There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one! keep
from telling their happinesses to the unhappy.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
After visits to Maryborough and some other Australian towns, we presently
took passage for New Zealand. If it would not look too much like showing
off, I would tell the reader where New Zealand is; for he is as I was; he
thinks he knows. And he thinks he knows where Hertzegovina is; and how
to pronounce pariah; and how to use the word unique without exposing
himself to the derision of the dictionary. But in truth, he knows none
of these things. There are but four or five people in the world who
possess this knowledge, and these make their living out of it. They
travel from place to place, visiting literary assemblages, geographical
societies, and seats of learning, and springing sudden bets that these
people do not know these things. Since all people think they know them,
they are an easy prey to these adventurers. Or rather they were an easy
prey until the law interfered, three months ago, and a New York court
decided that this kind of gambling is illegal, "because it traverses
Article IV, Section 9, of the Constitution of the United States, which
forbids betting on a sure thing." This decision was rendered by the full
Bench of the New York Supreme Court, after a test sprung upon the court
by counsel for the prosecution, which showed that none of the nine Judges
was able to answer any of the four questions.
All people think that New Zealand is close to Australia or Asia, or
somewhere, and that you cross to it on a bridge. But that is not so. It
is not close to anything, but lies by itself, out in the water. It is
nearest to Australia, but still not near. The gap between is very wide.
It will be a surprise to the reader, as it was to me, to learn that the
distance from Australia to New Zealand is really twelve or thirteen
hundred miles, and that there is no bridge. I learned this from
Professor X., of Yale University, whom I met in the steamer on the great
lakes when I was crossing the continent to sail across the Pacific. I
asked him about New Zealand, in order to make conversation. I supposed
he would generalize a little without compromising himself, and then turn
the subject to something he was acquainted with, and my object would then
be attained; the ice would be broken, and we could go smoothly on, and
get acquainted, and have a pleasant time. But, to my surprise, he was
not only not embarrassed by my question, but seemed to welcome it, and to
take a distinct interest in it. He began to talk--fluently, confidently,
comfortably; and as he talked, my admiration grew and grew; for as the
subject developed under his hands, I saw that he not only knew where New
Zealand was, but that he was minutely familiar with every detail of its
history, politics, religions, and commerce, its fauna, flora, geology,
products, and climatic peculiarities. When he was done, I was lost in
wonder and admiration, and said to myself, he knows everything; in the
domain of human knowledge he is king.
I wanted to see him do more miracles; and so, just for the pleasure of
hearing him answer, I asked him about Hertzegovina, and pariah, and
unique. But he began to generalize then, and show distress. I saw that
with New Zealand gone, he was a Samson shorn of his locks; he was as
other men. This was a curious and interesting mystery, and I was frank
with him, and asked him to explain it.
He tried to avoid it at first; but then laughed and said that after all,
the matter was not worth concealment, so he would let me into the secret.
In substance, this is his story:
"Last autumn I was at work one morning at home, when a card came up--the
card of a stranger. Under the name was printed a line which showed that
this visitor was Professor of Theological Engineering in Wellington
University, New Zealand. I was troubled--troubled, I mean, by the
shortness of the notice. College etiquette required that he be at once
invited to dinner by some member of the Faculty--invited to dine on that
day--not, put off till a subsequent day. I did not quite know what to
do. College etiquette requires, in the case of a foreign guest, that the
dinner-talk shall begin with complimentary references to his country, its
great men, its services to civilization, its seats of learning, and
things like that; and of course the host is responsible, and must either
begin this talk himself or see that it is done by some one else. I was
in great difficulty; and the more I searched my memory, the more my
trouble grew. I found that I knew nothing about New Zealand. I thought
I knew where it was, and that was all. I had an impression that it was
close to Australia, or Asia, or somewhere, and that one went over to it
on a bridge. This might turn out to be incorrect; and even if correct,
it would not furnish matter enough for the purpose at the dinner, and I
should expose my College to shame before my guest; he would see that I, a
member of the Faculty of the first University in America, was wholly
ignorant of his country, and he would go away and tell this, and laugh at
it. The thought of it made my face burn.
"I sent for my wife and told her how I was situated, and asked for her
help, and she thought of a thing which I might have thought of myself, if
I had not been excited and worried. She said she would go and tell the
visitor that I was out but would be in in a few minutes; and she would
talk, and keep him busy while I got out the back way and hurried over and
make Professor Lawson give the dinner. For Lawson knew everything, and
could meet the guest in a creditable way and save the reputation of the
University. I ran to Lawson, but was disappointed. He did not know
anything about New Zealand. He said that, as far as his recollection
went it was close to Australia, or Asia, or somewhere, and you go over to
it on a bridge; but that was all he knew. It was too bad. Lawson was a
perfect encyclopedia of abstruse learning; but now in this hour of our
need, it turned out that he did not know any useful thing.
"We consulted. He saw that the reputation of the University was in very
real peril, and he walked the floor in anxiety, talking, and trying to
think out some way to meet the difficulty. Presently he decided that we
must try the rest of the Faculty--some of them might know about New
Zealand. So we went to the telephone and called up the professor of
astronomy and asked him, and he said that all he knew was, that it was
close to Australia, or Asia, or somewhere, and you went over to it on----
"We shut him off and called up the professor of biology, and he said that
all he knew was that it was close to Aus----.
"We shut him off, and sat down, worried and disheartened, to see if we
could think up some other scheme. We shortly hit upon one which promised
well, and this one we adopted, and set its machinery going at once. It
was this. Lawson must give the dinner. The Faculty must be notified by
telephone to prepare. We must all get to work diligently, and at the end
of eight hours and a half we must come to dinner acquainted with New
Zealand; at least well enough informed to appear without discredit before
this native. To seem properly intelligent we should have to know about
New Zealand's population, and politics, and form of government, and
commerce, and taxes, and products, and ancient history, and modern
history, and varieties of religion, and nature of the laws, and their
codification, and amount of revenue, and whence drawn, and methods of
collection, and percentage of loss, and character of climate, and--well,
a lot of things like that; we must suck the maps and cyclopedias dry.
And while we posted up in this way, the Faculty's wives must flock over,
one after the other, in a studiedly casual way, and help my wife keep the
New Zealander quiet, and not let him get out and come interfering with
our studies. The scheme worked admirably; but it stopped business,
stopped it entirely.
"It is in the official log-book of Yale, to be read and wondered at by
future generations--the account of the Great Blank Day--the memorable
Blank Day--the day wherein the wheels of culture were stopped, a Sunday
silence prevailed all about, and the whole University stood still while
the Faculty read-up and qualified itself to sit at meat, without shame,
in the presence of the Professor of Theological Engineering from New
Zealand:
"When we assembled at the dinner we were miserably tired and worn--but we
were posted. Yes, it is fair to claim that. In fact, erudition is a
pale name for it. New Zealand was the only subject; and it was just
beautiful to hear us ripple it out. And with such an air of
unembarrassed ease, and unostentatious familiarity with detail, and
trained and seasoned mastery of the subject-and oh, the grace and fluency
of it!
"Well, finally somebody happened to notice that the guest was looking
dazed, and wasn't saying anything. So they stirred him up, of course.
Then that man came out with a good, honest, eloquent compliment that made
the Faculty blush. He said he was not worthy to sit in the company of
men like these; that he had been silent from admiration; that he had been
silent from another cause also--silent from shame--silent from ignorance!
'For,' said he, 'I, who have lived eighteen years in New Zealand and have
served five in a professorship, and ought to know much about that
country, perceive, now, that I know almost nothing about it. I say it
with shame, that I have learned fifty times, yes, a hundred times more
about New Zealand in these two hours at this table than I ever knew
before in all the eighteen years put together. I was silent because I
could not help myself. What I knew about taxes, and policies, and laws,
and revenue, and products, and history, and all that multitude of things,
was but general, and ordinary, and vague-unscientific, in a word--and it
would have been insanity to expose it here to the searching glare of your
amazingly accurate and all-comprehensive knowledge of those matters,
gentlemen. I beg you to let me sit silent--as becomes me. But do not
change the subject; I can at least follow you, in this one; whereas if
you change to one which shall call out the full strength of your mighty
erudition, I shall be as one lost. If you know all this about a remote
little inconsequent patch like New Zealand, ah, what wouldn't you know
about any other Subject!'"
CHAPTER XXVIL
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what
there is of it.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
FROM DIARY:
November 1--noon. A fine day, a brilliant sun. Warm in the sun, cold
in the shade--an icy breeze blowing out of the south. A solemn long
swell rolling up northward. It comes from the South Pole, with nothing
in the way to obstruct its march and tone its energy down. I have read
somewhere that an acute observer among the early explorers--Cook? or
Tasman?--accepted this majestic swell as trustworthy circumstantial
evidence that no important land lay to the southward, and so did not
waste time on a useless quest in that direction, but changed his course
and went searching elsewhere.
Afternoon. Passing between Tasmania (formerly Van Diemen's Land) and
neighboring islands--islands whence the poor exiled Tasmanian savages
used to gaze at their lost homeland and cry; and die of broken hearts.
How glad I am that all these native races are dead and gone, or nearly
so. The work was mercifully swift and horrible in some portions of
Australia. As far as Tasmania is concerned, the extermination was
complete: not a native is left. It was a strife of years, and decades of
years. The Whites and the Blacks hunted each other, ambushed each other,
butchered each other. The Blacks were not numerous. But they were wary,
alert, cunning, and they knew their country well. They lasted a long
time, few as they were, and inflicted much slaughter upon the Whites.
The Government wanted to save the Blacks from ultimate extermination, if
possible. One of its schemes was to capture them and coop them up, on a
neighboring island, under guard. Bodies of Whites volunteered for the
hunt, for the pay was good--L5 for each Black captured and delivered, but
the success achieved was not very satisfactory. The Black was naked, and
his body was greased. It was hard to get a grip on him that would hold.
The Whites moved about in armed bodies, and surprised little families of
natives, and did make captures; but it was suspected that in these
surprises half a dozen natives were killed to one caught--and that was
not what the Government desired.
Another scheme was to drive the natives into a corner of the island and
fence them in by a cordon of men placed in line across the country; but
the natives managed to slip through, constantly, and continue their
murders and arsons.
The governor warned these unlettered savages by printed proclamation that
they must stay in the desolate region officially appointed for them! The
proclamation was a dead letter; the savages could not read it. Afterward
a picture-proclamation was issued. It was painted up on boards, and
these were nailed to trees in the forest. Herewith is a photographic
reproduction of this fashion-plate. Substantially it means:
1. The Governor wishes the Whites and the Blacks to love each other;
2. He loves his black subjects;
3. Blacks who kill Whites will be hanged;
4. Whites who kill Blacks will be hanged.
Upon its several schemes the Government spent L30,000 and employed the
labors and ingenuities of several thousand Whites for a long time with
failure as a result. Then, at last, a quarter of a century after the
beginning of the troubles between the two races, the right man was found.
No, he found himself. This was George Augustus Robinson, called in
history "The Conciliator." He was not educated, and not conspicuous in
any way. He was a working bricklayer, in Hobart Town. But he must have
been an amazing personality; a man worth traveling far to see. It may be
his counterpart appears in history, but I do not know where to look for
it.
He set himself this incredible task: to go out into the wilderness, the
jungle, and the mountain-retreats where the hunted and implacable savages
were hidden, and appear among them unarmed, speak the language of love
and of kindness to them, and persuade them to forsake their homes and the
wild free life that was so dear to them, and go with him and surrender to
the hated Whites and live under their watch and ward, and upon their
charity the rest of their lives! On its face it was the dream of a
madman.
In the beginning, his moral-suasion project was sarcastically dubbed the
sugar plum speculation. If the scheme was striking, and new to the
world's experience, the situation was not less so. It was this. The
White population numbered 40,000 in 1831; the Black population numbered
three hundred. Not 300 warriors, but 300 men, women, and children. The
Whites were armed with guns, the Blacks with clubs and spears. The
Whites had fought the Blacks for a quarter of a century, and had tried
every thinkable way to capture, kill, or subdue them; and could not do
it. If white men of any race could have done it, these would have
accomplished it. But every scheme had failed, the splendid 300, the
matchless 300 were unconquered, and manifestly unconquerable. They would
not yield, they would listen to no terms, they would fight to the bitter
end. Yet they had no poet to keep up their heart, and sing the marvel of
their magnificent patriotism.
At the end of five-and-twenty years of hard fighting, the surviving 300
naked patriots were still defiant, still persistent, still efficacious
with their rude weapons, and the Governor and the 40,000 knew not which
way to turn, nor what to do.
Then the Bricklayer--that wonderful man--proposed to go out into the
wilderness, with no weapon but his tongue, and no protection but his
honest eye and his humane heart; and track those embittered savages to
their lairs in the gloomy forests and among the mountain snows.
Naturally, he was considered a crank. But he was not quite that. In
fact, he was a good way short of that. He was building upon his long and
intimate knowledge of the native character. The deriders of his project
were right--from their standpoint--for they believed the natives to be
mere wild beasts; and Robinson was right, from his standpoint--for he
believed the natives to be human beings. The truth did really lie
between the two. The event proved that Robinson's judgment was soundest;
but about once a month for four years the event came near to giving the
verdict to the deriders, for about that frequently Robinson barely
escaped falling under the native spears.
But history shows that he had a thinking head, and was not a mere wild
sentimentalist. For instance, he wanted the war parties (called) in
before he started unarmed upon his mission of peace. He wanted the best
chance of success--not a half-chance. And he was very willing to have
help; and so, high rewards were advertised, for any who would go unarmed
with him. This opportunity was declined. Robinson persuaded some tamed
natives of both sexes to go with him--a strong evidence of his persuasive
powers, for those natives well knew that their destruction would be
almost certain. As it turned out, they had to face death over and over
again.
Robinson and his little party had a difficult undertaking upon their
hands. They could not ride off, horseback, comfortably into the woods
and call Leonidas and his 300 together for a talk and a treaty the
following day; for the wild men were not in a body; they were scattered,
immense distances apart, over regions so desolate that even the birds
could not make a living with the chances offered--scattered in groups of
twenty, a dozen, half a dozen, even in groups of three. And the mission
must go on foot. Mr. Bonwick furnishes a description of those horrible
regions, whereby it will be seen that even fugitive gangs of the hardiest
and choicest human devils the world has seen--the convicts set apart to
people the "Hell of Macquarrie Harbor Station"--were never able, but
once, to survive the horrors of a march through them, but starving and
struggling, and fainting and failing, ate each other, and died:
"Onward, still onward, was the order of the indomitable Robinson. No one
ignorant of the western country of Tasmania can form a correct idea of
the traveling difficulties. While I was resident in Hobart Town, the
Governor, Sir John Franklin, and his lady, undertook the western journey
to Macquarrie Harbor, and suffered terribly. One man who assisted to
carry her ladyship through the swamps, gave me his bitter experience of
its miseries. Several were disabled for life. No wonder that but one
party, escaping from Macquarrie Harbor convict settlement, arrived at the
civilized region in safety. Men perished in the scrub, were lost in
snow, or were devoured by their companions. This was the territory
traversed by Mr. Robinson and his Black guides. All honor to his
intrepidity, and their wonderful fidelity! When they had, in the depth
of winter, to cross deep and rapid rivers, pass among mountains six
thousand feet high, pierce dangerous thickets, and find food in a country
forsaken even by birds, we can realize their hardships.
"After a frightful journey by Cradle Mountain, and over the lofty plateau
of Middlesex Plains, the travelers experienced unwonted misery, and the
circumstances called forth the best qualities of the noble little band.
Mr. Robinson wrote afterwards to Mr. Secretary Burnett some details of
this passage of horrors. In that letter, of Oct 2, 1834, he states that
his Natives were very reluctant to go over the dreadful mountain passes;
that 'for seven successive days we continued traveling over one solid
body of snow;' that 'the snows were of incredible depth;' that 'the
Natives were frequently up to their middle in snow.' But still the
ill-clad, ill-fed, diseased, and way-worn men and women were sustained by
the cheerful voice of their unconquerable friend, and responded most
nobly to his call."
Mr. Bonwick says that Robinson's friendly capture of the Big River tribe
remember, it was a whole tribe--"was by far the grandest feature of the
war, and the crowning glory of his efforts." The word "war" was not well
chosen, and is misleading. There was war still, but only the Blacks were
conducting it--the Whites were holding off until Robinson could give his
scheme a fair trial. I think that we are to understand that the friendly
capture of that tribe was by far the most important thing, the highest in
value, that happened during the whole thirty years of truceless
hostilities; that it was a decisive thing, a peaceful Waterloo, the
surrender of the native Napoleon and his dreaded forces, the happy ending
of the long strife. For "that tribe was the terror of the colony," its
chief "the Black Douglas of Bush households."
Robinson knew that these formidable people were lurking somewhere, in
some remote corner of the hideous regions just described, and he and his
unarmed little party started on a tedious and perilous hunt for them. At
last, "there, under the shadows of the Frenchman's Cap, whose grim cone
rose five thousand feet in the uninhabited westward interior," they were
found. It was a serious moment. Robinson himself believed, for once,
that his mission, successful until now, was to end here in failure, and
that his own death-hour had struck.
The redoubtable chief stood in menacing attitude, with his eighteen-foot
spear poised; his warriors stood massed at his back, armed for battle,
their faces eloquent with their long-cherished loathing for white men.
"They rattled their spears and shouted their war-cry." Their women were
back of them, laden with supplies of weapons, and keeping their 150 eager
dogs quiet until the chief should give the signal to fall on.
"I think we shall soon be in the resurrection," whispered a member of
Robinson's little party.
"I think we shall," answered Robinson; then plucked up heart and began
his persuasions--in the tribe's own dialect, which surprised and pleased
the chief. Presently there was an interruption by the chief:
"Who are you?"
"We are gentlemen."
"Where are your guns?"
"We have none."
The warrior was astonished.
"Where your little guns?" (pistols).
"We have none."
A few minutes passed--in by-play--suspense--discussion among the
tribesmen--Robinson's tamed squaws ventured to cross the line and begin
persuasions upon the wild squaws. Then the chief stepped back "to confer
with the old women--the real arbiters of savage war." Mr. Bonwick
continues:
"As the fallen gladiator in the arena looks for the signal of life
or death from the president of the amphitheatre, so waited our
friends in anxious suspense while the conference continued. In a
few minutes, before a word was uttered, the women of the tribe threw
up their arms three times. This was the inviolable sign of peace!
Down fell the spears. Forward, with a heavy sigh of relief, and
upward glance of gratitude, came the friends of peace. The
impulsive natives rushed forth with tears and cries, as each saw in
the other's rank a loved one of the past.
"It was a jubilee of joy. A festival followed. And, while tears
flowed at the recital of woe, a corrobory of pleasant laughter
closed the eventful day."
In four years, without the spilling of a drop of blood, Robinson brought
them all in, willing captives, and delivered them to the white governor,
and ended the war which powder and bullets, and thousands of men to use
them, had prosecuted without result since 1804.
Marsyas charming the wild beasts with his music--that is fable; but the
miracle wrought by Robinson is fact. It is history--and authentic; and
surely, there is nothing greater, nothing more reverence-compelling in
the history of any country, ancient or modern.
And in memory of the greatest man Australasia ever developed or ever will
develop, there is a stately monument to George Augustus Robinson, the
Conciliator in--no, it is to another man, I forget his name.
However, Robertson's own generation honored him, and in manifesting it
honored themselves. The Government gave him a money-reward and a
thousand acres of land; and the people held mass-meetings and praised him
and emphasized their praise with a large subscription of money.
A good dramatic situation; but the curtain fell on another:
"When this desperate tribe was thus captured, there was much
surprise to find that the L30,000 of a little earlier day had been
spent, and the whole population of the colony placed under arms, in
contention with an opposing force of sixteen men with wooden spears!
Yet such was the fact. The celebrated Big River tribe, that had
been raised by European fears to a host, consisted of sixteen men,
nine women, and one child. With a knowledge of the mischief done by
these few, their wonderful marches and their widespread aggressions,
their enemies cannot deny to them the attributes of courage and
military tact. A Wallace might harass a large army with a small and
determined band; but the contending parties were at least equal in
arms and civilization. The Zulus who fought us in Africa, the
Maories in New Zealand, the Arabs in the Soudan, were far better
provided with weapons, more advanced in the science of war, and
considerably more numerous, than the naked Tasmanians. Governor
Arthur rightly termed them a noble race."
These were indeed wonderful people, the natives. They ought not to have
been wasted. They should have been crossed with the Whites. It would
have improved the Whites and done the Natives no harm.
But the Natives were wasted, poor heroic wild creatures. They were
gathered together in little settlements on neighboring islands, and
paternally cared for by the Government, and instructed in religion, and
deprived of tobacco, because the superintendent of the Sunday-school was
not a smoker, and so considered smoking immoral.
The Natives were not used to clothes, and houses, and regular hours, and
church, and school, and Sunday-school, and work, and the other misplaced
persecutions of civilization, and they pined for their lost home and
their wild free life. Too late they repented that they had traded that
heaven for this hell. They sat homesick on their alien crags, and day by
day gazed out through their tears over the sea with unappeasable longing
toward the hazy bulk which was the specter of what had been their
paradise; one by one their hearts broke and they died.
In a very few years nothing but a scant remnant remained alive. A
handful lingered along into age. In 1864 the last man died, in 1876 the
last woman died, and the Spartans of Australasia were extinct.
The Whites always mean well when they take human fish out of the ocean
and try to make them dry and warm and happy and comfortable in a chicken
coop; but the kindest-hearted white man can always be depended on to
prove himself inadequate when he deals with savages. He cannot turn the
situation around and imagine how he would like it to have a well-meaning
savage transfer him from his house and his church and his clothes and his
books and his choice food to a hideous wilderness of sand and rocks and
snow, and ice and sleet and storm and blistering sun, with no shelter, no
bed, no covering for his and his family's naked bodies, and nothing to
eat but snakes and grubs and 'offal. This would be a hell to him; and if
he had any wisdom he would know that his own civilization is a hell to
the savage--but he hasn't any, and has never had any; and for lack of it
he shut up those poor natives in the unimaginable perdition of his
civilization, committing his crime with the very best intentions, and saw
those poor creatures waste away under his tortures; and gazed at it,
vaguely troubled and sorrowful, and wondered what could be the matter
with them. One is almost betrayed into respecting those criminals, they
were so sincerely kind, and tender, and humane; and well-meaning.
They didn't know why those exiled savages faded away, and they did their
honest best to reason it out. And one man, in a like case in New South
Wales, did reason it out and arrive at a solution:
"It is from the wrath of God, which is revealed from heaven against
cold ungodliness and unrighteousness of men."
That settles it.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not
succeed.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
The aphorism does really seem true: "Given the Circumstances, the Man
will appear." But the man musn't appear ahead of time, or it will spoil
everything. In Robinson's case the Moment had been approaching for a
quarter of a century--and meantime the future Conciliator was tranquilly
laying bricks in Hobart. When all other means had failed, the Moment had
arrived, and the Bricklayer put down his trowel and came forward.
Earlier he would have been jeered back to his trowel again. It reminds
me of a tale that was told me by a Kentuckian on the train when we were
crossing Montana. He said the tale was current in Louisville years ago.
He thought it had been in print, but could not remember. At any rate, in
substance it was this, as nearly as I can call it back to mind.
A few years before the outbreak of the Civil War it began to appear that
Memphis, Tennessee, was going to be a great tobacco entrepot--the wise
could see the signs of it. At that time Memphis had a wharf boat, of
course. There was a paved sloping wharf, for the accommodation of
freight, but the steamers landed on the outside of the wharfboat, and all
loading and unloading was done across it, between steamer and shore. A
number of wharfboat clerks were needed, and part of the time, every day,
they were very busy, and part of the time tediously idle. They were
boiling over with youth and spirits, and they had to make the intervals
of idleness endurable in some way; and as a rule, they did it by
contriving practical jokes and playing them upon each other.
The favorite butt for the jokes was Ed Jackson, because he played none
himself, and was easy game for other people's--for he always believed
whatever was told him.
One day he told the others his scheme for his holiday. He was not going
fishing or hunting this time--no, he had thought out a better plan. Out
of his $40 a month he had saved enough for his purpose, in an economical
way, and he was going to have a look at New York.
It was a great and surprising idea. It meant travel immense travel--in
those days it meant seeing the world; it was the equivalent of a voyage
around it in ours. At first the other youths thought his mind was
affected, but when they found that he was in earnest, the next thing to
be thought of was, what sort of opportunity this venture might afford for
a practical joke.
The young men studied over the matter, then held a secret consultation
and made a plan. The idea was, that one of the conspirators should offer
Ed a letter of introduction to Commodore Vanderbilt, and trick him into
delivering it. It would be easy to do this. But what would Ed do when
he got back to Memphis? That was a serious matter. He was good-hearted,
and had always taken the jokes patiently; but they had been jokes which
did not humiliate him, did not bring him to shame; whereas, this would be
a cruel one in that way, and to play it was to meddle with fire; for with
all his good nature, Ed was a Southerner--and the English of that was,
that when he came back he would kill as many of the conspirators as he
could before falling himself. However, the chances must be taken--it
wouldn't do to waste such a joke as that.
So the letter was prepared with great care and elaboration. It was
signed Alfred Fairchild, and was written in an easy and friendly spirit.
It stated that the bearer was the bosom friend of the writer's son, and
was of good parts and sterling character, and it begged the Commodore to
be kind to the young stranger for the writer's sake. It went on to say,
"You may have forgotten me, in this long stretch of time, but you will
easily call me back out of your boyhood memories when I remind you of how
we robbed old Stevenson's orchard that night; and how, while he was
chasing down the road after us, we cut across the field and doubled back
and sold his own apples to his own cook for a hat-full of doughnuts; and
the time that we----" and so forth and so on, bringing in names of
imaginary comrades, and detailing all sorts of wild and absurd and, of
course, wholly imaginary schoolboy pranks and adventures, but putting
them into lively and telling shape.
With all gravity Ed was asked if he would like to have a letter to
Commodore Vanderbilt, the great millionaire. It was expected that the
question would astonish Ed, and it did.
"What? Do you know that extraordinary man?"
"No; but my father does. They were schoolboys together. And if you
like, I'll write and ask father. I know he'll be glad to give it to you
for my sake."
Ed could not find words capable of expressing his gratitude and delight.
The three days passed, and the letter was put into his bands. He started
on his trip, still pouring out his thanks while he shook good-bye all
around. And when he was out of sight his comrades let fly their laughter
in a storm of happy satisfaction--and then quieted down, and were less
happy, less satisfied. For the old doubts as to the wisdom of this
deception began to intrude again.
Arrived in New York, Ed found his way to Commodore Vanderbilt's business
quarters, and was ushered into a large anteroom, where a score of people
were patiently awaiting their turn for a two-minute interview with the
millionaire in his private office. A servant asked for Ed's card, and
got the letter instead. Ed was sent for a moment later, and found Mr.
Vanderbilt alone, with the letter--open--in his hand.
"Pray sit down, Mr. --er--"
"Jackson."
" Ah--sit down, Mr. Jackson. By the opening sentences it seems to be a
letter from an old friend. Allow me--I will run my eye through it. He
says he says--why, who is it?" He turned the sheet and found the
signature. "Alfred Fairchild--hm--Fairchild--I don't recall the name.
But that is nothing--a thousand names have gone from me. He says--he
says-hm-hmoh, dear, but it's good! Oh, it's rare! I don't quite
remember it, but I seem to it'll all come back to me presently. He says
--he says--hm--hm-oh, but that was a game! Oh, spl-endid! How it
carries me back! It's all dim, of course it's a long time ago--and the
names--some of the names are wavery and indistinct--but sho', I know it
happened--I can feel it! and lord, how it warms my heart, and brings
back my lost youth! Well, well, well, I've got to come back into this
work-a-day world now--business presses and people are waiting--I'll keep
the rest for bed to-night, and live my youth over again. And you'll
thank Fairchild for me when you see him--I used to call him Alf, I think
--and you'll give him my gratitude for--what this letter has done for the
tired spirit of a hard-worked man; and tell him there isn't anything that
I can do for him or any friend of his that I won't do. And as for you,
my lad, you are my guest; you can't stop at any hotel in New York. Sit.
where you are a little while, till I get through with these people, then
we'll go home. I'll take care of you, my boy--make yourself easy as to
that."
Ed stayed a week, and had an immense time--and never suspected that the
Commodore's shrewd eye was on him, and that he was daily being weighed
and measured and analyzed and tried and tested.
Yes, he had an immense time; and never wrote home, but saved it all up to
tell when he should get back. Twice, with proper modesty and decency, he
proposed to end his visit, but the Commodore said, "No--wait; leave it to
me; I'll tell you when to go."
In those days the Commodore was making some of those vast combinations of
his--consolidations of warring odds and ends of railroads into harmonious
systems, and concentrations of floating and rudderless commerce in
effective centers--and among other things his farseeing eye had detected
the convergence of that huge tobacco-commerce, already spoken of, toward
Memphis, and he had resolved to set his grasp upon it and make it his
own.
The week came to an end. Then the Commodore said:
"Now you can start home. But first we will have some more talk about
that tobacco matter. I know you now. I know your abilities as well as
you know them yourself--perhaps better. You understand that tobacco
matter; you understand that I am going to take possession of it, and you
also understand the plans which I have matured for doing it. What I want
is a man who knows my mind, and is qualified to represent me in Memphis,
and be in supreme command of that important business--and I appoint you."
"Me!"
"Yes. Your salary will be high--of course-for you are representing me.
Later you will earn increases of it, and will get them. You will need a
small army of assistants; choose them yourself--and carefully. Take no
man for friendship's sake; but, all things being equal, take the man you
know, take your friend, in preference to the stranger." After some
further talk under this head, the Commodore said:
"Good-bye, my boy, and thank Alf for me, for sending you to me."
When Ed reached Memphis he rushed down to the wharf in a fever to tell
his great news and thank the boys over and over again for thinking to
give him the letter to Mr. Vanderbilt. It happened to be one of those
idle times. Blazing hot noonday, and no sign of life on the wharf. But
as Ed threaded his way among the freight piles, he saw a white linen
figure stretched in slumber upon a pile of grain-sacks under an awning,
and said to himself, "That's one of them," and hastened his step; next,
he said, "It's Charley--it's Fairchild good"; and the next moment laid an
affectionate hand on the sleeper's shoulder. The eyes opened lazily,
took one glance, the face blanched, the form whirled itself from the
sack-pile, and in an instant Ed was alone and Fairchild was flying for
the wharf-boat like the wind!
Ed was dazed, stupefied. Was Fairchild crazy? What could be the meaning
of this? He started slow and dreamily down toward the wharf-boat; turned
the corner of a freight-pile and came suddenly upon two of the boys.
They were lightly laughing over some pleasant matter; they heard his
step, and glanced up just as he discovered them; the laugh died abruptly;
and before Ed could speak they were off, and sailing over barrels and
bales like hunted deer. Again Ed was paralyzed. Had the boys all gone
mad? What could be the explanation of this extraordinary conduct? And
so, dreaming along, he reached the wharf-boat, and stepped aboard nothing
but silence there, and vacancy. He crossed the deck, turned the corner
to go down the outer guard, heard a fervent--
"O lord!" and saw a white linen form plunge overboard.
The youth came up coughing and strangling, and cried out--
"Go 'way from here! You let me alone. I didn't do it, I swear I
didn't!"
"Didn't do what?"
"Give you the----"
"Never mind what you didn't do--come out of that! What makes you all act
so? What have I done?"
"You? Why you haven't done anything. But----"
"Well, then, what have you got against me? What do you all treat me so
for?"
"I--er--but haven't you got anything against us?"
"Of course not. What put such a thing into your head?"
"Honor bright--you haven't?
"Honor bright."
"Swear it!"
"I don't know what in the world you mean, but I swear it, anyway."
"And you'll shake hands with me?"
"Goodness knows I'll be glad to! Why, I'm just starving to shake hands
with somebody!"
The swimmer muttered, "Hang him, he smelt a rat and never delivered the
letter!--but it's all right, I'm not going to fetch up the subject." And
he crawled out and came dripping and draining to shake hands. First one
and then another of the conspirators showed up cautiously--armed to the
teeth--took in the amicable situation, then ventured warily forward and
joined the love-feast.
And to Ed's eager inquiry as to what made them act as they had been
acting, they answered evasively, and pretended that they had put it up as
a joke, to see what he would do. It was the best explanation they could
invent at such short notice. And each said to himself, "He never
delivered that letter, and the joke is on us, if he only knew it or we
were dull enough to come out and tell."
Then, of course, they wanted to know all about the trip; and he said--
"Come right up on the boiler deck and order the drinks it's my treat.
I'm going to tell you all about it. And to-night it's my treat again
--and we'll have oysters and a time!"
When the drinks were brought and cigars lighted, Ed said:
"Well, when, I delivered the letter to Mr. Vanderbilt----"
"Great Scott!"
"Gracious, how you scared me. What's the matter?"
"Oh--er--nothing. Nothing--it was a tack in the chair-seat," said one.
"But you all said it. However, no matter. When I delivered the
letter----"
"Did you deliver it?" And they looked at each other as people might who
thought that maybe they were dreaming.
Then they settled to listening; and as the story deepened and its marvels
grew, the amazement of it made them dumb, and the interest of it took
their breath. They hardly uttered a whisper during two hours, but sat
like petrifactions and drank in the immortal romance. At last the tale
was ended, and Ed said--
"And it's all owing to you, boys, and you'll never find me ungrateful
--bless your hearts, the best friends a fellow ever had! You'll all have
places; I want every one of you. I know you--I know you 'by the back,'
as the gamblers say. You're jokers, and all that, but you're sterling,
with the hallmark on. And Charley Fairchild, you shall be my first
assistant and right hand, because of your first-class ability, and
because you got me the letter, and for your father's sake who wrote it
for me, and to please Mr. Vanderbilt, who said it would! And here's to
that great man--drink hearty!"
Yes, when the Moment comes, the Man appears--even if he is a thousand
miles away, and has to be discovered by a practical joke.
CHAPTER XXIX.
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in
his private heart no man much respects himself.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
Necessarily, the human interest is the first interest in the log-book of
any country. The annals of Tasmania, in whose shadow we were sailing,
are lurid with that feature. Tasmania was a convict-dump, in old times;
this has been indicated in the account of the Conciliator, where
reference is made to vain attempts of desperate convicts to win to
permanent freedom, after escaping from Macquarrie Harbor and the "Gates
of Hell." In the early days Tasmania had a great population of convicts,
of both sexes and all ages, and a bitter hard life they had. In one spot
there was a settlement of juvenile convicts--children--who had been sent
thither from their home and their friends on the other side of the globe
to expiate their "crimes."
In due course our ship entered the estuary called the Derwent, at whose
head stands Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. The Derwent's shores
furnish scenery of an interesting sort. The historian Laurie, whose
book, "The Story of Australasia," is just out, invoices its features with
considerable truth and intemperance: "The marvelous picturesqueness of
every point of view, combined with the clear balmy atmosphere and the
transparency of the ocean depths, must have delighted and deeply
impressed" the early explorers. "If the rock-bound coasts, sullen,
defiant, and lowering, seemed uninviting, these were occasionally broken
into charmingly alluring coves floored with golden sand, clad with
evergreen shrubbery, and adorned with every variety of indigenous wattle,
she-oak, wild flower, and fern, from the delicately graceful
'maiden-hair' to the palm-like 'old man'; while the majestic gum-tree,
clean and smooth as the mast of 'some tall admiral' pierces the clear air
to the height of 230 feet or more."
It looked so to me. "Coasting along Tasman's Peninsula, what a shock of
pleasant wonder must have struck the early mariner on suddenly sighting
Cape Pillar, with its cluster of black-ribbed basaltic columns rising to
a height of 900 feet, the hydra head wreathed in a turban of fleecy
cloud, the base lashed by jealous waves spouting angry fountains of
foam."
That is well enough, but I did not suppose those snags were 900 feet
high. Still they were a very fine show. They stood boldly out by
themselves, and made a fascinatingly odd spectacle. But there was
nothing about their appearance to suggest the heads of a hydra. They
looked like a row of lofty slabs with their upper ends tapered to the
shape of a carving-knife point; in fact, the early voyager, ignorant of
their great height, might have mistaken them for a rusty old rank of
piles that had sagged this way and that out of the perpendicular.
The Peninsula is lofty, rocky, and densely clothed with scrub, or brush,
or both. It is joined to the main by a low neck. At this junction was
formerly a convict station called Port Arthur--a place hard to escape
from. Behind it was the wilderness of scrub, in which a fugitive would
soon starve; in front was the narrow neck, with a cordon of chained dogs
across it, and a line of lanterns, and a fence of living guards, armed.
We saw the place as we swept by--that is, we had a glimpse of what we
were told was the entrance to Port Arthur. The glimpse was worth
something, as a remembrancer, but that was all.
The voyage thence up the Derwent Frith displays a grand succession of
fairy visions, in its entire length elsewhere unequaled. In gliding over
the deep blue sea studded with lovely islets luxuriant to the water's
edge, one is at a loss which scene to choose for contemplation and to
admire most. When the Huon and Bruni have been passed, there seems no
possible chance of a rival; but suddenly Mount Wellington, massive and
noble like his brother Etna, literally heaves in sight, sternly guarded
on either hand by Mounts Nelson and Rumney; presently we arrive at
Sullivan's Cove--Hobart!
It is an attractive town. It sits on low hills that slope to the harbor
--a harbor that looks like a river, and is as smooth as one. Its still
surface is pictured with dainty reflections of boats and grassy banks and
luxuriant foliage. Back of the town rise highlands that are clothed in
woodland loveliness, and over the way is that noble mountain, Wellington,
a stately bulk, a most majestic pile. How beautiful is the whole region,
for form, and grouping, and opulence, and freshness of foliage, and
variety of color, and grace and shapeliness of the hills, the capes, the,
promontories; and then, the splendor of the sunlight, the dim rich
distances, the charm of the water-glimpses! And it was in this paradise
that the yellow-liveried convicts were landed, and the Corps-bandits
quartered, and the wanton slaughter of the kangaroo-chasing black
innocents consummated on that autumn day in May, in the brutish old time.
It was all out of keeping with the place, a sort of bringing of heaven
and hell together.
The remembrance of this paradise reminds me that it was at Hobart that we
struck the head of the procession of Junior Englands. We were to
encounter other sections of it in New Zealand, presently, and others
later in Natal. Wherever the exiled Englishman can find in his new home
resemblances to his old one, he is touched to the marrow of his being;
the love that is in his heart inspires his imagination, and these allied
forces transfigure those resemblances into authentic duplicates of the
revered originals. It is beautiful, the feeling which works this
enchantment, and it compels one's homage; compels it, and also compels
one's assent--compels it always--even when, as happens sometimes, one
does not see the resemblances as clearly as does the exile who is
pointing them out.
The resemblances do exist, it is quite true; and often they cunningly
approximate the originals--but after all, in the matter of certain
physical patent rights there is only one England. Now that I have
sampled the globe, I am not in doubt. There is a beauty of Switzerland,
and it is repeated in the glaciers and snowy ranges of many parts of the
earth; there is a beauty of the fiord, and it is repeated in New Zealand
and Alaska; there is a beauty of Hawaii, and it is repeated in ten
thousand islands of the Southern seas; there is a beauty of the prairie
and the plain, and it is repeated here and there in the earth; each of
these is worshipful, each is perfect in its way, yet holds no monopoly of
its beauty; but that beauty which is England is alone--it has no
duplicate.
It is made up of very simple details--just grass, and trees, and shrubs,
and roads, and hedges, and gardens, and houses, and vines, and churches,
and castles, and here and there a ruin--and over it all a mellow
dream-haze of history. But its beauty is incomparable, and all its own.
Hobart has a peculiarity--it is the neatest town that the sun shines on;
and I incline to believe that it is also the cleanest. However that may
be, its supremacy in neatness is not to be questioned. There cannot be
another town in the world that has no shabby exteriors; no rickety gates
and fences, no neglected houses crumbling to ruin, no crazy and unsightly
sheds, no weed-grown front-yards of the poor, no back-yards littered with
tin cans and old boots and empty bottles, no rubbish in the gutters, no
clutter on the sidewalks, no outer-borders fraying out into dirty lanes
and tin-patched huts. No, in Hobart all the aspects are tidy, and all a
comfort to the eye; the modestest cottage looks combed and brushed, and
has its vines, its flowers, its neat fence, its neat gate, its comely cat
asleep on the window ledge.
We had a glimpse of the museum, by courtesy of the American gentleman who
is curator of it. It has samples of half-a-dozen different kinds of
marsupials--[A marsupial is a plantigrade vertebrate whose specialty is
its pocket. In some countries it is extinct, in the others it is rare.
The first American marsupials were Stephen Girard, Mr. Aston and the
opossum; the principal marsupials of the Southern Hemisphere are Mr.
Rhodes, and the kangaroo. I, myself, am the latest marsupial. Also, I
might boast that I have the largest pocket of them all. But there is
nothing in that.]--one, the "Tasmanian devil;" that is, I think he was
one of them. And there was a fish with lungs. When the water dries up
it can live in the mud. Most curious of all was a parrot that kills
sheep. On one great sheep-run this bird killed a thousand sheep in a
whole year. He doesn't want the whole sheep, but only the kidney-fat.
This restricted taste makes him an expensive bird to support. To get the
fat he drives his beak in and rips it out; the wound is mortal. This
parrot furnishes a notable example of evolution brought about by changed
conditions. When the sheep culture was introduced, it presently brought
famine to the parrot by exterminating a kind of grub which had always
thitherto been the parrot's diet. The miseries of hunger made the bird
willing to eat raw flesh, since it could get no other food, and it began
to pick remnants of meat from sheep skins hung out on the fences to dry.
It soon came to prefer sheep meat to any other food, and by and by it
came to prefer the kidney-fat to any other detail of the sheep. The
parrot's bill was not well shaped for digging out the fat, but Nature
fixed that matter; she altered the bill's shape, and now the parrot can
dig out kidney-fat better than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or
anybody else, for that matter--even an Admiral.
And there was another curiosity--quite a stunning one, I thought:
Arrow-heads and knives just like those which Primeval Man made out of
flint, and thought he had done such a wonderful thing--yes, and has been
humored and coddled in that superstition by this age of admiring
scientists until there is probably no living with him in the other world
by now. Yet here is his finest and nicest work exactly duplicated in our
day; and by people who have never heard of him or his works: by
aborigines who lived in the islands of these seas, within our time. And
they not only duplicated those works of art but did it in the brittlest
and most treacherous of substances--glass: made them out of old brandy
bottles flung out of the British camps; millions of tons of them. It is
time for Primeval Man to make a little less noise, now. He has had his
day. He is not what he used to be. We had a drive through a bloomy and
odorous fairy-land, to the Refuge for the Indigent--a spacious and
comfortable home, with hospitals, etc., for both sexes. There was a
crowd in there, of the oldest people I have ever seen. It was like being
suddenly set down in a new world--a weird world where Youth has never
been, a world sacred to Age, and bowed forms, and wrinkles. Out of the
359 persons present, 223, were ex-convicts, and could have told stirring
tales, no doubt, if they had been minded to talk; 42 of the 359 were past
80, and several were close upon 90; the average age at death there is 76
years. As for me, I have no use for that place; it is too healthy.
Seventy is old enough--after that, there is too much risk. Youth and
gaiety might vanish, any day--and then, what is left? Death in life;
death without its privileges, death without its benefits. There were 185
women in that Refuge, and 81 of them were ex-convicts.
The steamer disappointed us. Instead of making a long visit at Hobart,
as usual, she made a short one. So we got but a glimpse of Tasmania, and
then moved on.