Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
CAPTAINS OF ADVENTURE
[Illustration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE]
CAPTAINS
OF ADVENTURE
_By_
ROGER POCOCK
_Author of_
A Man in the Open, etc.
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1913
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
ADVENTURERS
What is an adventurer? One who has adventures? Surely not. A person
charged by a wild rhinoceros is having an adventure, yet however wild
the animal, however wild the person, he is only somebody wishing
himself at home, not an adventurer. In dictionaries the adventurer
is “one who seeks his fortune in new and hazardous or perilous
enterprises.” But outside the pages of a dictionary, the man who seeks
his fortune, who really cares for money and his own advantage, sits
at some desk deriding the fools who take thousand-to-one chances in a
gamble with Death. Did the patron saint of adventurers, Saint Paul, or
did Saint Louis, or Francis Drake, or Livingstone, or Gordon seek their
own fortune, think you? In real life the adventurer is one who seeks,
not his fortune, but the new and hazardous or perilous enterprises.
There are holy saints and scoundrels among adventurers, but all the
thousands I have known were fools of the romantic temperament, dealing
with life as an artist does with canvas, to color it with fierce and
vivid feeling, deep shade and radiant light, exulting in the passions
of the sea, the terrors of the wilderness, the splendors of sunshine
and starlight, the exaltation of battle, fire and hurricane.
All nations have bred great adventurers, but the living nation
remembers them sending the boys out into the world enriched with
memories of valor, a heritage of national honor, an inspiration to
ennoble their manhood. That is the only real wealth of men and of
peoples. For such purposes this book is written, but so vast is the
theme that this volume would outgrow all reasonable size unless we set
some limit. A man in the regular standing forces of his native state
is not dubbed adventurer. When, for example, the immortal heroes Tromp
and De Ruyter fought the British generals at sea, Blake and Monk, they
were no more adventurers than are the police constables who guard our
homes at night. Were Clive and Warren Hastings adventurers? They would
turn in their graves if one brought such a charge. The true type of
adventurer is the lone-hand pioneer.
It is not from any bias of mine that the worthies of Switzerland, the
Teutonic empires and Russia, are shut out of this poor little record;
but because it seems that the lone-hand oversea and overland pioneers
come mainly from nations directly fronting upon the open sea. As far
as I am prejudiced, it is in favor of old Norway, whose heroes have
entranced me with the sheer glory of their perfect manhood. For the
rest, our own English-speaking folk are easier for us to understand
than any foreigners.
As to the manner of record, we must follow the stream of history if we
would shoot the rapids of adventure.
Now as to the point of view: My literary pretensions are small and
humble, but I claim the right of an adventurer, trained in thirty-three
trades of the Lost Region, to absolute freedom of speech concerning
frontiersmen. Let history bow down before Columbus, but as a foremast
seaman, I hold he was not fit to command a ship. Let history ignore
Captain John Smith, but as an ex-trooper, I worship him for a leader,
the paladin of Anglo-Saxon chivalry, and very father of the United
States. Literature admires the well advertised Stanley, but we
frontiersmen prefer Commander Cameron, who walked across Africa without
blaming others for his own defects, or losing his temper, or shedding
needless blood. All the celebrities may go hang, but when we take the
field, send us leaders like Patrick Forbes, who conquered Rhodesia
without journalists in attendance to write puffs, or any actual deluge
of public gratitude.
The historic and literary points of view are widely different from that
of our dusty rankers.
When the Dutchmen were fighting Spain, they invented and built the
first iron-clad war-ship--all honor to their seamanship for that! But
when the winter came, a Spanish cavalry charge across the ice captured
the ship--and there was fine adventure. Both sides had practical men.
In the same wars, a Spanish man-at-arms in the plundering of a city,
took more gold than he could carry, so he had the metal beaten into
a suit of armor, and painted black to hide its worth from thieves.
From a literary standpoint, that was all very fine, but from our
adventurer point of view, the man was a fool for wearing armor useless
for defense, and so heavy he could not run. He was killed, and a good
riddance.
We value most the man who knows his business, and the more practical
the adventurer, the fewer his misadventures.
From that point of view, the book is attempted with all earnestness;
and if the results appear bizarre, let the shocked reader turn to
better written works, mention of which is made in notes.
As to the truthfulness of adventurers, perhaps we are all more or less
truthful when we try to be good. But there are two kinds of adventurers
who need sharply watching. The worst is F. C. Selous. Once he lectured
to amuse the children at the Foundling Hospital, and when he came to
single combats with a wounded lion, or a mad elephant he was forced
to mention himself as one of the persons present. He blushed. Then
he would race through a hair-lifting story of the fight, and in an
apologetic manner, give all the praise to the elephant, or the lion
lately deceased. Surely nobody could suspect him of any merit, yet
all the children saw through him for a transparent fraud, and even we
grown-ups felt the better for meeting so grand a gentleman.
The other sort of liar, who does not understate his own merits, is
Jim Beckwourth. He told his story, quite truthfully at first, to a
journalist who took it down in shorthand. But when the man gaped with
admiration at the merest trifles, Jim was on his mettle, testing this
person’s powers of belief, which were absolutely boundless. After that,
of course he hit the high places, striking the facts about once in
twenty-four hours, and as one reads the book, one can catch the thud
whenever he hit the truth.
Let no man dream that adventure is a thing of the past or that
adventurers are growing scarce. The only difficulty of this book
was to squeeze the past in order to make-space for living men worthy
as their forerunners. The list is enormous, and I only dared to
estimate such men of our own time as I have known by correspondence,
acquaintance, friendship, enmity, or by serving under their leadership.
Here again, I could only speak safely in cases where there were
records, as with Lord Strathcona, Colonel S. B. Steele, Colonel Cody,
Major Forbes, Captain Grogan, Captain Amundsen, Captain Hansen, Mr.
John Boyes. Left out, among Americans, are M. H. de Hora who, in a
Chilian campaign, with only a boat’s crew, cut out the battle-ship
_Huascar_, plundered a British tramp of her bunker coal, and fought H.
M. S. _Shah_ on the high seas. Another American, Doctor Bodkin, was
for some years prime minister of Makualand, an Arab sultanate. Among
British adventurers, Caid Belton, is one of four successive British
commanders-in-chief to the Moorish sultans. Colonel Tompkins was
commander-in-chief to Johore. C. W. Mason was captured with a shipload
of arms in an attempt to make himself emperor of China. Charles Rose
rode from Mazatlan in Mexico to Corrientes in Paraguay. A. W. V.
Crawley, a chief of scouts to Lord Roberts in South Africa, rode out of
action after being seven times shot, and he rides now a little askew in
consequence.
To sum up, if one circle of acquaintances includes such a group to-day,
the adventurer is not quite an extinct species, and indeed, we seem not
at the end, but at the beginning of the greatest of all adventurous
eras, that of the adventurers of the air.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I THE VIKINGS IN AMERICA 1
II THE CRUSADERS 7
III THE MIDDLE AGES IN ASIA 18
IV THE MARVELOUS ADVENTURES OF SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE 25
V COLUMBUS 32
VI THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO 37
VII THE CONQUEST OF PERU 44
VIII THE CORSAIRS 50
IX PORTUGAL IN THE INDIES 55
X RAJAH BROOKE 62
XI THE SPIES 69
XII A YEAR’S ADVENTURES 81
XIII KIT CARSON 88
XIV THE MAN WHO WAS A GOD 100
XV THE GREAT FILIBUSTER 106
XVI BUFFALO BILL 112
XVII THE AUSTRALIAN DESERT 123
XVIII THE HERO-STATESMAN 131
XIX THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT 138
XX LORD STRATHCONA 142
XXI THE SEA HUNTERS 148
XXII THE BUSHRANGERS 156
XXIII THE PASSING OF THE BISON 162
XXIV GORDON 173
XXV THE OUTLAW 179
XXVI A KING AT TWENTY-FIVE 186
XXVII JOURNEY OF EWART GROGAN 194
XXVIII THE COWBOY PRESIDENT 202
XXIX THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE 208
XXX JOHN HAWKINS 215
XXXI FRANCIS DRAKE 219
XXXII THE FOUR ARMADAS 223
XXXIII SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT 231
XXXIV SIR WALTER RALEIGH 234
XXXV CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 237
XXXVI THE BUCCANEERS 246
XXXVII THE VOYAGEURS 252
XXXVIII THE EXPLORERS 260
XXXIX THE PIRATES 266
XL DANIEL BOONE 272
XLI ANDREW JACKSON 280
XLII SAM HOUSTON 282
XLIII DAVY CROCKETT 285
XLIV ALEXANDER MACKENZIE 292
XLV THE WHITE MAN’S COMING 298
XLVI THE BEAVER 302
XLVII THE CONQUEST OF THE POLES 307
XLVIII WOMEN 315
XLIX THE CONQUERORS OF INDIA 321
L THE MAN WHO SHOT LORD NELSON 327
LI THE FALL OF NAPOLEON 333
LII RISING WOLF 340
LIII SIMON BOLIVAR 350
LIV THE ALMIRANTE COCHRANE 357
LV THE SOUTH SEA CANNIBALS 363
LVI A TALE OF VENGEANCE 371
CAPTAINS OF ADVENTURE
CAPTAINS OF ADVENTURE
I
A. D. 984
THE VIKINGS IN AMERICA
A reverent study of heroes in novels, also in operas and melodramas,
where one may see them for half-a-crown, has convinced me that they
must be very trying to live with. They get on people’s nerves. Hence
the villains.
Now Harold of the Fair Hair was a hero, and he fell in love with a
lady, but she would not marry him unless he made himself king of
Norway. So he made himself the first king of all Norway, and she had to
marry him, which served her right.
But then there were the gentlemen of his majesty’s opposition who did
not want him to be king, who felt that there was altogether too much
Harold in Norway. They left, and went to Iceland to get away from the
hero.
Iceland had been shown on the map since the year A. D. 115, and when
the vikings arrived they found a colony of Irish monks who said they
had come there “because they desired for the love of God to be in a
state of pilgrimage, they recked not where.”
Perhaps the vikings sent them to Heaven. Later on it seems they found
a little Irish settlement on the New England coast, and heard of great
Ireland, a colony farther south. That is the first rumor we have about
America.
The Norsemen settled down, pagans in Christian Iceland. They earned
a living with fish and cattle, and made an honest penny raiding the
Mediterranean. They had internecine sports of their own, and on the
whole were reasonably happy. Then in course of trade Captain Gunbjorn
sighted an unknown land two hundred fifty miles to the westward. That
made the Icelanders restless, for there is always something which calls
to Northern blood from beyond the sea line.
Most restless of all was Red Eric, hysterical because he hated a
humdrum respectable life; indeed, he committed so many murders that he
had to be deported as a public nuisance. He set off exultant to find
Gunbjorn’s unknown land. So any natural born adventurer commits little
errors of taste unless he can find an outlet. It is too much dog-chain
that makes biting dogs.
When he found the new land it was all green, with swaths of wild
flowers. I know that land and its bright lowlands, backed by sheer
walled mountains, with splintered pinnacles robed in the splendors
of the inland ice. The trees were knee high, no crops could possibly
ripen, but Eric was so pleased that after two winters he went back
to Iceland advertising for settlers to fill his colony. Greenland
he called the place, because “Many will go there if the place has
a fair name.” They did, and when the sea had wiped out most of the
twenty-five ships, the surviving colonists found Greenland commodious
and residential as the heart could wish.
They were not long gone from the port of Skalholt when young Captain
Bjarni came in from the sea and asked for his father. But father
Heljulf had sailed for Greenland, so the youngster set off in pursuit
although nobody knew the way. Bjarni always spent alternate yuletides
at his father’s hearth, so if the hearth-stone moved he had to find it
somehow. These vikings are so human and natural that one can follow
their thought quite easily. When, for instance, Bjarni, instead of
coming to Greenland, found a low, well timbered country, he knew he had
made a mistake, so it was no use landing. Rediscovering the American
mainland was a habit which persisted until the time of Columbus, and
not a feat to make a fuss about. A northerly course and a pure stroke
of luck carried Bjarni to Greenland and his father’s house.
Because they had no timber, and driftwood was scarce, the colonists
were much excited when they heard of forests, and cursed Bjarni for
not having landed. Anyway, here was a fine excuse for an expedition
in search of fire-wood, so Leif, the son of Red Eric, bought Bjarni’s
ship. Being tall and of commanding presence he rallied thirty-five of
a crew, and, being young, expected that his father would take command.
Eric indeed rode a distance of four hundred feet from his house against
the rock, which was called Brattelid, to the shore of the inlet, but
his pony fell and threw him, such a bad omen that he rode home again.
Leif Ericsen, therefore, with winged helmet and glittering breastplate,
mounted the steerboard, laid hands on the steer-oar and bade his men
shove off. The colonists on rugged dun ponies lined the shore to cheer
the adventurers, and the ladies waved their kerchiefs from the rock
behind the house while the dragon ship, shield-lines ablaze in the
sun, oars thrashing blue water, and painted square-sail set, took the
fair wind on that famous voyage. She discovered Stoneland, which is
the Newfoundland-Labrador coast, and Woodland, which is Nova Scotia.
Then came the Further Strand, the long and wonderful beaches of
Massachusetts, and beyond was Narragansett Bay, where they built winter
houses, pastured their cattle, and found wild grapes. It was here that
Tyrkir, the little old German man slave who was Leif’s nurse, made wine
and got most gorgeously drunk. On the homeward passage Leif brought
timber and raisins to Greenland.
Leif went away to Norway, where as a guest of King Olaf he became a
Christian, and in his absence his brother Thorwald made the second
voyage to what is now New England. After wintering at Leif’s house in
Wineland the Good he went southward and, somewhere near the site of New
York, met with savages. Nine of them lay under three upturned canoes on
the beach, so the vikings killed eight just for fun, but were fools,
letting the ninth escape to raise the tribes for war. So there was a
battle, and Thorwald the Helpless was shot in the eye, which served him
right. One of his brothers came afterward in search of the body, which
may have been that same seated skeleton in bronze armor that nine
hundred years later was dug up at Cross Point.
Two or three years after Thorwald’s death his widow married a visitor
from Norway, Eric’s guest at Brattelid, the rich Thorfin Karlsefne. He
also set out for Vinland, taking Mrs. Karlsefne and four other women,
also a Scottish lad and lass (very savage) and an Irishman, besides a
crew of sixty and some cattle. They built a fort where the natives came
trading skins for strips of red cloth, or to fight a battle, or to be
chased, shrieking with fright, by Thorfin’s big red bull. There Mrs.
Karlsefne gave birth to Snorri the Firstborn, whose sons Thorlak and
Brand became priests and were the first two bishops of Greenland.
After Karlsefne’s return to Greenland the next voyage was made by one
of Eric’s daughters; and presently Leif the Fortunate came home from
Norway to his father’s house, bringing a priest. Then Mrs. Leif built a
church at Brattelid, old Eric the Red being thoroughly disgusted, and
Greenland and Vinland became Christian, but Eric never.
As long as Norway traded with her American colonies Vinland exported
timber and dried fruit, while Greenland sent sheepskins, ox hides,
sealskins, walrus-skin rope and tusks to Iceland and Europe. In return
they got iron and settlers. But then began a series of disasters, for
when the Black Death swept Europe, the colonies were left to their
fate, and some of the colonists in despair renounced their faith to
turn Eskimo. In 1349 the last timber ship from Nova Scotia was lately
returned to Europe when the plague struck Norway. There is a gap of
fifty-two years in the record, and all we know of Greenland is that
the western villages were destroyed by Eskimos who killed eighteen
Norsemen and carried off the boys. Then the plague destroyed two-thirds
of the people in Iceland, a bad winter killed nine tenths of all their
cattle, and what remained of the hapless colony was ravaged by English
fishermen. No longer could Iceland send any help to Greenland, but
still there was intercourse because we know that seven years later the
vicar of Garde married a girl in the east villages to a young Icelander.
Meanwhile, in plague-stricken England, Bristol, our biggest seaport,
had not enough men living even to bury the dead, and labor was so
scarce that the crops rotted for lack of harvesters. That is why an
English squadron raided Iceland, Greenland, perhaps even Vinland, for
slaves, and the people were carried away into captivity. Afterward
England paid compensation to Denmark and returned the folk to their
homes, but in 1448 the pope wrote to a Norse bishop concerning their
piteous condition. And there the story ends, for in that year the
German merchants at Bergen in Norway squabbled with the forty master
mariners of the American trade. The sailors had boycotted their
Hanseatic League, so the Germans asked them to dinner, and murdered
them. From that time no man knew the way to lost America.
II
A. D. 1248
THE CRUSADERS
In the seventh century of the reign of Our Lord Christ, arose the
Prophet Mahomet. To his followers he generously gave Heaven, and
as much of the earth as they could get, so the true believers made
haste to occupy goodly and fruitful possessions of Christian powers,
including the Holy Land. The owners were useful as slaves.
Not having been consulted in this matter, the Christians took offense,
making war upon Islam in seven warm campaigns, wherein they held and
lost by turns the holy sepulcher, so that the country where our Lord
taught peace, was always drenched with blood. In the end, our crusades
were not a success.
About Saint Louis and the sixth crusade:
At the opening of the story, that holy but delightful king of France
lay so near death that his two lady nurses had a squabble, the one
pulling a cloth over his face because he was dead, while the other
snatched it away because he was still alive. At last he sent the pair
of them to fetch the cross, on which he vowed to deliver the Holy Land.
Then he had to get well, so he did, sending word to his barons to roll
up their men for war.
Among the nobles was the young Lord of Joinville, seneschal of
Champagne--a merry little man with eight hundred pounds a year of
his own. But then, what with an expensive mother, his wife, and some
little worries, he had to pawn his lands before he could take the
field with his two knights-banneret, nine knights, their men-at-arms,
and the servants. He shared with another lord the hire of a ship from
Marseilles, but when they joined his majesty in Cyprus he had only a
few pounds left, and the knights would have deserted but that the king
gave him a staff appointment at eight hundred pounds a year.
The king was a holy saint, a glorious knight errant, full of fun,
but a thoroughly incompetent general. Instead of taking Jerusalem by
surprise, he must needs raid Egypt, giving the soldan of Babylon the
Less (Cairo) plenty of time to arrange a warm reception. The rival
armies had a battle on the beach, after which Saint Louis sat down in
front of Damietta, where he found time to muddle his commissariat.
On the other hand, the soldan was not at all well, having been poisoned
by a rival prince, and paid no heed to the carrier pigeons with their
despairing messages from the front. This discouraged the Moslems, who
abandoned Damietta and fled inland, hotly pursued by the French. As a
precaution, however, they sent round their ships, which collected the
French supplies proceeding to the front. The Christians had plenty
of fighting and a deal of starving to do, not to mention pestilence
in their ill-managed camps. So they came to a canal which had to be
bridged, but the artful paynim cut away the land in front of the
bridge head, so that there was no ground on which the French could
arrive. In the end the Christians had to swim and, as they were heavily
armored, many were drowned in the mud. Joinville’s party found a dry
crossing up-stream, and their troubles began at the enemy’s camp whence
the Turks were flying.
“While we were driving them through their camp, I perceived a Saracen
who was mounting his horse, one of his knights holding the bridle. At
the moment he had his two hands on the saddle to mount, I gave him
of my lance under the armpit, and laid him dead. When his knight saw
that, he left his lord and the horse, and struck me with his lance as
I passed, between the two shoulders, holding me so pressed down that
I could not draw the sword at my belt. I had, therefore, to draw the
sword attached to my horse, and when he saw that he withdrew his lance
and left me.”
Here in the camp Joinville’s detachment was rushed by six thousand
Turks, “who pressed upon me with their lances. My horse knelt under the
weight, and I fell forward over the horse’s ears. I got up as soon as
ever I could with my shield at my neck, and my sword in my hand.
“Again a great rout of Turks came rushing upon us, and bore me to the
ground and went over me, and caused my shield to fly from my neck.”
So the little party gained the wall of a ruined house, where they were
sorely beset: Lord Hugh, of Ecot, with three lance wounds in the face,
Lord Frederick, of Loupey, with a lance wound between the shoulders,
so large that the blood flowed from his body as from the bung hole
of a cask, and my Lord of Sivery with a sword-stroke in the face, so
that his nose fell over his lips. Joinville, too badly wounded to
fight, was holding horses, while Turks who had climbed to the roof were
prodding from above with their lances. Then came Anjou to the rescue,
and presently the king with his main army. The fight became a general
engagement, while slowly the Christian force was driven backward upon
the river. The day had become very hot, and the stream was covered with
lances and shields, and with horses and men drowning and perishing.
Near by De Joinville’s position, a streamlet entered the river, and
across that ran a bridge by which the Turks attempted to cut the king’s
retreat. This bridge the little hero, well mounted now, held for hours,
covering the flight of French detachments. At the head of one such
party rode Count Peter, of Brittany, spitting the blood from his mouth
and shouting “Ha! by God’s head, have you ever seen such riffraff?”
“In front of us were two of the king’s sergeants; ... and the Turks
... brought a large number of churls afoot, who pelted them with lumps
of earth, but were never able to force them back upon us. At last they
brought a churl on foot, who thrice threw Greek fire at them. Once
William of Boon received the pot of Greek fire on his target, for if
the fire had caught any of his garments he must have been burnt alive.
We were all covered with the darts that failed to hit the sergeants.
Now, it chanced that I found a Saracen’s quilted tunic lined with tow;
I turned the open side towards me, and made a shield ... which did me
good service, for I was only wounded by their darts in five places, and
my horse in fifteen.... The good Count of Soissons, in that point of
danger, jested with me and said,
“‘Seneschal, let these curs howl! By God’s bonnet we shall talk of this
day yet, you and I, in ladies’ chambers!’”
So came the constable of France, who relieved Joinville and sent him to
guard the king.
“So as soon as I came to the king, I made him take off his helmet, and
lent him my steel cap so that he might have air.”
Presently a knight brought news that the Count of Artois, the king’s
brother, was in paradise.
“Ah, Sire,” said the provost, “be of good comfort herein, for never did
king of France gain so much honor as you have gained this day. For in
order to fight your enemies you have passed over a river swimming, and
you have discomfited them and driven them from the field, and taken
their engines, and also their tents wherein you will sleep this night.”
And the king replied: “Let God be worshiped for all He has given me,”
and then the big tears fell from his eyes.
That night the captured camp was attacked in force, much to the grief
of De Joinville and his knights, who ruefully put on chain mail over
their aching wounds. Before they were dressed De Joinville’s chaplain
engaged eight Saracens and put them all to flight.
Three days later came a general attack of the whole Saracen army upon
the Christian camp, but thanks to the troops of Count William, of
Flanders, De Joinville and his wounded knights were not in the thick of
the fray.
“Wherein,” he says, “God showed us great courtesy, for neither I nor my
knights had our hawberks (chain shirts) and shields, because we had all
been wounded.”
You see De Joinville had the sweet faith that his God was a gentleman.
After that the sorrowful army lay nine days in camp till the bodies of
the dead floated to the surface of the canal, and eight days more while
a hundred hired vagabonds cleared the stream. But the army lived on
eels and water from that canal, while all of them sickened of scurvy,
and hundreds died. Under the hands of the surgeons the men of that
dying army cried like women. Then came an attempt to retreat in ships
to the coast, but the way was blocked, the little galleys were captured
one by one, the king was taken, and what then remained of the host were
prisoners, the sick put to death, the rich held for ransom, the poor
sold away into slavery.
Saint Louis appeared to be dying of dysentery and scurvy, he was
threatened with torture, but day after day found strength and courage
to bargain with the soldan of Babylon for the ransom of his people.
Once the negotiations broke down because the soldan was murdered by his
own emirs, but the king went on bargaining now with the murderers. For
his own ransom he gave the city of Damietta, for that of his knights he
paid the royal treasure that was on board a galley in the port, and for
the deliverance of the common men, he had to raise money in France.
So came the release, and the emirs would have been ashamed to let their
captive knights leave the prison fasting. So De Joinville’s party had
“fritters of cheese roasted in the sun so that worms should not come
therein, and hard boiled eggs cooked four or five days before, and
these, in our honor, had been painted with divers colors.”
After that came the counting of the ransom on board the royal galley,
with the dreadful conclusion that they were short of the sum by thirty
thousand livres. De Joinville went off to the galley of the marshal of
the Knights Templars, where he tried to borrow the money.
“Many were the hard and angry words which passed between him and me.”
For one thing the borrower, newly released from prison, looked like
a ragged beggar, and for the rest, the treasure of the Templars was
a trust fund not to be lent to any one. They stood in the hold in
front of the chest of treasure, De Joinville demanding the key, then
threatening with an ax to make of it the king’s key.
“We see right well,” said the treasurer, “that you are using force
against us.” And on that excuse yielded the key to the ragged beggar,
tottering with weakness, a very specter of disease and famine.
“I threw out the silver I found therein and went, and sat on the prow
of our little vessel that had brought me. And I took the marshal of
France and left him with the silver in the Templars’ galley and on the
galley I put the minister of the Trinity. On the galley the marshal
handed the silver to the minister, and the minister gave it over to me
on the little vessel where I sat. When we had ended and came towards
the king’s galley, I began to shout to the king.
“‘Sire! Sire! see how well I am furnished!’
“And the saintly man received me right willingly and right joyfully.”
So the ransom was completed, the king’s ransom and that of the greatest
nobles of France, this group of starving ragged beggars in a dingey.
Years followed of hard campaigning in Palestine. Once Saint Louis was
even invited by the soldan of Damascus to visit as a pilgrim that Holy
City which he could never enter as a conqueror. But Saint Louis and his
knights were reminded of a story about Richard the Lion-Hearted, king
of England. For Richard once marched almost within sight of the capital
so that a knight cried out to him:
“Sire, come so far hither, and I will show you Jerusalem!”
But the Duke of Burgundy had just deserted with half the crusading
army, lest it be said that the English had taken Jerusalem. So when
Richard heard the knight calling he threw his coat armor before his
eyes, all in tears, and said to our Savior,
“Fair Lord God, I pray Thee suffer me not to see Thy Holy City since I
can not deliver it from the hands of thine enemies.”
King Louis the Saint followed the example of King Richard the Hero, and
both left Palestine broken-hearted because they had not the strength
to take Jerusalem.
Very queer is the tale of the queen’s arrival from France.
“When I heard tell that she was come,” said De Joinville, “I rose from
before the king and went to meet her, and led her to the castle, and
when I came back to the king, who was in his chapel, he asked me if
the queen and his children were well; and I told him yes. And he said,
‘I knew when you rose from before me that you were going to meet the
queen, and so I have caused the sermon to wait for you.’ And these
things I tell you,” adds De Joinville, “because I had then been five
years with the king, and never before had he spoken to me, nor so far
as ever I heard, to any one else, of the queen, and of his children;
and so it appears to me, it was not seemly to be thus a stranger to
one’s wife and children.”
To do the dear knight justice, he was always brutally frank to the
king’s face, however much he loved him behind his back.
The return of the king and queen to France was full of adventure, and
De Joinville still had an appetite for such little troubles as a wreck
and a sea fight. Here is a really nice story of an accident.
“One of the queen’s bedwomen, when she had put the queen to bed, was
heedless, and taking the kerchief that had been wound about her head,
threw it into the iron stove on which the queen’s candle was burning,
and when she had gone into the cabin where the women slept, below the
queen’s chamber, the candle burnt on, till the kerchief caught fire,
and from the kerchief the fire passed to the cloths with which the
queen’s garments were covered. When the queen awoke she saw her cabin
all in flames, and jumped up quite naked and took the kerchief and
threw it all burning into the sea, and took the cloths and extinguished
them. Those who were in the barge behind the ship cried, but not very
loud, ‘Fire! fire!’ I lifted up my head and saw that the kerchief still
burned with a clear flame on the sea, which was very still.
“I put on my tunic as quickly as I could, and went and sat with the
mariners.
“While I sat there my squire, who slept before me, came to me and
said that the king was awake, and asked where I was. ‘And I told
him,’ said he, ‘that you were in your cabin; and the king said to me,
“Thou liest!”’ While we were thus speaking, behold the queen’s clerk
appeared, Master Geoffrey, and said to me, ‘Be not afraid, nothing has
happened.’ And I said, ‘Master Geoffrey, go and tell the queen that the
king is awake, and she should go to him, and set his mind at ease.’
“On the following day the constable of France, and my Lord Peter the
chamberlain, and my Lord Gervais, the master of the pantry, said to the
king, ‘What happened in the night that we heard mention of fire?’ and I
said not a word. Then said the king, ‘What happened was by mischance,
and the seneschal (De Joinville) is more reticent than I. Now I will
tell you,’ said he, ‘how it came about that we might all have been
burned this night,’ and he told them what had befallen, and said to
me, ‘I command you henceforth not to go to rest until you have put out
all fires, except the great fire that is in the hold of the ship.’
(Cooking fire on the ship’s ballast). ‘And take note that I shall not
go to rest till you come back to me.’”
It is pleasant to think of the queen’s pluck, the knight’s silence, the
king’s tact, and to see the inner privacies of that ancient ship. After
seven hundred years the gossip is fresh and vivid as this morning’s
news.
The king brought peace, prosperity and content to all his kingdom, and
De Joinville was very angry when in failing health Saint Louis was
persuaded to attempt another crusade in Africa.
“So great was his weakness that he suffered me to carry him in my
arms from the mansion of the Count of Auxerre to the abbey of the
Franciscans.”
So went the king to his death in Tunis, a bungling soldier, but a saint
on a throne, the noblest of all adventurers, the greatest sovereign
France has ever known.
Long afterward the king came in a dream to see De Joinville:
“Marvelously joyous and glad of heart, and I myself was right glad to
see him in my castle. And I said to him, ‘Sire, when you go hence, I
will lodge you in a house of mine, that is in a city of mine, called
Chevillon.’ And he answered me laughing, and said to me, ‘Lord of
Joinville, by the faith I owe you, I have no wish so soon to go hence.’”
It was at the age of eighty-five De Joinville wrote his memoirs, still
blithe as a boy because he was not grown up.
NOTE. From _Memoirs of the Crusaders_, by Villehardouine and De
Joinville. Dent & Co.
III
A. D. 1260
THE MIDDLE AGES IN ASIA
THE year 1260 found Saint Louis of France busy reforming his kingdom,
while over the way the English barons were reforming King Henry III on
the eve of the founding of parliament, and the Spaniards were inventing
the bull fight by way of a national sport. Our own national pastime
then was baiting Jews. They got twopence per week in the pound for the
use of their money, but next year one of them was caught in the act of
cheating, a little error which led to the massacre of seven hundred.
That year the great Khan Kublai came to the throne of the Mongol
Empire, a pastoral realm of the grass lands extending from the edge
of Europe to the Pacific Ocean. Kublai began to build his capital,
the city of Pekin, and in all directions his people extended their
conquests. The looting and burning of Bagdad took them seven days and
the resistless pressure of their hordes was forcing the Turks upon
Europe.
Meanwhile in the dying Christian empire of the East, the Latins held
Constantinople with Beldwin on the throne, but next year the Greek army
led by Michael Paleologus crept through a tunnel and managed to capture
the city.
Among the merchants at Constantinople in 1260 were the two Polo
brothers, Nicolo and Matteo, Venetian nobles, who invested the whole of
their capital in gems, and set off on a trading voyage to the Crimea.
Their business finished, they went on far up the Volga River to the
court of a Mongol prince, and to him they gave the whole of their gems
as a gift, getting a present in return with twice the money. But now
their line of retreat was blocked by a war among the Mongol princes, so
they went off to trade at Bokhara in Persia where they spent a year.
And so it happened that the Polo brothers met with certain Mongol
envoys who were returning to the court of their Emperor Kublai. “Come
with us,” said the envoys. “The great khan has never seen a European
and will be glad to have you as his guests.” So the Polos traveled
under safe conduct with the envoys, a year’s journey, until they
reached the court of the great khan at Pekin and were received with
honor and liberality.
Now it so happened that Kublai sought for himself and his people the
faith of Christ, and wanted the pope to send him a hundred priests, so
he despatched these Italian gentlemen as his ambassadors to the court
of Rome. He gave them a passport engraved on a slab of gold, commanding
his subjects to help the envoys upon their way with food and horses,
and thus, traveling in state across Asia, the Polos returned from a
journey, the greatest ever made up to that time by any Christian men.
At Venice, Nicolo, the elder of the brothers, found that his wife had
died leaving to him a son, then aged sixteen, young Marco Polo, a
gallant, courageous, hardy lad, it seems, and very truthful, without
the slightest symptoms of any sense of humor.
The schoolboy who defined the Vatican as a great empty space without
air, was perfectly correct, for when the Polos arrived there was a sort
of vacuum in Rome, the pope being dead and no new appointment made
because the electors were squabbling. Two years the envoys waited,
and when at last a new pope was elected, he proved to be a friend
of theirs, the legate Theobald on whom they waited at the Christian
fortress of Acre in Palestine.
But instead of sending a hundred clergymen to convert the Mongol
empire, the new pope had only one priest to spare, who proved to be a
coward, and deserted.
Empty handed, their mission a failure, the Polos went back, a three and
one-half years’ journey to Pekin, taking with them young Marco Polo, a
handsome gallant, who at once found favor with old Kublai Khan. Marco
“sped wondrously in learning the customs of the Tartars, as well as
their language, their manner of writing, and their practise of war ...
insomuch that the emperor held him in great esteem. And so when he
discerned Mark to have so much sense, and to conduct himself so well
and beseemingly, he sent him on an embassage of his, to a country which
was a good six months’ journey distant. The young gallant executed
his commission well and with discretion.” The fact is that Kublai’s
ambassadors, returning from different parts of the world, “were able
to tell him nothing except the business on which they had gone, and
that the prince in consequence held them for no better than dolts and
fools.” Mark brought back plenty of gossip, and was a great success,
for seventeen years being employed by the emperor on all sorts of
missions. “And thus it came about that Messer Marco Polo had knowledge
of or had actually visited a greater number of the different countries
of the world than any other man.”
In the Chinese annals of the Mongol dynasty there is record in 1277 of
one Polo nominated a second-class commissioner or agent attached to
the privy council. Marco had become a civil servant, and his father
and uncle were both rich men, but as the years went on, and the aged
emperor began to fail, they feared as to their fate after his death.
Yet when they wanted to go home old Kublai growled at them.
“Now it came to pass in those days that the Queen Bolgana, wife of
Argon, lord of the Levant (court of Persia), departed this life. And in
her will she had desired that no lady should take her place, or succeed
her as Argon’s wife except one of her own family (in Cathay). Argon
therefore despatched three of his barons ... as ambassadors to the
great khan, attended by a very gallant company, in order to bring back
as his bride a lady of the family of Queen Bolgana, his late wife.
“When these three barons had reached the court of the great khan,
they delivered their message explaining wherefore they were come. The
khan received them with all honor and hospitality, and then sent for
a lady whose name was Cocachin, who was of the family of the deceased
Queen Bolgana. She was a maiden of seventeen, a very beautiful and
charming person, and on her arrival at court she was presented to the
three barons as the lady chosen in compliance with their demand. They
declared that the lady pleased them well.
“Meanwhile Messer Marco chanced to return from India, whither he had
gone as the lord’s ambassador, and made his report of all the different
things that he had seen in his travels, and of the sundry seas over
which he had voyaged. And the three barons, having seen that Messer
Nicolo, Messer Matteo and Messer Marco were not only Latins but men of
marvelous good sense withal, took thought among themselves to get the
three to travel to Persia with them, their intention being to return
to their country by sea, on account of the great fatigue of that long
land journey for a lady. So they went to the great khan, and begged as
a favor that he would send the three Latins with them, as it was their
desire to return home by sea.
“The lord, having that great regard that I have mentioned for those
three Latins, was very loath to do so. But at last he did give them
permission to depart, enjoining them to accompany the three barons and
the lady.”
In the fleet that sailed on the two years’ voyage to Persia there were
six hundred persons, not counting mariners; but what with sickness and
little accidents of travel, storms for instance and sharks, only eight
persons arrived, including the lady, one of the Persian barons, and the
three Italians. They found the handsome King Argon dead, so the lady
had to put up with his insignificant son Casan, who turned out to be a
first-rate king. The lady wept sore at parting with the Italians. They
set out for Venice, arriving in 1295 after an absence of twenty-seven
years.
There is a legend that two aged men, and one of middle age, in ragged
clothes, of very strange device, came knocking at the door of the
Polo’s town house in Venice, and were denied admission by the family
who did not know them. It was only when the travelers had unpacked
their luggage, and given a banquet, that the family and their guests
began to respect these vagrants. Three times during dinner the
travelers retired to change their gorgeous oriental robes for others
still more splendid. Was it possible that the long dead Polos had
returned alive? Then the tables being cleared, Marco brought forth the
dirty ragged clothes in which they had come to Venice, and with sharp
knives they ripped open the seams and welts, pouring out vast numbers
of rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds and emeralds, gems to the
value of a million ducats. The family was entirely convinced, the
public nicknamed the travelers as the millionaires, the city conferred
dignities, and the two elder gentlemen spent their remaining years in
peace and splendor surrounded by hosts of friends.
Three years later a sea battle was fought between the fleets of Genoa
and Venice, and in the Venetian force one of the galleys was commanded
by Marco Polo. There Venice was totally defeated, and Marco was one
of the seven thousand prisoners carried home to grace the triumph of
the Genoese. It was in prison that he met the young literary person
to whom he dictated his book, not of travel, not of adventure,
but a geography, a description of all Asia, its countries, peoples
and wonders. Sometimes he got excited and would draw the long bow,
expanding the numbers of the great khan’s armies. Sometimes his marvels
were such as nobody in his senses could be expected to swallow, as
for instance, when he spoke of the Tartars as burning black stones to
keep them warm in winter. Yet on the whole this book, of the greatest
traveler that ever lived, awakened Europe of the Dark Ages to the
knowledge of that vast outer world that has mainly become the heritage
of the Christian Powers.
See the Book of Sir Marco Polo, translated and edited by Colonel
Sir Henry Yule. John Murray.
IV
A. D. 1322
THE MARVELOUS ADVENTURES OF SIR JOHN MAUNDEVILLE
“I, John Maundeville, Knight, all be it I am not worthy, that was born
in England, in the town of St. Allans, passed the sea in the year of
our Lord 1322 ... and hitherto have been long time on the sea, and have
seen and gone through many diverse lands ... with good company of many
lords. God be thankful!”
So wrote a very gentle and pious knight. His book of travels begins
with the journey to Constantinople, which in his day was the seat of
a Christian emperor. Beyond was the Saracen empire, whose sultans
reigned in the name of the Prophet Mahomet over Asia Minor, Syria, the
Holy Land and Egypt. For three hundred years Christian and Saracen had
fought for the possession of Jerusalem, but now the Moslem power was
stronger than ever.
Sir John Maundeville found the sultan of Babylon the Less at his
capital city in Egypt, and there entered in his service as a soldier
for wars against the Arab tribes of the desert. The sultan grew to love
this Englishman, talked with him of affairs in Europe, urged him to
turn Moslem, and offered to him the hand of a princess in marriage.
But when Maundeville insisted on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, his
master let him go, and granted him letters with the great seal, before
which even generals and governors were obliged to prostrate themselves.
Sir John went all over Palestine, devoutly believing everything he was
told. Here is his story of the Field Beflowered. “For a fair maiden was
blamed with wrong, and slandered ... for which cause she was condemned
to death, and to be burnt in that place, to the which she was led. And
as the fire began to burn about her, she made her prayers to our Lord,
that as certainly as she was not guilty of that sin, that he would help
her, and make it to be known to all men of his merciful grace. And when
she had thus said she entered into the fire, and anon was the fire
quenched and out; and the brands which were burning became red rose
trees, and the brands that were not kindled became white rose trees
full of roses. And these were the first rose trees and roses, both
white and red, which ever any man saw.”
All this part of his book is very beautiful concerning the holy places,
and there are nice bits about incubators for chickens and the use of
carrier pigeons. But it is in the regions beyond the Holy Land that Sir
John’s wonderful power of believing everything that he had heard makes
his chapters more and more exciting.
“In Ethiopia ... there be folk that have but one foot and they go so
fast that it is a marvel. And the foot is so large that it shadoweth
all the body against the sun when they will lie and rest them.”
Beyond that was the isle of Nacumera, where all the people have
hounds’ heads, being reasonable and of good understanding save that
they worship an ox for their god. And they all go naked save a little
clout, and if they take any man in battle anon they eat him. The
dog-headed king of that land is most pious, saying three hundred
prayers by way of grace before meat.
Next he came to Ceylon. “In that land is full much waste, for it is
full of serpents, of dragons and of cockodrills, so that no man may
dwell there.
“In one of these isles be folk as of great stature as giants. And they
be hideous to look upon. And they have but one eye, and that is in the
middle of the forehead. And they eat nothing but raw flesh and raw
fish. And in another isle towards the south dwell folk of foul stature
and of cursed nature that have no heads. And their eyes be in their
shoulders and their mouths be round shapen, like an horseshoe, amidst
their breasts. And in another isle be men without heads, and their eyes
and mouths be behind in their shoulders. And in another isle be folk
that have the face all flat, all plain, without nose and without mouth.
But they have two small holes, all round, instead of their eyes, and
their mouth is flat also without lips. And in another isle be folk of
foul fashion and shape that have the lip above the mouth so great that
when they sleep in the sun they cover all the face with that lip.”