And in The Spectator, October 27th, 1883—“As our judgment on Mayne Reid’s novels is not that of our contemporaries, we are disinclined to allow his death to pass without a word of criticism. As an individual we knew nothing about him, except that in our judgment he missed his career, and would have made a first-class agent of the Geographical Society, to explore dangerous or excessively difficult regions, like Thibet, the Atlas Range, or the unknown hills and locked-up villages of Eastern Peru. He was a man of exceptional daring, having a positive liking for danger; he had the typographical eyes which should belong to a general; and he had a faculty of description, which he watered down for his novels till it was hardly apparent. During the only interview which this writer ever had with him, accident induced his interlocutor to ask about the Pintos—the particoloured race sprung from native Mexicans and the cross breed between Indians and Negroes—who are stated to exist in the State of Mexico. The writer disbelieved in them, and expressed his belief, but Captain Mayne Reid, who declared he had seen specimens of the race, held him quite fascinated for half-an-hour by a description which, if imaginary, was a triumph of art, but which left on the hearer’s mind an impression of absolute truth.”
Appendix.
“The Land of Innisfail,” by Mayne Reid.
And I must leave thee, Erin! ’tis my fate—
And I must wander over many a land!
And other climes and other homes await
The ‘Scholar,’ wasted - worn - but may this hand
That writes thy praises now, cold on the sand
Unburied lie for ever - may no hearth
Shelter me, vagrant on a foreign strand
The cursed and homeless outcast of the earth,
When I forget thou art the country of my birth.
Erin, I love thee! though thy sunken cheek
Is pale with weeping, and thy hollow eye,
With many a stifled groan, and rending shriek,
Reveals dark tales of bitter agony;
That I have pitied thy sad misery
I’ve proved through every change of land and sea;
I’ve wafted o’er the ocean many a sigh,
And many an earnest prayer that thou shouldst be,
As are thy children’s souls - unshackled, happy, free!
I love thee, though I could not live with thee!
The trampler of thy fields, red with thy gore,
Had made my home a hell - I would not be
The fawning minion at a great man’s door—
I would not beg upon thy wintry moor
To starve neglected; and soon as I knew
That there were other lands, the broad seas o’er,
With hands to welcome, and with hearts as true—
I dropped one tear, and bid my native land adieu!
A Southern Sunset, from “La Cubana,” by Mayne Reid.
How gorgeously the golden sun declining
Gilds the soft sea whose tranquil waters span
Fair Cuba’s Isle, the broad blue billow lining
With such bright tints as painter’s pencil can
Project upon the naked canvas never!
In mellower beam his parting glances quiver,
Blending the hues of gold and red and azure,
And pouring on the wave his richest treasure.
From terraced roof above the noisy town,
The Spanish maiden watches him go down;
And mischief glistens in her dark brown eye:
For sunset brings the masking hour nigh.
Through loophole barred in yonder battlement,
Where grimly frowns El Moros castled wall
There’s many an eye in weary watching bent,
And many a sigh - alas! too idly spent—
By pinioned captive pining in his thrall.
The brilliant sheen upon the distant sea
Perchance may to his memory recall
Some happy thought of days when he was free;
Draw from his haggard eye the scalding tear—
The first that he has shed for many a year;
He breathes! he moves! alas, the clanking chain,
Soon checks the thought - he’s in his cell again!
The sentry pacing on the ’brazured wall,
Lets to his feet the burnished carbine fall,
And looking down upon the busy bay,
Hums to himself some Andalusian lay;
Or, gazing on the banner floating gay,
Drawls out the loyal words, “Viva el rey!”
Along the shores that skirt this southern town,
A thousand dark eyes beam from faces brown—
’Tis they that joy to see the sun go down.
The muleteer, mounting, homeward turns his face,
And goads his laden mule to quicker pace;
The weary slave from out the field of cane,
A moment glances at the far free main,
And sighs as he bethinks him of his chain.
Short-lived and silent is his thought of pain,
For, stopping in his task while it is on,
He reads relief in yonder setting sun,
For, ’tis the herald of his labour done!
The poor Bozal, who knows not yet to pray,
Thinks of his wife and children far away,
In some rude kräal by Biafra’s bay.
But where are they, that mild and gentle race,
Who worshipped him with prostrate form and face?
Where is the palm-screened hut of the cacique,
That once rose over yon barranca’s brow?
Where are they all? Son of the island, speak!
Where the bohio stood, domes, turrets now
Alone along the hill-sides proudly gleam!
Ha! thou art sad and silent on the theme;
But in thy silence I can read their doom—
Name, nation, all, have passed into the tomb.
The tomb? No - no; they have not even one
To tell that they were once, and now are gone!
*****
The fading light grows purple on the deep,
In gorgeous robes the god hath sunk to sleep;
So sets the sun o’er Cuba, with a smile—
The sweetest that he sheds upon this southern isle!
Mayne Reid did not admire a classical education. He wrote the following in May, 1881, and intended to publish it:
“The old adage ‘knowledge is power’ is more trite than true. Like many other proverbs long unquestioned in these modern days it often meets contradiction—indeed oftener than otherwise—ignorant men in every walk of life wielding an influence denied to the most learned. Substitute the word ‘wealth’ for knowledge, or even craft of the lowest kind, and the proverb, alas! holds good.