Lovieta and Lavoca, who had witnessed the scene of happy reconciliation, sat with arms entwined about each other’s necks, mingling their tears in grateful sympathy, otherwise holding themselves aloof with wonderful discretion, as if with the understanding that their participation would divert the full measure of love’s revived reciprocation. But as the door closed upon their mother, I felt their hands caressingly raise mine to their lips, while in relieved vent of consolation and childish dislike, they exclaimed in sobbing accents, first Lovieta, “The—the—ugly—o—old zopilote!” [carrion vulture] to which Lavoca appended, “Who—who—comes—to—to—our—house,—when—he—he—knows—we—we—ain’t dead.”
Upon you, my dear Don Guillermo, rests this irreverent title, and knowledge of vocation in application, and as you see the retentive rendering my children have made of it, I hope that you will not sin away the day of grace offered for repentance! If you, a stranger, found yourself unable to resist the pleadings of their affectionate natures, you can judge of a fond father’s partiality, and will excuse his frequent introduction of their quaint comparisons, especially as they are largely indebted to you for their capital ideas? They have proved the choicest of our blessings, and in love’s arbitrations have ever been the pure mediums of affectionate reunion. After a sufficient season had been allowed from my anxious desire, the children were sent to add their weight to the favoring balance of their mother’s affection. Quickly returning, with guarded steps prompted for affectionate surprise, they approached silently,—as I sat with bowed head, hopefully musing, with the desire that Consolata might be changed into unwavering semblance of your Heraclean matrons,—and the velvety wreath of their arms again encircled my neck, while Lovieta and Lavoca’s Manatitlan voices whispered, in joyous emulation, “Go to mamma!” Dear Don Guillermo, you will rejoice to know that she met me at the door with a fond embrace, and the sobbing supplication, “Pedro, can you forgive me? If you can, and will let me love you again, your desires shall ever be mine!” The coveted appeal required no repetition, for there was in her words an expression of anguished regret, that surprised conviction with the assurance of our mutual amendment. You will, I am sure, forgive me for obtruding my uxorious prolixity, in giving vent to the expression of our united happiness, a boon long coveted without the hopeful expectation of realization. Consolata (I trust that I shall never again have occasion to revive the old name of Malaspina, as a household term of endearment addressed to my wife, once so painfully familiar to your ears), rejoices that your forced adventure has terminated so happily, for she insists that her willful vagaries caused you to accept Captain Greenwood’s invitation. In delegating our representative pen to ask your forgiveness for the discomfort she caused, she promises an amendment that shall be addressed in requital to the comfort of others. Should you return, you will be surprised with the change wrought in the appearance of our household, even with the advantage this will afford you for anticipation. Could you but note the placid enjoyment of Lovieta and Lavoca, imparted from the blending and calm repose of parental example, your present joys would be greatly enhanced. Even Teudschen, in the wondering admiration of her phlegmatic stolidity, clasps her hands with surprised inertia, while subject to the active direction of Consolata in the busy avocations that ever delight the tidy housekeeper. In truth, there is a strange mystery, which puzzles us in accounting for her inventive resources, and their apt adaptability for the conservation of purity and comfort. In the style of her own and childrens’ dresses, which in apparent devisement originated within herself, we discover prompted aid, as well as in the selection and preparation of material. But for comfort, cleanliness, and beauty of adaptation, they are a constant source of congratulatory admiration, although outrê in regard to the prevailing fashions; but as they bear a strong resemblance to the Heraclean costumes, description would prove gratuitous. If this great change in Consolata has been wrought through the reproving self conviction of the unlovely contrast she presented to the description you gave of Correliana Adinope, I can almost feel grateful that her ill temper, under the sway of her confessor, was carried to the extremity of forcing upon itself a remedy that has proved so salutary in effect; and the fear of a relapse, which was at first entertained, is gradually passing away. M. Baudois, without hesitation, suggests Manatitlan influence. If it is possible that they have vouchsafed us direction, as guides and instructors in our extremity, they are certainly aware of our grateful emotions. Impressed with this belief, without fully understanding the process by which auramental thought-substitution is effected, Lovieta and Lavoca, when subject to transient scintillations of temper, will firmly close their mouths to guard against the utterance of words prompted by anger. The change in M. Baudois presents many features equally remarkable with those of Consolata. You will recollect that he excelled as a pianist, but of that class whose talent resides in the mechanical use of the fingers and eyes in execution; now he holds you enrapt with the pathos of harmonized sympathy. He often exclaims that his seemingly impromptu compositions are a marvel to himself. Has it not amazed you greatly, from the ready realization of immortal impressions through the avenue of unselfish goodness, that humanity has continued heedless through the lapse of so many ages, blinded with will o’wisp infatuations? Although still full to overflowing with grateful reciprocations of happy experience, we will forego their written expression for the present, to give place for the description of our discoveries of relict mementoes brought by the ocean currents and wind wafts from the Eastern continent, decades of centuries ago. They will certainly afford Mr. Dow material aid upon which to found his conjectural history.
While dredging the Laguna Fecal in the year 1852, for ammoniacal guano in its crystalized and mixed combinations, the sieve grapnel brought to the surface several pieces of fashioned wood of remarkable appearance. From their shape and peculiar method of union, the curiosity of the laborers became excited; and as my devotion to antiquarian research was known to the Padrone, a message was sent to me expressing the desire that I would attend personally and direct the labors of the workmen in accordance with my judgment. Before my arrival, an anchor of hard copper alloy was raised. After carefully removing the ammoniacal incrustations, a clear impress of its form was found stamped on the shank beneath the ring. This indenture was the maritime seal of the early Phœnician cities. Knowing the high scientific value that I placed upon the relict vestiges of past ages, the Padrone and workmen voluntarily surrendered all that had been recovered.
After carefully sounding to obtain a knowledge of the imbedded extent of the detached portions, and to learn the dimensions of the vessel, if its planks and timbers were yet retained in position by their fastenings, it was inclosed in a coffer-dam, and the retained guanic admixture with water was pumped out for evaporation. When cleared, the trove, with the aid of dredge and shovels, was in a few days fully exposed to view. As we had anticipated, the prize proved to be the remains of an ancient galley. Calculating from the keel, which remained nearly entire, the extreme length from its heel to the stem of the prow must have exceeded, free from overworks, seventy feet. The keel was stepped for prow, main, and stern masts. The former and latter were respectively placed within a few feet of the extreme ends of the keelson, or its semblance, which strengthened the true step in the keel. The septum support of the main-mast united the after and forward decks, separating the banks of oarsmen, with ample space between for passage fore and aft. Beneath the lower bank-pits a portion of the deck remained, showing the foot-wear of the rowers in their forward and backward steps of reach. The hold beneath was of sufficient capacity for the storage of provisions for a long voyage. The run-planking on the starboard side was sufficiently well preserved to show the columbares for a single bank of eight oars, as well as those in the stern designed for the rudder blades. The fact of there being only a single bank of oars in the true planking, afforded presumptive evidence of commercial intention, as in a vessel so large their propelling power would have proved insufficient for ordinary progression, but as adjuvantic aids to the sails, in light winds, they would prove valuable. The seams between the planks still retained the papyrus with which they had been caulked; this had been introduced with pitch or melted resin; the combined effects of age and ammonia had changed the paying substance, so that in appearance it resembled amber. The remains of the galley presented for the study of the antiquarian a double interest, historical and mechanical, the latter, with its material indications of skill in art adaptation, affording a clue to the periodic stages of progression as the head and hand mark of coeval intelligence. The wood used in its construction was the red, aromatic cedar of Lebanon, which gave indications of large growth, many of the planks reaching the entire length of the hull, perhaps determining at the time the size of the vessel. During the early ascendancy of Roman rule, the Appenine pine, or fir, was brought into requisition for ship building; but the cedar of Lebanon still retained its reputation founded upon intrinsic value, as it exceeded all other woods in elastic toughness, lightness, durability, and unattractive freedom from parasitic accumulations peculiar to the Mediterranean and ocean. The rostrum or beak had been detached from the prow and set upon an altar aft, among other memorial lares. In form it blended the graceful curve of the swan’s neck with the repulsive rugæ of the serpent’s expansive skin, characteristically sustained with the mythical “figure-head” of a dragon. In addition to the holes mortised in the true keel for the reception of the ribs, they were secured in place and rendered steadfast by a clamp attachment to an overlaying substitute for the modern keelson, to which they were firmly bolted, with a workmanlike precision that had defied the lapse of time, and decomposing agency of salts and exposure, a chance portion only of the metal being exposed. But to the lost art of hardening copper with a non-erosive alloy, its preservation was chiefly to be attributed. The larboard portion of the prow’s planking still retained the eye, consecrated as the watchful guardian of course and detector of danger.
When the hull was raised from its long repose in the bed of the lagoon, which had formerly been an inlet of the La Plata, and thoroughly dried, it was restored, in a measure, to its former lightness, from which it was easy to conceive its swift progress over the waters when impelled by oars or a favoring gale, as it but slightly taxed the strength of twenty men to bear it upon their shoulders to its present resting place, in the outer patio of my museum built for its reception.
Your description of the Kyronese lineaments favors a descent from the primal union of the Phœnician with the North African races. I have relics exhumed remote from the shores of the La Plata, of undoubted Morisco fabrication, some of which bear a date corresponding with the second century of our era. From these material evidences, we have conclusive proof that the currents evoked from the disgorgements of the Mediterranean’s tidal surplus, through the Strait of Gibraltar, and the large river-drains of South America, by the La Plata estuary, in monsoon reciprocation, have proved the accidental highway of tempest-sped vessels, from the period when they were first built with a carrying capacity sufficient for the transportation of merchandise, and the free navigation of the inland seas with sails. The diversity of color, facial contour, and structural art of fabrication, plainly bespeak an intermixture of European, Asiatic, and African races with the aborigines of America. That the supply was accidental, and limited to the recurrence of causes happening after the lapse of long intervals, is apparent from the numerous depopulated cities, whose inhabitants, like those of old Heraclea, presumed upon their ritual intelligence to enslave the natives and barbarously treat them, until the arrogance of folly and over-indulgence opened a way for retributive judgment in total annihilation. Hence the mottled appearance of the natives in the neighborhood of the ruined cities of Mexico and Yucatan, derived from a relapse after a sparse inoculation of the lighter shades of color. The same effects are apparent in all the coast eddies confluent with the inter-oceanic currents from the disemboguement of large rivers, as in the fruitful valleys of their interior tributaries, ruins indicating exotic races are generally found.
As all these conjectural evolutions of deductive thought, relative to the transition events of the past, are unprofitable, in comparison with the cultivation of the conscious elements of goodness, for the prospective happiness of future generations, through the avenue of educated self-legislation, you must excuse the little attention that I have devoted to research for the elucidation of Heraclean derivation.
Our desire to see you, under the impressions imparted from Heraclean example, has increased with our happiness, until it has become almost irresistible. Strange as it may appear to you, Consolata consulted me this morning upon the feasibility of making a trip to Heraclea. The idea was an infinite source of pleasure to us all, M. Baudois alone expressing regretful sorrow that there was a prejudiced obstacle in the way over which he held doubtful control, and until he had reduced it to kindly subjugation he would not adventure himself as the possible cause of a lack of freedom to the genial flow of sincerity. The nature of this “lion,” still at large, barring his way to Heraclean enjoyment, we can surmise, but we think from the present cordial relations existing between him and Teudschen that it would prove a whimsical prejudice rather than a reality. Lovieta and Lavoca have set their little heads together in council, with our consent and approval, to solicit your aid and intercession for their admission into the Heraclean school. Notwithstanding our children are to us the solacing light and warmth of affection in personification, we wish to advance their happiness, for transmission, upon a sure basis, even if we shall be obliged to defer our own visit for a season; for we have full faith in their increasing love, and shall find ample consolation for our temporary bereavement in the prospect of a joyful reunion. In the meantime,—if our petition should prove agreeable to the prætor and tribunes,—while waiting for Captain Greenwood, the children specially desire that you will extend to the Manatitlan volantaphs an invitation for them to make our house their abiding place whenever they visit Buenos Ayres. M. Baudois is now engaged in devising means for their accommodation on our roof, having already completed the architectural designs for the falcon mews, and colemena for the phaeton bees. As yet his invention halts in calculating the furnishing requirements suited in capacity for the size of our anticipated guests. Lovieta and Lavoca jointly solicit one or more of the Manatitlan donecellita giantescoes to act as auramental governantes in preparation for their entrance into the Heraclean school, if the Dosch approves and will favor them with a suspension of their school regulations. “If the request is granted, they promise to attend personally to their comfort, and will try to prove obedient to their direction in everything.” Consolata hopes that your present powers of self-control will enable you to banish from your memory the remembrance of her unworthiness, promising, with the opportunity, to give full expression to the sincerity of her supplication with practical evidences of her amendment. Our endeavors to impress “our little folks” with the relative size of the Manatitlan giantescoes, mediums, and tits, has been but partially successful, from our own deficiency of subject comprehension. At present they seize upon representative minutiæ, in suggestive similitude, for mental comparison. For the material illustration of head capacity, pins of different sizes have been brought into requisition, and for the eyes those of needles; still there is a lingering vagueness in all of our conceptions of Manatitlan proportions in bodily endowment.
If consistent with Manatitlan propriety, in the economy of time, it would afford us great satisfaction if they would permit us to entertain a sufficient number of their people to keep us well directed, for we have become vividly conscious of our instinctive frailties. In anticipation of a favorable answer to our joint requests I have had a flag-staff raised upon our roof surmounted with the letters P. G. In closing we wish to inquire if, as with us, in our household association, you, in your intercourse with the Heracleans are disinclined to speak unless you have something useful, solacing, or mirthful to say? We have certainly grown chary in speech, but with a flowing increase in the current of loving communication, with the prospect of reducing language to a nearer approximation to the truthful intention of its manifest devisement. With gratitude for the inexpressible happiness you have been the means of conferring, we shall ever esteem it a favor if you will permit us to supply your material wants, foreign to the resources of Heraclea.
Pedro Garcia,