At the conclusion of the autobiography prefixed to his former series of Essays, published some years since, Mr Waterton announced that he then "put away the pen not to be used again except in self-defence." That this resolution has been departed from, from whatever motive, will be matter for congratulation to most, if not all, of the readers of the "Wanderings" and "Essays;" and the volume before us derives an additional interest from its being an unsolicited donation to the widow of his deceased friend, Mr Loudon, the well-known naturalist. Methinks the author would not have done amiss in continuing, both to this and the former series of essays, the peculiarly appropriate title under which his first lucubrations were given to the world: since veritable Wanderings they are over every imaginable variety of subject and climate, from caymans in the Essequibo to the blood of St Januarius at Naples; schemes for the banishment of Hanoverian rats (Mr W. never allows this voracious intruder a British denizenship) in Yorkshire, and for averting the projected banishment of the rooks in Scotland. Among the amusing omniun gatherum intermingled with the valuable ornithological information in the present volume, we find dissertations on the gigantic raspberries, now, alas! no more produced in the ruined garden of Walton Hall—on the evils of tight shoes, tight lacing, and stiff cravats—on the natural history of that extinct-by-law variety of the human species called the chimney sweeper—and last, not least, on that of the author himself, in the continuation of his unique autobiography; and we rejoice to find him, though now close upon his grand climacteric, still able to climb a tree by the aid of toes which have never been cramped by tight shoes, with all the vigour, if not all the agility, of his lusty youth, breathing hostility against no living creature except Mr Swainson and Sir Robert Peel—the little love he already bore to the latter for framing the oath of abjuration for Catholics[9] not being greatly augmented by the imposition of the income-tax—and still maintaining in Walton Park an inviolable asylum for crows, hawks, owls, and all the generally proscribed tribes of the feathered race.
The continuation of the autobiography is taken up from the publication of the first volume of essays in 1837, and consists chiefly of the narrative of adventures by land and perils by sea, in an expedition with his family, by the route of Holland and the Rhine, to the sunny shores of Italy. But the intervening period was not without incidents worthy of record. By a judicious system of pavement joined with Roman cement, and drains secured at the mouths by iron grates, "Charles Waterton, in the year of grace 1839, effectually cleared the premises at Walton Hall of every Hanoverian rat, young and old ... and if I were to offer L.20 sterling money for the capture of a single individual, in or about any part of the premises, not one could be procured." Not long after this memorable achievement, a case of hydrophobia in Nottingham promised to afford him an opportunity of trying the virtues of the famous Wourali poison, as a cure for this dreadful and hitherto unconquerable malady. The difficulties and dangers encountered in the search for this potent narcotic through the wilds of Guiana, and the subsequent experiments on the ass Wouralia, which, after being apparently deprived of life by its influence, was revived by the inflation of the lungs with a blowpipe, and lived twenty-four years in clover at Walton, are familiar to the readers of the Wanderings—but its presumed efficacy in cases of hydrophobia was not destined to be tested in the present instance, as the patient had expired before Mr W.'s arrival. Its powers were, however, exhibited in the presence of a scientific assemblage:—one of two asses operated upon, though restored at the time, died on the third day, the other was perfectly recovered by the process of artificial respiration, and "every person present seemed convinced that the virulence of the Wourali poison was completely under the command of the operator ... and that it can be safely applied to a human being labouring under hydrophobia!" Now this inference, with all due deference to Mr Waterton, appears to partake not a little of the non sequitur; and unless the modus operandi by which relief is to be obtained during the suspension of vitality thus produced is more clearly explained, we doubt whether many applications will be made for "the scientific assistance of Mr Gibson of the General Hospital at Nottingham, to give the sufferer a chance of saving his life by the supposed, though yet untried, efficacy of the Wourali poison, which, worst come to the worst, would, by its sedative qualities, render death calm and composed, and free from pain." Satisfied, however, with the somewhat equivocal result of this experiment, Mr Waterton resumed his preparations for departure, and having "called up the gamekeeper, and made him promise, as he valued his place, that he would protect all hawks, crows, herons, jays, and magpies," sailed from Hull for Rotterdam with his two sisters-in-law and his only son, a boy eleven years of age.
Mr Waterton's Catholic sympathies for the Belgian revolt, "for real liberty in religious matters," and his lamentations over the magnificent churches in Holland, stripped of their pictures and ornaments on the change of religion, do not prevent his feeling very favourably disposed towards the Dutch and their country, "the uniformity of which, and the even tenor of their tempers, appear as if one had been made for the other." The protection extended to the stork, which builds without fear in the heart of their towns, gives them an additional claim on his good-will; and "would but our country gentlemen put a stop to the indiscriminate slaughter of birds by their ruthless gamekeepers, we should not have to visit Holland to see the true habits of the stork, nor roam through Germany to enjoy the soaring of the kite—a bird once very common in this part of Yorkshire, but now a total stranger to it." The progressive extinction of so many of the larger species of birds once indigenous to England before the progress of drainage and clearing; has long been a subject of regret not only to the naturalist but the sportsman. Of the stately bustard, once the ornament of all our downs, scarce a solitary straggler now remains—the crane, as well as the stork, which once abounded in the fen districts, has totally disappeared; and though the success which has attended the attempts to re-introduce the capercailzie in Scotland has restored to us one of our lost species, it is much to be feared that unless Mr Waterton's example, in converting his park into a sanctuary, be followed by other country gentlemen of ornithological tastes, the raven, the crow, and the larger species of hawks, in whose preservation no one is interested, and which are already becoming raræ aves, in the agricultural districts, will eventually disappear from the British Fauna.
The great influx of English into Belgium, while scarce any are to be found in Holland, is attributed, probably with reason, to the national love of sight-seeing, which finds gratification in the ceremonies and decorations of the Belgian churches—"up and down which crowds of English are for ever sauntering.... 'How have you got over your time to-day?' I said one afternoon to an acquaintance, who, like Mr Noddy's eldest son in Sterne, was travelling through Europe at a prodigious speed, and had very little spare time on his hands. He said he had knocked off thirteen churches that morning!" The headquarters of the English residents appear to be at Bruges, and Mr Waterton highly approves of the selection:—"Did my habits allow me to prefer streets to woods and green fields, I could retire to Bruges, and there end my days." But after visiting the convent of English nuns, where some of the ladies of Mr Waterton's family had received their education, and the portrait of "that regal profligate, Charles II." (Mr Waterton's love of truth here gets the better of his ancestral predilections for the house of Stuart) in the hall of the ancient society of archers, of which he was a member during his exile, the travellers continued their route by Ghent and along the valley of the Meuse, "which, on a fine warm day in July, appears as rich and beautiful as any valley can well be on this side of ancient Paradise," to Aix-la-Chapelle. At this famous Prussian watering-place Mr Waterton found much to move his bile, not only in the sight of ladies risking their fortunes at the public gaming-tables authorised and protected by government, but in the folly of the valetudinarians, who perversely counteract the beneficial effects of the waters by "resorting to the salle-à-manger, and there partaking of all the luxuries from the cornucopia of Epicurus, Bacchus, and Ceres." He derived some consolation, however, from the contemplation of the magnificent and varied prospect from the wooded heights of the Louisberg above the town; and the sight, on his last visit, of a pair of ravens circling over his head in aërial revolutions, and then winging their way towards the forest of Ardennes, awakened recollections of home, and "of the rascally cobbler who desecrated the Sunday morning by robbing the last raven's nest in this vicinity." At Freyburg they encountered a phenomenon, in the shape of a poetical German waiter—and a poet, too, in the English language, though he had never been in England, nor much among English; but the waiter's effusions, the subject of which was the cathedral of Freyburg, were never destined to reach England, but now lie, with the rest of Mr Waterton's travelling goods and chattels, in the wreck of the Pollux, at the bottom of the Mediterranean sea.
The passage of the Alps disappointed our traveller's hopes of finding among their heights some of the rarer European birds:—"the earth appeared one huge barren waste, and the heavens produced not a single inhabitant of air." On descending the southern side of the mountains, they at length received ocular demonstration of their being really in Italy, by observing matronly-looking woman engaged in certain offices touching the long black hair of her daughter, which showed that combs were still as scarce as when Horace stigmatized the "incomptum caput" of Canidia; and the necessity of lavender water, to pass with any thing like comfort through the town and villages which looked so enchanting at a distance in the midst of their olive groves and cypresses, is feelingly commented upon. But before entering Rome, we must give Mr Waterton's own account of an exploit which made some noise at the time of its performance, and the motives at least of which appear to have been mis-stated. On a former visit, he had gained great renown by climbing, in company with Captain Alexander of the royal navy, to the summit of the cross surmounting the ball of St Peter's, and leaving his gloves on the point of the conductor! and as a pendant to this notable achievement, it was announced about this time, in most of the English papers, that in a fervour of religious enthusiasm, on approaching the Eternal City, he had walked barefoot as a pilgrim the last twenty miles, and thus so severely lacerated his feet as to be incapable for some time of moving. "Would that my motives had been as pure as represented! The sanctity of the churches, the remains of holy martyrs which enrich them, the relics of canonized saints placed in such profusion throughout them, might well induce a Catholic traveller to adopt this easy and simple mode of showing his religious feeling. But, unfortunately, the idea never entered my mind at the time; I had no other motives than those of easy walking and self-enjoyment." The enjoyment to be derived from walking without shoes or stockings over a rough pavement, in sharp frost, proved as problematical in practice as it would be to most persons in theory; and Mr Waterton found to his cost, that the fifteen years which had elapsed since he went barefoot with impunity in the forests of Guiana, had materially impaired his soles' power of endurance. After sustaining a severe injury in his right foot, of which the intensity of the cold prevented his being sensible at the instant, he was glad to resume his chaussure, and was laid up on the sofa for two months after his arrival. "It was this unfortunate adventure which gave rise to the story of my walking barefooted into Rome, and which gained me a reputation by no means merited on my part."
Notwithstanding this mishap, and the many things offensive to English feelings in the manifold impurities of Roman streets and kitchens, Mr Waterton speaks with much satisfaction of his sojourn for several months in "Rome, immortal Rome, replete with every thing that can instruct and please." Though his former visits had in great degree satiated him with galleries and palaces, he still found great attractions in the studio of the Roman Landseer, Vallati,[10] the famous painter of wild-boars; but his great point of attraction seems to have been the bird-market near the Pantheon—the extent of traffic in which may be judged from the statement, that during the spring and autumn passage of the quails, which are taken in nets of prodigious extent on the shores of the Mediterranean, 17,000 of these birds have passed the Roman custom-house in one day. The catalogue of birds exposed for sale as articles of food comprehends nearly all the species found in Italy: not even robin-redbreast is sacred from the omnivorous maw of the Italian gourmand, and a hundred at a time may be seen lying on a stall. "The birdmen outwardly had the appearance of banditti, but it as all outside, and nothing more: they were good men notwithstanding their uncouth looks, and good Christians too, for I could see them waiting at the door of the Jesuits' church by half-past four on a winter's morning, to be ready for the first mass." By ingratiating himself with this rough-seeming fraternity, Mr Waterton succeeded in obtaining specimens of many rare birds, which fortunately escaped the wreck of the Pollux, by having been previously forwarded to Leghorn. Among these scattered ornithological notices, we find some interesting remarks on the true designation of the "sparrow sitting alone upon the house-top," to which the Royal Psalmist likened himself in his penitence and vigils. It is obvious that the description could not apply to our common house sparrow, the habits of which are certainly the reverse of solitary or pensive; and Mr Waterton is undoubtedly correct in referring it to the Blue or Solitary Thrush—a bird not found in this country, but common in Spain, Italy, and the south of France, and still more so in the Levant—the Petrocincla cyanea of scientific naturalists, and the Passera solitaria of the Italians. "It is a real thrush in size, in shape, in habits, and in song—and is indeed a solitary bird, for it never associates with any other, and only with its own mate in breeding time—and even then it is often seen quite alone upon the house-top, where it warbles in sweet and plaintive strains, and continues its song as it moves in easy flight from roof to roof. The traveller may often see it on the remains of the Temple of Peace, but much more frequently on the stupendous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, and always on the Colosseum: and, in fine, on the tops of most of the churches, monasteries, and convents, within and without the walls of the Eternal City. It being an assiduous frequenter of the habitations of man, I cannot have a doubt that it was the same bird which King David saw on the house-top before him, and to which he listened as it poured forth its sweet and plaintive song."
The ceremonies of St Anthony's Day, when the beasts of burden, decked in many-coloured trappings, are brought to receive the priestly benediction, are described with much unction, and defended with Mr Waterton's usual zeal for the ordinances of his church, and with considerable tact, against the ridicule often thrown upon them by "thoughtless and censorious travellers." "I recalled to my mind the incessant and horrible curses which our village urchins vent against their horses on the Barnsley canal, which passes close by my porters' lodges"—and truly the most rigid of Protestants could scarcely deny, in this case, the advantage, for the well-doing of both man and beast, which the usages of Rome have over those of Yorkshire. But the approach of the malaria season at length compelled them to leave Rome for Naples; and on the journey Mr Waterton's ornithological tastes were gratified to the utmost. "I saw more birds than I had seen on the whole of the journey from England; and after having seen the ram of Apulia, I no longer considered Homer's story of Ulysses with the sheep of Polyphemus as so very much out of the way." But a still more imposing spectacle than the festival of St Anthony awaited them at Naples: this was the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius, on September 19, to witness which was the principal object of their visit. We shall leave Mr Waterton to speak for himself. "At the termination of high mass, the phial containing the blood was carried by one of the canons into the body of the cathedral, that every person might have an opportunity of inspecting the blood, and kissing the phial, should he feel inclined. There were two phials—a large one, containing the blood as it had flowed from the wounds of the martyr at its execution; and a smaller one, containing his blood mixed with sand, just as it had been taken from the ground on which it had fallen. These two phials were enclosed in a very strong and beautifully ornamented case of silver and glass. I kissed this case, and had a most satisfactory opportunity of seeing the blood in its solid state,... and the canon who held it turned it over and over many times to prove to us that the blood was not liquid.... At one o'clock P.M., no symptoms whatever of a change had occurred. A vast number of people had already left the cathedral, so that I found the temperature considerably lowered. Precisely at a quarter before two, the blood suddenly and entirely liquefied. The canon who held the case passed close by me, and afforded me a most favourable opportunity of accompanying him close up to the high altar, where I kissed the phial, and joined my humble prayers to those of the multitude.... Nothing in the whole course of my life has struck me so forcibly as this occurrence;... and I here state, in the most unqualified manner, my firm conviction, that the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius is miraculous, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Were I to conceal this my conviction from the public eye, I should question the soundness of both my head and my heart, and charge my pen with arrant cowardice."
After a short excursion to Sicily, in which Mr Waterton had occasion to surmise that the ancient furies of Scylla and Charybdis had quitted their old quarters to take up their abode in the passport-offices, and regretted his inability to avail himself of the opportunities which the island afforded, for observing the spring and autumn passage of the migratory birds, they paid a farewell visit to the tomb of Virgil, and left "that laughing, noisy, merry city of Naples on a fine and sunny morning, to enjoy for eight or nine months more the soothing quiet of the Roman capital." At length, on the 16th June 1841, the party left Rome, and sailed the next day from Civita Vecchia, on board the Pollux steamer, for Leghorn; but their good fortune at length deserted them. "Cervantes has told us that there is nothing certain in this life—'no hay cosa segura en esta vida.'" It was soon evident to Mr Waterton, as an old traveller, that there was a great want of nautical discipline on board the Pollux, and of this they soon had fatal proof. In the midst of the night the vessel came in collision with the Mongibello, a steamer of larger size, steering on the opposite course, which stove her in amidships, and she sunk in a quarter of an hour. The captains and mates of both vessels were asleep below, but from the calmness of the sea, and the exertions of the Prince of Canino (Charles Bonaparte,) who was fortunately a passenger on board the Mongibello, and took the helm from the steersman when he was on the point of sheering off from the wreck, all the crew and passengers of the Pollux, except one man, were got safe on board the former vessel. All their property was lost, and, on their being landed the next day at Leghorn, an attempt was made by the authorities to detain the vessel, and all on board, for twenty days in quarantine, on the ground of the Pollux's bill of health having been lost in the foundered vessel! But Prince Canino again came to the rescue, and they eventually returned in the Mongibello to Civita Vecchia, and thence to Rome, where, as a climax to their misfortunes, Mr Waterton was for some time laid up by an attack of fever. It was not till the 20th of July that he finally set out with his party for England, having in the mean time made a singular addition to his suite, which is treated of at length in one of the Essays.
Among the various strange birds which find a place in the Roman bill of fare, is a pretty little owl yclept the Civetta, (called by British ornithologists, from its diminutive size, the passerina, or sparrow owl,) which abounds throughout Italy, where it figures in more varied capacities than is consistent with the usually reserved habits of its race. "You may see it plucked and ready trussed for the spit, on the same stall at which hawks, crows, jackdaws, jays, magpies, hedgehogs, frogs, snails, and buzzards, are offered for sale to the passing conoscenti"—a catalogue of dainties which bears but a small proportion to a more extended carte raisonnée elsewhere given by Mr Waterton, who verily believes that "scarcely any thing which has had life in it comes amiss to the Italians in the way of food, except the Hanoverian rat." It is used by sportsmen (as we find from Savi's Ornitologia Toscana) as a decoy for small birds, which it attracts within gunshot by its singular gestures when placed on the top of a pole; and it "is much prized by the gardener, for its uncommon ability in destroying insects, snails, slugs, and reptiles. There is scarcely an outhouse in the vineyards and gardens which is not tenanted by the Civetta, and it is often brought up tame from the nest." It has hitherto been known in England only as a rare and accidental visitor; and Mr Waterton, actuated by a patriotic desire to secure for his countrymen the benefit of its services—"not, by the way, in the kitchen, but in the kitchen-garden"—provided himself with a dozen as compagnons de voyage, on quitting Rome. At Genoa, an inclination was manifested by the custom-house officers to claim duty on this novel article of export—and a precedent might have been drawn from the case of the eagles which were sent from Killarney to Colonel Montagu, before the duties between England and Ireland were abolished, and detained at Bristol on the plea that there was a duty on all singing-birds! The Genoese doganieri, however, on Mr Waterton's assurance that the owls were not for the purposes of traffic, and were, moreover, the native produce of la bellissima Italia, (with the sly addition, that he "had reason to believe they are common in Genoa, so that they can well be spared,") graciously allowed them to pass duty-free; but at Basle an unexpected obstacle arose. Mr Waterton's letter of credit had been lost in the Pollux; and in spite of letters of recommendation from the Prince of Canino, and the Italian Rothschild, Torlonia, "M. Passavant the banker, a wormwood-looking money-monger, refused to advance a single sous," even on the deposit of a valuable watch; and Mr Waterton, with his owls and his family, would have stuck fast at Basle, but for the arrival of Mr W. Brougham, (brother of Lord Brougham,) who furnished him with a supply; and the whole party reached Aix-la-Chapelle safe and sound. But here Mr Waterton thought proper, by way of cleansing his protegés from the soils of their long journey, to give them, as well as himself, the benefit of a warm bath!—"an act of rashness" (as he himself terms it) which caused the death of five of the number from cold the same night. Two others perished afterwards from casualties, and the remaining five arrived safe at Walton Hall. "On the 10th of May 1842, there being abundance of slugs, snails, and beetles on the ground, at seven o'clock in the evening, the weather being serene and warm, I opened the door of the cage, and the five owls stepped out to try their fortunes in this wicked world. As they retired into the adjacent thicket, I bade then be of good heart; and although the whole world was now open to them, I said if they would stop in my park I would be glad of their company, and would always be a friend and benefactor to them." How the little strangers have sped—whether they have increased and multiplied in the hospitable shades of Walton Hall, to gratify their entomological tastes for the benefit of neighbouring kitchen-gardens, or strayed from this asylum, and fallen victims as raræ aves to some ruthless bird-stuffer, we hope to be informed in the "more last words" which we yet hope for on the pen of Mr Waterton.
"Of all the brave birds that e'er I did see,
The owl is the fairest in her degree,"