Yes, here he comes again! Look at him! Whose dog is he? We are sitting
around the little deck-house of the Savannah steamer, in that languid
state of endurance which befalls voyagers, when, though the sky is
clear, and the heavens blue, and the sea calm as a looking-glass, there
is yet that gentle, treacherous, sliding rise and fall, denominated a
ground-swell.
Reader, do you remember it? Of all deceitful demons of the deep, this
same smooth, slippery, cheating ground-swell is the most diabolic.
Because, you see, he is a _mean_ imp, an underhanded, unfair, swindling
scamp, who takes from you all the glory of endurance. Fair to the eye,
plausible as possible, he says to you, "What's the matter? What can you
ask brighter than this sky, smoother than this sea, more glossy and calm
than these rippling waves? How fortunate that you have such an
exceptionally smooth voyage!"
And yet look around the circle of pale faces fixed in that grim
expression of endurance, the hands belonging to them resolutely clasping
lemons,--those looks of unutterable, repressed disgust and endurance.
Are these people seasick? Oh, no! of course not. "Of course," says the
slippery, plausible demon, "these people can't be sick in this
delightful weather, and with this delightful, smooth sea!"
But here comes the dog, now slowly drooping from one to another,--the
most woe-begone and dejected of all possible dogs. Not a bad-looking
dog, either; not without signs about him of good dog blood.
We say one to another, as we languidly review his points, "His hair is
fine and curly: he has what might be a fine tail, were it not drooping
in such abject dejection and discouragement. Evidently this is a dog
that has seen better days,--a dog that has belonged to somebody, and
taken kindly to petting." His long nose, and great limpid, half-human
eyes, have a suggestion of shepherd-dog blood about them.
He comes and seats himself opposite, and gazes at you with a pitiful,
wistful, intense gaze, as much as to say, "Oh! _do_ you know where HE
is? and how came I here?--poor, miserable dog that I am!" He walks in a
feeble, discouraged way to the wheel-house, and sniffs at the salt
water that spatters there; gives one lick, and stops, and comes and sits
quietly down again: it's "no go."
"Poor fellow! he's thirsty," says one; and the Professor, albeit not the
most nimble of men, climbs carefully down the cabin-stairs for a tumbler
of water, brings it up, and places it before him. Eagerly he laps it all
up; and then, with the confiding glance of a dog not unused to kindness,
looks as if he would like more. Another of the party fills his tumbler,
and he drinks that.
"Why, poor fellow, see how thirsty he was!" "I wonder whose dog he is?"
"Somebody ought to see to this dog!" are comments passing round among
the ladies, who begin throwing him bits of biscuit, which he snaps up
eagerly.
"He's hungry too. Only see how hungry he is! Nobody feeds this dog. Whom
does he belong to?"
One of the ship's stewards, passing, throws in a remark, "That dog's
seasick: that's what's the matter with him. It won't do to feed that
dog; it won't: it'll make terrible work."
Evidently some stray dog, that has come aboard the steamer by
accident,--looking for a lost master, perhaps; and now here he is alone
and forlorn. Nobody's dog!
One of the company, a gentle, fair-haired young girl, begins stroking
his rough, dusty hair, which though fine, and capable of a gloss if well
kept, now is full of sticks and straws. An unseemly patch of tar
disfigures his coat on one side, which seems to worry him: for he bites
at it now and then aimlessly; then looks up with a hopeless, appealing
glance, as much as to say, "I know I am looking like a fright; but I
can't help it. Where is HE? and where am I? and what does it all mean?"
But the caresses of the fair-haired lady inspire him with a new idea.
He will be "nobody's dog" no longer: he will choose a mistress.
From that moment he is like a shadow to the fair-haired lady: he follows
her steps everywhere, mournful, patient, with drooping tail and bowed
head, as a dog not sure of his position, but humbly determined to have a
mistress if dogged faith and persistency can compass it. She walks the
deck; and tick, tick, pitapat, go the four little paws after her. She
stops: he stops, and looks wistful. Whenever and wherever she sits down,
he goes and sits at her feet, and looks up at her with eyes of
unutterable entreaty.
The stewards passing through the deck-house give him now and then a
professional kick; and he sneaks out of one door only to walk quietly
round a corner and in at the other, and place himself at her feet. Her
party laugh, and rally her on her attractions. She now and then pats
and caresses and pities him, and gives him morsels of biscuit out of her
stores. Evidently she belongs to the band of dog-lovers. In the tedious
dulness of the three-days' voyage the dog becomes a topic, and his
devotion to the fair-haired lady an engrossment.
We call for his name. The stewards call him "Jack:" but he seems to run
about as well for one name as another; and it is proposed to call him
"Barnes," from the name of the boat we are on. The suggestion drops,
from want of energy in our very demoralized company to carry it. Not
that we are seasick, one of us: oh, no! Grimly upright, always at table,
and eating our three meals a day, who dares intimate that we are sick?
Perish the thought! It is only a dizzy, headachy dulness, with an utter
disgust for every thing in general, that creeps over us; and Jack's
mournful face reflects but too truly our own internal troubles.
But at last here we are at Savannah and the Scriven House; and the
obliging waiters rush out and take us in and do for us with the most
exhaustive attention. Here let us remark on the differences in hotels.
In some you are waited on sourly, in some grudgingly, in some
carelessly, in some with insolent negligence. At the Scriven House you
are received like long-expected friends. Every thing is at your hand,
and the head waiter arranges all as benignantly as if he were really
delighted to make you comfortable. So we had a golden time at the
Scriven House, where there is every thing to make the wayfarer enjoy
himself.
Poor Jack was overlooked in the bustle of the steamer and the last
agonies of getting landed. We supposed we had lost sight of him forever.
But lo! when the fair-haired lady was crossing the hall to her room, a
dog, desperate and dusty, fought his way through the ranks of waiters to
get to her.
"It isn't our dog; put him out gently; don't hurt him," said the young
lady's father.
But Jack was desperate, and fought for his mistress, and bit the waiter
that ejected him, and of course got kicked with emphasis into the street.
The next morning, one of our party, looking out of the window, saw Jack
watching slyly outside of the hotel. Evidently he was waiting for an
opportunity to cast himself at the feet of his chosen protectress.
"If I can only see her, all will yet be right," he says to himself.
We left Savannah in the cars that afternoon; and the last we heard of
Jack, he had been seen following the carriage of his elected mistress in
a drive to Bonaventure.
What was the end of the poor dog's romance we have never heard. Whether
he is now blessed in being somebody's dog,--petted, cared for,
caressed,--or whether he roves the world desolate-hearted as "nobody's
dog," with no rights to life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness, we have
no means of knowing.
But the measureless depth of dumb sorrow, want, woe, entreaty, that
there are in a wandering dog's eyes, is something that always speaks
much to us,--dogs in particular which seem to leave their own kind to
join themselves to man, and only feel their own being complete when they
have formed a human friendship. It seems like the ancient legends of
those incomplete natures, a little below humanity, that needed a human
intimacy to develop them. How much dogs suffer mentally is a thing they
have no words to say; but there is no sorrow deeper than that in the
eyes of a homeless, friendless, masterless dog. We rejoice, therefore,
to learn that one portion of the twenty thousand dollars which the
ladies of Boston have raised for "Our Dumb Animals" is about to be used
in keeping a _home_ for stray dogs.
Let no one sneer at this. If, among the "five sparrows sold for two
farthings," not one is forgotten by our Father, certainly it becomes us
not to forget the poor dumb companions of our mortal journey, capable,
with us, of love and its sorrows, of faithfulness and devotion. There
is, we are told, a dog who haunts the station at Revere, daily looking
for the return of a master he last saw there, and who, alas! will never
return. There are, many times and oft, dogs strayed from families,
accustomed to kindness and petting, who have lost all they love, and
have none to care for them. To give such a refuge, till they find old
masters or new, seems only a part of Christian civilization.
The more Christ's spirit prevails, the more we feel for all that can
feel and suffer. The poor brute struggles and suffers with us,
companion of our mysterious travel in this lower world; and who has
told us that he may not make a step upward in the beyond? For our own
part, we like that part of the poor Indian's faith,--
"That thinks, admitted to yon equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company."
So much for poor Jack. Now for Savannah. It is the prettiest of Southern
cities, laid out in squares, planted with fine trees, and with a series
of little parks intersecting each street, so that one can walk on fine
walks under trees quite through the city, down to a larger park at the
end of all. Here there is a fountain whose charming sculpture reminds
one of those in the south of France. A belt of ever-blooming violets
encircles it; and a well-kept garden of flowers, shut in by an evergreen
hedge, surrounds the whole. It is like a little bit of Paris, and
strikes one refreshingly who has left New York two days before in a
whirling snow-storm.
The thing that every stranger in Savannah goes to see, as a matter of
course, is Bonaventure.
This is an ancient and picturesque estate, some miles from the city,
which has for years been used as a cemetery.
How shall we give a person who has never seen live-oaks or gray moss an
idea of it?
Solemn avenues of these gigantic trees, with their narrow evergreen
leaves, their gnarled, contorted branches feathered with ferns and
parasitic plants, and draped with long swaying draperies of this gray,
fairy-like moss, impress one singularly. The effect is solemn and
unearthly; and the distant tombs, urns, and obelisks gleaming here and
there among the shadows make it more impressive.
Beneath the trees, large clumps of palmetto, with their waving green
fans, give a tropical suggestion to the scene; while yellow jessamine
wreathe and clamber from tree to tree, or weave mats of yellow blossoms
along the ground. It seems a labyrinth of fairy grottoes, and is in its
whole impression something so unique, that no one should on any account
miss of seeing it.
Savannah is so pleasant a city, and the hotels there are so well kept,
that many find it far enough south for all their purposes, and spend the
winter there. But we are bound farther towards the equator, and so here
we ponder the question of our onward journey.
A railroad with Pullman sleeping-cars takes one in one night from
Savannah to Jacksonville, Fla.; then there is a steamboat that takes one
round by the open sea, and up through the mouth of the St. John's River,
to Jacksonville. Any one who has come to see scenery should choose this
route. The entrance of the St. John's from the ocean is one of the most
singular and impressive passages of scenery that we ever passed
through: in fine weather the sight is magnificent.
Besides this, a smaller boat takes passengers to Jacksonville by what is
called the inside passage,--a circuitous course through the network of
islands that lines the shore. This course also offers a great deal of
curious interest to one new to Southern scenery, and has attractions for
those who dread the sea. By any of these courses Florida may be gained
in a few hours or days, more or less, from Savannah.
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