After they had left, the Indians had much talk about them, and were then led to think of “the good people,” the Friends, they had seen so many of in England and Ireland, and asked me if they should find any of them in Paris. I told them I thought they would not, at which they were evidently very much disappointed.
One of the next sight-seeing expeditions was to the Jardin des Plantes, to which our old friend M. Vattemare accompanied us. The animals here, from a difference of training, or other cause, were not quite so much alarmed as they were in the menagerie in London; but when the doctor breathed out the silvery notes of his howling totem, the wolf at once answered him in a remote part of the garden. Jim imitated the wild goose, and was answered in an instant by a cackling flock of them. The panthers hissed, and the hyænas were in great distress, and the monkeys also: the eagles chattered and bolted against the sides of their cages, and the parrots lost their voices by squalling, and many of their feathers by fluttering, when the Indians came within their sight. They pitied the poor old and jaded buffalo, as they did in London, he looked so broken-spirited and desolate; and also the deer and the elks; but the bears they said didn’t seem to care much about it. They were far more delighted with the skins of animals, reptiles, and fishes in the museum of natural history; and I must say that I was also, considering it the finest collection I ever have seen.
The garden of plants was amusement enough for an hour or so, and then to the Halle aux Vins in the immediate neighbourhood. This grand magazine of chickabobboo has been described by many writers, and no doubt seen by many who read, but few have seen the expression of amazement upon the brows of a party of wild Indians from the forest of America, while their eyes were running over the vast and almost boundless lines of 800,000 casks of wine under one roof, and heard the piercing war-whoop echoing and vibrating through their long avenues, raised at the startling information that 20,000,000 of gallons of this are annually drawn out of this to be drunk in the city of Paris; and few of those who heard it knew whether it was raised to set the wine running, or as a note of exultation that they had found a greater fountain of chickabobboo than the brewery they were in, in London. However true the latter was, the first was supposed to have been the design, and it must needs have its effect. A few bottles, in kindness and hospitality cracked, cooled all parched and parching lips, and our faithful timepieces told us our engagement with the public was at hand, and we laid our course again for the Salle Valentino.
“Oh! what a glorious country,” said Jim, as we were rolling along; “there’s nothing like that in London: the chickabobboo is better here, and there’s more of it too.” Poor ignorant fellow! he was not aware that the brewery they saw in London was only one of some dozens, and that the wine in all those casks they had just seen was not quite as delicious as that with which his lips had just been moistened.
With their recollections dwelling on the scenes they had witnessed in London, they were naturally drawing comparisons as they were wending their way back; and they had in this mood taken it into their heads that there were no gin-shops in Paris, as they could see none, which was quite mysterious to them, until I explained to them the nature of the cafés, the splendid open shops they were every moment passing, glittering with gold and looking-glasses. They were surprised to learn that the delicious poison was dealt out in these neat “palaces,” but which they had not known or suspected the meaning of. They admitted their surprise, and at once decided that “they liked the free, and open, and elegant appearance of them much better than those in London, where they are all shut up in front with great and gloomy doors, to prevent people from looking into them, as if they were ashamed.”
The cemetery of Père la Chaise was next to be seen as soon as there should be a fine day: that day arrived, and half an hour’s drive landed us at its entrance.
This wonderful place has been described by many travellers, and therefore needs but a passing notice here. This wilderness of tombs, of houses or boxes of the dead, thrown and jumbled together amidst its gloomy cypress groves and thickets, is perhaps one of the most extraordinary scenes of the kind in the world: beautiful in some respects, and absurd and ridiculous in others, it is still one of the wonders of Paris, and all who see the one must needs visit the other. The scene was one peculiarly calculated to excite and please the Indians. The wild and gloomy and almost endless labyrinths of the little mansions of the dead were pleasing contrasts to their imprisonment within the dry and heated walls of the city; the varied and endless designs that recorded the places and the deeds of the dead were themes of amusement to them, and the subject altogether one that filled their minds with awe, and with admiration of the people who treated their dead with so much respect.
We wandered for an hour through its intricate mazes of cypress, examining the tombs of the rich and the poor so closely and curiously grouped together—a type, even in the solitudes of death, of the great Babylon in which their days had been numbered and spent. Whilst we were strolling through the endless mazes of this sub-rosa city, we met an immense concourse of people, evidently bearing the body of some distinguished person to the grave. The pompous display of mourning feathers and fringes, &c., with hired mourners, was matter of some surprise to the Indians; but when a friend of the deceased stepped forward to pronounce an eulogium on his character, recounting his many virtues and heroic deeds, it reminded the Indians forcibly of the custom of their own country, and they all said they liked to see that.
We took them to the patched and vandalized tomb of Abelard and Eloisa; but as there was not time for so long a story, it lost its interest to them. They were evidently struck with amazement at the system and beauty of this place, and from that moment decided that they liked the French for the care they took of their old soldiers and the dead.
The poor fellows, the Indians, who were now proceeding daily and nightly with their exciting and “astonishing” exhibitions, were becoming so confounded and confused with the unaccountable sights and mysteries of Paris which they were daily visiting, that they began to believe there was no end to the curious and astonishing works of civilized man; and, instead of being any longer startled with excitement and wonder, decided that it would be better to look at everything else as simple and easy to be made by those that know how, and therefore divested of all further curiosity. This they told me they had altogether resolved upon: “they had no doubt there were yet many strange things for them to see in Paris, and they would like to follow me to see them all; but they would look with their eyes only half open, and not trouble us with their surprise and their questions.”