cary and the party forward, where shouts and musket shots announced a sharp affray.
Their arrival settled the matter. All the Spaniards fell but three or four, who scrambled down the crannies of the cliff.
“Let not one of them escape! Slay them as Israel slew Amalek!” cried Yeo, as he bent over; and ere the wretches could reach a place of shelter, an arrow was quivering in each body, as it rolled lifeless down the rocks.
“Now then! Loose the Indians!”
They found armorers’ tools on one of the dead bodies, and it was done.
“We are friends,” said Amyas. “All we ask is, that you shall help us carry this gold down to the Magdalena, and then you are free.”
Some few of the younger groveled at his knees, and kissed his feet, hailing him as the child of the Sun: but the most part kept a stolid indifference, and when freed from their fetters, sat quietly down where they stood, staring into vacancy. The iron had entered too deeply into their soul. They seemed past hope, enjoyment, even understanding.
But the young girl, who was last of all in the line, as soon as she was loosed, sprang to her father’s body, speaking no word, lifted it in her thin arms, laid it across her knees, kissed the fallen lips, stroked the furrowed cheeks, murmured inarticulate sounds like the cooing of a woodland dove, of which none knew the meaning but she, and he who heard not, for his soul had long since fled. Suddenly the truth flashed on her; silent as ever, she drew one long heavy breath, and rose erect, the body in her arms.
Another moment, and she had leaped into the abyss. They watched her dark and slender limbs, twined closely round the old man’s corpse, turn over, and over, and over, till a crush among the leaves, and a scream among the birds, told that she had reached the trees; and the green roof hid her from their view.
“Brave lass!” shouted a sailor.
“The Lord forgive her!” said Yeo. “But, your worship, we must have these rascals’ ordnance.”
“And their clothes, too, Yeo, if we wish to get down the Magdalena unchallenged. Now listen, my masters all! We have won, by God’s good grace, gold enough to serve us the rest of our lives, and that without losing a single man; and may yet win more, if we be wise, and He thinks good. But oh, my friends, do not make God’s gift our ruin, by faithlessness, or greediness, or any mutinous haste.”
“You shall find none in us!” cried several men. “We know your worship. We can trust our general.”
“Thank God!” said Amyas. “Now then, it will be no shame or sin to make the Indians carry it, saving the women, whom God forbid we should burden. But we must pass through the very heart of the Spanish settlements, and by the town of Saint Martha itself. So the clothes and weapons of these Spaniards we must have, let it cost us what labor it may. How many lie in the road?”
“Thirteen here, and about ten up above,” said Cary.[191-9]
“Then there are near twenty missing. Who will volunteer to go down over the cliff, and bring up the spoil of them?”
“I, and I, and I”; and a dozen stepped out, as they did always when Amyas wanted anything done; for the simple reason, that they knew that he meant to help at the doing of it himself.
“Very well, then, follow me. Sir John,[192-10] take the Indian lad for your interpreter, and try and comfort the souls of these poor heathens. Tell them that they shall all be free.”
“Why, who is that comes up the road?”
All eyes were turned in the direction of which he spoke. And, wonder of wonders! up came none other than Ayacanora[192-11] herself, blow-gun in hand, bow on back, and bedecked in all her feather garments, which last were rather the worse for a fortnight’s woodland travel.
All stood mute with astonishment, as, seeing Amyas, she uttered a cry of joy, quickened her pace into a run, and at last fell panting and exhausted at his feet.
“I have found you!” she said; “you ran away from me, but you could not escape me!” And she fawned round Amyas, like a dog who has found his master, and then sat down on the bank, and burst into wild sobs.
“God help us!” said Amyas, clutching his hair, as he looked down upon the beautiful weeper. “What am I to do with her, over and above all these poor heathens?”
But there was no time to be lost, and over the cliff he scrambled; while the girl, seeing that the main body of the English remained, sat down on a point of rock to watch him.
After half-an-hour’s hard work, the weapons, clothes, and armor of the fallen Spaniards were hauled up the cliff, and distributed in bundles among the men; the rest of the corpses were thrown over the precipice, and they started again upon their road toward the Magdalena, while Yeo snorted like a war-horse who smells the battle, at the delight of once more handling powder and ball.
“We can face the world now, sir! Why not go back and try Santa Fé, after all?”
But Amyas thought that enough was as good as a feast, and they held on downwards, while the slaves followed, without a sign of gratitude, but meekly obedient to their new masters, and testifying now and then by a sign or a grunt, their surprise at not being beaten, or made to carry their captors. Some, however, caught sight of the little calabashes of coca which the English carried. That woke them from their torpor, and they began coaxing abjectly (and not in vain), for a taste of that miraculous herb, which would not only make food unnecessary, and enable their panting lungs to endure the keen mountain air, but would rid them, for a while at least, of the fallen Indian’s most unpitying foe, the malady of thought.
As the cavalcade turned the corner of the mountain, they paused for one last look at the scene of that fearful triumph. Lines of vultures were already streaming out of infinite space, as if created suddenly for the occasion. A few hours and there would be no trace of that fierce fray, but a few white bones amid untrodden beds of flowers.
And now Amyas had time to ask Ayacanora the meaning of this her strange appearance. He wished her anywhere but where she was: but now that she was here, what heart could be so hard as not to take pity on the poor wild thing? And Amyas as he spoke to her had, perhaps, a tenderness in his tone, from very fear of hurting her, which he had never used before. Passionately she told him how she had followed on their track day and night, and had every evening made sounds, as loud as she dared, in hopes of their hearing her, and either waiting for her, or coming back to see what caused the noise. Amyas now recollected the strange roaring which had followed them.
“Noises? What did you make them with?”
Ayacanora lifted her finger with an air of most self-satisfied mystery; and then drew cautiously from under her feather cloak an object at which Amyas had hard work to keep his countenance.
“Look!” whispered she, as if half afraid that the thing itself should hear her. “I have it—the holy trumpet!”
There it was, a handsome earthen tube some two feet long, neatly glazed, and painted with quaint grecques and figures of animals; a relic evidently of some civilization now extinct.
Brimblecombe rubbed his little fat hands. “Brave maid! you have cheated Satan this time,” quoth he; while Yeo advised that the idolatrous relic should be forthwith “hove over cliff.”
“Let be,” said Amyas. “What is the meaning of this, Ayacanora? And why have you followed us?”
She told a long story, from which Amyas picked up, as far as he could understand her, that that trumpet had been for years the torment of her life; the one thing in the tribe superior to her; the one thing which she was not allowed to see, because, forsooth, she was a woman. So she determined to show them that a woman was as good as a man; and hence her hatred of marriage, and her Amazonian exploits. But still the Piache[195-12] would not show her that trumpet, or tell her where it was: and as for going to seek it, even she feared the superstitious wrath of the tribe at such a profanation. But the day after the English went, the Piache chose to express his joy at their departure; whereon, as was to be expected, a fresh explosion between master and pupil, which ended, she confessed, in her burning the old rogue’s hut over his head, from which he escaped with loss of all his conjuring-tackle, and fled raging into the woods, vowing that he would carry off the trumpet to the neighboring tribe. Whereon, by a sudden impulse, the young lady took plenty of coca, her weapons, and her feathers, started on his trail, and ran him to earth just as he was unveiling the precious mystery. At which sight (she confessed), she was horribly afraid, and half inclined to run: but, gathering courage from the thought that the white men used to laugh at the whole matter, she rushed upon the hapless conjurer, and bore off her prize in triumph; and there it was!
“I hope you have not killed him?” said Amyas.
“I did beat him a little; but I thought you would not let me kill him.”
Amyas was half amused with her confession of his authority over her: but she went on,
“And then I dare not go back to the Indians; so I was forced to come after you.”
“And is that, then, your only reason for coming after us?” asked stupid Amyas.
He had touched some secret chord—though what it was he was too busy to inquire. The girl drew herself up proudly, blushing scarlet, and said—
“You never tell lies. Do you think that I would tell lies?”
On which she fell to the rear, and followed them steadfastly, speaking to no one, but evidently determined to follow them to the world’s end.
They soon left the high road; and for several days held on downwards, hewing their path slowly and painfully through the thick underwood. On the evening of the fourth day, they had reached the margin of a river, at a point where it seemed broad and still enough for navigation. For those three days they had not seen a trace of human beings, and the spot seemed lonely enough for them to encamp without fear of discovery, and begin the making of their canoes. They began to spread themselves along the stream, in search of the soft-wooded trees proper for their purpose; but hardly had their search begun, when, in the midst of a dense thicket, they came upon a sight which filled them with astonishment. Beneath a honey-combed cliff, which supported one enormous cotton-tree, was a spot of some thirty yards square sloping down to the stream, planted in rows with magnificent banana-plants, full twelve feet high, and bearing among their huge waxy leaves clusters of ripening fruit; while, under their mellow shade, yams and cassava plants were flourishing luxuriantly, the whole being surrounded by a hedge of orange and scarlet flowers. There it lay, streaked with long shadows from the setting sun, while a cool southern air rustled in the cotton-tree, and flapped to and fro the great banana leaves; a tiny paradise of art and care. But where was its inhabitant?
Aroused by the noise of their approach, a figure issued from a cave in the rocks, and, after gazing at them for a moment, came down the garden towards them. He was a tall and stately old man, whose snow-white beard and hair covered his chest and shoulders, while his lower limbs were wrapt in Indian-web. Slowly and solemnly he approached, a staff in one hand, a string of beads in the other, the living likeness of some old Hebrew prophet, or anchorite of ancient legend. He bowed courteously to Amyas (who of course returned his salute), and was in act to speak, when his eye fell upon the Indians, who were laying down their burdens in a heap under the trees. His mild countenance assumed instantly an expression of the acutest sorrow and displeasure; and, striking his hands together, he spoke in Spanish—
“Alas! miserable me! Alas! unhappy Señors! Do my old eyes deceive me, and is it one of those evil visions of the past which haunt my dreams by night: or has the accursed thirst for gold, the ruin of my race, penetrated even into this my solitude? Oh, Señors, Señors, know you not that you bear with you your own poison, your own familiar fiend, the root of every evil? And is it not enough for you to load yourselves with the wedge of Achan, and partake his doom, but you must make these hapless heathens the victims of your greed and cruelty, and forestall for them on earth those torments which may await their unbaptized souls hereafter?”
“We have preserved, and not enslaved these Indians, ancient Señor,” said Amyas proudly; “and to-morrow will see them as free as the birds over our heads.”
“Free? Then you cannot be countrymen of mine! But pardon an old man, my son, if he has spoken too hastily in the bitterness of his own experience. But who and whence are you? And why are you bringing into this lonely wilderness that gold—for I know too well the shape of those accursed packets, which would God that I had never seen!”
“What we are, reverend sir, matters little, as long as we behave to you as the young should to the old. As for our gold, it will be a curse or blessing to us, I conceive, just as we use it well or ill; and so is a man’s head, or his hand, or any other thing; but that is no reason for cutting off his limbs for fear of doing harm with them; neither is it for throwing away those packages, which, by your leave, we shall deposit in one of these caves. We must be your neighbors, I fear, for a day or two; but I can promise you that your garden shall be respected, on condition that you do not inform any human soul of our being here.”
“God forbid, Señor, that I should try to increase the number of my visitors, much less to bring hither strife and blood, of which I have seen too much already. As you have come in peace, in peace depart. Leave me alone with God and my penitence, and may the Lord have mercy on you!”
And he was about to withdraw, when, recollecting himself, he turned suddenly to Amyas again:
“Pardon me, Señor, if, after forty years of utter solitude, I shrink at first from the conversation of human beings, and forget, in the habitual shyness of a recluse, the duties of a hospitable gentleman of Spain. My garden, and all which it produces, is at your service. Only let me entreat that these poor Indians shall have their share; for heathens though they be, Christ died for them; and I cannot but cherish in my soul some secret hope that He did not die in vain.”
“God forbid!” said Brimblecombe. “They are no worse than we, for aught I see, whatsoever their fathers may have been; and they have fared no worse than we since they have been with us, nor will, I promise you.”
The good fellow did not tell that he had been starving himself for the last three days to cram the children with his own rations; and that the sailors, and even Amyas, had been going out of their way every five minutes, to get fruit for their new pets.
A camp was soon formed; and that evening the old hermit asked Amyas, Cary, and Brimblecombe to come up into his cavern.
They went; and after the accustomed compliments had passed, sat down on mats upon the ground, while the old man stood, leaning against a slab of stone surmounted by a rude wooden cross, which served him as a place of prayer.
* * * * *
The talk lasted long into the night,[200-13] but Amyas was up long before daybreak, felling the trees; and as he and Cary walked back to breakfast, the first thing which they saw was the old man in his garden with four or five Indian children round him, talking smilingly to them.
“The old man’s heart is sound still,” said Will. “No man is lost who is still fond of little children.”
“Ah, Señors!” said the hermit as they came up, “you see that I have begun already to act upon your advice.”
“And you have begun at the right end,” quoth Amyas; “if you win the children, you win the mothers.”
“And if you win the mothers,” quoth Will, “the poor fathers must needs obey their wives, and follow in the wake.”
The old man only sighed. “The prattle of these little ones softens my hard heart, Señors, with a new pleasure; but it saddens me, when I recollect that there may be children of mine now in the world—children who have never known a father’s love—never known aught but a master’s threats—”
“God has taken care of these little ones. Trust that He has taken care of yours.”
That day Amyas assembled the Indians, and told them that they must obey the hermit as their king, and settle there as best they could: for if they broke up and wandered away, nothing was left for them but to fall one by one into the hands of the Spaniards. They heard him with their usual melancholy and stupid acquiescence, and went and came as they were bid, like animated machines; but the negroes were of a different temper; and four or five stout fellows gave Amyas to understand that they had been warriors in their own country, and that warriors they would be still; and nothing should keep them from Spaniard-hunting. Amyas saw that the presence of these desperadoes in the new colony would both endanger the authority of the hermit, and bring the Spaniards down upon it in a few weeks; so making a virtue of necessity, he asked them whether they would go Spaniard-hunting with him.
This was just what the bold Coromantees wished for; they grinned and shouted their delight at serving under so great a warrior, and then set to work most gallantly, getting through more in the day than any ten Indians, and indeed than any two Englishmen.
So went on several days, during which the trees were felled, and the process of digging them out began; while Ayacanora, silent and moody, wandered into the woods all day with her blow-gun, and brought home at evening a load of parrots, monkeys, and curassows; two or three old hands were sent out to hunt likewise; so that, what with the game and the fish of the river, which seemed inexhaustible, and the fruit of the neighboring palm-trees, there was no lack of food in the camp. But what to do with Ayacanora weighed heavily on the mind of Amyas. He opened his heart on the matter to the old hermit, and asked him whether he would take charge of her. The latter smiled, and shook his head at the notion. “If your report of her be true, I may as well take in hand to tame a jaguar.” However, he promised to try; and one evening, as they were all standing together before the mouth of the cave, Ayacanora came up smiling with the fruit of her day’s sport; and Amyas, thinking this a fit opportunity, began a carefully-prepared harangue to her, which he intended to be altogether soothing, and even pathetic,—to the effect that the maiden, having no parents, was to look upon this good old man as her father; that he would instruct her in the white man’s religion and teach her how to be happy and good, and so forth; and that, in fine, she was to remain there with the hermit.
She heard him quietly, her great dark eyes opening wider and wider, her bosom swelling, her stature seeming to grow taller every moment, as she clenched her weapons firmly in both her hands. Beautiful as she always was, she had never looked so beautiful before; and as Amyas spoke of parting with her, it was like throwing away a lovely toy; but it must be done, for her sake, for his, perhaps for that of all the crew.
The last words had hardly passed his lips, when, with a shriek of mingled scorn, rage, and fear, she dashed through the astonished group.
“Stop her!” was Amyas’ first word; but his next was, “Let her go!” for springing like a deer through the little garden, and over the flower-fence, she turned, menacing with her blow-gun the sailors, who had already started in her pursuit.
“Let her alone, for Heaven’s sake!” shouted Amyas, who, he scarce knew why, shrank from the thought of seeing those graceful limbs struggling in the seamen’s grasp.
She turned again, and in another minute her gaudy plumes had vanished among the dark forest stems, as swiftly as if she had been a passing bird.
All stood thunderstruck at this unexpected end to the conference.
At last Amyas spoke—
“There’s no use in standing here idle, gentlemen. Staring after her won’t bring her back. After all, I’m glad she’s gone.”
But Ayacanora did not return; and ten days more went on in continual toil at the canoes without any news of her from the hunters. Amyas, by the bye, had strictly bidden these last not to follow the girl, not even to speak to her, if they came across her in their wanderings. He was shrewd enough to guess that the only way to cure her sulkiness was to out-sulk her; but there was no sign of her presence in any direction; and the canoes being finished at last, the gold, and such provisions as they could collect, were placed on board, and one evening the party prepared for their fresh voyage.
They determined to travel as much as possible by night, for fear of discovery, especially in the neighborhood of the few Spanish settlements which were then scattered along the banks of the main stream. These, however, the negroes knew, so that there was no fear of coming on them unawares; and as for falling asleep in their night journeys, “Nobody,” the negroes said, “ever slept on the Magdalena; the mosquitoes took too good care of that.” Which fact Amyas and his crew verified afterwards as thoroughly as wretched men could do.
The sun had sunk; the night had all but fallen; the men were all on board; Amyas in command of one canoe, Cary of the other. The Indians were grouped on the bank, watching the party with their listless stare, and with them the young guide, who preferred remaining among the Indians, and was made supremely happy by the present of a Spanish sword and an English ax; while, in the midst, the old hermit, with tears in his eyes, prayed God’s blessing on them.
“I owe to you, noble cavaliers, new peace, new labor, I may say, new life. May God be with you, and teach you to use your gold and your swords better than I used mine.”
The adventurers waved their hands to him.
“Give way, men,” cried Amyas; and as he spoke the paddles dashed into the water, to a right English hurrah! which sent the birds fluttering from their roosts, and was answered by the yell of a hundred monkeys, and the distant roar of the jaguar.
About twenty yards below, a wooded rock, some ten feet high, hung over the stream. The river was not there more than fifteen yards broad; deep near the rock, shallow on the farther side; and Amyas’s canoe led the way, within ten feet of the stone.
As he passed, a dark figure leapt from the bushes on the edge, and plunged heavily into the water close to the boat. All started. A jaguar? No; he would not have missed so short a spring. What then? A human being? A head rose panting to the surface, and with a few strong strokes, the swimmer had clutched the gunwale. It was Ayacanora!
“Go back!” shouted Amyas. “Go back girl!”
She uttered the same wild cry with which she had fled into the forest.
“I will die, then!” and she threw up her arms. Another moment, and she had sunk.
To see her perish before his eyes! who could bear that? Her hands alone were above the surface. Amyas caught convulsively at her in the darkness, and seized her wrist.
A yell rose from the negroes: a roar from the crew as from a cage of lions. There was a rush and a swirl along the surface of the stream; and “Caiman![205-14] caiman!” shouted twenty voices.
Now, or never, for the strong arm! “To larboard, men, or over we go!” cried Amyas, and with one huge heave, he lifted the slender body upon the gunwhale. Her lower limbs were still in the water, when, within arm’s length, rose above the stream a huge muzzle. The lower jaw lay flat, the upper reached as high as Amyas’s head. He could see the long fangs gleam white in the moonshine; he could see for one moment, full down the monstrous depths of that great gape, which would have crushed a buffalo. Three inches, and no more, from that soft side, the snout surged up—
There was the gleam of an ax from above, a sharp ringing blow, and the jaws came together with a clash which rang from bank to bank. He had missed her! Swerving beneath the blow, his snout had passed beneath her body, and smashed up against the side of the canoe, as the striker, over-balanced, fell headlong overboard upon the monster’s back.
“Who is it?”
“Yeo!” shouted a dozen.
Man and beast went down together, and where they sank, the moonlight shone on a great swirling eddy, while all held their breaths, and Ayacanora cowered down into the bottom of the canoe, her proud spirit utterly broken, for the first time, by the terror of that great need, and by a bitter loss. For in the struggle, the holy trumpet, companion of all her wanderings, had fallen from her bosom; and her fond hope of bringing magic prosperity to her English friends had sunk with it to the bottom of the stream.
None heeded her; not even Amyas, round whose knees she clung, fawning like a spaniel dog: for where was Yeo?
Another swirl; a shout from the canoe abreast of them, and Yeo rose, having dived clean under his own boat, and risen between the two.
“Safe as yet, lads! Heave me a line, or he’ll have me after all.”
But ere the brute reappeared, the old man was safe on board.
“The Lord has stood by me,” panted he, as he shot the water from his ears. “We went down together: I knew the Indian trick, and being upper-most, had my thumbs in his eyes before he could turn: but he carried me down to the very mud. My breath was nigh gone, so I left go, and struck up: but my toes tingled as I rose again, I’ll warrant. There the beggar is, looking for me, I declare!”
And true enough, there was the huge brute swimming slowly round and round, in search of his lost victim. It was too dark to put an arrow into his eye; so they paddled on, while Ayacanora crouched silently at Amyas’s feet.
“Yeo!” asked he, in a low voice, “what shall we do with her?”
“Why ask me, sir?” said the old man, as he had a very good right to ask.
“Because, when one don’t know oneself, one had best inquire of one’s elders. Besides, you saved her life at the risk of your own, and have a right to a voice in the matter, if any one has, old friend.”
“Then, my dear young captain, if the Lord puts a precious soul under your care, don’t you refuse to bear the burden He lays on you.”
Amyas was silent awhile; while Ayacanora, who was evidently utterly exhausted by the night’s adventure, and probably by long wanderings, watchings, and weepings which had gone before it, sank with her head against his knee, fell fast asleep, and breathed as gently as a child.
At last he rose in the canoe, and called Cary alongside.
“Listen to me, gentlemen, and sailors all. You know that we have a maiden on board here, by no choice of our own. Whether she will be a blessing to us, God alone can tell: but she may turn to the greatest curse which has befallen us ever since we came out over Bar three years ago. Promise me one thing, or I put her ashore the next beach; and that is, that you will treat her as if she were your own sister.”
[180-1] This selection is abridged from the twenty-fifth chapter in Westward Ho! Charles Kingsley’s great novel of adventure.
In the story are related the adventures of Amyas Leigh, a large, powerful and exceedingly vigorous man from Devonshire, who follows the life of the sea during the days of Queen Elizabeth. Like many of the men of his age, he becomes absorbed with the notion that in South America is the great city of Manoa, whose wealth in gold and jewels far exceeds that of Mexico and Peru.
After an exciting voyage, enlivened by conflicts with Spanish ships, the survivors land on the coast of South America and proceed inward in search of Manoa. Besides the dangers from Spaniards and natives, they meet with all the perils of the wilderness: disease and death at the hands of the Spaniards, Indians and wild animals thinning their ranks to less than half; yet the spirits of Amyas never falter, and the remnant of his force follow him with a devotion that is wonderful.
[180-2] Charles Kingsley, an English clergyman, was born in 1819 and entered Cambridge University in 1838. Ten years later he published the first of his stories, and in 1855, Westward Ho! Next to this book probably ranks his Hypatia, which he published in 1855, and which tells a thrilling tale of the struggles of Christianity with the Greek faith in the fifth century. He was a successful clergyman and became Canon of Westminster. He visited the United States in 1874, but his health was even then failing, and a year later he died.
[180-3] The party landed on the coast of South America, and in the preceding chapter is told the story of their stay in a hospitable Indian village where they rested and prepared themselves for two weeks of hard travel.
[181-4] This Indian lad was rescued from the Spaniards by Amyas and is devoted to the latter. He acts as interpreter, and his keen sight and familiarity with the southern wilderness make him of great value to the wanderers.
[181-5] Cundinamarca was the central province in what is now the Republic of Colombia. Its streams are tributary to the Orinoco, though it extends westward into the Andes. It derived its name from a native American goddess, and before the Spaniards devastated the region it was one of the chief centers of Indian civilization in South America.
[182-6] Salvation Yeo is a big white-haired man, older than Amyas, who spent his early life in wild adventure with Drake and other sailors in the Southern Seas. After incredible sufferings while in the hands of the Spaniards, Salvation becomes a most ardent and devoted Christian, but with a fierce hatred of the Spaniards and all things Spanish that makes his acts strangely inconsistent.
[182-7] This is Sir Francis Drake, the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean, a leader in many thrilling expeditions and exciting conflicts with the Spaniards.
[186-8] Casus belli means cause of war.
[191-9] Will Cary is the lieutenant and right-hand man of Amyas.
[192-10] Sir John Brimblecombe is the chaplain of the expedition.
[192-11] Ayacanora is a beautiful Indian princess whom the Spaniards met in the Indian village described in the preceding chapter. She seems quite different from others of the tribe, and is thought to be a descendant from one of the light-skinned Peruvian Incas, whom the Spaniards had almost entirely extinguished. Much later in the story she is discovered to be of real white descent, and at the end of the book she becomes the wife of Amyas.
[195-12] The Piache is the chief medicine man of the tribe of Indians among whom Ayacanora was regarded as a powerful princess.
[200-13] The old hermit proves to be one of the survivors of Pizarro’s company. He took part in the destruction of native civilization and was guilty of all the cruelties and barbarities that his race practiced. He is living now in the wilderness in an effort to atone for his terrible sins.
[205-14] A caiman, or cayman, is a species of alligator.
A BED OF NETTLES
By Grant Allen
Reaching my hand into the hedgerow to pick a long, lithe, blossoming spray of black byrony—here it is, with its graceful climbing stem, its glossy, heart-shaped leaves and its pretty greenish lily flowers—I have stung myself rather badly against the nettles that grow rank and tall from the rich mud in the ditch below. Nothing soothes a nettle sting like philosophy and dock-leaf; so I shall rub a little of the leaf on my hand and then sit awhile on the Hole Farm gate here to philosophize about nettles and things generally, as is my humble wont. There is a great deal more in nettles, I believe, than most people are apt to imagine; indeed, the nettle-philosophy at present current with the larger part of the world seems to me lamentably one-sided. As a rule, the sting is the only point in the whole organization of the family over which we ever waste a single thought. This is our ordinary human narrowness; in each plant or animal we interest ourselves about that one part alone which has special reference to our own relations with it, for good or for evil. In a strawberry, we think only of the fruit; in a hawthorn, or the flowers; in a deadly nightshade, of the poisonous berry; and in a nettle, of the sting. Now, I frankly admit at the present moment that the nettle sting has an obtrusive and unnecessarily pungent way of forcing itself upon the human attention; but it does not sum up the whole life-history of the plant in its own one peculiarity for all that. The nettle exists for its own sake, we may be sure, and not merely for the sake of occasionally inflicting a passing smart upon the meddlesome human fingers.
However, the sting itself, viewed philosophically, is not without decided interest of its own. It is one, and perhaps the most highly developed, among the devices by which plants guard themselves against the attacks of animals. Weeds and shrubs with juicy, tender leaves are very apt to be eaten down by rabbits, cows, donkeys and other herbivores. But if any individuals among such species happen to show any tendency to the development of any unpleasant habit, which prevents the herbivores from eating them, then those particular individuals will of course be spared when their neighbors are eaten, and will establish a new and specially protected variety in the course of successive generations. It does not matter what the peculiarity may be, provided only it in any way deters animals from eating the plant. In the arum, a violently acrid juice is secreted in the leaves, so as to burn the mouth of the aggressor. In the dandelion and wild lettuces, the juice is merely bitter. In houndstongue and catmint it has a nauseous taste. Then again, in the hawthorn and the blackthorn, some of the shorter branches have developed into stout, sharp spines, which tear the skin of would-be assailants. In the brambles, the hairs on the stem have thickened into pointed prickles, which answer the same purpose as the spines of their neighbors. In the thistles, the gorse and the holly, once more, it is the angles of the leaves themselves, which have grown into needle-like points so as to deter animals from browsing upon them. But the nettle probably carries the same tendency to the furthest possible limit. Not content with mere defense, it is to some extent actively aggressive. The hairs which clothe it have become filled with a poisonous, irritating juice, and when any herbivore thrusts his tender nose into the midst of a clump, the sharp points pierce his naked skin, the liquid gets into his veins in the very neighborhood of the most sensitive nerves, and the poor creature receives at once a lifelong warning against attacking nettles in future.
The way in which so curious a device has grown up is not, it seems to me, very difficult to guess. Many plants are armed with small sharp hairs which act as a protection to them against the incursions of ants and other destructive insects. These hairs are often enough more or less glandular in structure, and therefore liable to contain various waste products of the plant. Suppose one of these waste products in the ancestors of the nettle to be at first slightly pungent, by accident, as it were, then it would exercise a slightly deterrent effect upon nettle-eating animals. The more stinging it grew, the more effectual would the protection be; and as in each generation the least protected plants would get eaten down, while the more protected were spared, the tendency would be for the juice to grow more and more stinging till at last it reached the present high point of development. It is noticeable, too, that in our warrens and wild places, most of the plants are thus more or less protected in one way or another from the attacks of animals. These neglected spots are overgrown with gorse, brambles, nettles, blackthorn, and mullein, as well as with the bitter spurges, and the stringy inedible bracken. So, too, while in our meadows we purposely propagate tender fodder plants, like grasses and clovers, we find on the margins of our pastures and by our roadsides only protected species; such as thistles, houndstongue, cuckoo-pint, charlock, nettles (once more), and thorn bushes. The cattle or the rabbits eat down at once all juicy and succulent plants, leaving only these nauseous or prickly kinds, together with such stringy and innutritious weeds as chervil, plantain, and burdock. Here we see the mechanism of natural selection at work under our very eyes.
But the sting certainly does not exhaust the whole philosophy of the nettle. Look, for example, at the stem and leaves. The nettle has found its chance in life, its one fitting vacancy, among the ditches and waste-places by roadsides or near cottages; and it has laid itself out for the circumstances in which it lives. Its near relative, the hop, is a twisting climber; its southern cousins, the fig and the mulberry, are tall and spreading trees. But the nettle has made itself a niche in nature along the bare patches which diversify human cultivation; and it has adapted its stem and leaves to the station in life where it has pleased Providence to place it. Plants like the dock, the burdock, and the rhubarb, which lift their leaves straight above the ground, from large subterranean reservoirs of material, have usually big, broad, undivided leaves, that overshadow all beneath them, and push boldly out on every side to drink in the air and the sunlight. On the other hand, regular hedgerow plants, like cleavers, chervil, herb Robert, milfoil, and most ferns, which grow in the tangled shady undermath of the bank and thickets, have usually slender, bladelike, much-divided leaves, all split up into little long narrow pushing segments, because they cannot get sunlight and air enough to build up a single large respectable rounded leaf.
The nettle is just halfway between these two extremes. It does not grow out broad and solitary like the burdock, nor does it creep under the hedges like the little much-divided wayside weeds; but it springs up erect in tall, thick, luxuriant clumps, growing close together, each stem fringed with a considerable number of moderate-sized, heart-shaped, toothed and pointed leaves. Such leaves have just room enough to expand and to extract from the air all the carbon they need for their growth, without encroaching upon one another’s food supply (for it must always be borne in mind that leaves grow out of the air, not, as most people fancy, out of the ground), and so without the consequent necessity for dividing up into little separate narrow segments. Accordingly, this type of leaf is very common among all those plants which spring up beside the hedgerows in the same erect shrubby manner as the nettles.
Then, again, there is the flower of the nettle, which in most plants is so much the most conspicuous part of all. Yet in this particular plant it is so unobtrusive that most people never notice its existence in any way. That is because the nettle is wind-fertilized, and so does not need bright and attractive petals. Here are the flowering branches, a lot of little forked antler-like spikes, sticking out at right angles from the stem, and half concealed by the leaves of the row above them. Like many other wind-fertilized flowers, the stamens and pistils are collected on different plants—a plan which absolutely insures cross-fertilization, without the aid of the insects. I pick one of the stamen-bearing clusters, and can see that it is made up of small separate green blossoms, each with four tiny leaf-like petals, and with four stamens doubled up in the center. I touch the flowers with the tip of my pocket knife, and in a second the four stamens jump out elastically as if alive, and dust the white pollen all over my fingers. Why should they act like this? Such tricks are not uncommon in bee-fertilized flowers, because they insure the pollen being shed only when a bee thrusts his head into the blossom; but what use can this device be to the wind-fertilized nettle? I think the object is somewhat after this fashion. If the pollen were shed during perfectly calm weather, it would simply fall upon the ground, without reaching the pistils of neighboring plants at all. But by having the stamens thus doubled up, with elastic stalks, it happens that even when ripe they do not open and shed the pollen unless upon the occurrence of some slight concussion. This concussion is given when the stems are waved about by the wind; and then the pollen is shaken out under circumstances which give it the best chance of reaching the pistil.
Finally, there is the question of fruit. In the fig and mulberry the fruit is succulent, and depends for its dispersion upon birds and animals. In the nettle it takes the form of a tiny, seed-like, flattened nut. Why is this, again? One might as well ask, why are we not all Lord Chancellors or Presidents of the Royal Academy. Each plant and each animal makes the best of such talents as it has got, and gets on by their aid; but all have not the same talents. One survives by dint of its prickles; another by dint of its attractive flowers; a third by its sweet fruit; a fourth by its hard nut-shell. As regards stings, the nettle is one of the best protected plants; as regards flower and fruit, it is merely one of the ruck. Every plant can only take advantage of any stray chances it happens to possess; and the same advantageous tendencies do not show themselves in all alike. It is said that once a certain American, hearing of the sums which Canova got for his handicraft, took his son to the great man’s studio, and inquired how much he would ask to make the boy a sculptor. But there is no evidence to show that that aspiring youth ever produced an Aphrodite or a Discobolus.
WASHINGTON IRVING
During the course of the revolution that changed the British colonies in America into the United States, there was born in the city of New York the first great writer of this new nation, Washington Irving. The parents of Irving had been in America but twenty years, the father being Scotch and the mother English, yet they sympathized so fully with the colonists that they spent much of their time and means in caring for the soldiers held as prisoners by the British.
The mother was unusually warm-hearted and charitable, but the father, though a kind and conscientious man, was very strict, especially in dealing with his children. He seemed to feel that nearly every kind of amusement that young people delighted in was sinful, and he held up before his children such sober ways of living that Washington at least came to think that everything pleasant was wicked. No amount of sternness, however, could keep the five boys of the family and their three sisters wholly out of mischief, nor hinder them from having many a harmless good time.
After spending two years in a primary school, Washington was sent when six years old to a school kept by a soldier who had fought in the Revolution, a man who dealt most harshly with disorderly pupils. Though Washington was always breaking rules, he was so honest in admitting the wrong done that the teacher had a particular liking for him, and would call him by the envied title of “General.” To bear this title, as well as the name of the foremost American of that time, and to have received a blessing from the great Washington himself, was honor enough for one boy.
Though it was not till several years later that he first went to the theater, yet when he was about ten he was fond of acting the part of some warrior knight of whom he had read, and would challenge one of his companions to a duel in the yard, where they would fight desperately with wooden swords. About this time, too, he came upon Robinson Crusoe and Sindbad the Sailor, and thus was awakened a great delight in books of travel and adventure. Most pleasing of all was The World Displayed, a series of volumes in which one could read of voyages to the most distant parts of the world. How exciting it was to read these books under cover of his desk at school, or in bed at night by the light of candles smuggled into his room! It is no wonder that he grew to wish with all his heart that he could go to sea, and that he haunted the wharves watching the out-going vessels.
When only fifteen years old, Washington finished his schooling. In later life he was always very sorry that he had not been sent to college at this time. Within a year he began the study of law, but he went at his work in such a half-hearted way that although he passed his examination in 1806, he was really very poorly fitted for his calling.
The last two years of this time had been passed in Europe, where he had been sent to recover his health; and it is safe to say that thoughts of his legal studies troubled young Irving but little during this interesting trip. If as a boy he had been thrilled merely in reading of voyages and travels, what was now his pleasure in journeying through one strange scene after another and meeting with such exciting adventures as that which befell him on the way from Genoa to Sicily, when the vessel on which he was sailing was boarded by pirates. On this occasion, as he could translate the questions of the attacking party and could answer these men in their own tongue, he was forced to go on the pirate ship, among an evil-looking crew, armed with stilettos, cutlasses and pistols, and act as interpreter before the captain. As it turned out that the booty was too small to be worth taking, Irving and his companions escaped without hurt. In the course of his further travels he found especial delight in the works of art at Rome, and in attending the theater and opera in Paris and London.
In January, 1807, several months after his return to America, Irving, with one of his brothers and a friend, began to publish Salmagundi, a magazine containing humorous articles on the social life of New York. This became so popular that twenty numbers were issued. Having found so much of interest in the life of his native city, Irving next wrote a comic History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker, dealing with the early period when the city was ruled by the Dutch. The novel way in which this work was announced would do credit to the most clever advertiser. About six weeks before the book was published, appeared this notice in the Evening Post:
“Left his lodgings some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning him left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, or at the office of this paper, will be thankfully received.
“P. S.—Printers of newspapers would be aiding the cause of humanity by giving an insertion to the above.—Oct. 25.”
Almost two weeks later a notice signed A Traveler, told that the old man had been seen resting by the road over which the Albany stage coach passed. Then in ten days followed this amusing letter to the editor of the Post:
“Sir:—You have been good enough to publish in your paper a paragraph about Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was missing so strangely from his lodgings some time since. Nothing satisfactory has been heard of the old gentleman since; but a very curious kind of a written book has been found in his room in his own handwriting. Now I wish you to notice him, if he is still alive, that if he does not return and pay off his bill for board and lodging, I shall have to dispose of his Book, to satisfy me for the same.”
Needless to say, the book was issued in due time, and it was warmly welcomed not only in the United States but in England.
This year of great literary success was also one of the saddest in Irving’s life. He had become deeply attached to Matilda Hoffman, daughter of one of the lawyers under whom he had studied, and was looking forward to the time when she should become his wife. The death of the young girl in 1809 caused a grief so deep that Irving almost never spoke of it. He remained true to the memory of this early love throughout his life, and never married.
By this time it had become plain that Irving could write with far more effect than he could ever hope to practice law. Yet the idea of using his pen in order to earn a living, not merely for his own amusement, was so distasteful to him that he put aside the thought of a literary career. Had he not had two kind and indulgent brothers, it might have gone hard with him at this time; but he was given a one-fifth share in their business, and being only a silent partner was allowed to spend his time in whatever ways he pleased.
In 1815, however, it became necessary for him to take his brother Peter’s place for a time at the head of that part of the business which was carried on in Liverpool. Though he was a loyal American, he found England so much to his liking that there is no telling how long after his brother’s recovery he would have kept on living in his half-idle way in his pleasant surroundings, had not the business in which he was interested failed in 1818. Thus roused to effort, he began publishing in 1819 the highly popular Sketch Book, by Geoffrey Crayon, a series of stories and essays in the first number of which appeared, with others, Rip Van Winkle. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was contained in a later issue. Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a Traveller, of the same nature as the Sketch Book, followed soon afterward, all three being sent to America and being published also in England.
A new and more serious kind of work opened before Irving in 1826 when he was invited to Madrid by the United States minister, to make a translation of Navarrete’s Voyages of Columbus. Instead of translating, however, he wrote a valuable original work entitled the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Thus was awakened his deep interest in the romantic history and legends of Spain. He traveled about the country, staying for several weeks in the celebrated palace of the Alhambra, studied rare old books, and as a result produced several other works upon Spanish subjects. Of these The Conquest of Granada was written before he left Spain and The Alhambra was completed in England after his return in 1829 to fill the office of secretary of legation.
In 1824 Irving had written to a friend in America concerning New York: “There is a charm about that little spot of earth; that beautiful city and its environs, that has a perfect spell over my imagination. The bay, the rivers and their wild and woody shores, the haunts of my boyhood, both on land and water, absolutely have a witchery over my mind. I thank God for my having been born in so beautiful a place among such beautiful scenery; I am convinced I owe a vast deal of what is good and pleasant in my nature to the circumstance.” It was not, however, until 1832 that he was able to return to his much-loved birthplace. Then, after seventeen years’ absence, during which he had become a very famous writer, he was welcomed with the warmest greetings and the highest honors of his townspeople.
It was not long before he made a tour through the far West,—through the wilds of Missouri and Arkansas. From a point in the latter region he wrote of his party as “depending upon game, such as deer, elk, bear, for food, encamping on the borders of brooks, and sleeping in the open air under trees, with outposts stationed to guard us against any surprise by the Indians.” The beautiful scenery and exciting events that marked this trip now part of the volume of Crayon Miscellany.
Having been a wanderer for a good many years, Irving now began to wish for a home. Accordingly he bought a little estate near Tarrytown on the Hudson River, and had the cottage on this land made over into “a little nookery somewhat in the Dutch style, quaint, but unpretending.” In the first years spent in this pleasant home he contributed articles to the Knickerbocker Magazine, later collected and published under the title of Wolfert’s Roost, and wrote Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, now part of the volume of Crayon Miscellany.
So smoothly did the home life at Sunnyside flow along that Irving was none too well pleased to separate himself from it in 1842 when appointed minister of the United States to Spain. Nevertheless, he looked upon this event as the “crowning hour” of his life.
During the thirteen years that remained to him after returning to Sunnyside in 1846, he produced the Life of Mahomet and his Successors, a Life of Goldsmith, an author whom he especially admired and appreciated, and a biography of his celebrated namesake, which, though entitled a Life of Washington, is nothing less than a history of the Revolution. In the very year this last great work was completed, Irving died, surrounded by the household to whom he had become so much endeared (November 28, 1859).
In his writings Washington Irving has shown himself so gentle and unpretentious and so large-hearted, that his words concerning Oliver Goldsmith seem to apply with equal fitness to himself: “There are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal kindness.” These same qualities were revealed also day by day in the smallest incidents of his life. Perhaps they were never more simply illustrated than on the occasion when he was traveling in a railway car behind a woman with two small children and a baby who was being constantly disturbed by the older children’s efforts to climb to a seat by the window. Having taken in the situation, Irving began lifting first one and then the other of the little ones into his lap, allowing each just three minutes at the window, and this he continued until they had had enough, and the grateful mother had enjoyed a needed rest. Apparently he bore ill-will toward no one, and his ever-ready humor helped him to view the lives of others without harshness. Thus it is not only as a great literary artist, but as an American of the most worthy type, that he has won lasting honor.
THE KNICKERBOCKER HISTORY OF NEW YORK
By Washington Irving