CHAPTER VI.

A BORDER CHIEFTAIN.

I have now to pursue the narrative of my story as I find the

necessary material in the old Council Journal. I shall not incumber

this narrative with literal extracts from these proceedings, but give

the substance of what I find there, with such illustration as I have

been able to glean from other sources.

Colonel George Talbot, whom we recognize as the first-named in the

commission of the nine Deputy Governors and of the Privy Council,

seems to have been a special favorite of the Proprietary. He was the

grandson of the first Baron of Baltimore, the Secretary of State of

James the First. His father was an Irish baronet, Sir George Talbot,

of Cartown in Kildare, who had married Grace, one of the younger

sisters of Cecilius, the second Proprietary and father of Charles

Calvert. He was, therefore, as the commission describes him, the

cousin of Lord Baltimore, who had now invested him with a leading

authority in the administration of the government.

He was born in Ireland, and from some facts connected with his

history I infer that he did not emigrate to Maryland until after his

marriage, his wife being an Irish lady.

That he was a man of consideration in the Province, with large

experience in its affairs, is shown by the character of the

employments that were intrusted to him. He had been, for some years

before the departure of Lord Baltimore on his visit to England, a

conspicuous member of his Council. He had, for an equal length of

time, held the post of Surveyor-General, an office of high

responsibility and trust. But his chief employment was of a military

nature, in which his discretion, courage, and conduct were in

constant requisition. He had the chief command, with the title and

commission of Deputy Governor, over the northern border of the

Province, a region continually exposed to the inroads of the fierce

and warlike tribe of the "Sasquesahannocks."

The country lying between the Susquehanna and the Delaware, that

which now coincides with parts of Harford and Cecil Counties in

Maryland and the upper portion of the State of Delaware, was known in

those days as New Ireland, and was chiefly settled by emigrants from

the old kingdom whose name it bore. This region was included within

the range of Talbot's command, and was gradually increasing in

population and in farms and houses scattered over a line of some

seventy or eighty miles from east to west, and slowly encroaching

upon the thick wilderness to the north, where surly savages lurked

and watched the advance of the white man with jealous anger.

The tenants of this tract held their lands under the Proprietary

grants, coupled with a condition, imposed as much by their own

necessities as by the law, to render active service in the defence of

the frontier as a local militia. They were accordingly organized on a

military establishment, and kept in a state of continual preparation

to repel the unwelcome visits of their hostile neighbors.

A dispute between Lord Baltimore and William Penn, founded upon the

claim of the former to a portion of the territory bounding on the

Delaware, had given occasion to border feuds, which had imposed upon

our Proprietary the necessity of building and maintaining a fort on

Christiana Creek, near the present city of Wilmington; and there were

also some few block-houses or smaller fortified strongholds along the

line of settlement towards the Susquehanna.

These forts were garrisoned by a small force of musketeers maintained

by the government. The Province was also at the charge of a regiment

of cavalry, of which Talbot was the Colonel, and parts of which were

assigned to the defence of this frontier.

If we add to these a corps of rangers, who were specially employed in

watching and arresting all trespassers upon the territory of the

Province, it will complete our sketch of the military organization of

the frontier over which Talbot had the chief command. The whole or

any portion of this force could be assembled in a few hours to meet

the emergencies of the time. Signals were established for the muster

of the border. Beacon fires on the hills, the blowing of horns, and

the despatch of runners were familiar to the tenants, and often called

the ploughman away from the furrow to the appointed gathering-place.

Three musket-shots fired in succession from a lonely cabin, at

dead of night, awakened the sleeper in the next homestead; the three

shots, repeated from house to house, across this silent waste of

forest and field, carried the alarm onward; and before break of day a

hundred stout yeomen, armed with cutlass and carbine, were on foot to

check and punish the stealthy foray of the Sasquesahannock against

the barred and bolted dwellings where mothers rocked their children

to sleep, confident in the protection of this organized and effective

system of defence.

In this region Talbot himself held a manor which was called New

Connaught, and here he had his family mansion, and kept hospitality

in rude woodland state, as a man of rank and command, with his

retainers and friends gathered around him. This establishment was

seated on Elk River, and was, doubtless, a fortified position. I

picture to my mind a capacious dwelling-house built of logs from the

surrounding forest; its ample hall furnished with implements of war,

pikes, carbines, and basket-hilled swords, mingled with antlers of

the buck, skins of wild animals, plumage of birds, and other trophies

of the hunter's craft; the large fireplace surrounded with hardy

woodsmen, and the tables furnished with venison, wild fowl, and fish,

the common luxuries of the region, in that prodigal profusion to

which our forefathers were accustomed, and which their descendants

still regard as the essential condition of hearty and honest

housekeeping. This mansion I fancy surrounded by a spacious picketed

rampart, presenting its bristling points to the four quarters of the

compass, and accessible only through a gateway of ponderous timber

studded thick with nails: the whole offering defiance to the grim

savage who might chance to prowl within the frown of its midnight

shadow.

Here Talbot spent the greater portion of the year with his wife and

children. Here he had his yacht or shallop on the river, and often

skimmed this beautiful expanse of water in pursuit of its abundant

game,--those hawks of which tradition preserves the memory his

companions and auxiliaries in this pastime. Here, too, he had his

hounds and other hunting-dogs to beat up the game for which the banks

of Elk River are yet famous.

This sylvan lodge was cheered and refined by the presence of his wife

and children, whose daily household occupations were assisted by

numerous servants chosen from the warm-hearted people who had left

their own Green Isle to find a home in this wilderness.

Amidst such scenes and the duties of her station we may suppose that

Mrs. Talbot, a lady who could not but have relinquished many comforts

in her native land for this rude life of the forest, found sufficient

resource to quell the regrets of many fond memories of the home and

friends she had left behind, and to reconcile her to the fortunes of

her husband, to whom, as we shall see, she was devoted with an ardor

that no hardship or danger could abate.

Being the dispenser of her husband's hospitality,--the bread-giver,

in the old Saxon phrase,--the frequent companion of his pastime, and

the bountiful friend, not only of the families whose cottages threw

up their smoke within view of her dwelling, but of all who came and

went on the occasions of business or pleasure in the common

intercourse of the frontier, we may conceive the sentiment of respect

and attachment she inspired in this insulated district, and the

service she was thus enabled to command.

This is but a fancy picture, it is true, of the home of Talbot,

which, for want of authentic elements of description, I am forced to

draw. It is suggested by the few scattered glimpses we get in the

records of his position and circumstances, and may, I think, be

received at least as near the truth in its general aspect and

characteristic features.

He was undoubtedly a bold, enterprising man,--impetuous, passionate,

and harsh, as the incidents of his story show. He was, most probably,

a soldier trained to the profession, and may have served abroad, as

nearly all gentlemen of that period were accustomed to do. That he

was an ardent and uncompromising partisan of the Proprietary in the

dissensions of the Province seems to be evident. I suppose him, also,

to have been warm-hearted, proud in spirit, and hasty in temper,--a

man to be loved or hated by friend or foe with equal intensity. It is

material to add to this sketch of him, that he was a Roman

Catholic,--as we have record proof that all the Deputy Governors

named in the recent commission were, I believe, without

exception,--and that he was doubtless imbued with the dislike and

indignation which naturally fired the gentlemen of his faith against

those who were supposed to be plotting the overthrow of the Proprietary

government, by exciting religious prejudice against the Baltimore

family.

[To be continued.]

HUNTING A PASS.

A SKETCH OF TROPICAL ADVENTURE.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER II.

On the 18th of April, having collected such information bearing on

our purposes as it was possible to obtain, we left La Union, and

fairly commenced the business of "Hunting a Pass." To reach the

valley of the Goascoran, on the extent and character of which so much

depended, it was necessary to go round the head of the Bay of La

Union. For several miles our route coincided with that of the _camino

real_ to San Miguel, and we rode along it gayly, in high and hopeful

spirits. The morning was clear and bright, the air cool and

exhilarating, and the very sense of existence was itself a luxury. At

the end of four miles we struck off from the high road, at right

angles, into a narrow path, which conducted us over low grounds,

three miles farther, to the Rio Sirama, a small stream, scarcely

twenty feet across, the name of which is often erroneously changed in

the maps for that of Goascoran or Rio San Miguel. Beyond this stream

the path runs over low hills, which, however, subside into plains

near the bay, where the low grounds are covered with water at high

tide. The natives avail themselves of this circumstance, as did the

Indians before them, for the manufacture of salt. They inclose

considerable areas with little dikes of mud, leaving openings for the

entrance of the water, which are closed as the tide falls. The water

thus retained is rapidly evaporated under a tropical sun, leaving the

mud crusted over with salt. This is then scraped up, dissolved in

water, and strained to separate the impurities, and the saturated

brine reduced in earthen pots, set in long ranges of stone and clay.

The pots are constantly replenished, until they are filled with a

solid mass of salt; they are then removed bodily, packed in dry

plantain-leaves, and sent to market on the backs of mules. Sometimes

the pots are broken off, to lighten the load, and great piles of

their fragments--miniature _Monti testacci_--are seen around the

_Salinas_, as these works are called, where they will remain long

after this rude system of salt-manufacture shall be supplanted by a

better, as a puzzle for fledgling antiquaries.

Six miles beyond the Rio Sirama we came to another stream, called the

Siramita or Little Sirama, for the reason, probably, as H. suggested,

that it is four times as large as the Sirama. It flows through a bed

twenty feet deep and upwards of two hundred feet wide, paved with

water-worn stones, ragged with frayed fragments of trees, and

affording abundant evidence that during the season of rains it is a

rough and powerful torrent. Between this stream and the Goascoran

there is a maze of barren hills, relieved by occasional level

reaches, covered with acacias and deciduous trees. Through these the

road winds in easy gradients, and there are numerous passes perfectly

feasible for a railway, in case it should ever be deemed advisable to

carry one around the head of the bay to La Union.

The traveller emerges suddenly from among these hills into the valley

of the Goascoran, and finds the river a broad and gentle stream

flowing at his feet. At the time of our passage, the water at the

ford was nowhere more than two feet deep, with gravelly bottom and

high and firm banks, without traces of overflow. We had now passed

the threshold of the unknown region on which we were venturing, and

although we had a moral conviction that the valley before us afforded

the requisite facilities for the enterprise which we had in hand, yet

it was not without a deep feeling of satisfaction, almost of

exultation, that, on riding to the summit of a bare knoll close by,

we traced the course of the river, in a graceful curve, along the

foot of the green hills on our left, and saw that it soon resumed its

general direction north and south, on the precise line most favorable

for our purposes. In the distance, rising alone in the very centre of

the valley, we discerned the castellated Rock of Goascoran, behind

which, we were told, nestled the village of Goascoran, where we

intended passing the night. We had taken its bearings from the top of

Conchagua, and were glad to find that the intervening country was

level and open, chiefly savanna, or covered with scattered trees.

There was no need of instrumentation here, and so, ordering Dolores

to bring up the baggage as rapidly as possible, we struck across the

plain in a right line, in total disregard of roads or pathways, for

the Rock of Goascoran. A smart gallop of two hours brought us to its

foot, and in a few minutes after we entered the village, and rode

straight to the _Cabildo_, or House of the Municipality, tied our

mules to the columns of the corridor, pushed open the door, and made

ourselves at home.

And here I may mention that the _Cabildo_, throughout Honduras, is

the stranger's refuge. Its door is never locked, and every traveller,

high or low, rich or poor, has a right to enter it unquestioned, and

"make it his hotel" for the time being. Its accommodations, it is

true, are seldom extensive and never sumptuous. They rarely consist

of more than one or two hide-covered chairs, a rickety table, and two

or three long benches placed against the wall, with a _tinaja_ or jar

for water in the corner, and possibly a clay oven or rude contrivance

for cooking under the back corridor. In all the more important

villages, which enjoy the luxury of a local court, the end of the

_Cabildo_ is usually fenced off with wooden bars, as a prison.

Occasionally the traveller finds it occupied by some poor devil of a

prisoner, with his feet confined in stocks, to prevent his digging a

hole through the mud walls or kicking down his prison-bars, who

exhibits his ribs to prove that he is "_muy flaco_," (very thin,) and

solicits, in the name of the Virgin and all the _Santos_, _"algo para

comer"_ (something to eat).

In most of the _cabildos_ there is suspended a rude drum, made by

drawing a raw hide over the end of a section of a hollow tree, which

is primarily used to call together the municipal wisdom of the place,

whenever occasion requires, and secondarily by the traveller, who

beats on it as a signal to the _alguazils_, whose duty it is to

repair at once to the _Cabildo_ and supply the stranger with what he

requires, if obtainable in the town, at the rates there current. Not

an unwise, nor yet an unnecessary regulation this, in a country where

nobody thinks of producing more than is just necessary for his wants,

and, having no need of money, one does not care to sell, lest his

scanty store should run short, and he be compelled to go to work or

purchase from his neighbors.

The people of Goascoran stared at us as we rode through their

streets, but none came near us until after we had vigorously pounded

the magical drum, when the _alguazils_ made their appearance,

followed by all the urchins of the place, and by a crowd of lean and

hungry curs,--the latter evidently in watery-mouthed anticipation of

obtaining from the strangers, what they seldom got at home, a stray

crust or a marrow-bone. We informed our _alguazils_ that we had mules

coming, and wanted _sacate_ for them. To which they responded,--

_"No hay."_ (There is none.)

"Then let us have some maize."

_"Tampoco."_

"What! no maize? What do you make your _tortillas_ of?"

"We have no _tortillas_."

"How, then, do you live?"

"We don't live."

"But we must have something for our animals; they can't be allowed to

starve."

To which our _alguazil_ made no reply, but looked at us vacantly.

"Do you hear? we _must_ have some _sacate_ or some maize for the

animals."

Still no reply,--only the same vacuous look,--now more stolid, if

possible, than before.

I had observed that the _Teniente's_ wrath was rising, and that an

explosion was imminent. But I must confess that I was not a little

startled, when, drawing his bowie-knife from his belt, he strode

slowly up to our impassible friend, and, firmly grasping his right

ear, applied the cold edge of the steel close to his head. The

supplementary _alguazil_ and the rabble of children took to their

heels in affright, followed by the dogs, who seemed to sympathize in

their alarm. But, beyond a slight wincing downwards, and a partial

contraction of his eyes and lips, the object of the _Teniente's_

wrath made no movement, nor uttered a word of expostulation. He

evidently expected to lose his ears, and probably was surprised at

nothing except the pause in the operation. My own apprehensions were

only for an instant; but, had they been more serious than they were,

they must have given way before the extreme ludicrousness of the

group. I burst into a roar of laughter, in which the _Teniente_ could

not resist joining, but which seemed to be incomprehensible to the

_alguazil_, whose face assumed an expression which I can only

describe as that of astonished inanity. I don't think he is quite

certain, to this day, that the incident was not altogether an ugly

dream. At any rate, he lost no time in obeying my order to go

straight to the first _alcalde_ of the village, and tell him that he

was wanted at the _Cabildo_.

Reassured by seeing the _alguazil_ come out alive, the _muchachos_

returned, greatly reinforced, edging up to the open door timidly,

ready to retreat on our slightest movement. We had not long to wait

for the first _alcalde_, of whose approach we were warned by a sudden

scramble of curs and children, who made a broad lane for his passage.

Evidently, our _alcalde_ was a man of might in Goascoran, and he

established an immediate hold on our hearts by stopping on the

corridor and clearing it of its promiscuous occupants by liberal

applications of his official cane. He was a man of fifty, burly in

person, and wore his shirt outside of his trousers, but, altogether,

carried himself with an air of authority. He was prompt in speech,

and, although evidently much surprised to find a party of foreigners

in the _Cabildo_, rapidly followed up his salutation by putting

himself and the town and all the people in it "at the disposition of

our Worships."

I explained to him how it was that he had been sent for, placing due

emphasis on the stupidity of the _alguazil_. He heard me without

interruption, keeping, however, one eye on the _alguazil_, and

handling his cane nervously. By the time I had finished, the cane

fairly quivered; and the delinquent himself, who had scarcely

flinched under the _Teniente's_ knife, was now uneasily stealing away

towards the door. Our _alcalde_ saw the movement, and, with a hurried

bow, and _"Con permiso, Caballeros"_ (With your permission,

gentlemen,) started after the fugitive, who was saluted with _"Que

bestia!"_ (What a beast!) and a staggering blow over his shoulders.

He hurried his pace, but the _alcalde's_ cane followed close, and

with vigorous application, half-way across the _plaza_. And when the

_alcalde_ returned, out of breath, but full of apologies, he received

a welcome such as could be inspired only by a profound faith in his

ability and willingness to secure for us not merely _sacate_ and

maize, but everything else that we might desire. We told him that he

was a model officer and a man after our own hearts, all of which he

listened to with dignified modesty, wiping the perspiration from his

face, meanwhile, with--well, with the tail of his shirt!

The _alcalde_ was very hard on his constituency, and, from all that

we could gather, he seemed to regard them collectively as

_"bestias_," and _"hombres sin vergüenza"_ (men without shame). We

concurred with him, and regretted that he had not a wider and more

elevated official sphere, and gave him, withal, a _trago_ of brandy,

which he seemed greatly to relish, and then again approached the

subject of _sacate_ for our mules. To our astonishment, the _alcalde_

suddenly grew grave, and interrupted me with--

_"Pero, no hay, Señor_." (But there is none, Sir.)

"Well, maize will answer."

_"Tampoco_."

"What! no maize? What do you make your _tortillas_ of?"

"We have no _tortillas_."

"How, then, do you live?"

"We don't live."

A general shout of laughter greeted this last reply, in which, after

a moment of puzzled hesitation, the _alcalde_ himself joined.

"So, you don't live?"

"Absolutely, no!"

"But you eat?"

"Very little. We are very poor."

"Well, what do you eat?"

"Cheese, _frijoles_, and an egg now and then."

"But, no _tortillas_?"

"No. We planted the last kernel of maize two days ago."

And so it was. The little stock of dried grass and maize-stalks

stored up from the present rainy season had long ago been consumed,

and the maize itself, which is here the real staff of life, had run

short,--and that, too, in a country where three crops a year might

easily be produced by a very moderate expenditure of labor in the way

of tillage and irrigation.

Fortunately for our poor animals, Dolores had provided against

contingencies like this, and taken in a supply of maize at La Union.

As for ourselves, what with a few eggs and _frijoles_, furnished by

the _alcalde_, in addition to the stock of edibles, pickled oysters

and other luxuries, prepared for us by Doña Maria, we contrived to

fare right sumptuously in Goascoran. We afterwards found out,

experimentally, what it was not to live, in the sense intended to be

conveyed by the unfortunate _alguazil_ and the impetuous _alcalde_,

and which H. declared logically meant to be without _tortillas_--But

we could never make out why the alcalde should call the _alguazil_ "a

beast," and beat him over his shoulders with a cane, withal.

Goascoran is a small town, of about four hundred inhabitants, and

boasts a tolerably genteel church and a comfortable _cabildo_. It is

situated on the left bank of the river to which it gives its name,

and which here still maintains its character of a broad and beautiful

stream. On the opposite side from the town rises a high, picturesque

bluff, at the foot of which the river gathers its waters in deep,

dark pools with mirror-like surfaces, disturbed only by the splash of

fishes springing at their prey, or by the sudden dash of water-fowls

settling from their arrowy flight in a little cloud of spray.

I have alluded to the castellated Rock of Goascoran, which, however,

is only a type of the general features of the surrounding country.

The prevailing rock is sandstone, and it is broken up in fantastic

peaks, or great cubical blocks with flat tops and vertical walls,

resembling the mesas of New Mexico. At night, their dark masses,

rising on every hand, might be mistaken for frowning fortresses or

massive strongholds of the Middle Ages. They seem to mark the line

where the volcanic forces which raised the high islands in the Bay of

Fonseca had their first conflict with the sedimentary and primitive

rocks of the interior. The river is full of boulders of quartz and

granite reddened by fire, resembling jasper, and alternating with

worn blocks of lava,--further evidences of volcanic action.

Altogether, the country, in its natural aspects, reminds the

traveller of the district lying between Pompeii and Sorrento, in

Italy, and probably owes its essential features to the same causes.

From Goascoran to Aramacina, a distance of twelve miles, the road

traverses a slightly broken country, while the river pursues its

course, as before, through a picturesque valley, narrowed in places

by outlying _mesas_, but still regular, and throughout perfectly

feasible for a railway. Aramacina itself is prettily situated, in a

bend of one of the tributaries of the Goascoran, the Rio Aramacina,

and numbers perhaps three hundred inhabitants. Immediately in front

rises a broad sandstone table or _mesa_, at the foot of which there

are some trickling springs of salt water, much frequented by cattle,

and corresponding to the _saltlicks_ of our Western States.

Behind the town is a high spur of the mountain range of Lepaterique,

covered with pines, and veined with silver-bearing quartz. We visited

the abandoned mines of Marqueliso and Potosí, but the shafts were

filled with water, and only faint traces remained of the ancient

establishments. Extravagant traditions are current of the wealth of

these mines, and of the amounts of treasure which were taken from

them in the days of the Viceroys. A few specimens of the refuse ore,

which we picked up at the mouth of the principal shaft, proved, on

analysis, to be exceedingly rich, and gave some color to the local

traditions.

The _cabildo_ of Aramacina was very much dilapidated, and promised us

but poor protection against the rain, which now began to fall every

night with the greatest regularity. We nevertheless selected the

corner where the roof appeared soundest, and managed to pass the

night without a serious wetting. The evening was enlivened by visits

from all the leading inhabitants, whom we found to be far more

communicative than their neighbors of Goascoran. Our most

entertaining visitor, however, was a "countryman," as he styled

himself, a negro by the name of John Robinson, born in New York, and

now a magnate in Aramacina, where he had resided for upwards of

sixteen years. Although he had fallen into the habits of the native

population, and wore neither shirt nor shoes, he entertained for them

a superlative contempt, which he expressed in a strange jumble of bad

English and worse Spanish. He had been with Perry on Lake Erie, and

afterwards on board various vessels of war, in some capacity which he

did not explain with great clearness, but which he evidently intended

should be understood as but little lower than that of commander. A

glass of brandy made him eloquent, and he took a position in the

middle of the _cabildo_, and gave us an oration on the people of

Honduras, in a style singularly grotesque and demonstrative. In

broken and scarcely intelligible English,--for he had nearly

forgotten the language of his youth,--he denounced them as "thieves

and liars," and then asked them, "Is it not true?" Imagining,

doubtless, that he was declaiming their praises, the enthusiastic

assemblage responded, _"Sí! sí!"_ (Yes! yes!) Not a crime so gross,

nor a trait of character so degraded, but he laid it to their charge,

receiving always the same vehement response, _"Sí! Sí!"_

We got rid of our _paisano_ with difficulty, and only under a promise

to visit his _chacra_, somewhere in the vicinity, next morning. But

we saw no more of him,--not much to our regret; for John Robinson, I

fear, was sadly addicted to brandy, of which our supply was far too

small to admit of honoring many such drafts as he had made the

preceding evening.

One and a half miles to the southeast of Aramacina is a ledge of

sandstone rock, with a smooth vertical face, which is covered over

with figures, deeply cut in outline. This ledge forms one side of a

rural amphitheatre overlooking the adjacent valley, and is by nature

a spot likely to be selected as a "sacred place" by the Indians. It

faces towards the west, and from all parts of the amphitheatre, which

may have answered the purposes of a temple, the morning sun would

appear to rise directly over the rock. The engravings in some places

are much defaced or worn by time, so that they cannot be made out;

but generally they are deep and distinct,--so deep, indeed, that I

used those which run horizontally as steps whereby to climb up the

face of the ledge. I should say that they were two and a half inches

deep. A portion had been effaced by a rude quarry which the people of

Aramacina had opened here to obtain stone for their church.

Some of the figures are easily recognizable as those of men and

animals, while others appear entirely arbitrary, or designed simply

for ornament. Enough can be clearly made out to show the affiliation

of the engravers with the ancient Mexican families of Nicaragua and

San Salvador. The space covered by these inscriptions is about one

hundred feet long, by twelve or fifteen in height. A quarter of a

mile to the southward are other smaller rocks with figures, too much

defaced, however, to be traced satisfactorily. Vases of curious

workmanship, human bones in considerable quantities, and other relics

and remains, it is said, may be discovered by digging in the earth

anywhere within the natural amphitheatre to which I have referred.

This is another circumstance going to favor the belief that this was

anciently a place of great sanctity; for it is a universal custom

among all nations to bury their dead in the neighborhood of shrines

and temples.

Although the immediate district in which these aboriginal traces are

found does not seem to have fallen within the region occupied by the

Nahuatt or Mexican tribes of Central America at the time of the

Conquest, but in what was called the country of the Chontals, yet it

is not difficult to suppose, that, in the various hostile encounters

which we know took place between the two nations, the Nahuatts may

have penetrated as far as Aramacina, and left here some record of

their visit,--if, indeed, they did not succeed in effecting a

temporary lodgment. At any rate, there can be but little doubt that a

portion of the engravings on the rocks above described, but

particularly those which seem to record dates, were made by them.

From Aramacina to Caridad, the next town on our course, and four

leagues distant, the road is laid out on Spanish principles, which

are the very reverse of scientific. Instead of keeping along the

river-valley, it passes directly over a high, rocky spur of the

lateral mountains, through a pass called _El Portillo_, (The Portal,)

elevated fifteen hundred feet above the sea. The view from its

summit, whence we were enabled to trace our course up to this point,

as if on a map, in some degree compensated us for the labor of the

ascent. From here we could also look ahead, beyond the town of

Caridad; and we saw, with some misgivings, that there the lateral

ranges of mountains seemed to send down their spurs boldly to the

river, leaving only what the Spaniards call a _canon_ or narrow

gorge, walled in with precipitous rocks, for its passage. A shadow

came over every face, in view of the possible obstacles in our path;

and although we tried to reassure ourselves by the reflection, that,

where so large a stream could pass, there must certainly be room

enough for a road, yet, it must be confessed, we wound down the hill

of El Portillo to Caridad with spirits much depressed. Moreover, a

drizzling rain set in before we reached the village, and clouds and

vapor settled down gloomily on the surrounding hills and mountains,

rendering us altogether more dismal than we had been since leaving

New York. We rode up to the _cabildo_ of Caridad in silence, and

fortunately found it new, neat, and comfortable, with cover for our

mules, ample facilities for cooking, and an abundance of dry wood for

a fire, now rendered necessary to comfort by the damp, and the

proximity of high mountains. Fortunately, also, we experienced no

difficulty in getting fodder for our animals and food for

ourselves,--a bright-eyed Señora, wife of the principal _alcalde_,

volunteering to send us freshly baked and crisp _tortillas_, which

were brought to us hot, in the folds of the whitest of napkins. After

dinner and coffee, and under the genial influences of a fire of the

pitch-pine, which gave us both light and heat, our spirits returned,

and we did not refuse a hearty laugh, when H. read from a dingy

paper, which he found sticking on the wall of the _cabildo_, the

report of the day's transactions on the Caridad Exchange, "marked by

a great and sudden decline in railway shares, caused by the timidity

of holders, and by an equally sudden reaction, occasioned by two

dozen of soft-boiled eggs and a peck of _tortillas_."

Caridad is a neat little town, of about three hundred inhabitants,

situated on a level plateau nearly surrounded by high mountains,--the

valley of the river, both above and below, being reduced to its

narrowest limits. To the northeastward of the town, and on a shelf of

the Lepaterique Mountains, which rise abruptly in that direction, and

are covered with pine forests to their summits, is distinctly visible

the Indian town of Lauterique,--its position indicating clearly that

it had been selected with reference to defensive purposes. We had

seen its white church from El Portillo, looking like a point of

silver on the dark green slope of the mountain.

Rain fell heavily during the night; but the morning broke bright and

clear. The increased roar of the river, however, made known to us

that it was greatly swollen, and when we walked down to its brink we

found it a rapid and angry torrent, with its volume of water more

than double that of the previous day. This was not an encouraging

circumstance; for we had learned, that, if we intended following up

the stream, instead of making a grand _détour_ over the mountains, it

would be necessary to ford the river, about a mile above the town.

All advised us against attempting the passage. _"Mañana_,"

(Tomorrow,) they said, would do as well, and we had better wait.

Meanwhile the waters would subside. Nobody had ever attempted the

passage after such a storm; and the river was _"muy bravo"_ (very

angry). I have said that all advised us against moving; but I should

except the second _alcalde_, who had taken a great fancy to us, and

wanted to enter our service. His dignity did not rebel at the

position of _arriero_ or muleteer; any place would suit him, so that

we would agree to take him finally to "El Norte,"--for such is the

universal designation of the United States among the people of

Central America. He shared in none of the fears of his townsmen, and

told them, that, fortunately, all the world was not as timid as

themselves, and wound up by volunteering to accompany us and get us

across. We gladly accepted his offer, and started out with the least

possible delay. I need not say that we made rather an anxious party.

The unpromising observations of the preceding day, and the

possibilities of the mountains' closing down on the river so as to

forbid a passage, were uppermost in every mind; but all sought to

hide their real feelings under an affectation of cheerfulness, not to

say of absolute gayety. As we advanced, and rounded the hills which

shut in the little _plateau_ of Caridad on the north, we saw that the

high lateral mountains sent down their rocky spurs towards each other

like huge buttresses, lapping by, and, so far as the eye could

discern, forming a complete and insurmountable barrier. Over the brow

of one of these, a zigzag streak of white marked the line of the

mule-path. Our guide traced it out to us with his finger, and assured

us that it traversed a bad _portillo_, over which the wind sometimes

sweeps with such force as to take a loaded mule off his feet, and

dash him down the steep sides of the mountain. Half a mile of level

ground still intervened between us and the apparent limit of our

advance, and we trotted over it in silence, pulling up on the abrupt

bank of the deep trough of the river, which foamed and chafed among

the great boulders in its bed, and against its rocky shores, nearly a

hundred feet below us. A break-neck path wound down to a little

sandpit; and on the opposite side of the stream another path wound

up, in like manner, to a narrow _plateau_, on which stood a single

hut, with its surroundings of plantain-trees and maize-fields. I

looked anxiously up the stream, but a sudden bend, a few hundred

yards above, shut off the view; and there the flinty buttresses of

the mountain rose sheer and frowning, perpendicularly from the

water's edge.

The eyes of the Lieutenant had followed mine, and we exchanged a

glance which expressed as plainly as words, that, unless the

mountain-spur which projected into the bend of the river should prove

sufficiently narrow to be tunnelled, or should fall off so as to

admit of a side-cutting in the rock, our project might be regarded as

at an end. To determine that point was our next and most important

step. Down the steep descent, scrambling amongst rocks and bushes,

where it seemed a goat would hardly dare to venture,--down we plunged

to the water's edge. Here the stream was not less than a hundred

yards broad, flowing over a rocky bed full of rolling stones and

boulders, with a velocity which it seemed impossible for man or beast

to stem. But our _alcalde_ was equal to the emergency.

Stripping himself naked, he took a long pole shod with iron, which

seemed to be kept here for the purpose, and started out boldly into

the stream, for the purpose of making a preliminary survey of the

line of passage. Planting his pole firmly down the stream, so as to

support himself against the current, he cautiously advanced, step by

step, "prospecting" the bottom with his feet, so as to ascertain the

shallowest ford, and that freest from rocks and stones. Sometimes he

slipped into deep holes and disappeared beneath the surface, but be

always recovered himself, and went on with his work with the greatest

deliberation and composure. After crossing and recrossing the river

in this manner three or four times, he succeeded in fixing on a

serpentine line, where the water, except for a few yards near the

opposite bank, was only up to his shoulders, and which he pronounced

_"muy factible"_ (very feasible).

"But, _amigo"_ exclaimed H., in an excited tone, "you forget that you

are six feet high, and that I am but five feet five!"

_"No hay cuidado!"_ (Have no care!) was the reassuring reply of the

alcalde, as he slapped his broad chest with his open palm; _"soy

responsable!"_ (I am responsible!)

The mules were now unsaddled, and the trunks taken over, one by one,

on the _alcalde's_ head. Next, the animals were forced into the

water, and, after vehement flounderings, now swimming, now stumbling

over rolling stones, they were finally, bruised and bleeding and the

forlornest of animals, got across in safety. Next came our turn, and

I led the way, with a thong fastened around my body below the

armpits, and attached, in like manner, to our stalwart _alcalde_.

Long before we reached the middle of the stream, notwithstanding I

carried a large stone under each arm by way of ballast, I was swept

from my feet out to the length of my tether, and thus towed over by

our guide. When all were snugly across, the laughter was loud and

long over the ridiculous figure which everybody had cut in

everybody's eyes, except his own. H. immortalized the transit in what

the French call _un croquis_, but it would hardly bear reproduction

in the pages of a narrative so staid as this.

Intent on determining, with the least possible delay, the important

question, whether the mountains really opposed an insurmountable

obstacle to our project, I left my companions and Dolores to resaddle

and get under way at their leisure, and pushed ahead with the

_alcalde_. Striking off from the mule-path, we climbed up, among

loose rocks and dwarf-trees and bushes, to the top of the mountain.

My excitement gave me unwonted vigor, and my sturdy guide, streaming

with perspiration long before we reached the summit, prayed me, "in

the name of all the saints," to moderate my rate of speed, and give

him a _trago_ of Cognac. My suspense was not of long duration; for,

on reaching the crest of the eminence, I found that we were indeed on

a narrow spur, easily tunnelled, or readily turned by galleries in

the rock, and that, beyond, the country opened out again in a broad

table-land sloping gently from the north, and traversed nearly in its

centre by the gorge of the river. The break in the Cordilleras was

now distinct, and I could look quite through it, and see the blue

peaks of the mountains on the Atlantic slope of the continent. A

single glance sufficed to disclose all this to my eager vision, and

the next instant six rapid shots from my revolver conveyed the

intelligence to my companions, who were toiling up the narrow

mule-path, half a mile to my right. The _Teniente_ dismounted, evidently

with the intention of joining us, but soon got back again into his

saddle,--having experienced, as H. explained, "a sudden recurrence of

palpitation."

Rejoining my companions, I dismissed our guide with a reward which

surprised him, and we pursued our way to the _Portillo_. This name is

given to the point where the path, after winding up the side of the

mountain half-way to its summit, suddenly turns round its brow, and

commences its descent. It is a narrow shelf, in some places scarcely

more than a foot wide, rudely worked in the living rock, which falls

off below in a steep and almost precipitous descent to the river; and

although it did not quite realize the idea we had formed of it from

the description of our guide, it was sufficiently pokerish to inspire

the most daring mountaineer with caution. At any rate, most of our

party dismounted, preferring to lead their mules around the point to

having their heads turned in riding past it. Exposed to the full

force of the winds, which are drawn through this river-valley as

through a funnel, and with a foothold so narrow, it was easy to

believe that neither man nor beast could pass here during the season

of the northers, except at great risk of being dashed down the

declivity.

A little beyond the _Portillo_, the road diverges from the valley

proper of the river, and is carried over an undulating country to the

village of San Antonio del Norte, finely situated on a grassy plain,

of considerable extent, a dependency of the valley of the Goascoran.

We had intended stopping here for the night; but the _cabildo_ was

already filled with a motley crowd of _arrieros_ and others on their

way to San Miguel. A tall _mestizo_, covered with ulcers, sat in the

doorway, and two or three culprits extended their claw-like hands

towards us through the bars of their cage and invoked alms in the

name of the Virgin and all things sacred. We therefore contented

ourselves with a lunch under the corridor of a neighboring house,

and, notwithstanding it was late in the afternoon, pressed forward

towards the little Indian town of San Juan, three leagues distant.

It was a long and rough and weary way, and as night fell without any

sign of a village in front, we began to have a painful suspicion that

we had lost our road,--if a narrow mule-path, often scarcely

traceable, can be dignified by that name. So we stopped short, to

allow a man on foot, whom we had observed following on our track for

half an hour, to come up. He proved to be a bright-eyed, good-natured

Indian, who addressed us as _"Vuestras Mercedes_," and who informed

us not only that we were on the right road to San Juan, but also that

he himself belonged there and was now on his way home.

"Good, _amigo!_--but how far is it?"

_"Hay no mas"_ (There is no more,) was the consoling response.

"But where is the town?"

_"Allá!"_ (There!)

And he threw his hand forward, and projected his lips in the

direction he sought to indicate,--a mode of indication, I may add,

almost universal in Central America, and explicable only on the

assumption that it costs less effort than to raise the hand.

Our new friend was communicative, and told us that he had been all

the way to Caridad to bring a priest to San Juan, _"para hacer cosas

de familia_," (to attend to family affairs,) which he explained as

meaning "to marry, baptize, and catechize." The people of San Juan,

he added, were too poor to keep a priest of their own; they couldn't

pay enough; and, moreover, their women were all old and ugly. And he

indulged in a knowing wink and chuckle.

Meantime we had kept on our course, and it had become quite dark;

still there was no sign of the village,--not even the flicker of

lights or the barking of dogs.

"What did the fellow say about the distance?" inquired H., angrily.

"That there was no more distance."

"Ask him again; he couldn't have understood you."

_"Amigo_, where is your village? You said just now that it was close

by."

_"Hay no masita, Señor!"_

"What's that?"

"He says that the distance was nothing before, and is still less

now!"

"Bah! he's a fool!" Half an hour later, which to H.'s indignant

imagination seemed an age, we reached the top of a high ridge, and

saw the first glimmer of the lights of the village, on the farther

edge of a broad plain, a mile and a half distant.

_"Estamos aquí!"_ (Here we are!) exclaimed our guide, triumphantly.

Our mules pricked forward their ears at the welcome sight, and we

trotted briskly over the plain, and, as usual, straight to the

_cabildo_,--a newly constructed edifice of canes plastered with mud,

but, for a tropical country, suffering under the slight defect of

having no windows or aperture for ventilation besides the door. The

drum brought us the most attentive of _alguazils_, and we fared by no

means badly in San Juan; that is to say, we had plenty of milk and

eggs.

When supper was over, H. lighted a pine splinter, and put on record

his "Observations on the Standard of Measurement in Honduras," which

I am allowed to copy for the information of travellers.

"Distances here are computed by what may be called Long Measure.

League is a vague term, and, like _x_ in an algebraic equation,

stands for an unknown quantity. It may mean ten miles, more or

less,--any distance, in fact, over five miles. The unit of measure,

as fixed by law, is _estamos aquí_, (here we are,) which is a mile

and a half; _hay no masita_ (a little less than nothing) is five

miles; _hay no mas_ (there is no more) is ten miles; and _muy cerca_

(very near) is a hard day's journey. As regards spirituous liquors, a

_trago_ of brandy, or 'a drink,' is whatever may be in the bottle, be

the same large or small, and the quantity more or less."

San Juan is insignificant in point of size, but its population seems

to be well to do in the world, in the relative sense in which that

term is to be interpreted in Central America. Here we found that the

river forks,--the principal branch, however, which retains the name

of Goascoran, still preserving its general course north and south.

The smaller branch, called Rio de San Juan, descends from high

mountains to the westward, having its rise, we were told, near the

secluded Indian _pueblos_ of Similaton and Opotoro. We found the

elevation of San Juan to be nine hundred feet above the sea,--an

altitude sufficiently great, combined with the proximity of the

Cordilleras, to give it a generally cool and delightful climate. The

change in temperature from that of the sea-coast, however, is less

marked than the change in scenery and vegetation. It is true, we find

the ever-graceful palm, the orange, plantain, and other tropical

fruit-trees; but the country is no longer loaded down with forests.

It spreads out before the traveller in a succession of swelling hills

and level savannas, clothed with grass, and clumped over with pines,

and miniature parks of deciduous trees, sufficiently open to permit

cattle and horsemen to roam freely in every direction. During the dry

season, however, this open region becomes dry and parched, and the

traveller passing over it then would be apt to pronounce the whole

country sterile and without cultivation. But in little lateral

valleys and _coves_ among the mountains, sheltered from the sun, and

watered by springs or running streams, there are many plantations of

sugar-cane, maize, rice, and other standard products of the tropics,

of unsurpassed luxuriance. We sometimes came on these green places

unexpectedly, far away from any habitation, and all the more gem-like

and beautiful from their rough setting of sere savanna and rugged

mountain.

We left San Juan early in the morning, crossing to the left bank of

the river, still a noble stream, a hundred and fifty feet broad, and

pure as crystal. A government _tambo_, or _rancho_, opposite the

town, on the bank, indicated that even here the river was sometimes

unfordable. Hence the construction of this public shelter for

travellers obliged to wait for the subsidence of the waters. These

government _ranchos_ are common on all the roads, in the less

populous parts of the country, or where the towns are widely

separated, and are the refuge of the wayfarer benighted or overtaken

by a storm in his journey. They seldom consist of more than four

forked posts planted in the ground, supporting a roof of _paja_ or

thatch. Occasionally one or two sides are wattled up with canes, or

closed with poles placed closely together. They are usually built

where some spring or stream furnishes a supply of water, and where

there is an open patch of pasturage; and although they afford nothing

beyond shelter, they are always welcome retreats to the weary or

belated traveller. For one, I generally preferred stopping in them to

passing the night in the little villages, where the _cabildos_ are

often dirty and infested with fleas, and where a horrible concert is

kept up by the lean and mangy curs which throughout Central America

disgrace the respectable name of dog. In fact, a large part of the

romance and many of the pleasantest recollections of our adventures

in Honduras are connected with these rude shelters, and with the long

nights which we passed in them, far away in dark valleys, or on

mountain-crests, but always amongst Nature's deepest solitudes.

After crossing the river, our path, with the perversity of all

Spanish roads, instead of following up the valley of the stream,

diverged widely to the right through a cluster or knot of hills, in

which we were involved until we reached a rapid stream called Rio

Guanupalapa, flowing through a narrow gorge, over a wild mass of

stones and boulders. Here we breakfasted, picturesquely enough, and,

resuming our course, soon emerged from the hilly labyrinth on a

series of terraces, falling off like steps to the river on our left.

They had been burned over, and the young grass was sprouting up,

under the freshening influence of the early rain, in a carpet of

translucent green. At a distance of four leagues from San Juan, after

descending from terrace to terrace, we again reached the river, now

flowing through a valley three hundred yards broad, and about fifty

feet below the general level of the adjacent _plateau_. Here we found

another fork in the stream: the principal body of water descending,

as before, from the right, and called Rio Rancho Grande; the smaller

stream, on the left, bearing the name of Rio Chaguiton; and the two

forming the Rio Goascoran. Half a mile beyond the ford is a

collection of three or four huts, called Rancho Grande. Here we

stopped to determine our position. We were now at the foot of the

"divide," and close to the pass, if such existed, of which we were in

search. Immediately in front rose a high peak, destitute of trees,

which the people called _El Volcan_. It had deep breaks or valleys on

either side, evidently those of the streams to which I have alluded.

Outside of these, the mountains, six or eight thousand feet in

height, swept round in a majestic curve. Were there, then, two passes

through the Cordilleras, separated by the conical peak of El Volcan?

or did the great valley of the Goascoran divide here, only to waste

itself away in narrow gorges, leaving a summit too high to be

traversed except by mountain mules?

Strange to say, the occupants of the huts at Rancho Grande could give

us no information on these points, but to all our inquiries only

answered, _"Quien sabe?"_ (Who knows?)--and pointed out to us the

line of the mule-path, winding over the intervening hills and along

the flank of El Volcan. Up to this time we had had comparatively

small experience, and did not quite understand, what we afterwards

came to know too well, that a Spanish road is perfect only when it

runs over the highest and roughest ground that by any possibility may

be selected between two given points.

We did not waste much time with the people of Rancho Grande, but

urged on our mules as rapidly as possible. Turning abruptly to the

right and leaving the _plateau_ behind us, we advanced straight up

the high ridge intervening between the two valleys, and thence in a

zigzag course to the foot of El Volcan, a mass of igneous rock,

protruded through the horizontal sandstone strata,--the gradual

recession of which gives to the country the terraced character to

which I have so often alluded. Leaving our mules here, H. and myself

clambered up amongst rough and angular rocks, strewn in wildest

disorder, to the bare and rugged summit of El Volcan. From this

commanding position the view was unobstructed all the way back to the

Pacific. The whole valley of the river, and line of our

_reconnaissance_, the _Portillo_ of Caridad, the Rock of Goascoran,

the Volcano of Conchagua, and the high islands of the Bay of Fonseca,

were all included in the view. Rancho Grande and the fork of the

river appeared at our feet; and on the right hand and the left,

extending upwards in nearly parallel directions, were the deep

valleys of the rivers Rancho Grande and Chaguiton,--that of the

former clothed with pines, while that of the latter presented only a

succession of savannas, with here and there a group of forest-trees.

Our view to the northward, however, was obstructed by hills and

forests, and our ascent of El Volcan failed to give us a view of the

Pass, which we knew must now be near at hand. We descended,

therefore, and resumed our course,--anxiously, it is true, but with

few of the serious misgivings which had beset us at Caridad.

The path wound around the base of El Volcan, on the level terrace or

shelf from which it springs. As we advanced, we could distinctly

perceive that the valley to our right rose gradually, with a gentle,

but constant grade. At a distance of three miles it had nearly

reached the level of the terrace along which we rode, and at the end

of our fourth mile the terrace and the valley merged into each other,

and the mule-path dipping into the waters of the stream, now reduced

to a sparkling brook, resumed its direction on the opposite bank. We

stopped here, in a natural park of tall pines, and lunched beneath

their shade, drinking only the cool, clear water which murmured among

the mossy stones at our feet. We needed no artificial stimulus; our

spirits were high and buoyant; we had almost traced the

Goascoran to its source; half an hour more must bring us to its

fountain-head,--and then? We knew not exactly what then; but one

thing was certain, that nothing in the form of a hill or mountain

obstructed our advance, for the light, reflected from a clear sky,

streamed horizontally between the tree-trunks in front, while on either

hand the vistas were dark, and the outlines of gigantic mountains could be

discerned towering to mid-heaven.

Half a mile farther on, crossing in the interval a number of little

tributary streams, we came where the pines were more scattered; they

soon disappeared, and we emerged upon an open glade or natural

meadow. A high mountain, dark with forests, rose on our right; on the

left was a long range of grassy hills; but in front all was clear! A

government _rancho_, built under the shade of a couple of tall

fruit-trees, stood in the middle of the savanna, and on its farther edge

were the cane buildings of a cattle-_hacienda_, just visible through

the wealth of plantain-trees by which they were surrounded, while the

cattle themselves were dotted over the intervening space, cropping

the young grass, which here looked brighter and fresher than in the

valley below. Impulsively my mule pricked her ears forward, and broke

into a rapid trot. Soon she stepped across the stream, which we had

followed to its birthplace, now reduced to a trickling rivulet

stealing out from a spring, "an eye of water," (_ojo de agua_,) coyly

hidden away under a clump of trees draped with evergreen vines at the

foot of the neighboring hills. I knew that we were at the "summit";

the faint swell of the savanna, scarcely perceptible to the eye,

which supported the government _rancho_, it was clear, was the

highest point between the two great oceans, and the cool breeze which

fanned our foreheads was the expiring breath of the trade-winds

coming all the way from the Bay of Honduras! My mule halted at the

_rancho_; I threw the bridle over her neck, and went forward on foot;

but I had not proceeded a hundred paces before my attention was

arrested by the cheerful murmur of another little stream, also

descending from the foot of the mountain at our right,--but this

time, after traversing half the width of the savanna, it turned away

suddenly to the north, and with a merry dash and sparkling leap

started off on its journey to the Atlantic! In that direction,

however, a forest of tall pines still shut off the view, and it was

not until I reached the summit of one of the lateral hills that I

could look over and beyond them. Then, for the first time, I saw the

great plain of Comayagua, at a level some hundreds of feet below us,

spreading away for a distance of forty miles, in a rich succession of

savannas and cultivated grounds, dotted with villages, and

intersected by dark waving lines of forest, marking the courses of

the various streams that traverse it like the veins on an out-spread

hand. At its northeastern extremity, its white walls now gleaming

like silver in the sunlight, and anon subdued and distant under the

shadow of a passing cloud, was the city of Comayagua, unmistakable,

from its size, but especially from the imposing mass of its

cathedral, as the principal town of the plain, and the capital of the

Republic. Circling around this great plain, and, with the exception

of only a narrow opening at its northern extremity, literally

shutting it in like an amphitheatre, is a cincture of mountains,

rising to the height of from three to six thousand feet,--a fitting

frame-work for so grand a picture.

I returned slowly to the _rancho_, where my companions were preparing

our encampment, and communicated to them the result of my

observations. Singularly enough, there was no excitement; even H.

forgot to inquire "what was the price of stock." But we took our

dinner in calm satisfaction,--if four _tortillas_, three eggs, six

onions, and a water-melon, the total results of Dolores's foraging

expedition to the cattle-_hacienda_, equally divided between eight

hungry men, can be called a dinner.

We spent the evening, a good part of the night, and the next day

until afternoon, in determining our position and altitude, and in

various explorations in both directions from the summit. We found

that we were distant seventy-eight miles in a right line from La

Union, and (barometrically) 2958 feet above mean-tide in the Pacific.

We afterwards ascertained that the hut in which we passed the night

is called Rancho Chiquito, and that name was accordingly given to

this summit, and to the Pass, as distinguished from another break

through the mountains, to the westward, which we subsequently

discovered and designated as the Pass of Guajoca.

After Rancho Chiquito, the first town which is reached in the plain

of Comayagua, entering it from this direction, is Lamani,--a small

village, it is true, but delightfully situated in an open meadow,

relieved only by fruit-trees and the stems of the _nopal_ or palmated

cactus, which here grows to a gigantic size, frequently reaching the

height of twenty or thirty feet. The _cabildo_ was in a state of

extreme dilapidation, and we called on the first _alcalde_ for better

accommodations. He took us to the house of the _padre_, who was away

from home, and installed us there. It was the best house in the

place, whitewashed, and painted with figures of trees, men, animals,

and birds, all in red ochre, and in a style of art truly archaic. The

_padre's_ two servants, an old woman and her boy, were the sole

occupants of the establishment, and did not appear at all delighted

to see us. According to their account, there was nothing in the

house to eat; they had no _tortillas_, no eggs, no chickens,

_"absolutamente nada"_ (absolutely nothing). All this was affirmed

with the greatest gravity, while a dozen fat fowls were distinctly

visible through the open doorway, perched, for the night, among the

bare limbs of the _jocote_ trees in the court-yard. I pointed them

out to the old woman, and, producing a handful of silver, told her

that we were willing to pay for such as we required.

_"Pero no puedo venderles_." (But I can't sell them.)

"Why?"

_"No puedo"_

Dolores meantime took a stick, knocked three of the finest from their

perches, and quietly wrung their necks. I expected to see the old

dame swoon away, or at least go off in a paroxysm of tears; but,

instead of committing any such civilized folly, she silently took up

her slaughtered innocents, dressed and cooked them, and thanked me

profoundly for the _medio_ each, which I handed her next morning. The

lesson was not lost on us, in our subsequent travels; for we found it

almost universal, that the lower classes are utterly indisposed to

sell their domestic commodities. Their services may be purchased; but

their chickens are above price. When, however, you have helped

yourself, you are astonished to find how ridiculously small a sum

will heal the wound you have made and atone for the loss you have

inflicted.

From Lamani to Comayagua the road is direct, over a slightly

undulating plain, subsiding gently to the north, and traversed nearly

in its centre by the Rio Hanuya, fed by numerous tributaries falling

from the mountains on either hand. We forded it at a distance of ten

miles from Lamani, and were surprised to find it already a large and

deep stream, frequently impassable for days and weeks together,

during the season of rains. Half a mile beyond the ford we came to

the Villa de San Antonio, a considerable place, and, next to the

capital itself and the town of Las Piedras, the largest in the plain.

Here we stopped at the house of the first _alcalde_, who gave us a

cordial reception, and an ample dinner, in a civilized fashion,--that

is to say, we had veritable plates, and knives and forks withal.

In Central America, curiosity is unchecked by our conventional laws,

and the traveller soon ceases to be surprised at any of its

manifestations, however extraordinary. When, therefore, a couple of

dozen spectators, of all ages and both sexes, invaded the house of

our host, and huddled around us while eating, we were in no degree

astonished, but continued our meal as if unconscious of their

presence. One yellow dame, however, was determined not to be ignored,

and insisted on speaking English, of which she had a vocabulary of

four or five words, picked up in her intercourse with American

sailors at the port of Truxillo. We were hungry, and did not much

heed her; whereupon she disappeared, as if piqued, but soon returned

with what she evidently regarded as an irresistible appeal to our

interest, in the shape of a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired child, perhaps

three years old, perfectly naked, but which she placed triumphantly

on the table before us.

_"Mira estos caballeros! son paisanos tuyos, niñito!"_ (See these

gentlemen, child! they are your countrymen!)

"Yes!" ejaculated the brat, to the infinite entertainment of the

spectators, none of whom appeared to discover the slightest

impropriety in the proceeding.

Of course, we had not come all the way to the Villa de San Antonio to

set up our standard of what is moral or amusing; so we laughed also,

and asked the mother to give us the history of the phenomenon. It was

given without circumlocution; and we learned, in most direct phrase,

that Captain ---- of ----, who traded to Truxillo, was responsible

for this early effort towards what H. called "the enlightenment of

the country." So far from feeling ashamed of her _escapade_ with the

Captain, the mother gloried in it, and rather affected a social

superiority over her less fortunate neighbors, in consequence. It is,

however, but right to say, that the freedom with which matters of

this sort are talked about in Central America does not necessarily

imply that the people at large are less virtuous than in other

countries. _Honi soit qui mal y pense_ is a motto universally acted

on; legs are called legs; and even the most delicate relations and

complaints are spoken of and discussed without the slightest attempt

at concealment or periphrasis. It is no doubt true, that marriage is

far from general among the middle and lower classes; and a woman may

live with a man in open concubinage without serious detriment to her

character or position, so long as she remains faithful to him.[1] It

is only when she becomes "light o' love" and indiscriminate in her

conduct, that she is avoided and despised. And although the remark

may sound strangely to American ears, I have no question that this

left-hand compact, on the whole, is here quite as well kept as the

vows which have secured the formal sanction of the law and the

Church.

[Footnote 1: But few statistics relating to this subject are in

existence; but those few quite bear out these observations. According

to the official returns of the District of Amatitlan in Guatemala,

the whole number of births in that Department for the year 1858 was

1394, of which 581 were illegitimate!]

[To be continued.]

THE "CATTLE" TO THE "POET."[Footnote]

How do _you_ know what the cow may know,

As under the tasselled bough she lies,

When earth is a-beat with the life below,

When the orient mornings redden and glow,

When the silent butterflies come and go,--

The dreamy cow with the Juno eyes?

How do _you_ know that she may not know

That the meadow all over is lettered, "Love,"

Or hear the mystic syllable low

In the grasses' growth and the waters' flow?

How do _you_ know that she may not know

What the robin sings on the twig above?

[Footnote: See "The Poet's Friends,"

_Atlantic Monthly_, vol. v., p. 185.]

MORE WORDS ABOUT SHELLEY.

There is a moral or a lesson to be found in the life of almost every

man, the chief duty of a biographer being to set forth and illustrate

this; and a history of the commonest individual, if written truly,

could not fail to be interesting to his fellows; for the feelings and

aspirations of men are pretty much alike all the world over, and the

elements of genius not very unequally distributed through the mass of

mankind,--the thing itself being a development due to circumstances,

very probably, as much as to anything singular in the man. But there

are few good biographies extant; the writers, for the most part,

contenting themselves with superficial facts, refusing or unable to

follow the mind and motive powers of the subject,--or following these

imperfectly. For this reason, they who would read the truest kind of

biographies must turn to those written by men of themselves,--that

is, the autobiographies; and these are, in fact, found to be among

the most attractive specimens of literature in our language, or any

other.

The life of any man is more or less of a mystery to other men, and

one who would write it effectively must have been intimate with him

from his youth onward. When the biography is that of a man of genius,

the difficulty is greatly increased, even to the writer who has been

his life-long familiar; for genius, by the necessity of its being,

implies a departure in a variety of ways from the thoughts and rules

of that regulated existence which is most favorable to the progress

and welfare of men in the mass,--at least, as these are generally

understood. But if the life-long intimacy be wanting in this

instance, the task of the writer is the most difficult of all, and

almost always a failure,--save in some rare case, where the writer

and his subject have been men of a similar stamp.

Few biographies are written by the life-intimates of the dead. In

most instances they are composed as tasks or duties by comparative

strangers; or if now and then by the friends or associates of the

subject, these are very likely the observers of only a part of his

life, the _seri studiorum_ of his latter or middle career, and

unacquainted with that period when the strong lines of character are

formed and the mental tendencies fixed. Boswell's "Life of Johnson"

is considered one of the best performances of its kind in our

language; but it is, after all, only half a biography, as it were. We

have the pensioned and petted life of the rough and contemptuous man

of genius,--whose great renown in English literature, by-the-by, is

owing far more to that garrulous admirer of his than to his own

works,--but we have little or nothing about those days of study or

struggle when he taught and flogged little boys, or felt all the

contumely excited by his shabby habiliments, or knocked down his

publisher, or slept at night with a hungry stomach on a bulkhead in

the company of the poor poet Savage. All the racier and stronger part

of the man's history is slurred over. No doubt he would not encourage

any prying into it, and neither cared to remember it himself nor

wished others to do so. He had a sensitive horror of having his life

written by an ignorant or unfriendly biographer, and even spoke of

the justice of taking such a person's life by anticipation, as they

tell us. Others, feeling a similar horror, and some of them conscious

of the enmities they should leave behind them, have themselves

written the obscurer portions of their own lives, like Hume, Gibbon,

Gifford, Scott, Moore, Southey. These men must have felt, that, even

at best, and with the fairest intentions, the task of the biographer

is full of difficulties, and open to mistakes, uncertainties, and

false conclusions without number.

The autobiographies are the best biographies. No doubt, self-love and

some cowardly sensitiveness will operate on a man in speaking of his

own doings; but all such drawbacks will still leave his narrative far

more trustworthy, as regards the truth of character, than that of any

other man: and this is more emphatically the case in proportion to

the genius of the writer; for genius is naturally bold and true, the

antipodes of anything like hypocrisy, and prone to speak out,--if it

were but in defiance of hatred or misrepresentation, even though the

better and more philosophic spirit were wanting. We should have

better and more instructive autobiographies, if distinguished men

were not deterred by the self-denying ordinance so generally

accepted, that it is not becoming in any one to speak frankly of

himself or his own convictions. We have no longer any of the strong,

wayward egotists,--the St. Augustines, the Montaignes, the Rousseaus,

the Mirabeaus, the Byrons; even the Cobbetts have died out. But the

Carlyles and the Emersons preserve amongst us still the evidences of

a stronger time.

There are two sorts of biographies, which may be described, in a

rough way, as biographies of thought and biographies of action. It

may not be a very difficult thing, perhaps, to write the life of a

politician or a general, or even of a statesman or a great soldier.

At any rate, the history of such a one is an easy matter, compared

with that of a mere man of thought, of a man of genius. In the former

case, we have the marked events, which are, as it were, the

stepping-stones of biography,--events belonging to the narrative of the

time,--and the individual receives a reflected light from many men

and things. Dates and facts make the task of statement or commentary

more easy to the writer, and his work more interesting to the general

reader. But the case of the mere thinker, the man of inaction, whose

sphere of achievement is for the most part a little room, and who

produces his effects in a great measure in silence or solitude, is a

very different one. The names of his publications, the dates of them,

the number of them, the publisher's price for them, the critic's

opinion of them, are meagre facts for the biographer; and if the man

of genius be a man of quiet, sequestered life, the record of it will

be only the more uninteresting to the reader. It is only when

something painful has been suffered, something eccentric done and

misunderstood and denounced or derided, that the biography rouses the

languid interest of the public. Indeed, so imperfect and false are

the plan and style of the literary biographies, that such opprobria

are, as it were, necessary to them,--necessary stimulants of

attention, and necessary shades of what would otherwise be a

monotonous and ineffective picture; and thus the unlucky men of

letters suffer posthumously for the stupidity of others as well as

their faults or divergencies. When biographers have not facts, they

are not unwilling to make use of fallacies: they set down "elephants

for want of towns." Dean Swift is a case in point. Society has

avenged itself by calumniating the man who spat upon its hypocrisies

and rascalities; and to appease the wounded feelings of the world, he

is attractively set down as a savage and a tyrant. Mr. Thackeray and

others find such a verdict artistically suitable to their criticisms

or their narratives, (a French author has written a romantic book

about the Dean and Stella,) and so the man is still depicted and

explained as the slayer of two poor innocent women, a sort of

clerical Bluebeard, and the horrid ogre who proposed to kill and eat

the fat Irish babies. Thackeray's plan of dissertation, indeed, was

inconsistent with any displacing or disturbing of the preconceived

notions; the success of it was, on the contrary, to be built upon the

customary old impressions of the subject. Everybody is pleased to

find his own idea in Thackeray, liking it all the better for the

graphic way in which it is set forth and illustrated; and the result

shows the shrewd artistic judgment of the critic, who apparently

(especially in the Dean's case) understands his readers rather better

than his theme. As for Swift,--though a fair knowledge of the man may

be gleaned from the several biographies of him that we have, his life

has not yet been fairly written and interpreted; and we believe the

same may be said of most literary men of genius.

It must certainly be said of Shelley,--and this brings us to the

beginning of our remarks. Not one man in ten thousand would be

capable of writing the life of that poet as it should be

written,--even supposing the biographer were one of his intimate friends.

Shelley went entirely away from the ranks of society,--farther away

than Byron, and was a man harder to be understood by the generality

of men. An autobiography of such a man was more needed than that of

any other; but we could not expect an autobiography from Shelley. He

felt nothing but pain and sorrow in the retrospect of his life, and,

like Byron, shrank from the task of explaining the mixture of self-will,

injustice, falsehood, and impetuous defiance that made up the

greater part of his history; and when he died, he left everything at

sixes and sevens, as regarded his place and acts in the world.

Accordingly, until lately, no one ventured forward with a biography

of the departed poet, who has been for more than a generation looked

on, as it were, through the medium of two lights: one, that of his

poetry, which represents him as the loftiest and gentlest of minds;

and the other, the imperfect notices of his life, which show him

forth a cruel, headstrong, and reckless outlaw,--hooted at,

anathematized, (and by his own father first,) driven out, like a

leper in the Middle Ages, and deprived of the care of his children.

In his case, however, the tendency to dwell upon and bring out the

darker traits of biography does not exhibit itself in any remarkable

way; and, on the whole, Shelley's character wears a mild and retiring

rather than a defiant or fiendish aspect. The world is inclined to

make allowances for him, on account of his beautiful poetry; and this

is something of the justice which, on other grounds also, is probably

due to him. Still, nobody has come forward to write his biography as

it should be written; and we are yet to seek for the illustrated

moral of a sensitive, unaccommodating, and impulsive being, rebelling

against the rules of life and the general philosophy of his

fellow-creatures, and shrinking with a shy, uncomprehended pride from the

companionship of society. Shelley's disposition was a marked and rare

one, but there is nothing of the riddle in it; for thousands, of his

temperament, may always be found going strangely through the world,

here and there, and the interpretation of such a character could be

made extremely interesting, and even instructive, by any one capable

of comprehending it.

After a considerable interval, some notices of Shelley have appeared,

without, however, throwing much additional light on the wayward heart

and pilgrimage of the poet. Mr. C.S. Middleton has published a book

upon Shelley and his writings; Mr. T.J. Hogg has given a sketch of

his life; and E.J. Trelawny some recollections of him, as well as of

Byron. None of these pretends to explain that eccentric nature, or

harmonize in any way his acts and his feelings; though a few things

may be gathered that tend to make the biography somewhat more

distinct than before, in some particulars. On the subject of his

first unfortunate marriage, we are made aware that his wife was a

self-willed, ill-taught young woman, who set her own father at

defiance, and threw herself on the protection of such a wandering

oddity as Percy Shelley. She was strong-minded, and brought with her

into her husband's house her elder sister, also strong-minded, a

ridiculous and insufferable duenna, whom Shelley hated with all

his heart and soul, and wished dead and buried out of his

sight,--finding, no doubt, his unsteady disposition controlled and

thwarted by the voice and authority of his sister-in-law, who, knowing

that her father furnished the young couple with their chief means of

livelihood, would be all the more resolute in advising them or

domineering over the migratory household. At last, these women grew

tired of the moping and ineffectual youth who still remained poor and

unsettled, with a father desperately healthy and inexorable, and all

hope of the baronetcy very far off indeed; they grew tired of him and

went away,--the wife, like Lady Byron, refusing to go back to such an

aimless, rhapsodizing vagabond. With her natural decision of mind,

aided and encouraged, very likely, by her astute relatives, she

thought she saw good reasons for breaking and setting aside the

contract which had united them; and no doubt the poor woman must have

felt the hardship of living with such a melancholy outlaw. Having

nothing in common with the devoted Emma, drawn in the ballad of "The

Nut-brown Maid," she must have hated that wandering about from, place

to place, living in lonely country-houses, under perpetual terror of

robbers in the night, and subsisting for the most part on potatoes

and Platonism; and she must have especially hated the Latin Grammar.

She naturally thought, that, when she was married, she should have

nothing more to say to exercises and lessons; but she found a

pedagogue in Shelley, and the honeymoon saw her "attacking Latin" for

the purpose of construing the poet Horace. How she must have hated

all poets! She had other ideas,--ideas of ease, respectability,

baronetcy; and her disappointment was greater than she could bear.

Mr. Hogg says, she had a propensity to strong courses, and would talk

of suicide in a speculative way. It is not difficult to discover the

truth of that unfortunate union and disunion. Shelley, betrayed by

the impulses of his enthusiast nature and the ignorant and deplorable

credulity of a bookworm, allowed himself to be imposed upon by a

designing boarding-school girl and her relatives, and everything

followed as a matter of course. The unhappy wife recklessly broke the

bond which she had as recklessly formed, and which the poet would

have honorably and truly respected all his life; and then her

passionate regret reacted fatally on herself,--and on him also, by a

Nemesis not so very strange or unnatural, as the world goes.[1]

[Footnote 1: Since this article was written, Mr. Peacock, an early

friend of Shelley, has published a very different estimate of the

character of Harriet Shelley. See _Fraser's Magazine_ for March,

1860.]

The subject of Shelley's character is a delicate and a difficult one,

and Mr. Hogg and Mr. Trelawny, especially, show their inability to

understand it, by the way in which they put forward and dwell upon

the poet's peculiarities. Trelawny, a hard-minded, thorough-paced man

of the world, publishing garrulously in his old age what he was

silent about in his better period, talks of the poet's oddity,

awkwardness, and want of punctuality,--as if Percy were some clerkly

man on 'Change; and Hogg, hilariously clever, says Shelley was so

erratic, fragmentary, and unequal, that his character cannot be shown

in any way but as the figures of a magic-lantern are shown on a

wall,--Mr. Hogg's own style of description being the wall,--"O wall,

O wall, O sweet and lovely wall!" He also tells us, to instance the

poet's familiarity with the sex, a story of Shelley sitting with one

of his lady friends and being plied with cups of tea by that fair

sympathizer,--the poet talking and letting his saucer fall, and the

lady wiping his perspiring face with a pocket-handkerchief. Such

scraps of silly gossip are not biography; they may do for tea-table

chit-chat, but show very feebly in the place where one looks for

something like a philosophical criticism on the mind of so

extraordinary a man as Shelley.

Genius alone can do justice to genius; and kindred genius alone will

do it. There have been, no doubt, a great many writers of biography

who had no objection to compensate their feelings for bygone slights

or discourtesies, suffered from some wayward or inattentive

superiority, some stroke of ridicule or malice. Literary antipathies

do not die with the dead. The posthumous impression of Margaret

Fuller Ossoli has been colored by some who sneer at her ways and

pretensions, because there was probably something in her manner which

displeased them in a personal way. She had certainly a very awkward

fashion of blinking her eyes, and also "a mountainous _me_." It is

very probable poor Edgar Poe has had his faults exaggerated by those

who suffered from the critical superiority of his intellect; since

some of those notices of him which tend most to fix his character as

a reprobate, and appear in a laggard way in the English periodicals,

were probably written by some of his own countrymen. It was a painful

consciousness of this literary revenge that made H.W. Herbert, in his

last agony, call on his brother-penmen for mercy on his remains, and

that induces many of our public men to bring out their own memoirs or

encourage others to do so. It looks like vainglory, but it is

not such. The memoirs show a mortal dread of calumny or

misrepresentation. Mr. Barnum, for instance, was more just to himself

than anybody else would be. He showed that his doings were only of a

piece with those of thousands around him in society; and this not

unreasonable extenuation is one that few of his critics are apt to

make use of in commenting on him and his dexterities of living. As

for Shelley, he might have shunned or slighted or overlooked Mr.

Trelawny in some painful or preoccupied moment, or offended the

robust man of the world by the mere delicate shyness of his look; he

might also have puzzled and bewildered Mr. Hogg, being, perhaps,

puzzled and bewildered himself, by some subtile mental

speculation,--unconscious that for these things he was yet to be brought

to judgment and turned into ridicule, for the coming generation, by

these familiar men,--these drilled and pipe-clayed familiar men. He

might have tossed up a paradox or two to keep the muscles of his mind

in exercise on a cold day, and his rapid intellect may have run away

from his hearer, trampling on the conventions and platitudes in its

course; but Mr. Hogg does not think he had fixed notions concerning

anything. The poet did not nail his colors with a cheer to the mast

of any of the great questions of the day, ethical or social, and

therefore suffered the disparagements of those intelligent friends of

his who have been taught to consider a well-defined rigidity of

conviction and maintenance, in the midst of all these phenomena of

our universe, telluric and uranological, as the test of everything

valuable in human character and morals. And thus it has come about,

that genius, with its native instincts of reason, truth, and common

sense, is doomed to pay the penalty of its preëminence and its

divergencies, and suffer at the hands of friends and enemies alike,

from the show of those false appearances, insincerities,

equivocations, which are its natural and proper antipathies.

Since the foregoing observations were written, the writer has seen a

certain corroboration of them in the interesting "Memorials of

Shelley," recently edited by Lady Shelley, and published by Ticknor

and Fields. For, in the preface of this book, she takes occasion to

speak of the misstatements of all those who have hitherto written on

the subject of the poet, instancing the fallacies of Captain Medwin's

book, and also, in an especial manner, though vaguely enough, the

incorrectness, amounting to caricature, put forth by a later

biographer, one of Shelley's oldest friends,--by which she evidently

means to indicate Mr. Hogg. At the same time, the nature of her

Ladyship's book is, involuntarily, an additional evidence of the

difficulty that seems fated to attend all attempts to set forth or

set right the character of Shelley. Indeed, she appears to be in some

degree conscious of this; for she says, apologetically, that she has

published the "Memorials" for the special purpose of neutralizing the

misstatements and spirit of Mr. Hogg's work, and also lets us know

that the time is not yet come for the publication of other and more

important matter calculated to do justice to the character of Percy

Bysshe Shelley.

It is only natural to think that Lady Shelley is not the person to

write the biography of the poet, whose relationship to her is such a

close one. She would far more willingly leave the events of his

troubled life forever unremembered. Indeed, when we find, that, in

her long widowhood of thirty years, Mrs. Shelley shrank from the task

of writing the life of her husband, we can the more easily understand

why any member of his family, especially a lady, should be the most

unfit to undertake the task. Nobody could expect Lady Shelley to

enter into those painful explanations necessary to it. Accordingly,

in the work before us, we do not find any light thrown on those

places where a person would be most anxious to see it. Lady Shelley

slurs over the undutiful boyhood of the poet and the terrible

sternness of his Mirabeau-father. She merely glances across the first

foolish marriage and the catastrophe that closed it, as a bird flies

over an abyss. On such subjects she cannot set about contradicting

anybody.

But it is an ungrateful task to go on speaking of short-comings in a

case like this, where the hardest critic in the world must sympathize

with the feelings of the author, whatever becomes of the book. And

yet the book will be very welcome to every one who regards it as a

feminine offering of tender admiration and grief laid upon the grave

of departed genius. Though not exactly the sort of personal history

one would wish for from another hand, it is still valuable, as

furnishing very interesting matter for a future biography. We have in

it several new letters of Shelley's, some letters of Godwin's, and

others of Mrs. Shelley's, together with a number of touching extracts

from the diary of the latter. There are also two papers from the

poet's pen: one an "Address to Lord Ellenborough" in defence of a man

punished for having published Paine's "Age of Reason," and another an

"Essay on Christianity." In the first, with all a boy's enthusiasm,

he opposes the high abstract logic of truth and toleration to the

hard government policy which tries to keep a reckless kind of

semi-civilization in order, and cannot bring itself to believe, that, as

yet, the broad principle of license is the one that can serve the

cosmogony best. In the next he rather surprises the reader by

exhibiting himself as the eulogist and expounder of Jesus

Christ,--but not after the manner of Saint Paul. No doubt, the secular

and semi-pagan tone of this dissertation will jar against the orthodoxy

of a great many readers,--to whom, however, it will be interesting as

a literary curiosity. But it is meant to show the character of

Shelley in a more amiable light than that in which it is contemplated

by the generality of people.

To explain Percy Bysshe Shelley, by telling us he was inconsequent,

absurd, and odd in his manners, is as futile as to explain him by

saying he was a strange, wonderful genius, of the Platonic or

Pythagorean order, always soaring above the atmosphere of common men.

To call a man of genius an inspired idiot or an inspired oddity is an

easy, but false way of interpreting him. The truth of Shelley's

character may be found by a more matter-of-fact investigation. He was

naturally of a feeble constitution from childhood, and not addicted

to the amusements of stronger boys; hence he became shy, and, when

bullied or flouted by the others, sensitive and irritable, and given

to secret reading and study, instead of play with those "little

fiends that scoffed incessantly." These habits gave him the name of

an oddity, and what is called a "Miss Molly," and the persecution

that followed only made him more recluse and speculative, and

disgusted with the ways and feelings of others. He began to have

thoughts beyond his years, and was happy to think he had, in these, a

compensation for what he suffered from his schoolfellows. With his

hermit habits grew naturally a strong egotistical vanity, which he

could as little repress as the other youths could repress their

muscular propensities to exercise; and hence his eagerness to set

forth the threadbare heretical theories he had found among his books.

For supporting these with an insolent show of importunity, he was

turned away from college, and soon left his father's home, with his

father's curse to bear him company. Had the baronet been in the way

of a _lettre de cachet_, like Mirabeau's father, he would certainly

have had Percy put into Newgate and kept there.

The malediction of the old man seems to have clung to Shelley's mind

to the end, and made him rebellious against everything bearing the

paternal name. He assailed the Father of the Hebrew theocracy with

amazing bitterness, and joined Prometheus in cursing and dethroning

Zeus, the Olympian usurper. With him, tyrant and father were

synonymous, and he has drawn the old Cenci, in the play of that name,

with the same fierce, unfilial pencil, dipped in blood and wormwood.

Shelley was by nature, self-instruction, and inexperience of life,

impatient and full of impulse; and the sharp and violent measures by

which they attempted to reclaim him only exasperated him the more

against everything respected by his opponents and persecutors. Genius

is by nature aggressive or retaliatory; and the young poet, writhing

and laughing hysterically, like Demogorgon, returned the scorn of

society with a scorn, the deeper and loftier in the end, that it grew

calm and became the abiding principle of a philosophic life. It was

the act of his father which drove Shelley into such open rebellion

against gods and men. Very probably, though he might have lived an

infidel in religious matters, like tens of thousands of his fellows,

he would not have written, or, at least, published, such shocking

things, if his father had been more patient with a youth so

organized. But parents have a right to show a terrible anger when

thwarted by their children, and in this case the father too much

resembled the son in wilful impetuosity of temper. Turned out of his

first home, Shelley went wandering forth by land and sea,--a reed

shaken by the wind, a restless outcast yearning for repose and human

sympathy, and in this way encountering the questionable accidents of

his troubled, unguarded life, and gathering all the feverish

inspiration of his melancholy and unfamiliar poetry.

With a sense of physical infirmity or defect which shaped the

sequestered philosophy of the Cowpers, the Bérangers, and others, the

manlier minds of literature, including Byron himself, in some

measure, Shelley felt he was not fit for the shock and hum of men and

the greater or lesser legerdemain of life, and so turned shyly away

to live and follow his plans and reveries apart, after the law of his

being, violating in this way what may be called the common law of

society, and meeting the fate of all nonconformists. He was slighted

and ridiculed, and even suspected; for people in general, when they

see a man go aside from the highway, maundering and talking to

himself, think there must be a reason for it; they suppose him

insane, or scornful, or meditating a murder,--in any case, one to be

visited with hard thoughts; and thus baffled curiosity will grow

uneasily into disgust, and into calumny, if not into some species of

outrage,--and very naturally, after all; for man is, on the whole,

made for society, and society has a sovereign right to take

cognizance of him, his ways and his movements, as a matter of

necessary _surveillance_.

The world will class men "in its coarse blacks and whites." Some mark

Shelley with charcoal, others with chalk,--the former considering him

a reprobate, the latter admiring him as a high-souled lover of human

happiness and human liberty. But he was something of both

together,--and would have been nothing without that worst part of him.

He ran perversely counter to the lessons of his teachers, and acted in

defiance of the regular opinions and habits of the world. He was too

out-spoken, like all genius; whereas the world inculcates the high

practical wisdom of a shut mouth and a secretive mind. Fontenelle,

speaking according to the philosophy of the crowd, says, "A wise man,

with his fist full of truths, would open only his little finger."

Shelley opened his whole hand, in a fearless, unhappy manner; and was

accordingly punished for ideas which multitudes entertain in a quiet

way, saying nothing, and living in the odor of respectable opinion.

With a mind that recoiled from anything like falsehood and injustice,

he wanted prudence. And as, in the belief of the matter-of-fact

Romans, no divinity is absent, if _Prudentia_ be present, so it still

seems that everything is wanting to a man, if he wants that. Shelley

denied the commonly received Divinity, as all the world knows,--an

Atheist of the most unpardonable stamp,--and has suffered in

consequence; his life being considered a life of folly and vagary,

and his punishment still enduring, as we may perceive from the tone

and philosophy of his biographers, or rather his critics, who, not

being able to comprehend such a simple savage, present his character

as an oddity and a wonder,--an _extravaganza_ that cannot be

understood without some wall of the world's pattern and plastering to

show it up against.

It is, to be sure, much easier and safer to regard Shelley's career

in this way than to justify it, since the customs and opinions of the

great majority must, after all, be the law and rule of the world.

Shelley's apologist would be a bold man. Whether he shall ever have

one is a question. At all events, he has not had a biographer as yet.

His widow shrank from the task. Of those familiar friends of his, we

can say that "no man's thought keeps the roadway better than theirs,"

and all to show how futile is the attempt to measure such a man with

the footrule of the conventions. Shelley was a mutineer on board

ship, and a deserter from the ranks; and he must, therefore, wait for

a biographer, as other denounced and daring geniuses have waited for

their audience or their epitaph.

CLARIAN'S PICTURE.

A LEGEND OF NASSAU HALL.

"Turbine raptus ingenii."--Scaliger

[concluded.]

The next morning there was queer talk about Clarian. Mac and I stared

at each other when we heard it at breakfast, but still kept our own

counsel in silence. Some late walkers had met him in the moonlight,

crossing the campus at full speed, hatless, dripping wet, and flying

like a ghost.

"I tell you," said our informant, a good enough fellow, and one not

prone to be violently startled, "he scared me, as he flitted past.

His eyes were like saucers, his hair wet and streaming behind him,

his face white as a chalk-mark on Professor Cosine's blackboard.

Depend on it, that boy's either going mad or has got into some

desperate scrape."

"Pshaw!" growled Mac, "you were drunk,--couldn't see straight."

"Mr. Innocence was returning from some assignation, I suspect",

remarked Zoile.

"If he had been, _you'd_ have encountered him, Mr. Zoile," said Mac,

curtly.

But I noticed my chum did not like this new feature in the case.

After this, until the time of my receiving the lad's invitation, I

neither saw nor had communication with Clarian, nor did any others of

us. If he left his room, it was solely at night; he had his meals

sent to him, under pretence of illness, and admitted no one, except

his own servant. This fellow, Dennis, spoke of him as looking

exceedingly feeble and ill; and also remarked that he had apparently

not been to bed for some days, but was mixing colors, or painting,

the whole time. I went to his door several times; but was invariably

refused admittance, and told, kindly, but firmly, that he would not

be interrupted. Mac also tried to see him, but in vain.

"I caught a glimpse of that boy's face at his window just now," said

he, one day, coming in after recitation. "You may depend upon it,

there's something terribly wrong. My God, I was horrified, Ned! Did

you ever see any one drown? No? Well, I did once,--a woman. She fell

overboard from a Chesapeake steamboat in which I was coming up the

Bay, and sank just before they reached her. I shall never forget her

looks as she came up the last time, turned her white, despairing,

death-stricken face towards us, screamed a wild nightmare scream, and

went down. Clarian's face was just like hers. Depend upon it, there's

something wrong. What can we do?"

Nothing, indeed, save what we did,--wait, until that pleasant morning

came round and brought me Clarian's note. I could scarcely brook the

slow laziness with which the day dragged by, as if it knew its own

beauty, and lingered to enjoy it. At last, however, the night came,

the hour also, and punctually with it came Dr. Thorne, a kindly

young physician, and a man of much promise, well-read, prompt,

clear-headed, resourceful, and enthusiastically attached to his profession

Mac tucked a volume of Shakspeare under his arm, and we made our way

to Clarian's room forthwith. Here we found about a dozen students,

all known to us intimately. They were seated close to one another,

conversing in low tones, and betraying upon their faces quite an

anxiety of expectation. The door of the bedroom was closed, the

curtain was lowered, and the only light in the room came from a

shaded lamp, which was placed upon a small table in the recess to the

right of the picture.

"What is this for?" inquired Dr. Thorne, pointing to a sort of salver

resting upon a low tripod directly in front of the picture.

"Where is Clarian?" asked I.

"He looks awful," someone began in a whisper, when the lad's feeble

voice called out from the bedroom,--

"Is it Ned and Mac?"

The door was pulled open, and Clarian came towards us.

"I am glad to see you, my friends. Dr. Thorne, you are truly welcome.

Pray, be seated. Mac, here is your place, you and your Shakspeare,"

said he, indicating the chair and table in the recess.

I had held out my hand to the lad, but he turned away without taking

it, and began to adjust the cords that moved the curtain.

"The tripod, Dr. Thorne," said he, with a sickly smile, "is a--a mere

fancy of mine,--childish,--but in the salver I shall burn some

pyrotechnic preparations, while the picture is being exhibited, by

way of substitute for daylight. Excuse me a moment," added he, as he

went into the bedroom again.

"Blount," said Dr. Thorne, in my ear, "why have you permitted this?

What ails that boy? If he is not cared for soon, he will go crazy.

Hush!--here he comes,--keep your eye on him."

Then, as Clarian came out, and stood in the bedroom doorway, quite

near me, I remarked the terrible change since I had last seen him. He

leaned against the door-frame, as if too weak to support himself

erect; and I saw that his knees shook, his hands jerked, and his

mouth twitched in a continual nervous unrest. He had on a handsome

_robe de chambre_ of maroon velvet, which he seldom wore about

college, though it was very becoming to him, its long skirts falling

nearly to his feet, while its ample folds were gathered about his

waist, and secured with cord and tassel. His feet were thrust into

neat slippers, and his collar rolled over a flowing black cravat _à

la Corsaire_. His long hair, which was just now longer than usual,

was evenly parted in the middle, like a girl's, and, combed out

straight, fell down to his shoulders on either side. All this care

and neatness of dress made the contrast of his face stand out the

more strikingly. Its pallor was ghastly: no other word conveys the

idea of it. His lips kept asunder, as we see them sometimes in

persons prostrated by long illness, and the nether one quivered

incessantly, as did the smaller facial muscles near the mouth. His

eyes were sunken and surrounded by livid circles, but they themselves

seemed consuming with the dry and thirsty fire of fever: hot, red,

staring, they glided ever to and fro with a snake-like motion, as

uncertain, wild, and painful, in their unresting search, as those of

a wounded and captive hawk. The same restlessness, approaching in

violence the ceaseless spasmodic habit of a confirmed Chorea,

betrayed itself in all his movements, particularly in a way he had of

glancing over his shoulder with a stealthy look of apprehension, and

the frequent starts and shivers that interrupted him when talking.

His voice also was changed, and in every way he gave evidence not

only of disease of mind and body, but of a nervous system shattered

almost beyond hope of reaction and recovery. Trembling for him, I

rose and attempted to speak with him aside, but he waived me off,

saying, with that sickly smile which I had never before seen him

wear,--

"No, Ned,--you must not interrupt me to-night, neither you nor the

rest,--for I am very weak and nervous and ill, and just now need all

my strength for my picture, which, as it has cost me labor and

pain,--much pain,--I wish to show in its best light. Macbeth's

terror--it means more than it did the other night, Ned--but"--

Here he murmured an inarticulate word or two, recovering himself

almost instantly, however, and resuming in a stronger voice,--

"Macbeth's doom is my picture. You will wonder I preferred the solid

wall to canvas, perhaps,--but so did the genuine old artists. Lippo

Lippi, and Giotto, and--why, Orcagna painted on graveyard walls; and

I can almost fancy, sometimes, that this room is a vault, a tomb, a

dungeon, where they torture people. Turn to the place, good Mac,

Shakespeare's tragedy of 'Macbeth,' Act Third, Scene Fourth, and read

the scene to us, as you know how to read; I will manage the

accompaniments."

As he spoke, he touched the salver with a lighted match, so that a

blue alcoholic flame flickered up before the curtain, making the poor

lad's face seem more ghastly than ever.

"You must sit down, Clarian," cried Dr. Thorne, resolutely.

Clarian smiled again, that dim, uncertain smile, and answered,--

"Nay, Doctor, let me have my own way for an hour, and after that you

shall govern me as your learned skill suggests. And do not be uneasy

about my 'creamfaced' aspect, as I see Ned is: there is plentiful

cause for it, beyond the feebleness of this very present, and

to-night is not the first time I have worn these 'linen cheeks.' Read

on, Mac."

We sat there in the dim light, breathless, awed,--for all of us saw

the boy's agony, and were the more shocked that we were unable to

understand it,--until, at last, in a voice made more impressive by

its tremor, Mac began to read the terrible text,--to read as I had

never heard him read before, until a fair chill entered our veins and

ran back to our shuddering hearts from sympathy. Then, as he read on

and painted the king and murderer together, while his voice waxed

stronger and fuller, we saw Clarian step forward to the salver and

busy with its lambent flame, till it blazed up with a broad, red

light, that, shedding a weird splendor upon all around, and lending a

supernatural effect to the room's deep shadows, the picture's

funereal aspect, and the unearthly pallor of the boy's countenance,

startled our eyes like the painful glare of midnight lightning.

"Thou canst not say, I did it! Never shake Thy gory locks at me!"

As the reader thrust the terror of these words upon us, all started

back, for the curtain was plucked suddenly away, and there before us,

not in Clarian's picture, it seemed, but in very truth, stood

Macbeth, conscious of the murdered presence. Even the reader,

absorbed as he was in his text, paused short, amazed; and I forgot

that I had seen this picture, only knew that it was a living scene of

terror. Doubtless much of this startling effect was the result of

association, the agitation of anxiety, the influence of the

impressive text, the suddenness of the apparition, the unusual light;

but in the figure of Macbeth, at which alone we gazed, there was a

life, a terrible significance, that outran all these causes. It was

not in the posture, grand as that was,--not in the sin-stamped brow,

rough with wrinkles like a storm-chafed sea,--not in the wiry hair,

gray and half rising in haggard locks, like adders that in vain try

to escape the foot that treads them down,--nor in the mouth, for that

was hid behind the impotent guard of the upraised arm and clenched

fist,--but in those painted eyes, into which, all-fascinated, we ever

gazed, reading in them all that crouching terror, all the punishment

of that spectral presence, all the poignant consciousness of his fate

to whom such things could happen, to whom already his victims rise

again,

"With twenty mortal murders on their crowns And push us from our

stools!"

While I yet gazed, a sickening terror pervading me in the presence of

these ghastly eyes, there came a voice, as if from afar,--"Read

on!"--so consonant with the tone of my emotions, that I looked to see

the figure itself take speech, until Mac, with a gasp, resumed.

Still, as he read, the nightmare-spell possessed me, till a

convulsive clutch upon my arm roused me, and instinctively, with the

returning sense, I turned to Clarian.

Not too soon,--for then, in his own person, and in that strange

glare, he was interpreting the picture to us. He stood, not thrown

back like Macbeth, but drawn forward, on tiptoe, with neck reached

out, form erect, but lax, one arm extended, and one long diaphanous

finger pointing over our heads at something he saw behind us, but

towards which, in the extremity of our terror, we dared not turn our

eyes. _He saw it_,--more than saw it,--we knew, as we noted the

scream swelling in his throat, yet dying away into an inarticulate

breath ere it passed the blue and shaken lips,--he saw it, and those

eyes of his, large enough in their wont, waxed larger still, wilder,

madder with desperate affright, till every one of us, save the

absorbed reader, recognized in them the nightmare horror of the

picture,--knew that in Macbeth Clarian had drawn his own portrait!

There he stood, drawn on, staring, pointing--

"Stop!" shouted Dr. Thorne, his voice hoarse and strident with

emotion; but Mac, absorbed in his text, still read, flinging a fine

and subtile emotion of scorn into the words,--

"O proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear:

This"----

"Triple fool! be silent!" cried Dr. Thorne again, springing to his

feet,--while we, spell-bound, sat still and waited for the end.

"Cease! do you not see?" cried he, seizing Mac.

But there stood Clarian yet, that red light upon his cheek and brow,

that fixed stare of a real, unpainted horror in his speechless face,

that long finger still pointing and trembling not,--there he stood,

fixed, while one might count ten. Then over his blue lips, like a

ghost from its tomb, stole a low and hissing whisper, that curdled

our blood, and peopled all the room with dreadful things,--a low

whisper that said,--

"Prithee, see there! behold! it comes! it comes!" Now he beckoned in

the air, and called with a shuddering, smothered shriek,--"Come! I

did it! come! Ha!" yelled he, plucking the spell from his limbs like

a garment, and springing madly forward towards the door,--"Ha! touch

me not! Off, I say, off!" He paused, gazed wildly round, flung his

hand to his brow, and, while his eyes rolled till nothing but their

whites were seen, while the purple veins swelled like mole-tracks in

his forehead, and a bubbling froth began to gather about his lips, he

tossed his arms in the air, gave shrieking utterance to the cry,--"O

Christ! it is gone! it is gone!" and fell to the floor with a bound.

We sprang to him,--Thorne first of any.

"This is my place, gentlemen," said he, in quick, nervous tones.

Then, taking the prostrate child into his arms, he carried him to his

bed, laid him down, felt his pulse, and placed his head in Mac's

arms. Returning then, he veiled the picture, flung the salver out of

the window, and dismissed the huddled throng of frightened students,

warning them to be silent as to the night's events. "Very likely

Clarian will never see to-morrow; so be careful, lest you soil his

memory."

"What does it mean, Thorne?" asked Mac, as the Doctor and I came

again to the bedside. "It is nothing more than an overdose of

_cannabis_ or opium upon an excited nervous system, is it?"

Thorne looked at the delicate-limbed child who lay there in Mac's

strong arms, wiped away the gathering froth from the lips, replaced

the feebly quivering limbs, and, as he lingered over the pulse,

replied,--

"He has been taking _hashish_?"

"He _has_ taken it,--I do not say he is under its influence now."

"No,--he has not touched any stimulant. This is much worse than

that,--this means epilepsy, Mac, and we may have to choose between

death and idiocy."

He was still examining the boy, and showing Mac how to hold him most

comfortably.

"If I could only get at the _causes_ of this attack,--those, I mean,

which lie deeper than the mere physical disorder,--if I could only

find out what it is he has been doing,--and I could, easily, were I

not afraid of directing suspicion towards him, or bringing about some

unfortunate embarrassment"--

"What is it you suspect?" thundered Mac.

"Either some cruel trick has been played upon the boy, or he has been

guilty of some act of madness"--

"Impossible!" cried we in a breath; "Clarian is as pure as Heaven."

"Look at him, Thorne!" said my good chum,--"look at the child's

baby-face, so frank and earnest!--look at him! You dare not say an impure

thought ever awoke in that brain, an impure word ever crossed those

lips."

Dr. Thorne smiled sadly.

"There is no standard of reason to the enthusiast, my dear Mac; and

here is one, of a surety. However, time will reveal; I wish I knew.

Come, Ned, help me to mix some medicines here. Be careful to keep his

head right, Mac, so as to have the circulation as free as possible."

While we were occupied in the front room, there came a stout double

knock at the door, and when I opened it, Hullfish, the weather-beaten

old constable of the borough, made his hesitating appearance. The

Doctor gave me a quick glance, as if to say, "I told you so," and

then returned the old man's bluff salutation. As soon as Hullfish saw

him, he came forward with something like a sigh of relief, and

said,--

"Ah, Doc, you here? 'Tar'n't a hoax, then, though I was mightily

'feared it was. Them students is the Devil for chivying of a

feller,--beggin' your pardon, Mr. Blount. Have you got him yonder,

Doctor?" said he, his keen eye noticing Mac and Clarian in the back

room.

"What do you mean, Hullfish? Got whom?" asked Thorne, making me a

sign to be quiet.