The Catholic World, Vol. 25, April 1877 to September 1877

by Various

TESTIMONY OF THE CATACOMBS TO SOME OF THE SACRAMENTS.

In a former article,[^[31]] whilst following Mr. Withrow and other Protestant controversialists through their evasions and misinterpretations of the evidence to be found in the Catacombs on behalf of certain points of Catholic doctrine and practice, we pointed out that prayers either for the dead or to them were the only two articles on which it would be reasonable to look for information from the inscriptions on the gravestones. We said that these prayers were likely to find expression, if anywhere, by the side of the grave. As they took their last look on the loved remains of their deceased friend or relative, the affectionate devotion of the survivors would naturally give utterance either to a hearty prayer for the everlasting happiness of him they had lost, or to a piteous cry for help, an earnest petition that he would continue to exercise, in whatever way might be possible under the conditions of his new mode of existence, that same loving care and protection which had been their joy and support during his life; or sometimes both these prayers might be poured forth together, according as the strictness of God’s justice, or the Christian faith and virtues of the deceased, happened to occupy the foremost place in the petitioner’s thoughts.

When, therefore, we proceeded in a second paper to question the same subterranean sanctuaries on another subject of Christian doctrine—the supremacy of St. Peter—we called into court another set of witnesses altogether: to wit, the paintings of their tombs and chapels. Exception has been taken against the competency of these witnesses, on the plea that they are not old enough; they were not contemporary, it is said, with those first ages of the church whose faith is called in question. To this we answer that the objection is entirely out of date; it might have been raised twenty or thirty years ago, and it might have been difficult at that time satisfactorily to dispose of it. Those were days in which writers like M. Perrot in France could affect to pronounce dogmatically on the age of this or that painting, solely on the evidence of its style, without having first established any standard by which that style could be securely judged. There are still a few writers of the same school even at the present day, such as Mr. Parker in England, who assigns precise years as the dates of these subterranean monuments with as much confidence as if he had been personally present when they were executed, and (we may add) with as wide a departure from the truth as if he had never seen the pictures at all. Such writers, however, have but few disciples nowadays. Their foolish presumption is only laughed at; and it is not thought worth while seriously to refute their assertions. Men of intelligence and critical habits of thought are slow to accept the ipse dixit of a professor, however eminent, upon any subject; and all who have studied this particular subject—the paintings in the Catacombs—are well aware that the question of their antiquity has now been carried beyond the range of mere conjecture and assumption; it has been placed on a solid basis of fact through the indefatigable labors of De Rossi. Those labors have been directed in a very special way towards establishing the true chronology of the several parts of the Catacombs; and when this had been done, it was manifest to all that the most ancient areæ were also those which were most abundantly decorated with painting, whilst the areæ that had been used more recently—i.e., in the latter half of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century—were hardly decorated at all. This gradual decline of the use of pictorial decoration has been traced with the utmost exactness through the successive areæ of a single Catacomb; six or seven tombs being found thus decorated in the first area, two in the second, one in the third, none at all in the fourth; and the same thing has been seen, with more or less distinctness, throughout the whole range of subterranean Rome. Then, again, every casual visitor to them can see for himself that before the abandonment of burial here—i.e., before the year 410—many of the paintings were already considered old enough to be sacrificed without scruple to the wishes of those who would fain excavate new tombs in desirable sites. Men do not usually destroy to-day the paintings which they executed yesterday; certainly they do not allow the ornamentation which they have just lavished on the tombs of their fathers to be soon effaced with impunity. We may be sure, then, that those innumerable paintings which we see broken through in order to make more modern graves must have been of considerable antiquity at the time of their destruction. Then, again, it must not be forgotten that some of these paintings were actually appealed to as ancient testimony in the days of St. Jerome, on occasion of a dispute between that doctor and St. Augustine as to the correct rendering of a particular word in his Latin translation of the Scriptures. Finally, it is notorious that the fine arts had rapidly decayed and the number of their professors diminished before the days of Constantine—in fact, before the end of the third century.

We cannot, however, pretend to give in these pages even a brief summary of De Rossi’s arguments and observations whereby he establishes the primitive antiquity of Christian art in the Catacombs. We can only mention a few of the more popular and palpable proofs which can be appreciated by all without difficulty; and we will only add that it is now possible, under the sure chronological guidance of De Rossi, to distinguish three successive stages in the development of painting in the Christian cemeteries, the latest of which was complete when the Constantinian era began, and the first falls hardly, if at all, short of even apostolic times. This is no longer denied by the best instructed even among Protestant controversialists; they acknowledge that painting was used by the earliest Christians for the ornamenting of their places of burial; only they contend that it was done “not because it was congenial to the mind of Christianity so to illustrate the faith, but because it was the heathen custom so to honor the dead.” The author of this remark, however, has omitted to explain whence it comes to pass that the great majority of the paintings which survive in the cemeteries are more engaged in illustrating the mysteries of the faith than in doing honor to the dead.

But we must not pursue this subject any further. We have said enough, we think, to establish the competency of these paintings as witnesses to the ancient faith, and we will now proceed to question them concerning one or two principal mysteries of the faith—those that are called its mysteries par excellence: its sacraments. We do not doubt that, if duly interrogated, they will have some evidence to give. We say, if duly interrogated, because it is the characteristic of ancient Christian art to be eminently symbolical; it suggested rather than declared religious doctrines and ideas, and it suggested them by means of artistic symbols or historical types, which must be inquired into and meditated upon before they can be made fully to express their meaning. This is of the very essence of a symbol: that it should partly veil and partly manifest the truth. It does not manifest the truth with the fulness and accuracy of a written historical description, or it would cease to be a symbol; on the other hand, it must not be so obscure as to demand a sibyl for its interpretation; it must have a tendency to produce in the mind of the beholder some leading feature of the object it is intended to represent. And where should symbols of this kind be more abundantly found for the Christian preacher or artist than in the histories of the Old Testament? Ancient Christian art, says Lord Lindsay, “veiled the faith and hope of the church under the parallel and typical events of the patriarchal and the Jewish dispensations.”

We need not remind our readers that the principle of this method of interpreting Holy Scripture has express apostolic sanction; but few who have not studied the subject closely will have any adequate idea of the extent to which it was followed in the ancient church. We will give a single example, selected because it closely concerns the first mystery of which we propose to speak—the Sacrament of Baptism.

Tertullian, who lived at the end of the second and beginning of the third century, wrote a short treatise on this sacrament. This treatise he begins by bringing together all that Holy Scripture contains about water, with such minuteness of detail that he is presently obliged to check himself, saying that, if he were to pursue the subject through all Holy Scripture with the same fulness with which he had begun, men would say he was writing a treatise in praise of water rather than of baptism. From the first chapter of the Book of Genesis to the last of the Evangelists, and even of the Apocalypse, he finds continual testimony to the high dignity and sacramental life-giving power of this element. The Spirit of God, he says, moved over it at the first; whilst as yet the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the heaven was as yet unformed, water alone, already pure, simple, and perfect, supplied a worthy resting-place on which God could be borne. The division of the waters was the regulating power by which the world was constituted; and when at length the world was set in order, ready to receive inhabitants, the waters were the first to hear and obey the command and to bring forth creatures having life. Then, again, man was not made out of the dry earth, but out of slime, after a spring had risen out of the earth, watering all its surface. All this is out of the first two chapters of Genesis; and here he makes a pause, breaking into that apology which has been already mentioned. Then he resumes the thread of his discourse, but passing much more briefly over the remainder of the Old Testament. He notes how the wickedness of the old world was purged by the waters of the Deluge, which was the world’s baptism; how the waters of the Red Sea drowned the enemies of God’s people and delivered them from a cruel bondage; and how the children of Israel were refreshed during their wanderings through the wilderness by the water which flowed continuously from the rock which followed them, “which rock was Christ.” Then he comes to the New Testament, and briefly but eloquently exclaims: Nowhere is Christ found without water. He is himself baptized with it; he inaugurates in it the first manifestation of his divine power at the wedding-feast in Cana; when he preaches the Gospel, on the last and great day of the feast, he stands and cries, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.” He sums up his whole gift to man under the image of a fountain of water, telling the Samaritan woman that he has living water to give, which shall become in him that receives it a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting. When he gives instruction upon charity, he instances a cup of cold water given to a disciple; he sits down weary at a well and asks for water to refresh himself; he walks on the waves of the sea, and washes his disciples’ feet; finally (Tertullian concludes), “this testimony of Jesus to the Sacrament of Baptism continues even to the end, to his very Passion; for, when he is condemned to the cross, water is not absent—witness the hands of Pilate; nay, when wounded after death upon the cross, water bursts forth from his side—witness the soldier’s spear.”

There may be something in this symbolism that sounds strange to modern ears; but we are not here criticising it; we have nothing to do with its merits or demerits, but only with the fact of its general use—so general that it was the one principle of exegesis which every commentator on Holy Scripture in those days followed, and we have every right to suppose that Christian artists would have followed it also. When, therefore, we find in the Roman Catacombs (as, for example, the other day in the cemetery of San Callisto) a glass vessel, very artistically wrought, with fishes in alto rilievo swimming round it in such a way that, when full of water, it would have represented a miniature image, as it were, of the sea, is it a mere fanciful imagination which bids us recognize in such ornamentation a reference to holy baptism, and conjectures that the vessel was perhaps even made for the administration of that sacrament? It may be so; but we cannot ourselves think so; we cannot at once reject the explanation as fanciful; the work of the artist corresponds too exactly with the words of the theologian to allow us to treat the coincidence as altogether undesigned. “We little fish are born,” says Tertullian, “after the likeness of our great Fish in water, and we cannot otherwise be safe than by remaining in the water.” And we seem to ourselves to read these same words, written in another language, in the beautiful vessel before us. We read it also in another similar vessel, which looks as though it had come out of the same workshop, yet was found in an ancient cemetery at Cologne; and in another of bronze, dug up in the vineyard over the cemetery of Pretextatus, that used to be shown by Father Marchi in the Kircherian Museum at the Roman College. In all these instances we believe that this is the best account that can be given, both of the original design of the vessel and also of its preservation in Christian subterranean cemeteries. However, if any one thinks otherwise, we do not care to insist upon our explanation as infallibly certain. We will descend into the Catacombs themselves, and look about upon the paintings on their walls or the carving on their gravestones, and see whether baptism finds any place there also.

And, first, we come across the baptism of our Lord himself. We are not now thinking of the subterranean baptistery in the cemetery of Ponziano, with the highly-decorated cross standing up out of the middle of it, and Christ’s baptism painted at the side. For this is one of the latest artistic productions in the Catacombs—a work of the eighth or ninth century possibly. We are thinking, on the contrary, of one of the earliest paintings in a most ancient part of the excavations, in the crypt of Lucina, near the cemetery of Callixtus, with which, in fact, it is now united. We shall have occasion to return to this same chamber presently for the sake of other paintings on its walls having reference to the Holy Eucharist; just here we only call attention to the baptism of our Lord, which is represented in the space over the doorway. We do not know of any other instance of this subject having been painted in the Catacombs besides the two that we have mentioned, but it is quite possible that others may be hereafter discovered; but of baptism as a Christian rite, veiled, however, under its types and symbols, we have innumerable examples.

Few figures recur more frequently among the paintings in the Catacombs, and none are more ancient, than that of a man standing in an open box or chest, often with a dove, bearing an olive-branch in its mouth, flying towards him. When this was first seen after the rediscovery of the Catacombs in the sixteenth century, men set it down to be the picture of some ancient bishop preaching in a pulpit, and the Holy Ghost, under the form of a dove, inspiring him as to what he should say, according to the legend told of St. Gregory the Great and some others. Nobody now doubts that it was intended for Noe in the ark; not, however, the historical Noe and the historical ark—for nothing could be more ludicrously false to the original—but those whom that history foreshadowed: Christians saved by the waters of baptism and securely housed in the ark of the church. Some persons, who seem to take a perverse delight in assigning a pagan rather than a Christian origin to everything in the early church, account for the difference between the Biblical and the artistic representation of the ark by saying that the Christian artist did but copy a pagan coin or medal which he found ready to his hands. It is quite true that certain coins which were struck at Apamea in Phrygia during the reigns of Septimius Severus, Macrinus, and Philip the elder—i.e., at different periods in the first half of the third century—exhibit on one side of them a chest, with a man and a woman standing within it, and the letters ΝΩ, or ΝΩΕ, written on the outside; and that these figures were intended to be a souvenir of the Deluge, which held a prominent place in the legends of Phrygia. It is said that the town of Apamea claimed to derive its secondary name of κιβωτός, or ark, from the fact that it was here that the ark rested; and it is quite possible that the spread of Christian ideas, gradually penetrating the Roman world, and filtering into the spirit even of those who remained attached to paganism, may have suggested the making of the coins we have described; but it is certain, on the other hand, that we can claim priority in point of time for the work of the Christian artists in the Catacombs. The coins were struck, as we have said, in the beginning of the third century; the earliest Christian painting of the same subject is assigned to the beginning of the second.

But whatever may be the history of the forms under which Noe and the ark are represented, there can be no question as to their meaning. We have the authority of St. Peter himself (1 iii. 20, 21) to instruct us upon this point; and Tertullian does but unfold what is virtually contained in the apostle’s words when he says that the ark prefigures the church, and that the dove sent out of the ark and returning with an olive-branch was a figure of the dove of the Holy Spirit, sent forth from heaven to our flesh, as it emerges from the bath of regeneration. And if we quote Tertullian again as our authority, this is not because he differs in these matters from other Christian writers who preceded or followed him, but because he has written at greater length and specially on that particular subject with which we are now engaged. St. Augustine, writing two hundred years later, gives the same explanation, and says that “no Catholic doubts it; but that it might perhaps have seemed to be a merely human imagination, had not the Apostle Peter expressly declared it.” It is, then, from no private fancy of our own, but simply in conformity with the teaching of all the ancient doctors of the church, that we interpret this scene of a man standing in an ark, and receiving an olive-branch from the mouth of a dove, as expressing this Christian doctrine: that the faithful obtain remission of their sins through baptism, receive from the Holy Spirit the gift of divine peace—that peace which, being given by faith in this world, is the gage of everlasting peace and happiness in the next—and are saved in the mystical ark of the church from the destruction which awaits the world. And if the same scene be rudely scratched on a single tomb, as it often was, and sometimes with the name of the deceased inscribed upon the chest, we can only understand it as denoting a sure and certain hope on the part of the survivors that their departed friend, having been a faithful member of the church, had died in the peace of God and had now entered into his rest.

We pass on to another of the Biblical stories mentioned by several of the Fathers as typical of baptism; and we will select as our specimen of it a painting that was executed about the very time that Tertullian was writing his treatise on that sacrament. It is to be seen more than once on the walls of a series of chambers which open out of a gallery in the Catacomb of San Callisto, not far from the papal crypt. The first figure that greets us from the wall on the left-hand side as we enter these chambers is Moses striking the rock and the water gushing forth. Are we to look upon this as a mere historic souvenir of the Jewish legislator, or are we to see in it a reference to Christian baptism? The artist in the present instance does not allow us to doubt. Side by side with it he has painted a fisherman, and we need not be reminded who it was that compared the work of the Christian apostle to that of fishermen; and immediately he adds, with still greater plainness of speech, a youth standing in the water, whilst a man pours water over his head. Finally, he fills the very little space that remains on the wall with the picture of a paralytic carrying his bed, and it would be easy to show that the Fathers recognized in the pool of Bethsaida, to which place this history belongs, a type of the healing waters of baptism. Was it possible for the Christian artist to set forth the sacrament more unequivocally? There is no legend to interpret the painting, but surely this is not needed. The mystery is veiled, indeed, from all who were uninstructed; but it was perfectly intelligible to all the baptized; it was veiled under types and symbols taken partly from the Old Law and partly from common life.

We need hardly say that this same figure of Moses striking the rock occurs in scores of other places throughout the Catacombs; but we have selected this particular specimen, both because it appears with a more copious entourage of other symbols determining its sense beyond all dispute, and also because it is here brought, as we shall presently see, into immediate proximity with the other sacrament, to which it is a necessary gate of introduction—the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. But before we pass on to examine the symbols of the Holy Eucharist, let us first inquire whether there is anything further about baptism to be gleaned from the Catacombs—not now from their paintings, but from their inscriptions.

We must remember that the most ancient inscriptions were very brief—very often the mere name of the deceased and nothing more, or a short ejaculatory prayer was added for his everlasting happiness. It is clear that we should search here in vain for any mention of the sacraments. By and by, when it became usual to say something more about the deceased, to mention his age and the date of his death or burial, or other similar particulars, perhaps room might be found also for saying something about his baptism. Accordingly, there are not wanting monuments of the fourth or fifth centuries which tell us that the deceased was a neophyte, or newly illuminated—which means the same thing: viz., that he had been lately baptized—or that he had lived so many months or years after he had received the initiatory sacrament of the Christian covenant. Occasionally, also, a faint reference may be found to another sacrament—the Sacrament of Confirmation. This was often, or even generally, administered in olden times immediately after baptism, of which it was considered the complement and perfection. “From time immemorial,” says Tertullian (ab immemorabili), “as soon as we have emerged from the bath [of regeneration] we are anointed with the holy unction.” Hence it is sometimes doubtful which sacrament is intended, or rather it is probable that it was intended to include both under the words inscribed on the epitaphs—the verbs accepit, percepit, consecutus est (the same as we find in the fathers of the same or an earlier age), used for the most part absolutely, without any object whatever following them; but in one or two cases fidem or gratiam sanctum are used. An epitaph of a child three years old adds: Consecuta est D. vi. Deposita viii. Kal. Aug. Another says simply: Pascasius percepit xi. Kal. Maias; and a third: Crescentia q. v. a. xxxiii. Accepit iii. Kal. Jul. A fourth records of a lady that she died at the age of thirty-five: Ex die acceptionis suæ vixit dies lvii.; to which we append another: Consecutus est ii. Non. Decemb. ex die consecutionis in sæculo fuit ad usque vii. Idas Decemb. This last inscription is taken from a Christian cemetery in Africa, not in Rome; but it was worth quoting for its exact conformity with the one which precedes it. In both alike there is the same distinction between the natural and the spiritual age of the deceased—i.e., between his first and his second birth. After stating the number of years he had lived in the world, his age is computed afresh from the day of his regeneration, thus marking off the length of his spiritual from that of his merely animal life.

A Greek inscription was found a few years since on the Via Latina, recording of a lady who had belonged to one of the Gnostic sects in the third century, that she had been “anointed in the baths of Christ with his pure and incorruptible ointment”—an inscription which probably refers to two separate rites in use among the Gnostics, in imitation of the two Christian sacraments. Of a Christian lady buried in Spoleto, her epitaph records that she had been confirmed (consignata) by Pope Liberius; this, of course, belongs to the middle of the fourth century. And we read of a boy who died when he was a little more than five years old: Bimus trimus consecutus est—words which were a veritable enigma to all antiquarians, until the learned Marini compared with them the phrases of Roman law, bima trima die dos reddita, bima trima die legatum solutum, and pointed out that as these phrases undoubtedly signified that such a portion of the dowry or legacy was paid in the second year, and such another portion in the third, so the corresponding words in the Christian epitaph could only mean that the deceased had received something when he was two years old, and something else when he was three; and although the particular gifts received are not mentioned because of the disciplina arcani, we can have no difficulty in supplying baptism and confirmation. De Rossi adopts this interpretation; indeed, it does not seem possible to suggest any other.

It seems, then, that there is not much evidence to be derived from the Catacombs as to the Sacrament of Confirmation; that, on the contrary, which has reference to the Holy Eucharist is most precious and abundant, and it is generally to be found in juxtaposition with monuments which bear testimony to the Sacrament of Baptism. The chamber in the crypt of Lucina which gives us the oldest painting of the baptism of our Lord gives us also what are probably the oldest symbolical representations of the Holy Eucharist; and certainly the chambers in the cemetery of San Callisto, in which we have just seen so many and such clear manifestations of the Sacrament of Baptism, contain also the most numerous and the most perfect specimens of the symbolic representations of the Holy Eucharist carried to their highest degree of development, yet still combined with mysterious secrecy. Before enumerating these in detail it will be best to make two or three preliminary remarks helping to clear the way before us. First, then, we may assume as known to all our readers, both that the doctrine about the Blessed Sacrament belonged in a very special way to the discipline of the secret, and also that from the very earliest times one of the most common names under which our Blessed Lord was spoken of was the fish, because the letters which go to make up that word in Greek were also the initials of the words Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. And, secondly, we must say a few words about the different circumstances under which a fish appears in the artistic decorations of the Catacombs; at least, of the different kinds of feasts or entertainments in which it seems to be presented as an article of food. These feasts may be divided into three classes: First, the fish merely lies upon a table—a sacred table or tripod—with one or more loaves of bread by its side, and not unfrequently with several baskets full of bread on the ground around it; secondly, bread and fish are seen on a table, at which seven men are seated partaking of a meal; and, thirdly, they are seen, perhaps with other viands also, at a feast of which men and women are partaking indiscriminately, and perhaps attendants also are there, waiting on the guests, pouring out wine and water, hot or cold. Paintings of this latter class have not uncommonly been taken as representing the agapæ, or love-feasts, of the early church. But this seems to be too literal an interpretation, too much out of harmony with the symbolical character of early Christian art. More probably it was meant as a representation of that wedding-feast under which image the joys of heaven are so often set forth in Holy Scripture; and in this case it is not necessary to suppose that there was any special meaning in the choice of fish as part of the food provided, unless, indeed (which is not at all improbable), it was desired to direct attention to that mystical food a participation in which was the surest pledge of admission to that heavenly banquet, according to our Lord’s own words: “He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.” However, it is not necessary, as we have said, to suppose this; it is quite possible that in these instances the fish may have been used accidentally, as it were, and indifferently, or for the same reason as it sometimes appears on pagan monuments—viz., to denote the abundance and excellence of the entertainment.

Paintings of the first class, however, are much too peculiar to be thus explained, neither is there anything resembling them in the works of pagan artists which could have suggested them; and those of the second class, we hope presently to show, can only have been intended to represent a particular scene in the Gospel history. It is only with paintings belonging to one or other of these two classes that we need concern ourselves to-day. And, first, of the bread and fish when placed alone, without any guests at all. In the crypt of Lucina it appears twice on the wall opposite our Lord’s baptism, and in a very remarkable form indeed. The fish is alive and apparently swimming, and he carries on his back a basket full of loaves, in the middle of which is a vessel of glass containing some red liquid. What can this mean? Nobody ever saw anything like it in nature. We know of nothing in pagan art or mythology which could have suggested it. Yet here it finds a place in the chamber of a Christian cemetery, and as part of a system of decoration, other parts of which were undoubtedly of a sacred character. Is this alone profane or meaningless, or does not rather its hidden sense shine forth distinctly as soon as we call to mind the use of the fish as a Christian symbol on the one hand, and the Christian doctrine about the Holy Eucharist on the other? The fish was Christ. And he once took bread and broke it, and said, This is my body; and he took wine and blessed it, saying, This is my blood; and he appointed this to be an everlasting ordinance in his church, and promised that whosoever should eat of that bread and drink of that chalice should inherit everlasting life. Here are the bread and the wine and the mystical fish. And was it possible for Christian eyes to attach any other meaning to the combination than that it was intended to bring before them the remembrance of the Christian mysteries, whereby death and the grave were robbed of all their gloom, being only the appointed means of entrance to a never-ending life? If anybody is tempted to object that the vessels here represented as containing the bread and wine are too mean ever to have been used for such a purpose, we must remind him that it had already been put on record by archæologists, before the discovery of this monument, that the early Christians in the days of poverty and persecution continued to use vessels of the same humble materials as had been used in the sacrificial rites of Jews and Gentiles before them, and that these were precisely such as are here represented. Nay, further still, that even when vessels of gold and silver had come into use in the church, still there were exceptional times and circumstances when it was lawful, and even praiseworthy, to return to the more simple and ancient practice. St. Jerome praises St. Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse in his day, because, having sold the church-plate to relieve the pressing necessities of the poor, he was content to carry the body of Christ in a basket made of wicker-work, and the blood of Christ in a chalice of glass. Most assuredly St. Jerome would have been at no loss to interpret the painting before us.

But let us now pass on into the cemetery of San Callisto, and enter again the chamber in which we saw Moses, and the fishermen, and the ministration of baptism, and the paralytic. Let us pursue our walk round the chamber, and immediately after the paralytic, on the wall facing the doorway, we come to the painting of a three-legged table with bread and fish upon it, a woman standing on one side in the ancient attitude of Christian prayer, and a man on the other stretching out his hands over the fish and the bread, as though he were blessing them. Can it be that we have here the act of consecration of the Holy Eucharist, as in the adjacent wall we had the act of baptizing, only in a somewhat more hidden manner, as became the surpassing dignity of the greater mystery? Nobody, we think, would ever have disputed it, had the dress of the consecrator been somewhat more suited to such an action. But his breast and arm and one side of his body are considerably exposed, as he stretches out his arm from underneath his cloak; and modern taste takes exception to the exposure as unseemly in such a time and place. We have no wish to put a weapon into the hands of the anti-ritualistic party. Nevertheless, we believe that it is pretty well ascertained that at first no vestment was exclusively appropriated to the celebration of Mass. We are not sure that Dean Stanley was in error when he wrote the other day that St. Martin, the Apostle of Gaul and first Bishop of Tours, wore a sheepskin when he officiated, and that “he consecrated the Eucharistic elements with his bare arms coming through the sheepskin.” And at any rate it is certain that in the days of Tertullian, to which the picture before us belongs, many ministers of Christ’s word and sacraments used the pallium as the dress most suitable to their own profession. The writer we have named published a short treatise on the subject, in which, with his usual wit and subtlety, he commends its use, and he concludes with these words: “Rejoice, O Pallium! and exult; a better philosophy claims thee now, since thou hast become the vestment of a Christian.” Forty years later a fellow-countryman of this writer, St. Cyprian, expressed a strong objection to the dress, both as immodest in itself and vainglorious in its signification. Thus everything conspires to support the interpretation which the picture itself suggests and the age to which it has been assigned; and we conclude with confidence that those who first saw it never doubted that it was meant to set before them the most solemn mystery of their religion.

They would have recognized the same mystery again without hesitation, under another form, in the painting which follows immediately afterwards, in which seven men are seen seated at a table, partaking of bread and fish. Our own thoughts, as we look at it, fly naturally to the last chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, where such an incident as this is minutely described after the miraculous draught of fishes which was the occasion of it. But unless we are very familiar with the writings of the Fathers, our thoughts would probably go no further; they would rest in the mere letter of the narrative; we should not penetrate beneath the surface, and see (as all the Fathers saw), in every circumstance related, a prophetic figure of the whole history of the church: first, the immense number of souls caught in her net, then the union of those souls with Christ, “the fish that was already laid on the hot coals” (Piscis assus, Christus passus), their incorporation with him through partaking of that living Bread which came down from heaven, and consequently their sure hope of abiding with him for ever in the world to come. This is no private or modern interpretation; it is drawn out at greatest length by St. Augustine; but it is to be found also in all other patristic commentaries on Holy Scripture; and the marvellous unity, not only in dogmatic teaching, but even in the use of allegories and artistic symbols, which reached from east to west in the ancient church, warrants us in assuming that it was not unknown to him who selected this scene as the central piece of decoration for the principal wall of this chamber.

Next after it he painted Abraham with his son Isaac, the ram, and the faggot for the sacrifice—a type both of the sacrifice on Mount Calvary and (in a yet more lively manner) of the unbloody sacrifice still perpetually renewed on Christian altars.

Thus there is the most exact similitude between the illustrations used to set forth the Holy Eucharist on the one wall and those of holy baptism on the other. Both sacraments are at the same time veiled from unbelievers, yet indicated to the faithful, by types taken from the history of the Old Law, by incidents belonging to the life of Christ, and by representations, sufficiently simple yet obscure, of the actual manner of their administration. And then the last wall was reserved for the setting forth of our resurrection, in the example of Lazarus, which was, in truth, the natural end and completion of all that the sacraments led to.

We have not left ourselves space to speak at length of the miracles of changing water into wine, or the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, as other figures of the Holy Eucharist often to be seen in the Catacombs. That they were painted there in this sense we cannot doubt, when we consider how they were connected with that sacrament in the sermons and catechetical instructions of the early church. In the first miracle the substance of water was changed into the substance of wine; in the second a limited substance was, by Christ’s power, so multiplied as to be made present in a thousand places at once, capable of feeding a thousand persons, whereas a minute before it had been only present in one place and was sufficient only to satisfy the appetite of one. The analogy is obvious; but these miracles do not seem to have entered so early into the system of decoration of the Catacombs (except in a very fragmentary and indirect manner), neither do they anywhere enter into so long and beautiful a series of mystical figures, as those others which we have been just now examining. Those form a series of rare and very special interest. They are repeated, as we have already said, in several successive chambers, whose date can be determined, by a number of concurrent indications, as not later than the first quarter of the third century. In these chambers the same histories and the same symbols are repeated in the same style, freely changed in their arrangement and in some accessories of the composition, yet constant in their hidden meaning and theological sense; and that sense is briefly this: the idea of a new life imparted to the Christian soul by baptism, fed by the Holy Eucharist, and continued uninterruptedly throughout eternity.

TWO MAY CAROLS.
BY AUBREY DE VERE.

DARKNESS.

The authentic Thought of God at last

Wanes, dimly seen, through Error’s mist:

Upon that mist, man’s image cast

Becomes the new God-Mechanist.

The vast Idea shrivels up:

Truth narrows with the narrowing soul:

Men sip it from the acorn’s cup:

Their fathers drained the golden bowl.

Shrink, spelled and dwarfed, their earth, their skies;

Shrinks in their hand their measuring-rod;

With dim, yet microscopic eyes

They chase a daily-dwindling God.

His temple thus to crypt reduced,

For ancient faith is space no more,

Or her, its Queen.[^[32]] To hearts abused

By sense, prime truths are true no more.

LIGHT.

The spirit intricately wise

That bends above his ciphered scroll

Only to probe, and analyze,

The self-involved and sunless soul,

Has not the truth he holds—though plain;

For truth divine is gift, not debt:—

Her living waters wouldst thou drain?

Let down the pitcher, not the net!

But they, the spirits frank and meek,

Nor housed in self, nor science-blind,

Who welcome truths they did not seek;—

Truth comes to them in every wind.

Beside his tent’s still open door,

With open heart, and open eye,

The patriarch sat, when they who wore

That triad type of God drew nigh.

The world of faith around us lies

Like nature’s world of life and growth:

Seeing, to see it needeth eyes

And heart, profound and simple both.

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.
FROM THE FRENCH.

November 16, 1869.

Thérèse has followed her sister.... At the last moment reason returned; she looked at her mother and said: “Here is Mad; give me your blessing!” O my God! it is, then, true—the nest is empty.

Kate, how are Berthe and Raoul to be consoled?

November 22, 1869.

Margaret is here again—a ray of sunshine after the storm, in this dwelling, twice visited by death. Oh! how we wept in embracing her. And with what affection she hastened to Berthe, this devastated, disinherited, wounded, and bleeding heart! “How shall we leave this cemetery now?” said my mother to Gertrude. Oh! I would wish to remain here with her. To return to Orleans, to find their traces everywhere, would be too much grief. What a crushing blow! What incredible, unforeseen suddenness! It is enough to take away one’s reason. Raoul speaks no more, hears no more, sees no more; Berthe is in tears: we have to console and support them. Help us with your prayers, happy Kate, who witness no death! In the middle of the park are two trees which Raoul planted on the day his daughters were born. They are to be transplanted to their tombs. Dear children, so united, so beautiful, and inseparable, even in death! O the mother! what sorrow is hers. Ought children to die before their mother?

Mme. de T—— is heroic in self-denial, and yet these deaths revive all her troubles. Ah! who could have foretold that my happiness would so soon have declined, and that God would so quickly have claimed his portion of our treasure! See, here are Gertrude and Berthe—two mothers without children: Ellen and Edith in eternity; Marcella at Naples. I now experience an indescribable apprehension, and count the beloved heads by which I am still surrounded.... I remember the L—— family, carried off in one year.

A radiant letter from Marcella, who does not yet know of our mourning. Beati qui lugent! Let us love God, let us love God!

It is in him that I cherish you, my Kate.

November 28, 1869.

All our Ireland in letters of fraternal condolence. The saintly Isa speaks to me sweetly of the happiness of the souls thus called away, and exhorts me to perfect love. Lizzy invites me to cross the Channel to receive the consolations of those whom I consoled formerly. Sarah and the others comfort me in our beloved tongue. O Kate! it was so beautiful, our peaceful home, with its assembly of children and grandchildren, forming, as it were, a glorious crown around my venerated mother; and now a void has been made, the birds have spread their wings, and, like the dove from the ark, return no more.

O charming towers, silent witnesses of our happiness! O vast sea, coming to murmur at our feet! O flowers they loved! O thickets where their voices, fresh and pure, resounded! O lawn whereon they tried their earliest steps; dear abode which witnessed their growth! O forests through which they sped along, lively and swift of foot, in chase of butterflies or of their favorite dog! O solitary paths which they so often traversed to go and lavish on the poor their gold and their love!—speak to us of them, and of them always.

Dear Kate, pray for the desolate parents. “All my future has vanished,” says Berthe. May God be with her! Everything else is very small in trials so great as these. My mother begs you to ask for fifty Masses at Fourvières; we have not the strength to write.

Life, the sunshine, and blue sky—all have disappeared. Adieu, dear sister.

December 5, 1869.

Adrien is reading to us Herminie de la Bassemoûturie, a true narrative of a life of suffering and humiliation, borne with a courage so heroic and supernatural that one’s heart kindles at it. Margaret is going away, perhaps to-morrow. On the 30th Heaven sent Lucy a dear little daughter, who was baptized yesterday without any pomp. Gertrude was godmother, and the godfather is a brother of my pretty sister’s. They have called this little daughter of Brittany Anne—a good name.

Dec. 6.—I have just returned from accompanying our friends as far as to D——. Emmanuel continued to send me kisses while the carriage went slowly away.... Dear Margaret! how much I regret her. Everybody loves her, wherever she goes. Now we are alone.... Johanna, Paul, and their children leave us this evening to spend some months at Paris. I never tell you about Arthur and Edward, whose vacation is over, and who are very good friends together. The abbé remains with us, that we may not be deprived of daily Mass. From henceforth follow me in thought into the great drawing-room, once so bright with the dear young creatures whom I so loved, and there you will see, in her large easy-chair, my mother, whom grief has aged, with your Georgina on a low chair at her feet. Gertrude, with needlework in her hands, occupies the other side of the fire-place, Berthe is near her, then Adrien, René, Raoul, Edouard, and the abbé round the table, near which is seated also the charming Lucy.

But a ray from on high pierces the sombre veils: our dear ones see God; they contemplate him in eternal ecstasy. I had bought at Orleans a poetic little picture—a lily broken on earth, which flowered again in heaven—and underneath it a verse of the beautiful lines by Mlle. Fleuriot on the death of Alix. How this lily recalls Picciola to my mind! René is working at a miniature which he intends to give to Berthe: in the foreground the twins are embracing a poor old man; in the distance are two lilies on a tomb and two doves taking flight. I am continuing the History of the Popes; it will be for Marguerite and Alix.

How I wish you were here! My heart aches for Berthe, formerly so happy, and so lonely now. Ah! what burning tears are those that spring from the hearts of mothers when God takes back from them the precious ones lent them for a day. O remediless grief, deep void, unfathomable abyss!

Yes, we shall remain in Brittany. The noise of the festivities of this world would be to us a martyrdom; but I am athirst for my Kate, and it seems as if I shall be stronger when her gentle hand has laid balm upon my wounds. René and I will be in Paris on the 23d for a few days.

Mistress Annah shed many tears at the moment of leave-taking. Margaret was pale and greatly moved; why should there be any separations, sister? Ah! doubtless because earth would be too delightful. May God be always with you!

December 12, 1869.

Do you know that Overbeck is dead? Edith MacMoor sends me long and interesting details from Rome. Edith has taken up her abode in the city which is the fatherland of Catholics, and her old sympathy with me, she says, has reawakened before the Sibyls. Dear, ardent soul, always so amiable! O our artist, so beloved, so admired! The world is no more anything to me but a Campo Santo.

Have you heard of the Pearl of Antioch? I am reading this Christian romance with René.

On the 8th we observed as a special festival the opening of the great sittings of this Council which will crown with a new glory the reign of Pius IX. Our life is quite monastic: no more joyous laughter rings along the corridors; silence—the “first power in the world,” as the Père Lacordaire called it—dwells with us. We are in mourning for our beloved children, and these dark dresses are of a solemn sadness which strikes our visitors. Every day, no matter what the weather may be, René accompanies me to the cemetery. In spite of the cold, there are flowers, and this marble is almost joyous. The Revue gives an interesting story—“Laurence,” an account of a young girl who wished to die because her sister, on whom she lavished all her love, had departed to heaven. I do not think that Thérèse wished for death, but think rather that Picciola asked of God that she might share her felicity.

Lucy is well, and thanks you for your sisterly prayers. We are expecting news from Margaret and Marcella. Mary and Ellen write regularly to Berthe and to me. Good and kind hearts, full of gentleness and affection!

Kate dearest, what do you say to my idea?—the adoption of these children would console my sister. Would it be well to propose it to her?

I find René changed. Pray for us.

December 15, 1869.

Margaret sends me her Journal since the departure, every line of which is redolent of poetry and affection. Emmanuel is hourly asking for us. Marcella sends me pages bathed with tears: “Why did you allow me to go away, dear and generous friend? I feel that your soul would have taken refuge with mine in these sad days.”

Kate, what, then, is happiness, since it lasts so short a time?

Marcella is going to spend the winter at Rome; Anna continues to grow both taller and stronger, “but the departure of her friends makes her wish for heaven, and everything gives me the presentiment that in a few years my beloved one will enter a convent. You will scold me for thinking this so long beforehand, but you will agree with me that her piety is beyond what is ordinary. I have so unlearnt happiness that I live always in uncertainty.” A friend of Adrien’s tells him of the reception given at Naples to the happy family party: Mme. de V—— is allied to the Princess of X——. How fair a future has opened before my friend! “To return to Rome, where so many of my memories linger, was my earnest desire; blessed be God, who permits it to be realized!”

René is writing to you. Good-by for to-day, dearest sister!

December 18, 1869.

Read an admirable pastoral letter by Mgr. Berthaud. “It is a fountain of living water, a springing fountain,” writes Louis Veuillot, who has the happiness to be in Rome.

Berthe yields to the entreaties of her mother, who begs her to go to her in her old castle on the banks of the Rhine. Lucy is going away at the same time to show her sisters the beautiful little Anna, her rosebud. I look forward with fear to the feeling of solitude which will seize upon us after they are gone. O my God! these will all return, but thou keepest thine angels.

The happy Karl sends the most fraternal letters that he has ever yet addressed to me. He is now in retreat, almost ready to mount the steps of the altar and accomplish Ellen’s last desire. “I am never lonely,” he writes. What ardor consumes him! How he burns to shed his blood for Christ! “My whole soul springs forth towards those disinherited souls who know not God! If you still take an interest in your unworthy brother, wish for him crosses, trials, sorrows, and persecutions. But I am not worthy to participate in the Passion of my Redeemer, and it may be that my cross may be the burden of a useless life.” Saintly friend! noble heart! His director, who is a relative of our good abbé, never wearies in his praises of Karl. According to all probability, he will set out for Marseilles the day after his ordination, where the first ship that sails will take him on board. What am I, my God, by the side of this brother left me by Ellen?

I am coming to see you, dear Kate, to refresh myself with you—a too rapid apparition, too fleeting a happiness, and one in which I scarcely can believe.

December 22, 1869.

Dear Kate, this sacrifice must also be made. Yesterday a frightful accident threw us all into the greatest agitation. My mother’s horses ran away. The footman, losing all presence of mind with terror, leaped down and was killed by the fall. He was taken up quite mutilated.... Horrible! horrible! My mother has fever; we remain. The unfortunate Antoine will be buried to-morrow morning. He leaves three children. He was an excellent Christian, and was preparing to make his Christmas communion.... I am writing to Karl, and at the same time to the venerable superior to obtain permission for our friend to give us one or two days previous to quitting France and Europe.

My mother was coming back from the town, whither we had all gone to take those of our party who were leaving. René and I were to have taken our departure this evening. All in this world is nothingness, except the pure and holy love of God. I had so set my mind on this journey that I can only give it up by doing violence to my heart. But if the shock my mother has undergone should bring on an illness, I should never forgive myself for having gone away.

Pray, dear Kate!

December 25, 1869.

My mother is better, dear sister, although the doctor condemns her still to repose. The good curé is very unwell, and, since my mother would not have been able to attend the midnight Mass, the abbé offered to say it at the parish church. Ah! if the twins had been here. We left the house at ten. What a night! What impressions! In a clear and calm night, with the sky spangled with thousands of stars, to go through hedge-bordered paths to this old Breton church, so vast and so full; the singing, the sounds of the organ played by René, the Gloria in Excelsis, so sweet and grand, the numerous communions, the dimly-lighted sanctuary—all these things had about them an indescribable old-world poetry, a certain interior and heavenly charm, which made me ask if we were not at Bethlehem, and if we were not suddenly about to behold with our bodily eyes, like the shepherds, the adorable new-born Saviour in the manger. “The Cedar of Lebanon is gone forth from the hyssop in our valley.” Lord Jesus, grant thy blessing upon France!

It is two years to-day since Ellen entered into glory. With what ecstasy she must behold Karl at the altar! Dear Kate, I know not what atmosphere is surrounding me, but it seems to me that every sorrow brings me nearer to God.

My mother was visibly affected on reading your kind lines; how she loves us! Gertrude is more saintly than ever; her self-denial is increasing. She has owned to me that she never loses the presence of God. We five form a severe group, in which the highest questions are discussed. Gertrude is on fire when she speaks of charity. There is no sort of mortification in which she does not take delight; how I startled her yesterday by coming suddenly upon her as she was exchanging her shoes for those of a beggar! She fasted on bread and water the three last days of Advent, and has asked me if I would go with her barefoot to the crucifix on the mountain, the path to which is covered with brambles. You see she is a worthy imitator of the Acta Sanctorum.

A Dieu, best beloved!

December 28, 1869.

Karl arrives on the 31st. Dear Kate, his letter showed me heaven. Good news of everybody, and my mother is in the drawing-room. So the year is about to end—this year, so eventful, and so plentiful in tears! O my God! how many loving looks follow me no more. In my meditation this morning I asked myself whether I am yet submissive and resigned. Alas! I truly wish whatever God wills, but I am weak.

Just now two little birds came and perched on my window, fluttering as if wanting to come in. I opened it gently and crumbled a cake for them, and the pretty little hungry creatures pecked up the crumbs gladly. Then they flew away, and I began to think of the two sweet birds which, almost before we were aware, have flown away also. I was so proud of this beautiful family, so happy to belong to it! Oh! you know well, Kate, that it is above all for the sake of the poor father, the sorrowing mother, that I regret these two attractive creatures! Raoul writes that Berthe is more calm, and he thinks she will remain some time where she is. What an image of death is this silence and the solitude that now surrounds us! I work hard, take long walks, teach two little boys their catechism, and yet, in spite of everything, as soon as René is no longer there, as soon as I recall the past, my heart is ready to break.

“Take care, my dear daughter,” my mother says to me. “Strengthen your soul; throw yourself upon God.” And Gertrude: “The thought of God softens everything. He has permitted it—let us submit; let us live in heaven.”

Would that we could go thither together, dear sister!

Accept all my best wishes for the New Year—wishes for every day and every hour, for your earthly and eternal happiness.

January 5, 1870.

Dear Kate, how good God is! This is the cry of my heart, crushed beneath the weight of its gratitude. Karl has been our Good Samaritan. If Berthe and Raoul could only hear him! What unction in his words!

He made his appearance like the angel of Providence amongst us. It was in the evening. René had gone to wait for him; we had heard no noise, when the door opened.... It was he! There was a moment of emotion and tears, and when he consented to bless us, and I saw him in the light, I understood the words of Gertrude: “He has found true happiness.” Then his Mass the next day, the Communion, and Thanksgiving said aloud, the chanting of the Magnificat and of the Lætatus—it was heaven. This impression still remains; thanks to a concurrence of circumstances in which I perceive the intervention of our good angels, the newly elect of the priesthood remains with us until the 20th—an unhoped-for and most precious favor. Alas! shall we see him again?

He has given me a little book which he had kept by permission of his superior; you are aware that this generous Karl despoiled himself of everything before giving himself also to God. This Basket of Eucharistic Flowers is full of sweetness to my heart. I find in it some verses on Picciola—not mine, but the flower—and the heavenly utterances of the pious Marie Jenna, my favorite poetess. Listen to this:

“Oui, cette vie en larmes est féconde;

J’ai peu vécu, j’ai déjà bien souffert.

Mon Dieu, j’ai soif, et les routes du monde

Ne me sont rien qu’une aride désert.

Mais à tes pieds mon âme se repose.

O tendre Ami, Divin Consolateur,

Qu’importe à moi de perdre toute chose,

Si je te garde, amour de mon Sauveur!”[^[33]]

And this cry of the soul:

“Jesus, pour seul bonheur, ah! donnez-moi des larmes

Que vous consolerez.”[^[34]]

January 10, 1870.

Karl has spoken to me much of you, dear sister. He wishes that his last sculpture in Europe should be for our chapel: René and his brothers have for some time past been working at a pulpit; the principal figure will be our missionary’s work. He has consented to let me prepare his baggage. Kate, I was complaining of our solitude, and now it has become sweet to me, because I love God more. Oh! what a blessing to the soul it is to love.

I am slipping these few words in with René’s, and send you a thousand loving messages.

January 14, 1870.

Impossible not to give you the history of our day, although it is very late. I wished to go to Auray with Karl, and my mother felt strong enough to go with us. On the way we met with a German, poor as Job, a true disciple of Luther, his Bible in his hand. His gentle and melancholy air interested us. We entered into conversation with him, Karl preached to him, he came with us to Auray, and when we came out of the church he told us that his mother was a Catholic, that the sight of our fervor had touched him, etc., etc. In short, we brought him back with us to the château, and Karl is going to catechise him and finish his conversion. You see the good Saint Anne has indeed had a hand in this. Is it not a charming episode?

15th.—Letters: 1st, Margaret, who sends you her heartful of good wishes; 2d, Marcella, with the chronicle of the Council and the account of an audience with the Holy Father; 3d, Lizzy, who wants to make me admire her Daniel; 4th, Lucy, who is impatient to come back, because her pretty Anne cannot be happy without us, says our amiable sister; 5th, my Kate. I mention all in chronological order; you know very well that you are first in order of affection. But how short it is, dearest! Tell me soon the reason of this brevity; you must have so much to say!

A Dieu, my dearest Kate. All and each of the happy inhabitants of my Brittany offer you their homage and respect.

January 19, 1870.

Well, dearest, he leaves us to-morrow—this friend, this good brother and generous priest. Our German is converted, but for reasons of prudence the baptism is deferred. The worthy man does not wish to quit us, and does his utmost to render himself useful. He is passionately fond of music, and teaches it to our pastors, who in return strengthen him (as he says) in the catechism. How sadly we shall miss Karl! But then, souls, souls! Ah! I would not keep him back, even if I could.

I have had a strange dream. I was with you in your cell. You seemed to be asleep; I spoke to you, but you did not answer me. I went to kiss you, and in this kiss I felt so strange a thrill, as if your beautiful face had been of marble, that I woke, crying out in a manner which alarmed René. It is in vain that I say to myself again and again that it is but a dream; the impression remains—a profound terror, and an anguish which oppresses my heart. Write to me; reassure me, dear Kate. I have lost faith in happiness. What am I saying? So long as I belong to God, and nothing can separate me from him, shall I not have the only happiness worthy of the name?

Karl promises to write to us. He is going to China, that literary country, where barbarism and civilization are so strangely mingled. My mother, the Adriens, and we are putting together our savings to give them to the dear missionary, that with them he may have more facilities in his work of gaining souls. How I bless fortune on these occasions!

A thousand lovingnesses, dear sister—the dearest of sisters.

January 26, 1870.

We accompanied Karl to his ship, which I visited, and which we saw start on her voyage. Thus he is now between sea and sky, exposed to tempests. Oh! “how beautiful are the feet of those” who have left all—family, friends, country, repose, comforts, enjoyments—to go in search of the lost sheep. It seems to me that the angels of faith and love must spread their wings over the vessel and keep far away all contrary winds.... We seem as if impregnated with sanctity. Grief is a powerful lever to raise one to God and to transform souls!

You do not write. René is uneasy and tries in vain to conceal his anxiety from me. Did you receive his letter of the 24th? Dear Kate, if you are ill, send one word and we will hasten to you. O my God! Ill! You! Could it be possible? That terrible dream is always before my eyes. You will scold me, dearest.... Remember that for some months past I have suffered so much that even the thought of a misfortune overwhelms me.

Oh! may God guard you, darling Kate, my sister, my soul. Take care of yourself for the love of me.

My mother entreats you to write; she suffers on account of my anxiety. My God! grant that that may have been only a dream.

January 29, 1870.

Still nothing; perhaps your letter is lost.... May God protect you! The Univers pleases me. Mgr. Berthaud has had a triumph at Sant’ Andrea della Valle—the dear church where we have prayed. “His imagery is rich and abundant,” writes Louis Veuillot, “because his faith keeps alive in him a perpetual enthusiasm for the works, the mercies, and the love of God. His thoughts are an endless song. What he says he sees; what he sees he admires and adores. External things, enveloped and, as it were, transpierced by the rays of the divine Sun, appear to him as magnificent as he describes them to be. Things are the works of God; men are the children of God, divinities in flower, called by their adoption to the ineffable glory of the divine union. As soon as they are in their way, their vocation, their order, their accidental defects are effaced; there is no more ugliness, there are no more rags, no more miseries—all is already transfigured, already at the attainment of its end, and the lyre, vibrating to the touch of a sacred enthusiasm, gives forth sounds at once vehement and sublime.”

What eulogy! What style!

Mgr. Mermillod made a magnificent discourse at Saint Louis des Français, on the perpetuation in the church of the Gospel scene of the Magi. “The action of God in the world, the redemption of souls, the perpetuity and definition of the truth, all repose upon these three great weaknesses: a Child at Bethlehem, a Host in the tabernacle, an aged man at the Vatican.”

Kate dearest, I admire, but nothing dispels my preoccupation, the dominant note of my thoughts—you! yourself! Why this silence? I must know it! Write to me; I am suffering....

January 31, 1870.

It is here, on my writing-table, this white page on which you have traced but one word.... “It was not a dream!” We start at once; this note will precede us by a few hours. Oh! live for me, my beloved sister; ask God to cure you.

My God, I have so often prayed thee to preserve her to me—to let her live as long as I!

---

JOURNAL OF GEORGINA AFTER HER SISTER’S DEATH.

February 15, 1870.

O amare! O perire tibi!

O advenire ad Deum!

Still would I write to you, beloved sister who have left me! Oh! can this be possible? You, my Guardian Angel! It is in heaven that I now look for you, that I now behold you—in heaven, your true home—in heaven, where you have found again our mother. O my God! my God! Always shall I remember this last journey, of which you were the object; the anguish on the way, the haste to arrive, the chill that fell on my heart at the gate of the convent. Oh! you knew that I could not bear to see you suffer; and then, perhaps, you might think you would recover, for I cannot believe that you desired to die.... Ah! to see you dying; to embrace you, watch by you, hear the last effusions of that tenderness to which my mother had bequeathed me; to see this flame, which was my life, die out, and yet not die myself—Kate, Kate, I can think only, speak only, of you!

I have been very ill. I feel weak, very weak—almost discouraged to live. Tell me that you are not gone away; soul of my sister, speak to my soul! Oh! how it seems to me as if I had lost everything. You it was who gave so great an interest to my life, animating everything with your affection. And now....

February 28.

Dear Kate, obtain strength for me. I desire to live for René. Why did you not stay with us, my beloved? I have bitter regrets.... I should have wished to nurse you, to keep you here. O foolishness of love! what right have I to wish to keep you from your own country? Dear sister, the correspondence which was my daily delight must not end: I will write my journal for you. God, who is so good, even when he separates two hearts which were one, could not refuse anything to his elect. Ask him, then, my sister, that you may every day come to me, if even only for an instant. Oh! would that I could see you. It seems to me that with you all died; that nothing more will ever in this world smile on me, that the eternal mourning of my soul can never more be comforted. Our friends write to me. Margaret and Marcella weep with me. My mother, Adrien, Gertrude, and René are full of unspeakable tenderness and solicitude towards me; and yet I have scarcely any response to make them but my tears. All is night around me: the Sun has set.

Oh! speak to me, Kate—only one word, one vibration of your dear voice, one of your smiles. Is it true, my God, that for twenty-five days past this face so dearly loved has been covered with a shroud?

Is it true? Has death indeed come between us? Had we not enough of absence and of separation, that other mourning of the soul? I still hear her last word.... Oh! who will give me back my past joys, fled away, and the affection which enfolded all?

Adrien is reading me the Beatitudes, by Mgr. Landriot. There are some admirable conferences on the divine words, Beati qui lugent. “There are,” says the Père Lacordaire, “tears in all the universe; and they are so natural to us that even if they had no cause, they would flow without cause, solely from the charm of that ineffable sadness of which our soul is the deep and mysterious well.” Again: “Melancholy is the great queen of highly sensitive souls; she touches them without their knowing how or why, in a secret and unexpected moment. The ray of light which gladdens others brings veils to them; the festive rejoicing which moves and delights others pierces them with an arrow. It is with much difficulty that God and our Lord can scatter from the heart which loves them these vain and chilling clouds; the suffering is so much the more difficult to vanquish from having a less real cause.”

Oh! the cause of my sorrow, can I forget it? Kate, obtain strength for me. How truly I feel you present!

March 5.

We are come back to Brittany. They say that I have become a mere shadow. Kate dearest, I wish to be courageous, but my poor human nature gives way on this Calvary. O my memories! They are a golden book in which I read every hour, in which every leaflet recalls my other self, her devotedness and love. Your papers have been given to me—the private pages which God alone has read with me. How you have loved me! Dearest, I weep no more, except over myself. You were hungering for heaven, as were Mad and Thérèse, Ellen and Edith. Oh! gone—you also, you my guardian angel!

I wanted to write, to relieve myself a little; my heart swelled, and I could do nothing but sob. I have fearful moments. Oh! speak to me, Kate. Last night I seemed to witness your death again. Oh! those eyes, those eyes which I almost worshipped—I had to close them. Kate, what is happiness? Mine has fled away like a cloud, and I seek after it in vain.

I know that you are happy, and yet my selfishness grieves. Pray for your Georgina!

March 8.

Strange blindness of heart! You were to me so sweet, so infinitely precious, that the thought of an adieu without ever meeting here again had never occurred to me.

You were six years old when you imprinted your first kiss on the brow of your Georgina. Our most distant memories show me your beloved image. You never left me; the sight of you was a talisman that stopped my tears; your voice taught me my first baby-words. Oh! this union of ours from the very cradle was my mother’s pride—this mother, so beloved and so beautiful, who saw herself over again in you. You did not know that you were fair; you early disdained earthly frivolities; and how much it must have cost you, later, to remain in the world for me!

Everywhere you were surrounded by sympathy and respect; your sisterly devotion made you an aureole. Kate, who was like you?

Tell me that you hear me, that you see me every day. How shall I live without you? A great void has been made in me; my heart is like a desert. Ah! I loved you too well, and our God is a jealous God.

I adore his will, and, in spite of my inexpressible desolation, I kiss his divine hand beneath the blow which overwhelms me. I desire to become truly your sister by sacrifice and love.

Help me! I know not how to climb up Calvary!

March 10.

No, I cannot believe that it is at an end; that I have no more a sister. At times I believe myself to be under the influence of a nightmare. My black dress—this sombre vestment which made me afraid—is become dear to me since I wear it for you; but ... what faintings of heart! In what an ocean of grief my soul is plunged!

To-day I wished to go out and visit my poor; my strength failed. Kate, sorrow is killing me.

March 12.

An unexpected consolation—a visit from the Père de G—-. His touching, penetrating words roused me. Pardon me, Kate! I was cowardly. God forbids not tears, but he forbids despair. Alas! formerly I comforted others, and now I am unwilling to accept any solace in my trouble; I wish for no truce to my regret. Oh! be happy, soul of my sister. Obtain for me grace to love much, more than ever, all who suffer, all the elect of misfortune. The gentle Abbé Perreyve used to say: “The greater part of souls would remain closed to other souls, if they had not suffered; trial bruises them, and compels them to shed around them floods of love.”

I loved them already—these dear poor of the good God! But I feel that my time belongs to them, that I owe myself also to those who love me, and that it remains to me to pray and suffer while I love.

Help me, dear Kate, help me!

March 15.

How kind René is, dear Kate, and how fraternal! He understands my wish to write to you still, to continue my life so violently cut in twain, and unceasingly to speak to you. I am stronger, but not yet resigned. Can one be resigned to such a loss?

I saw yesterday a young girl whom Gertrude knows, and who has opened her heart to me as to a friend. With what ardor of desire she dreams of the religious life! God permits her to be cruelly tried: her mother is utterly opposed to her departure. There are several other sisters, one of whom shares the aspirations of my new acquaintance. How they both suffer! Would that a heavenly light might illuminate the heart of their mother, who little comprehends the martyrdom of her children! How everything is at cross-purposes in this poor world! People are saddened by things at which they ought to rejoice, and vice versâ. Mothers, who have had experience of the cares and pains of marriage and the world—mothers, who know too well the sum of happiness that may be expected from even the best-assorted unions—make themselves miserable at the mere thought of their daughters’ union with God, as if he were not the Supreme Good, the Spouse par excellence, the faithful Friend, the plenitude of every virtue and of love! Ah! it is because everything in this world has its shades and its defects, and because few souls know truly how to love.

Thus is it that there is a mixture and alloy in my affection for you when I weep for you so bitterly, dear sister of my life!

Nothing can separate our souls. I am yours in life and death!

March 18.

Berthe’s brother has just sunk under a malignant fever. The poor widow is ill of grief. Three such beautiful children, whom he loved so much—so many powerful bonds which bound him to this world so suddenly broken—all this makes the grief immense. Gertrude said to me: “Why, then, are those mourned for who enter the port—those who go hence to rest in God? They only who remain behind are really to be pitied.” Ah! what deadly affliction must not our friend feel, widowed of her happiness, which nothing can restore to her—nothing, until that hour when, delivered in her turn from this life sown with crosses, she too shall see God, and, with God, him whom she weeps!

Kate, would that I could see you and embrace you again as in that last hour! Everywhere death, everywhere mourning!

March 21.

Count de Montalembert died on the 13th of March. It is a great funereal date. May God receive him into his glory! I was just now hearing some beautiful pages by Alfred Nettement, dead also the 14th of November—dead in the breach, in those combats of pen and thought so worthy of admiration and of enthusiasm when their object is the defence of the church. Our dear M. de Riancey is also dead, faithful, to his last moment, to this proscribed monarchy, which sees its best defenders falling one by one. O my God! what losses. Kate, if I could forget you for a single instant, would not these deaths lead me back to the thought of you?

Adrien has given me The Book of All who Suffer, by M. Gautier. How well this good brother was inspired!

Marcella, Margaret, Lizzy, Isa, and so many other kind hearts write to me frequently, but nothing can replace my Kate!

April 1.

Dear sister, I have suffered fearful pains for ten days past. My good René has been to me like a Sister of Charity. I am like Thérèse, I cannot live without my other self. Oh! to see you, to hear you, to kneel by you, and kiss your beloved hands.

Until now I did not know what separation meant. I remember with a sort of remorse how joyous my first letters were after that first farewell which was to be so soon followed by a farewell that seems eternal. I saw you as having attained the object of your dreams. I entered with glad heart into this new life where all was golden. Kate, I am ungrateful! God has permitted me to know no other troubles than those which should not be such to the Christian—death, the beginning of true life for those who love God. Help me, that I may be strong; my sadness clouds so many brows!

April 8.

Nelly, who flattered herself that she would recover, has bid adieu to this poor world, in which she suffered so terribly, although possessing numerous certainties of happiness, if it be true that anything can be certain here below, even when one is only twenty years old.

My new young friend visits me often; her fervent piety and the ardor of her desires find an echo in my heart. You were thus, O sister of my soul! at her age, in that spring-time of life thrice happy and thrice blessed when one belongs to God.

April 15.

The Duchess de Berry died on the 10th, at her castle in Upper Styria, far from Naples, far from France, far from her son. Yet another grand figure disappeared! Kate, do you remember our presentation to this heroine? But she is now with you, in the true fatherland of souls, far from agitations and sufferings. Call us, call us, all together—all our corner of Brittany; I, too, am athirst for heaven.

What a day was this Good Friday! Made four times the Way of the Cross for the souls in purgatory. Is there any possibility that you are in that place of expiation, dear Kate? Oh! tell me, or rather assure me, that you are in heaven. Gaston yesterday asked his mother to show him Mme. Kate up in the sky; he believes that you have become a star. Charming belief!

April 16.

A year ago, and I was full of joy and hope. O my happy days with my sister! you have for ever fled away.

April 17.

God be praised! I saw you this morning.... Oh! do not let me be told that it is a dream. I saw you, dear Kate; your beautiful hair falling over your shoulders, and you were smiling. Happiness enough for one whole day!

Christ is risen! The weather is splendid; we are in the full bloom of spring; bright sunshine, songs of birds, verdure everywhere; joy in our souls. Kate, I weep no more; you are in heaven!

April 19.

Walk with Amélie, the future religieuse of whom I spoke to you. She relieves herself a little to me of some of the desolation that fills her heart. She is not allowed to depart, and yet the delay requested is expired. Her grief makes my heart ache, and I would that it were given me to smooth for her the way to the cloister. For that I should be obliged to go out, to visit the mother; and as soon as I see any one I burst into tears. Do you blame me for the fidelity of my regrets? In listening to Amélie I understand what you must have undergone when once the Lord’s choice was clearly manifested. Pardon me for having wished still to hold you back!

Gertrude, our saint par excellence, speaks admirably of heaven. Lucy weeps with me, and makes her pretty Anne wipe away my tears. Kate, will you read this?

April 26.

Minds are much occupied respecting the plébiscite. My politics are not of this world; I hear what others say, and that is all. Sister, what is earth? I fear and pity it.

Berthe is at Paris, somewhat preoccupied by present agitations. My poor soul passes through the most varying states: nameless anguish, indescribable discouragement, sweet and pure joys; one thing comes as a repose to the other, and life slips away.... Amélie came to me yesterday; she talked long of her crosses, glad to be understood, compassionated, and loved; she would willingly have remained with us for the night. Her home, where she was formerly so happy, appears to her now an insupportable place of abode, and her life, with all its struggles and contradictions, is a real martyrdom.

I read her, from the Pilgrimages of Switzerland, a beautiful page on Christian resignation. Oh! how I would wish to console others—I, who cannot be consoled, alas!

April 30.

Kate, I have been dreaming of you. Why did you go away so soon, sweet sister, so beloved?

A cousin of Amélie’s died the day before yesterday, after two years of marriage. See how short a time human felicity lasts! Every terrestrial happiness reunited on this charming head for so short a time! Her poor mother had buried all her other treasures one by one, and concentrated her affections and her hopes on this idolized daughter, the only one spared to her, and who was to be stricken down after two years of so happy a union! Were these two souls truly religious? I know not. Ah! who will comfort the mother, if God is not her comforter? Alas! these rapid destinies, these human fragilities, these futures broken, these deaths, this mourning—will they not open the eyes of those who persist in not seeing? Amélie is always breathlessly eager to attain her object, and distressed at the hindrances which hold her back. How pitiful that difficulties so contemptible and vulgar should be raised in order to turn aside the flight of this poor soul from the heavenly Bridegroom! I can only conceive a mother with an absolute devotion, a complete self-forgetfulness, a perpetual sursum corda. But these miserable obstacles, these calculated delays, to enchain this dear Amélie in spite of her tears and ardent longings—how they make me suffer! It appears that for three years she has been soliciting her mother’s consent. My God, where are the hearts which see but thee in all things? Mme. de Vals[^[35]] is overwhelmed by this catastrophe. All the family is in a state that breaks one’s heart. Oh! if these distressing scenes had only shown Mme. de Vals the vanity of earthly illusions; if she had only understood that we must cling to God above all!

Kate, my sister in heaven, pray for this friend of your Georgina, and pray also for me, who cannot live without my sister!

May 5.

The month of flowers, the month of songs, the month of the ever-blessed Virgin, comes to me with bright memories. My own Ireland, mother, sister, where are you? What cowardice is mine!

Brittany is smiling, rosy under a beautiful sun; the sea is calm and magnificent. I have just been leaning over my balcony and looking long at this grand spectacle: the blue sky, the green sea, in the grand and majestic silence of immensity. Was there not a Christian meaning in the words of the philosopher of antiquity who said: “God does all in silence”? How fine is this expression!

Dear Kate, bless me! I go out, move about, wish to be useful; I work with Gertrude, with my mother, with René. But I drag heavily the cross of your absence. I complain to God without ceasing. Love makes everything sweet and light: I have, then, no love?

From this month of May will date for your Georgina the adoption of a prayer, sweet among all others—the Office of the Blessed Virgin. Oh! these psalms, these hymns, these harmonious supplications—how sweet they are to my poor soul! I love especially the Lætatus. Lucy and René sing it with an expression which charms me. You, dearest Kate, have entered there, into the house of the Lord!

May 12.

I am reading the Interior of Jesus and Mary, by the Père Grou, the Conferences of Père de Ravignan, and our dear Review. The letters on the Council interest me particularly. I try to imagine that I am reading them with you; that your dear head is resting on my shoulder.... Oh! the fair and happy times which return to my memory. We so loved the Chansons de Gestes, those pretty French ballads which my mother translated with so peculiar a charm! M. Léon Gautier has published a thoughtful and exquisite study on France under Philip Augustus; he brings on the scene the fair Aude, the fiancée of Roland, who died on hearing of the death of her Paladin—I can understand love like this!—and the charming little Aelis, and Sibylle de Lusignan, and the Duchess Parise, and Aye d’Avignon, and the courageous Ameline, and Berthe, the wife of Duke Girart, and Guiboure, that magnificent type of the Christian woman! Do you remember, sister, Count Robert of Flanders refusing a crown because he was in haste to see his son again? the little Garnier nursing his father, stricken with leprosy? the mother of the sons of Aimon—Belissende and Heustace? How we had learnt to love those middle ages!

Pray for Amélie, dear Kate; she is so unhappy! O inestimable favor, priceless benefit, incomparable fidelity of the religious vocation! how little are you understood in this world.

It seems as if I heard you saying to me: Speranza! Pazienza! Coraggio!

May 16.

My soul is fallen again into an abyss of desolation. It is strange, and at the same time painful, these struggles between myself and myself; between nature which revolts and grace which submits. On this day four years ago where were we? Kate, help me!

May 28.

I have been travelling a little, and my moments have all been employed. René wants to give me change and distraction; but I cannot drag my thoughts away from these images of death. Hélène has written me a letter, saintly and sweet. Alas! who does not suffer here below?

June 5.

I have just quitted Amélie, who is keeping her room from indisposition. Her mother is kind, I believe, but how severe in aspect! Berthe and Raoul arrived yesterday. Kate, I dreaded this meeting again, our hearts were all so sad! Berthe is more tranquil than I had expected; she has seen Mary and Ellen, the dear exiles! who showed her that they greatly desire to see us. Inspire me, dear Kate. Lucy is going away again; the house without children is like a heaven without angels. Johanna will not return for two months.

June 12.

René would like to bring the two orphans himself. My mother approves. They will occupy the apartments of the twins. Kate, who will replace you?

More funereal letters: two friends of our dear ones who have flown away have also been summoned to their Father’s house. Happy souls! if they were prepared; but poor mothers whose joy they were!

June 17.

Dear Kate, I thought I saw you yesterday evening.... A young and amiable religious, collecting for her poor, caused me a thrill. I calmed myself and conversed with her. Her life is admirable. But what emotion afterwards, and poignant grief!

Sister dearest, let me hope that you read these lines; that there exists a means of communication between heaven and earth; that you have not wholly quitted me! It was so sweet to write to you, to confide everything to you. I should like to write your life; to relate to myself the story of our childhood—that golden morn when so many smiles and joys surrounded us; but these souvenirs are so distressing!

June 24.

Mary and Ellen are sleeping beneath those curtains of gauze which I have so often parted.

They are grown, and prettier than ever. With what grace they presented themselves yesterday! And already I am anxious; have they not been taken sufficient care of? I know not, but their almost constant cough oppresses me like a remorse; and to replace their mother....

June 29.

Berthe loves our orphans, who rarely quit her. Gertrude draws me with her in her walks, in her life of devotedness and labor, and I let it be so. I am no more myself; my better part is wanting. Oh! you were my strength, my counsel, my happiness.

Feast of SS. Peter and Paul—a glad festival for the Christian. Louis Veuillot, who has the happiness of being at Rome, writes there charming, sublime incomparable pages; he counted on the desired dogma being proclaimed to-day, but all is not so easy, even in the things of God. Anniversary of the death of Albert.

July 1.

Mary and Ellen are very attractive. Decidedly we shall keep them with us. Berthe sees in them a resemblance to her doves; my mother likes their smiles for the poor, for flowers, for every living thing, their precocious reason, and their already remarkable piety. Lucy is gone. What voids! and how different to '67, the happy year, at least during its first months! Trial, you used to tell me, is a grace; that those favored with the good things of this world ought to expiate their enjoyments. Kate, I submit!

July 4.

The letters of Marcella and Margaret are frequent. My friend beyond seas speaks of returning soon; she knows what a balm the sight, the beloved sight, of her brings. Marcella quits Naples and its blue sky no more; Anna writes to me of her joys, without suspecting what a price the health of which she is so proud cost us.

The abbé takes in the Univers, rendered so attractive by the truly magic pen of the author of the Parfum de Rome. Finished La Marquise de Montagu, an interesting book, the style of a great lady of the seventeenth century. Reading is worth less than prayer, but both ameliorate exile.

René is carving an altar for the parish church. He and Adrien are making curious studies in the precious MSS. of the Saint of the Sea-shore. What splendid gifts God has bestowed upon this friend of my soul!

July 8.

The pious and learned editor of Eugénie de Guérin, who also revealed to the world the treasures of Cayla—M. Trebutien—is just dead. René assures us that Eugénie must have opened to him the gate of Eden. Oh! I love to believe this. Amélie is at the height of her wishes: her mother has suffered herself to be vanquished by our united entreaties, and her entry into Carmel is fixed for the 6th of August. Another separation. God wills it thus.

July 14.

Marie Jenna, the sweet poetess, has written some noble pages on the regretted M. Trebutien. “It is the hand of a friend still trembling with emotion that has written this”; it is the first cry of affection and of grief, but of pure and holy affection, and of grief resigned and Christian in the highest acceptation of the word. “If this were a learned man, an antiquary, an artist, above all he was a soul—a soul, that masterpiece of God, that thing so fair that he himself delights in it, that he has profoundly loved, even when, having lost the attraction of innocence, she had no other attraction than misfortune. He was an ardent Catholic, he prayed, he loved God. He, who so hungered after justice, love, and beauty, could not but love God! The gifts of the understanding exercised over him an irresistible magic; but if he lived by intelligence, he lived still more by the heart. His friendship was full of strength and tenderness; he gave himself without measure.”

Ah! dearest Kate, I forget that you are no longer here. Ellen is extremely sympathetic towards me; she listens to me, speaking of you, for hours together. This morning, after a long account, in which her mother’s name and yours recurred a hundred times, she said to me with feeling: “I am going to pray God to put me soon where they are.”

O Blessed Virgin! may she stay with us.

July 18.

Arthur is ill. Johanna writes agitated and sorrowful pages. My saintly Kate, pray for us!

The rumors of war which have for some days been circulating are taking consistency. What is about to become of this poor country? Will the hour of vengeance strike, or will mercy again carry the day? Epidemic maladies and drought have already spread desolation everywhere.

Kate, I would fain penetrate into the future. O folly! What would it be, when I cannot even support my present grief?

René has had three attacks of fever. O this dear invalid, this son of liberty and space, restless as a lion! in repose. Dear, good friend! Come, then, and see him, dear Kate, when three times a day he attends to an unfortunate child whose wounds horrify everybody. “The hand of M. René passes over my sores like the wing of an angel!” What charming praise, and especially in Breton, in the mouth of this frightful little lad, who is distressed at his own ugliness! Gertrude is teaching him the catechism; Mary and Ellen prepare his meals with their little white hands. Ellen has lovely eyes of sea-blue, very dark.

July 24.

The Univers of Wednesday, the 20th, is splendid: “The Infallibility is proclaimed! Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia! The times are hard; war, pestilence, famine; but the year 1870 will be none the less immortal. This will be called the Century of Pius IX., the Pope of the Immaculate Conception and of the Infallibility.” Great joy in the Catholic world.

Here is war with Prussia—that power which, whatever may be said, is truly redoubtable. Happy the people whose history is wearisome! Misfortune to those who depart from the path traced for them by Providence! What a magnificent page might France have added to her history had she so willed! “Archimedes asked but a lever and a fulcrum to move the world,” said the Père Lacordaire at Notre Dame; “but in his time this lever and this fulcrum were unknown. They are known now: faith is the lever; and the point of support, the Breast of the Lord Jesus.”

Who, then, will lift this lever? My God! may they who seek thee find gladness and joy in thee. Tristis es, anima mea!

Arthur is better; our dear Parisians are returning to us; the horizon is so dark to those who see things rightly! Berthe is gone to the town for the funeral of a friend of her childhood who passed through the greatest trials in the world. She made a most edifying death, preserving the fulness of her faculties to the last, blessing her children, and putting all her soul into her last directions. And when she had said all, and was asked if she desired nothing, she answered with her failing voice: “I desire nothing but God!” The long agony of her heart, the suffering which has killed her, this painful martyrdom—all is over, and the Blessed Virgin, whom she so loved, must have welcomed her into glory. Amen! The two little children, alarmingly pale, followed the coffin. How one would pity them, if God were not the Father of orphans!

Spain in a state of revolution. Queen Isabella has abdicated in favor of Prince Alphonso. Poor Spain! Where is Isabella the Great, the Catholic?

Adrien is reading to us the tenth volume of the Histoire du Monde, by De Riancey. The illustrious and lamented author wrote from Rome, after receiving from the Pope and the Comte de Chambord precious tokens of affection: “Now I am almost ready to sing my Nunc Dimittis, and there remain only the joys of heaven to be added.“ Dearest Kate, I said something like this when I still possessed you....

[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]

UP THE NILE.
CONCLUSION.

The dignity of some of these half-clad Nubians is almost beyond conception. As we walked through the town of Korosko we saw numbers of elephants’ tusks, ostrich feathers and eggs, and great piles of gum-arabic. We told Ali to pick up a handful of the gum, and then demanded the price. With a shrug of the shoulders, the owner answered in the most indifferent manner: “Whatever you please.” Ali offered him one piastre. The merchant took out his purse and coolly handed a piece of the same value, saying: “If you cannot pay more than that for the gum, you must be very poor; take this for backsheesh.” “Well,” broke in Mr. S——, unable to restrain his indignation, “would you like us to give you two pounds for that handful of gum?” “Oh! no,” he replied quietly; “whatever you please.” He was finally satisfied with the amount first offered.

This Korosko is an important town; for from here the direct road lies across the desert to Aboo-Hamed, Shendy, Sennaar, and Khartoom. The bend in the river between this place and Derr is so great that the river flows south-southeast. Going up, we were detained some time. The north wind, which carried us up thus far, was now almost dead ahead, and we were obliged to wait till it died out. The temple at Wady Sabooah a few miles below is of the time of Rameses II. His favorite amusement, to judge from the figures on the temple walls, was to catch hold of a few score of his enemies by the hair of the head, all at once, and in one hand too, while with the other he knocked them about with a club. The old temple was afterwards used as a Christian church. In the time of the great temple-builder a figure of some god stood in the adytum; the Christians covered it with plaster (it was a bas-relief), and then painted on it a picture of St. Peter. The other figures are not altered, and the result is that the great Rameses is now making offerings to a Christian saint.

I was anxious to obtain a dress—a full dress—of a Nubian young lady. I did not propose to introduce this style at home—it would scarcely be suited to our winters, although it might answer in summer—but it would be a pleasant thing to show it, and, when some fair one should ask what it was, to reply: “Oh! that is a dress that belonged to a lady friend of mine in Nubia; she gave it to me to remember her by.” Just think how jealous all the men would be! Frank carefully treasures up a ribbon, and Charley considers priceless a lock of hair which his fair one has worn—small trinkets compared with mine, even if I cannot put mine in a locket. So I am bound to have one by fair means or foul.

The reader will probably be anxious to know what this dress is. Well, he must not be shocked; he must remember the climate is warm, and the immediate descendants of Eve set the fashion here. The full costume consists of a leather girdle, from which hangs fringe of the same material, about six inches long, ornamented with shells. I have one. It belonged to a very pretty, dark-eyed young lady of thirteen, from whom I purchased it as a curiosity. The girl’s wardrobe being unusually well stocked, she sold me her best for the small sum of six piastres.

The people are very much afraid of the evil eye, more dangerous on this account: that no one can tell who possesses it. Even some of the innocent howadjii may have it; if they look at any one who is near, he or she is instantly possessed by some spirit and becomes sick. But they have medicine; for they immediately send to some priest and inform him in what way the sufferer is afflicted. For a small fee he writes out a portion of the Koran which will cure the disease. This is enclosed in a leather bag and worn on the arm or around the neck. The disease is not only cured, if the extract be the right one, but all future danger from the evil eye is averted.

We have been visiting temples and tombs almost every day for the past week, and have been very much annoyed by the crowds that followed us and in many cases prevented us from properly inspecting. On Feb. 6 we visited the little temple of Baybel Welly. I put into operation a plan I had thought out last night. I wanted to try the effect of sarcasm on these half-civilized Nubians. The temple was very small and the crowd pushed in after us. We withdrew, and I then spoke in a quiet, dignified manner to the one who appeared to be the leader. “This temple is not large enough for both of us to visit at the same time. We will wait outside until you and your friends finish your examination, and then we will look at it. If you find anything particularly interesting, you will be kind enough to inform us.” At first he did not take the point; after a time a light broke upon him, and he replied: “You go in; I will keep these walluds out.” And he did so.

I have told of the presents we gave the crew. They made a common pool, a sort of joint-stock company on the mutual-benefit plan. Reis Mohammed was treasurer. They held a meeting and resolved to declare a dividend, after the manner of many modern railway dividends—for it was paid out of the capital. A very noisy confab prevailed for an hour or more; then votes were cast, and it was resolved “that the treasurer be instructed and empowered to purchase a calf at a price not exceeding seven dollars, said calf to be served up immediately for the use of the stockholders.” This should furnish a hint to antiquarians; perhaps they may be able to trace back the origin of our modern corporations to the old Egyptians. The similarity of management should afford some clue.

On the 10th of February we reached Philæ. On the mainland opposite is the small town of Belal. Here is an old mosque; from its minaret the first Moslem call to prayer in Nubia was made. It is February 12, and we are still lying at Mahatta, waiting for the Shellallee, to take us down the cataract. They will not come to-day, so we go to visit the quarries of syenite granite from which the obelisks were taken. Two of the party mount the diminutive donkeys; I want to oversee them, so I climb on a camel. He kneels for me to mount, and then rises at command. The camel rises with three distinct motions. I have said that he kneels for one to mount; this will hardly convey the proper idea. His legs are doubled underneath and his belly touches the ground. With the first motion he raises himself on his fore-knees, then straightens up his hind-legs, and then his fore-legs. The effect of this motion upon the rider is very curious. He is first pitched violently backwards, but before he has time to fall off is thrown forwards again; and just as he feels certain that he is about to dive into the sand, he regains his equilibrium, and off goes the camel. When he walks, the rider sways back and forth; his run is not unlike the trot of a horse.

An unfinished obelisk—one that has never been entirely detached from the rock—shows us the means employed by the Pharaos for cutting out these immense masses. Holes were cut along the whole line of the block a few feet apart. Into these wooden wedges, saturated with water, were firmly driven. The swelling of the wood, causing an equal pressure, split the rock in a straight line. Just above where we are moored is the body of a man lying in the water. His hands are tied behind his back—probably a slave from away up country, beaten to insensibility and then thrown into the river. Perhaps he stole a few piastres, or was not sufficiently quick in obeying his master’s commands. It is a sickening sight, this putrid, bloated corpse, so we ask Ahmud to have it taken out and buried. It was carried by the current into this little cove some four days ago; hundreds of people pass it daily, yet no one will remove it. Ahmud says it is the duty of the governor to bury it, and, unless he does so, the natives will let it remain until the fish and vultures eat it up. “If I see the governor,” continues Ahmud in the most unconcerned way, “I will speak to him about it.”

Early next morning the Shellallee assembled and preparations were begun. To make the descent it is requisite that the water should be smooth and not a breath of wind stir the air. The day was all that could be desired; so at six A.M. began the charge of the black brigade. On they come from every quarter; every rock sends forth two or three. We have sixty or seventy on board. Ali says that most of them come to get a place to sit down and smoke their chibouks. There is the usual amount of talking, and at a quarter to seven we cast loose from our moorings and stood out into the stream. God’s flag was tied to a post on the port side of the quarter-deck—a red flag with two yellow stars and a diamond, the latter representing the sword of Mohammed, and over all the sacred name “Allah.” This was placing the dahabeeáh under the divine protection to ensure a prosperous descent. Our old friend Nogood was with us, seated by the flag, smoking a long pipe and reading the Koran. Another sheik was seated on the opposite side telling his beads. Four men stood at the helm, and two at each oar. To judge from the noise and excitement, you would be led to think that no boat had ever descended the cataracts before. Ahmud was so nervous that tears came into his eyes. The balance of the Shellallee squatted on the deck, lit their chibouks, and never moved until we hustled them off at Assouan. The current carried us swiftly on to the west bank, and we neared the great gate. A piece of wood was thrown overboard; it was a guide to the steersmen. Now all was quiet; not a word was uttered on board. The rowers stopped, the howadjii held their breath; a moment more we rounded the corner almost at a right angle, and shot into the great rapid. The boat grazed the rocks on the port side. The waves dashed over the bow. Directly ahead the rocks rise perpendicularly to the height of twenty feet. The howadjii shudder; surely we will be dashed to pieces. Before we have scarce time to think, before we are at the bottom of the rapid, the rudder is jammed hard to starboard, the boat swings round at a right angle; we are in smooth water—we have descended the cataract in safety. This rapid is two hundred feet long between the rocks, about seventy feet broad, and falls from six to seven feet. Old Nogood springs up now with astonishing activity, and snatches the turban from Reis Mohammed’s head. This is his perquisite. It is the custom for the head sheik to take both tarbosh and turban from the captain’s head when the descent is safely accomplished. This was all very well when these descents were first made, there being then some doubt as to their safe accomplishment. Now numbers of boats are taken down every year and an accident rarely happens. This custom should be done away with—at least, so thought Reis Mohammed; for he put on the oldest tarbosh he had, and it was so bad that Nogood would not take it. Every one shook hands all around. One of the Shellallee cut his foot very badly; I put court-plaster upon it, and then bound it up with my own handkerchief. He smiled and asked for backsheesh.

About nine we reached Assouan. Every one wanted backsheesh, even those I told about who sat on the decks smoking chibouks, and had never raised a finger to help us. Finally we got rid of them all. What a relief it was to be alone again with our little family!—for we are coming to love our sailors; they have been with us so long, and, in spite of their few faults, they are a good set and we have had no serious trouble with them. There is a modern temple at Kom Ombos, about thirty miles below Assouan, built by one of the Ptolemies about one hundred and fifty years before Christ. It is interesting, and, notwithstanding its recent construction, we examined it with care. There is another of these Ptolemaic temples at Edfoo, one of the most interesting temples on the Nile. True, it is far younger than Karnak, but then it is the best-preserved temple in Egypt. As a perfect specimen of an Egyptian temple, complete in all its parts, it stands unrivalled. Let me go into details here and describe this temple. It will give an idea of all the others; for the temples of ancient Egypt were all constructed on the same plan, except rock-hewn Ipsamboul, which has been described before. The Egyptian temple was not a place of public worship, like a Greek or Roman temple, or a Christian church. It was an edifice erected by a king in honor of some triad of divinities to whom he wished to pay special homage in return for benefits conferred or in hope of future favors. A rude brick wall surrounded the whole enclosure and shut out from the vulgar gaze all that took place inside. This wall is almost entire at Edfoo, but a small portion of it having been destroyed. A gateway admits us into the enclosure, and we pass through an avenue of sphinxes to a second gateway with its propyla, or immense pyramidal tower, on either side. Over the gateway is a winged scarabæus in high relief. The pyramidal towers are covered with intaglio sculptures representing the king holding a brace of his enemies by the hair, and about to knock off their heads with a club. Flag-staffs were attached to the outside of these towers, rising many feet above their summit. Entering a large hypæthral hall through this second gateway, we see before us the portico of the temple itself. We enter this between two columns; from these to the side walls are screens reaching about half-way to the roof. A little further on we reach the sanctum sanctorum—a magnificent monolithic chamber of polished gray granite, in which was kept the hawk, the emblem of the god Horhat, who was the principal divinity of this temple. The rest of the naos, or portion of the temple behind the portico, and in which this sanctuary was placed, was cut up into a number of small chambers used for religious purposes. Within the enclosure was the temenos, or grove, thickly planted with trees, and near at hand was a lake. The whole length of this temple, including the gateway and wall of circuit, is four hundred and fifty feet. The breadth of the propylon—the inner gateway with its pyramidal towers—is two hundred and fifty feet and its height one hundred and fifteen feet. The sculptures all over the walls are extremely interesting. Some give the names of the several chambers of the temple, and their dimensions in cubits and parts of cubits, so that the modern measurements can be compared with the ancient ones. Others give valuable information respecting the ancient geography of Egypt.

During the reign of Psammenitus, son of Amasis, a most remarkable prodigy befell the Egyptians, says Herodotus; for rain fell at Egyptian Thebes, which had never happened before nor since, to my time, as the Thebans themselves affirm. For no rain ever falls in the upper regions of Egypt, but at that time rain fell in drops at Thebes. In the year of grace one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four the same remarkable prodigy befell the Egyptians, say I; for rain fell at Egyptian Thebes. If we did not know the dignity and sober character of that ancient traveller, we might suppose a sarcastic witticism lay hid in the closing part of the above story. See how cautious he is: the rain fell in drops. Well, that is precisely the way it fell when we were there. And the drops could be counted. There was no shower. The dust was not even laid. But it rained. I saw it—perhaps the first time in three thousand years. It is no small affair for a man to be able to say to his grandchildren in years to come: “It rained when I was at Egyptian Thebes—in drops, you know.”

Ten days tied up at Luxor, measuring the columns of Karnak, looking at the endless procession of gods and warriors, and going far into the mountain-side to search for the sarcophagi of Egypt’s long-departed rulers. The ruins of Thebes are familiar—at least to every one who has read any of the numerous works on Egypt; so I will not describe them. There is one place, however, not mentioned in the guide-books about which I will say something. Behind the temple of Dayr el Medeeneh, on the western shore, there are several mummy-pits. Mr. S—— and I determined to visit them. We descended a well about ten feet deep, at the bottom of which we found a narrow passage, so low that we were obliged to crawl. This led into a large chamber filled with bodies. Ali begged to accompany us, but, when he caught sight of the first body, he beat a hasty retreat to the upper air. Truly, it was a solemn, ghastly sight. The mummies were piled up to what depth no one knows; as they then were they had filled up the room to a level with the narrow passage, forming a floor over which we walked. The Arabs had been there hunting for scarabæi and other antiques to sell to travellers, and in so doing had handled the corpses without care or ceremony. Here was a man standing on his head with his feet resting against the wall; there a woman broken in two, the legs placed astride the neck; corpses all around in every conceivable position—grinning, staring corpses, enough to give one the nightmare for weeks to come. Beneath this top row they were placed in layers. I found the body of a young woman well preserved, and with hair banged across the forehead, like the French style of a few years ago. I carried the body out to show it to the rest of the party, thinking somewhat of bringing it home. “Desecrating graves,” “robbing sepulchres,” and words of like import met my ears, and, feeling somewhat abashed, I took the body back, but detached the hair and brought it with me. In this pit we found numbers of the small clay figures of Osiris. They were rudely made—for these were the fellaheen, or lower class, who were thrown into a common pit. They were embalmed in the cheapest way, which was done, according to Herodotus, by thoroughly rinsing the abdomen in syrmæa, and then steeping it with natron for seventy days.

The boy who owned my donkey was sick, so Fatma, his little black-eyed sister, attended for him. She was a pretty, bewitching little creature, yet of a marriageable age—thirteen, I think. Day after day she ran behind my donkey, urging it on, and occasionally coming up alongside to make some pleasant remark and disclose teeth like Oriental pearls. When we were parting I gave her a small present and asked her if she would go with me to America. “Certainly.” And the little one jumped and clapped her hands with joy. “Do you know where America is situated?” I asked. “Not exactly, but down the river, somewhere near Alexandria, is it not?”

Here we are at Keneh, and when we see a fine large house, in appearance not unlike a provincial theatre, we naturally ask who inhabits it. The consuls of France and Prussia—the lion and the lamb lying down together. Here they live together in the same house on the best of terms, just as if King William had never marched into Paris or Napoleon III. had not surrendered at Sedan. We did not meet them, but very probably they were like Ali Murad—natives, with a faint idea that there had been some misunderstanding between France and Prussia; but then they were not concerned with that, so they smoke their pipes together and let the outside world take care of itself. Passing Sheik Selim’s place on March 9, we stopped and sent some of the sailors with presents. We arrived at Bellianeh, whence we proposed to visit the interesting temple of Abydos. We rode for six miles through rich fields of grain, principally wheat, and reached the modern village of Arabat, called by the Arabs Madfuné (the buried), from the ancient buildings that until recently lay all around covered with desert sand. On entering the town we saw a gang of men working at excavations under the charge of an overseer, who quickened their movements with a bamboo. We saw pictures of this on the tombs four thousand years old. A fine-looking man, with an immense red turban on his head, broke from the gang, rushed up to us, threw himself on the ground, embraced our feet, and piteously implored us to take him away. He was a sheik of a neighboring village, he said, and had been torn from his family and pressed into service. In proof of this he produced a long document, about as intelligible to us as the hieroglyphics on the temple wall. It was done by order of the viceroy, so we could not interfere, and he went reluctantly back to his work. His appeal to us angered the overseer, who struck him a fearful blow with the bamboo that felled him to the ground. Said—good-hearted Said—took the man’s part, and for a time it looked as though we were going to have a lively row. But it all evaporated in talk; the overseer promised not to beat him any more, and then he and Said became the best of friends.

These workmen are not paid very much—five cents a day; but their work is not very heavy—at least, as they do it. One man fills a small basket with earth, then sits down and smokes a cigarette. The basket is dragged about twenty feet, emptied out, then he has a little talk with some of his friends. We were looking for the celebrated tablet of Abydos, but the passage-way was so filled up with sand that we could not approach it. This tablet is called the new one, although M. Mariette supposes it to be the original of the fragmentary one found in the temple of Rameses II. at this place and now in the British Museum. It contains figures of Sethi and Rameses offering homage to seventy-six kings, their predecessors, beginning with Menes and ending with Sethi I., and has been of incalculable benefit to the historian. But we are going farther back than Menes, for there is the Kóm es Sultan, the Holy Sepulchre of the ancient Egyptians—the tomb of Osiris. It is not a natural tumulus, but is formed by the heaping up of tombs during many ages one upon another. Are they not the tombs of those rich Egyptians that Plutarch tells of who came from all parts of the country to Abydos to be buried near Osiris?

A few days after we were strolling along the east bank when we came upon a Coptic church. Entering, we saw a novel rendering of the legend of St. George and the dragon. I have said before that St. George is the patron saint of the Copts, and here they turn the dragon into a Turk, substituting a real enemy for a mythical one. St. George, on a spirited steed, is frantically endeavoring to pin a Turk to the earth. He has his lance run through the neck, but the Turk is a tough fellow and is fighting so hard, while the horse is balancing himself in the most incredible manner on one leg, that it is a question which will get the upper hand.

As we run close to the bank scores of urchins salute us with that now familiar cry, “Backsheesh, howadji”—“Alms, O shopkeeper”—not that they took us for shopkeepers, but then these were the first to travel for purposes of trade; and when others, travelling for pleasure alone, came after them, no distinction was made by the natives, but all were classed in the same category. Everywhere in the East, from the poorest beggar to the sultan himself, is heard the same demand, “Backsheesh, howadji”—from the great ones couched in hidden terms and well-set phrases, but as well understood as the outspoken clamor of the rabble. After careful study and deliberation I have classified the different uses of this phrase. I have divided them into eleven different demands, expressing the following ideas: First, the distant or dubious demand. This is made by small urchins from the bank as we sail by. The tone of voice indicates that they doubt very much whether they will receive anything, but deem it worth while to make the attempt, although sometimes a quarter of a mile of water separates us from them. Second, the salutative demand from older ones. As we ride or walk through the country we meet an Arab. “Naharak Saiid” (May the day be good to you), say we. “Backsheesh, howadji,” he replies in the same salutative tone, and moves on. Surely he cannot expect anything; he does not even stop. Third, the imperative demand, growled out in a fierce tone by half-grown boys—your-money-or-your-life demand of highwaymen. This is always unsuccessful. Fourth, the curtailed demand from over-lazy ones, as this: “Backshee, howadj”—a very indifferent one. Fifth, the plaintive demand—the fourteen-children and seven-year-widow story listened to by tender-hearted people. Sixth, the non-expective demand, a mere matter of form, and surprise exhibited if complied with. Seventh, the interrogative demand—to wit: “Did it ever occur to you, O howadji! that a small present would be acceptable to your petitioner?” An idea similar to this frequently crossed the howadji’s mind. Eighth, the confidential demand from the donkey-boy when near the end of a trip. In a low whisper, and with a knowing look: “Howadji and I understand one another; it is all right; about two piastres will do.” Ninth, the future demand: the praises of the donkey are sounded when starting out; professions of fidelity and attachment on the part of the attendant are loud and constant; he will show you everything, and—“Backsheesh kabeér dahabeeáh” (Much backsheesh on the return to boat), in a matter-of-course tone. Tenth, the infantile demand, from imps scarce able to talk: “Backtheeth, howath”—most successful of any. Eleventh, the fraudulent demand, practised principally in Nubia. A mother holding an infant in her arms: “Backsheesh for the baby, O howadji!” and when the kind-hearted traveller places a coin in the little dimpled hand held out to receive it, the mother takes possession of it for her own use. When the traveller approaches a town, every child is snatched up into some one’s arms—it is immaterial whether the mother gets her own child or some one belonging to another—and presented to him.

Little Saida, our gazelle, broke her leg at Thebes; we sent for the barber, who is doctor also, to bind it up. He performed the operation in a bungling way, and mortification set in a few days after. She had become a great pet, and was beginning to know us and eat from our hands. So we concluded it was best to kill her, as she was suffering very much. Wishing to preserve the skin, she was hit on the head with an axe, so as not to injure it. After the skin had been removed we offered the body to the crew for a meal. Reis Mohammed threw it overboard, saying that it was not killed in the proper way for them to eat: it should have been shot, or else the throat cut, after repeating certain passages from the Koran. It is strange to see how obedient these Arabs are to the sacred writ. They are fond of meat, but do not have it very often. On one occasion we were lunching in a temple. When we had finished, some fine slices of ham were left. I gave them to Ali for himself and the two sailors who were with us, and whose lunch had consisted of dry bread. Without a moment’s hesitation he threw them to a dog who was near us, saying that it was good food for dogs and Christians, but not for Arabs.

On the summit of the rocks of Gebel Aboofayda, near their southern end, are the caverns of Moabdeh, commonly called the crocodile mummy pits. We stopped and procured some fine specimens—small crocodiles which had been treated as gods five thousand years ago. Every one in this country seems to know every one else. It seemed to me that, when our crew wanted to see any one, they simply called out the name—Ali, Mohammed, or whatever it was—and he soon appeared. When purchasing goods it makes no difference whom you pay, whether owner or not, provided you pay some one. Many people marvel how the old Egyptians transported their obelisks and colossi from the quarries at Syene to their destination several hundred miles down the river. Back of the Christian village called Ed Dayr en Nakhl, on the east bank nearly opposite Rhoda, are a number of grottoes cut into the mountain-side. In one of them is one of the most interesting paintings found in any of the Egyptian tombs, which will enable us to understand how these immense masses of stone were conveyed from one place to another. We had great difficulty in finding this grotto; for, although it is mentioned in the guide-book, the natives seemed unaware of its existence. At last we found it, away up on the mountain-top, the entrance so filled up with débris that we were obliged to crawl in. But we were well paid; for we saw the famous painting of “A Colossus on a Sledge,” which, as far as I am informed, is the only one of the kind in Egypt. The person represented by the colossus was called Thoth-ôtp, and was of high distinction in the military caste. He is styled the king’s friend, and one of his children was named Ositarsens, after the king. This grotto was his tomb. The figure is seated and placed upon a sledge, being firmly secured to it by ropes. One hundred and seventy-two men, in four rows of forty-three each, pull the ropes, attached to a ring in front of the sledge, and a liquid—most probably oil—is poured from a vase by a person standing on the pedestal of the statue, in order to facilitate its progress as it slides on the ground—or more probably on a tramway made for the occasion, though that is not indicated in the picture. Some of the persons engaged in this laborious duty appear to be Egyptians; others are foreign slaves who are clad in the costume of their country. Behind the statue are four rows of men, three in a row, representing either the architects and masons or those who had employment about the place where the statue was to be conveyed. Below are others carrying vases filled with water, and some rude machinery connected with the transportation of the colossi, followed by taskmasters with their wands of office. On the knee of the figure stands a man, who claps his hands to the measured cadence of a song to mark the time, and to ensure a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together. Before the statue a priest is presenting incense in honor of the person it represents. At the top are seven companies of men—a guard of honor, or perhaps reliefs for dragging the sledge. Beyond are men slaying an ox and bringing the joints of meat to the door of the building to which the statue was to be transported. From this we may judge with tolerable certainty how the great obelisks were conveyed to the temples before which they were set up, and how the great stones of the Pyramids were transported from their mountain-beds.

We are now rapidly sailing down stream and nearing civilization. In a few days we reached the lofty cliffs of Gebel et Tayr, which rise abruptly from the river to a height of several hundred feet. On its summit stands the Coptic convent of Sitta Mariam el Adra (Our Lady Mary the Virgin). As we approached several of the monks jumped into the stream—not from the top of the cliff, however—and swam out towards us. They seized hold, jumped aboard, entirely naked, and saluted us with “Ana Christian, ya howadjii” (I am a Christian, O howadjii!) Of course we could not resist this appeal, but a few paras satisfied them, and, putting the coins in their mouths, they swam back to shore, to sit like birds of prey waiting for their next victims—for they never miss a dahabeeáh that passes. This Gebel et Tayr—“The Mountain of the Bird”—has a strange legend attached to it. It is said that all the birds of the country assemble annually on this mountain, and, having selected one of their number to remain there till the following year, they fly away into Africa, and only return the next year to release their comrade and substitute another in his place.

A funny accident happened to Reis Ahmud. We had grounded on a sand-bank, where we remained sixteen hours, and the usual means were being employed to pull the boat off. An anchor was thrown out some seventy feet ahead in the direction of the channel. A rope was attached to this, and the other end carried through a pulley on the deck. The entire crew pulled upon this rope, when it became entangled in a block on the starboard side. Reis Ahmud went forward to release it, and, without slackening the rope, he began to pry it with a long pole. The strain on the rope was of course very severe. He succeeded in raising it over the block, but it acted like the string of a bow, and Ahmud, being in the place where the arrow usually is, was struck by it. He was shot directly over the top of the kitchen, and plunged headlong into the water on the other side of the boat as though he had been shot out of a catapult. The expression of fear, terror, and uncertainty as to what struck him, shown plainly in his face as he went flying over the boat, pole in hand, was most ludicrous. Fortunately, he was not hurt. A bad fright and thorough ducking will teach him to avoid strained ropes in future. Some statues, a few fragments of granite, and some substructions are all that can be seen of the ruins of a city which, if there is any truth in the descriptions given of it, must have exceeded any modern city as much as the Pyramids exceed any mausoleum which has been erected since those days (Curzon). So one day was enough at Memphis, and still on to the south we sailed. Now the great Pyramids loom up in the distance, and at ten of the morning of March 30 we reach the iron bridge at Cairo, our long Nile journey over. That night we left our dahabeeáh, and bade farewell to our crew. I have travelled far and wide throughout this world of ours, but I know of no trip that has afforded me more real satisfaction and pleasure than these four months on the Nile. The expense is not very great; a party of four can contract with a good dragoman to supply boat, crew, provisions, and everything necessary for the voyage for from five to six pounds sterling a day. The winter of 1873-'74 was cold for Egypt. The superintendent of the viceroy’s sugar-works at Rhoda informed us that it was the coldest winter known in Egypt for seventeen years. See what a cold winter is in the Orient—for these observations I took myself: Average thermometer from December 20, 1873, to March 28, 1874, sixty-nine degrees. Highest thermometer during same period, eighty-two degrees on February 21, 1874; lowest, February 8, 1874, sixty degrees. The observations were taken in the cabin—in the shade, of course—at noon of each day.