When one has been sufficiently dis-Europized by remote travel, to become, as to his imagination, a child again, and receive a child's impressions from the strangeness that surrounds him, the grotesque and fantastic aspects of his situation afford him the same emotions, of unquestioning wonder and romantic sympathy, that he derived in the old time from the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, the exploits of Jack the Giant-Killer, what Gulliver saw, or Munchausen did. Behold Belzoni in the necropolis of Thebes, crawling on his very face among the dusty rubbish of unnumbered mummies, to steal papyri from their bosoms. Fatigued with the exertion of squirming through a mummy-choked passage of five hundred yards, he sought a resting-place; but when he would have sat down, his weight bore on the body of an Egyptian, and crushed it like a bandbox. He naturally had recourse to his hands to sustain his weight; but they found no better support, and he sunk altogether in a crash of broken bones, rags, and wooden cases, that raised such a dust as kept him motionless for a quarter of an hour, waiting for it to subside. He could not move from the place, however, without increasing it, and every step he took smashed a mummy. Once, in forcing his way through a steeply inclined passage, about twenty feet in length, and no wider than his body could be squeezed through, he was overwhelmed with an avalanche of bones, legs, arms, and hands, rolling from above; and every forward move brought his face in contact with the abhorred features of some decayed Egyptian.[1]
[Footnote 1: Bayard Taylor.]
Behold Denham in the Desert of Dead Bones, where his sick comrades were constantly disheartened by the sight of the skulls and skeletons of men who had perished on those sands. During several days, they passed from sixty to ninety skeletons a day; but the numbers that lay about the wells at El Hammar were countless. Those of two women, whose perfect and regular teeth bespoke them young, perhaps beautiful, were particularly shocking. Their arms were still clasped around each other's neck, in the attitude in which they had expired, although the flesh had long since been consumed in the rays of the sun, and the blackened bones alone were left.
Parkyns, among the little greenish-gray monkeys of Tigré, enjoyed a treat to make the mouth of our young imagination water. He saw them conversing, quarrelling, making love; mothers were taking care of their children, combing their hair, nursing or "trotting" them; and the passions of all—jealousy, rage, love—were as strongly marked as in men. They had a language as distinct to them as ours to us; and their women were as noisy and as fond of disputation as any fish-fag in Billingsgate.
"On their marches, a few of the heedless youth occasionally lagged behind to snatch a handful of berries; sometimes a matron halted for a while to nurse her baby, and, not to lose time, dressed its hair while it took its meal. Now and then a young lady, excited by jealousy or some sneering look or word, made an ugly mouth at one of her companions, and then, uttering a shrill squeal, highly expressive of rage, vindictively snatched at the offender's tail or leg, and administered a hearty bite. This provoked a retort, and a most unladylike quarrel ensued, till a loud remonstrance from mothers or aunts called them to order."
According to Marco Polo, there have been among the monkeys, from time to time, certain Asiatic Yankees, who did a lively business in the manufacture of an article which would, no doubt, have found a ready purchaser at Barnum's Museum.
"It should be known," says the veracious old Venetian, "that what is reported respecting the dead bodies of diminutive human creatures or pigmies, brought from India, is an idle tale; such pretended men being manufactured in the island of Basman in the following manner. The country produces a species of monkey of a tolerable size, and having a countenance resembling that of a man. Those persons who make it their business to catch them shave off the hair, leaving it only about the chin. They then dry and preserve them with camphor and other drugs; and having prepared them in such a mode that they have exactly the appearance of little men, they put them into wooden boxes, and sell them to trading people, who carry them to all parts of the world."
Not the least familiar of the aspects of the Barbaric are its actions and situations of horror. I could tell tales from the later, not less than from the older travellers, that would send my readers shuddering to sleepless beds: the ferocities of Tippoo reënacted in the name of Nena Sahib; the noiseless murders of Thuggee's nimble cord; the drunken diablerie of the Doorga Pooja; the monstrous human sacrifices of the Khonds and Bheels; the dreadful rites of the Janni before the gory altar of the Earth goddess; the indiscriminate slashing and stabbing of the Amok; the shuddering dodges of the plague-chased Cavrite; the grim and lonely duels of the French lion-killer under the melancholy stars; the carrion-like exposures of the Parsee dead; the nightmarish legends of the Evil Eye. But my hope is to part with them on pleasant terms; so rather would I strew their pillows with the consolations of this many-mooded Barbaric,—moss from ruins, and pretty flowers from the desert,—that beneficent botany which maketh the wilderness to blossom like the rose.
When Mungo Park, deserted by his guides, and stripped by thieves, utterly paralyzed by misfortune, and misery, would have laid him down to die in a desert place,—at that moment, of all others, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification caught his eye. "I mention this," he says, "to show you from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for, though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its root, leaves, and capsule without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image? I started up, and, disregarding both danger and fatigue, travelled forward, assured that relief was at hand; and I was not disappointed."
Richardson, in the midst of Sahara, beheld with brimming eyes two small trees, the common desert acacia, and by-and-by two or three pretty blue flowers. As he snatched them, to fold them in his bosom, he could not help exclaiming, Elhamdullah! "Praise be to God!"—for Arabic was growing second-born to his tongue, and he began to think in it and to pray in it. An Arab said to him, "Yakob, if we had a reed, and were to make a melodious sound, those flowers, the color of heaven, would open and shut their mouths."