PART II
I
STOCKHOLM TO EGYPT
To London and Paris
Again we set out from Stockholm in the evening by train, and the next morning we reach Malmö, a port on the west coast of Sweden, not many miles north of Trelleborg, from which we started on our journey eastwards across Asia. From Malmö a steamer soon takes us across the narrow sound to Copenhagen, the beautiful capital of Denmark, and then we take the train across the large, rich, and fertile island of Zealand. There farms are crowded close together among the tilled fields; there thriving cattle graze on the meadows, yielding Denmark a superfluity of milk and butter; there the productive soil spreads everywhere, leaving no room for unprofitable sandy downs and heaths, as on the west coast of Jutland. The Danes are a small people, but they make a brave struggle for existence. Their country is one of the smallest in Europe, but the first in utilising all its possibilities of opening profitable commerce with foreign lands. Much larger are its possessions in the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, and Iceland, but there the population is very scanty and the real masters of the islands are cold and ice.
At Korsör, on the Great Belt, we again go on board a steamer which in a few hours takes us between Langeland and Laaland to Kiel, the principal naval port of Germany. Here we are on soil which was formerly Danish, for it was only during her last unfortunate war that Denmark lost the two duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.
We travel by train from Kiel through fertile Holstein southwards to the free Hansa town of Hamburg on the Elbe, the greatest commercial emporium on the mainland of Europe, and, after London and New York, the third in the world.
From Hamburg the train goes on through Hanover and Westphalia, across the majestic Rhine, through South Holland, not far north of the Belgian frontier, to the port of Flushing, which is situated on one of the islands in the delta of the Scheldt. Here another steamer is ready for us, and after a passage of a few hours we glide into the broad trumpet-shaped mouth of the Thames and land at Queenborough. There again we take a train which carries us through the thickly-peopled, well-cultivated country of Kent into the heart of London, the greatest city of the world.
MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM STOCKHOLM TO PARIS.
After a few days' stay in London we go on to Paris—by train to Dover, across the Channel at its narrowest part in a swift turbine steamer, and again by rail from Calais to Paris, through one of the most fruitful districts of France, vying with the valleys of the Rhone and Garonne in fertility. In a little over seven hours after leaving London we arrive at the great city (Plate XXIV.) where the Seine, crossed by thirty bridges, describes a bend, afterwards continuing in the most capricious meanderings to Rouen and Havre.
PLATE XXIV. PARIS.
Looking eastwards from Notre Dame.
The first thing the stranger notices in Paris is the boulevards—broad, handsome streets, with alleys of leafy trees between rows of large palatial houses, theatres, cafés, and shops. The oldest, the boulevards proper, were formerly the fortifications of the town with towers and walls; "boulevard" is, then, the same word as the English "bulwark." Louis XIII., who enlarged and beautified Paris, had these bulwarks pulled down, and the first boulevards laid out on their site. They are situated on the north side of the Seine, and form a continuous line under different names, Madeleine, des Capuchines, des Italiens, and Montmartre. This line of boulevards is one of the sights of Paris. In later times boulevards were also laid out where there had been no fortifications before. Under Louis XIV. and his successors Paris grew and increased in splendour and greatness; then it was the scene of the great Revolution and its horrors; then under Napoleon it became the heart of the mightiest empire of that time. With the fall of Napoleon Paris was twice entered by the forces of the Allies, and in 1871 it was besieged and captured by the Prussians. Since then Paris has been spared from disastrous misfortunes, and is, as it has been for many centuries, the gayest and most animated city in Europe.
Let us take a rapid walk through the town, starting at the Place de la Bastille, on the north bank of the Seine, where formerly stood the fortress and prison of the Bastille. This prison was stormed and destroyed at the commencement of the Great Revolution, on July 14, 1789, and since that year July 14 has been the chief national festival-day. In the middle of the square stands the July Column, and from its summit a wonderful view of Paris can be obtained. We now follow the Rue de Rivoli, the largest and handsomest street in Paris. On the left hand is the Hôtel de Ville, a fine public building, where the city authorities meet, where brilliant entertainments are given, and where the galleries are adorned with canvases of famous masters.
Farther along, on the same side, is the largest public building of the city, the palace of the Louvre. Like the British Museum, it would require months and years to see properly. Here are stored colossal collections, not only of objects of art and relics from great ancient kingdoms in Asia and Europe, but also of the finest works of European sculptors and painters of all periods.
We walk on north-westwards through the luxuriant gardens of the Tuileries, and stop a moment in the Place de la Concorde to enjoy the charming views presented on all sides—the river with its quays and bridges, the parks and avenues, the huge buildings decorated with exquisite taste, the wide, open spaces adorned with glorious monuments, and the never-ending coming and going of pleasure-loving Parisians and Parisian ladies in costumes of the latest fashion.
From the Place de la Concorde we direct our steps to the Champs Élysées, a magnificent park with a broad carriageway along which the fashionable world rides, walks, or drives in smart carriages and motor cars. At the northern side of the park lives the President of the Republic in the palace of the Élysées.
If we now follow the double row of broad avenues northwards we come to the Place de l'Étoile, a "circus" where twelve avenues of large streets meet. One of them, a prolongation of the Champs Élysées, is named after the grand army of Napoleon and leads to the extensive Bois de Boulogne. In the middle of the Place de l'Étoile is erected a stately triumphal arch, 160 feet high, in memory of Napoleon's victories.
From here we follow a busy street as far as the bridge of Jena, and on the opposite bank of the Seine rises the Eiffel Tower, dominating Paris with its immense pillar 1000 feet high. The Eiffel Tower is the highest structure ever reared by human hands, twice as high as the cathedral of Cologne and the tallest of the Egyptian pyramids. At the first platform we are more than 330 feet above the vast city, but the hills outside Paris close in the horizon. When the cage rises up to the third platform we are at a height of 864 feet above the ground, and see below us the Seine with its many bridges and the city with its innumerable streets and its 140 squares. A staircase leads up to the highest balcony, and at the very top a beacon is lighted at night visible 50 miles away. From the parapet we hardly dare allow our eyes to look down the perpendicular tower to the four sloping iron piers at its base, especially when it blows hard and the whole tower perceptibly swings. There is no need to go up in a balloon to obtain a bird's-eye view of Paris; from the top of the Eiffel Tower we have the town spread out before us like a map.
Napoleon's Tomb
When we have safely descended from the giddy height, we make our way across the Champ de Mars to the Hôtel des Invalides. Formerly several thousand pensioners from the great French armies found a refuge in this huge building, but now it is used as a museum for military historic relics.
PLATE XXV. NAPOLEON'S TOMB.
Hôtel des Invalides, Paris.
We pass in under the glittering gilded dome, visible all over the city, and find ourselves in a round hall, the centre of which is occupied by a crypt, likewise round and several feet deep and open above. On the floor in mosaic letters are glorious names, Rivoli, Pyramids, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, and Moscow. Twelve marble statues, representing as many victories, and sixty captured colours keep guard round the great sarcophagus of red porphyry from Finland which contains the remains of Napoleon (Plate XXV.).
No one speaks in here. The deepest silence surrounds the ashes of the man who in his lifetime filled the world with the roar of his cannon and the thunder of his legions, and who within the space of a few years completely changed the map of Europe. Pale and subdued, the light falls over the crypt where the red porphyry speaks of irresistible power, and the white goddesses of victory are illumined as it were with a reflection of the years of glory.
Unconsciously we listen for an echo of the clash of arms and the words of command. We seem to see a blue-eyed boy playing at his mother's knee at Ajaccio in Corsica; we seem to hear a youthful revolutionist, burning with enthusiasm, making fiery speeches at secret clubs in Paris. Pale and solemn, the shade of the twenty-six-year-old general floats before our mind's eye as he returns from a series of victories in northern Italy, where he rushed like a storm over the plains of Lombardy, made a triumphal entry into Milan, and for ever removed the ancient republic of Venice from the list of independent States.
We recall the campaign of the French army against Egypt and the Holy Land. Napoleon takes his fleet out from the harbour of Toulon, escapes Nelson's ships of the line and frigates, seizes Malta, sails to the north of Crete and west of Cyprus, and lands 40,000 men at Alexandria. The soldiers languish in the desert sands on the way to Cairo, they approach the Nile to give battle to the Egyptian army, and at the foot of the pyramids the East is defeated by the West. The march is continued eastwards to Syria. Five centuries have passed since the crusaders attempted to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of unbelievers. Now again the weapons of Western lands clash in the valley of the Jordan and at the foot of Mount Tabor, and now the French General obtains a victory over the Turks outside Nazareth. In the meantime, however, Nelson has annihilated his fleet. The flower of the republican army is doomed to perish, and Napoleon's dream of an oriental dominion has vanished with the smoke of the last camp fire. He leaves Egypt with two frigates, sails along the coasts of Tripoli and Tunis, and passes at night with extinguished lights through the channel between Africa and Sicily.
Again our eyes turn to the dim light under the cupola of the Invalides, and the marble columns and statues look white as snow. Then our thoughts wander off to the Alps, the Great St. Bernard, the St. Gotthard, Mont Cenis, and the Simplon, where the First Consul, like Hannibal before him, with four army corps bids defiance to the loftiest mountains of Europe. We seem to see the soldiers dragging the cannon through the frozen drifts and collecting together again on the Italian side. At Marengo, south of the Po, a new victory is added to the French laurels, and the most powerful man in France has the fate of Europe in his hands.
Then various episodes of his marvellous career pass before us. Our eyes fall on the name Austerlitz down in the mosaic of the crypt. The Emperor of France has marched into Moravia and drawn up his legions under the golden eagles. A distant echo seems to sound round the crypt—it is Napoleon's cavalry riding down the Russian guards, it is the "grand army" annihilating the Austrian and Russian forces, it is the French artillery pounding the ice on the lake and drowning the fugitives, their guns and horses.
A murmur passes through the crypt, an echo from the battle of Jena, where Prussia was crushed, its territory devastated from the Elbe to the Oder, and its fortresses surrendered, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Stettin, Lübeck, while the victor made his entry into Frederick the Great's capital, Berlin. We hear the tread of the columns and the tramp of horses through the mud on the roads in Poland, and we see the bloody battlefields of Pultusk, east of the Vistula, and Eylau in West Prussia, where heaps of bodies lie scattered over the deep snow. We see Napoleon on his white horse after the battle of Friedland in East Prussia, where the Russians were defeated. The guards and hussars rode through them with drawn swords. Their enthusiastic cry of "Long live the Emperor" still vibrates under the standards round the sarcophagus; and above the shouts of victory the beat of horse hoofs is heard on the roads of Europe; it is the courier between the headquarters of the army and Paris.
The conqueror marches to Vienna, and threatens to crush Austria. He gains the bloody battle of Wagram, north-east of Vienna, he wipes out states and makes them dependencies of France and their rulers his obedient vassals, and he gives away royal crowns to his relations and generals. His dominion extends from Danzig to Cadiz, from the mouth of the Elbe to the Tiber; he has risen to a height of power and glory never attained since the golden age of Rome.
Bayonets and sabres, cuirasses and helmets flash in the sunlight as the invincible army camps with band and music and song above the Niemen. Half a million of soldiers are on their way to the old capital of Russia, Moscow. The Russian roads from Vilna to Vitebsk are full of endless lines of troops, squadrons of cavalry in close formation, and enormous baggage trains. The Russians know that their freedom is in danger; they burn their own towns and villages, devastate their own provinces, and retire little by little, as they did a hundred years earlier when Charles XII. invaded Russia. At length there is a battle at Moscow, and the French army enters the town. We see in imagination the September nights lighted up far and wide by a blazing flame. Moscow is on fire. On the terrace of the Kremlin stands a little man in a grey military coat and a black cocked hat, watching the flame. Within a week the old holy city of the Muscovites lies in ashes.
The early twilight of winter falls over Paris, and we see the shadows deepen round Napoleon's tomb. We fancy we see among them human figures fighting against hunger, cold, and weariness. The time of misfortune is come. The great army is retreating, the roads are lined with corpses and fragments. The cannon are left in the snow. The soldiers fall in regiments like a ripe crop. Packs of wolves follow in their tracks: they are contented with the dead, but the Cossack squadrons cut down the living. At the bridge over the Beresina, a tributary of the Dnieper, 30,000 men are drowned and perish. All discipline is relaxed. The soldiers throw away their guns and knapsacks. Clothed in furs and with a birchen staff in his hand, the defeated emperor marches like a simple soldier in the front. Thanks to the severe climate of their country and its great extent, and thanks also to their own cautious conduct of the war, the Russians practically annihilated Napoleon's army.
The darkness deepens. At Leipzig Russians, Austrians, Prussians, and Swedes oppose Napoleon. There his proud empire falls to pieces, even Paris is captured, and he loses his crown. He is carried a prisoner down the Rhone valley through Lyons, and shipped off to the island of Elba.
Once more he fills the world with tumult. With a brig and seven small vessels he sails back to the coast of France. He has a force of only 1100 men, but in his hands it is sufficient to reconquer France. He marches over the western offshoots of the Alps. At Grenoble his force has increased to 7000 men. In Lyons he is saluted as Emperor, and Paris opens its gates. He is ready to stake everything on a single throw. In Belgium is to be the decisive battle. Hostile armies gather round the frontiers of France, for Europe is tired of continual war. At Waterloo Napoleon fights his last battle, and his fate is sealed for ever.
He leaves Paris for the last time. At the port of Rochefort, between the mouths of the Loire and the Garonne, he goes on board an English frigate. After seventy days' sail he is landed on the small basaltic island of St. Helena in the southern Atlantic, where he is doomed to pass the last six years of his eventful life. Here also his grave is digged under the willows in the valley.
Nineteen years after Napoleon's death the simple grave under the willows was uncovered, the coffins of wood, lead, and sheet-iron were opened in the presence of several who had shared his long imprisonment, the remains were taken on board a French frigate amid the roar of guns and flags waving half-mast high, the coffin was landed at Cherbourg in Normandy, and the conqueror of Europe once more made his entry into Paris with military pomp and ceremony, in which all France took part. Drawn by sixteen horses in funereal trappings and followed by veterans of Napoleon's campaigns, the hearse, adorned with imperial splendour, was escorted by soldiers under the triumphal arch of the Place de l'Étoile and through the Champs Élysées to the Hôtel des Invalides, where the coffin was deposited in the Finnish sarcophagus. Thus was fulfilled the last wish of the conqueror of the world: "I desire that my remains may rest on the banks of the Seine."
Paris to Rome
The stranger leaves Paris with regret, and is consoled only by the thought that he is on his way to sunny Italy. The train carries him eastwards, and he looks through the window at the hills and plains of Champagne, the home of sparkling wine. Around him spread tilled fields, villages, and farmhouses. Where the soil is not suitable for vines, wheat, or beet, it provides pasture for large flocks. Men are seen at work everywhere, and the traveller realises that France is so prosperous because all its small proprietors, peasants, and townspeople are so industrious and so thrifty. Now the frontier is reached. The great fortress of Belfort is the last French town passed, and a little later we are in Alsace.
Another frontier is crossed, that between Germany and Switzerland, and the train halts at the fine town of Bâle, traversed by the mighty Rhine. Coming from the Lake of Constance, the clear waters of the river glide under the bridges of Bâle, and turn at right angles northwards between the Vosges and the Black Forest.
From Bâle we go on south-westwards to Geneva. Along a narrow valley the railway follows the river Birs, which falls into the Rhine, and winds in curves along the mountain flanks, sometimes high above the foot of the valley, and sometimes by the river's bank. It is towards the end of January, and snow has been falling for several days on end. All the country is quite white, and the small villages in the valley are almost hidden.
Now we come to three lakes in a row, the Lake of Bienne, the Lake of Neuchâtel, and the great Lake of Geneva, which we reach at the town of Lausanne. Here the snow has ceased to fall, and the beautiful Alps of Savoy are visible to the south. The sun is hidden behind clouds, but its rays are reflected by the clear mirror of the lake. This view is one of the finest in the world, and our eyes are glued to the carriage window as the train follows the shore of Geneva.
In outline the lake is like a dolphin just about to dive. At the dolphin's snout lies Geneva, and here the river Rhone flows out of the lake to run to Lyons and debouch into the Mediterranean immediately to the west of the great port of Marseilles.
Geneva is one of the finest, cleanest, and most charming towns in the world. Between its northern and southern halves the water of the lake, deep blue and clear as crystal, is drawn off into the Rhone as into a funnel. There the current is strong, and the river is divided into two by a long island.
The finest sight, however, is the view south-eastwards when the weather is clear. There stand the mighty summits and crests of the Alps of Savoy, now covered with snow, and glittering in white, light blue, and steely grey tints. There also Mont Blanc is enthroned above the other mountains, nay, above all Europe, awesome and grand, the crown of the Alps, the frontier pillar between Switzerland, France, and Italy.
From Geneva we go eastwards along the northern shore of the lake. The air is hazy, and the Alps of Savoy look like a light veil beneath the sun. In this light the water is of a bright green like malachite. Beyond Lausanne the mist disappears, and the Alps again appear dazzling white and steep as pyramids and towers. Towns, villages, and villas cast reflections of their white or coloured house-fronts and their light balconies on the lake. The shore is lined by a row of hotels surrounded by gardens and promenades. Travellers come hither from all countries in summer to feast their eyes on the Alps and strengthen their lungs by inhaling the fresh air.
We leave the lake and mount gently up the Rhone valley between wild rocks. It becomes narrower as we ascend. The Rhone, a tumultuous stream, roars in its bed, now quite insignificant compared to the majestic river at Geneva. In the valley tilled fields are laid out, dark green spruces peep out of the snow on the slopes, while above all the snow-white summits of the Alps are enthroned.
A few minutes beyond Brieg the train rushes at full speed straight into the mountain. The electric lamps are lighted and all the windows closed. The tunnel is filled with smoke, and a continuous reverberation dins our ears. The Simplon tunnel is the longest in the world, being 12-1/2 miles long. It is only a few years since it was completed. Work was begun from both sides of the mountain at the same time, and when the excavations met in the middle and a blasting charge burst the last sheet of rock, it was found that the calculations had not been an inch out. After fully twenty minutes it begins to grow light, and when the train rolls out of the tunnel we are on Italian ground.
The train now descends a lovely valley to the shore of Lago Maggiore. Framed in steep mountains, the dark blue lake contains a small group of islands, full of white houses, palaces, and gardens. One of these is well known by the name of Isola Bella, or the Beautiful Island.
Night hides from our eyes the plains of Lombardy, Milan with its famous cathedral, the bridge over the Po, and then a number of famous old towns, including Bologna with its university about fifteen hundred years old.
Next morning, however, we see to the south-west something like a flaming beacon. It is the gilded dome of St. Peter's Church, which, caught by the rays of the rising sun, shines like a fire above the eternal city.
The Eternal City
The King of Italy has 35 million subjects, but in Rome lives another mighty prince, the Pope, though his kingdom is not of this world. His throne is the chair of St. Peter, his arms the triple tiara and the crossed keys which open and close the gates of the kingdom of heaven. He has 270 million subjects, the Roman Catholics. For political reasons he is a voluntary prisoner in the Vatican, a collection of great palaces containing more than 10,000 halls and apartments. There also are installed museums, libraries, and collections of manuscripts of vast extent and value. The Vatican museum of sculpture is the richest in the world. In the Sistine Chapel, a sanctuary 450 years old, Michael Angelo adorned the roof with great pictures of the creation of the world and man, of the Fall and the Flood, and at the end wall an immense picture of the Last Judgment. To the west of the palace stands the Pope's gardens and park, and to the south the Church of St. Peter, the largest temple in Christendom. The whole forms a small town of itself; and this town is one of the greatest in the world, a seat of art and learning, and, above all, the focus of a great religion. For from here the Pope sends forth his bulls of excommunication against heretics and sinners, and here he watches over his flock, the Catholics, in accordance with the Saviour's thrice repeated injunction to Peter: "Feed my sheep."
A drive through Rome is intensely interesting. The streets are mostly narrow and crooked, and we are always turning corners, driving across small triangular open places and in lanes where it is ticklish work to pass a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Yet no boulevards, no great streets in the world, can rival in beauty the streets of Rome. They are skirted by old grey palaces built thousands of years ago rather than centuries, decorated with the most splendid window frames, friezes, and colonnades. Every portal is a work of art; round every corner comes a new surprise, a fountain with sea-horses and deities, a mediæval well, a moss-grown ruin of Imperial times, or a church with a tower whence bells have rung for centuries over Rome.
And what a commotion there is in all these narrow streets! Here comes a peasant driving his asses weighed down with baskets of melons and grapes. There a boy draws a handcart piled up with apricots, oranges, and nuts. Here we see men and women from the Campagna outside Rome, clad in their national costume, in which dirty white and red predominate, the men with black slouched hats, the women with white kerchiefs over their hair. They are of dark complexion, but on the cheeks of the younger ones the roses appear through the bronze. The patricians, the noble Romans who roll by lazily in fine carriages, are much fairer, and indeed the ladies are often as pale as if they had just left the cloister or were ready for the bier. Boys run begging after the carriage, and poor mothers with small infants in their arms beseech only a small coin. There are many in Rome who live from hand to mouth. But all are cheerful, all are comely.
Now we reach the bridge of St. Angelo over the muddy Tiber, and before us stands the massive round tower of the castle of St. Angelo, which the Emperor Hadrian built 1800 years ago as a mausoleum for himself. On the left is the piazza of St. Peter, which, with its surrounding buildings, its curved arcades, St. Peter's Church and the Vatican, is one of the grandest in the world. Between its constantly playing fountains has stood for 300 years an obelisk which the Emperor Caligula brought from Egypt to adorn Rome. It witnessed wonderful events long before the time of Moses. At its foot the children of Israel sang the melodies of their country during their servitude. It was a decoration of Nero's circus, and saw thousands of Christian martyrs torn to pieces by Gallic hounds and African lions; and still it lifts itself 80 feet into the air in a single block, untouched by time and the strife of men.
At the north side of the piazza is the gate of the Vatican, where the Swiss Guards keep watch in antique red and yellow uniforms. Before us are the great steps of St. Peter's Church. We enter the grand portico and pass through one of the bronze doors into the church. All the dimensions are so immensely great that we stop in astonishment. Now our eyes lose themselves in sky-high vaulting, glittering with colour, and now we admire the columns and their capitals, pictures in mosaic or monuments in marble. Rome was not built in a day, says the proverb, and St. Peter's Church alone was the work of 120 years and twenty Popes. Italy's foremost artists, including Raphael and Michael Angelo, put the best of their energies into the building of this temple, where is the tomb of the Apostle Peter. The great church contains a bronze statue of the Apostle Peter in a sitting position, and the right foot is worn and polished by the kisses of the faithful. High above in the vaulting over his head is to be seen the following inscription in Latin:—"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven."
Paul has also a worthy memorial church in Rome, St. Paul's, which stands outside the walls. On the way thither we pass a small chapel where, it is said, Peter and Paul took leave of each other before they went to suffer martyrdom. On the façade the final words are inscribed. Paul said: "Peace be with you, thou foundation of the church and shepherd of Christ's lambs." And Peter: "Go forth in peace, thou preacher of the gospel, righteous guide to salvation." Paul's tomb is under the high altar of St. Paul's Church. In the interior of the church we notice portraits in mosaic of all the Popes from St. Peter to Leo XIII.
Rome is inexhaustible. It has grown up during 2600 years, and each age has built on the ruins of the preceding. The city is piled up in strata like a geological deposit. What lies hidden at the bottom is scarcely known at all; that is from the time of the early kings of Rome. Then follows the city of the Republic, and upon it the Rome of the Emperors, the cosmopolitan city, where the Cæsars from their palace on the Palatine stretched their sceptre over all the known world from foggy Britain and the dark forests of Germany to the burning deserts of Africa, from the mountains of Spain to Galilee and Judæa. Many stately remains of this time of greatness are still preserved among the modern streets and houses. Vandals, Goths, and other barbarians have sacked Rome, monsters of the Imperial house have devastated the city to wipe out the remembrance of their predecessors and glorify themselves; but if Rome was not built in a day, so two thousand years have not sufficed to blot out its magnificence.
Then follow new strata, the Christian age, the Middle Ages, and modern times, with their innumerable churches, monasteries, and massive solemn palaces. Christianity built on the ruins of paganism. Ancient and modern times are inextricably mixed. Up there on the Capitoline hill rides a Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, in bronze. Look round, and there on the farther bank of the Tiber another horseman looks over the eternal city, the brave champion of young Italy's liberty, Garibaldi. You ride through a street lined with grand shops in new buildings, and in a couple of minutes you are at the Forum Romanum, the Roman market-place, the heart of the world empire, the square for markets, popular assemblies, and judicial courts, a marble hall in the open air. Over its flags, victors, accompanied by their comrades in arms and their prisoners, marched up to the Capitol to sacrifice in the temple of Jupiter, where now only a few pillars and ruins remain of all the splendour Julius Cæsar and Augustus lavished upon it.
PLATE XXVI. THE COLOSSEUM, ROME.
At one time we are like pilgrims in the fine Church of St. Peter; at another we are strolling under the triumphal arch of Titus, erected in remembrance of the destruction of Jerusalem in the year A.D. 70.
The largest and grandest ruin in Rome is the Colosseum (Plate XXVI.), an amphitheatre which was built by the two Emperors, Vespasian and Titus, and which was finished eighty years after the birth of Christ. The outside walls are nearly 160 feet high. The tiers of benches, which could accommodate 85,000 spectators, were divided into four blocks, of which the outermost and highest was set apart for freedmen and slaves with their women. The tickets were of ivory, and indicated the different places so clearly that every one could easily find his way in the huge passages, colonnades, and staircases. The benches were covered with marble, and many statues of the same material adorned the upper walls of the amphitheatre. The spectacles were usually held in the daytime, and to abate the heat of the sun immense silken awnings were stretched over the arena and the auditorium. When the theatre was full, it presented a scene of dazzling splendour. In the best places sat senators in purple-bordered togas, the priests of the various temples, the Vestal virgins in black veils, warriors in gold-embroidered uniforms. There sat Roman citizens in white or coloured togas, bareheaded, beardless, and closely cropped, eagerly talking in a language as euphonious as French and Italian. All strangers who were staying in Rome were there, ambassadors from all the known countries of the world, statesmen, merchants, and travellers from Germany and Gaul, from Syria, Greece, and Egypt.
A circus or theatre of our day is a toy compared to the Colosseum. The old Romans were masters in the arrangement of spectacles to satisfy the rude cravings of the masses. Woods and rocks were set up, in which bloody contests were fought, and where gladiators hunted lions and tigers with spears. The immense show-ground could be quickly filled with water, and on the artificial lake deadly sea battles were fought; and the bodies of the slain and drowned lying on the bottom were invisible when the water was dyed red with blood. The arena could be drained at once by ingenious channels, slaves dragged out the corpses through the gate of the Goddess of Death, and the theatre was made ready for the night performance. Then the arena was lighted up with huge torches and fires, and troops of Christians were crucified in long rows or thrown to the lions and bears. When a Roman emperor celebrated the thousandth anniversary of the founding of Rome, two thousand gladiators appeared in the Colosseum, thirty-two elephants, and numbers of wild animals.
Not far from the Colosseum begins one of the oldest and most famous roads ever trodden by the foot of man—the Appian Way. Here emperors and generals marched into Rome after successful wars; here their remains were carried out to be burned on pyres and deposited in urns in mausoleums and tombs. Here the Christians came out at night in silent ranks to consign the remains of their co-religionists, torn to pieces in the arena, to the catacombs of underground Rome. Here also St. Paul made his entry into Rome, escorted by troops of Christians, as recorded in the last chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; and to-day we find on this road a small chapel which is called "Whither goest thou?" (Quo vadis?) at the point in the road where Peter saw his vision.
Pompeii
From Rome we go on to Naples, where to the east the regular volcanic cone of Vesuvius rears itself like a fire-breathing dragon over the bay, and where towns, villages, and white villas stand as thick on the shore as beads on a rosary. Our time is short; we drive rapidly through the lava-paved streets of Naples, and cannot feast our eyes long enough with the sight of these fine dark men in their motley dirty garments, and cannot hear enough of their melodious songs in honour of delightful Naples. Their warm affection for the famous city is quite natural, and one of their sayings, "See Naples and die," implies that life is worthless to any one who has not been there.
MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO ALEXANDRIA.
During our wanderings we come to the National Museum, and there we are lost to everything outside. There we forget the bustling life of the streets, the blue bay and the green gardens; for here we are in the presence of antiquity—an immense collection of artistic objects, statues, and paintings from Pompeii.
In the sixth century B.C. Pompeii was founded at the southern foot of Vesuvius, not far from the shore of the bay. About eighty years before our era Pompeii came under the rule of Rome, and during the succeeding 150 years it was changed into a genuine Roman town in all respects—in style of building, language, trade, and manner of life. A wall with towers enclosed this collection of streets and houses, and at night the eight town gates were closed and shut in 20,000 inhabitants. In its principal square, a place of popular assemblies and festivals, stood the Temple of Jupiter among porticoes, arcades, and rows of marble statues. In another square theatres were erected, and there also stood an old Greek temple.
Many rich and eminent Romans loved Pompeii, and built costly villas in the town or its beautiful environs. One of these was the famous orator and author, Cicero, whose villa was situated near the north-eastern town gate. Again and again he went to Pompeii to rest after the noise and tumult of Rome, and the last time he is certainly known to have sojourned there was in the year 44 B.C., shortly after the murder of the great Cæsar.
From the vicinity of Cicero's villa ran north-west the Street of Tombs, bordered with innumerable monuments like the Appian Way outside Rome. Some were quite simple, others resembled costly altars and temples, and all contained urns with the bones and ashes of the dead.
Some streets were lined entirely with shops and stores. Most of the streets were straight and regular, some broad, others quite small; they were paved with flags of lava and had raised footpaths. Here and there stones were laid in a row across the street, whereon foot passengers could cross over dryshod after the heavy torrential rains, which then, as now, repeatedly converted these lanes into rivers and canals.
Pompeii had several bath-houses, luxuriously and comfortably furnished, built of stone, dark and cool, and very attractive during the warm, sultry summer. In the apodyterium the visitor took off his clothes, and then repaired to the various rooms for warm air, warm baths, and cold baths. The walls in the frigidarium were decorated with paintings representing shady groves and dark forests; the vaulted roof was painted blue and strewn with stars, and through a small round opening the sunlight poured in. The basin itself was therefore like a small forest pool under the open sky. The bather was thoroughly scraped and shampooed by the attendants, and last of all smeared with odorous oils.
The houses of wealthy citizens were decorated with exquisite taste and artistic skill. Towards the streets the houses showed little besides bare plain walls, for the old Romans did not like the private sanctity of their homes to be disturbed at all by the noise of the streets and the inquisitiveness of people on the public roads. So it is still, if not in Italy and Greece, at any rate over all the Asiatic East. Pomp and state were only displayed in the interior. There were seen statues and busts, flourishing flower-beds under open colonnades, and in the midst of the principal apartment, called the atrium, was a marble basin sunk in the mosaic pavement, and through a quadrangular opening in the roof above the sun and moon looked in and the rain often mingled its drops with the jets of the constantly playing fountain. When the master of the house gave an entertainment, tables were carried in by slaves, and the guests took their luxurious meal lying on long couches. They ate, and drank, and jested, listening from time to time to the tones of flutes, harps, and cymbals, and watched the lithe movements of dancers with eyes dull and heavy with wine.
Happy days were spent in Pompeii in undisturbed peacefulness. People enjoyed the treasures of the forests, gardens, and sea, transacted their business or the duties of their posts, and assembled for discussion in the Forum, where the columns cast cool shadows over the stone flags. No one thought of Vesuvius. The volcano was supposed to have become for ever extinct ages ago. On the ancient lava-streams old trees grew, the most luscious grapes ripened on the flanks of the mountain, and from their descendants is pressed out at the present day a wine called Lachryma Christi. A legend relates that when the Saviour once went up Vesuvius and stood in mute astonishment at the beautiful landscape surrounding the Bay of Naples, He also wept from grief over this home of sin and vanity; and where His tears moistened the ground there grew up a tendril which has not its like on earth.
The year before the burning of Rome, Pompeii was devastated by a fearful earthquake. The inhabitants soon took heart again, however, and built up their town better and more beautiful than ever. Sixteen years passed, and then the blow came, the most crushing and annihilating blow that ever befell any town since Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire from heaven.
The elder Pliny, who left to the world an immortal work, was then in command of a Roman fleet anchored in the Bay of Naples, and lived with his family in a place not far from Pompeii. His adopted son, the younger Pliny, a youth of eighteen, spirited, quick, and talented, was also with him. Vesuvius broke into eruption on August 24 in the year 79, and in a few hours Pompeii and two other towns were buried under a downpour of pumice and ashes, and streams of lava and mud. Among the victims was the elder Pliny.
Several years afterwards, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote to the younger Pliny and asked him for information about the manner of his uncle's death. The two letters containing answers to this question are still extant. Pliny describes how his uncle was suffocated by ashes and sulphurous vapour on the shore. He had himself seen flames of fire shoot up out of the crater, which also vomited forth a black cloud spreading out above like the crown of a pine-tree. He went out with his mother to the forecourt of the house, but when the ground trembled and the air became full of ashes they hurried off, followed by a crowd of people. His mother, who was old, begged him to save himself by rapid flight, but he would not desert her. And he writes: "I looked round; a thick smoky darkness rolled threateningly over us from behind; it spread over the earth like an advancing flood and followed us. 'Let us move to one side while we can see,' I said,' so that we may not fall down on the road and be trampled down in the darkness by those behind.' We had scarcely got out of the crowd when we were involved in darkness, not such as when there is no moon or the sky is overcast, but such as prevails in a closed room when the lights are out." And he tells how the fugitives tied cushions over their heads so as not to be bruised by falling stones, and how they had repeatedly to shake off the ashes lest they should be weighed down by them. He was quite composed himself, and thought that the whole world was passing away.
PLATE XXVII. POMPEII.
The Forum, with Vesuvius in the distance.
By this eruption Pompeii was buried under a layer of pumice and ashes 20 feet thick. For a long period of years the inhabitants of the neighbourhood came hither and digged up with their spades one thing or another, but then Pompeii sank into the night of oblivion and slumbered under the earth for fifteen hundred years. At last the town was discovered again, and excavations were commenced. Country houses, fields, and clumps of mulberry trees had sprung up on the deep bed of ashes. Not till fifty years ago did modern investigation take Pompeii seriously in hand, and now more than half the town is laid bare. Strangers can ride unhindered through the streets, look into the shops and baths, and admire the fine wall-paintings in the palaces of the great. The columns of Jupiter's temple, so long buried in complete darkness, are again lighted by the sun, and cast their shadows as of old over the stone flags of the Forum (Plate XXVII.). The Street of Tombs is exposed, and young cypresses grow up among the monuments. The dead, which were already buried when Vesuvius scattered its ashes over them, listen now to strange footsteps on the road. But the unfortunates who were buried alive under the shower of ashes have decayed and turned to dust. And yet they may still be seen in the museums, with distorted limbs and their faces to the ground. We see them in the position they assumed when they fell and the ashes were bedded close to their sides. Thus they remained lying for eighteen hundred years, imbedded as in a mould. Their bodies returned to the earth, but the empty space remained. By pouring plaster into these forms, life-like figures of persons have been reproduced just as they were when death overtook them. Here lies a woman who fell outside her house and grasped with convulsive fingers a bag full of gold and silver. Here is a man resting his heavy head on his elbow, and here a dog which has curled itself up before it was at last suffocated.
So the sleeping town has wakened to life again, and the dead have returned from the kingdom of shadows. The excavated pictures, sculptures, and art treasures of Pompeii, together with the whole arrangement of the town, the style of building and the inscriptions, have thrown an unexpected light on the life of antiquity. We can even read the passing conceits scribbled on the walls. At one corner a house is offered for hire from July I—"intending tenants should apply to the slave Primus." On another a jester advises an acquaintance: "Go and hang thyself." A citizen writes of a friend: "I have heard with sorrow that thou art dead—so adieu!" Another wall bears the following warning: "This is no place for idlers; go away, good-for-nothing." It is curious to read the names Sodom and Gomorrah, evidently scribbled by a Jew. Low down on the walls small schoolboys have practised writing the Greek alphabet, showing that Greek was included in their curriculum. And once were found written in charcoal, and only partly legible, the words, "Enjoy the fire, Christian," a scoff at the martyrs who, soaked in tar, were burned as torches in Nero's gardens.
From Naples we take a steamer for Egypt. After crossing the Bay of Naples we have to starboard the charming island of Capri. On its northern side you may swim or row in a shallow boat, under an arch of rock three feet high, into the Blue Grotto. Inside is a quiet crystal-clear sheet of water which extends more than 50 yards into the hill. The roof over its mirror is more than 160 feet high. The only light comes in through the small entrance. Owing to the reflections of the sky and water, everything in the grotto is blue, and stalactites hang like icicles from the roof and walls. If you dip an oar or your hand into the water it shines white as silver, owing to the reflection from the sandy bottom. It is possible to enter only in calm weather, or the boat would be stoved in against the rocky archway.
On a promontory to larboard appear the white houses and olive gardens of beautiful Sorrento, and then we steer out into the turquoise blue waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. To the south the rocky island of Stromboli rises from the waves with its ever-burning volcano, like a beacon. In the Straits of Messina we skirt the shores of Sicily and Calabria, which have so frequently suffered from terrible earthquakes. At last we are out in the wide, open Mediterranean. Italy sinks below the horizon behind us, and we steam eastward to Alexandria, the port of the land of the Pharaohs.
II
AFRICA
General Gordon
Seldom has the whole civilised world been so convulsed, so overwhelmed with sorrow, at the death of one man as it was when in January, 1885, the news flashed along the telegraph wires that Khartum had fallen, and that Gordon was dead.
Gordon was of Scottish extraction, but was born in one of the suburbs of London in the year 1833, and as a young lieutenant of engineers heard the thunders of war below the walls of Sebastopol. As a major of thirty years of age he commanded the Imperial army in China, and suppressed the furious insurrection which raged in the provinces around the Blue River. "The Ever-Victorious Army" would have come to grief without a strong and practical leader, but in Gordon's hands it soon deserved its name. He made his plans quickly and clearly, brought his troops with wonderful rapidity to the most vulnerable points in the enemy's position, and dealt his blows with crushing force. In a year and a half he had cleared China of insurgents and restored peace.
After several years of service at home and other wanderings in Eastern lands, Gordon accepted in 1874 an invitation to enter into the service of the Khedive of Egypt. The Khedive Ismail was a strong man with far-reaching projects. He wished to extend his dominion as far as the great lakes where the Nile takes its rise, and Gordon was to rule over a province named after the equator.
MAP OF NORTH-EASTERN AFRICA, SHOWING EGYPT AND THE SUDAN.
Immediately to the south of Cairo begins a plateau which stretches from north to south through almost the whole continent. In Abyssinia it attains to a considerable height, and near the equator rises into the loftiest summits of Africa. These mountains screen off the rain from Egypt and large areas of the Sudan. The masses of vapour which are carried over Abyssinia in summer by the monsoon are precipitated as rain in these mountain tracts, and consequently the wind is dry when it reaches Nubia and Egypt; while the moisture which rises from the warm ocean on the east, and is borne north-westwards by the constant trade-wind, is converted into water during eight months of the year among the mountains on the equator.
PLATE XXVIII. THE GREAT PYRAMIDS AT GHIZEH.
The rain which falls on the mountains of Abyssinia gives rise to the Atbara and Blue Nile, which produce abundant floods in the Nile during autumn; and during the rest of the year the White Nile, which comes from the great lakes on the equator, provides for the irrigation of Egypt. Thus the country is able to dispense with rain, and innumerable canals convey water to all parts of the Nile valley. Many kinds of grain are cultivated—wheat, maize, barley, rice, and durra (a kind of millet); vegetables, beans, and peas thrive, numerous date palms suck up their sap from the heavy, sodden silt on the river's banks, and sugar-cane and cotton are spreading more and more. Seen at a height from a balloon, the fields, palms, and fruit-trees would appear as a green belt along the river, while the rest of the country would look yellow and grey, for it is nothing but a dry, sandy desert.
The Nile, then, is everything to Egypt, the condition of its existence, its father and mother, the source of the wealth by which the country has subsisted since the most remote antiquity. Now that we are about to follow Gordon along the Nile to the equator, we must not forget that we are passing through an ancient land. The first king of which there are records lived 3200 years before the Christian era, and the largest of the Great Pyramids at Ghizeh is 4600 years old (Plate XXVIII.). Its funeral crypt is cut out of the solid rock, and in it still stands the red granite sarcophagus of Cheops. Two million three hundred thousand dressed blocks, each measuring 40 cubic feet, were used in the construction of this memorial over a perishable king, and the pyramid is reckoned to be the largest edifice ever built by human hands. The buildings and works of the present time are nothing compared to it. Only the Great Wall of China can vie with it, and this is ruined and to a large extent obliterated, while the pyramid of Cheops still stands, scorched by the sun, or sharply defined in the moonlight, or dimly visible as a mysterious apparition in the dark, warm night.
Twelve hundred miles south of the capital of modern Egypt the desert comes to an end, and the surface is covered by vast marshes and beds of waving reeds. This is the Sudan, "the Land of the Blacks." At the point where the White and Blue Niles mingle their waters lay the only town in the Sudan, Khartum, whither trade-routes converged from all directions, and where goods changed hands. Here were brought wares which never failed to find purchasers. The valuable feathers plucked from the swift-footed ostrich were needed to decorate the hats of European ladies; the wild elephants, larger and more powerful than their Indian congeners, were shot or caught in pitfalls in the woods for the sake of their precious ivory. But the most esteemed of all the wares that passed through Khartum were slaves—"black ivory," as they were called by their heartless Arab torturers. Elephants' tusks are heavy, and cannot be transported on horses or oxen from the depths of the forest, for draught animals are killed by the sting of the poisonous tsetse fly. Therefore the tusks had to be carried by men, and when these had finished their task they were themselves sold into Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. The forests and deserts were not inexhaustible; ivory and ostrich feathers might be worked out, but there would always be negroes.
When the Khedive Ismail invited Gordon to enter his service as governor of the new province not far from the sources of the Nile, Gordon accepted the post in the hope that he would be able to suppress slave-trading, or at least to check the hunting of black men and women. He left Cairo and travelled by the Red Sea to Suakin, rode to Berber on the Nile, and was received with much pomp and ceremony by the Governor-General at Khartum. Here he heard that the Nile was navigable for 900 miles southwards, and therefore he could continue his journey without delay.
The Nile afforded an excellent passage for Gordon's small steamboat. But the Nile can also place an insurmountable obstacle in the traveller's way. After the rainy season the White Nile overflows its banks, forming an inextricable labyrinth of side branches, lakes, and marshes. The country lies under water for miles around. The waterway between impenetrable beds of reeds and papyrus is often as narrow as a lane. The roots of large plants are loosened from the mud at the bottom, and are compacted with stems and mud into large sheets which are driven northwards by the rushing water. They are caught fast in small openings and sudden bends, and other islets of vegetation are piled up against them. Thus the river course is blocked, and above these natural dams the water forms lakes. Such banks of drifting or arrested and decaying vegetation are called sudd, and the more it rains the greater are the quantities that come down. At length the sudd becomes soft and yields to the pressure of the water, and then the Nile is navigable again.
Gordon's small steamer glides gently up the river. He advances deeper and deeper into a world unknown to him, and around him seethes tropical Africa. On the banks papyrus stems wave their plumes above the reeds. It was from the pith of papyrus stems that the old Egyptians made a kind of paper on which they wrote their chronicles. Here and there swarthy natives are seen between the reed beds, and sometimes noisy troops of wandering monkeys gaze at the boat. The hippopotami look like floating islands, but show themselves only at night, wallowing in the shallow water. A little beyond the luxuriant vegetation of the banks extends the boundless grassland with its abundant animal life and thin scattered clumps of trees.
After a journey of four days the steamer glided past an island. There dwelt in a grotto a dervish or mendicant monk named Mohamed Ahmed, who ten years later was to be Gordon's murderer.
In the middle of April Gordon and his companions were in Gondokoro, a small place which now stands on the boundary between the Sudan and British East Africa, and here he took charge of his Equatorial Province. He forced the Egyptian soldiers, who garrisoned this and one or two other posts on the Nile and robbed on their own account, to plough and plant; he arrested all slave-hunters within reach and freed the slaves; he succoured the poor, protected the helpless, and sent durra to the hungry.
The heat was excessive, and Gordon and his staff were pestered by crowds of gnats. It was still worse in September when the rain poured down and large tracts were converted into swamp, from which dangerous miasma was exhaled. In a month seven of Gordon's eight officers had died of fever, but he himself continued his work undismayed, and wrote in his diary: "God willing, I shall do much in this country."
He soon perceived that the best districts of his province lay around the large lakes in the south. But the Equatorial Province was too far away from Egypt. It hung as it were on a long string, the Nile, and from the largest lake, the Victoria Nyanza, the distance to Cairo in a straight line was nearly 2200 miles. Much shorter was the route to Mombasa on the east coast, so Gordon advised the Khedive to occupy Mombasa and open a road to the Victoria Nyanza. Then it would be easier to contend against the slave-trade. He described the condition of the Sudan in forcible letters, and into the Khedive's ears were dinned truths such as he never heard from his servile pashas. He would first establish steam communication with the lakes, and a number of boats which could be taken to pieces were on the way to his province.
The boats came up at the time when the Nile began to rise after rain, and then his plan was to advance farther southwards. The natives were opposed to this progress and feared the supremacy of Egypt, and therefore they tried to prevent the advance of the "White Pasha," who was loath to employ arms against them. All they wanted was to be left in peace in their grasslands and forests; and when now an intruder, whose aims they did not understand, penetrated into their country, they endeavoured whenever they could to bar his way, so that he was obliged, much against his will, to resort to force.
After all kinds of troubles and difficulties he reached at last the northernmost of the Nile lakes, the Albert Nyanza, and it was a great feat to have brought a steamer even thus far. He did not succeed in reaching the Victoria Nyanza, for the ruler of the country between the lakes had resolved to oppose with all his power any intruder, were he white man or Arab.
For three years Gordon was at work on the Upper Nile in the neighbourhood of the equator. During the next three years we find him in the deserts of the Sudan farther north. He was Governor-General of the whole of the Egyptian Sudan, and Khartum was his capital. His province was 1200 miles broad, from the Red Sea to the Sahara, and as long from north to south. The whole country was in a state of unrest. The Khedive had carried on an unsuccessful war against the Christian King of Abyssinia, and the Mohammedan states of Kordofan and Darfur were in revolt against Egypt. There half-savage Beduin tribes were scattered about over the deserts, and there some of the worst slave-dealers had their haunts.
In May, 1877, Gordon mounted his swift dromedary to set out on a journey of 2000 miles. He wished to visit the villages and camps of the slave-dealers in distant Darfur. The hot season had set in. When the sun stood at its meridian altitude the shadow of the dromedary disappeared beneath the animal. A dreary desert extended on all sides, greyish-yellow, dusty, and dry.
The White Pasha skims over the desert mile after mile. He has the finest dromedary in all the land, an animal that became famous throughout the Sudan. Some hundreds of Egyptian troopers follow him, but he leaves them all far behind and only a guide keeps up with him. He rushes over the desert like the wind, and suddenly and unexpectedly draws rein at the gates of an oasis before the guard can shoulder their arms. After giving his orders in the name of the Khedive, he disappears as mysteriously, no one knows whither. At another oasis, perhaps 300 miles away, the chief has been warned of his coming and has therefore posted watchmen to look out for him. Round about lies the desert, sandy and yellow, with a surface as level as a sea, where the approach of the White Pasha can be seen from a long distance. The watchman announces that two black specks are visible in the distance, which, it is supposed, are the Pasha's outriders, and some hours must pass before he arrives with his troops. The two specks grow larger and come rapidly nearer. The dromedaries swing their long legs over the ground, seeming to fly on invisible wings. Now the men have come to the margin of the oasis. The watchers can hardly believe their eyes. One of the riders wears the gold-embroidered uniform of an Egyptian pasha. Never had the Sudan seen a Governor-General travelling in this way—without flags and noisy music, and stripped of all the display appropriate to his rank.
And as he came so he flew away again, mysteriously and incomprehensibly. Again and again he lost his armed force. In some districts he closed the paths leading to wells in order to bring the refractory tribes to submission. With inflexible severity he broke the power of the chiefs who still carried on trade in slaves. He freed numbers of black captives and drilled them as soldiers, for his own fighting men were the scum of Egypt and Syria. With a handful of men he dealt his blows at the weakest points of the enemy's defence and thus always gained the victory. In four months he suppressed the revolt and checked the power of the slave-dealers.
Gordon had now cleared all the west of the Sudan, and only Dara in southern Darfur remained to be dealt with. There the most powerful slave-dealers had collected to offer resistance. He came down one day like lightning into their camp. They might easily have killed him—it was he who had ruined their trade in black ivory. He went unconcernedly among the tents, and they did not dare to touch him. And when his own troops arrived, he summoned all the chiefs to his tent and laid his conditions before them. They were to lay down their arms and be off each to his own home; and one by one they obeyed and went away without a word.
But the slave-trade was a weed too deeply rooted in the soil to be eradicated in a single day, and the revolt and troubles which constantly arose out of this horrible traffic gave Gordon no peace. He left the Sudan at the end of 1879, and the next two years were occupied with work in India, China, Mauritius, and South Africa. Meanwhile remarkable events had occurred in Egypt. Great Britain had sent vessels and troops to the land of the Khedive, and had taken over the command and the responsibility. The chief of the dervishes, Mohamed Ahmed, whom we remember on the small island in the Nile, proclaimed that he was chosen by God to relieve the oppressed, that he was the Mahdi or Messiah of Islam. Discontent prevailed among the Mohammedans throughout the Sudan, for Egypt had at length prohibited the slave-trade, and the Mahdi collected all the discontented people and tribes under his banner. His aim was to throw off the yoke of Egypt. Proud and arrogant, he sent despatches through the whole of the Sudan, and his summons to a holy war flew like a prairie fire over North Africa.
The British Government, which was now responsible for Egypt, was in a difficulty. The Sudan must either be conquered or evacuated, for the Egyptian garrisons were still at Khartum and at several places even down to the equator. The Government decided on evacuation, and Gordon was sent to perform the task of withdrawing all the garrisons. He accepted the mission and set out immediately for Cairo.
Thus Gordon began his last journey up the Nile. At Korosko, just at the northern end of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, he mounted his dromedary and followed the narrow winding path which has been worn out during thousands of years through the dry hollows of the Nubian desert, over scorched and weathered volcanic knolls and through dunes of suffocating sand.
On February 18, 1884, Gordon, for the second time Governor-General of the Sudan, made his entry into Khartum, where he took up his quarters in his old palace. Cruelty and injustice had again sprung up during the years he had been absent. He opened the gates of the overcrowded gaols, and the prisoners were released and their fetters removed. All accounts of unpaid taxes were burned in front of the palace. All implements of punishment and torture were broken to pieces and thrown into the Nile.
Then began the evacuation of the town. As many as 3000 women and children were sent to Abu Hamed and through the desert to Korosko. They got through without danger and were saved. Where women and children could travel, it would have been easy to lead troops from Egypt. Instead of this, however, England despatched an expedition to Suakin to secure an outlet on the Red Sea, whereupon the rebellious tribes of the Sudan were roused to fury, believing that the white men intended to come and take their country. Consequently they rallied all the more resolutely round the Mahdi, and their hatred extended to the dreaded Gordon and the few Europeans with him in Khartum.
As long as the telegraph line was still available to Cairo, Gordon kept the authorities informed of the state of affairs and pointed out what should be done to ensure success. He asked especially that the road from Berber to Suakin should be held, for from this line also the Sudan could be controlled, but his advice was not attended to and Berber was eventually surrounded by the Mahdi's troops and captured. Several chiefs north and north-east of Khartum, who had previously been friendly disposed, now joined the Mahdi. News of fresh desertions came constantly to Khartum, and even in the town itself Gordon was surrounded by traitors. On March 10 the telegraph line was cut and then followed six months of silence, during which the world learned little or nothing of the brave soldier in the heart of Africa. On March 11 Arab war parties appeared on the bank of the Blue Nile, for the Mahdi was drawing his net ever closer round the unfortunate town.
During the preceding years the Egyptian Government had caused Khartum to be fortified after a fashion, and during the earlier months of the siege Gordon worked day and night to strengthen the defences. His soldiers threw up earthern ramparts round the town, a network of wire entanglements was set up, and mines were laid at places where an assault might be expected. At the end of April the town was entirely blockaded, and only the river route to the north was still open. At the beginning of May the Arabs crossed the Blue Nile, suffering great losses from exploding mines and the guns of the town. In the early part of September there were still provisions for three months, and the Arabs, perceiving that they could not take the town by storm from the White Pasha, resolved to starve it out.
The Nile was now at its highest, and huge grey turbid volumes of water hurried northwards. Now was the only chance for a small steamer to try to get to Dongola, where it would be in safety. On the night of September 9 a small steamer was made ready for starting, and Gordon's only English comrades, Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power, went on board, together with the French Consul, a number of Greeks, and fifty soldiers. They took with them accounts of the siege, correspondence, lists and details about provisions, ammunition, arms, men, and plans of defence, and everything else of particular value. Silently the steamer moved off from the bank, and when day dawned Gordon was alone. Alas, the little steamer never reached Dongola, for it was wrecked immediately below Abu Hamed. Every soul on board was murdered, and all papers of value fell into the hands of the Mahdi. On the other hand, Gordon's diary from September 10 to December 14, 1884, is still extant, and is wonderful reading.
By this time the British Government had at last decided to send an expedition to relieve Khartum. River boats were built in great numbers, troops were equipped for the field, the famous general, Lord Wolseley, was in command, and by the middle of September the first infantry battalion was up at Dongola on the northern half of the great S of the Nile. But then the steamers had only just arrived at Alexandria, and had to be taken up the Nile and tediously dragged through the cataracts, while the desert column which was to make the final advance on Khartum had not yet left England. A long time would be required to get everything ready.
In Khartum comparative quiet as yet prevailed. The dervishes bided their time patiently, encamping barely six miles from the outworks. Shots were exchanged only at a distance. On September 21 Gordon learned by a messenger that the relief expedition was on the way, and ten days later he sent his steamboats northwards to meet it and to hasten the forwarding of troops. But thereby he lost half of his own power of resistance.
On October 21 the Mahdi himself arrived in the camp outside Khartum, and on the following day sent Gordon convincing proofs that Stewart's steamboat had sunk and that all on board had been slain. He added a list of all the journals and documents found on board. From these the Mahdi had learned almost to a day how long Khartum could hold out, the strength of the garrison, the scheme of defence, where the batteries stood and how long the ammunition would last. This was a terrible blow to the lonely soldier, but it did not break down his courage. The death of Stewart and his companions grieved him inexpressibly, but he sent an answer to the Mahdi that if 20,000 boats had been taken it would be all the same to him—"I am here like iron."
In the relief expedition was a major named Kitchener, who was afterwards to become very famous. He tried to get into Khartum in disguise to carry information to Gordon, and he did succeed in sending him a letter with the news that the relieving force would set out from Dongola on November 1. When the letter reached Gordon the corps had been two days on the march, but the distance from Dongola to Khartum is 280 miles in a straight line.
By November 22 Gordon had lost nearly 1900 of his fighting men, but his diary shows that he was still hopeful. On December 10 there were still provisions for fifteen days. The entries in the diary now become shorter, and repeatedly speak of fugitives and deserters, and of the diminishing store of provisions. On December 14 Gordon had a last opportunity of sending news from Khartum, and the diary which the messenger took with him closes with these words: "I have done the best for the honour of our country. Good-bye."
After the sending-off of the diary impenetrable darkness hides the occurrences of the last weeks in Khartum. One or two circumstances, however, were made known by deserters. During the forty days during which the town held out after December 14, 15,000 townspeople were sent over to the Mahdi's camp, and only 14,000 civilians and soldiers were left in the doomed city. Omdurman fell, and the Mahdi's troops pressed every day more closely on all sides. Actual starvation began, and rats and mice, hides and leather were eaten, and palms stripped to obtain the soft fibres inside. But the White Pasha rejected all proposals to surrender.
Meanwhile the relief columns struggled southwards and on January 20, 1885, reached Metemma, only a hundred miles from Khartum. There they fell in with Gordon's boats, which had lain waiting in vain for four months, and four days later two of the boats started for Khartum.
Halfway they had to pass up the sixth cataract, there losing two days more, and not till the 28th had they left the rapids behind them. The noonday sun was shining brightly when the English soldiers and their officers saw Khartum straight in front of them on the point between the White and Blue Niles. All glasses were turned on the tall palace; every one was in the greatest excitement and dared hardly breathe, much less speak. There stood Gordon's palace, but no flag waved from the roof.
The boats go on, but no shouts of gladness greet their crews as long-looked-for rescuers. When they are within range the dervishes open fire, and wild troops intoxicated with victory gather on the bank. Khartum is in the hands of the Mahdi, and help has come 48 hours too late.
Two days before, January 26, the dervishes, furious at their continual losses and the obstinate resistance of the town, had flocked together for a final assault. The attack was made during the darkest hour of the night, after the moon had set. The defenders were worn out and rendered indifferent by the pangs of hunger. The dervishes rushed into the town, filling the streets and lanes with their savage howling. It was then that Gordon gathered together his twenty remaining faithful soldiers and servants, and dashed sword in hand out of the palace. It was growing light in the east, and the outlines of bushes and thickets on the Blue Nile were becoming clear. The small party took their way across an open square to the Austrian Mission church, which had previously been put in order for a last refuge. On the way they were met by a crowd of dervishes and were killed to the last man. Foremost among the slain was Gordon.
The Conquest of the Sudan
The Mahdi did not long enjoy the fruits of his victory, for he died five months to the day after the fall of Khartum. His successor, Abdullah, bore the title of Khalifa, and for thirteen years was a scourge to the unfortunate land. The tribes of the Sudan, tired of the oppression of Egypt, had welcomed the Mahdi as a deliverer, but they had only exchanged Turkish pashas for a tyrant unmatched in cruelty and shamelessness. Abdullah plundered and exhausted the country, but with the money and agricultural produce he extorted from the people he was able to maintain a splendid army always ready for the field. His capital was Omdurman, where the Mahdi was buried under a dome; but he did not fortify the town, for long before any Christian dogs could advance so far their bones would whiten in the sands of Nubia.
Yet after many years the hour of vengeance was at hand. The British Government had taken the pacification of the Sudan in hand, and in 1898 an army composed of British and Egyptian troops was advancing quietly and surely up the Nile. There was no need to hurry, and every step was made with prudence and consideration. The leader, General Kitchener, the last man to send a letter to Gordon, made his plans with such foresight and skill that he could calculate two years in advance almost the very day when Khartum and Omdurman would be in his hands.
At the Atbara, the great tributary of the Nile which flows down from the mountains of Abyssinia, Kitchener inflicted his first great defeat on the Khalifa's army in a bloody battle. From Atbara the troops pushed on to Metemma without further fighting, and on August 28 they were only four days' march from Khartum.
The green of acacia and mimosa is now conspicuous on the banks of the river, which is very high. The grey gunboats pass slowly up the Nile in the blazing sun, and the troops push on as steadily and as surely as they have from the start of the expedition. Small parties of mounted dervishes are seen in the far distance. The country becomes more diversified, and the route runs through clumps of bushes and between hillocks. A short distance in front are seen white tents, flags, and horsemen, and the roll of drums is heard. It is the Khalifa calling his men to the fight; but at the last moment the position is abandoned, the dervishes retire, and Kitchener's army continues its march.
At length the vaulted dome over the Mahdi's grave beside the Nile bank rises above the southern horizon, and round about it are perceived the mud houses and walls of Omdurman. Between the town and the attacking army stretches a level sandy plain scantily clothed with yellow grass; and here took place a battle which will not be forgotten for centuries throughout the Sudan.
On the morning of September 2, Kitchener's forces are drawn up in order of battle. Single horsemen emerge from the dust on the hillocks, increase in number, and then come in clouds like locusts—an army of 50,000 dervishes. Their fanatical war-cry rises up to heaven, gathers strength, grows louder, and rolls along like a storm wind coming in from the sea. They charge at a furious pace in an unbroken line, and it looks as though they would ride like a crushing avalanche right over the enemy. But the moment they come within range fire issues from thousands of rifles, and the dervishes find themselves in a perfect hail of bullets. Their ranks are thinned, but they check their course only for a moment, and ride on in blind fury and with a bravery which only religious conviction can inspire. The English machine guns scatter their death-bolts so rapidly that a continuous roll of thunder is heard, and the dervishes fall in heaps like ripe corn before the scythe. The fallen ranks are constantly replaced by fresh reinforcements, but at last the dervishes have had enough and beat a retreat. At once Kitchener pressed on to Omdurman, but the bloody day is not yet at an end. The dervish horsemen rally yet once more. The Khalifa's standard is planted in the ground on a mound, and beside it the Prophet's green banner calls the faithful together for a last desperate struggle. The English and their Egyptian allies fight with admirable courage, and the dervishes strike with a bravery and contempt of death to which no words can do justice. Under the holy banner a detachment advances into the fire, wavers, is mown down, and falls, and almost before the smoke of the powder has cleared away, another presses forward on the track of the slain, only to meet the same fate and join their comrades in the happy hunting-grounds of eternity.
At length the day was ended and the Khalifa's army annihilated—11,000 killed, 16,000 wounded, and 4000 prisoners! The Khalifa himself escaped. His harem and servants deserted him, and he who in the morning had been absolute ruler over an immense kingdom, wandered about in the woods like an outlaw. He fled to the south-west and succeeded in collecting another army, which was completely cut to pieces the following year in a battle in which he himself also perished.
When all was quiet in Omdurman, the victors had a solemn duty to fulfil. Thirteen and a half years had passed since the death of Gordon, and at last the obsequies of the hero were to be celebrated in a fitting manner. In the court in front of Gordon's palace the troops are drawn up on three sides of a square, and on the fourth stands the victor, surrounded by generals of divisions and brigades and by his staff. Kitchener raises his hand, and in a moment the Union Jack rises to the top of the flagstaff on the palace, while a thundering salute from the gunboats greets the new colours and the Guards' band plays the National Anthem. Another sign, and the flag of Egypt goes up beside the Union Jack and the Khedive's hymn is played. Then the belated funeral service is impressively conducted by four clergymen of different Christian denominations, the Sudanese band plays a hymn which Gordon loved, and lastly Kitchener is saluted with the greatest enthusiasm by the officers and men under his command.
Ostriches
Now all is changed in the Sudan. A railway runs from the Nile delta up to Khartum, and another connects Berber with the Red Sea. In Khartum there are schools, hospitals, churches, and other public buildings, and one can travel safely by steamboat up to the great lakes. Gordon's scheme to connect the Victoria Nyanza with Mombasa on the coast has been carried out, and a railway has been constructed through British East Africa. White men have advanced from all sides deeper and deeper into the Black Continent, and have made themselves masters of almost all Africa. Wild animals have suffered by this intrusion into their formerly peaceful domain, and their numbers have been diminished by the chase. In some districts game has quite disappeared, the animals having sought remoter regions where they can live undisturbed.
In the Sahara, in the Libyan desert, on the open grasslands along the Upper Nile, on the veldt of South Africa, wherever the country is open and free, lives the ostrich; but it does not occur in the worst desert tracts, which it crosses only in case of necessity, for it likes to have water always near at hand.
The appearance of the ostrich is no doubt familiar. It is powerfully built; its long bare neck supports a small flattened head with large bright eyes; the long legs rest on two toes; and the wings are so small that the animal is always restricted to the surface of the ground, where, however, it can move with remarkable swiftness. The valuable feathers grow on the wings. The ostrich attains a height of eight feet, and when full grown may weigh as much as 165 pounds.
Ostriches live in small flocks of only five or six birds. They feed in the morning, chiefly on plants, but they also devour small animals and reptiles. By midday their stomachs are full, and they rest or play, leaping in circles over the sand, regardless of the blazing sun or the heated ground. Then they drink and wander about eating in the afternoon. In the evening they seek their roosting-places.
Sight is the ostrich's acutest sense, but its scent and hearing are also sharp. When it is pursued, it darts off with fluttering wings, taking steps ten or twelve feet long. It is always on the look-out for danger, and the zebra likes to keep near it to avail itself of the bird's watchfulness. In North Africa the Arabs hunt the ostrich on swift horses or running dromedaries. Two or three horsemen follow a male, which after an hour's course is tired out, and gradually relaxes its pace. The horses also are tired after such a chase, but one of the riders urges on his steed to a last spurt, rushes past the ostrich, and hits it on the head so that it falls to the ground. The bird is then skinned, the skin being turned inside out so as to form a bag for the feathers. The feathers of the wild ostrich are much finer and more valuable than those of the tame. A full-grown ostrich has only fourteen of the largest white feathers.
The hens lay their eggs in a shallow hollow in loamy or sandy soil, and it is the male bird which sits on the eggs. In the daytime the nest may be left for hours, but then the ostriches cover the eggs with sand. The young ones leave their shells after six weeks and go out into the desert. They are already as large as fowls, but then an ostrich egg weighs as much as twenty-four hen's eggs, and measures six inches along its greatest diameter.
The ostrich is remarkably greedy, and turns away from nothing. The great zoologist, Brehm, who had tame ostriches under his care, reports that they ate rats and chickens and swallowed small stones and potsherds, and once or twice his bunch of keys disappeared down the stomach of an ostrich. In one ostrich's stomach was found nine pounds of "ballast"—stones, rags, buttons, bits of metal, coins, keys, etc.
Some say that the ostrich is inconceivably stupid, but others will not accept such a severe condemnation. The traveller Schillings, who is noted for his photographs of big game in Africa taken at night by flashlight, once followed the spoor of some lions for several hours. Suddenly he came upon an ostrich's nest with newly hatched chickens, and he wondered where the parents were. To his astonishment, he found that the lion had not touched the defenceless creatures, and he soon discovered the reason. In the moonlight night the ostriches had perceived the danger in time and sprang up to lure the lion away from the nest. Their stratagem succeeded, for it was evident from the spoor that the lion had pursued the flying ostriches farther and farther from the nest. And when the pair of ostriches thought that they had enticed the king of animals far enough off, they returned home.
Baboons
Baboons are monkeys which resemble dogs rather than human beings, and almost always remain on the ground, seldom climbing trees. They are cruel, malicious, and cunning, their expression is fierce and savage, and their eyes wicked. Among their allies they are surpassed in strength only by the gorilla; and they are bold and spirited, and do not shun a deadly struggle with the leopard. They have sharp and powerful teeth with which to defend themselves, and their tusks are very formidable.
The old Egyptians paid deep homage to the sacred apes, which belong to the baboon tribe, and had them represented on their monuments as judges in the kingdom of death. They live in large companies among the cliffs of the Red Sea coast of Nubia and Abyssinia, but they also occur in the interior on high mountains. Roots, fruits, worms, and snails are their chief food. They are afraid of snakes, but they catch scorpions, carefully pinching off the poison gland before eating the reptiles. When durra fields are in the neighbourhood of the baboons' haunts, watchmen must be posted, or the animals work great havoc among the grain. And when they are out on a raid, they, too, have sentinels on the lookout in every direction.
During the night and when it rains they sit huddled up among inaccessible rocks, whither they climb with wonderful activity. They sally forth in the morning to satisfy their hunger, returning to the high rocks at noon. Afterwards they go to the nearest brook or spring to drink, and after another meal retire for the night.
If a party of such baboons, consisting perhaps of a hundred individuals, is sitting in a row near the edge of a cliff and suddenly becomes aware of a threatening danger—as, for instance, a prowling leopard—they all utter the most singular noises, grunting, shrieking, barking, and growling. The old males go to the edge and look down into the valley, fuss about and show their ugly tusks and strike their forepaws against the sides of the rock with a loud smack. The young ones seek their mother's protection and keep behind them.
Brehm once surprised such a party huddled together on the margin of a cliff. The first shot that echoed through the valley roused the greatest commotion and displeasure, and the monkeys howled and bellowed in chorus. Then they began to move with astonishing activity and surefootedness. Two more shots thundered through the valley, doing no damage but increasing their panic and fury. At every fresh shot they halted a moment, beat their paws against the rocks and yelled abuse at their disturbers. The front of the cliff seemed in some places to be vertical, but the baboons climbed about everywhere. At the next bend of the road the whole troop came down into the valley, intending to continue their flight among the rocks on the opposite side. Two sporting dogs in Brehm's caravan flew off like arrows after the troop of baboons, but before they could come up with it, the old baboons halted, turned round and presented such a terrible front to the dogs that these quickly turned back. When the dogs were hounded on to the baboons a second time, most of the latter were already safe among the rocks, only a few remaining in the valley, among them a small young one. Frightened at the onslaught of the dogs, the little creature fled shrieking up a boulder, while the dogs stood round its base. Brehm wished to catch the young one alive, but just then an old male came calmly to the boulder, taking no heed of the danger. He turned his fierce eyes on the dogs, controlling them with his gaze, jumped up on to the block, whispered some calming sound into the ear of the young one, and set out on his return with his protégé. The dogs were so cowed that they never attacked, and both the young baboon and his rescuer were able to retire unmolested to their friends.
The Hippopotamus
In the lakes and rivers of all central Africa lives the large, clumsy, and ugly hippopotamus. In former times it occurred also in Lower Egypt, where it was called the river hog, but at the present day it is necessary to go a good distance south of Nubia in order to find it. In many rivers it migrates with the seasons. It descends the river as this falls in the dry season, and moves up again when the bed is filled by rain.
The body of the hippopotamus is round and clumsy, and is supported by four short shapeless legs with four hoofed toes on each foot. The singular head is nearly quadrangular, the eyes and ears are small, the snout enormously broad and the nostrils wide (Plate XXIX.). The hairless hide, three-quarters of an inch thick, changes from grey to dark brown and dirty red according as it is dry or wet. The animal is thirteen feet long, without the small short tail, and weighs as much as thirty full-grown men.
PLATE XXIX. A HIPPOPOTAMUS.
The hippopotamus spends most of his time in the water, but goes on land at night, especially in those districts where the rivers do not afford much food. Stealing carefully along a quiet river the traveller may often take him by surprise, and see two small jets of water rise from his nostrils when he comes up to breathe, snorting and puffing noisily. Then he dives again, and can remain under water three or four minutes. When he lies near the surface only six small knobs are seen above the water, the ears, eyes, and nostrils. If he is not quite sure of the neighbourhood, he thrusts only his nostrils above water and breathes as noiselessly as possible.
Hippopotami often lie splashing in shallow water, or climb up on to the bank to sun themselves and have a quiet lazy time. Very frequently they are heard to make a grunting noise of satisfaction. When evening comes they seek the deeper parts of the river, where they swim up and down, chase one another, and roll about in the water with great nimbleness and activity. They swim with great speed, throwing themselves forward in jerks, and filling the air with their gurgling bellowing cry; yet if they like they can swim so quietly that not the least ripple is heard. A wounded hippopotamus stirs up the water so that a small canoe may capsize in the swell from his forequarters.
When several old males are bellowing together, the din is heard for miles through the forest and rolls like thunder over the water. No other animal can make such a noise. Even the lion stops to listen.
On the Upper Nile, above Khartum, where the most luxuriant vegetation struggles for room on the banks, and the river often loses itself in lakes and swamps, the hippopotamus, like the crocodile, seldom goes ashore. Here he lives under lotus plants and papyrus leaves, soft reeds and all the other juicy vegetation that thrives in water-logged ground. He dives and rummages for a couple of minutes, stirring up the water far around. When he has his huge mouth full of stems and leaves, he comes up to the surface again, and the water streams in cataracts off his rounded body.
In districts where he goes on land to graze, he often works great damage among the corn and green crops, and may even attack the villagers. And he is not always to be trifled with if a canoe disturbs his repose. The most dangerous is a mother when her young ones are small. She carries them on her back as she swims and dives, sometimes to the bottom of the river. A gun must be heavily loaded if the shot is to have any effect on such a monster, and penetrate such a cuirass of hide. If the animal puffs and dives, he is lost to the hunter; but if he raises himself high out of the water and then falls again with a heavy thud, the wound is mortal and the hippopotamus sinks to the bottom. After an hour or two the body rises to the surface again.
Some negro tribes on the White Nile dig pitfalls for hippopotami, and on the rivers which enter Lake Ngami (see map, p. 262) on its northern shore the natives hunt for them with harpoons, much in the same way as whales are killed in the northern and southern oceans. The harpoons have a sharp barbed blade of iron, and this point is secured by strong string to a stout shaft of wood, the end of which is attached by a line to a float. Two canoes are dragged on to a raft of bundles of reed tied together, and between them the black hunters crouch with harpoons and light javelins in their hands. When all is ready, the raft is pushed out into the current and drifts noiselessly down the river. The huge animals can be heard rolling and splashing in the water in the distance, but they are still hidden behind a bed of reeds. The raft glides gently past the point, but the hippopotami suspect no danger. One of them comes up close beside the raft. The harpooner stands up like a flash of lightning and drives his sharp weapon with all his strength into the animal's flank. The wounded hippopotamus dives immediately to the bottom, and the line runs out. The float follows the hippopotamus wherever he takes his flight, and the canoes, now in the water, follow. When the brute comes up again, he is received with a shower of javelins, and dives again, leaving a blood-red streak behind him. He may be irritated when he is attacked time after time by spears, and it may happen that he turns on his persecutors and crushes a too venturesome canoe with his great tusks, or gives it a blow underneath with his head. Sometimes the animal is not content with the canoes, but attacks the men, and many too daring hunters have lost their lives in this way. When the hippopotamus has been sufficiently tired out, the hunters pick up the float, and take the line ashore to wind it round a tree, and then they pull with all their might to draw the creature up out of the water.
The flesh is eaten everywhere, especially that of the young animals, and the tongue and the fat of the older ones are considered delicacies. Riding-whips, shields, and many other articles are made out of the hide, and the large tusks are valuable. Hippopotami may be seen in some of the zoological gardens in Europe, but they do not thrive well in the care of man.
Man-eating Lions
A terrible tale of man-eating lions is told by Colonel Patterson in his book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.
Colonel Patterson had been ordered for service on the Uganda Railway, which runs from Mombasa north-westwards through British East Africa to the great lake Victoria Nyanza, the largest source-lake of the Nile. But in 1898, when the Colonel arrived, the railway had not been carried farther than the Tsavo, a tributary of the Sabaki, which enters the sea north of Mombasa. Here at Tsavo (see map, p. 237) the Colonel had his headquarters, and in the neighbourhood were camped some thousands of railway coolies from India. A temporary wooden bridge crossed the Tsavo, and the Colonel was to build a permanent iron bridge over the river, and had besides the supervision of the railway works for thirty miles in each direction.
Some days after his arrival at Tsavo the Colonel heard of two lions which made the country unsafe. He paid little heed to these reports until a couple of weeks later, when one of his own servants was carried off by a lion. A comrade, who had a bed in the same tent, had seen the lion steal noiselessly into the camp in the middle of the night, go straight to the tent, and seize the man by the throat. The poor fellow cried out "Let go," and threw his arms round the beast's neck, and then the silence of night again fell over the surroundings. Next morning the Colonel was able to follow the lion's spoor easily, for the victim's heels had scraped along the sand all the way. At the place where the lion had stopped to make his meal, only the clothes and head of the unfortunate man were found, with the eyes fixed in a stare of terror.
Disturbed by this sight and the sorrowful occurrence, the Colonel made a solemn oath that he would give himself no rest until both the lions were dead. Gun in hand, he climbed up into a tree close by his servants' tent and waited. The night was quiet and dark. In the distance was heard a roar, which came nearer as the two man-eaters stole up in search of another victim. Then there was silence again, for lions always attack in silence, though when they start on their night prowl they utter their hoarse, awful cry, as though to give warning to the men and animals in the neighbourhood. The Colonel waited. Then he heard a cry of terror and despair from another camp a hundred yards away, and after that all was still again. A man had been seized and dragged away.
Now the Colonel chose a waiting-place where the last man had been carried off, but here, too, he was disappointed. A heart-rending shriek rang through the night at still another part of the camp, and another workman was missing.
The Indian workmen lay in several scattered camps, and evidently the lions chose a fresh camp every night to mislead the men. When they found that they could carry off a man with impunity every night or every other night, they grew bolder, and showed not the least fear of the camp fires, which were always kept alight. They paid no heed to the noise and tumult they caused, or even to gunshots fired at them in the darkness. A tall, thick fence of tough, thorny bushes was erected round each camp as a protection, but the lions always jumped over or broke through it when they wanted a man. In the daytime the Colonel followed their tracks, which were plainly visible through the thickets, but of course could not be perceived on stony ground.
Things became still worse when the rails were laid farther up the country, and only a few hundred workmen remained with Colonel Patterson at the Tsavo bridge. He had unusually high and strong fences built up round his camp, and the fires were enlarged to blazing pyres, watchmen kept guard, guns were always ready, and within the enclosure empty oil tins were banged together to scare the beasts if possible. But it was all no use. Still more victims disappeared. The Indian workmen became so panic-stricken that they could not shoot, though the lion was often just in front of them. A patient was taken from the hospital tent, and the next victim was a water-carrier from another part of the camp. He had been lying with his head towards the middle of the tent and his legs outwards. The lion had sprung over the fence, seized the man by the foot, and dragged him out. In his despair he had grabbed at a box standing by the tent canvas, and instead had caught hold of a tent rope, which gave way. Then the lion, with his prey in his mouth, had run along the fence looking for a weak spot, and when he had found one, he dashed right through the fence. Next morning fragments of clothing and flesh were found on the paths. The other lion had waited outside, and they had consumed their prey together.
Then followed an interval of quiet, during which the lions were engaged elsewhere. It was hoped that the tranquillity would continue, and the workmen began to sleep outside because of the heat. One night they were sitting round a fire, when a lion suddenly jumped noiselessly over the fence and stood gazing at them. They started up and threw stones, pieces of wood, and firebrands at the beast, but the lion sprang forward, seized his man, and dashed through the fence. His companion was waiting outside, and they were so impudent that they ate their victim only thirty yards off.
The Colonel sat up at night for a whole week at the camp where a visit was expected. He says that nothing can be more trying to the nerves than such a watch, time after time in vain. He always heard the warning roar in the distance, and knew that it meant, "Look out; we are coming." The hungry cry sounded hoarser and stronger, and the Colonel knew that one of his men, or perhaps he himself, would never again see the sun rise over the jungle in the east, and there was always silence when the brutes were near. Then the watchmen in the various camps would call out, "Look out, brothers, the devil is coming." And shortly afterwards a wild scream of distress and the groans of a victim would proclaim that the lion's stratagem had been successful again. At last the lions became so daring that both cleared the fence at once, to seize a man apiece. Once one lion did not succeed in dragging his man through the fence, and had to leave him and content himself with a share of his comrade's booty. The man left behind was so badly mauled that he died before he could be carried to the hospital tent.
No wonder that the poor workmen, wearied and worn by sleeplessness, excitement, and fear of death, decided that this state of affairs must come to an end. They struck. They said that they had come to Africa to work at the railway, and not to supply food for lions. One fine day they took a train by storm, put all their belongings into the carriages, took their seats themselves, and went off to the coast. The courageous men who remained with the Colonel passed the night in trees, in the station water-tank, or in covered holes digged down within their tents.
On one occasion the Colonel had invited a friend to come up to Tsavo and help him against the lions. The train was late, and it was dark when the guest followed the path through the wood to the camp. He had a servant with him, who carried a lantern. Half-way a lion rushed down on them from a rise, tore four deep gashes in the Englishman's back, and would have carried him off if he had not fired his carbine. Dazed with the report, the lion loosed his hold and pounced on the servant. Next moment he had vanished in the darkness with his prey.
A few days later a Suaheli came and said that the lion had seized an ass, and was engaged in his meal not far away. Guided by the Suaheli, the Colonel hastened up and could see from a distance the back of the lion above the bushes. Unfortunately the guide stepped on a twig, and the lion immediately vanished into impenetrable brushwood. Then the Colonel ran back and called out all his men. Provided with drums, sheets of metal and tin cans, they surrounded the thicket, and closed in with a great noise, while the Colonel kept watch at the place where the animal would probably come out. Quite right—there he came, huge and fierce, angry at being disturbed. He came forward slowly, halting frequently, and looking around. His attention was so taken up by the noise that he did not notice the sportsman. When he was about thirteen yards off the Colonel raised his double-barrelled rifle. The lion heard the movement, struck his front claws into the ground, drew back on to his hind paws as though to gather himself up for a spring, and snarled wickedly, showing his murderous fangs. Then the Colonel took aim at the head, pressed the trigger, and—the rifle missed fire!
Fortunately the lion turned at that moment to go back into the thicket, and the other shot had no effect but to call forth a furious roar and hasten his flight. The untrustworthy gun had been borrowed for the occasion, and after this the Colonel determined to rely on his own weapon.
The ass lay still untouched. A platform twelve feet high was erected on poles close to the carcase, and on this the Colonel took up his position at sunset. The twilight is very short on the equator, and the night soon grows dark when there is no moon. The nights in Africa's jungles are silent with an evil-foreboding and awesome silence, which conceals so many ambushes and costs so many lives. The inhabitants of the jungle may expect an ambush at any moment. The lonely Colonel waited, gripping his rifle hard. He relates himself that he felt more and more anxious as time went on. He knew that the lion would come to feed on the ass, for no cry of distress was heard from the adjacent camps.
Hist! that sounds like a small twig breaking under a weight. Now it sounds like a large body crushing through the bushes. Then all is quiet again. No, a deep breath, a sure sign of hunger, betrays the proximity of the monster. A terrible roar breaks the stillness of the night. The lion has perceived the presence of a man. Will he fly? No, far from it, he scorns the ass and makes for the Colonel. For two hours he prowls about the platform in gradually diminishing circles. Now the lion has matured his plan of attack, and goes straight towards the platform for the decisive spring. The animal is just perceptible against the sandy ground. When he is quite close the first shot thunders through the night, the lion utters a frightened roar and plunges into the nearest bushes. He writhes, and bellows, and moans, but the sounds grow weaker, till after a few long-drawn breaths all is quiet again. The first man-eater has met his fate.
Before the dawn of day the workmen came out with trumpets and drums, and, with shouts of rejoicing, carried the lion-killer round the dead animal. The other lion continued his visits, and when he too bit the dust a short time after, the men could quietly resume their work on the railway, and the Colonel, who had freed the neighbourhood from a scourge that had troubled it for nine months, became a general hero. The foreman composed a grand song in his honour, and presented a valuable testimonial from all the men.
One day he dined with the postmaster Ryall in a railway carriage, little suspecting the fate that was to befall the latter in the same carriage a few months later. A man-eating lion had chosen a small station for his hunting-ground, and had carried off one man after another without distinction of rank and worth. Ryall travelled with two other Europeans up to the place to try and rid it of the lion. On their arrival they were told that the animal could not be far away, for it had been quite recently in the neighbourhood of the station. The three Europeans resolved to watch all night. Ryall's carriage was taken off the train and drawn on to a siding. Here the ground had not been levelled, so the carriage was tilted a little to one side. After dinner they were to keep watch in turns, and Ryall took the first watch. There was a sofa on either side of the carriage, one of them higher above the floor than the other. Ryall offered these to his guests, but one of them preferred to lie on the floor between the sofas. And when Ryall thought he had watched long enough without seeing the lion, he lay down to rest on the lower sofa.
The carriage had a sliding door which slipped easily in its grooves, and was unfastened. When all was quiet the lion crept out of the bush, jumped on to the rear platform of the carriage, opened the door with his paws, and slipped in. But scarcely had he entered, when the door, in consequence of the slope of the carriage, slid to again and latched itself. And thus the man-eater was shut in with the three sleeping men.
The sleeper on the higher sofa, awakened by a sharp cry of distress, saw the lion, which filled up most of the small space, standing with his hind legs on the man lying on the floor, and his forepaws on Ryall, on the lower sofa on the opposite side. He jumped down in a fright to try and reach the opposite door, but could not get past without putting his foot on the back of the lion. To his horror, he found that the servant, who had been alarmed by the noise, was leaning against the door outside; but, putting forth all his strength, he burst open the door and slipped out, whereupon it banged to again. At the same moment a loud crash was heard. The lion had sprung through the window with Ryall in his mouth, and as the aperture was too small, he had splintered the woodwork like paper. The remains of the man were found next day and buried. Shortly after the lion was caught in a trap, and was exhibited for several days before being shot.
David Livingstone
In a poor but respectable workman's home in Blantyre, near Glasgow, was born a hundred years ago a little lad named David Livingstone, who was to make himself a great and famous name, not only as the discoverer of lakes and rivers, but also as one of the noblest men who ever offered their lives for the welfare of mankind.
LIVINGSTONE'S JOURNEYS IN AFRICA
In the national school of the town he quickly learned to read and write. His parents could not afford to let him continue his studies, but sent him at ten years of age to a cotton mill, where he had to work from six o'clock in the morning till eight in the evening. The hard work did not break his spirit, but while the machines hummed around him and the thread jumped on the bobbins, his thoughts and his desires flew far beyond the close walls of the factory to life and nature outside. He did his work so well that his wages were raised, and he spent his gains in buying books, which kept him awake far into the night. To add to his knowledge he attended a night-school, and on holidays he made long excursions with his brothers.
Years fled and the boy David grew up to manhood. One day he told his parents that he wished to be a medical missionary, and go to the people in the east and south, tend the sick, and preach to any who would listen. In order to procure means for his studies he had to save up his earnings at the factory, and when the time was come he went with his father to Glasgow, hired a room for half-a-crown a week, and read medicine. At the end of the session he went back to the factory to obtain money for the next winter course. Finally he passed his examination with distinction, and then came the last evening in the old home and the last morning dawned. His father went with him to Glasgow, took a long farewell of his son, and returned home sad and lonely.
Livingstone sailed from England to the Cape, and betook himself to the northernmost mission-station, Kuruman in Bechuanaland. Even at this time he heard of a fresh-water lake far to the north. It was called Ngami, and he hoped to see it one day.
From Kuruman he made several journeys in different directions to gain a knowledge of the tribes and their languages, to minister to their sick and win their confidence. Once when he was returning home from a journey and had still 150 miles to trek, a little black girl was found crouching under his waggon. She had run away from her owner because she knew that he intended to sell her as a slave as soon as she was full-grown, and as she did not wish to be sold she determined to follow the missionary's waggon on foot to Kuruman. The good doctor took up the frightened little creature and provided her with food and drink. Suddenly he heard her cry out. She had caught sight of a man with a gun who had been sent out to fetch her and who now came angrily to the waggon. It never occurred to Livingstone to leave the defenceless child in the hands of the wretch. He took the girl under his protection and told her that no danger would befall her henceforth. She was a symbol of Africa, the home of the slave-trade. And Africa's slaves needed the help of a great and strong man. Livingstone understood the call and worked to his last hour for the liberation of the slaves, as Gordon did many years later. He strove against the cruel and barbarous customs of the natives and their dark superstitions, and hoped in time to be able to train pupils who would be sent out to preach all over the country. In one tribe the medicine-men were also rainmakers. Livingstone pointed out to the people of the tribe that the rainmakers' jugglery was only a fraud and of no use, but offered, if they liked, himself to procure water for the irrigation of their fields, not by witchcraft but by conducting it along a canal from the neighbouring river. Some rough tools were first hewn out, and he had soon the whole tribe at work, and the canal and conduits were laid out among the crops. And there stood the witch-doctors put to shame, as they heard the water purling and filtering into the soil.
In 1843 Livingstone started off to found a new mission-station, named Mabotsa. The chief of the place was quite willing to sell land, and he received glass beads and other choice wares in payment. Mabotsa lay not far from the present Mafeking, but seventy years ago the whole region was a wild. On one occasion a lion broke into the village and worried the sheep. The natives turned out with their weapons, and Livingstone took the lead. The disturber of the peace was badly wounded and retired to the bush. But suddenly he rushed out again, threw himself on Livingstone, buried his teeth in his shoulder, and crushed his left arm. The lion had his paw already on the missionary's head, when a Christian native ran up and struck and slashed at the brute. The lion loosed his hold in order to fly at his new assailant, who was badly hurt. Fortunately the animal was so sorely wounded that its strength was now exhausted, and it fell dead on the ground. Livingstone felt the effects of the lion's bite for thirty years after, and could never lift his arm higher than the shoulder; and when his course was run his body was identified by the broken and reunited arm bone. He had to keep quiet for a long time until his wound was healed. Then he built the new station-house with his own hands, and when all was ready he brought to it his young bride, the daughter of a missionary at Kuruman.
Another missionary lived at Mabotsa and did all he could to render Livingstone's life miserable. The good doctor hated all quarrelling, and did not wish that white men should set a bad example to the blacks, so he gladly gave way and moved with his wife forty miles northwards. The house in Mabotsa had been built with his own savings, and as the London Missionary Society gave him a salary of only a hundred pounds a year, there could not be much over to build a house. When he left, the natives round Mabotsa were in despair. Even when the oxen were yoked to the waggon, they begged him to remain and promised to build him another house. It was in vain, however; they lost their friend and saw him drive off to the village of Chonuane, which was subject to the chief Sechele.
From the new station Livingstone made a missionary journey eastwards to the country whither the Dutch Boers had trekked from the Cape. They had left the Cape because they were dissatisfied with the English administration of the country, for the English would not allow slavery and proclaimed the freedom of the Hottentots. The Boers, then, founded a republic of their own, the Transvaal, so named because it lay on the other side of the Vaal, a tributary of the Orange River. Here they thought they could compel the blacks to work as bondmen in their service without being interfered with. They took possession of all the springs, and the natives lived on sufferance in their own country. The Boers hated Livingstone because they knew that he was an enemy to the slave trade and a friend to the natives.
Livingstone had plenty of work at the station. He built his house, he cultivated his garden, visited the sick, looked after his guns and waggons, made mats and shoes, preached, taught in his children's school, lectured on medicine, and instructed the natives who wished to become missionaries. In his leisure hours he collected natural history specimens, which he sent home, studied the poisonous tsetse fly and the deadly fever, and was always searching for remedies. He was never idle.
His new place of abode had one serious defect—it was badly situated as regarded rain and irrigation, and therefore Livingstone decided to move again forty miles farther to the north, to Kolobeng, where for the third time he built himself a house. As before, his black friends were much disturbed at his departure, and when they could not induce him to remain, the whole tribe packed up their belongings and went with him. Then clearing, building, and planting went on again. At Kolobeng Livingstone had a fixed abode for quite five years, but this was his longest and last sojourn in one place, for his after-life was a continuous pilgrimage without rest and repose. As usual, he gained the confidence and friendship of the natives.
The worst trouble was the vicinity of the Boers. They accused him of providing Sechele's tribe with weapons and exciting them against the Boers. They threatened to kill all black missionaries who ventured into the Transvaal, and devised plans for getting rid of Livingstone. Under such conditions his work could not be successful, and he longed to go farther north to countries where he could labour in peace without hindrance from white men who were nominally Christians, but treated the natives like beasts. Besides, hard times and famine now came to Kolobeng. The crops suffered from severe drought, and even the river failed. The natives went off to hunt, and the women gathered locusts for food. No child came to school, and the church was empty on Sunday.
Then Livingstone resolved to move still farther northwards, and on June 1, 1849, the party set out. An Englishman named Oswell, who was Livingstone's friend, went with them and bore all the expenses of the journey. He was a man of means, and so several waggons, eighty oxen, twenty horses, and twenty-five servants were provided.
After two months' march they came to the shore of Lake Ngami, which was now seen for the first time by Europeans. The king, Lechulatebe, proved less friendly than was expected. When he heard that Livingstone intended to continue his journey northwards to the great chief Sebituane, he feared that the latter would obtain firearms from the white men and would come down slaying and pillaging to the country round the lake. Finally the expedition was obliged to turn back to Kolobeng. Livingstone, however, was not the man to give in, and he went twice more to the lake, taking his wife and children with him.
On one of these journeys he came to the kingdom of the great and powerful Sebituane, and was received with the most generous hospitality. The chief gave him all the information he wished, and promised to help him in every way. A few days later, however, Sebituane fell ill of inflammation of the lungs and died.
Livingstone then continued his journey north-eastward with Oswell to the large village of Linyanti, and shortly after discovered a river so large and mighty that it resembled one of the firths of Scotland. The river was called the Zambesi. Its lower course had long been known to Europeans, but no one knew whence it came. The climate was unhealthy, and was not suitable for the new mission-station that Livingstone intended to establish. The Makololo people, the tribe of the deceased chief, promised to give him land, huts, and oxen if he would stay with them, but his mind was now occupied with great schemes and he gave up all thoughts of a station. Honest, legitimate trade must first be made to flourish. The Makololo had begun to sell slaves simply to be able to buy firearms and other coveted wares from Europe. If they could be induced to sell ivory and ostrich feathers instead, they would be able to procure by barter all they wanted from European traders and need not sell any more human beings. But to start such a trade a convenient route must first be found to the coast of either the Atlantic or Indian Ocean. A country in which the black tribes were in continual war with one another simply for the purpose of obtaining slaves was not ripe for Christianity. Accordingly Livingstone's plan was clear: first to find a way to the coast, and then to foster an honest trade which would make the slave-trade unnecessary.
Having sent his wife and children to England, Livingstone made his preparations, and in the year 1853 he was at Linyanti, in the country of the Makololo. Here began his remarkable journey to Loanda on the west coast, not far south of the mouth of the Congo. No European had ever travelled this way. His companions were twenty-seven Makololos, and his baggage was as light as possible, chiefly cloth and glass beads, which serve as currency in Africa. He took no provisions, as he thought he could live on what the country afforded.
The journey was difficult and troublesome, through a multitude of savage tribes. First the Zambesi was followed upwards, and then the route ran along other rivers. In consequence of heavy rain, swollen watercourses and treacherous swamps had to be crossed continually. Livingstone rode an ox which carried him through the water after a small portable boat had been wrecked and abandoned. Swarms of mosquitoes buzzed over the moist ground, and Livingstone repeatedly caught fever from the damp, close exhalations, and was often so ill that he could not even sit on his ox. But amidst all these difficulties and hardships he never omitted to observe the natural objects around him and to work at his map of the route. His diary was a big volume in stout boards with lock and key, and he wrote as small and as neatly as print.
Step by step he came nearer the sea. Most opportunely they met a Portuguese, and in his company the small troop entered the Portuguese territory on the west coast. The Portuguese received Livingstone with great hospitality, supplied him with everything he wanted, and rigged him out from top to toe.
Some English cruisers were lying off Loanda, having come to try to put down the slave-trade, and Livingstone enjoyed a delightful rest with his countrymen and slept in a proper bed after having lain for half a year on wet ground. It would have been pleasant to have had a thorough holiday on a comfortable vessel on the voyage to England after so many years' wanderings in Africa, but Livingstone resisted the temptation. He could not send his faithful Makololos adrift; besides, he had found that the route to the west coast was not suitable for trade, and was now wondering whether the Zambesi might serve as a channel of communication between the interior and the east coast. So he decided to turn back in spite of fever and danger, bade good-bye to the English and Portuguese, and again entered the great solitude.
Before Livingstone left Loanda he put together a large mass of correspondence, notes, maps, and descriptions of the newly discovered countries, but the English vessel which carried his letters sank at Madeira with all on board, and only one passenger was saved. News of the misfortune reached Livingstone when he was still near the coast, and he had to write and draw all his work again, a task that took him months. If he had left the Makololo men to their fate he would have travelled in the unfortunate vessel.
Rain and sickness often delayed him, but on the whole his return journey was easier. He took with him from Loanda a large stock of presents for the chiefs, and they were no longer strangers. And when he came among the villages of the Makololo, the whole tribe turned out to welcome him, and the good missionary held a thanksgiving service in the presence of all the people. Oxen were killed round the fires at night, drums were beaten, and with dance and song the people filled the air far above the crowns of the bread-fruit trees with sounds of gladness. Sekeletu was still friendly, and was given a discarded colonel's uniform from Loanda. In this he appeared at church on Sunday, and attracted more attention than the preacher and the service. His gratitude was so great that when Livingstone set out to the east coast he presented his white friend with ten slaughter oxen, three of his best riding oxen, and provisions for the way. And more than that, he ordered a hundred and twenty warriors to escort him, and gave directions that, as far as his power extended over the forests and fields, all hunters and tillers of the ground should provide the white man and his retinue with everything they wanted. Not the least remarkable circumstance connected with Livingstone's travels was that he was able to carry them out without any material help from home. He was the friend of the natives, and travelled for long distances as their guest.
Now his route ran along the bank of the Zambesi, an unknown road. During his earlier visit to Linyanti he had heard of a mighty waterfall on the river, and now he discovered this African Niagara, which he named the Victoria Falls. Above the falls the river is 1800 yards broad, and the huge volumes of water dash down foaming and roaring over a barrier of basalt 390 feet high to the depth beneath. The water boils and bubbles as in a kettle, and is confined in a rocky chasm in some places barely 50 yards broad. Clouds of spray and vapour hover constantly above the fall, and the natives call it "the smoking water." Among the general public in Europe, Livingstone's description of the Victoria Falls made a deeper impression than any of his other discoveries, so thoroughly unexpected was the discovery in Africa of a waterfall which could match, nay in many respects surpass, Niagara in wild beauty and imposing power. Now a railway passes over the Falls, and a place has grown up which bears the name of Livingstone.
The deafening roar of the water died away in the distance, and the party followed the forest paths from the territory of one tribe to that of the next. Steadfast as always, Livingstone met all danger and treachery with courage and contempt of death, a Titan among geographical explorers as well as among Christian missionaries. He drew the main outlines of this southern part of Darkest Africa and laid down the course of the Zambesi on his map. For a year he had been an explorer rather than a missionary. But the dominating thought in his dream of the future was always that the end of geographical exploration was only the beginning of missionary enterprise.
At the first Portuguese station he left his Makololo men, promising to return and lead them back to their own villages. Then he travelled down the Zambesi to Quilimane on the sea. He had, therefore, crossed Africa from coast to coast, and was the first scientifically educated European to do so.
After fifteen years in Africa he had earned a right to go home. An English ship carried him to Mauritius, and at the end of 1856 he reached England. He was received everywhere with boundless enthusiasm, and never was an explorer fêted as he was. He travelled from town to town, always welcomed as a hero. He always spoke of the slave-trade and the responsibility that rested on the white men to rescue the blacks. Africa, lying forgotten and misty beneath its moving rain-belts, became at once the object of attention of all the educated world.
Detraction was not silent at the home-coming of the victor. The Missionary Society gave him to understand that he had not laboured sufficiently for the spread of the Gospel, and that he had been too much of an explorer and too little of a missionary. He therefore left the Society; and when, after a sojourn of more than a year at home, he returned to Africa, it was in the capacity of English Consul in Quilimane, and leader of an expedition for the exploration of the interior of Africa.
We have no time to accompany Livingstone on his six years' journeys in East Africa. Among the most important discoveries he made was that of the great Lake Nyassa, from the neighbourhood of which 19,000 slaves were carried annually to Zanzibar, to say nothing of the far greater numbers who died on the way to the coast. One day Livingstone went down to the mouth of the Zambesi to meet an English ship. On board were his wife and a small specially built steamer called the Lady Nyassa, designed for voyages on rivers and lakes. Shortly afterwards his wife fell ill and died, and was buried under the leafy branches of a bread-fruit tree. In spite of his grief he went on with his work as diligently as before, and when the time came for him to sail home, he thought of selling the Lady Nyassa to the Portuguese. But when he heard that the boat was to be used to transport slaves, he kept it, steered a course for Zanzibar, and then resolved to cross the Indian Ocean in the small open boat by the use of both sails and steam. This was one of Livingstone's most daring exploits, for the distance to Bombay was 2500 miles across the open sea, and in the beginning of January the south-west monsoon might be expected with its rough, stormy seas. He hoped, however, to reach Bombay before the monsoon broke, so with three white sailors and nine Africans, and only fourteen tons of coal, he steamed out of the harbour of Zanzibar, saw the coast of Africa fade away and the dreary waste of water close round him on all sides.
Two of the white sailors fell ill and were unfit for work, and the bold missionary had to depend almost entirely on himself. Ocean currents hindered the progress of the Lady Nyassa, and for twenty-five days she was becalmed, for the coal had to be used sparingly, and when the sails hung limp from the mast there was nothing to be done but to exercise patience. Fortunately there was sufficient food and drinking water, and Livingstone was accustomed to opposition and useless waiting. He had to ride out two violent storms, and the Lady Nyassa was within a hair's breadth of turning broadside to the high seas. In view of the immense watery waste that still lay before him he meditated making for the Arabian coast, but as a favourable wind got up and the sailing was good he kept on his course. At length the coast of India rose up out of the sea, and after a voyage of six weeks the Lady Nyassa glided into the grand harbour of Bombay. The air was hazy and no one noticed the small boat, but when it was known that Livingstone was in the city, every one made haste to pay him homage.
In the year 1866 Livingstone was again in Africa. We find him at the mouth of the Rovuma, a river which enters the sea to the east of Lake Nyassa. He had thirty-seven servants, many of them from India, and one of his men, Musa, had been with him before. He crossed the country to Lake Nyassa, but when he wished to pass over to the eastern shore in native boats, he was stopped by the Arabs, who knew that he was the most formidable opponent of the slave-trade. He had no choice but to go round the lake on foot, and little by little he made contributions to human knowledge, drew maps, and made notes and collections. He came to districts he already knew, where black women were carried off by crocodiles on the bank of the Shiré River, where he had lost his wife, and where all the missionaries sent out on his recommendation had died of fever.
His staff of servants soon proved to be a worthless lot. The Indians were dismissed, and few of the others could be depended on. The best were Susi and Chuma, who by their faithfulness gained a great reputation both in Africa and Europe. Musa, on the contrary, was a scoundrel. He heard from an Arab slave-dealer that all the country through which Livingstone was about to travel was inhabited by a war-like tribe, who had lately fallen upon a party of forty-four Arabs and killed all but the narrator himself. Musa and most of his comrades were so frightened that they ran away. On his arrival at Zanzibar, Musa informed the British Consul that Livingstone had been attacked and murdered and all his goods plundered. The false account was so cleverly concocted and so thoroughly rehearsed that Musa could not be convicted of deceit. Every one believed him, and the English newspapers contained whole columns of reminiscences of the deceased. Only one friend of Livingstone, who had accompanied him on one of his journeys and knew Musa, had any doubts. He went himself to Africa, followed Livingstone's trail, and learned from the natives that the missionary had never been attacked as reported, but that he was on his way to Lake Tanganyika.
The road thither was long and troublesome, and the great explorer suffered severe losses. Provisions ran short, and a hired porter ran away with the medicine chest. From this time Livingstone had no drugs to allay fever, and his health broke down. But he came to the southern extremity of Tanganyika, and the following year discovered Lake Bangweolo. He rowed out to the islands in the lake, and very much astonished the natives, who had never seen a white man before. Extensive swamps lay round the lake, and Livingstone believed that the southernmost sources of the Nile must be looked for in this region. This problem of the watershed of the Nile so fascinated him that he tarried year after year in Africa; but he never succeeded in solving it, and never knew that the river running out of Bangweolo is a tributary of the Lualaba or Upper Congo.
Most of his men mutinied on the shore of Bangweolo. They complained of the hardships they endured and were tired of munching ears of maize, and demanded that their master should lead them to country where they could get sufficient food. Mild and gentle as always, Livingstone spoke to them kindly. He admitted that they were right, and confessed that he was himself tired of struggling on in want and hardship. They were so astonished at his gentleness that they begged to remain with him.
Livingstone was dangerously ill on this journey and had to be carried on a litter. There he lay unconscious and delirious with fever, and lost entirely his count of time. The troop moved again towards Tanganyika, and was to cross the lake in canoes to the Ujiji country on the eastern shore. If he could only get so far, he could rest there, and receive new supplies and letters from home.
Worn out and exhausted he at length reached Ujiji, a rendezvous for the Arab slave-dealers. But his fresh supplies had disappeared entirely. He wrote for more from the coast, and urged the Sultan of Zanzibar to see that nothing went astray. He wrote heaps of letters which never reached their destination. A packet of forty-two were sent off at one time, not one of which arrived, for at that time the tribes to the east of the lake were at war with one another.
Livingstone did not allow his courage to fail. No difficulties were great enough to crush this man. With Susi and Chuma and a party of newly enlisted porters, he set out westwards across the lake, his aim being to visit the Manyuema country, through the outskirts of which flows the Lualaba. If Livingstone could prove in which direction this mighty river ran, whether to the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, he could then return home with a good conscience. He had determined in his own mind that he would not leave the Dark Continent until he had solved the problem, and for this he sacrificed his life without result. The canoes sped over the lake, and on the western shore he continued his journey on foot to the land of the Manyuemas. He marched on westwards. When the rainy season came on he lost several months, and when he set out again on his next march he had only three companions, two of them being the faithful Susi and Chuma. In the dark thickets of the tropical forests he wounded his feet, dragged himself over fallen trunks and decaying rubbish, and waded across swollen rivers; and among the crowns of the lofty trees and in the dense undergrowth lurked malaria, an invisible miasma. He fell ill again and had to rest a long time in his miserable hut, where he lay on his bed of grass reading his tattered Bible, or listening to the native's tales of combats with men and apes, for gorillas lived in the forests.
Thus year after year passed by, and not the faintest whisper from the noisy world reached his ears. The only thing that retained him was the Lualaba. Did its waters run in an inexhaustible stream to the western ocean, or did they flow gently through forests, swamps, and deserts to Egypt? If he could only answer that question, he would go by the nearest way to Zanzibar and thence home. He had heard nothing of his children and friends for years. The soil of Africa held him prisoner in a network of forests and lianas.
In February 1871 he left Manyuema and came to Nyangwé on the bank of the Lualaba, one of the principal resorts of slave-dealers. The natives were hostile, believing that he was a slave-trader; and the slave-traders who knew him by sight hated him. He tried in vain to procure canoes for a voyage down the great river. He offered a chief, Dugumbé, a liberal reward if he would help him to prepare for this expedition. While Dugumbé was considering the offer, Livingstone witnessed an episode which surpassed in horror all that he had previously met with in Africa. It was a fine day in July on the bank of the Lualaba, and 1500 natives, mostly women, had flocked to market at a village on the bank. Livingstone was out for a stroll, when he saw two small cannon pointed at the crowd and fired. Many of the unfortunate people, doomed to death or the fetters of slavery, rushed to their canoes, but were met by a band of slave-hunters and surprised by a shower of arrows. Fifty canoes lay at the bank, but they were so closely packed that they could not be put out. The wounded shrieked and threw themselves on one another in wild despair. A number of black heads on the surface of the water showed that many swimmers were trying to reach an island about a mile away. The current was against them and their case was hopeless. Shot after shot was fired at them. Some sank quietly without a struggle, while others uttered cries of terror and raised their arms to heaven before they went down to the dark crystal halls of the crocodiles. Fugitives who succeeded in getting their canoes afloat forgot their paddles and had to paddle with their hands. Three canoes, the crews of which tried to rescue their unfortunate friends, filled and sank, and all on board were drowned. The heads in the water became gradually fewer, and only a few men were still struggling for life when Dugumbé took pity on them and allowed twenty-one to be saved. One brave woman refused to receive help, preferring the mercy of the crocodiles to that of the slave-king. The Arabs themselves estimated the dead at 400.
This spectacle made Livingstone ill and depressed. The description of the scene which afterwards appeared in all the English journals awakened such a feeling of horror that a commission was appointed and sent out to Zanzibar to inquire into the slave-trade on the spot, and with the Sultan's help devise means of suppressing it. But we know that in Gordon's time the slave-trade still flourished in the Sudan, and several decades more passed before the power of the slave-dealers was broken. As for Livingstone, it was fortunate that he did not accompany Dugumbé, for the natives combined for defence, attacked the chiefs party and slew 200 of the slave-dealing rabble.
Thus the question of the Lualaba remained unsolved, but Livingstone began to suspect that his theory of the Nile sources was wrong. He heard a doubtful tale of the Lualaba bending off to the west, but he still hoped that it flowed northwards, and that therefore the ultimate source of the Nile was to be found among the feeders of Lake Bangweolo. When difficulties sprang up around him, his determination not to give in was only strengthened. But he could do nothing without a large and well-ordered caravan, and therefore he had to return to Ujiji, whither fresh supplies ought to have arrived from the coast. And amidst a thousand dangers and lurking treachery he effected his return through the disturbed country. Half dead of fever and in great destitution he arrived at Ujiji in October.
There a fresh disappointment awaited him. His supplies had indeed come, but the Arabian scoundrel to whose care the goods had been consigned had sold them, including 2000 yards of cloth and several sacks of glass beads, the only current medium of exchange. The Arab coolly said that he thought the missionary was dead.
We read in Livingstone's journal that in his helplessness he felt like the man who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves. Five days after his arrival at Ujiji he writes as follows: "But when my spirits were at their lowest ebb, the good Samaritan was close at hand, for one morning Susi came running at the top of his speed and gasped out 'An Englishman! I see him!' and off he darted to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles, cooking pots, tents, etc., made me think 'This must be a luxurious traveller, and not one at his wits' end like me!'"
How Stanley found Livingstone
Now we must go back a little and turn to another story.
Henry Stanley was a young journalist, who in October happened to be in Madrid. He was on the staff of the great newspaper, the New York Herald, which was owned by the wealthy Gordon Bennett. One morning Stanley was awakened by his servant with a telegram containing only the words: "Come to Paris on important business." Stanley travelled to Paris by the first train, and at once went to Bennett's hotel. Bennett asked him, "Where do you think Livingstone is?"
"I really do not know, sir."
"Do you think he is alive?"
"He may be, and he may not be."
"Well, I think he is alive," said Bennett, "and I am going to send you to find him."
"What!" cried Stanley. "Do you mean me to go to Central Africa?"
"Yes; I mean that you shall go and find him. The old man may be in want; take enough with you to help him, should he require it. Do what you think best—but find Livingstone."
In great surprise Stanley suggested that such a journey would be very expensive, but Bennett answered, "Draw a thousand pounds now; and when you have gone through that, draw another thousand, and when that is spent, draw another thousand, and when you have finished that, draw another thousand, and so on; but find Livingstone."
"Well," thought Stanley, "I will do my best, God helping me." And so he went off to Africa.
He had, however, been charged by his employer to fulfil other missions on the way. He made a journey up the Nile, visited Jerusalem, travelled to Trebizond and Teheran and right through Persia to Bushire, and consequently did not arrive at Zanzibar until the beginning of January, 1871.
Here he made thorough preparations. He had never been before in the Africa of the Blacks, but he was a clever, energetic man, with a genius for organisation. He bought cloth enough for a hundred men for two years, glass beads, brass wire and other goods in request among the natives. He bought saddles and tents, guns and cartridges, boats, medicine, tools, provisions and asses. Two English sailors volunteered for the expedition, and he took them into his service, but both died in the fever country. Black porters were engaged, and twenty men he called his soldiers carried guns. After he had crossed over from Zanzibar to the African mainland, the equipment of the expedition was completed at Bagamoyo, and Stanley made haste to get away before the rainy season commenced.
The great and well-found caravan of 192 men in all trooped westwards in five detachments. Stanley himself led the last detachment, and before them lay the wilderness, the interior of Africa with its dark recesses. At the first camping-ground tall maize was growing and manioc plants were cultivated in extensive fields. The latter is a plant with large root bulbs chiefly composed of starch, but also containing a poisonous milky juice which is deadly if the roots be eaten without preparation. When the sap has been removed by proper treatment, however, the roots are crushed into flour, from which a kind of bread is made. Round a swamp in the neighbourhood grew low fan-palms and acacias among luxuriant grass and reeds.
Next day they marched under ebony and calabash trees, from the shells of which the natives make vessels of various shapes, for while they are growing the fruits can be forced by outward pressure into almost any desired form. Pheasants and quails, water-hens and pigeons flew up screaming when the black porters tramped along the path, winding in single file through the grass as high as a man. Hippopotami lay snorting unconcernedly in a stream that was crossed.
Then came the forerunners of the rainy season, splashing and pelting over the country, and pouring showers pattered on the grass. Both the horses of the caravan succumbed, one or two fellows who found Bagamoyo more comfortable ran away, and a dozen porters fell ill of fever. Stanley was still full of energy, and beat the reveille in the morning himself with an iron ladle on an empty tin. On they went through dense jungle. Now a gang of slaves toils along, their chains clanking at every weary step. Here again is a river, and there the road runs up a hill. Here the country is barren, but soon after crops wave again round villages. Maize fields in a valley are agitated like the swell of the sea, and gentle breezes rustle through rain-bedewed sugar-cane. Bananas hang down like golden cucumbers, and in barren places tamarisks and mimosas perfume the air. Sometimes a halt is made in villages of well-built grass huts.
Over swampy grasslands soaked by the continuous rains Stanley led his troop deeper and deeper into Africa. After having lasted forty days, the rainy season came to an end on the last day of April. The men marched through a forest of fine Palmyra palms, a tree which grows over almost all tropical Africa, in India, and on the Sunda Islands, and which is extolled in an old Indian poem because its fruits, leaves, and wood can be applied to eight hundred and one various uses. Afterwards the country became more hilly, and to the west one ridge and crest rose behind another. The porters and soldiers were glad to leave the damp coast-land behind and get into drier country, but the ridges made travelling harder. They encamped in villages of beehive-shaped huts covered with bamboos and bast, and surrounded by mud walls. Some tracts were so barren that only cactus, thistles, and thorny bushes could find support in the dry soil, and near a small lake were seen the tracks of wild animals, buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, wild boars, and antelopes, which came there to drink.
Then the route ran through thickets of tamarisk, and under a canopy of monkey bread-fruit trees, till eventually at a village Stanley fell in with a large Arab caravan, with which he travelled through the dreaded warlike land of Ugogo. When they set out together the whole party numbered 400 men, who marched in Indian file along the narrow paths.
"How are you, White Man?" called out a man at Ugogo in a thundering voice when Stanley arrived, and when he had set up his quarters in the chief's village the natives flocked around to gaze at the first white man they had ever seen. They were friendly and offered milk, honey, beans, maize, nuts, and water-melons in exchange for cloth and glass beads, but also demanded a heavy toll from the caravan for the privilege of passing through their country.
The caravan proceeded through the avenues of the jungle, from time immemorial frequented by elephants and rhinoceroses. In one district the huts were of the same form as Kirghiz tents, and in another rocks rose up in the forest like ruins of a fairy palace. The porters were not always easy to manage, and on some occasions were refractory. But if they were given a young ox to feast on, they quickly calmed down and sat round the fire while strips of fresh meat frizzled over the embers.
Now it was only one day's march to Tabora, the principal village in Unyamwezi, and the chief settlement of the Arabs in East Africa. The caravan set out with loud blasts of trumpets and horns, and on arrival discharged a salvo of guns, and Arabs in white dresses and turbans came out to welcome the explorer. Here Stanley found all his caravans, and the Arabs showed him every attention. They regaled him with wheaten loaves, chickens and rice, and presented him with five fat oxen, eight sheep, and ten goats. Round about they had cultivated ground and large herds, and it was difficult to believe that the stately well-grown men were base slave-traders.
Just at this time the country of Unyamwezi was disturbed by a war which was raging with Mirambo, a great chief in the north-west, and consequently when Stanley left Tabora, now with only fifty-four men, he had to make a detour to the south to avoid the seat of war. At every step he took, his excitement and uncertainty increased. Where was this wonderful Livingstone, whom all the world talked about? Was he dead long ago, or was he still wandering about the forests as he had done for nearly thirty years?
A bale or two of cloth had frequently to be left with a chief as toll. In return one chief sent provisions to last the whole caravan for four days, and came himself to Stanley's tent with a troop of black warriors. Here they were invited to sit down, and they remained silent for a while, closely examining the white man; then they touched his clothes, said something to one another, and burst out into unrestrained laughter. Then they must see the rifles and medicine chest. Stanley took out a bottle of ammonia, and told them that it was good for headaches and snake-bites. His black majesty at once complained of headache and wanted to try the bottle. Stanley held it under the chiefs nose, and of course it was so strong that he fell backwards, pulling a face. His warriors roared with laughter, clapped their hands, snapped their fingers, pinched one another, and behaved like clowns. When the king had recovered, he said, as the tears ran from his eyes, that he was quite cured and needed no more of the strong remedy.
A river ran among hills, through a magnificent country abounding in game, and lotus leaves floated on the smooth water. The sun sinks and the moon soars above the mimosa trees, the river shines like a silver mirror, antelopes are on the watch for the dangers of the night. Within the enclosure of the camp the black men sit gnawing at the bones of a newly-shot zebra. But when it is time to set out again from the comfortable camp, the porters would rather remain where they are and enjoy themselves, and when the horn sounds they go sullenly and slowly to their loads. After half an hour's march they halt, throw down their loads, and begin to whisper in threatening groups. Two insubordinate ruffians lie in wait with their rifles aimed at Stanley, who at once raises his gun and threatens to shoot them on the spot if they do not immediately drop their rifles. The mutiny ends without bloodshed, and the men promise again to go on steadily to Lake Tanganyika, according to their agreement.
Now Stanley is in a forest tract where cattle of all kinds are pestered by the tsetse fly, and where the small honey bird flies busily about among the trees. It is like the common grey sparrow, but somewhat larger, and has a yellow spot on each shoulder. It receives its name from its habit of flying in short flights just in front of the natives to guide them to the nests of wild bees, in order to get its share of the honey. When a man follows it, he must not make a noise to frighten it, but only whistle gently, that the bird may know that its intention is understood. As it comes nearer to the wild bees' nest, it takes shorter flights, and when it is come to the spot, it sits on a branch and waits. Stanley says that the honey bird is a great friend of the natives, and that they follow it at once when it calls them.
Stanley now turned northwards to a river which flows into Lake Tanganyika. The caravan was carried over in small frail boats, and the asses which still survived had to swim. When the foremost of them came to the middle of the river he was seen to stop a moment, apparently struggling, and then he went down, a whirlpool forming above his head. He had been seized by a crocodile.
A caravan which came from Ujiji reported that there was a white man in that country. "Hurrah, it is Livingstone! It must be Livingstone!" thought Stanley. His eagerness and zeal were stimulated to the uttermost, and he offered his porters extra pay to induce them to make longer marches. Eventually the last camp before Tanganyika was reached in safety, and here Stanley took out a new suit of clothes, had his helmet chalked, and made himself spruce, for the reports of a white man's presence at the lake became more definite.
The 28th of October, 1871, was a beautiful day, and Stanley and his men marched for six hours south-westwards. The path ran through dense beds of bamboo, the glittering, silvery surface of Tanganyika was seen from a height, and blue, hazy mountains appeared afar off on the western shore. The whole caravan raised shouts of delight. At the last ridge the village of Ujiji came into sight, with its huts and palms and large canoes on the beach. Stanley gazed at it with eager eyes. Where was the white man's hut? Was Livingstone still alive, or was he a mere dream figure which vanished when approached?
The villagers come streaming out to meet the caravan, and there is a deafening noise of greeting, enquiries, and shouts.
From the midst of the crowd a black man in a white shirt and a turban calls out, "Good morning, sir!"
"Who the mischief are you?" asks Stanley.
"I am Susi, Dr. Livingstone's servant," replied the man.
"What! Is Dr. Livingstone here?"
"Yes, sir."
"In this village? Run at once and tell the Doctor I am coming."
When Livingstone heard the news he came out from his verandah and went into the courtyard, where all the Arabs of Ujiji had collected. Stanley made his way through the crush, and saw a small man before him, grey and pale, dressed in a bluish cap with a faded gold band round it, a red-sleeved waistcoat, and grey trousers. Stanley would have run up to embrace him, but he felt ashamed in the presence of the crowd, so he simply took off his hat and said, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"
"Yes," said he, with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.
"I thank God, Doctor, I have been permitted to see you."
"I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you."
They sat down on the verandah, and all the astonished natives stood round, looking on. The missionary related his experiences in the heart of Africa, and then Stanley gave him the general news of the world, for of course he knew nothing of what had taken place for years past. Africa had been separated from Asia by the Suez Canal. The Pacific Railway through North America had been completed. Prussia had taken Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark, the German armies were besieging Paris, and Napoleon the Third was a prisoner. France was bleeding from wounds which would never be healed. What news for a man who had just come out of the forests of Manyuema!
Evening drew on and still they sat talking. The shades of night spread their curtain over the palms, and darkness fell over the mountains where Stanley had marched, still in uncertainty, on this remarkable day. A heavy surf beat on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. The night had travelled far over Africa before at last they went to rest.
The two men were four months together. They hired two large canoes and rowed to the northern end of Tanganyika, and ascertained that the lake had no outlet there. Only two years later Lieutenant Cameron succeeded in finding the outlet of Tanganyika, the Lukuga, which discharges into the Lualaba; and when he found that Nyangwé on the Lualaba lies 160 feet lower than the Nile where it flows out of the Albert Nyanza, he had proof that the Lualaba could not belong to the Nile, and that Livingstone's idea that the farthest sources of the Nile must be looked for at Lake Bangweolo was only an idle dream. The Lualaba therefore must make its way to the Atlantic, and in fact this river is nothing but the Upper Congo. Lieutenant Cameron was also the first European to cross Central Africa from east to west.
On the shores of the great lake the two travellers beheld a series of beautiful landscapes. There lay villages and fishing-stations in the shade of palms and mimosas, and round the villages grew maize and durra, manioc, yams, and sweet potatoes. In the glens round the lake grew tall trees from which the natives dig out their canoes. Baboons roared in the forests and dwelt in the hollow trunks. Elephants and rhinoceroses, giraffes and zebras, hippopotami and wild boars, buffaloes and antelopes occurred in large numbers, and the northern extremity of the lake swarmed with crocodiles. Sometimes the strangers were inhospitably received when they landed, and once when they were off their guard the natives plundered their canoes. Among other things they took a case of cartridges and bullets, and the travellers thought it would be bad for the thieves if the case exploded at some camp fire.
It soon became time, however, for Stanley to return to Zanzibar and inform the world through the press that Livingstone was alive. They went to Tabora, for Livingstone expected fresh supplies, and in addition Stanley gave him forty men's loads of cloth, glass beads and brass-wire, a canvas boat, a waterproof tent, two breech-loaders and other weapons, ammunition, tools, and cooking utensils. All these things were invaluable to Livingstone, who was determined to remain in Africa at any cost until his task was accomplished.
The day of parting came—March 14, 1872. Stanley was very depressed, believing that the parting was for ever. Livingstone went with him a little way and then bade him a hearty farewell, and while Stanley made haste towards the coast the Doctor turned back to Tabora and was again alone in the immense wilds of Africa. But he had still his faithful servants Susi and Chuma with him.
The Death of Livingstone
At Zanzibar Stanley was to engage a troop of stout, reliable porters and send them to Tabora, where Livingstone was to await their arrival. He had entrusted his journals, letters, and maps to Stanley's care, and that was fortunate, for when Stanley first arrived in England his narrative was doubted, and he was coldly received. Subsequently a revulsion of feeling set in, and it was generally recognised that he had performed a brilliant feat.
In due time the new supply of porters turned up at Tabora, fifty-seven men. They were excellent and trustworthy, and in a letter to Stanley, Livingstone says that he did not know how to thank him sufficiently for this new service. At the end of August the indefatigable Doctor set off on his last journey. He made for Tanganyika, and on New Year's Day, 1873, he was near Lake Bangweolo. It rained harder than ever, pouring down as if the flood-gates of heaven were opened. The caravan struggled slowly on through the wet, sometimes marching for hours through sheets of water, where only the eddies of the current distinguished the river from the adjoining swamps and flooded lands. The natives were unfriendly, refused to supply provisions, and led the strangers astray. Livingstone had never had such a difficult journey.
His plan was to go round the south of Lake Bangweolo to the Luapula, which flows out of the lake and runs to the Lualaba. Then he meant to follow the water in its course to the north, and ascertain its direction and destination.
But whichever way the mysterious river made its way to the ocean, the journey was long, and Livingstone's days were numbered. He had long been ill, and his condition was aggravated by the hardships of the journey. His body was worn out, and undermined by constant fever and insufficient nourishment. Yet he did not abandon hope of success and conscientiously wrote down his observations, and no Sunday passed without a service with his people.
Month after month he dragged himself along, but his strength was no longer what it had been. On April 21 he wrote with trembling hand only the words, "Tried to ride, but was forced to lie down and they carried me back to vil. exhausted." A comfortable litter was made, and Susi and Chuma were always with him. Livingstone asked the chief of the village for a guide for the next day, and the chief answered, "Stay as long as you wish, and when you want guides to Kalunganjovu's you shall have them."
The day after he was carried for two hours through marshy, grassy flats. During the next four days he was unable to write a line in his diary, but was carried by short stages from village to village along the southern shore of Lake Bangweolo. On April 27 he wrote in his diary, "Knocked up quite, and remain—recover—sent to buy milch goats. We are on the banks of the Molilamo." With these words his diary, which he had kept for thirty years, concluded. Milch goats were not to be had, but the chief of the place sent a present of food.
Four days later the journey was resumed. The chief provided canoes for crossing the Molilamo, a stream which flows into the lake. The invalid was transferred from the litter to a canoe, and ferried over the swollen stream. On the farther bank Susi went on in advance to the village of Chitambo to get a hut ready. The other men followed slowly with the litter. Time after time the sick man begged his men to put the litter down on the ground and let him rest. A drowsiness seemed to come over him which alarmed his servants. At a bend of the path he begged them to stop again, for he could go no farther. But after an hour they went on to the village. Leaning on their bows, the natives flocked round the litter on which lay the man whose fame and reputation had reached them in previous years. A hut was made ready, and a bed of grass and sticks was set up against the wall, while his boxes were deposited along the other walls, and a large chest served as a table. A fire was lighted outside the entrance, and the boy Majwara kept watch.
Early on April 20 the chief Chitambo came to pay a visit, but Livingstone was too weak to talk to him. The day passed, and at night the men sat round their fires and went to sleep when all was quiet. About eleven o'clock Susi was told to go to his master. Loud shouts were heard in the distance, and Livingstone asked Susi if it was their men who were making the noise. As the men were quiet in their huts, Susi replied, "I can hear from the cries that the people are scaring away a buffalo from their durra fields." A few minutes later he asked, "Is this the Luapula?" "No," answered Susi, "we are in Chitambo's village." Then again, "How many days is it to the Luapula?" "I think it is three days, master," answered Susi. Shortly after he murmured, "O dear, dear!" and dozed off again.
At midnight Majwara came again to Susi's hut and called him to the sick man. Livingstone wished to take some medicine, and Susi helped him, and then he said, "All right, you can go now."
About four o'clock on the morning of May 1 Majwara went to Susi again and said, "Come to Bwana, I am afraid; I don't know if he is alive." Susi waked Chuma and some of the other men, and they went to Livingstone's hut. Their master was kneeling beside the bed, leaning forward with his head buried in his hands. They had often seen him at prayer, and now drew back in reverential silence. But they felt ill at ease, for he did not move; and on going nearer they could not hear him breathe. One of them touched his cheek and found it was cold. The apostle of Africa was dead.
In deep sorrow his servants laid him on the bed and went out into the damp night air to consult together. The cocks of the village had just begun to crow, and a new day was dawning over Africa. Then they went in to open his boxes and pack up everything. All the men were present so that all might be jointly responsible that nothing was lost. They carefully placed his diaries and letters, his Bible and instruments, in tin boxes so that they might be safe from wet and from white ants, which are very destructive.
The men knew that they would have great difficulties to encounter. They knew that the natives had a horror of the dead, believing that spirits in the dark land of the departed thought of nothing but revenge and mischief. Therefore they perform ceremonies to propitiate departed spirits and dissuade them from plaguing the living with war, famine, or sickness.
Susi and Chuma, who had been with their master for seven years, felt their responsibility. They spoke with the men whom Stanley had sent from the coast and asked their opinion. They answered, "You are old men in travelling and hardships; you must act as our chiefs, and we will promise to obey whatever you order us to do." Susi and Chuma accordingly took the command, and carried out an exploit which is unique in all the history of exploration.
First of all a hut was erected at some little distance from the village, and in this they placed the body to prepare it for the long journey. The heart and viscera were removed, placed in a tin box, and reverently buried in the ground, one of Livingstone's Christian servants reading the Funeral Service. The body was then filled with salt and exposed for fourteen days to the sun in order to dry and thus be preserved from decay. The legs were bent back to make the package shorter, and the body was sewed up tightly in cotton. A cylinder of bark was cut from a tree and in this the body was enclosed. Round the whole a piece of canvas was bound, and the package was tied to a pole for convenience of carrying. On a tree near, Livingstone's name was cut and the date of his death, and Chitambo was asked to have the grass rooted up round the tree so that it should not at any time be destroyed by a bush fire.
When all was ready two men lifted the precious burden from the ground, the others took their loads on their backs, and a journey was commenced which was to last nine months, a funeral procession the like of which the world had never seen before. The route ran sometimes through friendly, sometimes through hostile tribes. Once they had to fight in order to force their way through. News of the great missionary's death had preceded them. Like a grass fire on the prairie it spread over Africa from coast to coast, creeping silently through the forests. In some districts the people ran away from fear of the sad procession, while in others they came up to see it. Bread-fruit trees stretched their boughs over the road like a canopy over a victor returning home, and palms, the emblems of peace and resurrection, stood as sentinels by the way, which was left clear by the wild animals of the forest. And mile after mile the party marched eastwards under the green arches.
In Tabora they met an English expedition sent out too late for the relief of Livingstone, and its members listened with emotion to the tale of the men. They wished to bury the corpse at Tabora, but Livingstone's servants would not hear of it. A few days later they met with serious opposition. A tribe refused to let them pass with a corpse. Then they made up a load resembling that containing the body, and gave out that they had decided to return to Tabora to bury their master there. Some of the men marched back with the false package, which they took to pieces at night and scattered among the bush. Then they returned to their comrades, who meanwhile had altered the real package so as to look like a bale of cloth. The natives were then satisfied and let them move on unmolested.
In February, 1874, they arrived at Bagamoyo, and the remains were carried in a cruiser to Zanzibar and afterwards conveyed to England. In London there was a question whether the body was really Livingstone's, but his broken and reunited arm, which was crushed by the lion at Mabotsa, set all doubts at rest. He was interred in Westminster Abbey in the middle of the nave. The temple of honour was filled to overflowing, and among those who bore the pall was Henry Stanley. The grave was covered with a black stone slab, in which was cut the following inscription:—
"Brought by faithful hands
Over land and sea,
Here Rests
DAVID LIVINGSTONE,
Missionary, Traveller, Philanthropist.
Born March 19, 1813,
Blantyre, Lanarkshire.
Died May 4th, 1873,
At Chitambo's Village, Ilala.
For thirty years his life was spent
in an unwearied effort to evangelise
the native races, to explore the
undiscovered secrets,
And abolish the desolating slave-trade
of Central Africa...."
The memory of the "Wise Heart" or the "Helper of Men," as they called Livingstone, is still handed down from father to son among the natives of Africa, and they are glad that his heart remains in African soil under the tree in Chitambo's village. His dream of finding the sources of the Nile, and of throwing light on the destination of the Lualaba, was not fulfilled, but he discovered Ngami and Nyassa and other lakes, the Victoria Falls and the upper course of the Zambesi, and mapped an enormous extent of unknown country.
Stanley's Great Journey
In the autumn of 1874 Stanley was back in Zanzibar to try his fortune once more in Darkest Africa. He organised a caravan of three hundred porters, provided himself with cloth, beads, brass-wire, arms, boats which could be taken to pieces, tents, and everything else necessary for a journey of several years.
He made first for the Victoria Nyanza, and circumnavigated the whole lake. He visited Uganda, came again to Ujiji, where Livingstone's hut had long been razed to the ground, and sailed all round Lake Tanganyika.
Two years after he started he was at Nyangwé on the Lualaba. Livingstone and Cameron had been there before, and we can imagine Stanley's feelings when he at last found himself at this, the most westerly point ever reached by a European from the coast of the Indian Ocean. Behind him lay the known country and the great lakes; before him lay a land as large as Europe, completely unknown and appearing as a blank on maps. Travellers had come to its outskirts from all sides, but none knew what the interior was like. It was not even known whither the Lualaba ran. Livingstone had vainly questioned the natives and Arabs about it, and vainly Stanley also tried to obtain information. At Nyangwé the Arab slave-traders held their most western market. Thither corn, fruit, and vegetables were brought for sale; there were sold animals, fish, grass mats, brass-wire, bows, arrows, and spears; and thither were brought ivory and slaves from the interior. But though routes from all directions met at Nyangwé, the Arabs were as ignorant of the country as any one.
The black continent, "Darkest Africa," lay before Stanley. He was a bold man, to whom difficulties were nothing. He had a will of iron. All opposition, all obstacles placed in his way, must go down before him. He had determined not to return eastwards, whence he had come, but to march straight westwards to the Atlantic coast, or die in the attempt. Accordingly, early on the morning of November 5, 1876, Stanley left Nyangwé in company with the rich and powerful Arab chief, Tippu Tib, and directed his way northwards towards the great forest. Tippu Tib's party consisted of 700 men, women, and children, while Stanley had 154 followers armed with rifles, revolvers, and axes. "Bismillah—in the name of God!" cried the Mohammedan leaders of the company, as they took the first step on the dangerous road.
The huge caravan, an interminable file of black men, entered the forest. There majestic trees stood like pillars in a colonnade; there palms struggled for room with wild vines and canes; there flourished ferns, spear-grass, and reeds, and there bushes in tropical profusion formed impenetrable brushwood; while through the whole was entangled a network of climbing plants, which ran up the trunks and hung down from the branches. Everything was damp and wet. Dew dropped from all the branches and leaves in a continuous trickle. The air was close and sultry, and heavy with the odour of plants and mould. It was deadly still, and seldom was the slightest breeze perceptible; storms might rage above the tree-tops, but no wind reached the ground, sheltered in the dimness of the undergrowth.
The men struggle along over the slippery ground. Balancing their loads on their heads with their hands, they stoop under boughs, push saplings aside with their elbows, thrust their feet firmly into the mud in order not to slip. Those who are clothed have their clothes torn, while the naked black men graze their skins. Very slowly the caravan forces its way through the forest, and a passage has frequently to be cut for those who carry the sections of the boats.
All who, after Stanley, have travelled through the great primeval forest in the heart of Africa have likewise described its suffocating hot-house air, the peaceful silence, only broken by the cries of monkeys and parrots, its deep, depressing gloom. If the journey is of long duration men get wearied, experiencing a feeling of confinement, and long for air, freedom, sun, and wind. It is like going through a tunnel, no country being visible on either side. The illumination is uniform, without shadows, without gleams, and the perpetual gloom, only interrupted by pitch-dark night, is exceedingly wearisome. Like polar explorers in the long winter night, the traveller longs for the sun and the return of light.
The party travelled northwards at some distance east of the Lualaba. Stanley climbed up a tree which grew somewhat apart on a hillock. Here he found himself above the tree-tops, and saw the sunlit surface of the primeval forest of closely growing trees below him. A continuous sea of boughs and foliage fell like a swell down to the bank of the Lualaba. Up here there was a breeze and the leaves fluttered in the wind; but down below reigned darkness and silence and the exuberant life of the tropics.
Even for such a man as Stanley this primeval forest was a hard nut to crack. Sickness, weariness, and insubordination prevailed in his troop. The great Tippu Tib considered it impossible to advance through such a country, and wished to turn back with all his black rabble, but after much hesitation he was at last persuaded to accompany Stanley for twenty days longer. So on they went once more, and after innumerable difficulties came again to the bank of the Lualaba.
The huge volumes of water glided along silently and majestically. Brown and thick with decaying vegetation, the Lualaba flowed between dense woods to the unknown region inhabited by negro tribes never heard of by Europeans, and where no white man had ever set his foot. Here Stanley decided to leave the terrible forest and to make use of the waterway of the Lualaba. There were the boats in sections, and a whole fleet of canoes could soon be made from the splendid trees growing at hand. The whole caravan was accordingly assembled, and Stanley explained his purpose. At first the men grumbled loudly, but Stanley declared that he would make the voyage even if no one went with him but Frank Pocock, the only survivor of the three white men who had started with him from Zanzibar. He turned to his boat's crew and called out, "You have followed me and sailed round the great lakes with me. Shall I and my white brother go alone? Speak and show me those who dare follow me!" On this a few stepped forward, and then a few more, and in the end thirty-eight men declared themselves willing to take part in the voyage.
At this juncture many canoes full of natives were observed at the opposite side of the river, so Stanley and Tippu Tib and some other Arabs entered the boat and rowed up to a small island in mid-stream.
Here the black warriors were in swarms, and thirty canoes lay at the water's edge. At a safe distance, Stanley's interpreter called out that the white man only wished to see their country, that nothing belonging to them should be touched, and that they themselves should not be disturbed. They answered that if the white man would row out to the island in the morning with ten servants, their own chief would meet him with ten men, and would enter into blood-brotherhood with him. After that the strangers might cross the river and visit their villages.
Suspecting treachery, however, Stanley sent twenty armed men by night to the island to hide themselves in the brushwood. Then in the morning Pocock and ten men rowed out to the meeting-place, near which Stanley waited in his boat. A swarm of canoes put out from the western bank, and when they came to the island the rowers raised their wild war-whoop, Ooh-hu! Ooh-hu-hu! and rushed ashore with bows bent and raised spears. Then Stanley's twenty men came out of their hiding-place, the fight was short, and the savages dashed headlong into their boats and rowed away for their lives.
The next morning, with thirty men on board his boat, Stanley began his journey down the river, while Tippu Tib and Pocock marched with all the rest of the troop along the bank. The natives had retired, but their cry of Ooh-hu-hu! was still heard in the distance. On an island between the main river and a tributary Stanley's party landed to wait for the caravan and help it over the affluent. In the meantime Stanley made a short excursion up the tributary, the water of which was inky-black owing to the dark tree roots which wound about its bottom. On his return he found the camp island surrounded by hostile canoes and heard random shots, but when his boat drew near, the savages were frightened and rowed away.
At length Tippu Tib straggled up with his party, and the journey could be continued. The boat was rowed near the bank, and the two divisions were kept in touch with each other by means of drums. All the villages they came to were deserted, but the natives were evidently keeping a close watch on these wonderful strangers, for one day when some of Stanley's men were out scouting on two captured canoes, they were attacked, and when they tried to escape they came among eddies and rapids, where their boats capsized and four rifles were lost. The men climbed up and sat astride the upturned canoes until they were rescued by their comrades.
Then the expedition went on again. The river was usually half a mile broad or more, and frequently divided by long rows of islands and holms. The large village of Ikondu consisted of cage-like reed huts built in two long rows. All the inhabitants had fled, but pitchers full of wine were suspended from the palms, melons and bananas emitted their fragrance, and there was plenty of manioc plantations, ground-nuts, and sugar-cane. Near the place was found a large old canoe, cracked, leaky, and dilapidated, but it was patched up, put in the river, and used as a hospital. Smallpox and dysentery raged in the caravan, and two or three corpses were thrown daily into the river.
Once, as the small flotilla was rowing quietly along not far from the bank, a man in the hospital canoe cried out. He had been hit in the chest by a poisoned barb, and this was followed by a whole shower of arrows. The boats were rowed out from the dangerous bank, and a camp was afterwards pitched on an old market-place. The usual fence was set up round the tents, and sentinels were posted in the bush. Then were heard shots, cries, and noise. The watchman ran in calling out, "Look out, they are coming," and immediately arrows and javelins rattled against the stockade, and the savages rushed on, singing their dreadful war-songs. But their arrows and javelins were little use against powder and ball, and they soon had to retire. They were reinforced, however, and returned again and again to the attack, and did not desist till the fight had lasted two hours and twilight had come on.
After other combats, Stanley and Tippu Tib came to a country on the western bank densely peopled with hostile natives, where they had to fight again. The savages were repulsed, and rowed out to a long island, where they moored their canoes by ropes fastened round posts. They would certainly renew the attack next day. But this time they were to be thoroughly checkmated. Rain pelted down on the river, the night was pitch dark, and there was a fresh breeze. Stanley rowed to the island, and his boat stole silently and cautiously under the high tree-covered bank. He cut the ropes of every canoe he got hold of, and in a short time thirty canoes were sent adrift down the river, many of them being caught by boatmen posted farther down stream. Before dawn the men were back at the camp with their looted boats.
The savages, who lay crouching in their grass hovels on the island, must certainly have felt foolish in the morning when they found that they had lost their canoes and were left helpless. Then an interpreter rowed out to them to put before them the conditions exacted by the white man. They had treacherously attacked his troop, killing four and wounding thirteen. Now they must furnish provisions, and then they would be paid for the captured canoes and peace would be established.
It was important that the expedition should have a few days' rest at this place, for Tippu Tib had had enough, and refused to advance a step farther down the river with its warlike natives. Accordingly, he was to turn back with his black retinue, while Stanley was to continue the journey with a selected party, many of whom had their wives and children with them. The troop consisted of a hundred and fifty souls. Provisions were collected for twenty days. The canoes were fastened together in pairs by poles, that they might not capsize, and the flotilla consisted of twenty-three boats.
It was one of the last days in December. A thick mist hung over the river and the nearest palms were scarcely visible, but a breeze sprang up and thinned the haze. Then the trumpets and drums sounded the signal for starting, and Stanley gave the order to get into the boats. The parting song of the sons of Unyamwezi was answered by Tippu Tib's returning troop, and the flotilla of canoes glided down the dark river towards unknown lands and destiny.
Stanley believed that this mighty river, which he named after Livingstone, was none other than the Congo, the mouth of which had been known for more than four hundred years; but he did not reject the possibility that it might also unite with the Nile or be connected with the Niger far away to the north-west. The journey which was now to solve this problem will be famous for all time for its boldness and daring, for the dangers overcome and adventures experienced, and is quite comparable with the boat journeys of the Spaniards who discovered the Amazons and Mississippi rivers in America.
Fourteen villages lie buried in the dense bush, and Stanley's flotilla makes for the bank to encamp for the first time after parting from Tippu Tib. Here the natives are friendly, but there is trouble a little farther on, where the woods echo with the noise of war-drums and the savages are drawn up with shield and spear. The drum signals are repeated from village to village, from the one bank to the other. Canoes are manned and put out from both banks and Stanley's flotilla is surrounded. The interpreters call out "Peace! Peace!" but the savages answer peremptorily, "Turn back or fight." Consultations and negotiations are held, while the river sweeps down the whole assemblage of friends and foes. More villages peep out from the trees where dwell enemies of the attacking savages, so the latter dip their oars in the water and row back without coming to blows.
But soon there was a different scene. Javelins were thrown from other canoes and the dreadful poisoned arrows were discharged, so the death-dealing European firearms had to be used in self-defence. On this occasion Stanley's men succeeded in capturing a number of shields, of which indeed they had need.
Again the war-drum is heard, just as the flotilla is passing a small island. Stanley orders his boats to keep in the middle of the river ready for action. Swarms of canoes shoot out from the bank like wild ducks, and the black warriors beat their spears against their shields. The interpreter gets up in the bow and shouts out "Peace! Take care or we strike!" Then the savages hesitate, and retire quietly under promontories and overhanging wooded banks. By the single word "Peace!" the interpreter could often check parties of warriors, but others answered the offer of peace with a scornful laugh, and their showers of arrows and assegais had to be met with a volley of rifle bullets.
PLATE XXX. THE FIGHT ON THE CONGO.
From Stanley's Through the Dark Continent.
The New Year (1877) had already come, when a friendly tribe warned the travellers of dangerous falls and rapids, the roar of which they would shortly hear. The flotilla glided along the right bank, and all listened for the expected thunder. Suddenly savages appeared on the bank and hurled their assegais; then the war-drums were heard again, and a large number of long canoes approached (Plate XXX.). The warriors had painted one half of their bodies white and the other red, with broad black stripes, and looked hideous. Their howls and horn blasts betokened a serious attack. By this time Stanley's boats were out in the middle of the stream in order of battle, with the shields placed along the gunwales to protect the non-combatants. A canoe 80 feet long rowed straight for Stanley's boat, but was received by a rattling volley. Then it was Stanley's turn to attack, for the great canoe could not turn in time. Warriors and oarsmen jumped overboard to save themselves by swimming to land, and as the other boats vanished the expedition could go on towards the falls.
Now was heard the roar of the water as it tumbled in wild commotion over the barriers in its bed. The natives thought that this was just the place to catch the strangers, and Stanley had to fight his way step by step, sometimes on land and sometimes on the river. In quiet water between the various falls the men could row, but in other places paths had to be cut through the brushwood on the bank and the canoes hauled over land. Often they had to fight from tree to tree. Once the savages tried to surround Stanley's whole party in a large net, and lost eight of their own men for their trouble. These captives were tattooed on the forehead and had their front teeth filed to a point. Like all the other people in the country, they were cannibals, and were eager for human flesh.
One day at the end of January Stanley's boats crossed the equator, and the great river turned more and more towards the west, so that it evidently could not belong to the Nile. Here the party passed the seventh and last fall, where the brown water hurled itself in mad fury over the barrier. Thus the series of cascades afterwards known as the Stanley Falls was discovered and passed.
Below the falls the river expands, sometimes to as much as two miles in breadth. The opposite bank could hardly be seen, and the boats came into a labyrinth of channels between islands. The rowers sang to the swing of their oars, and a sharp look-out had always to be kept. Sometimes canoes followed them, and occasionally ventured to attack. Wild warriors were seen with loathsome features, and red and grey parrots' feathers on their heads, and bangles of ivory round their arms.
In one village was found a temple with a round roof supported on thirty-three elephants' tusks. In the middle was set up an idol carved in wood and painted red, with black eyes, hair, and beard. Knives, spears, and battle-axes were wrought with great skill, and were ornamented with bands of copper, iron, and bone. Among the refuse heaps were seen remains of horrible feasts, and human skulls were set up on posts round the huts.
Interminable forests grew on the banks and islands, with the many-rooted mangrove-tree, tall, snake-like canes with drooping tufts of leaves, the dragon's-blood tree, the india-rubber, and many others.
Danger and treachery lurked behind every promontory, and the men had to look out for currents, falls, rapids, and whirlpools. Hippopotami and crocodiles were plentiful. But the savages were the worst danger. Stanley and his men were worn out with running the gauntlet month after month.
At the village of Rubunga, where the natives were friendly, Stanley heard for the first time that the river actually was the Congo. Here the traveller was able to replenish his stock of provisions, and when the drums of Rubunga were sounded it was not for battle but to summon the inhabitants to market, and from the surrounding villages the people came to offer for sale fish, snails, oysters, dried dog-flesh, goats, bananas, meal, and bread. As a rule, however, no trust could be placed in the natives. In their hideous tattooing, with strings of human teeth round their necks and their own teeth filed to a point like a wolf's, with a small belt of grass round their loins and spears and bows in their hands, they did not inspire confidence, and frequently the boats had barely put out from the bank where the people seemed friendly before the natives manned their canoes and pursued them. In this region they were armed with muskets procured from the coast. Once Stanley's small flotilla was surrounded by sixty-three canoes, and there was a hard fight with firearms on both sides. In the foremost canoe stood a young chief, handsome, calm, and dignified, directing the attack. He wore a head-covering and a mantle of goatskin, and on his arms, legs, and neck he had large rings of brass wire. A bullet struck him in the thigh. He quietly wound a rag round the wound and signed to his oarsmen to make for the bank. Then the others lost courage and followed their leader's canoe.
They struggled southwards from one combat to another. The passage of the great curve of the Congo had cost thirty-two fights. Now remained a difficult stretch, where the mighty river breaks in foaming falls and rapids through the escarpment which follows the line of the west coast of Africa. These falls Stanley named after Livingstone; he was well aware that the river could never be called by any other name than the Congo, but the falls would preserve the great missionary's name. Innumerable difficulties awaited him here. On one occasion half a dozen men were drowned and several canoes were lost, and the party had to wait while others were cut out in the forest. One day Pocock drifted towards a fall, and was not aware of the danger until it was too late and he was swept over the barrier. Thus perished the last of Stanley's white companions.
At another fall the coxswain and the carpenter went adrift in a newly excavated canoe. They had no oars. "Jump, man," called out the former, but the other answered, "I cannot swim." "Well, then, good-bye, my brother," said the quartermaster, and swam ashore. The other went over the fall. The canoe disappeared in the seething whirlpool, came up again with the man clinging fast to it, was sucked under once more, and rose again still with the carpenter. But when it reappeared for the third time in another whirlpool the man was gone.
At last all the boats were abandoned and the men travelled by land. The party was entirely destitute, all were emaciated, miserable, and hungry. A black chief demanded toll for their passage through his country, and they had nothing to give. He would be satisfied with a bottle of rum he said. Rum, indeed, when they had been three years in the depths of Africa! Stanley was reasoning with the chief when the coxswain came and asked what was the matter. "There's rum for him," he said, and gave the chief a buffet which knocked him over and put his whole retinue to flight.
Now it was only a couple of days' journey to Boma, near the mouth of the Congo, where there were trade factories and Europeans. Stanley wrote a letter to them, and was soon supplied with all necessaries; and after a short rest at Boma the party made the voyage round the south of Africa to Zanzibar, where Stanley dismissed his men.
He then travelled home, and was, of course, fêted everywhere. For a thousand years the Arabs had travelled into the interior of Africa, but they did not know the course of the Congo. European explorers had for centuries striven to penetrate the darkness. The natives themselves did not know whither the Lualaba ran. All at once Stanley had filled up the blank and knit together the scattered meshes of the net; and now a railway runs beside the falls, and busy steamboats fly up and down the Congo. Well did Stanley deserve his native name of Bula Matadi, or "the breaker of stones," for no difficulty was too great for him to overcome.
After a life of restless activity—including another great African journey to find Emin Pasha, the Governor of the Equatorial Province after Gordon's death—Stanley was gathered to his fathers in 1904. He was buried in a village churchyard outside London, and a block of rough granite was placed above the grave. Here may be read beneath a cross, "Henry Morton Stanley—Bula Matadi—1841-1904," and lastly the word that sums up all the work of his life, "Africa."
Timbuktu and the Sahara
In the middle of north-western Africa, where the continent shoots a gigantic tongue out into the Atlantic, lies one of the world's most famous towns, Timbuktu.
Compared with Cairo or Algiers, Timbuktu is a small town. Its three poor mosques cannot vie with the grand temples which under French, Turkish, or English dominion raise their graceful minarets on the Mediterranean shores of Africa. Not a building attracts the eye of the stranger amidst a confusion of greyish-yellow mud houses with flat roofs and without windows, and neglect and decay stare out from heaps of ruins. There is hardly a tottering caravanserai to invite the desert wanderer to rest. Some streets are abandoned, while in others the foot sinks over the ankle in blown sand from the Sahara.
Timbuktu is not so famous as the sparkling jewels in the diadem of Asia—Jerusalem and Mecca, Benares and Lhasa. The very name of each of these is, as it were, a vital portion of a great religion, and indeed almost stands for the religion itself. Timbuktu has scarcely any religion, or, more correctly, too many. And yet this town has borne a proud name during its eight hundred years of existence—the great, the learned, the mysterious city. No pilgrims flock thither to fall down in prayer before a redeemer's grave or be blessed by a high priest. No pyramids, no marble temples, make Timbuktu one of the world's wonders. No wealth, no luxuriant vegetation exist to make it an outer court to Paradise.
NORTH-WEST AFRICA.
And yet Timbuktu is an object of desire. Millions long to go there, and when they have been, long to get away again. Caravan men who have wandered for months through the desert long for the tones of the flute and the cithern, and the light swayings of the troops of dancers. Palms and mimosa grow sparsely round Timbuktu, but after the dangers of the desert the monotonous, dilapidated town with its dusty, dreary streets seems really like an entrance to Paradise. Travelling merchants who have risked their wealth in the Sahara among savage robbers, and have been fortunate to escape all dangers, are glad at the sight of Timbuktu, and think its grey walls more lovely than anything they can imagine.
The remarkable features of Timbuktu are, then, its situation and its trade. We have only to take a look at the map to perceive that this town stands like a spider in its web. The web is composed of all the routes which start from the coast and converge on Timbuktu. They come from Tripoli and Tunis, from Algeria and Morocco, from Senegal and Sierra Leone, from the Pepper Coast, the Ivory Coast, and Slave Coast, the Gold Coast, and from the countries round the Gulf of Guinea, which have been annexed by France, England, and Germany. They come also from the heart of the Sahara, where savage and warlike nomad tribes still to this day maintain their freedom against foreign interference.
In Timbuktu meet Arabs and negroes, Mohammedans and heathens from the deserts and fruitful lands of the Sahara and Sudan. Timbuktu stands on the threshold of the great wastes, and at the same time on the third in rank of the rivers of Africa. At the town the Niger is two and a half miles broad, and from its mouth it discharges more water than the Nile, but much less than the Congo. Like the Congo, the Niger makes a curve to the north, bidding defiance to the Sahara; but the desert wins in the end, and the river turns off towards the south.
It is a struggle between life and death. The life-giving water washes the choking sand, and just where the strife is fiercest lies Timbuktu. From the north goods come on dromedaries to be transported farther in canoes or long, narrow boats with arched awnings of matting, or, where the river is not navigable, on oxen and asses or the backs of men. Dromedaries cannot endure the damp climate near the Niger, which especially in winter overflows its banks for a long distance. Therefore they are led back through the Sahara. They thrive on the dry deserts. The constantly blowing north-east trade-wind dries up the Sahara, and in certain regions years may pass without a drop of rain.
The name Timbuktu has a singular sound. It stands for all the mystery and fascination connected with the Sahara It leads the thoughts to the greatest expanse of desert in the world, to long and lonely roads, to bloody feuds and treacherous ambushes, to the ring of caravan bells and the clank of the stirrups of the Beduins (Plate XXXI.). There seems to be a ring in the name itself, and we seem to hear the splash of the turbid waters of the Niger in its vowels. We seem to hear the plaintive howl of the jackal, the moan of the desert wind, the squealing of dromedaries outside the northern gateway, and the boatmen splashing with oars and poles in the creeks of the river.
PLATE XXXI. A GROUP OF BEDUINS.
Caravans from the northern coast bring cloth, arms, powder, paper, tools, hardware, sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, and a quantity of other articles to Timbuktu. But when they begin their journey through the Sahara, only half the camels are laden. The other half are loaded with blocks of salt on the way, for salt is in great demand at Timbuktu. Caravans may be glad if they come safely through the country of the Tuaregs, and at best they can only obtain an unmolested passage by the payment of a heavy toll. On the return journey northwards the dromedaries are laden with wares from the Sudan, rice, manioc, honey, nuts, monkey breadfruit, dried fish, ivory, ostrich feathers, india-rubber, leather, and many other things. A small number of black slaves also accompany them. The largest caravans contain five hundred or a thousand dromedaries and five hundred men at most. The goods they can transport may be worth twenty-eight thousand pounds or more. Five great caravan roads cross the Sahara from north to south.
Let us set out on a journey from Timbuktu, and let us go first eastwards to the singular Lake Chad, which is half filled with islands, is shallow and swampy, choked with reeds, rises and falls with the discharge of the great rivers which flow into it, and has a certain similarity to Lop-nor in Central Asia. Nearly 17 cubic miles of water are estimated to enter Lake Chad in the year, and when we know that the lake on the whole remains much about the same size, we can conceive how great the evaporation must be.
We have our own dromedaries and our own Arab guide on whom we can rely. We can therefore go where we like, and we steer our course from Lake Chad towards the eastern Sudan, where we have already been in the company of General Gordon. But before we come to the Nile we turn off northwards to cross the Libyan desert, the most inaccessible and desolate, and therefore the least known, part of the Sahara. On our way northwards we notice that animal and vegetation life becomes more scanty. Even in the Sudan the grasslands are more thinly clothed and the steppes more desert-like the farther we travel, and at last blown sand predominates. We must follow a well-known road which has been used for thousands of years by Arabs and Egyptians.
We are in the midst of the sea of sand. Here lie at certain places dunes of reddish-yellow drift sand as high as the tower of St. Paul's Cathedral. We see no path, for it has been swept away by the last storm; but the guide has his landmarks and does not lose his way. The sand becomes lower and the country more open. Then the guide points to a bare and barren ridge which rises out of the sand like a rock out of the sea, and says that he can find his way by this landmark, which remains in sight for several days, and is then replaced by another elevation.
We encamp at a deep well, drink and water our camels. Next day we are out in the sandy sea again. The sky has assumed an unusual hue. It is yellow, and soon changes into bluish grey. The sun is a red disc. It is calm and sultry. The guide looks serious, and says in a low tone "samum." The hot, devastating desert storm which is the scourge of Arabia and Egypt is approaching.
The guide stops and turns round. He is uncertain. But he goes on again when he sees that we cannot get back to the well before the storm is upon us. It is useless to look for shelter, for the dunes are too flat to protect us from the wind. And now the storm sweeps down, and it becomes suffocatingly close and hot. The dromedaries seem uneasy, halt, and turn away from the wind. We dismount. The dromedaries lie down and bury their muzzles in the sand. We wrap up our heads in cloths and lie on our faces beside our animals to get some shelter between them and the ground. And so we may lie by the hour panting for breath, and we may be glad if we get off with our lives from a samum when we are out in the desert. Even in the oases it causes a feeling of anxiety and trouble, for the burning heat is most harmful to palms and crops. The temperature may rise to 120° in this dangerous storm, which justifies its name of "poison wind."
The storm passes off, the air becomes clear and is quiet and calm, and the sun has again its golden yellow brilliance. It is warm, but not suffocating as it was. The heated air vibrates above the sand. Beside our road appears a row of palms and before them a silver streak of water. The guide, however, goes on in quite a different direction, and when we ask him why, he answers that what we see is a mirage, and that there is no oasis for many days' journey in the direction in which we see the palms.
In the evening we come to a real oasis, and there we are glad to rest a couple of days. Here are a hundred wells, here the ground is cultivated in the shade of the palms, here we can enjoy to the full the moist coolness above the swards of juicy grass. The oasis is like an island in the desert sea, and between the palm trunks is seen the yellow level horizon, the dry, heated desert with its boundless sun-bathed wastes.
If we now turn off towards the north-west, Fezzan is the next country which our route touches. It is a paradise of date palms. They occur in such profusion that even dromedaries, horses, and dogs are fed with the fruits. The surface of the ground also has undergone a great change, and is not so sterile and choked with sand as in the Libyan desert. Here and farther to the west the country becomes more hilly. Ridges and bosses of granite and sandstone, weathered and scorched by the sun, stand up here and there. Extensive plateaus covered with gravel are called hammada; they are ruins of former mountains which have burst asunder. In the Sahara the differences of temperature between day and night are very great. The dark, bare hill-slopes may be heated up to 140° or more when the sun bathes them, while during the night the radiation out to space is so intense that the temperature sinks to freezing-point. Through these continual alternations the rocks expand and contract repeatedly, fissures are formed and fragments are detached and fall down. The hardest rocks resist longest, and therefore they stand up like strange walls and towers amidst the great desolation.
If we go another step westwards we come to the land of the Tuaregs. There, too, we find hilly tracts and hammadas, sandy deserts and oases, and in favourable spots excellent pastures. We have already noticed in Timbuktu this small, sturdy desert people, easily recognised by the veil which hides the lower part of the face. All Tuaregs wear such a veil, and call those who do not "fly-mouths." They are powerfully built, and of dark complexion, being of mixed negro blood from all the slaves they have kidnapped in the Sudan. They are as dry and lean as the ground on which they live, and nature in their country obliges them to lead a nomad life. Wide, simple, and dreary is the desert, and simple and free is the nomad's life. The hard struggle for existence has sharpened their senses. They are acute observers, clever, crafty, and artful. Distance is of no account to them, for they do not know what it is to be tired. They fly on their swift dromedaries over half the Sahara, and are a terror to their settled neighbours and to caravans. On their raids they cover immense distances in a short time. To ride from the heart of their country to the Sudan after booty is child's play to them. They have made existence in many oases quite unendurable. What use is it to till fields and rear palms when the Tuaregs always reap the harvest? The French have had many fights with the Tuaregs, and the railway which was to pass through their country and connect Algiers with Timbuktu is still only a cherished project. Yet this tribe which has so bravely defended its freedom against the stranger does not number more than half a million people. The Tuaregs are not born to be slaves, and we cannot but admire their thirst for freedom, their pride, and their courage.
The desert here exhibits the difficult art of living. Even animals and plants which are assigned to the desert are provided with special faculties. Some of the animals, snakes and lizards for instance, can live without water. Dromedaries can go for many days without drinking. Ostriches cover great distances to reach water before it is too late. Plants are provided with huge roots that they may suck up as much moisture as possible, and many of them bear thorns and spikes instead of leaves so that the evaporation may be insignificant. Many of them are called to life by a single fall of rain, develop in a few weeks, and die when long drought sets in again. Then the seeds are left, waiting patiently for the next rain. Some desert plants seem quite dead, grey, dried-up, and buried in dust, but when rain comes they send out green shoots again.
Every river bed is called in the Sahara a wadi. Very seldom does a trickle of water run down it after rain, but in these beds the vegetation is richer than elsewhere, for here moisture lingers longer than in other spots. Many caravans march along them, and gazelles and antelopes find pasture here.
A European leaves Algeria to make his way into the Sahara with an incomprehensible feeling of fascination. In the French towns on the Mediterranean coast he has lived just as in Europe. He has been able to cross by train the forest-clad heights of the Atlas Mountains, where clear brooks murmur among the trees. He leaves the railway behind, and finds the hills barer the farther he travels south. At last the monotonous, slightly undulating desert stretches before him, and he feels the magical attraction of the Sahara drawing him deeper and deeper into its great silence and solitude. All the colours become subdued and greyish-yellow, like the lion's hide. Everything is yellow and grey, even the dromedaries which carry him, his tent and baggage, from well to well. He can hardly tell why he finds this country pleasanter than the forests and streams on the slopes of the Atlas Mountains; perhaps owing to the immense distances, the mysterious horizon afar off, the blood-red sunsets, the grand silence which prevails everywhere so that he hardly dares speak aloud. It is the magic of the desert that has got hold of him.
Thirty years ago a large French expedition, under the command of Colonel Flatters, marched along this route from Algeria southwards through the Sahara. It consisted of a hundred men, including seven French officers and some non-commissioned officers, and its equipment and provisions were carried by three hundred dromedaries. The French Government had sent out the expedition to examine the Tuaregs' country, and to mark out a suitable route for a railway through the Sahara to connect the French possessions in the north and south. It was not the first time that the Colonel had travelled in the Sahara, and he knew the Tuaregs well. Therefore he was on his guard. Everything seemed most promising. The Frenchmen mapped parts of the Sahara which no European had ever succeeded in reaching before—even the great German traveller, who had crossed the Sahara in all directions, had not been there. The most dangerous tracts were left behind, and the Tuaregs had offered no resistance: indeed some of their chiefs had been friendly. In the last letters which reached France, Flatters expressed a hope that he would be able to complete his task without further trouble, and to advance even to the Sudan.
Then the blow fell. The expedition was suddenly attacked at a well, and succumbed after a heroic defence against superior numbers. Most of the Frenchmen were cut down. Part of the caravan attempted to reach safety by hurrying northwards on forced marches, but was overtaken and annihilated. Many brave Frenchmen have met the same fate as Flatters in the struggle for dominion over the Sahara.
If we travelled, as we have lately imagined, on swift-footed dromedaries in a huge circuit from Timbuktu through the Sudan, the Libyan desert, and the land of the Tuaregs, we should at last come to Morocco, "The Uttermost West," as this last independent Sultanate in Africa is called. Morocco is the restless corner of Africa, as the Balkan Peninsula is of Europe, Manchuria of Asia, and Mexico of North America—in South America all parts are unsettled.
III
NORTH AMERICA
The Discovery of the New World
Now we must say farewell to Africa. We have in front of us the Straits of Gibraltar, little more than six miles broad, the blue belt that connects the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, the sharply defined boundary which separates the black continent from the white.
We have but a step to take and we are in Spain. Here, also, a dying echo from the splendid period of Arab rule reaches our ears. We are reminded that twelve centuries have passed away since the Prophet's chosen people conquered the Iberian Peninsula. The sons of Islam were a thorn in the sides of the Christians. Little by little they were forced back southwards. Only Cordova and Granada still remained in the possession of the Arabs, or Moors as they were called, and when Ferdinand the Catholic married Queen Isabella of Castile in the year 1469, only Granada was left in the hands of the Moors. Their last king lived in his splendid palace, the Alhambra in Granada. In 1491 the Spanish army besieged the Moorish city. Barely forty years earlier the Mohammedans had taken Constantinople. Now other Mohammedans were to be turned out of western Europe. New Year's Day 1492 came and Granada fell. The Moorish king had to bend humbly on his knees before the victor ere he went on his way, and the Castilian flag waved from the towers and pinnacles of the Alhambra.
This remarkable incident was witnessed by a mariner from Genoa, forty-six years old. His name was Christopher Columbus.
At the time of the fall of Granada there was no one among the learned men of Europe who had any suspicion of the existence of a continent in the western ocean, and the Portuguese sought only a sea route to India—the rich land of spices, gold, pearls, and coral. But there was a learned mathematician, Toscanelli of Florence, who perceived that, as the world was round, a mariner must necessarily reach Japan, China, and India by sailing westwards from Europe, and as early as 1474 he produced maps and other proofs of the correctness of his theory. It was Columbus, by his boldness and ability, who converted this theory into fact.
Christopher Columbus was the eldest of five children of a weaver in Genoa. He and his brothers also engaged in the weaving industry, but as their father's affairs were anything but flourishing, the sons decided to seek a living in foreign countries. Christopher became a sailor, and acquired all the qualifications necessary to handle a ship. He gained great experience and a thorough knowledge of his new profession. He once sailed on an English vessel to Thule or Iceland, the longest voyage which mariners of that time dared attempt. Then he tried his fortune in Portugal, earning a living by drawing sea-charts and serving as skipper on Portuguese vessels sailing to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and to Guinea. In the Portuguese school he learned much which was to be of great importance in his future career. He made his home in Lisbon, where he married a lady of rank.
It was at this time that he entered into correspondence with Toscanelli, who sent him a map of the route over the Atlantic to Japan, and gave him much information drawn from Marco Polo's descriptions. These letters made a deep impression on Columbus. He wrote back to Toscanelli that he thought of sailing westwards to Marco Polo's countries according to his instructions, and Toscanelli replied that he was glad to find his ideas were so well understood, and that such a voyage would bring great gain to Columbus, and an extraordinary reputation among all Christian peoples.
Columbus tried in vain to obtain the support he needed for carrying out his plan. The King of Portugal and the learned men of the country listened to him, but treated him as a presumptuous dreamer. There were a few, however, who thought that he might be right, and on their advice the King sent a vessel over the ocean without telling Columbus. It soon returned without having seen land. When Columbus heard of this underhanded proceeding, he left Lisbon in disgust and travelled alone to Spain. His wife and children never saw him again, except his son Diego, who afterwards joined his father.
For two years he travelled from town to town in that part of southern Spain which is called Andalusia, selling charts, which he drew with his own hand. At last he was received at Court, and was able to set forth his plan before an assembly of courtiers and ecclesiastics. But Castile was too much occupied with the war against the Moors in Granada and Malaga to venture on such a great enterprise, and Columbus had to wait for better times.
TOSCANELLI'S MAP.
Two years more passed by and Columbus was again summoned to the Court, then in Cordova on the bank of the Guadalquivir. His eloquence and enthusiasm had little effect, however, and after two more years of useless waiting he resolved to turn his back on Spain and try his fortune in France.
Sad and depressed, he followed the great highroad from Cordova. Being destitute he went up to a monastery beside the road, knocked at the gate, and begged for a piece of bread for his little son Diego, whom he held by the hand. While he was talking to the porter the prior came by, listened to his words, perceived by his accent that he came from Italy, and enquired into his story and his aims. The prior was a learned and benevolent man, and entered warmly into the plans of the Italian mariner, perceiving that such an opportunity of acquiring lands in eastern Asia should not be lost to Spain. He accordingly wrote to Queen Isabella, and at the end of 1491 Columbus spoke again before the learned men of the realm. Some of them treated him as an impostor, but others believed his words; and when, after the fall of Granada, the Court had a free hand, it was decided to equip Columbus for his first voyage over the Atlantic.
All the negotiations nearly fell through at the last moment, owing to the demands of Columbus. He wished to be appointed High Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy over all the savage countries he discovered, and he demanded for himself and his descendants an eighth part of all the revenues of the new lands. But when he declared that he intended to devote his gains to the recovery of Jerusalem from the Turks, his wishes were granted and funds were assigned for the equipment of three ships in the harbour of Palos.
These vessels each had three masts, but they were far too small for such an adventurous enterprise. Only the Admiral's ship, the Santa Maria, was completely decked over. The other two, the Pinta and Niña, had only decks fore and aft. The two brothers Pinzon, of noble extraction, at once volunteered for the voyage, but it was far from easy to enlist crews. Had it been a voyage along the coasts of Europe and Africa, there would have been no difficulty in finding men, but for a voyage straight out into the unknown ocean—with that the sailors would have nothing to do. At last it was necessary to open the prisons in order to procure ninety men, for only that number was needed for the whole three vessels. The lists of the crews are still extant, and show that most of the men were Castilians.
Two doctors were taken, as well as a baptized Jew, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic, and might be useful as an interpreter when the expedition came over the ocean to India. Curiously enough, Columbus had no chaplain on board, but before he set sail his friend the prior administered the sacrament to all his men, who in the opinion of most were doomed to a watery death.
Armed with a royal despatch to the Great Khan of Mongolia, Columbus stepped on board the Santa Maria, the moorings were cast off, and on August 3, 1492, the three ships steered under full sail out into the open sea.
They kept on a south-westerly course, and in six days reached the Canary Islands, where the little fleet stayed a month to repair some damages and patch up the Pinta's broken rudder.
On September 8 a definite start was made, and when the lovely Canary Islands and the Peak of Teneriffe sank beneath the horizon, the sailors wept, believing that wind and sails would carry them from the world for ever, and that nothing but water and waves awaited them in the west.
From the first day Columbus kept a very exact diary, which shows how thoroughly he embraced Toscanelli's theory and how implicitly he relied on his fellow-countryman's calculations. To his crews, however, he represented the distance as short, so that their fears should not be increased by the thought of the great interval that separated them from the Old World. They became more anxious as days came and went, and still nothing but boundless deserts of water spread in every direction.
After a week's sail their keels ploughed through whole fields of floating seaweed, and Columbus pacified his men by the suggestion that this was the first indication of their approach to land.
The Santa Maria was a broad and clumsy vessel, really intended to carry cargo. She was, therefore, a slow sailer, and the other two ships usually took the lead. They were of more graceful build and had large square sails, but were of barely half the tonnage of the flagship. But all three kept together and were often so close that shouts could be heard from one ship to the other. One day Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, called out to Columbus that he had seen birds flying westwards and expected to sight land before night. They therefore sailed cautiously lest they should run aground, but all their apprehension ceased when a sounding-line two hundred fathoms long, lowered through the floating sea-wrack, failed to reach the bottom.
Their progress was stopped by several days of calm, and it was September 22 before the sea-weed came to an end and the vessels rolled again out to the open bluish-green water.
Through hissing surge the Santa Maria and her two consorts cut their way due west. A more favourable breeze could not be wished. It was the trade wind which filled their sails. The sailors were afraid of the constant east wind, and when at length it veered round for a time, Columbus wrote in his journal: "This head-wind was very welcome, for my men were mightily afraid that winds never blew in these seas which would take them back to Spain."
Toscanelli's map was sent backwards and forwards between Columbus and Pinzon, and they wondered where they really were, and how far it was to the islands of eastern Asia. On September 25, Pinzon ascended the poop of the Pinta and called out to Columbus, "I see land." Then he fell on his knees with all his crew, and, with voices trembling with excitement and gratitude, the Castilian mariners sang "Glory to God in the Highest." This was the first time a Christian hymn had sounded over the waves of the Atlantic. The sailors of the Santa Maria and Niña climbed up into the rigging, and also saw the land and raised the same song of praise as their comrades. But next day the longed-for land had vanished. It was only a mist which lay over the sea to leeward, a mirage in the boundless desert of water.
At the beginning of October, Columbus began to suspect that he had already passed the islands laid down on Toscanelli's map, and he was glad that he had not been detained by them but could sail straight on to the mainland of India. By India was meant at that time the whole of eastern Asia.
On October 7 the men on all the three vessels were sure that they saw land. Every sail was set. Each vessel thought it an honour to reach it first. The Niña took the lead. At sunrise the flag of Castile was hoisted to the topmast and a shot thundered from its poop. During the day the land vanished again. But now flocks of birds were seen, all making south-westwards, and Columbus gave orders to follow in the same direction. He wrote in his diary: "The sea, thank God, lay like the river at Seville, the temperature was as mild as in April at Seville, and the air was so balmy that it was delightful to breathe it."
But they sailed day after day and through the nights, and still there was nothing to be seen but water. The men had several times given vent to their discontent, and now began to grumble again. Columbus soothed them and reminded them of the reward that awaited them when they had attained their goal. "Besides, their complaints were useless, for I have sailed out to reach India, and intend to prolong my voyage until, with God's help, I have found it."
On October 11 a log was seen floating in the sea with marks on it apparently cut by human hands; and shortly after, a branch with clusters of berries. Then the sailors became content, and the Admiral promised a reward to the man who first sighted land. All kept their eyes open and watched eagerly.
In the evening Columbus thought he saw a flash of light as though a man were carrying a torch along a low shore, and later in the night one of the Pinta's men swore that land was visible in front. Then all sails were taken in and they waited for the dawn.
When the sun rose on October 12, 1492, its rays illumined, before the eyes of the Spaniards, a flat grass-covered island which Columbus called San Salvador or St. Saviour, after Him who had rescued them from the perils of the sea. This island evidently lay north of Japan—at any rate, it would appear so from Toscanelli's map. Little did Columbus and his men suspect that a whole unknown continent and the world's greatest ocean, the Pacific, still separated them from Japan. The small island was one of the Bahama group, and is now known as Watling Island. If the voyages of the Northmen five hundred years earlier be left out of account, this island was the first point of the New World reached by Europeans.
The great day was begun with the Te Deum. The officers congratulated the Admiral, the sailors threw themselves at his feet and begged forgiveness for their insubordination. A boat was lowered, into which stepped Columbus with the flag of Castile in his hand, followed by the Pinzon brothers with the Banner of the Cross, and a few others. Without knowing it, Columbus stepped on to the soil of America. Solemnly he took possession of San Salvador on behalf of the crown of Castile. A cross was erected on an elevation on the shore in token that the island was in Christian hands.
The natives must have been astonished when they saw the three wonderful ships arrive off their coast and white men come ashore. At first they held aloof, but with beads and other gifts the Spaniards soon gained their confidence. They had only wooden javelins for weapons, did not know iron, had long lanky hair, not woolly like the negroes, were naked, and painted their bodies red and white. They knew gold, and that was well, for it was gold, and gold above everything, that Columbus needed to free the Holy Sepulchre from the Turks. These savages had gold rings in their noses, and when the Spaniards inquired by signs where the gold came from, they pointed towards the south-west.
Columbus, of course, called them Indians. Seven of them were taken on board. They were to go to Spain and "learn to talk," so that they might act as interpreters on subsequent voyages.
Then the voyage of discovery was resumed. The ships had to be sailed with great caution, for dangerous reefs lay round the islands. According to the signs made by the savages two large islands lay to the south. One must be Japan, and when Columbus landed on the coast of Cuba and heard of a prince named Kami, he thought that this man must be the Great Khan, and that he was really on the mainland of eastern Asia. Accordingly he sent his Jew and two of his savages ashore to look for the Great Khan. They were four days away and searched as well as they could among the tent-like huts of the natives, but never saw a glimpse of any Mongolian Great Khan in Cuba.
Exceedingly beautiful was this strange coast, reminding them of Sicily. Sweet song of birds was heard, there was an odour of fruits, and green foliage and palms waved like plumes in the breeze. The Spaniards were astonished to see the natives walking about smoking rolled-up leaves which they called tobacco, and had no notion what a source of wealth these leaves in the form of cigars would become in the future. Pinzon on the Pinta must have been bewitched by all the wonders he saw, for he ran off with his vessel to seek the land of gold on his own account. Columbus himself sailed across to the large island of Haiti, which as usual he took possession of in the name of Castile. The natives received him everywhere with amazement and submission, believing that he was an emissary from the abode of the gods.
On the northern coast of the island a great misfortune occurred on Christmas Eve. An inexperienced steersman was at the Santa Maria's rudder, and let the vessel run on a sandbank, where it became a wreck. The crew had to take refuge on the Niña. The natives helped to save all that was on board, and not even a pin was stolen.
But the Niña could not hold them all, and how were they to get back to Spain? Columbus found a way out of the difficulty. He decided to found a colony on the coast. Forty men were to be left behind to search for gold, and by the time Columbus returned from Spain they would no doubt have a tun full of the precious metal, and that would be enough for the conquest of Jerusalem. The sailors were only too glad to remain, for they found the natives accommodating and the climate good. It was in all respects much pleasanter than to endure hardship on the Niña, and perhaps founder with the wretched little ship.
Accordingly, a blockhouse was built of wreckage from the Santa Maria, was surrounded by a wall and moat and provisioned, and after presenting the chief of the Indians with a shirt and a pair of gloves, Columbus weighed anchor and steered for home.
He had not sailed far before he fell in with the Pinta, and took the independent Pinzon into favour again. Then they sailed eastwards across the Atlantic.
On February 12 a storm arose. All the sails were furled and the two ships lost sight of one another for good. The Niña pitched horribly and threatened to sink. All made ready for death. Columbus, fearing that his discoveries would perish with him, wrote a narrative on parchment, covered it with wax and placed it in a cask, which was entrusted to the angry waves. The sailors thought that it was an offering with which Columbus sought to allay the storm.
A few days later the Niña arrived safely at the southernmost island of the Azores, and thence continued her voyage to the mouth of the Tagus and Lisbon.
On March 15 the inhabitants of Palos saw the most famous of all the ships of the world come into the harbour. The people streamed down with the wildest jubilation and all the church bells were rung. The same evening the Pinta also sailed in, but was very differently received, for it was already known that Pinzon wished to usurp the honour of the discovery, being convinced that Columbus's vessel had been lost in the storm. No one took any notice of him, and he died a few days later, probably of chagrin and sorrow.
In Seville Columbus received a summons from the King and Queen, who were staying in Barcelona. His journey through Spain was one great triumphal progress. He was feted as a conqueror in every town. He was conducted in a brilliant procession through the streets, six copper-brown "Indians" marching at the head with coloured feathers in their head-dresses. This was Christopher Columbus, who had given new lands to Spain, who had discovered a convenient sea route to India just at the time when the Portuguese were looking for a route thither round the coast of Africa. In Barcelona all his titles and privileges were solemnly confirmed. Now he was actually the Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of India. Now he had attained the height of worldly honour.
Then began the time of adversity.
On his second voyage, when he set out with seventeen ships, he discovered the northern Antilles as far as Porto Rico and came in contact with cannibals. At Haiti he found that the forty men whom he had left behind on his first voyage had been killed by the natives. He took it for granted that Cuba was the mainland of Asia, and that thence the journey to Spain might be made dryshod by following Marco Polo's footsteps. Discontent was rife among his men, the natives rose up against the intruders, rivals sprang up around him like mushrooms, and in the home country he was abused by high and low.
He returned to Spain to put everything right; but this time he was no longer received with rejoicing, and found that he had now a formidable rival in Portugal. In the year 1497 Vasco da Gama discovered the real sea route to the real India by sailing round the south of Africa, an event which, in the eyes of that generation, quite eclipsed the discoveries of Columbus. In India inexhaustible riches were to be found, whereas the poor islands of Columbus had simply cost money, ships, and men.
But the strong will of Columbus overcame all obstacles, and for the third time he sailed for his fictitious India. Now he held a more southerly course, and discovered the island Trinidad, and found that the water between it and the coast of Venezuela was fresh. There must then be a large river near. This river was the Orinoco.
Disturbances broke out again in Haiti, and Columbus's opponents sent home complaints against him. A Royal Commission was sent out to hold an enquiry, and in the end arrested the Admiral and sent him in chains to Spain. The captain of the vessel wished to remove his fetters and leave him free as long as he was on board, but Columbus would not consent, for he wished to retain them as a "reminder of the reward he had got for his services."
But when he was led in chains through the streets of Cadiz, the scene of his former triumph, the displeasure of the people was aroused, and at the Court Columbus met with a friendly reception. He even succeeded in fitting out a fourth expedition and crossed the Atlantic in nineteen days. The new Governor forbade him to land, and Columbus expressed his indignation that he, the discoverer, should not be allowed to set foot on his own islands. He then steered westwards and came to the coast of Honduras, and thence followed the coast of Nicaragua southwards. He fully and firmly believed that this was Malacca, and that farther south would be found a passage to India proper. He sailed back towards Cuba, but was driven by bad weather to Jamaica, where in great extremity he had to run his ship ashore. One of his trusty men rowed for four days in a canoe over the open sea to Haiti to beg for help. Meanwhile the shipwrecked men were in hard case. The natives threatened them, and refused them all help. Columbus knew that an eclipse of the moon would shortly occur, and told the natives that if they would not help them, the God of the Spaniards would for ever deprive them of the light of the moon. And when the shadow of the earth began to move over the moon's disc, the natives were terrified, fell at the feet of Columbus, and promised him everything. He pretended to consider the matter, but at last allowed himself to be persuaded and promised that they should keep their moon. And then the shadow moved off quietly into space, leaving the moon as bright as a silver shield.
At last he received assistance, and in 1504 was back in Spain. No one now paid any attention to him. His property was confiscated, his titles were not restored to him, and even the outstanding pay of his followers was kept back. Ill with gout and vexation, he stayed at first in Seville. His former friends did not know him. Lonely and crushed down by grief and disappointment, he died in 1506 at Valladolid. No one took any notice of his decease, and not a chronicle of the time contains a word about his death. Even in the grave he seemed to find no rest. He was first interred quietly in Valladolid; then his remains were transferred to a monastery church in Seville; half a lifetime later his body was carried to San Domingo in Haiti, where it rested for 250 years until it was deposited in the cathedral of Havana in Cuba; and finally, when Cuba was lost to the United States, the remains of the great discoverer were again brought back to Spain.
Columbus was a tall, powerfully built man, with an aquiline nose, a pink and freckled complexion, light-blue eyes and red hair, which early became white in consequence of much thought and great sorrows. During four centuries of admiration and detraction his life and character have been dissected and torn to bits. Some have seen in him a saint, a prophet; others have called him a crafty adventurer, who stole Toscanelli's plan in order to gain power, honour, and wealth for himself. But when, about twenty years ago, the fourth century since his discovery was completed, full amends were made to his memory and his achievements were celebrated throughout the world. He opened new fields for unborn generations, he extended the bounds of the earth, and guided the world's history into new channels.
Four years before the death of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci of Florence, who made four voyages across the ocean, suggested that the new lands had nothing to do with Asia, but were a "New World" in distinction to the Old; and a German schoolmaster, who wrote a geographical text-book, suggested in the introduction that as the fourth continent had been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci (Americus Vesputius), there was no reason why it should not be called Amerigo or America after its discoverer. The proposal was accepted, and only too late was it realised that Columbia would have been the proper name.
One discovery followed after another, and the coasts of America gradually assumed on charts and maps the form with which we are familiar. Let us for a moment dwell on another of the most striking voyages in the history of the world. In the year 1519 the Portuguese Magelhaens sailed along the east coast of South America and discovered the strait which still bears his name; and what is more, he found at last, through this strait, the western passage to India. He sailed over an immense ocean, where the weather was good and no storms threatened his ships; and accordingly he called it the Pacific Ocean. Other dangers, however, awaited him. The mariners sailed for four months over unbroken sea, suffering from hunger and disease. At last three of the vessels reached the Philippines. There Magelhaens landed with a small party, and was overpowered and slain by the natives. Only one of the ships, the Victoria, came home, but this was the first vessel which sailed round the world.
During the succeeding centuries white men struck their claws ever firmer into America. The Indians were forced back into the backwoods, and in North America they have been almost exterminated. Under French, and later, under English rule, those parts of North America have developed an unexpected power and wealth which were despised by the Spaniards, who in their boundless greed of gain thought of nothing but gold.
New York
In a house in a Swedish countryside sit an old man and woman talking seriously.
"It is a great pity," says the old woman, "that Gunnar is beginning to think of America again."
"Yes, he will never rest," replies the old man, "till we have given our consent and let him go. To-day he says that an emigration 'touter' has promised him gold and green forests if he will take a ticket for one of the Bremen line steamers. I reminded him that the farm is unencumbered, but he answered that it could not provide for both his brothers and himself. 'It was a very different thing for you, father,' he said, 'but there are three of us to divide the produce.' He thinks it is a hopeless task to grub in our poor stony hills, when boundless plains in the western states of North America are only waiting to be ploughed, and in any factory he can be earning wages so large as to yield a small income for several years."
"Yes, indeed, I know, it is his cousins who have put this fancy in his head with their glowing letters. But I suppose we cannot prevent him going if his heart is set on it?"
"What can we do? He is a free man and must go his own way."
"Well, perhaps it is best. When he is home-sick he will come back again."
"I am afraid it will be long enough before that happens. At starting all seems so fine. 'I shall soon come home with a small pile.' In reality all his memories will grow faint within a year, and the distance to the red cottage will seem to grow longer as time flies. I mourn for him as dead already; he will never come back."
A few days after this our emigrant Gunnar breaks all ties and tears up all the roots which since his birth have held him bound to the soil of Sweden. He travels by the shortest route to Bremen and steps on board an emigrant steamer for New York. During the long hours of the voyage the people sit on deck and talk of the great country to which they are all bound. Before the last lighthouse on the coast of Europe is lost to sight, Gunnar seems to have all America at his finger-ends. The same names are always ringing in his ears—New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco have become quite familiar, and he has only to insert between them a number of smaller towns, a few rivers, mountains, and lakes, to draw in a few railway lines, to remember the great country of Canada to the north and mountainous Mexico in the south, to place at three of the corners of the continent the peninsulas of Alaska, California, and Florida, and at the fourth the large island of Newfoundland, and then his map of North America is complete.
The voyage over the Atlantic draws to an end. One day a growing restlessness and excitement is perceptible, and the travellers cast inquiring glances ahead. It is said that the American coast will be visible in an hour. And so it is. An irregular line appears to starboard. That is Long Island. Two hours more, and the boat glides into the mouth of the Hudson River and comes alongside at Ellis Island in the harbour of New York. A row of other vessels lie moored at the quays. These also have brought immigrants to America and will soon return to fetch more. They must go backwards and forwards year out and year in to carry three thousand persons daily to the United States.
Gunnar has packed his things in good time and takes up a favourable position from which he can observe his fellow-travellers. He has never heard such a noise and never seen such bustle. The people throng the gangways, call to one another, haul out their discoloured portmanteaus and their roped bundles. There are seen Swedes and Germans, Polish and Russian Jews, Galicians and Croats mingled together, some well dressed and with overcoats, others in tattered clothes and with a coarse handkerchief in place of a collar.
Yonder, overlooking New York harbour, stands the colossal statue of Liberty, a female figure holding a torch in her right hand. When darkness lies over the earth she throws a dazzling beam of electric light out over the water, the quays, houses, and ships. But Gunnar experiences no feeling of freedom as he sets his foot on American soil. He and all his fellow-travellers are provided with numbered tickets and marshalled into long compartments in a huge hall. Then they are called out one after another to be questioned, and a doctor comes and examines them. Those who suffer from lung disease or other complaint, or being old and feeble have no prospect of gaining a livelihood, receive a peremptory order of exclusion on grey paper and must return by the next vessel to their fatherland. The others who pass the examination proceed in small steamers to the great city, where, among the four millions of New York, they vanish like chaff before the wind.
From whatever land they may come they always find fellow-countrymen in New York, for this city is a conglomeration of all the peoples of the world, and seventy different languages are spoken in it. A third of its inhabitants have been born in foreign countries. In Brooklyn, the quarter on Long Island, there are whole streets where only Swedes live. In the "Little Italy" quarter live more Italians than there are in Naples, in the "Chinese Town" there are five thousand Chinese, and even Jews from Russia and Poland have their own quarter. Gunnar soon finds that New York is more complicated than he supposed when he was rolling out on the Atlantic.
Meanwhile he decides to take it easy at first, and to learn his way about before plunging into the struggle for existence. In Brooklyn he soon meets with a fellow-countryman and gets a roof over his head. A pleasant, well-to-do railway employé from Stockholm takes pleasure in showing him about and impressing him with his knowledge of America.
"This town must be old," says Gunnar, "or it could not have grown so large."
"Old! No, certainly not. Compared to Stockholm it is a mere child. It is barely three hundred years old, and at the time of Gustavus Adolphus it did not contain a thousand inhabitants. But now it is second only to London."
"That is wonderful. How can you account for New York becoming so large? Stockholm and Bremen are pigmies beside it. I have never seen the like in my life. There are forests of masts and steamboat funnels in all directions, and at the quays vessels are loaded and unloaded with the most startling speed."
"Yes, but you must remember that the population of the United States increases at an extraordinary rate. During last century it doubled every twenty years. And remember also that nearly half the foreign trade of the Union passes through New York. Hence are exported grain, meat, tobacco, cotton, petroleum, manufactured goods, and many other things. It is, therefore, not remarkable that New York needs 36 miles of quays with warehouses, and that more than seventy steamboat lines sail to and from the port. And, besides, it is a great industrial town. Think of its position and its fine harbour! Eastward lies the Atlantic with routes to Europe; westwards run innumerable railway lines, five of which stretch right through to the Pacific coast."
"Tell me something about the railways," exclaims Gunnar, who wants to go out west at the first favourable opportunity.
"Yes, I can give you information about them, for I have been working on several lines. As far back as 1840 the United States had 2800 miles of railway, and twenty years later 30,000 miles. Now it has nearly two hundred and forty thousand miles of rails, a strip which would reach to the moon or ten times round the equator. The United States have more railways than all Europe, though the population is only a fifth that of Europe; but the area is about the same."
"How do you explain this rapid development of railway enterprise?"
"Well, the fact is that at first the aim was to fill up the gaps between the waterways. Rivers were relied on as long as possible, and the first railways were built in districts where there were no large rivers. Then in course of time various lines converged together, new railways were constructed, and now the forty-nine States are covered with a connected network of lines. Moreover, the country roads are so bad that they must be supplemented by railways."
"A large number of bridges must be necessary across all the large rivers?"
"Yes, certainly. The Americans are adepts in bridge-building, and the railway bridges over the Mississippi and Missouri and other rivers are masterpieces of the boldest art. Where lines cross deeply eroded valleys, bridges of timber were formerly built, like sky-scraping parapets with rails laid along the top; but such bridges are now fast disappearing and iron bridges are built, and the trains run at full speed over elegant erections which from a distance look just like a spider's web. Just look to your left. There you have one of the world's strongest bridges, the suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn. It is of colossal dimensions, and yet it looks so fine and delicate as it hangs between its two mighty piers. You see that vessels with the tallest masts can pass clear below, for it is poised 135 feet above high water. The length is nearly a mile and a quarter. It is wonderful that men have been able to stretch this huge span of iron above the water. Wait a little and you will see a kind of aerial railway."
Then the Stockholm man takes his new friend to a station to travel on the elevated railway through New York. Gunnar's astonishment is beyond bounds as he rushes along on a framework, supported by innumerable iron pillars, over streets and squares, and sees the seething crowd moving in carriages and on foot below his feet.
"Here is the Central Park. Is it not delightful with its leafy trees and cool pools? In summer it is burning hot in the town, and it is refreshing to rest an hour or two in the shade of the trees. The winters are equally cold, and raw, biting winds blow from the east coast. Here is Fifth Avenue, the finest street of New York. In the row of palaces you see here live millionaires, railway kings, steel kings, petroleum kings, corn kings, a whole crop of kings. But I would rather we went to look at the rows of houses facing the Hudson River."
"New York lies, then, on the Hudson River?"
"That is so, but more properly speaking New York stands on the island of Manhattan in the mouth of the river. We are standing, then, on Manhattan, and it is interesting to recall the fact that this island was sold three hundred years ago by Indians to Dutchmen for the sum of four pounds. It is rather more valuable now! Just look at the hideous sky-scrapers with their twenty and thirty storeys" (Plate XXXII.).
"I was just wondering why houses are built so enormously high."
"That is owing to the tremendous value of the ground. When there is not space enough to build out laterally, the buildings are piled up heavenwards, where there is plenty of room. They are certainly not handsome. Look at this row of houses, some of moderate height, others as tall as chimneys. Are they not like a row of keys moved by invisible gigantic fingers?"
"I should not like to live in such a building, I am sure. On the top floor I should be giddy with the height, and on the first I should expect the whole mass to tumble down on me."
"We are better off in Brooklyn, where the houses are of moderate height. To-morrow I will show you something not less remarkable than the wealthy quarter of the city. I will take you to the Chinese town. There Chinese swarm in the dirty lanes; there the whole place reeks of onions and tobacco and spirits from the public-houses; there are vile gambling hells and opium dens; and there paper lanterns on fishing rods hang outside the tea-houses. Then we can take a look at 'Little Italy,' a purely Italian town in the midst of the New York of the Americans. There you will see only Italian books in the book-shops, there Italian newspapers are read, there wax candles burn round images of the Madonna in the churches, and black-haired, brown-eyed children from sunny Italy play in the gutters. And we must not forget 'Little Russia,' the Jews' quarter. The Jews are a remarkable people; you never see them drunk, and you never hear of any crime or felony committed by them. They live poorly, cheaply, and sparingly, and seem cheerful in their booths beside the streets."
PLATE XXXII. "SKY-SCRAPERS" IN NEW YORK.
"All this is very well, but I do not understand where all the immigrants go. I am told that as many as three thousand persons land daily on Ellis Island. At this rate New York receives yearly an addition of a million souls."
"Yes, but how many do you think remain in New York? Most of them go up country and out westwards. Some improve their position and then repair to other fields of work. But many also stay here and increase the slum population. The immigrants who are destitute on landing take work in factories at any wage they can get. The wages they receive seem very high compared to those in their own country, but they are low for America. Accordingly the immigrant Europeans thrust out the Americans, and therefore there are two millions out of work in the United States. And so there are failures, human wrecks, who are a burden to others. If you like we will try this evening to get to a midnight mission and see the poor wretches waiting in crowds for the doors to open. They have a worn, listless expression, but when the doors are open they wake up and rush in, fill all the benches in the large hall, and go to sleep in all imaginable positions."
"What do they do there?"
"A missionary preaches to them, but they are hungry and weary, and sleep soundly on their benches. Among them you will find tramps and vagabonds, professional beggars and thieves, idlers and men out of work. In the daytime they beg and steal, and now at night they take their sleep in the mission. When the preacher finishes, they file out and go to the bread stalls to get food. Such is their life day after day, and they sink ever deeper into misery."
"They are the slag that remains after the precious metal has run off, of course. It is curious to think of a people that is increased by a never-failing stream of immigrants. What will be the end of it?"
"No one can answer that question. Everything is possible with Americans. They are a mixture of English, Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Italian, and Russian blood, to name only the principal constituents of this complex blend, this huge incorporation. Out of all these elements one day an American race will emerge, when Ellis Island has closed its gates to emigrants from Europe."
NORTH AMERICA.
"Tell me another thing, now. Why is not New York, the most important city, also the capital of the country?"
"It was thought that the city which bears the name of the great Washington had a more convenient and more central position with regard to the States of the original federation. The population of Washington is only about 330,000, and there are fifteen larger cities in the United States, but it is the centre of government. There the President lives in White House, there Congress assembles in the Capitol, there stands the Washington monument surrounded by large national buildings, and there three universities are established."
Chicago and the Great Lakes
After our friend Gunnar has seen as much as he wants of New York, he obtains a good post in a large factory, but he stays there only two months, for with other Swedes he receives an offer from Philadelphia which he does not hesitate to accept. His idea is to work his way gradually westward. If he can only get as far as Chicago he thinks it will not be difficult to go on to San Francisco.
Now he works in a yard where more than a thousand locomotives are made annually. This yard seems to him quite a town in itself. Here the iron is made white hot in immense furnaces, there it is hammered and rolled, and with irresistible power human hands convert the hard steel into steam boilers, wheels, axles, and parts of machines which are put together to form engines. The workshop is traversed in all directions by rails, and the completed steam-horses are sent out all over the railway systems of the United States.
Gunnar learns from his mates that Philadelphia is one of the largest cities of the world, with nearly a million and a half inhabitants, and that in America only New York and Chicago are larger.
After a while, however, Gunnar has had enough of Philadelphia, and takes a ticket for Pittsburg, the steel and iron capital, where immigrants never need be in want of a post. He travels without a change of carriages between the two towns, traversing the whole of Pennsylvania. Innumerable branch lines diverge in all directions, for towns and villages are everywhere. Here a railway runs to a mine, there another to a district rich in maize and tobacco, and here again a third to a timber yard. At the station stand long trains laden with grain, planks, petroleum, cotton, reaping machines, coal—in fact all the wares that the earth can produce by its fertility, and men by the labour of their hands.
The country becomes hilly, and the train winds about through the northernmost part of the Alleghany Mountains. Gunnar lets his eyes rove with strained attention over the dark woods, the waving fields, and the smoke rising from villages and farmhouses, when an American comes and sits down on the seat just in front of him.
"I see that you are a newcomer in America," says the stranger. "It may then interest you to know that the crest of the Alleghany Mountains, composed of granite, gneiss, and slates, is the watershed between the Atlantic and the Mississippi. You must not suppose that these mountains are everywhere as low as here; far down south-west, in North Carolina, there are summits more than six thousand feet high. Maize and fruit are grown in the valleys, and there are fine forests of pines and foliage trees. And there are places where you lose yourself in dense clumps of rhododendrons and climbing plants. And there are wild recesses where men never go, but where bears and wolves have their haunts among broken branches and twigs, fallen trunks and moss-grown granite boulders, and where nothing is changed since the time when the Indian tribes went on the war-path. But where are you bound for?"
"I am going to Pittsburg to look for work, for I was a smith at home."
"Oh, Pittsburg! I was foreman in some steel works there for two years, and I have never seen anything more wonderful. You know that this town has sprung up out of the earth as if by magic. When petroleum springs were discovered, it increased at double the rate, and now it is one of the world's largest industrial towns, and, as regards iron and steel, the first in America. Here materials are manufactured to the value of more than nineteen million pounds annually. Almost inexhaustible deposits of coal are found in the neighbourhood. More than twenty railway lines converge to Pittsburg, which also has the advantage of three navigable rivers, and a network of canals. And round about the town are suburbs full of machine factories, steel works, and glass works. The neighbourhood has a million of inhabitants, a third of them foreigners, mostly Slavs, Italians, and Hungarians. You have a kind of feeling of oppression when you see from a height this forest of reeking factory chimneys, and when you think of the unfortunate men that slave under this cloud of coal smoke. There is a hammering and beating everywhere, and a rumble of trains rolling over the rails. Overheated furnaces bubble and boil, and sparks fly out under the steam hammers. At night you might think you were in the bottom of a volcano, where lava boils under the ashes ready to roll out and destroy everything. A weird reddish-yellow light flames forth from thousands of fires, lighting up the under side of the thick smoke cloud. I am sorry for you if you are going to Pittsburg. You had much better travel straight on to Chicago. Not that Chicago is a paradise, but there are better openings there, and you will be nearer the great West with its inexhaustible resources."
"Thanks for your advice. I am the more ready to follow it because I always intended to get to Chicago sometime."
"From Pittsburg," continues the American, "a line runs direct to the large town of St. Louis on the Mississippi. St. Louis is a junction of great importance, for not only do a whole series of great railway lines meet there, but also innumerable steamboats ply from there up the Mississippi and Missouri, and to all the large towns on their tributaries. St. Louis is the centre of all the winding waterways which intersect all parts of the United States. And there you can travel on comfortable flat-bottomed steamers along the main river to New Orleans, a great harbour for the export of cotton. You can well conceive what a blessing and source of wealth this river is to our country. It is of immense extent, for it is the longest river in the world, if we take its length from the sources of the Missouri in the Rocky Mountains, and in the area of its basin it is second only to the Amazons. Its plain is exceedingly fruitful, and far around its banks grain shoots up out of the soil to feed many millions of human beings. And its waterways, ramifying like the nerves of a leaf, facilitate communication and the transport of goods between the different States.
"You should just see how the great river rises in spring. You might think you were sailing on a large lake, and, as a matter of fact, it floods an area as large as Lake Superior. If the Mississippi is a blessing to men, on the other hand in spring it exacts a heavy tax from them. The vast volumes of brown, muddy water often cut off sharp bends from the river-bed and take short cuts through narrow promontories. By such tricks the length of the river is not infrequently shortened by ten or twelve miles here and there. But you can imagine the trouble this causes. A town standing on such a bend may one fine day find itself six miles from the bank. In another the inhabitants are in danger of being at any time drowned like cats. A railway bridge may suddenly be suspended over dry land, while the river has swept away rails and embankment a little farther off. Our engineers have great difficulty in protecting constructions from the capricious river in spring. Not a year passes without the Mississippi causing terrible destruction and inflicting great loss on those who dwell near its banks, especially in cattle.
"You have only to see this water to comprehend what immense quantities of earth, sand, and mud are yearly carried down by it. And all this silt is deposited in the flat delta below New Orleans. Therefore the delta extends from year to year farther out into the Gulf of Mexico. This is an easy way of increasing our territory, but we would willingly sacrifice the gain if we could get rid of the terrible floods in spring."
The train with our two travellers on board has now crossed the boundary of Pennsylvania, and is making its way westwards through the states of Ohio and Indiana. Boundless plains extend to north and south, planted with maize, wheat, oats, and tobacco. Maize fields, however, are the most frequent, and the harvest is just beginning. Gigantic reaping machines, drawn by troops of horses, mow down the grain and bind it into sheaves, while other machines throw it into waggons. The reapers have only to drive the horses; all the rest is done by the machines. Certainly men's hands could never be able to deal with all this grain; whole armies could be hidden under the ears of maize.
Now the train skirts the shore of Lake Michigan, which stretches its blue surface northwards, and a little later halts at Chicago.
Gunnar has been directed to an agency for Swedish workmen, and the first thing he does is to call there. In a day or two he obtains work in the timber business, and goes up to Canada in a large cargo steamer which carries timber from the forests of Canada to Chicago. Here the timber supplies seem to him inexhaustible when he sees the dark coniferous woods on the shores and hills, and when he notices that hundreds of steamboats are carrying the same freight. The workman beside him, an Englishman, boasts of the immense territory which occupies almost all the northern half of North America.
"Canada is the most precious jewel in the crown of Great Britain, next to the mother-country and India."
"Why is Canada so valuable? I always thought that its population was very small."
"It has not many people; you are right there. Canada has only seven million inhabitants."
"Oh, not more! That is just about as many as Greater London."
"Yes; and yet Canada is as large as all Europe and as the United States of America. It stretches so far to east and west that it occupies a fourth part of the circuit of the earth, and if you travel from Montreal to Vancouver you have a journey of 2906 miles. But you can well understand that such an extensive country, even though it is thinly peopled, especially in its cold, northern parts, must yield much that is valuable to its owners."
"Yes, certainly; so it is in Siberia, where the population is also scanty."
"Just so. In Canada fields, mountains, forests, and water yield an immense revenue. Think only of all the agricultural produce which is shipped from here, not to speak of gold, fish, and furs. The wheat produced in Canada is alone worth over 22 million pounds sterling a year. There are also huge areas which are worthless. We get little advantage from the northern coasts, where the Eskimos live."
"You are quite at home on these lakes?"
"Oh yes. When a man has sailed to and fro over them for ten years, he knows all about the roadsteads and channels, and about when the ice forms and breaks up, and when there is a prospect of a storm."
"But the storms cannot be very dangerous?"
"Ah, you do not believe in them. All the same they may be just as dangerous as in the Atlantic, and when a real hurricane comes, the skipper will do well to seek shelter, or at the best he will lose his cargo. You will soon have opportunities of seeing, hearing, and feeling how the surge beats just as on the coast of the ocean. But then, all these lakes have an aggregate area more than half as large as the Baltic, and if we take the depth into account we shall find that the volume of water is the same as in the Baltic. Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world. Beyond the point yonder lies Lake Huron. You must acknowledge that this scenery is beautiful. Have you ever seen anything to equal this sheet of dark-blue water, the dark-green woods, and the grand peaceful shores? It is a pity that we do not go to Lake Erie, for at its eastern extremity is one of the wonders of the world and the most famous spectacle in North America."
PLATE XXXIII. NIAGARA FALLS.
"You mean the Falls of Niagara, which I have heard described so many times?"
"Yes. Think of a steamboat on Lake Erie sucked along by the stream that flows to Ontario. This lake lies 300 feet lower than Erie, and about half-way between the two lakes the water passes over a sharp bar and plunges with a thundering roar into the depth below (Plate XXXIII.). The barrier itself, which is a thousand yards broad, is formed of a huge stratum of sandstone, and the rocks under it are loose slates. Erosion proceeds more rapidly in the slates than in the hard limestone, which, therefore, overhangs like the projecting leaf of a table, and the collected volumes of water hurl themselves over it. But when the limestone is so far undermined that it is no longer able to bear the weight of the water, fragments break off from time to time from its edge and fall into the abyss with a deafening noise. Thus in time the fall wears away the barrier and Niagara is moving back in the direction of Lake Erie."
"Moving, do you say? The movement can surely not be rapid."
"Oh no; Niagara needs about seventeen thousand years to move half a mile nearer to Lake Erie."
"That's all right, for now I can be sure it will be there when I visit it at some future opportunity."
"Yes, and you would find it even if a crowd of railway lines did not run to it. You hear the roar of the 'thunder water' forty miles away, and when you come closer you see dense clouds of foam and spray rising from the ravine 150 feet below the threshold of the Fall. Yes, Niagara is the most wonderful thing I have seen. In all the world it is surpassed only by the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, discovered by Livingstone. One feels small and overawed when one ventures on the bridges above and below the Fall, and sees its 280,000 cubic feet of water gliding one moment smooth as oil over the barrier, and the next dashing into foam and spray below with a thundering noise."
"It would not be pleasant to be sucked over the edge."
"And yet a reckless fellow once made the journey. For safety he crept into a large, stout barrel, well padded inside with cushions. Packed in this way, he let the barrel drift with the stream, tip over the edge of the barrier, and fall perpendicularly into the pool below. As long as he floated in the quiet drift, and even when he fell with the column of water, he ran no danger. It was when he plumped down on to the water below and span round in the whirlpools, bumped against rocks rising up from the bottom, and was carried at a furious pace down under the watery vault. But the traveller got through and was picked up in quiet water."
"I suppose that there are bridges over the Niagara River as over all the others in the country?"
"Certainly. Among them is an arched bridge of steel below the Falls which has a single span of 270 yards, and is the most rigid bridge in the world."
"Tell me, where does all this water go to below Niagara?"
"Well, it flows out into Lake Ontario, opposite Toronto, the largest town in Canada. Then it runs out of the lake's north-eastern corner, forming winding channels among a number of islands, which are called The Thousand Islands. Then the river, which is called the St. Lawrence, is sometimes narrow and rapid and sometimes expands into lake-like reaches. At the large town of Montreal begins the quiet course, and below Quebec the St. Lawrence opens out like a huntsman's horn. The river is frozen over every year, and in some places the ice is so thick that rails can be laid on it and heavy goods trains run over it. In spring, when the ice begins to break up, the neighbourhood of the river is dangerous, and sometimes mountains of ice thrust themselves over the lower parts of Montreal. It can be cold in Montreal—down to-30°. It is still worse in northern Canada. And the summer is short in this country."
"You have just mentioned Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec. Which is the capital?"
"Oh, none of these is the capital of the Colony. That honour belongs to the small town of Ottawa. And now I will tell you something extraordinary. The Dominion of Canada is situated between two goldfields. In the extreme east is Newfoundland, in the extreme west Klondike. I shall never forget the gold fever which seized adventurers in nearly all countries when it was known that the precious metal occurred in large quantities in the gravel and sand-beds on the banks of the Yukon River. I was one of them myself. Men rushed wildly off to get there in time and stake out small claims in the auriferous soil. What a wild life! How we suffered! We had to pay a shilling for a biscuit and a dollar for a box of sardines. We were glad when a hunter shot elk and reindeer, and sold the meat for an exorbitant price in gold dust. We lived huddled up in wretched tents and were perished with cold. Furious snowstorms swept during winter over the dreary country and the temperature fell to-67°. And what a toil to get hold of the miserable gold! The ground is always frozen up there. To work in it you must first thaw the soil with fire. By degrees the situation improved and a small town grew up on the goldfield, and in a few years the gold won attained to the value of five millions sterling."
"And the other gold mine, then?"
"Newfoundland. A cold polar current brings yearly quantities of seal, cod, salmon, herring, and lobster down to the banks of Newfoundland, where more than fifty thousand fishermen are engaged in catching them. As the fish brings in yearly a revenue of several millions, this easternmost island of North America may well be called a gold mine too."
Through the Great West
After a few profitable voyages on Lakes Michigan and Huron, Gunnar has saved so much that he can carry out his plan of travelling to the extreme West. He intends to let his dollars fly in railway fares, and, after he has seen enough of the great cities of America, to settle down in the most attractive district. There he will stay and work until he has saved up enough to buy a farm of his own in his native country.
He sets off from Chicago and leaves St. Louis behind him, and is carried by a train on the Pacific Railway through Missouri and Kansas westwards. In the latter State he flies over boundless prairies.
Eventually a German naturalist enters Gunnar's carriage when the train stops at a large station. He is dusty and out of breath, and is glad to rest when he has seen his boxes and chests stowed away in the luggage van. Like all Germans he is alert and observant, agreeable and talkative, and the train has not crossed the boundary between Kansas and Colorado before he has learned all about Gunnar's experiences and plans.
Soon the German on his part explains the business which has brought him out to the Far West.
"I have received a grant from the University of Heidelberg to collect plants and animals in the western States, and I travel as cheaply as I can so that the money may last longer. I love this great America. Have you noticed how colossal everything is in this country, whether the good God or wicked man be the master-builder? If you cross a mountain range like the Rocky Mountains, or its South American continuation, the Andes, it is the longest in the world. If you roll over a river, as the Mississippi-Missouri, you hear that this also is the longest that exists. If you travel by steamboat over the Canadian lakes, you are told that no sheets of fresh water in the world surpass them. And think of all these innumerable large towns that have sprung up within a century or two. And these railways, these astonishing bridges, these inexhaustible natural resources, and this world-embracing commerce. How alert and industrious is this people, how quickly everything develops, how much more bustle and feverish haste there is than in the Old World!"
"It is charming to see the Rocky Mountains become more and more distinct, and the different chains and ridges stand out more sharply as we approach."
"Yes, indeed. You notice by the speed of the train that we are already mounting upwards. You see the prairies pass into the foot of the hills. We shall soon come into the zone of dwarf oaks and mahogany trees. Higher up are slopes covered with fine pine woods, and willows and alders grow along the banks of the streams."
"You speak of trees. Is it true, as a skipper on Lake Michigan told me, that there are trees here in the west which are over three hundred feet high?"
"Quite true. Your informant meant, of course, the two species of the coniferous family which are called mammoth trees, because they are the giants of the vegetable kingdom, as the mammoths were of the animal kingdom. They grow on the western flanks of the Sierra Nevada in California. When one sees these heaven-aspiring trees one is tempted to believe that their only aim in life is to rise so high that they may look over the crest of the coast range and have a free view of the Pacific Ocean. One of these giants which fell long ago had a height of 435 feet and a girth of 110 feet at the base. It was called the 'Father of the Forest.' The trunk is hollow. There is also another fallen mammoth called the 'Riding School,' because a man on horseback can ride some way into the inside. These trees are supposed to be several thousand years old. The place in the Sierra Nevada where the last giants stand on their ancient roots is protected and is the property of the whole people. If the law did not protect the trees, they would go the same way as the bisons and Indians."
"Is there not also a reserved area in the Rocky Mountains?"
"Yes; the Yellowstone National Park in the state of Wyoming. It is a wonderful place, and whole books have been written about it. There are as many as four thousand hot springs and a hundred geysers in the lower part of the valley between the crests of the Rocky Mountains. The Giant Geyser shoots up to a height of 250 feet, and 'Old Faithful' spouts up once an hour. The Park contains many other natural wonders, and there are preserved herds of wild animals, such as elks, antelopes, and stags. Even beavers have found a refuge in its streams."
"Are there dangerous beasts of prey in these mountains?" asks Gunnar while the train puffs and rolls heavily up a dark valley.
"Yes; the grizzly bear is the largest of them. He is not so particularly dangerous, and at any rate is better than his reputation. If he is only left in peace he will not come near a man, and if he is attacked he almost always takes to flight. But if he is wounded at close quarters he may take a terrible revenge, and he is the strongest of all the animals in his native haunts. It was formerly considered a great honour to wear a necklace of a grizzly bear's teeth and claws.
"It is a fine sight to see a grizzly bear roaming through the woods and thickets, where he considers himself absolute master of all the animals of the region. He is sometimes brownish, sometimes grey, and a grey bear is supposed to be more dangerous than a brown. He lives like all other bears, hibernates, eats berries, fruit, nuts, and roots, but he also kills animals and is said to be very expert in fishing. I will tell you a little hunting story.
"A white hunter was once eager for an opportunity of killing a grizzly bear, and a young Indian undertook to lead him to a spot where he would not have to wait long. The two marksmen hid behind a small knoll, after having laid out a newly-killed deer as bait. The Indian, who knew the habits of bears, was not mistaken. Soon a huge bear came waddling out of the wood with such a ridiculous gait that the white hunter could hardly control his laughter, though the Indian remained silent and serious. The old fellow stopped frequently, lifted his nose in the air, and looked about to convince himself that no danger lurked around. Once he began to scratch in the ground, and then smelled his forepaws and lay down on his back and rolled. He wanted probably to rub his coat in some strongly smelling plant.
"Then he went on again. After a time he sat and clawed his fur, looked at his paws, and licked his pads. Then he scratched himself behind the ears with his hind paws. And when his toilet was finished he trotted straight towards the place where the deer lay. When he saw the animal he was surprised, reared up on his hind legs to his full height, cocked his ears, wrinkled his forehead, and seemed perplexed. When he was sure that the stag was dead he went up to it and smelt it. Then he went round and nosed about on the other side to see if the animal were dead on that side also.
"His meditations were here interrupted, for the white hunter fired and the bear fell, but raised himself again on his hind legs. The hunter followed his example, but the Indian, who saw that the bear was in an angry and revengeful mood, advised him to hide himself again quickly. Too late! The furious bear had seen his enemy, and rushed in a rolling gallop towards his hiding-place. The hunter found it best to run, and in a minute was with the Indian perched on the bough of an oak. Here they loaded their guns again, while the bear, limping on three legs, made for the tree. Hit by two bullets he fell down, tore up the earth and grass with his claws, and at last became still."
"It is a shame," said Gunnar, "to kill these kings of the Rocky Mountains for amusement or to gain a name as a hunter. Probably they are fated to pass away like the bisons and Indians."
"Oh no, not yet. They will long survive in inaccessible regions of the mountains and in the uninhabited parts of Canada. But certainly it is a shame to destroy them unnecessarily, particularly when we hear of such a deed of chivalry as the following.
"A traveller took a young grizzly bear with him to Europe, and on board he was a general favourite. He drank and ate and played with the sailors, and, curiously enough, conceived a great friendship for a small antelope which travelled with him. When the vessel came into port and the antelope was being led along a street, a large bulldog fell on the defenceless animal. The bear, which was led behind the antelope by a chain, perceived his friend's danger, tore himself away from his keeper with a single jerk, threw himself on the bulldog, and mauled him so badly that he ran away howling with pain."
"You may well declare," says Gunnar, "that everything in America is on a large scale, but all the same lions and tigers are not found here."
"No, but there are jaguars and pumas instead. Both are more common in South than in North America, where the jaguar only comes as far north as the south-western States and Mexico. They are found in the outskirts of forests and in the tall grass of the pampas, where wild horsemen track them down, catch them in lassoes, and drag them after their horses till they are strangled. The jaguar also frequents thickets on the river-banks and marshes. He keeps to the ground, whereas the bold and agile puma even pursues monkeys in the trees. With shrill screams and cries of warning the monkeys fly from tree to tree, but the puma is after them, crawls out along a swaying branch and jumps over to another on the next tree. Both are bloodthirsty robbers, but the jaguar is the larger, stronger, and more savage. He can never be properly tamed, and never loses his innate treacherousness, but the puma becomes as tame as a dog.
"The puma never attacks a man, but you must be on your guard against a jaguar. Both are enemies of flocks and herds, but while the puma never worries tame animals larger than sheep, the jaguar will often attack horses, mules, and young cattle. The jaguar hunts only at daybreak and twilight, or when the moon shines brightly; the puma only in the evening and at night. The puma is dark reddish-yellow, the jaguar orange with black spots and rings on his fur, a marking which reminds one of the colour of certain poisonous snakes. The puma's cubs are charming little creatures, like kittens, but larger. Their eyes do not open until they are ten days old; then they begin to crawl about very awkwardly, tumbling down at every other step, and climb up on their mother's back. They soon become sure on their feet and, like kittens, play with their mother's tail.
"The jaguar is a keen and patient hunter. He crawls along on his belly like a cat, and from the recesses of the thicket watches his victim without moving an eye. He creeps nearer with wonderful agility and noiselessness, and when he is sure of success he makes his spring, tears open the throat of the antelope, sheep, or waterhog, and drags his booty into the thicket. Small animals he swallows hair and all. Of a horse he eats as much as he can, and then goes off to sleep in some concealed spot. When he awakes he goes back to his meal.
"On one road in South America twenty Indians were killed by jaguars within a lifetime. If a man has presence of mind enough to shout and make a noise and go towards the brute, the latter withdraws. Otherwise he is lost, for even if he escapes with his life, the wounds inflicted by the jaguar's blunt claws and teeth are terrible and dangerous. There are Indians in South America who are said to hunt the jaguar in the following manner. They wrap a sheepskin round the left arm and in the right hand hold a sharp two-edged knife. Then they beat up the jaguar and set dogs at him. He gets up on his hind legs like a bear, and attacks one of the Indians. The man puts out his left arm for him to bite, and at the same time runs his knife into the beast's heart.
"A traveller relates a very good jaguar tale. Some sailors from Europe had landed on the bank of a river in South America. Suddenly they saw a jaguar swimming over from the farther bank. They hurriedly seized their guns, manned their boat, and rowed out to meet the animal. A shot was fired and the jaguar was wounded, but instead of making off, he came straight for the boat. The sailors belaboured him with the oars, but he paid no attention and managed to drag himself on to the boat, when the crew all jumped out and swam to the bank. The jaguar remained, and drifted comfortably down the river. A little farther down came a boat of other sailors, and this time it was the jaguar who jumped out and disappeared among the thickets on the bank. It was a great feat to make his escape after tackling two boats' crews."
The train continues on its noisy course through the mountains. Dark, wild glens open on either side. The monotonous rumble of the wheels on the rails has a soothing effect, and the German, following the example of many other travellers, goes to sleep in his corner.
But when the tireless locomotive draws its row of heavy carriages out on to a giddy bridge and the waves of sound sing in brighter tones than in the enclosed valleys, the compartment wakes to life again. People look out of the windows and gaze at the yawning depth beneath them. The train seems to be rolling out into space on the way to heaven.
PLATE XXXIV. CAÑONS ON THE COLORADO RIVER.
The German lights a cigar and begins another lecture to his fellow-traveller.
"Here we are passing over one of the source streams of the Colorado River. You seem disinclined to admit that everything is grand in America, but I maintain that nothing in the world can compare with the great cañon of the Colorado. You may believe me or not. You may talk of fire-vomiting mountains and coral reefs, of the peak of Mount Everest and the great abysses of the ocean, of our light blue Alps in Europe and of the dark forests of Africa, nay, you may take me where you will in the world, but I shall still maintain that there is no stupendous overpowering beauty comparable to the cañons of the Colorado River (Plate XXXIV.).
"Listen! This river which discharges its waters into the Gulf of California is fed by numerous streams in the rainy, elevated regions of the Rocky Mountains. But where the united river leaves Utah and passes into Arizona, it traverses a dry plateau country with little rain, where its waters have cut their way down through mountain limestone to a depth of 6000 feet. The strata are horizontal, and the whole series has been cleared away by the continued erosive power of water, aided by gravel and boulders. This work has been going on from the commencement of the period in the world's history known as the Pliocene Age, and it is reckoned that the interval which must have elapsed since then must have amounted to millions of years. And yet this space of time, from the Pliocene Age to our own, must, geologically speaking, be extremely insignificant compared to the length of the great geological periods. The six thousand years which we call the historical period is but the beat of a second on the clock of eternity, and what the historian calls primeval times is the latest and most recent period in the last of all the geologist's ages. For while the historian deals with revolutions of the sun of only 365 days, the geologist is only satisfied with thousands and millions of years. The Colorado River has presented him with one of the standards by which he is able to calculate lapse of time. You will acknowledge that it is no small feat for running water to cut its way down through solid rock to a depth of 6500 feet; and these cañons are more than 180 miles long and four to eleven miles broad.
"By its work here the river has sculptured in the face of the earth a landscape which awes and astonishes the spectator. It is like nothing he has ever seen before. When he stood at the foot of the Alps he gazed up at the snow-clad wastes of the mighty mountain masses. When he stands at the edge of the cañons of the Colorado he looks down and sees a yawning chasm, and on the other side of the giddy ravine the walls rise perpendicular or sloping. He seems to stand before the artistically decorated facade of a gigantic house or palace in an immense town. He sees in the walls of the valley, niches and excavations like a Roman theatre, with benches rising in tiers. At their sides stand gables and projections of rock, like turrets and buttresses. Under huge cornices rise columns standing out or attached at the back, all planned on the same gigantic scale. The precipitous cliffs are dark, and the whole country is coloured in pink, yellow, red, and warm brown tones. The sun pours its gold over the majestic desolation. No grassy sward, no vegetation carpets the horizontal or vertical surfaces with green. Here and there a pine leans its crown over the chasm, and when the cones fall they go right down to the bottom.
"In the early morning, when the air is still pure and clear after the coolness of the night, and when the sun is low, the cañon lies in deep gloom, and behind the brightly lighted tops of the columns the shadows lie as black as soot. Then the bold sculpturing stands out in all its glory. On a quiet night, when the moon holds its crescent above the earth, an oppressive silence prevails over this region. The roar of the river is not heard, for the distance is too great. A feeling of romance takes hold of the visitor. He fancies himself in a fairy world. Only a step over the edge and he would soar on invisible wings to a bright wonderland."
At Salt Lake City the German leaves the train to begin his investigations round the Great Salt Lake and the Mormon capital. Gunnar travels on through the mountainous districts of Nevada and California, and when the train at last pulls up at San Francisco he has reached the goal of his hopes.
Here is one of the finest cities in the world, situated on a peninsula in a deep and spacious inlet surrounded by mountains. Almost all traces of the terrible earthquake which a few years ago destroyed the city have disappeared, and splendid new buildings of iron and stone have sprung up from the rubbish heaps, for as a commercial emporium San Francisco has the same importance with relation to the great routes across the Pacific as New York has on the Atlantic side.
IV
SOUTH AMERICA
The Inca Empire
A terrestrial globe naturally presents a better image of the earth than any map, for it shows plainly the continents and the configuration of the oceans, and exhibits clearly their position and relative size. If you examine such a globe, you notice that the North Pole lies in the midst of a sea, surrounded by great masses of land, whereas the South Pole is in an extensive land surrounded by a wide sea. Perhaps you wonder why all the continents send out peninsulas southwards? Just look at the Scandinavian Peninsula, and look at Spain, Italy, and Greece. Do not Kamtchatka and Korea, Arabia and the Indian Peninsula all point south? South America, Africa, and Australia are drawn out into wedges narrowing southwards. They are like stalactites in a grotto. But however much you may puzzle over the globe, and however much you may question learned men, you will never know why the earth's surface has assumed exactly the form it has and no other.
On another occasion you may remark that Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia lie in an almost continuous curve in the eastern hemisphere, while America has the western hemisphere all to itself. There it lies as a huge dividing wall between two oceans. You wonder why the New World has such a peculiar form stretching from pole to pole.
Perhaps you think that the Creator must have changed His mind at the last moment, and decided to make two distinct continents of America. You seem to see the marks of His omnipotent hands. With the left He held North America, and in the right South America. Where Hudson Bay runs into the land lay His forefinger, and the Gulf of Mexico is the impression of His thumb. South America He gripped with the whole hand, and there is only a slight mark of the thumb just on the boundary between Peru and Chile. It almost looks as if He grasped the continent so tightly that its western border was crumpled into great wrinkles and folds which we men call the Rocky Mountains and the Andes. If we did not know that it is the ocean winds that feed the rivers with rain, we should be tempted to believe that the Mississippi, Amazons, Rio de la Plata, and other rivers were moisture still running out of the mountains under the pressure of the Creator's hands.
And so He has divided America into two. In one place the connection broke, but the fragments still remain, and we call them the West Indies or Antilles. In other places the material was too tough. Mexico thins out southwards as though it were going to end in the sea, and Central America is stretched like a wrung-out cloth. Between Guatemala and Honduras it is almost torn through, and the large lake of Nicaragua is another weak point. But where Costa Rica passes into the Isthmus of Panama the connection between the two halves of the New World has been almost broken and hangs only by a hair. The peninsula, however, resisted the pull, and has held, though reduced to a breadth of forty miles.
Then, of course, man must come and help the Creator to finish the work which He Himself found very good. It was long before men ventured on so gigantic an undertaking, but as they had succeeded in separating Africa from Asia, it was no doubt feasible to blast a canal through the hills of the Isthmus of Panama, 300 feet high. It has cost many years and many millions, but the great cutting will soon be ready which will sever South America from the northern half of the New World. It is surely a splendid undertaking to make it possible for a vessel to sail from Liverpool direct to San Francisco without rounding the whole of South America, and at a single blow to shorten the distance by near 6000 miles.
The bridge still stands unbroken, however, and we come dryshod over to South America just where the Andes begin their mighty march along all the west coast. Their ranges rise, here in double and there in many folds, like ramparts against the Pacific Ocean, and between the ranges lie plains at a height of 12,000 feet. Here also lift themselves on high the loftiest summits of the New World—Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest of all, an extinct volcano covered with eternal snow and glistening glaciers; Sorata in Bolivia; the extinct volcano Chimborazo in Ecuador, like a marble dome; and lastly, one of the earth's most noted mountains, Cotopaxi, the highest of all still active volcanoes (Plate XXXV.). Stand for a moment in the valley above the tree limit, where only scattered plants can find hold in the hard ground. You see a cone as regular as the peak of Fujiyama. The crater is 2500 feet in diameter, and from its edge, 19,600 feet high, the snow-cap falls down the mountain sides like the rays of a gigantic starfish. When the Spanish conquerors, nearly four hundred years ago, took possession of these formerly free countries, Cotopaxi had one of its fearful eruptions; and even in more recent times European travellers have seen the mantle of snow melt away as from a lighted furnace, while a brownish-red reflection from the glowing crater lighted up the devastation caused in the villages and valleys at the foot of the mountain by the flood of melted snow and streams of lava.
SOUTH AMERICA.
Even under the burning sun of the equator, then, these giants stand with mantles of eternal snow and glittering blue fields of ice in the bitterly cold atmosphere. Up there you would think that you were near the pole. There are no trees on the high crests, which seem to rise up from the depths of the Pacific Ocean; but the climate is good, and agriculture yields sustenance to men. On the eastern flanks, which are watered by abundant rains, the vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant, and here the traveller enters the primeval forests of the tropics. Here is the home of the cinchona tree, here orchids bloom among the tall trunks, and here whole woods are entangled in a network of lianas. Immense areas of Brazil and Bolivia are covered with impenetrable primeval forests, which even still present an obstacle to the advance of the explorer.
Thus we find in the Andes all zones from the hot to the cold, from tropical forests to barren heights, from the equator to high southern latitudes.
Among these mountains dwelled in former times a remarkable and law-abiding people, who under judicious and cautious kings attained a high standard of power and development. To the leading tribe several adjacent peoples allied themselves, and in time the mightiest and most highly-cultured kingdom of South America flourished among them. According to tradition, the ruling royal family took its rise where the icefields of some of the loftiest summits of the Andes are reflected in the mirror of Lake Titicaca. The king was called Inca, and when we speak of the Inca Kingdom we mean old Peru, whose people were crushed and annihilated by the Spaniards.
PLATE XXXV. COTOPAXI.
The Inca Empire extended from Colombia and Ecuador in the north far down to the present Chile. The Inca's power was unlimited, and after death he was honoured with divine rites. He was surrounded with wealth and grandeur. A red headband with white and black feathers was the sign of his royal dignity. By his side stood the High Priest, who had to inquire into and proclaim the will of the gods.
In Cuzco, the holy city of the Indians, north-west of the Titicaca lake, the Inca people had erected a splendid temple to the sun and moon. The halls of the sun temple were overlaid with plates of the ruddiest gold, and the friezes and doors were of the same precious metal. In the principal hall was worshipped an image of the sun with a human face in the centre, surrounded by rays of precious stones. In another hall the image of the moon goddess glittered in silver.
The sun and moon were, then, the objects of the deepest reverence. But the Inca people also prayed to the rainbow and to the god of thunder, and believed that certain inferior deities protected their herds, dwellings, fields, and canals. They wore on the neck amulets which shielded them from danger and sudden death, and were eventually buried with them.
The dead were sewed up in hides or matting and interred under the dwelling-house, or, in the case of important men, in special funereal towers. On the coast the body was placed among boulders, in sand-banks, or in large vessels of earthenware. With a dead man were laid his weapons and implements, with women their utensils and handiwork, with children their playthings. To the dead, flowers and fruit were offered, and llamas were sacrificed. Dead Incas were deposited in the temple of the sun, and their wives in the hall of the moon.
The Festival of the Sun was held at the winter solstice, and on this occasion the Inca himself officiated as High Priest in his capacity as the "son of the sun." Then was lighted a fire on the altar of the sun, which was kept in all the year by the virgins of the sun. These had a convent near the temple, the royal palace and the house of nobles. It was also their duty to make costly robes for the priests and princes, to brew maize beer for the festivals of the gods, and after victories or a change of Incas to offer themselves to the gods.
The earlier history of the Inca people is lost in tradition and the mist of legends. We know more of their administration and social condition, for the Spanish conquerors saw all with their own eyes. The constitution was communistic. All the land, fields, and pastures was divided into three parts, of which two belonged to the Inca and the priesthood, and the third to the people. The cultivation of the land was supervised by a commissioner of the government, who had to see that the produce was equitably distributed, and that the ground was properly manured with guano from the islands on the west coast. Clothes and domestic animals were also distributed by the State to the people. All labour was executed in common for the good of the State; roads and bridges were made, mines worked, weapons forged, and all the men capable of bearing arms had to join the ranks when the kingdom was threatened by hostile tribes. The harvest was stored in government warehouses in the various provinces. An extremely accurate account was kept of all goods belonging to the State, such as provisions, clothes, and weapons. A register was kept of births and deaths. No one might change his place of abode without permission, and no one might engage in any other occupation than that of his father. Military order was maintained everywhere, and therefore the Inca people were able to subdue their neighbours. Everything was noted down, and yet this remarkable people had no written characters, but used cords instead, with knots and loops of various colours having different meanings. If the Inca wished to send an order to a distant province, he despatched a running messenger with a bundle of knotted strings. The recipient had only to look at the strings to find out the business on hand.
To facilitate the movement of troops, the Incas constructed two excellent roads which met at Cuzco—one in the mountainous country, the other along the coast. Europeans have justly admired these grand constructions. The military roads were paved with stone, and had walls and avenues of trees. At certain intervals were inns where the swift-footed couriers could pass the night. The principal highway ran from Cuzco to Quito. When the Inca himself was on a journey, he sat on a golden throne carried on a litter by the great nobles of the empire.
European explorers still discover grand relics of the Inca period. The people did not know the arch, and did not use bricks and mortar, yet their temples and fortresses, their gates, towers, and walls are real gems of architecture. The joins between the blocks are often scarcely visible, and some portals are hewn out of a single block with artistic and original chiselled figures and images of the sun god on the façades.
Their skill in pottery was of equal excellence, and as workers in metal there was none to match them in the South American continent. They made clubs and axes of bronze, and vessels and ornaments of gold and silver. In their graves modern explorers have found many striking proofs of their proficiency in the art of weaving. They used the wool of llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, and guanacos. These species of animal, allied to the camel, still render great services to the Indians. The llama is distributed over the greater part of the Andes, and the male only is used as a transport animal. The llama is shy, stupid, and quiet, and his head is somewhat like a sheep's. The alpaca does not carry loads, but is kept as a domestic animal for the sake of its meat and wool. The vicuña and guanaco also do not work in the service of man. The latter is found chiefly on the steppes of Patagonia, where he meets the fate of the South American ostrich and falls to the arrows of the Indians.
The Inca people wove clothes of the wool of these animals as well as of cotton. The chief garment of the men was a short shirt without sleeves, of the women a longer shirt with a belt round the waist. The men wore short hair with a black bandage round the head; and outside the bandage they wound a noose or lasso. The women wore their hair long. Sandals covered the feet, and in the ear-lobes were inserted round pegs. The people reared and grazed cattle, as we have seen, and were hunters and fishermen. They grew potatoes and many other root crops, bananas, tobacco, and cotton, and sowed extensive fields of maize. They had all the characteristics of the American race—a short skull, sharply cut features, and a powerfully built body.
For centuries the Inca people had lived in undisturbed repose in their beautiful valleys and on their sunlit tablelands between the mountain ranges—or cordilleras, as they are called—which compose the Andes. If their peace was occasionally disturbed by neighbouring tribes, messages in knotted signs flew through the country, and the roads were full of armed men; but the Inca kings dreamed of no serious danger. For several hundred years their power had passed from father to son, and no neighbour was strong enough to wrest the sceptre from the Inca king's hand. Not a whisper of such names as Chimborazo and Cotopaxi had reached Europe.
A great Inca had recently died and bequeathed his power to his two sons, Huascar and Atahualpa. Just as always in the Old World, such a partition produced friction and disputes, and at length civil war broke out. After four hundred years, we read with sorrow the account of the suicidal strife which harried old Peru, divided the Inca people into two hostile factions, and thus made them an easy prey to the conquerors.
Scarcely had the clash of arms died out after the brave and chivalrous Cortez had burned his ships on the coast of Mexico, subdued the kingdom of Montezuma, and placed it under the crown of Castille, before another Spanish conqueror, the rough, cruel, and treacherous Pizarro, cast his eyes southwards, covetous of new gold countries. With a handful of adventurers, he made his way down to Peru, but soon perceived that he could not succeed without help from the home country. The Emperor Charles V. listened to his tale of gold and green forests, and in the year 1531 Pizarro set out again, this time with a company of 180 well-armed cavaliers. By degrees he gathered fresh reinforcements, landed on the coast of Peru, and marched into the Inca kingdom.
Pizarro was clever and courageous, but, unlike Cortez, he was a base man and a scoundrel. He had no education or proper feeling, and could not even write his name, but he was cunning and knew how to take advantage of favourable circumstances. By means of scouts and ambassadors he soon made himself fully acquainted with the situation. He lulled the fears of Atahualpa by offers of peace, with the result that the Inca king requested his assistance to crush his brother Huascar. If the brothers had held together, they could have driven the Spanish pestilence out of the country. Now the fate of both was sealed.
It was agreed that Atahualpa should come in person to Pizarro's camp, and he arrived in pomp and state, escorted by an army of 30,000 men. He naturally wished to impress his ally with his power. He sat raised on a litter of gold, and was surrounded by all his generals.
Then Pizarro's military chaplain stepped forth, a Catholic priest. In one hand he held a crucifix, in the other a breviary. Raising his crucifix, he exhorted the Inca king in the name of Jesus to accept Christianity and to acknowledge the King of Castille as his master. Atahualpa retained his composure, and simply answered that no one could deprive him of the rights inherited from his fathers. He would not forswear his fathers' faith and did not understand what the priest said. "It is written here in this book," cried the priest, and handed the breviary to the king. Atahualpa held the book to his ear, listened, and said as he threw the breviary on the ground, "Your book does not speak."
Without warning, a massacre was commenced. The cannon and muskets of the Spaniards ploughed red furrows in the ranks of the Peruvians. Protected by their helmets and harness of steel, and with halberts and lances lowered, the cavaliers swept irresistibly through the ranks of half-naked natives and spread terror and confusion around them. All that could be reached with sword, spear, or bullet were mercilessly slaughtered. Four thousand dead bodies lay scattered over the ground, among thousands wounded and bleeding. The rest of the army was completely scattered and took to flight. The Inca king himself had been early taken captive to be kept as a hostage. Enormous plunder fell into the hands of the victors. The report of a land of gold in the south had not been an empty tale; here was gold in heaps. The loot was generously divided between the officers and men, and, with the crucifix raised to heaven, the priest read mass while the other villains thanked God for victory.
The captive Inca king begged and prayed to be set at liberty. But Pizarro promised to release him only after he had bound himself to fill a moderate-sized room with gold from the floor up to as high as he could reach with his hand. Then messages in knotted cords were carried through all the country which remained faithful to Atahualpa, and vessels, bowls, ornaments, and ingots of gold poured in from temples and palaces. In a short time the room was filled and the ransom paid, but the Inca king was still kept a prisoner. He reminded Pizarro of his promised word. The unscrupulous adventurer laughed in his black beard. Instead of keeping his promise, he accused Atahualpa of conspiracy, condemned him to death, and the innocent and pious Indian king was strangled in prison. By this abominable deed the whole Spanish conquest was covered with shame and disgrace.
One of Pizarro's comrades in arms, Almagro, now arrived with reinforcements, and with an army of 500 men Pizarro marched on through the high lands to the capital, Cuzco, which he captured. Then he fell out with Almagro, and the latter determined to seek out other gold countries in the south on his own account. With a small party he marched up into the mountains of Bolivia, and then followed the coast southwards to the neighbourhood of Aconcagua. He certainly found no gold, but he achieved a great exploit, for he led his troop through the dreaded Atacama desert.
Meanwhile Pizarro ruled in the conquered kingdom. Close to the coast he founded Lima, which was afterwards for a long period the residence of the Spanish viceroy, and is now, with nearly 150,000 inhabitants, still the capital of Peru. It has a large number of monasteries and churches, and a stately cathedral. The port town, Callao, was almost totally destroyed a hundred and sixty-six years ago by a tidal wave, which drowned the inhabitants and swept away the houses; but it gradually regained its prosperity, and now has 50,000 inhabitants.
At length, however, Pizarro roused a formidable insurrection by his cruelty, and while he was besieged in Lima his three brothers were shut up in Cuzco. Just then Almagro returned from the Atacama desert, defeated the Peruvians, seized Cuzco, and made the three Pizarro brothers prisoners. But the fourth brother, the conqueror, succeeded in effecting their liberation and in capturing Almagro, who was at once sent to the gallows. A few years later, however, Almagro's friends wreaked vengeance on Pizarro; a score of conspirators rushed into the governor's palace and made their way with drawn swords into the room where Pizarro was surrounded by some friends and servants. Most of these jumped through the window; the rest were cut down. Pizarro defended himself bravely, but after killing four of his assailants he fell to the ground, and with a loud voice asked to be allowed to make his confession. While he was making the sign of the cross on the ground, a sword was thrust into his throat.
The murdered Inca king is an emblem of bleeding South America. All was done, it was pretended, in order to spread enlightenment and Christianity, but in reality the children of the country were lured to destruction, deluded to fill Spanish coffers with gold, and then in requital were persecuted to death. Civilisation had no part in the matter; it was only a question of robbery and greed of gain, and when these desires were satisfied, the descendants of the Incas might be swept off the earth.
The Amazons River
In Peru the largest river of the world takes its source, and streams northwards among the verdant cordilleras of the Andes. Wheat waves on its banks, and here and there stands a funereal tower or a ruin from Inca times. Small rafts take the place of bridges, and at high water the river rushes foaming furiously through the valley.
And then it suddenly turns eastwards and cuts its way with unbridled fury through the eastern ridges of the Andes. The water forces itself through ravines barely 50 yards wide and dashes with a deafening roar over falls and rapids. Sometimes the river rests from its labours, expanding to a width of two or three furlongs. Crystal affluents hurry down from the snow-fields of the Andes to join it. It takes its tribute of water from mountain and forest, and is indeed a majestic stream when it leaves the last hills behind.
The source of the Amazons was discovered in 1535 by Marañon, a Spanish soldier. Vicente Pinzon had discovered its mouth in the year 1500. But Marañon, on the one hand, had no notion where the river emerged into the sea, and Pinzon, on the other, knew not where the headwaters purled through the valley. It was reserved for another Spaniard to solve the problem. Let us follow Orellana on his adventurous journey.
Gonzalo Pizarro served under his brother, the conqueror, in northern Peru. There he heard of rich gold countries in the east, and decided to seek them. With an army of 350 Spanish cavalry and infantry, as well as 4000 Indians, he set out from Quito and marched over the Andes past the foot of Cotopaxi to the lowlands of the Napo River.
It was a reckless enterprise. The Indians were frozen to death in crowds on the great heights. Instead of gold, nothing was found but wearisome savannahs and swamps, and dismal forests soaked with two months' rain. Instead of useful domestic animals, no creature was seen but the thick-skinned tapir, which, with a long beak-like nose, crops plants and leaves and frequents swampy tracts in the heart of the primeval forest. The few natives were hostile.
When the troop reached the Napo River on New Year's Day, 1540, Pizarro decided to send the bold seaman Orellana on in front down the river to look for people and provisions, for famine with all its tortures threatened them.
A camp was set up and a wharf constructed. A small brigantine for sails and oars was hastily put together, and Orellana stepped on board with a crew of fifty men, and the boat was borne down the strong current.
Dark and silent woods stood on both sides. No villages, no human beings were seen. Tall trees stood on the bank like triumphal arches, and from their boughs hung lianas serving as rope ladders and swings for sportive monkeys with prehensile tails. Day after day the vessel glided farther into this humid land never before seen by white men. The Spaniards looked in vain for natives, and their eyes tried in vain to pierce the green murkiness between the tree trunks. The men showed increasing uneasiness; but Orellana sat quietly at the helm, gave his orders to the rowers, and had the sail hoisted to catch the breeze that swept over the water.
No camping-places on points of the bank, no huts roofed with palm leaves or grass, no smoke indicated the vicinity of Indians. In a thicket by a brook lay a boa constrictor, a snake allied to the python of the Old World, in easy, elegant coils, digesting a small rodent somewhat like a hare and called an agouti. At the margin of the bank some water-hogs wallowed in the sodden earth full of roots, and under a vault of thorny bushes lay their worst enemy, the jaguar, in ambush, his eyes glowing like fire.
At length the country became more open. Frightened Indians appeared on the bank, and their huts peeped through the forest avenues. Orellana moored his boat and landed with his men. The savages were quiet, and received the Spaniards trustingly, so the latter stayed for a time and collected all the provisions they could obtain. The Indians spoke of a great water in the south which could be reached in ten days.
The fifty Spaniards were now in excellent spirits, and set to work eagerly to construct another smaller sailing vessel. When this was done, Orellana filled both his boats with provisions, manned the larger with thirty and the smaller with twenty men, and continued his wonderful journey, which was to furnish the explanation of the great river system of tropical America. Around him stretched the greatest tropical lowland of the world, before him ran the most voluminous river of the earth. He saw nothing but forest and water, a bewitched country. He had no equipment beyond that which was afforded by the Napo's banks, and his men grumbled daily at the long, dangerous voyage.
After ten days the two boats came to the "great water," where the Napo yields its tribute to the Amazons River. The latter was then rising fast, and when it is at its height, in June and July, the water lies forty feet above its low water-level. Farther down the difference tends to disappear, for the northern tributaries come from the equator, where it rains at all seasons, while the southern rise at different times according to the widely separated regions where their sources lie. To travel from the foot of the cordilleras to the mouth the high water of the main river takes two months.
PLATE XXXVI. INDIAN HUTS ON THE AMAZONS RIVER.
The Spaniards felt as if they were carried over a boundless lake. Where the banks are low the forests are flooded for miles, and the trees stand up out of the water. Then the wild animals fly to safer districts, and only water birds and forest birds remain, with such four-footed animals as spend all their lives in trees. The fifty men noticed that certain stretches on the banks were never reached by the high water, and it was only at these places that the Indians built their huts, just as the indiarubber gatherers do at the present day (Plate XXXIV.).
When the high water retired, large patches of the loose, sodden banks were undermined, and fell into the river, weighed down by the huge trees they supported. Islands of timber, roots, earth, and lianas were carried away by the current. Some stranded on shallows in the middle of the river, others grounded at projections of the bank, and other rubbish was piled up against them till the whole mass broke away and danced down the river towards the sea. Here the men had to be careful, for at any moment the boats might capsize against a grounded tree trunk. Deep pools also were found, and the current ran at the rate of 2-1/2 feet a second, and they often had the help of the wind.
They soon learned to know by the changed appearance of the forest where they could land. Where the royal crowns of foliaged trees reared their waving canopy above the palms they could be sure of finding dry ground; but if the palms with verdant luxuriance raised their plumes above low brushwood, they might be sure that the bank was flooded by the river.
If the voyage on the capricious river was dangerous, the Spaniards were still more disturbed by Indians, who came paddling up in their canoes and showered poisoned arrows on the boats. To get through in safety, the explorers had to avoid the banks as much as possible.
At the end of May they drifted past the mouth of the Rio Negro, which discharges a large volume of water, for it collects streams from Venezuela and Guiana, and from the wet llanos, or open plains, north of the Amazons River. Where the great tributary is divided by islands it attains a breadth of as much as thirty miles.
Here Orellana stayed several weeks with friendly Indians, who lived in pretty huts under the boughs of bananas. The vessels were repaired, and provisions taken on board—maize, chickens, turtles, and fish. There were swarms of edible turtles, and the Indians caught them and collected their eggs; and the fish were abundant and various—no wonder, when two thousand species of fish live in the basin of the Amazons.
Shortly afterwards they glided past the mouth of the Madeira, a mile and a half broad, which discharges a volume of water little inferior to that of the main river. For the Madeira has its sources far to the south, and descends partly from the cordilleras of Peru and Bolivia, partly from the plateau of Brazil.
Woods and no end of water, month after month! The heat is the same all the year round—not very excessive, seldom 104°, but still oppressive and enervating because of the humidity of the air. Yet the voyage was not monotonous. Leaning against the masts and gunwale, or leisurely moving the oars, the soldiers could observe the dolphins leaping in the river, the sudden darts of the alligators as they hunted the fish through the water, or the clumsy movements of the manati, one of the Sirenia, as it cropped grass at the edge of the bank, to the danger of the eel-like lung fish, which sometimes goes up on to dry land. Sometimes they saw the Indians in light canoes pursue manatis and alligators with harpoons for the sake of their flesh, and perhaps they felt a shiver at the sight of the huge water-snakes of the Amazons River.
On they went through the immense forest which extends from the foot of the Andes and the sources of the Madeira to the mouths of the Orinoco—through this dense, rank carpet which covers all the lowlands of Brazil with its teeming and superabundant life, and which is so bountifully watered by tropical rains and flooded rivers. All the rain that falls on the llanos and the selvas (as the wooded plains are called) makes its way through innumerable affluents to the Amazons and enters the sea through its trumpet-shaped mouth. The river, with its forests, is like a cornucopia of vast, wild, irrepressible nature, where life breathes and pulsates, where it bubbles and ripples, seethes and ferments in the soft productive soil, where animals swarm, and beetles and butterflies are more numerous than anywhere else on our earth, and are clad in the most gorgeous hues of the tropics. There old trees on the bank are undermined and washed away, while others decay in the sultry recesses of the forest. There the earth is constantly fertilised by the manure of animals and their corpses and by dead vegetation, and there new generations are continually rising up from the graves in nature's inexhaustible kingdom.
The Spaniards had no time to make excursions into the country from their camps. It is difficult to make one's way through this intricate, ragged network of climbing plants between trunks, boughs, bushes, and undergrowth. In the interior, far away from the waterways, and especially between some of the southern tributaries, lie forests unknown and untrodden since heathen times. Perhaps there are Indian tribes among them who have not yet heard that America has been discovered, and who may congratulate themselves that the forests are too much for the white men.
There palms predominate in a peaceful Eden, and at their feet flourish ferns with stems as hard as wood. In the bamboo clumps the jaguars play with their cubs, and on the outskirts of the swamps the peccary, a sort of small pig, jumps on his long, supple legs. A dark-green gloom prevails under the tall bay-trees, and their stems stand under their crowns like the columns of a church nave. There thrive mimosas and various species of fig, and climbing palms are not ashamed of their inquisitiveness.
See this tree 200 feet high, with its round, hard fruits as large as a child's head! When they are ripe they fall, and the shell opens to let out the triangular seeds which we call Brazil nuts.
Look at the indiarubber tree with its light-coloured stem, its light-green foliage, and its white sap, which, when congealed, rolls round motor wheels through streets and roads.
Here again is a tree that every one knows about. It grows to a height of 50 feet, and bears large, smooth, leathery leaves, but its blossoms issue from the stem and not among the foliage. Its cucumber-shaped orange fruits ripen at almost all seasons in the perpetual summer of the Amazons. In the fruit the seeds lie in rows. The tree grows wild in the forests, but was cultivated by the Indians before the arrival of white men, and they prepared from it a drink which they called "chocolatl." It was bitter, but the addition of sugar and vanilla made it palatable. This tree is called the cocoa-tree.
Still better known and more popular is another drink—coffee. The coffee-tree is not found in the primeval forests, but in plantations, and even there it is a guest, for its native country is Kaffa in Abyssinia, and coffee came from Arabia to Europe through Constantinople. Now Brazil produces three-fourths of all the world's coffee, and in all thousands of millions of pounds of coffee are consumed yearly.
The vanilla plant, also, is one of the wonderful inmates of the forests. In order that the wild plants which are indigenous in the mountain forests of Mexico and Peru may produce fruit, the pollen must be carried by insects. Many years ago the plant was transported to the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, where it throve capitally, but bore no fruit. The helpful insects of its native country were absent. Then artificial fertilisation with pollen was successfully attempted, and now Réunion supplies most of the vanilla in the world's markets.
Think again of all the animals which live in the forest and its outskirts towards the savannahs! There is the singular opossum, and there is the sluggish, scaly armadillo, which loves the detestable termites—those white ants which, with their sharp mandibles, gnaw to pieces paper, clothes, wood, the whole house in fact. Then there is the climbing sloth, with its round monkey head and large curved claws. All day long it remains sleepily hanging under a bough, and only wakes up when night falls. It lives only on trees and eats leaves. In far-back ages there were sloths as large as rhinoceroses and elephants. We have, too, the raccoon in a greyish-yellow coat, also a nocturnal animal, which sleeps during the day in a hollow tree. He lives on small mammals and birds, eggs and fruits, but before he swallows his food he cleans it well, generally in water.
There is a perpetual gloom under the crowns of the foliaged trees and palms. It is the home of shadows. Only lianas, these parasites of the vegetable kingdom, raise their stems above the dusky vault to open their calyces in the sun. Round them flutter innumerable butterflies in gaudy colours. On the border between sunlight and shade scream droll parrots, and busy pigeons steer their way among the trees on rustling wings. There humming-birds dart like arrows through the air. They are small, dainty birds with breast, neck, and head shining like metal with the brightest, most vivid colouring. They build their nests carefully with vegetable fibres and moss, and their beaks are long and fine as a reed. There is a humming-bird which does not grow longer than an inch and a half, and weighs little more than fifteen grains.
We must now go back to see how Orellana got on with his two brigantines.
Below the mouth of the Madeira he landed once on the northern bank in a region inhabited only by tall Amazons, from whom the river received its name. But the tale of Amazons was really a sailor's romance, just as the Spaniards dreamed of Eldorado, or the land of gold.
On they went and the river never ended. During their voyage they saw in lakes by the bank, well sheltered and exposed to the sun, the grandest of all flowers, the Victoria regia of the water-lily family, floating on the water. Its leaves measure six feet in diameter, and the blossoms are more than a foot across. The flowers open only two evenings, first white and then purple.
Between the mouths of the mighty tributaries Tapajos and Xingu the Spaniards saw the great grassy plains stretching up to the river. They only just escaped cannibals on the northern bank. Warned by friendly Indians, they were on their guard against the piroroca, the mysterious bore, fifteen feet high, which is connected with the flow of the tide and rushes up the river twice a month from the sea, devastating everything. Finally they came to the northern mouth of the Amazons River, having traversed 2500 out of the 3600 miles of its length.
Here Orellana decked his vessels over and sailed out to sea, making for the West Indies along the coasts of Guiana and Venezuela. Even after the coast was lost to sight he still sailed in yellow, muddy, fresh water, and he was far to the north before he came to blue-green sea-water. For three hundred miles from the mouth the fresh river water overlies the salt. At Christmas he dropped his anchor on the coast of San Domingo, and his grand exploit was achieved.
V
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
Albatrosses and Whales
Like the sting on the scorpion's poison gland, Tierra del Fuego, the most southern land of America, juts out into the southern sea. It is separated from the mainland by the sound which bears the name of the intrepid Magellan. In the primeval forests of the interior grow evergreen beeches, and there copper-brown Indians of the Ona tribe formerly held unlimited sway. Like their brethren all over the New World, they have been thrust out by white men and are doomed to extinction. They were only sojourners on the coasts of Tierra del Fuego, and their term has expired. Only a few now remain, but they still retain the old characteristics of their race, are powerfully built, warlike and brave, live at feud with their neighbours, and kindle their camp fires in the woods, on the shores of lakes, or on the coast.
Many a sailing vessel has come to grief in the Straits of Magellan. The channel is dangerous, and has a bad reputation for violent squalls, which beat down suddenly over the precipitous cliffs. It is safer to keep to the open sea and sail to the south of the islands of Tierra del Fuego. Here the surges of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans roar together against the high cliffs of Cape Horn.
Who listens to this song, who gazes with royal disdain down over the spray, who wonders why the breakers have been there for thousands of years pounding against gates that never open, who soars at this moment with outspread wings over Cape Horn—who but the albatross, the largest of all storm birds, the boldest and most unwearied of all the winged inhabitants of the realm of air?
Look at him well, for in a second he will be gone. You see that he is as large as a swan, has a short, thick neck, a large head with a powerful pink and yellowish bill, and that he is quite white except where his wing feathers are black. His wings are wonders of creation. When he folds them, they cling close to the body and seem to disappear; but now he has spread them out, and they measure twelve feet from tip to tip. They are long and narrow, thin and finely formed as a sword blade. He moves them with amazing steadiness, and excels all other birds in strength and endurance. No bird has such an elegant and majestic flight. He spreads his wings like sails with taut sheets, and soars at a whistling pace up against the wind. Follow him with your eyes hour after hour in the hardest wind, and you will see that he makes a scarcely perceptible beat of his wings only every seventh minute, keeping them between whiles perfectly still. That is his secret. All his skill consists in his manner of holding his wings expanded and the inclination he gives to his excellent monoplane in relation to his body and the wind. Everything else, change of elevation, and movement forwards with or against the wind, is managed by the wind itself. When he wishes to rise from the surface of the sea he spreads his wings, turns towards the wind, and lets it lift him up. Then he soars in elegant curves and glides up the invisible hills of the atmosphere.
Most noteworthy is the perfect freedom of the albatross. He shuns the mainland and breeds on solitary islands; he can scarcely move on the ground, and when he is forced to alight he waddles clumsily along like a swan. He comes in contact with the earth only at the nest, where the hen sits on her single egg and tucks her white head under her wing. Otherwise he does not touch the ground. He finds his food on the surface of the sea, and spends three-fourths of his life in the air. There he soars about from sea to sea like a satellite to the earth, moving freely and lightly round the heavy globe as it rolls through space.
He is not restricted to any particular course, no distance is too great for him; he simply rests on his wings and sweeps easily from ocean to ocean. He is, however, rarer in the Atlantic than in the Pacific Ocean, and he avoids the heat of equatorial regions. He sails in any other direction he pleases, where he has most prospect of satisfying his voracious appetite.
What do you think of an albatross which was caught on a vessel and marked so that it might be recognised again, and which then followed the vessel for six days and nights watching for any refuse thrown out? The ship was in the open sea and was sailing twelve knots an hour, but the albatross did not tire. Nay, he made circles of miles round the vessel at a considerable height. On board the ship the watch was changed time after time, for man must rest and sleep, but the albatross needed neither sleep nor rest. He had no one to whom he could entrust the management of his wings while he slept at night. He kept awake for a week without showing any signs of weariness. He flew on and on, sometimes disappearing astern, and an hour later appearing again and sweeping down on the vessel from the front. That it was the same albatross was proved by the mark painted on the breast. Only on the seventh day did he leave the ship, dissatisfied with the fare set before him. He was then hundreds of miles from the nearest coast.
Just think of all the wonderful and remarkable sights he must witness on his airy course! He sees everything that takes place on the decks of large sailing vessels, and the smoke rising out of the steamers' funnels. He marks the clumsy movements of the twenty-feet-long sea-elephants on the gravel shore of the islands of South Georgia, east of Cape Horn, and sees the black or grey backs of whales rolling on the surface of the water.
Perhaps he has some time wandered away northwards over the Atlantic and seen whalers attack the blue whale—the largest animal now living in the world, for it often attains to a length of 90 feet. At the present day whalers use strongly built, swift, and easily handled steam-launches, and shoot the harpoon out from the bow with a pivoted gun. In the head of the harpoon is a pointed shell which explodes in the body of the whale, dealing a mortal wound, and at the butt end a thick rope is secured. The vessel follows the whale until it is dead. Then it is hauled up with a steam winch and towed to a whaling station in some bay on the coast, where it is flitched. Then the oil is boiled out, poured into casks, and sent to market.
Much more picturesque and more dangerous was the whaling witnessed in northern seas by the forefathers of the albatross, for man has been for a thousand years the worst enemy of the whale, and some species are almost exterminated. Then the whalers did not use a gun, but threw the harpoon by hand. Every vessel had several keelless whale-boats, pointed at both bow and stern, so that they could be rowed forwards or backwards. When a whale was seen in the distance the boats set out, each boat manned by six experienced whalers. One of them was the coxswain, another the harpooner, while the others sat at the oars. The harpoon line, an inch thick, lay carefully coiled up, and ran out through a brass eye in the bow. Every man knew from long experience what he had to do at any particular minute, and therefore there was silence on board, all working without orders.
When all is ready one of the boats rows towards the whale, and the harpooner throws his sharp weapon with all his strength into the whale's flank. Almost before the harpoon has struck the boat is backed swiftly. Wild with pain, the whale may strike the boat from above with his powerful horizontal caudal fin and crush it at a blow, or he may dive below the boat and upset it, but usually he thinks only of making his escape. He makes for the depths in fright, and the harpoon line runs out, the strands producing a singing sound. Great care is necessary, for if the line curls round a man's leg he is carried overboard and is lost. The whale dives at once to a depth of a couple of hundred fathoms. There it is dark and quiet, and he remains there half an hour or an hour, till at length he is obliged to come up to breathe. The lie of the line in the water shows approximately where he will come up again, and another boat rows to the spot. As soon as he appears above the surface a second harpoon whistles through the air.
The whale is now too breathless to dive. He swims along the surface and lashes the waves with his tail to free himself from his tormentors. He speeds along at a desperate pace, dashing the waves into spray around him and drawing the boats after him. The crews have hauled in the lines, and the boats are quite close to the whale, but they must be ready to pay out the lines if the whale dives. The boats' prows are tilted high up into the air and the water streams off them. They shoot forward like mad things through the foaming sea, whether it be day or night, and pitch up and down over the crests of the waves. With stretched muscles, clenched teeth, and glaring eyes the whale-hunters follow the movements of the whale and the boat.
They notice that the pace slackens. The whale begins to tire, and at last is quite exhausted. Its movements become irregular, it stops and throws itself about so that the water spurts up round it. Then a boat rows up, and a long spear is thrust in three feet deep towards the animal's heart, and perhaps an explosive bullet is fired. If the lungs are pierced the whale sends up jets of blood from its nostrils—"hoisting the red flag," in the language of whalers. Its time is come; it gives up the struggle, and its death tremors show that another of the giants of the ocean has bid a last farewell to its boundless realm.
Robinson Crusoe's Island
On motionless wings an albatross hovers high above Cape Horn. His sharp eye takes in everything. Now he sees in the distance smoke from the funnel of a steamer, and in a couple of minutes he has tacked round the vessel and decided to follow it on its voyage to the north. To the east he has the coast of Chile, with its countless reefs and islands and deep fiords, and above it rises the snow-capped crest of the Andes. As soon as refuse is thrown overboard, the albatross swoops down like an arrow. A second before he touches the water he raises his wings, draws back his head, stretches out his large feet in front with expanded claws, and then plumps down screaming, into the water. He floats as lightly as a cork. In a moment he has swallowed all the scraps floating on the surface, and then, turning to the wind, rises to a giddy height.
The vessel happens to be carrying goods to Santiago, the capital of Chile, and casts anchor at its port town, Valparaiso. In the background rises Aconcagua, the highest mountain of America.
Then the albatross steers out to sea to try his luck elsewhere. Seventy miles from the coast he comes across the notable little island, Juan Fernandez, and circles round its volcanic cliffs. For him there are no frightful precipitous ascents and descents; from his height he can see all he wishes to see. It is otherwise with explorers. Some cliffs are inaccessible to their feet, as Carl Skottsberg found when he went out to the island three years ago in a Chilian vessel. He saw the cliffs 3000 feet high, and heard the surf rolling in round the island. It was a perfect picture of wild desolation. He found it difficult to land in a small boat. He looked in vain for parrots, monkeys, and tortoises, but found, instead, that more than half the number of the plants on the island are such as grow on no other spot on the earth. Among them are palms, with bright, pale-green trunks, which have been recklessly destroyed by men to make walking-sticks. Here also are tree-ferns, and the small, delicate, climbing ferns which gracefully festoon trunks and boughs. And here also is the last specimen of a species of sandalwood which, wonderful to relate, has found its way hither from its home in Asia. A couple of hundred years ago it grew profusely on the island, but now it has been nearly exterminated by man's cupidity. The red, strongly scented wood was too much in demand for fine cabinet work and other purposes. Only one small branch now produces foliage on the last sandal-tree. In this case it is not the last tree among many, but the last specimen of a species which is vanishing from the earth.
In a cave at the foot of a mountain, according to tradition, lived Robinson Crusoe, and from a saddle in the crest he threw longing, eager glances over the great ocean. A memorial tablet in the cave relates that the real Crusoe, a Scotch sailor named Selkirk, lived alone on the island for four years and four months in the years 1704-1709. He went on shore of his own accord, being dissatisfied with the officers of the ship to which he belonged. The climate was mild, the rainfall moderate, and wild goats and edible fruits served him for food.
Such is the actual fact. How much more do we delight in the Robinson Crusoe whose story is so charmingly depicted in a romantic dress! His vessel foundered, and he was the only man who was thrown up by the stormy waves upon the island. There he made himself at home, wandered round the shore and through the woods, and filled a shooting-bag of banana leaves with oysters, turtle's eggs, and wild fruits. With his simple bow he shot the animals of the forest to make himself clothes of their skins, and wild goats, which he caught and tamed, yielded him milk, from which he churned butter and manufactured cheese. He became a fisherman, furrier, and potter, and on the height above his cave he had his chapel where he kept Sundays. He found wild maize, and sowed, reaped, and made bread. As years passed on, his prosperity increased, and he was a type of the whole human race, which from the rude simplicity of the savage has in the course of ages progressed to a condition of refinement and enlightenment. When he was most at a loss for fire to prepare his food, the lightning struck a tree and set it on fire, and we remember that he then kept up his fire for a long time, never letting it go out. He was very grieved when it at length expired, but a volcanic outbreak came to his assistance, and he lighted his fire again from the glowing lava. He made himself a bread oven of bricks, and built himself a hut and a boat.
Once when he was away on an excursion, and lay asleep far from his dwelling, he started up in alarm at hearing some one call out his name. It was only his own parrot, which had learned to talk, and which had searched for him, and was sitting on a bough calling out "Poor Robinson Crusoe!"
How well we remember his lonely walk to the other side of the island, when he stood petrified with fear before the print of a human foot in the sand! For eight years he had been alone, and now he found that there were other human beings, cannibals no doubt, in the neighbourhood. He stood, gazed, listened, hurried home, and prepared for defence. Here, also, he is a type of peoples and states, which sooner or later awake to a perception of the necessity of defence against hostile attacks. His suspicions give way to certainty when one day he sees a fire burning on the beach. He runs home, draws up the ladder over the fortification round his dwelling, makes ready his weapons, climbs up to his look-out, and sees ten naked savages roasting flesh round a fire. After a wild dance they push out their canoes and disappear. At the fire are left gnawed human bones and skulls, and Robinson is beside himself at the sight.
At the end of the fourteenth year he is awakened one stormy night by a shot. His heart beats fast, for now the hour of deliverance is surely at hand. Another shot thunders through the night. Perhaps it is a signal of distress from a ship! He lights a huge fire to guide the crew. When morning dawns, he finds that a ship has run on to a submerged rock and been wrecked. No sign of the crew is visible. But yes, a sailor lies prostrate on the sand and a dog howls beside him. Crusoe runs up; he would like a companion in his loneliness; but however long he works with artificial respiration and other remedies, the dead will not come to life, and Robinson Crusoe sadly digs a grave for the unknown guest.
Another year passes and all the days are alike. As he sits at his table, breaking his bread and eating fish and oysters, he has his dog, parrot, and goats as companions and gives them a share of his meal.
One day he sees from his look-out hill five boats come to the island and put to shore, and thirty savages jump on land and light a fire. Then they bring two prisoners from a boat. One they kill with a club. The other runs away and makes straight towards Crusoe's dwelling. Only two men pursue him, and Crusoe runs up to help him. At a sign from his master, the dog rushes on one of the savages and holds him fast till he gets his death-blow, and the other meets the same fate. Then Crusoe by signs and kindly gestures makes the prisoner understand that he has found a friend. The poor fellow utters some incomprehensible words, and Crusoe, who has not heard a human voice for fifteen years, is delighted to hear him speak. The other savages make off as fast as they can.
Robinson Crusoe's black friend receives the name of Friday, because he came to the island on a Friday. In time Friday learns to speak, and brightens and relieves the life of the solitary man. One day another wreck is stranded on the rocks, and Robinson and Friday fetch from its stores firearms and powder, tools and provisions, and many other useful things. When eighteen long years have expired, the hero of our childhood is rescued by an English ship.
Across the Pacific Ocean
The albatross is a knowing bird, or he would not follow vessels for weeks. He knows that there is food on board, and that edible fragments are often thrown out. But his power of observation and his knowledge are much greater than might be suspected. He knows also of old where small storm birds take their prey, and when he finds them flying along with their catch he shoots down like lightning among them, appropriates all he can find, and does not trouble himself in the least about the smaller birds' disappointment.
But these vultures of the sea are still cleverer in other ways. Their forefathers have lived on the sea for thousands of years, and their senses have been developed to the greatest acuteness and perfection. They know the regular winds, and can perceive from the colour of the water if a cold or warm sea current sweeps along below them. If now our friend the albatross, travelling westwards over the islands of Polynesia, wishes to be carried along by the wind, he knows that he has only to keep between the Tropic of Capricorn and the equator in order to be in the belt of the south-east trade-wind. And no doubt he has also noticed that this wind gives rise to the equatorial current which, broad and strong, sets westwards across the Pacific Ocean. If he wishes to fly north of the equator, he receives the same help from the north-east trade-wind; but if he wanders far to the south or north of the equator, he will meet with head winds and find that the ocean current sets eastwards. In the northern half of the Pacific Ocean this north-easterly current is called the Kuroshiwo, or "Black Salt." It skirts the coast of Japan and runs right across to Canada. This current is one of the favourite haunts of the albatross.
THE SOUTH SEAS.
He knows further that the arrangement of winds and currents is just the same in the Atlantic. There, however, the current running north-east is called the Gulf Stream, and it is the warm water of this stream, coming from the equator, which makes the climate of north-western Europe so mild, and prevents even the northernmost fiords of Norway from freezing in winter.
Meanwhile the albatross is on its course westwards, careless of winds and currents. He heeds not the hardest storm, and, indeed, where could he hide himself from its violence? His dwelling is the air. The sea is high, and he skims just above the surface, rising to meet each wave and descending into every trough, and the tips of his wings seem to dip into the foam. The great ocean seems dreadfully dreary and deserted. The sun glistens on the spindrift, and the albatross is reflected in the smooth, bright roof of waves above the fairy crystal grottoes in the depths.
He rises to see whether the island he is thinking about is visible above the horizon. Beneath him he sees the dark, white-tipped, roaring sea. From the west, bluish-black rain-clouds sweep up and open their sluice-gates. Is the albatross hindered in his flight by the rain which pelts violently down on his back and wings? Well, yes, he must certainly be delayed, but he can foretell the weather with certainty enough to keep clear, and he is swift enough on the wing to make his escape when overtaken by rain. And he can always descend, fold his pinions, and rest dancing on the waves.
The rain over, he flies higher up again and now sees Easter Island, which from an immense depth rises above the water, terribly lonely in the great ocean. On a sloping beach he sees several monuments of stone, thirty feet high, in the form of human heads. They mark graves, and are memorials of a long-vanished settlement. Now there are only about 150 natives on Easter Island, and even these are doomed to extinction. Three white men live on the island, but it is long since news was heard of them, for no vessel has touched there for several years. Of other living things only rats, goats, fowls, and sea birds exist on the island.
At some distance to the north-east lies Sala-y-Gomez, a small island of perfectly bare rocks, only inhabited by sea-fowl, and there the albatross pays a passing visit. Now he rises again and continues his flight westwards. Soon he comes to a swarm of insignificant islands called the Low Archipelago. So we name the islands, but the dark-skinned natives who by some mysterious fortune have been banished to them call them Paumotu, or "Island Cloud." A poet could not have conceived a better name. There lie eighty-five groups of islands, each consisting of innumerable holms. They are really a cloud of islets, like a nebula or star mist in the sky, and this swarm is only one among many others studding all the western part of the Pacific Ocean.
Now the albatross soars round the rocks of the "Island Cloud." He can see them easily from up above, but it is a harder matter for a vessel to make its way between the treacherous rocks and reefs. Though they are so many, the aggregate area amounts to less than four square miles. Almost all are formed of coral, and most of them are atolls. Reef—building corals are small animals which extract lime from the water. They multiply by budding, and every group forms a common clan where living and dead members rest side by side. Coral animalculæ demand for their existence a firm, hard sea bottom, crystal-clear water, sufficient nutriment brought to them by waves and currents, and lastly a water temperature not falling below 68°. Therefore they occur only in tropical seas and near the surface, for the water becomes colder with the depth. At depths greater than 160 feet they are rare. They die and increase again and again, and therefore the coral reefs grow in height and breadth, and only the height of water at ebb tide puts a limit to their upward growth. The continual surf of the sea and stormy waves often break off whole blocks of coral limestone, which roll down and break up into sand. With this all cavities are filled in, and thus the action of the sea helps to consolidate and strengthen the reef. Other lime-extracting animalculæ and also seaweeds establish themselves on the reef. In the course of time the waves throw up loose blocks on the top of the reef, so that parts of it are always above the water-level. When the water rises during flood-tide, white foaming surf indicates the position of the reef at a long distance. During the ebb the reef itself is exposed and the sea is quiet. Between ebb and flood the fairway is dangerous, for there is nothing to warn a vessel, and it may run right on to a coral reef and be lost.
Reefs have various forms and lengths. The great Barrier Reef, which lies off the north-east coast of Australia, is 1200 miles long. When reefs form circles they are called atolls. By means of winds, birds, and ocean currents, seeds are carried about the ocean, and strike root on any parts of the reef which lie above the level of the flood-tide. In the fulness of time the atoll is completed, built up by animalculæ and plants. The "Island Cloud" is the largest continuous atoll region in all the world. There the circular coral islands lie like a collection of garlands thrown down upon the sea. Within them the water may be as much as 230 feet deep, and in the lagoons of some atolls all the fleets of the world could find room. The minute coral animalculæ have provided by their industrious labour shelter for the largest vessels.
On many of the atolls grow cocoa palms, and only then are the ring-shaped islands inhabitable. How curious they look to one approaching on a vessel! Only the crowns of the palms are seen above the horizon; the island, being low, is out of sight. One might be coming to an oasis in the boundless Sahara. At last the solid coral ground of the island comes into sight (Plate XXXVII.). Breakers dash against the outer side of the ring, but the lagoon within is smooth as a mirror in the lea of the corals and palms.
PLATE XXXVII. A CORAL STRAND.
Four thousand natives of Polynesian race live on the holms of the "Island Cloud," a couple of hundred on each atoll. They gather pearls and mother-of-pearl, and barter them for European goods at a ridiculously low price. On some islands, bread-fruit trees, pineapples, and bananas are grown. Animal life is very poor—rats, parrots, pigeons, thrushes, and lizards—but all the richer is the life in the sea outside. The natives are most excellent seamen, and it is hard to believe that they are lifelong prisoners on their islands. They sail with sails of matting made by the women, and have outriggers which give stability to their boats, and they cross boldly from island to island.
What does the albatross care if the French have hoisted their tricoloured flag over the atolls of the "Island Cloud" and their nearest neighbours to the west? He is absolute ruler over them all, and seizes his prey where he will.
Now he makes for the Society Islands, and takes a circuit round the largest of them, Tahiti, the finest and best known of all the islands in the southern sea. There again he sees volcanoes long since extinct, grand wild cliffs thickly covered with wood, impenetrable clumps of ferns, and luxuriant grass, while down the slopes dance lively brooks to the lagoon separated from the sea by the breakwaters of the coral master-builders. On the strand grow the ever-present cocoa palms, as distinctive of the islands of the southern sea as the date palms are of the desert regions of the Old World. Here the weather is beautiful, a warm, equable, tropical sea climate with only three or four degrees difference between winter and summer. The south-east trade-wind blows all the year round, and storms are rare visitors. The rain is moderate, and fever is unknown.
The natives take a bright and happy view of life. They deck their hair with wreaths of flowers, their gait is light and easy, and they knew no sorrow until the white man came and spoiled their life and liberty.
Now the original inhabitants of Tahiti are dying out, and are being replaced by Chinamen, Europeans, and natives from other islands to the north-west. They still, however, till their fields, put out their fishing-canoes in the lagoon, and pull down cocoa-nuts in their season. They still wear wreaths of flowers in their hair, a last relic of a happier existence. Pigeons coo in the trees, and green and blue and white parrots utter their ear-piercing screams. Horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and swine are newcomers; lizards, scorpions, flies, and mosquitoes are indigenous. The luxuriant gardens with their natural charms Europeans have not been able to destroy, and the frigate bird, the eagle of the sea, with the tail feathers of which the chiefs of Tahiti used to decorate their heads, still roosts in the trees on the strand, and seeks its food far out in the sea. The albatross cannot but notice the frigate bird. He sees in him a rival. The latter does not make such long journeys, and does not venture so far out to sea; but he is a master in the art of flying, and he is an unconscionable thief. He follows dolphins and other fishes of prey to appropriate their catch, and forces other birds to relinquish their food when they are in the act of swallowing it. When fishermen are out drawing up their nets, he skims so low over the boat that he may be stunned with an oar, and he is so attracted by bright and gaudy colours that he will shoot down recklessly on to the pennants of ships as they flutter in the wind, swinging to and fro with the roll of the vessel. He soars to an immense height, like the eagle, and no telescope can match the sharpness of his eyesight. Up aloft he can see the smallest fish disporting itself on the surface of the water. Especially he looks out for flying-fish, and catches them in the air just as they are hovering on expanded fins above the waves, or else dives after them and seizes them down below. When he has caught a fish he soars aloft, and if the fish does not lie comfortably in his bill he drops it, and catches it again before it reaches the water; and he will do this repeatedly until the fish is in a convenient position for swallowing.
Our far-travelled storm-bird continues his long journey westwards, and his next resting-place is the Samoa Islands, which he recognises by their lofty volcanic cliffs, their tuff and lava, their beautiful woods and waterfalls, as much as 650 feet high, and surrounded by the most luxuriant vegetation. Over the copses of ferns, and climbing plants, and shrubs, reminding one of India, flutter beautiful butterflies.
Around their oval huts, with roof of sugar-cane leaves and the floor inside covered with cocoa mats, are seen the yellowish-brown Polynesians, of powerful build and proud bearing. The upper parts of their bodies are bare, and they wear necklaces of shells and teeth, deck themselves with flowers and feathers, smear their bodies with cocoa oil, and tattoo themselves. Of a peaceful and happy disposition, they, too, have been disturbed by white men, and have been forced to cede their islands to Germany and the United States.
It rains abundantly on the Samoa Islands. Black clouds sink down towards the sea, violent waterspouts suck up the water in spiral columns which spread out above like the crowns of pine-trees, and deluges of rain come down, lasting sometimes for weeks. Everything becomes wet and sodden, and it is useless to try to light a fire with matches. Almost every year these islands are visited by sudden whirlwinds, which do great damage both on sea and land. Wreckage is thrown up on the shore, fields and plantations are destroyed, leaves fly like feathers from the cocoa palms, and if the storm is one of the worst kind, the trees themselves fall in long rows as if they had been mown down by a gigantic scythe.
The albatross knows of old the course of the great steamboat liners. He sees several steamers at the Samoa Islands, and afterwards on his flight to the Fiji Islands, and if the weather is overcast and stormy he leaves his fishing-grounds in the great ocean deserts and makes for some well-known steamer route. For in stormy weather he can find no soft cephalopods, but from a vessel refuse is thrown out in all weathers. He knows that the Samoa Islands are in regular communication with the Sandwich Islands, and that from these navigation routes radiate out like a star to Asia, America, and Australia.
He sails proudly past the Fiji Islands. He does not trouble himself to make an excursion to the Solomon Islands and the world of islands lying like piers of fallen bridges on the way to the coast of Asia. Though New Caledonia is so near on the west, he is not attracted to it, as the French use it as a penal settlement.
Rather will he trim his wings for the south, and soon he sees the mountains on the northern island of New Zealand rise above the horizon. Among them stands Tongariro's active volcano with its seven craters, and north-east of it lies the crater lake Taupo among cliffs of pumice-stone. North of this lake are many smaller ones, round which steam rises from hot springs, and where many fine geysers shoot up, playing like fountains.
He sees that on the southern island the mountains skirt the western coast just as in Scandinavia, that mighty glaciers descend from the eternal snow-fields, and that their streams lose themselves in most beautiful Alpine lakes. He gives a passing glance at the lofty mountain named after the great navigator Cook, which is 12,360 feet high. On the plains and slopes shepherds tend immense flocks of sheep. The woods are evergreen. In the north grow pines, whose trunks form long avenues, and whose crowns are like vaultings in a venerable cathedral. There grow beeches, and tree-ferns, and climbing plants; but the palms come to an end half-way down the southern island, for the southernmost part of the island is too cold for them.
Formerly both islands were inhabited by Maoris. They tattooed the whole of their bodies in fine and tasteful patterns, but were cannibals and stuck their enemies' heads on poles round their villages. Now there are only forty thousand of them left, and even these are doomed to extinction through white men—as in the struggle between the brown and black rats. Formerly the Maoris stalked about with their war clubs over their shoulders; now they work as day labourers in the service of the whites.
At last our albatross rises high above the coast and speeds swiftly southwards to the small island of Auckland. There he meets his mate, and for several days they are terribly busy in making ready their nest. They collect reeds, rushes, and dry grass, which they knit into a kind of high, round ball. The month of November is come and the summer has begun. In the southern hemisphere midsummer comes at Christmas and midwinter at the end of June. Then the albatrosses assemble in enormous flocks at Auckland and other small, lonely islands to breed.
Across Australia
There are still districts in the interior of the fifth continent which have never been visited by Europeans. There stretch vast sandy deserts and the country is very dry, for the rain of the south-east trade-wind falls on the mountain ranges of the east, where also the rivers flow. Fifty years ago very little was known of the interior of Australia, and a large reward was offered to the man who should first cross the continent from sea to sea.
Accordingly a big expedition was set on foot. It was equipped by the colony of Victoria. Large sums of money were contributed, and Robert Burke was chosen as leader. He was a bold and energetic man, but wanting in cool-headedness and the quiet, sure judgment necessary to conduct an expedition through unknown and desolate country.
PLATE XXXVIII. COUNTRY NEAR LAKE EYRE.
Two dozen camels with their drivers were procured from north-west India. Provisions were obtained for a year, and all the articles purchased, even to the smallest trifles, were of the best quality money could buy. With such an equipment all Australia might have been explored little by little. When the expedition set out from Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, there was great enthusiasm; many people came out really to to look at the camels, for they had never seen this animal before, but most of them looked forward to a triumph in geographical exploration.
Burke was not alone. He had as many as fifteen Europeans with him. Some of them were men of science, who were to investigate the peculiar vegetation of the country, and the singular marsupials, the character of the rocks, the climate, and so on. One of them was named Wills. Others were servants, and had to look after the horses and transport.
The caravan started on August 20, 1860. That was the first mistake, for the heat and drought were then setting in. The men marched on undismayed, however, crossed Australia's largest river, the Murray, and came to its tributary, the Darling. There a permanent camp was pitched, and the larger part of the caravan was left there. Burke, Wills, and six other Europeans went on with five horses and sixteen camels towards the north-west, and in twenty-one days reached the river Cooper, which runs into Lake Eyre.
Here another camp was set up, several excursions were made in the neighbourhood, and a messenger was sent to the Darling to hurry up the men left behind. The messenger loitered, however, one week passed after another, and when nothing was heard of the men, Burke decided to march northwards with only three companions, Wills and the two servants King and Gray, six camels, two horses, and provisions for three months, and cross the continent to the coast of Queensland on the Gulf of Carpentaria. The other four were to remain with their horses and camels where they were until Burke came back, and were to leave the place only if absolutely obliged to do so.
All went well at first, but the country was troublesome and rough, wild and undulating (Plate XXXVIII.). As long as the explorers followed the sandy bed of the Cooper River they found pools of water in sufficient numbers. At midday the temperature in the shade was 97°, but it fell at night to 73°, when they felt quite cold.
Then they passed from bed to bed of temporary streams, carrying water only in the rainy season, and there the usual pools of water remained in the shade of dense copses of grass-trees, boxwood and gum-trees or eucalyptus. The last named were evidently not of the same species as the world-renowned blue gum-tree which occurs in Victoria and Tasmania, for this dries up marshes and unhealthy tracts and grows to its height of 65 feet in seven years. But the giant gum-tree is still more remarkable, for it attains a height of over 400 feet, and another species of eucalyptus has reached 500 feet.
The party had also to cross dreary plains of sand and tracts of clay cracked by the drought, and there they had to have their leather sacks filled with water. Sometimes they saw flocks of pigeons flying northwards, and were sure of finding water soon if they followed in the same direction. At some places there had been rain, so that a little grass had sprung up; in others the saltbushes were perishing from drought.
The animal life was very scanty. In the brief notes of the expedition few forms are mentioned except pigeons and ducks, wild geese, pelicans and certain other waders, parrots, snakes, fishes, and rats. They saw no kangaroos—those curious jumping and springing animals which carry their young for seven months in a pouch on the belly, and are as peculiar to Australia as the llama to South America; nor do the travellers speak of dingoes, the wild dogs of Australia, which are a terror to sheep farmers.
They saw Australian blacks clad with shields, long spears, and boomerangs, and nothing else. These naked, low-typed savages sometimes gave them fish in exchange for beads, matches, and other trifles. They were active as monkeys in the trees when they were hunting the beasts of the forest, but when they saw the camels they usually took to their heels. They had never seen such kangaroos before, with long legs both back and front, and also humpbacked.
After the travellers had crossed a hilly tract they had not far to go to the coast. From the last camp Burke and Wills marched through swamps and woods of palms and mangroves, but they never caught sight of the waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Forests hid them and swamps intervened when they were quite close to the shore. Burke had attained his aim: he had crossed Australia. But his exploit was of little use or satisfaction, least of all to himself, for his return was a succession of disasters, the most terrible journey ever undertaken in the fifth continent. Thunder, lightning, and deluges of rain marked the start southwards. The lightning flashes followed one another so closely that the palms and gum-trees were lighted up in the middle of the night as in the day. The ground was turned into a continuous swamp. In order to spare the camels, the tents had been left behind. Everything became moist, and the men grew languid; and when the rain ceased drought set in again and oppressive, suffocating heat, so that they longed for night as for a friend.
An emaciated horse was left behind. A snake eight feet long was killed, and following the example of the savages they ate its flesh, but were sick after it. Once when they were encamping in a cave in a valley, a downpour of rain came, filled the valley, and threatened to carry away themselves and their camp. Mosquitoes tormented them, and sometimes they had to lose a day when the ground was turned into slough by the rain.
One man sickened and died, but on April 21 the three men were in sight of the camp where their comrades had been ordered to await their return. Burke thought that he could see them in the distance. How eager they were to get there! Here they would find all necessaries, and, above all, would be saved from starvation, which had already carried off one of the four.
But the spot was deserted. Not a living thing remained. There were only on a tree trunk the words "Dig. April 21." They digged and found a letter telling them that their comrades had left the place the same day, only a few hours before. Fortunately they found also a supply of flour, rice, sugar, and dried meat enough to last them until they reached a station inhabited by whites. But where were the clothes to replace their worn rags, which would scarcely hang together on their bodies? After four months of hard travelling and constant privations they were so overcome by weariness that every step was an effort, and now they had come to the camp only to find that their comrades had gone off the same day, neglecting their duty. Fate could not have treated them more cruelly.
Burke asked Wills and King whether they thought that they could overtake their comrades, but both answered no. Their last two camels were worn out, whereas the animals of the other men were, according to the letter, in excellent condition. A sensible man would have tried to reach them, or at least have followed their trail, and this Wills and King wanted to do. But Burke proposed a more westerly route, which he expected would be better and safer, and which led to the town of Adelaide in South Australia. It ran past Mount Hopeless, an unlucky name.
All went well at first, as long as they had flour and rice and could obtain from the natives fish and nardoo, ground seeds of the clover fern. They even ate rats, roasting them whole on the embers, skin and all, and found them well flavoured. One camel died, and the other soon refused to move. He supplied them with a store of meat. But their provisions came to an end, and, what was worse, water ceased on the way to Mount Hopeless.
Then they decided to return to the abandoned camp. On the way they kept alive on fish which they sometimes procured from natives, having nothing else but nardoo seeds plucked from the clover fern. Half dead with hunger and weariness they came back to the camp.
Midwinter, the end of June, was come, and the nights were cold. It was decided that Burke and King should go out and look for natives. Wills was unable to go with them, and was given a small supply of seeds and water.
After two days slow travelling Burke could go no farther. King shot a crow, which they ate, but Burke's strength was exhausted. One evening he said to his servant, "I hope that you will remain with me until I am really dead. Then leave me without burying me." Next morning he was dead.
Then King hurried back to Wills and found him dead also. The last words he had entered, four days before, in his journal were: "Can live four or five days longer at most, if it keeps warm. Pulse 48, very weak."
When the travellers were not heard of, the worst fears were entertained, and relief expeditions were despatched from Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane, and in Sydney and other towns Burke's fate was discussed with anxiety. At length they found King, who had gained the confidence of the natives and had sojourned with them for two months, living as they did. He was unrecognisable and half out of his mind, but he recovered under the careful treatment he received. The two dead men were buried, Burke wrapped in the Union Jack. Later on his remains were carried to Melbourne, where a fine monument marks his grave. This is almost all that remains of an expedition which started out with such fair prospects, but which came to grief at the foot of Mount Hopeless.
VI
THE NORTH POLAR REGIONS
Sir John Franklin and the North-West Passage
We have now surveyed the earth's mainland, islands, and seas. We have seen how man by his endurance and thirst for knowledge has penetrated everywhere, how he has wandered over the hottest deserts and the coldest mountains. The nearer we come to our own times, the more eager have explorers become, and we no longer suffer blank patches to exist on our maps. The most obstinate resistance to the advance of man has been presented by the Poles and their surroundings, where the margin of the eternal ice seems to call out a peremptory "Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther." But even the boundless ice-packs could not deter the bold and resolute seafarers. One vessel after another was lost, crew and all, but the icy sea was constantly ploughed by fresh keels. The North Pole naturally exercised the greater attraction, for it lies nearer to Europe, amidst the Arctic Ocean, which is enclosed between the coasts of Asia, Europe, and North America.
In the "forties" of last century, English and American explorers were occupied in searching for a north-west passage, or a navigable channel for vessels making by the shortest route from the North Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Let us look at the story of a famous expedition which set out to find this passage.
Sir John Franklin was an officer in the Royal Navy. He had led expeditions by land and sea, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, and in particular had mapped considerable areas of the north coast of America east of Behring Strait. Most of the coast of the mainland was thus known, and it remained only to find a channel between the large islands to the north of it. Such a passage must exist, but whether it was available for navigation was another question. A number of learned and experienced men decided to send out a large and well-furnished expedition for the purpose of effecting the north-west passage. The whole English people took up the scheme with enthusiasm. Hundreds of courageous men volunteered for the voyage, and Admiral Sir John Franklin was appointed leader of the expedition, from which neither he nor any of his subordinates was ever to return.
THE NORTH POLAR REGIONS.
The ships chosen were the Erebus and Terror, which (as we shall see later) had already made a voyage to South Polar regions, and which were now refitted from keel to topmasts. Captain Crozier was the second in command and captain of the Terror, while Franklin hoisted his flag on the Erebus, where Captain James was under him. The members of the expedition were chosen with the greatest care, and when they were all mustered, the vessels had on board twenty-three officers and a hundred and eleven men. Provisions were taken for three years, and the vessels were fitted with small auxiliary engines, which had never before been tried in Polar seas.
The constituted authorities drew up a plan which Franklin was to follow, but he was left free to act as he thought proper when circumstances demanded alterations. The main thing was to sail north of America from the Atlantic side and come out into the Pacific Ocean through Behring Strait.
The Erebus and Terror left England on May 19, 1845. All officers and men were full of the most lively expectations of success, and were resolved to do all in their power to achieve the object of the expedition. They passed the Orkney Islands and on Midsummer Day saw the southern extremity of Greenland, Cape Farewell, disappear to windward. Next day they encountered the first ice, huge floating icebergs of wild, jagged form or washed into rounded lumps by the action of the waves, and ten days later the ships anchored near Disko Island, on the west coast of Greenland. Here they met another vessel which had come up north with an additional store of provisions and equipment. Its captain, the last man who spoke with Franklin and the members of the expedition, said that he had never seen a finer set of men so well prepared and so eager for their work. He thought that they could go anywhere.
On July 26 the Erebus and Terror were seen, for the last time, by an English whaler. After that day the fate of the most unfortunate of all Polar expeditions was involved in an obscurity much denser than that which surrounded Gordon in Khartum after the telegraph line was cut. What is known only came to light many years later through the relief expeditions that were sent out, or was communicated by parties of wandering Eskimos.
Meanwhile the voyage was continued north-westwards between two large islands into Lancaster Sound. Soon progress was delayed by masses of pack ice, and the engines were found to be so weak that they could be used only in smooth, open water. In another sound, to the north, the water was open, and here the ships managed to sail 150 miles before the ice set fast again. Then they passed through another open sound back to the south. Early autumn had now come, and all the hills and mountains were covered with snow and fresh ice was forming in the sound. Here Franklin laid the Erebus and Terror up for the winter, having found fairly sheltered anchorage at a small island.
What kind of life the men led on board during the long winter we do not know. We can only conjecture that the officers read and studied, and that the men were employed in throwing up banks of snow reaching up above the bulwarks to keep in the warmth; that snow huts were built on the ice and on land for scientific observations; and that a hole was kept open day and night that water might always be procurable in case of fire when the pumps were frozen into pillars of ice. When the long night was over and February came with a faint illumination to the south, and when the sky grew brighter day by day till at last the expedition welcomed the return of the sun, probably men and officers made excursions to the neighbouring islands to hunt. Their hopes revived with the increasing light. Only 260 miles of unknown coast remained of the north-west passage, and they believed that the New Year would see them return home. The sun remained longer and longer above the horizon, and at last the long Polar day commenced.
When the Erebus and Terror were released in late summer from their prison of ice, and the small island could at last be left, three sailors remained on the beach. Their gravestones, carved with a few simple words, were found five years later by a relief expedition, and they constitute the only proof that Franklin wintered at this particular spot.
To the south lay an open channel, and this southern passage must in time bend to the west. Mile after mile the vessels sailed southwards, carefully avoiding the drifting ice. East and west were seen the coasts of islands, and in front, in the distance, could be descried King William Land, a large island which is the nearest neighbour to the mainland. The north-west passage was nearly accomplished, for it was now only about 120 miles westward to coasts already known. How hopelessly long this distance seemed, however, when the vessels were caught in the grip of the ice only a day or two later! Firmer and firmer the ice froze and heaped itself up round the Erebus and Terror; the days became shorter, the second winter drew on with rapid strides, and preparations to meet it were made as in the preceding year. The vessels lay frozen in on the seventieth parallel, or a little south of the northernmost promontory of Scandinavia; but here there was no Gulf Stream to keep the sea open with its warm water. Little did the officers and crew suspect that the waves would never again splash round the hulls of the Erebus and Terror.
We can well believe that they were not so cheerful this winter as in the former. The vessels were badly placed in the ice, in an open roadstead without the shelter of a coast. They lay as in a vice, and the hulls creaked and groaned under the constant pressure. Life on board such an imprisoned vessel must be full of unrest. The vessel seems to moan and complain, and pray that it may escape to the waves again. The men must wonder how long it will hold out, and must be always prepared for a deafening crash when the planks will give way and the ship, crushed like a nutshell, will sink at once. But worst of all is the darkness when the sun sets for the last time.
However, the winter passed at last, and the sun came back. It grew gradually light in the passages below deck, and it was no longer necessary to light a candle to read by in the evening. Soon there was no night at all, but the sun shone the whole twenty-four hours, and all the brighter because the vessels were surrounded by nothing but ice and snow. Far to the south and east were seen the hills on King William Land. If only the ice would release its hold and begin to drift! But the pack-ice still remained to the westward, and it was possible of course that the vessels had been damaged by the pressure.
Two officers with six men undertook a journey to the south coast of King William Land, whence the mainland of North America could be descried in clear weather. At their turning-point they deposited in a cairn a narrative of the most important events that had happened on board up to date. This small document was found many years after. The little party returned with good news and bright hopes, but found sorrow on the ships. Admiral Franklin lay on his deathbed. The suspense had lasted too long for him. He just heard that the north-west passage had been practically discovered, and died a few days later, in June, 1847. This was fortunate for him. His life had been a career of manliness and courage, and he might well go to sleep with a smile of victory on his lips. But we can imagine the gloom cast upon the expedition by the death of its leader.
It was now the season when the ice begins to move, and open water may be expected. No doubt they made excursions in all directions to find out where the surge of the salt sea was nearest. Perhaps they resorted to ice saws and powder to get out, but in vain; the ice held them fast. However, they were delighted to find that the whole pack was moving southwards. Could they reach the mainland in this way? A great American company, named after Hudson's Bay, had small trading-posts far in the north. If they could only reach one of them they would be saved.
Autumn came on, and their hope of getting free was disappointed. To try and reach the mainland now when winter was approaching was not to be thought of, for in winter no game is to be found in these endless wastes, and a journey southwards meant therefore death by starvation. In summer, on the other hand, there was a prospect of falling in with reindeer and musk oxen, those singular Polar animals as much like sheep as oxen, which live on lichens and mosses and do not wander farther south than the sixtieth parallel. In the western half of North America the southern limit of the musk ox coincides with the northern limit of trees. A herd of twenty or thirty musk oxen would have saved Franklin's distressed mariners. If they could only have found Polar bears, or, even better, seals or whales, with their thick layer of blubber beneath the hide; and Arctic hares would not have been despised if in sufficient numbers! But the season was too far advanced, and the wild animals had retreated before the cold and the abundant snow which covered their scanty food. No doubt the officers deliberated on the plan they should adopt. They had maps and books on board and knew fairly accurately how far they had to travel to the nearest trading-posts of the Hudson's Bay Company, and on the way they had every prospect of finding game and meeting Eskimos. It was decided to pass the third winter on board.
The cold increased day by day, and the length of the days became shorter. The sun still rose, described a flat arch to the south, and sank after an hour and a half. Soon the days lasted only half an hour, until one day they had only a glimpse of the sun's upper curve glittering for a moment like a flashing ruby above the horizon. Next day there was twilight at noon, but at any rate there was a reflection of the sunset red. During the following weeks the gloominess became more and more intense. At noon, however, there was still a perceptible light, and the blood-red streak appeared to the south, throwing a dull purple tinge over the ice-pack. Then this dim illumination faded away also, and the Polar night, which at this latitude lasts sixty days and at the North Pole itself six months, was come, and the stars sparkled like torches on the bluish-black background even when the bell struck midday in the officers' mess.
Those who for the first time winter in high northern latitudes find a wonderful charm even in the Polar night. They are astonished at the deep silence in the cold darkness, at the rushing, moaning howl of the snowstorms, and even at the overwhelming solitude and the total absence of life. Nothing, however, excites their astonishment and admiration so much as the "northern lights." We know that the magnetic and electric forces of the earth time after time envelop practically the whole globe in a mantle of light, but this mysterious phenomenon is still unexplained. Usually the aurora is inconstant. It flashes out suddenly, quivers for a moment in the sky, and then grows pale and vanishes. Most lasting are the bow-shaped northern lights, which sometimes stretch their milk-white arches high above the horizon. It may be that only one half of the arch is visible, rising like a pillar of light over the field of vision. Another time the aurora takes the form of flames and rays, red below and green above, and darting rapidly over the sky. Farther north the light is more yellowish. If groups of rays seem to converge to the same point, they are described as an auroral crown. Beautiful colours change quickly in these bundles of rays, but exceedingly seldom is the light as strong as that of the full moon. The light is grandest when it seems to fall like unrolled curtains vertically down, and is in undulating motion as though it fluttered in the wind.
To the sailors in the ice-bound ships, however, the northern lights had lost their fascination. Enfeebled and depressed, disgusted with bad provisions, worn out with three years' hardships, they lay on their berths listening to the ticking of their watches. The only break in their monotonous existence was when a death occurred. The carpenter had plenty of work, and Captain Crozier knew the funeral service by heart. Nine officers and eleven of the crew died during the last two winters, and certainly a far greater number in the third. This we know from a small slip of paper well sealed up and deposited in a cairn on the coast, which was found eleven years afterwards.
At length the months of darkness again came to an end. The red streak appeared once more in the south, and it gradually grew lighter. Twilight followed in the footsteps of darkness, and at last the first sun's rays glistened above the horizon. Then the men awakened once more to new hope; Brahmins on the bank of the Ganges never welcomed the rising sun with more delight.
With increasing daylight came greater opportunity and disposition to work. Several sledges were made ready, heavy and clumsy, but strong. Three whale-boats, which for three years had hung fast frozen to the davits, were loosened and hauled on to the ice. The best of the provisions still remaining in the store-room were taken out, and great piles of things were raised round the boats. When everything to be taken was down on the ice, the stores, tents, instruments, guns, ammunition, and all the other articles were packed on the sledges. The three whale-boats were bound with ropes, each on a separate sledge, and a sledge with a comfortable bed was assigned to the invalids. During all this work the days had grown longer, and at last the men could no longer control their eagerness to set out. This early start sealed their fate, for neither game nor Eskimos come up so far north till the summer is well advanced, and even with the sledges fully laden, their provisions would last only forty days.
On April 22, 1848, the signal for departure was given, and the heavy sledges creaked slowly and in jerks over the uneven snow-covered ice. Axes, picks, and spades were constantly in use to break to pieces the sharp ridges and blocks in the way. The distance to King William Land was only 15 miles, yet it took them three days to get there. The masts and hulls of the Erebus and Terror grew smaller all too slowly, but they vanished at last. Captain Crozier perceived that it was impossible to proceed in this manner, so all the baggage was looked through again and every unnecessary article was discarded. At this place one of the relief expeditions found quantities of things, uniform decorations, brass buttons, metal articles, etc., which no doubt had been thought suitable for barter with Eskimos and Indians.
With lightened sledges, they marched on along the west coast. They had not travelled far when John Irving, lieutenant on the Terror, died. Dressed in his uniform, wrapped in sailcloth, and with a silk handkerchief round his head, he was interred between stones set on end and covered with a flat slab. On his head was laid a silver medal with an inscription on the obverse side, "Second prize in Mathematics at the Royal Naval College. Awarded to John Irving, Midsummer, 1830." Owing to the medal the deceased officer was identified long after, and so in time was laid to rest in his native town.
Two bays on the west coast of King William Land have been named after the unfortunate ships. At the shore of the northern, Erebus Bay, the strength of the English seamen was so weakened that they had to abandon two of the boats, together with the sledges on which they had been drawn so far uselessly. At their arrival at Terror Bay the bonds of comradeship were no longer strong enough to keep the party together, or it may be that they agreed to separate. They were now less than a hundred men. At any rate, they divided into two parties, probably of nearly equal strength. The one, which evidently consisted of the more feeble, turned back towards the ships, where at least they would obtain shelter against wind and weather, and where there were provisions left. The other continued along the south coast with the whale-boat, and intended to cross to the mainland and try to reach the Great Fish River. No doubt, when they had been succoured themselves, they meant to return to their distressed comrades.
Terrible must have been the march of the returning party, and terrible also that of those who went on. Of the former we know next to nothing. The latter marched and marched, dragging their heavy sledges after them till they died one after another. There was no longer any thought of burying the dead. Every one had to take care of himself. If a dying man lagged behind, the others could not stop on his account. Some died as they were walking: this was proved afterwards by the skeletons which were found lying on their faces. Not a trace of game was found in May and June on the island, and they dragged their heavy ammunition boxes and guns to no purpose, not firing a shot.
Now the small remnant waited only for open water to cross the sound to the mainland. At the beginning of June the ice broke up, and it may be taken for granted that at this time the survivors actually crossed, for the boat was afterwards found in a bay called Starvation Cove. If only the boat had been found here, it might have been drifted over by wind and waves; but skeletons and articles both in and outside the boat were found, showing that it was manned when it passed over the sound and when it landed.
Many circumstances connected with this sad journey are mysterious. Why did the men drag the heavy whale-boat with them for two months when they must have seen the mainland to the south the year before, on the excursion which they undertook when the Admiral was lying on his deathbed? Where the sound is narrowest it is only three miles broad; and, besides, they could have crossed anywhere on the ice. But as all died and as not a line in a diary came to light, we know nothing about it.
When no news was heard of Franklin after two years, the first relief expeditions were sent out. Time passed, and it became still more certain that he was in need of help. In the autumn of 1850 fifteen ships were on the outlook for him. The most courageous and energetic of all, who for years would not give up hope of seeing him again, was Franklin's wife. She spent all her means in relief work. In the course of six years the English Government disbursed £890,000 in relief expeditions. Most of them were useless, for when they set out the disaster had already taken place. One expedition which sailed in 1848 was caught in the ice, and resorted to a singular means of sending information to the distressed men, wherever they might be. About a hundred foxes were caught and fitted with brass collars, in which a short description of the position of the relief ship was engraved, and then the foxes were let loose again.
In 1854 the names of Franklin, Crozier, and all the other men were removed from the muster roll of the Royal Navy. A statue of Franklin was set up in his native town, and a memorial of marble was erected in Westminster Abbey with the words of Tennyson:
Not here! the white North has thy bones; and thou
Heroic sailor-soul,
Art passing on thine happier voyage now
Toward no earthly pole.
The Voyage of the "Vega"
A brilliant remembrance of the Arctic Ocean is the pride of the Swedes. The north-west passage had been discovered by Englishmen; but the north-east passage, which for 350 years had been attempted by all seafaring nations, was not yet achieved. By a series of voyages to Spitzbergen, Greenland, and the Yenisei, Adolf Nordenskiöld had made himself an experienced Polar voyager. He perfected a scheme to sail along the north coasts of Europe and Asia and through the Behring Strait out into the Pacific Ocean. His plan, then, was nothing less than to circumnavigate Asia and Europe, an exploit which had never been performed and which the learned declared to be impossible. It was thought that the ice-pack always lay pressed up against the Siberian coast, rendering it impossible to get past; parts had been already sailed along and stretches of coasts were known, but to voyage all the way to the Behring Strait was out of the question.
Now Nordenskiöld reasoned that the ice must begin to drift in summer, and leave an open channel close to the land. The great Siberian rivers, the Obi, the Yenisei, and the Lena, bring down volumes of warm water from southern regions into the Arctic Ocean. As this water is fresh, it must spread itself over the heavier sea water, and must form a surface current which keeps the ice at a distance and the passage open. Along the ice-free coast a vessel could sail anywhere and pass out into the Pacific Ocean before the end of summer.
Accordingly he made ready for a voyage in which the Vega was to sail round Asia and Europe and carry his name to the ends of the earth. The Vega was a whaler built to encounter drift ice in the northern seas. A staff of scientific observers was appointed, and a crew of seventeen Swedish men-of-war's men were selected. The Vega was to be the home of thirty men, and provisions were taken for two years. Smaller vessels were to accompany her for part of the voyage, laden with coal.
The Vega left Carlskrona in June, 1878, and steamed along the coast of Norway, past the North Cape, towards the east. The islands of Novaia Zemlia were left behind, the waters of the Obi and Yenisei splashed against the hull, no drift ice opposed the passage of the Swedish vessel, and on August 19 Cape Cheliuskin, the most northern point of the Old World, was reached.
Farther east the coast was followed to Nordenskiöld Sea. Great caution was necessary, for the fairway was shallow, and the Vega often steamed across bays which were represented as land on maps. The delta of the Lena was left behind, and to the east of this only small rivers enter the sea. Nordenskiöld therefore feared that the last bit of the voyage would be the hardest, for open water along the coast could not be depended upon. At the end of August the most westerly of the group called the New Siberia Islands was sighted. The Vega could not go at full speed, for the sea was shallow, and floating fragments of ice were in the way. The prospects became brighter again, however, open water stretching for a long distance eastwards.
On September 6 two large skin boats appeared, full of fur-clad natives who had rowed out from land. All the men on the Vega, except the cook, hastened on deck to look at these unexpected visitors of Chukchi race. They rushed up the companion ladder, talking and laughing, and were well received, being given tobacco, Dutch clay pipes, old clothes, and other presents. None of the Vega men understood a word they said, but the Chukchis chattered gaily all the same, and with their hands full of presents tumbled down to their boats again and rowed home.
Two days later the Vega was in the midst of ice and fog, and had to be moored to a floe near land. Then came more Chukchis, who pulled the Swedes by the collar and pointed to the skin tents on land. The invitation was accepted with pleasure by several of the Vega men, who rowed to land and went from tent to tent. In one of them reindeer meat was boiling in a cast-iron pot over the fire. Outside another two reindeer were being cut up. Each tent contained an inner sleeping-room of deerskin, which was lighted and warmed by lamps of train oil. There played small stark-naked children, plump and chubby as little pigs, and sometimes they ran in the same light attire out over the rime between the tents. The tiniest were carried, well wrapped up in furs, on the backs of their fathers and mothers, and whatever pranks they played these small wild cats never heard a harsh word from their elders.
The next day the Vega tried to continue her voyage, but the fog was too dense, and the shelter of a mass of ground ice had again to be sought. Nordenskiöld was, however, sure of gaining the Pacific Ocean in a short time, and when fresh visitors came on board he distributed tobacco and other presents among them with a lavish hand. He also distributed a number of krona[21] pieces and fifty earrings which, if any misfortune happened to the Vega, would serve to show her course.
During the following days the ice closed up and fog lay dense over the sea. Only now and then could the vessel sail a short distance, and then was stopped and had to moor again. On September 18 the vessel glided gently and cautiously between huge blocks of grounded ice like castle walls and towers of glass. Here patience and great care were necessary, for the coast was unknown and there was frequently barely a span of water beneath the keel. The captain stood on the bridge, and wherever there was a gap between the ice-blocks he made for it. It was only possible to sail in the daytime, and at night the Vega lay fastened by her ice anchors. One calm and fine evening some of our seafarers went ashore and lighted an enormous bonfire of driftwood. Here they sat talking of the warm countries they would sail past for two months. They were only a few miles from the easternmost extremity of Asia at Behring Strait.
The Vega had anchored on the eastern side of Koliuchin Bay. It was September 28. Newly formed ice had stretched a tough sheet between the scattered blocks of ground ice, and to the east lay an ice-belt barely six miles broad. If only a south wind would spring up, the pack would drift northwards, and the last short bit of the north-east passage would be traversed.
But the Fates decreed otherwise. No wind appeared, the temperature fell, and the ice increased in thickness. If the Vega had come a few hours sooner, she would not have been stopped on the very threshold of the Pacific Ocean. And how easily might these few hours have been saved during the voyage! The Vega was entrapped so unexpectedly in the ice that there was not even time to look for safe and sheltered winter quarters. She lay about a mile from the coast exposed to the northern storms. Under strong ice pressure she might easily drift southwards, run aground, capsize, or be crushed.
The ice-pack became heavier in all directions, and by October 10 the Chukchis were able to come out on foot to the vessel. Preparations were made for the winter. High banks of snow were thrown up around, and on the deck a thick layer of snow was left to keep the heat in. From the bridge to the bow was stretched a large awning, under which the Chukchis were received daily. It was like a market-place, and here barter trade was carried on. A collection of household utensils, implements of the chase, clothes, and indeed everything which the northern people made with their own hands, was acquired during the winter.
The Vega soon became quite a rendezvous for the three hundred Chukchis living in the neighbourhood, and one team of dogs after another came daily rushing through the snow. They had small, light sledges drawn by six to ten dogs, shaggy and strong, but thin and hungry. The dogs had to lie waiting in the snow on the ice while their masters sat bargaining under the large awning. At every baking on board special loaves were made for the native visitors, who would sit by the hour watching the smith shaping the white hot iron on his anvil. Women and children were regaled with sugar and cakes, and all the visitors went round and looked about just as they liked on the deck, where a quantity of articles, weapons, and utensils lay about. Not the smallest trifle disappeared. The Chukchis were honest and decent people, and the only roguery they permitted themselves was to try and persuade the men of the Vega that a skinned and decapitated fox was a hare. When it grew dusk the fur-clad Polar savages went down the staircase of ice from the deck, put their teams in order, took their seats in the sledges, and set off again over the ice to their tents of reindeer skins.
The winter was stormy and severe. Clouds of snow swept over the ice, fine and dry as flour. Again and again the cold scene was lighted up by the arcs of the aurora. In the middle of December the planks in the sides of the Vega cracked as the ice pressed against her. If the pressure had been bad, the vessel might have been broken to pieces and have sunk in a few minutes. It would not have been so serious for the crew as in the case of the Erebus and Terror, for here there were people far and near. But to ensure a safe retreat, the men of the Vega carried to the nearest shore provisions, guns, and ammunition to last a hundred men for thirty days. These things were all stacked up into a heap covered with sails and oars. No watch was kept at the depôt, and though the Chukchis knew that valuable goods lay under the sails, they never touched a thing.
Near the Vega two holes were kept always open. In one the captain observed the rise and fall of the tide; the other was for water in case of fire. A small seal splashed for a long time in one of the holes and came up on to the ice after fishing below. One day his retreat was cut off and he was caught and brought up on deck. When fish bought from the Chukchis had been offered him in vain, he was let loose in the hole again and he never came back.
A house of ice was erected for the purpose of observing the wind and weather, and a thermometer cage was set up on the coast. Men took turns to go out, and each observer remained six hours at the ice-house and the cage to read off the various instruments. It was bitterly cold going out when the temperature fell to-51°, but the compulsory walk was beneficial. One danger was that a man might lose his way when snowstorms raged in the dark winter nights, so a line was stretched the whole way, supported on posts of ice, and with this guide it was impossible to go astray.
Then came Christmas, when they slaughtered two fat pigs which had been brought on purpose. The middle deck was swept out, all the litter was cleared away, and flags were hung round the walls and ceiling. The Chukchis brought willow bushes from the valleys beyond the mountains to the south, and branches were fastened round a trunk of driftwood. This was the Vega's Christmas tree, and it was decked with strips of coloured paper and small wax candles. Officers and men swung round in merry dance beneath flaming lanterns suspended from the roof. Two hundred Christmas boxes were found packed on board, parting gifts of friends and acquaintances. For these lots were drawn, and many amusing surprises excited general hilarity. So the polka was danced on the deck, while cold reigned outside and snow whizzed through the frozen rigging. For supper there was ham and Christmas ale, just as at home in Sweden. Old well-known songs echoed through the saloon, and toasts were given of king and country, officers and men, and the fine little vessel which had carried our Vikings from their home in the west to their captivity in the shore ice of Siberia.
The winter ran its course and the days lengthened in the spring. Cold and continual storms were persistent. Even a Chukchi dog can have too much of them. One day at the end of February a Chukchi who had lost his way came on board, carrying a dog by the hind legs. The man had lost his way on the ice, and had slept out in the cold with his dog. A capital dinner was served for him on the middle deck, and the dog was rolled about and pommelled till he came to life again.
During the spring the Vega explorers made several longer or shorter excursions with dog sledges and visited all the villages in the country. Of course they became the best of friends with the Chukchis. The language was the difficulty at first, but somehow or other they learned enough of it to make themselves understood. Even the sailors struggled with the Chukchi vocabulary, and tried to teach their savage friends Swedish. One of the officers learned to speak Chukchi fluently, and compiled a dictionary of this peculiar language.
Summer came on, but the ground was not free from ice until July. The Vega still lay fast as in a vice. On July 18 Nordenskiöld made ready for another excursion on land. The captain had long had the engines ready and the boilers cleaned. Just as they were sitting at dinner in the ward-room they felt the Vega roll a little. The captain rushed up on deck. The pack had broken up and left a free passage open. "Fire under the boilers!" was the order, and two hours later, at half-past three o'clock, the Vega glided under steam and sail and a festoon of flags away from the home of the Chukchis.
Farther east the sea was like a mirror and free of ice beneath the fog. Walruses raised their shiny wet heads above the water, in which numerous seals disported themselves. With the wildest delight the Vega expedition sailed southwards through Behring Strait. In the year 1553 a daring Englishman had commenced the quest of the north-east passage and had perished with all his men, and during the following centuries numberless other expeditions had tried to solve the problem, but always in vain; now it was solved by Swedes. The vessel glided out into the Pacific Ocean without a leak; not a man had been lost and not one had been seriously ill. It was one of the most fortunate and most brilliant Polar voyages that had ever been achieved.
Yokohama was the first port, where the Vega was welcomed with immense jubilation, and then the homeward journey via the Suez Canal and Gibraltar became a continuous triumphal procession.
Nansen
From many signs around the northern cap of the world a young Norwegian, Fridtjof Nansen, came to the conclusion that a constant current must flow from the neighbourhood of Behring Strait to the east coast of Greenland.
Nansen resolved to make use of this current. Others had gone up from the Atlantic side and been driven back by the current. He would start from the opposite side and get the help of the current. Others had feared and avoided the pack-ice. He would make for it and allow himself to be caught in it. Others had sailed in unsuitable vessels which had been crushed like nut-shells among the floes. He would build a vessel with sides sloping inwards which would afford no hold to the ice. The more the ice pressed the more surely would this ship be lifted up out of the water and be borne safely on the ice with the current.
The progress would be slow, no doubt, but the expedition would see regions of the world never before visited, and would have opportunities of investigating the depth of the sea, the weather and winds. To reach the small point called the North Pole was in Nansen's opinion of minor importance.
PLATE XXXIX. THE "FRAM."
Among the many who wished to go with him he chose the best twelve. The vessel was christened the Fram (Plate XXXIX.), and the captain was named Sverdrup. He had been with Nansen before on an expedition when they crossed the inland ice of Greenland from coast to coast. They took provisions for five years and were excellently equipped.
The first thing was to reach the New Siberia Islands. To those the Vega had shown the way, and the Fram had only to follow in her track. Just to the west of them a course was steered northwards, and soon the vessel was set fast in the ice and was lifted satisfactorily on to its surface without the smallest leak. So far everything had gone as Nansen anticipated, and the experienced Polar voyagers who had declared that the whole scheme was madness had to acknowledge that they were not so clever as they thought.
We have unfortunately no time to accompany the voyagers on their slow journey. They got on well, and were comfortable on board. The ice groaned and cracked as usual, but within the heavy timbers of the Fram there was peace. The night came, long, dark, and silent. Polar bears stalked outside and were often shot. Before it became quite dark Nansen tried the dogs at drawing sledges. They were harnessed, but when he took his seat, off they went in the wildest career. They romped over blocks and holes, and Nansen was thrown backwards, but sat fast in the sledge and could not be thrown out. In time the driving went better, and the poor, faithful animals had always to go on sledge excursions. Two were seized by Polar bears and two were bitten to death by their comrades. One fine day, however, puppies came into the world in the midst of the deepest darkness. When they first saw the sun they barked furiously.
The Fram drifted north-west just as Nansen had foreseen, passing over great depths where the two thousand fathom line did not reach the bottom. Christmas was kept with a Norwegian festival, and when the eightieth parallel was crossed a tremendous feast was held; but the return of the sun on February 20 excited the greatest delight. The spring and summer passed without any remarkable events. Kennels were erected on the ice out of boxes, and more puppies came into the world. Possibly these were as much astonished at the winter darkness as their cousins had been at seeing the sun.
Nansen had long been pondering on a bold scheme—namely, to advance with dog sledges as far as possible to the north and then turn southwards to Franz Josef Land. The ship was meanwhile to go on with the drift and the usual observations were to be taken on board. Only one man was to go with him, and he chose Lieutenant Johansen. He first spoke to him about the scheme in November, 1894. It was, of course, a matter of life or death, so he told Johansen to take a day or two to think it over before he gave his answer. But the latter said "Yes" at once without a moment's hesitation. "Then we will begin our preparations to-morrow," said Nansen.
All the winter was spent in them. They made two "kayaks," each to hold a single man, somewhat larger and stronger than those the Eskimos use when they go fishing or seal-hunting. With a frame of ribs and covered with sailcloth these canoes weighed only thirty pounds. They were covered in all over, and when the boatman had taken his seat in the middle and made all tight around him, seas might sweep right over him and the kayak without doing any harm. A dog sledge, harness, a sleeping-bag for two, skis, staffs, provisions, oil cooking-stove—all was made ready.
The start took place at the turn of the year, when the most terrible ice pressure broke loose on all sides threatening the Fram. Mountains of ice-blocks and snow were thrust against the vessel, which was in danger of being buried under them. The sea water was forced up over the ice and the dogs were nearly drowned in their kennels and had to be rescued quickly. Banks of ice were pushed against the vessel, rolled over the bulwarks, and weighed down the awning on the deck; and it was pitch dark, so that they could not find out where danger threatened. They had, however, stored provisions for two hundred days in a safe place. By degrees the ice came to rest again and the great rampart was digged away.
Twice did Nansen and Johansen set out northwards, only to come back again. Once a sledge broke, and on the other occasion the load was too heavy. On March 14 they left the Fram for the last time and directed their steps northward. They had three sledges and twenty-eight dogs, but they themselves walked on skis and looked after their teams. At first the ice was level and the pace was rapid, but afterwards it became lumpy and uneven, and travelling was slow, as first one sledge and then another stuck fast.
After two marches the temperature fell to-45°, and it was very cold in the small silk tent. They were able to march for nine hours, and when the ice was level it seemed as if the endless white plains might extend up to the Pole. So long as they were travelling they did not feel the cold, but the perspiration from their bodies froze in their clothes, so that they were encased in a hauberk of ice which cracked at every step. Nansen's wrists were made sore by rubbing against his hard sleeves, and did not heal till far on in the summer.
They always looked out for some sheltered crevice in the ice to camp in. Johansen looked after the dogs and fed them, while Nansen set up the tent and filled the pot with ice. The evening meal was the pleasantest in the day, for then at any rate they were warmed inside. After it they packed themselves in their sleeping bag, when the ice on their clothes melted and they lay all night as in a cold compress. They dreamed of sledges and dog teams, and Johansen would call out to the dogs in his sleep, urging them on. Then they would wake up again in the bitter morning, rouse up the dogs, lying huddled up together and growling at the cold, disentangle the trace lines, load the sledges, and off they would go through the great solitude.
Only too frequently the ice was unfavourable, the sledges stuck fast, and had to be pushed over ridges and fissures. They struggle on northwards, however, and have travelled a degree of latitude. It is tiring work to march and crawl in this way, and sometimes they are so worn out that they almost go to sleep on their skis while the dogs gently trot beside them. The dogs too are tired of this toil, and two of them have to be killed. They are cut up and distributed among their comrades, some of whom refuse to turn cannibals.
When the ice became still worse and the cold white desert looked like a heap of stones as far northwards as the eye could see, Nansen decided to turn back. It was impossible to find their way back to the Fram, for several snowstorms had swept over the ice obliterating their tracks. The only thing to do was to steer a course for the group of islands called Franz Josef Land. It was 430 miles off, and the provisions were coming to an end; but when the spring really set in they would surely find game, and they had for their two guns a hundred and eighty cartridges with ball and a hundred and fifty with shot. The dogs had the worst of it; for them it was a real "dog's life" up there. The stronger were gradually to eat up the weaker.
So they turned back and made long marches over easy ice. One day they saw a complete tree trunk sticking up out of the ice. What singular fortunes it must have experienced since it parted from its root! At the end of April the spoor of two foxes was seen in the snow. Was land near, or what were these fellows doing out here on the ice-covered sea? Two days later a dog named Gulen was sacrificed. He was born on the Fram, and during his short life had never seen anything but snow and ice; now he was worn out and exhausted, and the travellers were sorry to part from the faithful soul.
Open water, sunlit billows! How delightful to hear them splash against the edge of the ice! The sound seemed to speak of spring and summer, and to give them a greeting from the great ocean and the way back home. More tracks of foxes indicated land, and they looked out for it daily. They did not suspect that they had to travel for three months to the nearest island.
At the beginning of May only sixteen dogs were left. Now the long summer day commenced in the Arctic Ocean, and when the temperature was only twenty degrees below freezing point they suffered from heat. But the ice was bad, and they had to force the sledges over deep channels and high hummocks thrust up by pressure. After great difficulties they staggered along on skis. The work became heavier for the dogs as fewer were left, but the provisions also diminished.
A furious snowstorm compelled them to remain in a camp. There they left one of the sledges, and some broken skis were offered to the flames and made a grand fire. Six dogs could still be harnessed to each of the two remaining sledges.
At the end of May they came to an expanse of ice intersected by a network of channels with open water, which blocked the way. Now animal life began to appear with the coming of summer. In a large opening were seen the grey backs of narwhals rolling over in the dark-blue water. A seal or two were seeking fish, and tracks of Polar bears made them long for fresh meat. Nansen often made long excursions in front to see where the ice was best. Then Johansen remained waiting by the sledges, and if the bold ski-runner were long away he began to fear that an accident had happened. He dared not pursue his thoughts to an end—he would then be quite alone.
June comes. The scream of ivory gulls pierces the air. The two men remain a week in a camp to make their kayaks seaworthy. They have still bread for quite a month. Only six dogs are left; when only three remain they will have to harness themselves to the sledges.
In a large strip of open water they shoved out the kayaks, fastened them together with skis, and paddled them along the margin of the ice. On the other side they shot two seals and three Polar bears, and therefore had meat for a long time. The last two dogs, too, could eat their fill.
At last the land they longed for appeared to the south, and they hastened thither, a man and a dog to each sledge. Once they had again to cross a strip of open water in kayaks, Nansen was at the edge of the ice when he heard Johansen call out, "Get your gun." Nansen turned and saw that a large bear had knocked Johansen down and was sniffing at him. Nansen was about to take up his gun when the kayak slipped out into the water, and while he was hauling and pulling at it he heard Johansen say quite quietly, "You must look sharp if you want to be in time." So at last he got hold of his gun, and the bear received his death-wound.
For five months they had struggled over the ice, when at the beginning of August they stood at the margin of the ice and had open water before them off the land. Now the sea voyage was to begin, and they had to part with their last two dogs. It was a bitter moment. Nansen took Johansen's dog and Johansen Nansen's, and a couple of bullets were the reward of their faithfulness.
Now they travelled more easily and quickly. The kayaks were fastened together, and with masts and sails they skimmed past unknown islands. Heavy seas forced them to land on one of them. Just as they drew up their kayaks a white bear came waddling along, got scent of them, and began to sniff along their track. To our travellers his visit meant provisions for a long time. Nansen and his travelling companion took possession of their new territory, wandered over the island, and returned to their dinner of bear, which did them good. Next day they looked for a suitable dwelling-place. As they could not find a cave, they built a small stone cabin, which they roofed with skis and the silk tent. Light and wind came in on all sides, but it was comfortable enough and the meat pot bubbled over a fire of fat.
Nansen decided to remain on this island for the winter. The islands they had hitherto seen were unlike any of the known parts of Franz Josef Land, and Nansen did not know exactly where he was. It was impossible to venture out on the open sea in the kayaks. It was better to lay in a supply of food for the winter, for when darkness came all the game would disappear. First of all they must build a comfortable hut. There was plenty of stone and moss, a trunk of driftwood found on the beach would form a roof ridge, and if they could only get hold of a couple of walruses, their roofing would be provided.
A large male walrus was lying puffing out in the water. The kayaks were shoved out and lashed together, and from them the colossus was bombarded. He dived, but came up under the boats, and the whole contrivance was nearly capsized. At last he received his death-wound, but just as Nansen was about to strike his harpoon into him he sank. They had better luck, however, with two others which lay bellowing on the ice and gradually went to sleep, unconscious that their minutes were numbered. Nansen says that it seemed like murder to shoot them, and that he never forgot their brown, imploring, melancholy eyes as they lay supporting their heads on their tusks and coughing up blood. Then the great brutes were flayed, and their flesh, blubber, and hides carried into the hut. When they brought out the sledges and knives, Nansen thought it might be as well to take the kayaks with them also. And that was fortunate, for while they stood cutting up as in a slaughter-house, a strong, biting land wind sprang up, their ice-floe parted from the land ice and drifted away from the island. Dark-green water and white foaming surge yawned behind them. There was no time to think. They were drifting out to sea as fast as they could. But to go back empty-handed would have been too vexatious; so they cut off a quarter of a hide and dragged it with some lumps of blubber to the kayaks. They reached the land in safety, dead tired after an adventurous row, and sought the shelter of the hut.
In the night came a bear mamma with two large cubs, and made a thorough inspection of the outside of the hut. The mother was shot and the cubs made off to the shore, plunged in, and swam out to a slab of ice which would just bear them, and scrambled up. There they stood moaning and whining, and wondering why their mother stayed so long on shore. One tumbled over the edge, but climbed up again on to the slippery floe and the clean salt water ran off his fur. They drifted away with the wind and soon looked like two white spots on the almost black water. Nansen and Johansen wanted their meat, the more because the bears had torn and mangled all the walrus meat lying outside the hut. The kayaks were pushed out and were soon on the farther side of the floe with the bear cubs. They were chased into the water and followed all the way to the beach, where they were shot.
Things now began to look better—three bears all at once! Then the first walrus came to the surface again, and while he was being skinned another came to look on and had to join him. It was disgusting work to flay the huge brutes. Both the men had their worn clothes smeared with train-oil and blood, so that they were soaked right through. Ivory and glaucous gulls, noisy and greedy, collected from far and near and picked up all the offal. They would soon fly south, the sea would be covered with ice, and the Polar night would be so dismal and silent.
It took a week to get the new hut ready. The shoulder blade of a walrus fastened to a ski served as spade. A walrus tusk tied to a broken ski staff made an excellent hoe. Then they raised the walls of the hut, and inside they dug into the ground and made a sort of couch for both of them, which they covered with bearskin. After two more walruses had been shot they had plenty of roofing material, which they laid over the trunk of driftwood. A bear came, indeed, and pulled down everything, but it cost him dear, and afterwards the roof was strengthened with a weight of stones. To make a draught through the open fireplace they set up on the roof a chimney of ice. Then they moved into the new hut, which was to be their abode through the long winter.
On October 15 they saw the sun for the last time. The bears vanished, and did not return till the next spring. But foxes were left, and they were extremely inquisitive and thievish. They stole their sail thread and steel wire, their harpoon and line, and it was quite impossible to find the stolen goods again. What they wanted with a thermometer which lay outside it is hard to conceive, for it must have been all the same to the foxes how many degrees of temperature there were in their earths. All winter they were up on the roof pattering, growling, howling, and quarrelling. There was a pleasant rattling up above, and the two men really would not have been without their fox company.
One can hardly say that the days passed slowly, for the whole winter was, of course, one long night. It was so silent and empty, and an oppressive, solemn stillness reigned during the calm night. Sometimes the aurora blazed in a mysterious crown in the sky, at other times so dark, and the stars glittered with inconceivable brilliance. The weather, however, was seldom calm. Usually the wind howled round the bare rocks lashed by millions of storms since the earliest times, and snow swished outside and built up walls close around the hut.
The endlessly long night passed slowly on. The men ate and slept, and walked up and down in the darkness to stretch their limbs. Then came Christmas with its old memories. They clean up, sweep and brush, and take up a foot's depth of frozen refuse from the floor of the hut. They rummage for some of the last good things from the Fram, and then Nansen lies listening and fancies he hears the church bells at home.
In the midst of the winter night comes New Year's Day, when it is so cold that they can only lie down and sleep, and look out of their sleeping-bag only to eat. Sometimes they do not put out their noses for twenty hours on end, but lie dosing just like bears in their lairs.
On the last day of February the sun at last appears again. He is heartily welcome, and he is accompanied by some morning birds, Little Auks. The two men are frightened of each other when daylight shines on them, as their hair and beards have grown so long. They have not washed for a year or more, and are as black in the face as negroes. Nansen, who is usually extremely fair, has now jet-black hair. They may be excused for not bathing at a temperature of-40°.
The first bear has come. Here he is scratching at the hut and wanting to get in; there is such a good smell from inside. A bullet meets him on the way. And as he runs off up a steep slope he gets another, and comes rolling down in wild bounces like a football. They lived on him for six weeks.
While the days grew lighter they worked at a new outfit. They made trousers out of their blankets. Shoes were patched, rope was cut out of walrus hide, new runners were put on the sledges, the provisions were packed, and on May 19 they left their cabin and marched farther south-west.
Time after time they had to rest on account of snowstorms. They had thrown away the tent, and instead they crept in between the sledges covered with the sail. Once Nansen came down when on skis, and would have been drowned if Johansen had not helped him up in time. The snow lying on this ice was soaked with water. They had always to keep their eyes open and look for firm ice. The provisions came to an end, but the sea swarmed with walruses. Sometimes the animals were so bold that Nansen could go up to them and take photographs. When a fine brute had been shot the others still lay quiet, and only by hitting them with their alpenstocks could the travellers get rid of them. Then the animals would waddle off in single file and plunge head first into the water, which seemed to boil up around them.
Once they had such level ice and a good wind behind them that they hoisted sail on the sledges, stood on skis in front of them to steer, and flew along so that the snow was thrown up around them.
Another time they sailed with the kayaks lashed together and went ashore on an island to get a better view. The kayak raft was moored with a walrus rope. As they were strolling round Johansen called out, "Hullo, the kayaks are adrift."
They ran down. The wind was blowing off the land. Out on the fiord all they possessed in the world was being mercilessly carried away.
"Take my watch," cried Nansen, and throwing off a few clothes he jumped into the ice-cold water, and swam after the kayaks. But they drifted more rapidly than Nansen swam, and the case seemed hopeless. He felt his limbs growing numb, but he thought he might as well drown as swim back without the boats. He struck out for his life, became tired, lay on his back, went on again, saw that the distance was lessening, and put out all his strength for a last spurt. He was quite spent and on the point of sinking when he caught hold of one of the canoes and could hang on and get his breath. Then he heaved himself up into the kayak, and rowed back shivering, with chattering teeth, benumbed, and frozen blue. When he reached the land Johansen put him in the sleeping-bag and laid over him everything he could find. And when he had slept a few hours he was as lively as a cricket and did justice to the supper.
Farther and farther south they continued their daring journey over ice and waves. A walrus came up beside Nansen's canoe, and tried its solidity with his tusks, nearly taking kayak and oarsman down with him to the salt depths. When the animal went off, Nansen felt uncomfortably cold and wet about the legs. He rowed to the nearest ice, where the kayak sank in shallow water and all he possessed was wet and spoiled. Then they had to give themselves a good rest and repair all damages, while walruses grunted and snorted close beside them.
This journey of Nansen's is a unique feat in the history of Polar travels. Of the crews of the Erebus and Terror, a hundred and thirty-four men, not one had escaped, though they had not lost their vessels and though they lay quite close to a coast where there were human beings and game. But these two Norwegians had now held out in the Polar sea for fifteen months, and had preserved their lives and limbs and were in excellent condition.
Their hour of delivery was at hand. On June 17 Nansen ascended an ice hummock and listened to the commotion made by a whole multitude of birds. What now? He listens holding his breath. No, it is impossible! Yes, indeed, that is a dog's bark. It must surely be a bird with a peculiar cry. No, it is a dog barking.
He hurried back to the camp. Johansen thought it was a mistake. They bolted their breakfast. Then Nansen fastened skis on his feet, took his gun, field-glass, and alpenstock, and flew swiftly as the wind over the white snow.
See, there are the footprints of a dog! Perhaps a fox? No, they would be much smaller. He flies over the ice towards the land. Now he hears a man's voice. He yells with all the power of his lungs and takes no heed of holes and lumps as he speeds along towards life, safety, and home.
Then a dog runs up barking. Behind him comes a man. Nansen hurries to meet him, and both wave their caps. Whoever this traveller with the dog may be, he has good reason for astonishment at seeing a jet-black giant come jolting on skis straight from the North Pole.
They meet. They put out their hands.
"How do you do?" asks the Englishman.
"Very well, thank you," says Nansen.
"I am very glad to see you here."
"So am I," cries Nansen.
The Englishman with the dog is named Jackson, and has been for two years in Franz Joseph Land making sledge journeys and explorations. He concludes that the black man on skis is some one from the Fram, but when he hears that it is Nansen himself he is still more astonished and agreeably surprised.
They went to Jackson's house, whither Johansen also was fetched. Both our explorers washed with soap and brush several times to get off the worst of the dirt, all that was not firmly set and imbedded in their skins. They scrubbed and scraped and changed their clothes from top to toe, and at last looked like human beings.
Later in the summer a vessel came with supplies for Jackson. With this vessel Nansen and Johansen sailed home. At Vardö they received telegrams from their families, and their delight was unbounded. Only one thing troubled them. Where was the Fram? Some little time later Nansen was awakened at Hammerfest one morning by a telegraph messenger. The telegram he brought read: "Fram arrived in good condition. All well on board. Shall start at once for Tromsö. Welcome home." The sender of the telegram was the captain of the Fram, the brave and faithful Sverdrup.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] A krona is a Swedish coin worth about 1s. 1-1/2d.
VII
THE SOUTH POLAR REGIONS
It is barely a hundred years since European mariners began to approach the coasts of the mysterious mainland which extends around the southern pole of the earth. Ross, who in 1831 discovered the north magnetic pole, sailed ten years later in two ships, the Erebus and the Terror (afterwards to become so famous with Franklin), along the coast of the most southern of all seas, a sea which still bears his name. He discovered an active volcano, not much less than 13,000 feet high, and named it Erebus, while to another extinct volcano he gave the name of Terror. And he saw the lofty ice barrier, which in some places is as much as 300 feet high.
At a much later time there was great rivalry among European nations to contribute to the knowledge of the world's sixth continent. In the year 1901 an English expedition under Captain Scott was despatched to the sea and coasts first visited by Ross. Captain Scott made great and important discoveries on the coast of the sixth continent, and advanced nearer to the South Pole than any of his predecessors. One of the members of the expedition followed his example some years later. His name is Shackleton, and his journey is famous far and wide.
Shackleton resolved to advance from his winter quarters as far as possible towards the South Pole, and with only three other men he set out at the end of October, 1908. His sledges were drawn by strong, plump ponies obtained from Manchuria. They were fed with maize, compressed fodder, and concentrated food, but when during the journey they had to be put on short commons they ate up straps, rope ends, and one another's tails. The four men had provisions for fully three months.
While the smoke rose from the crater of Erebus, Shackleton marched southwards over snow-covered ice. Sometimes the snow was soft and troublesome, sometimes covered with a hard crust hiding dangerous crevasses in the mass of ice. At the camps the adventurers set up their two tents and crept into their sleeping-bags, while the ponies, covered with horse-cloths, stood and slept outside. Sometimes they had to remain stationary for a day or two when snowstorms stopped their progress.
THE SOUTH POLAR REGIONS.
When the sun was hidden by clouds the illumination was perplexing. No shadows revealed the unevenness of the snowfield, all was of the purest white, and where the men thought they were walking over level ground, they might quite unexpectedly come down on their noses down a small slope. Once they heard a thundering noise far away to the east. It sounded like a cannon shot, but probably was only the immense inland ice "calving." When the ice during its constant but slow motion towards the coast slides out into the sea, it is lifted up by the water and is broken up into huge, heavy blocks and icebergs which float about independently. When these pieces break away the inland ice is said to "calve."
Shackleton advanced towards the pole at the rate of twelve to eighteen miles a day. His small party was lost like small specks in the endless desert of ice and snow. Only to the west was visible a succession of mountain summits like towers and pinnacles. The men seemed to be marching towards a white wall which they could never reach.
On November 31 one of the ponies was shot, and its flesh was kept to be used as food. The sledge he had drawn was set up on end and propped up as a mark for the return journey. Five days later Shackleton came to Scott's farthest south, and the lofty mountains with dark, steep, rocky flanks which he afterwards had by the side of his route had never before been seen by man.
A couple of days later a second pony was shot, and shortly afterwards a third, which could go no farther, had to be put out of his misery. The last pony seemed to miss his comrades, but he still struggled on with his sledge, while the four men dragged another.
The mountain range which they had hitherto had on their right curved too much to the east, but fortunately it was cut through by a huge glacier, the great highway to the Pole. They ascended the glacier and crossed a small pass between great pillars of granite. Now they were surrounded by lofty mountains. The ice was intersected by dangerous crevasses, and only with the greatest caution and loss of time could they go round them. A bird flew over their heads, probably a gull. What could he be looking for here in the midst of the eternal ice?
One day three of the explorers were drawing their sledge while the fourth was guiding the one drawn by the pony. Suddenly they saw the animal disappear, actually swallowed up by the ice. A snow bridge had given way under the weight of the pony, and the animal had fallen into a crevasse 1000 feet deep. When they bent over the edge of the dark chasm they could not hear a sound below. Fortunately the front cross-piece of the sledge had come away, so that the sledge and man were left on the brink of the chasm. If the precious provisions had gone down with the horse into the bowels of the ice, Shackleton would have been obliged to turn back.
Now left without assistance in dragging the sledges, they had to struggle up the glacier between rocks and slates in which coal was imbedded. On Christmas Day the temperature was down to-47°—a fine midsummer!
At length the four men had left all mountains behind, and now a plateau country of nothing but snow-covered ice stretched before them. But still the surface of the ice rose towards the heart of the South Polar continent, and the singing headaches from which they suffered were a consequence of the elevation. A flag on a bamboo pole was set up as a landmark.
On January 7 and 8, 1909, they had to lie still in a hard snowstorm, and the temperature fell to-69°. When such is the summer of the South Pole, what must the winter be like? January 9 was the last day on their march southwards. Without loads or sledges they hurried on and halted at 88° 23' south latitude.
They were only 100 miles from the South Pole when they had to turn back from want of provisions. They might have gone on and might have reached the Pole, but they would never have come back.
The height was more than 10,000 feet above sea-level, and before them, in the direction of the Pole, extended a boundless flat plateau of inland ice. The Union Jack was hoisted and a record of their journey deposited in a cylinder. Shackleton cast a last glance over the ice towards the Pole, and, sore at heart, gave the order to retreat.
Happily he was able to follow his trail back and succeeded in reaching his winter quarters, whence his vessel carried him home again in safety.
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Transcriber's Note:
Illustrations, originally had a reference to 'facing page', and have now been placed as close as possible to their original positions.
All maps carried an acknowledgement for Emery Walker sc.
The following PLATE'S also carried acknowledgements.
Plate I. BERLIN Photo. The Photocrom Co.
PLATE II. CONSTANTINOPLE Photo. The Photocrom Co.
PLATE XXIII. THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW Photo. The Photocrom Co.
PLATE XXIV. PARIS Photo. The Photocrom Co.
PLATE XXVI. THE COLLOSEUM, ROME. Photo. Underwood and Underwood.
PLATE XXVII. POMPEII. Photo. Abteilung, Zurich.
PLATE XXXIV. CAÑONS ON THE COLORADO RIVER. Photo. Underwood and Underwood.
PLATE XXXIX. THE "FRAM". Photo. The Record Press.