I asked if the plantation could not be converted into a sugar estate.

"Not this," he answered; "it has been cultivated too long. The land was

originally rich, but it is exhausted"—tired out, was the expression he

used—"we may cultivate maize or rice, for the dry culture of rice

succeeds well here, or we may abandon it to grazing. At present we keep a

few negroes here, just to gather the berries which ripen, without taking

any trouble to preserve the plants, or replace those which die."

I could easily believe from what I saw on this estate, that there must be

a great deal of beauty of vegetation in a well-kept coffee plantation, but

the formal pattern in which it is disposed, the straight alleys and rows

of trees, the squares and parallelograms, showed me that there was no

beauty of arrangement. We fell in, before we returned to our inn, with the

proprietor, a delicate-looking person, with thin white hands, who had been

educated at Boston, and spoke English as if he had never lived anywhere

else. His manners, compared with those of his steward, were exceedingly

frosty and forbidding, and when we told him of the civility which had

been shown us, his looks seemed to say he wished it had been otherwise.

Returning to our inn, we dined, and as the sun grew low, we strolled out

to look at the town. It is situated on a clear little stream, over which

several bathing-houses are built, their posts standing in the midst of the

current. Above the town, it flows between rocky banks, bordered with

shrubs, many of them in flower. Below the town, after winding a little

way, it enters a cavern yawning in the limestone rock, immediately over

which a huge ceyba rises, and stretches its leafy arms in mid-heaven. Down

this opening the river throws itself, and is never seen again. This is not

a singular instance in Cuba. The island is full of caverns and openings in

the rocks, and I am told that many of the streams find subterranean

passages to the sea. There is a well at the inn of La Punta, in which a

roaring of water is constantly heard. It is the sound of a subterranean

stream rushing along a passage in the rocks, and the well is an opening

into its roof.

In passing through the town, I was struck with the neat attire of those

who inhabited the humblest dwellings. At the door of one of the cottages,

I saw a group of children, of different ages, all quite pretty, with oval

faces and glittering black eyes, in clean fresh dresses, which, one would

think, could scarcely have been kept a moment without being soiled, in

that dwelling, with its mud floor. The people of Cuba are sparing in their

ablutions; the men do not wash their faces and hands till nearly mid-day,

for fear of spasms; and of the women, I am told that many do not wash at

all, contenting themselves with rubbing their cheeks and necks with a

little aguardiente; but the passion for clean linen, and, among the men,

for clean white pantaloons, is universal. The _montero_ himself, on a

holiday or any public occasion, will sport a shirt of the finest linen,

smoothly ironed, and stiffly starched throughout, from the collar

downward.

The next day, at half-past eleven, we left our inn, which was also what we

call in the United States a country store, where the clerks who had just

performed their ablutions and combed their hair, were making segars behind

the counter from the tobacco of the Vuelta Abajo, and returned by the

railway to Havana. We procured travelling licenses at the cost of four

dollars and a half each, for it is the pleasure of the government to levy

this tax on strangers who travel, and early the following morning took the

train for Matanzas.

Letter XLVIII.

Matanzas.—Valley of Yumuri.

Los Guines, _April_ 18, 1849.

In the long circuit of railway which leads from Havana to Matanzas, I saw

nothing remarkably different from what I observed on my excursion to San

Antonio. There was the same smooth country, of great apparent fertility,

sometimes varied with gentle undulations, and sometimes rising, in the

distance, into hills covered with thickets. We swept by dark-green fields

planted with the yuca, an esculent root, of which the cassava bread is

made, pale-green fields of the cane, brown tracts of pasturage, partly

formed of abandoned coffee estates where the palms and scattered

fruit-trees were yet standing, and forests of shrubs and twining plants

growing for the most part among rocks. Some of these rocky tracts have a

peculiar appearance; they consist of rough projections of rock a foot or

two in height, of irregular shape and full of holes; they are called

_diente de perro_, or dog's teeth. Here the trees and creepers find

openings filled with soil, by which they are nourished. We passed two or

three country cemeteries, where that foulest of birds, the turkey-vulture,

was seen sitting on the white stuccoed walls, or hovering on his ragged

wings in circles over them.

In passing over the neighborhood of the town in which I am now writing, I

found myself on the black lands of the island. Here the rich dark earth of

the plain lies on a bed of chalk as white as snow, as was apparent where

the earth had been excavated to a little depth, on each side of the

railway, to form the causey on which it ran. Streams of clear water,

diverted from a river to the left, traversed the plain with a swift

current, almost even with the surface of the soil, which they keep in

perpetual freshness. As we approached Matanzas, we saw more extensive

tracts of cane clothing the broad slopes with their dense blades, as if

the coarse sedge of a river had been transplanted to the uplands.

At length the bay of Matanzas opened before us; a long tract of water

stretching to the northeast, into which several rivers empty themselves.

The town lay at the southwestern extremity, sheltered by hills, where the

San Juan and the Yumuri pour themselves into the brine. It is a small but

prosperous town, with a considerable trade, as was indicated by the

vessels at anchor in the harbor.

As we passed along the harbor I remarked an extensive, healthy-looking

orchard of plantains growing on one of those tracts which they call

_diente de perro_. I could see nothing but the jagged teeth of whitish

rock, and the green swelling stems of the plantain, from ten to fifteen

feet in height, and as large as a man's leg, or larger. The stalks of the

plantain are juicy and herbaceous, and of so yielding a texture, that with

a sickle you might entirely sever the largest of them at a single stroke.

How such a multitude of succulent plants could find nourishment on what

seemed to the eye little else than barren rock, I could not imagine.

The day after arriving at Matanzas we made an excursion on horseback to

the summit of the hill, immediately overlooking the town, called the

Cumbre. Light hardy horses of the country were brought us, with high

pommels to the saddles, which are also raised behind in a manner making it

difficult to throw the rider from his seat. A negro fitted a spur to my

right heel, and mounting by the short stirrups, I crossed the river Yumuri

with my companions, and began to climb the Cumbre. They boast at Matanzas

of the perpetual coolness of temperature enjoyed upon the broad summit of

this hill, where many of the opulent merchants of the town have their

country houses, to which the mosquitoes and the intermittents that infest

the town below, never come, and where, as one of them told me, you may

play at billiards in August without any inconvenient perspiration.

From the Cumbre you behold the entire extent of the harbor; the town lies

below you with its thicket of masts, and its dusty _paseo_, where rows of

the Cuba pine stand rooted in the red soil. On the opposite shore your eye

is attracted to a chasm between high rocks, where the river Canimar comes

forth through banks of romantic beauty—so they are described to me—and

mingles with the sea. But the view to the west was much finer; there lay

the valley of the Yumuri, and a sight of it is worth a voyage to the

island. In regard to this my expectations suffered no disappointment.

Before me lay a deep valley, surrounded on all sides by hills and

mountains, with the little river Yumuri twining at the bottom. Smooth

round hillocks rose from the side next to me, covered with clusters of

palms, and the steeps of the southeastern corner of the valley were

clothed with a wood of intense green, where I could almost see the leaves

glisten in the sunshine. The broad fields below were waving with cane and

maize, and cottages of the _monteros_ were scattered among them, each with

its tuft of bamboos and its little grove of plantains. In some parts the

cliffs almost seemed to impend over the valley; but to the west, in a soft

golden haze, rose summit behind summit, and over them all, loftiest and

most remote, towered the mountain called the _Pan de Matanzas_.

We stopped for a few moments at a country seat on the top of the Cumbre,

where this beautiful view lay ever before the eye. Round it, in a garden,

were cultivated the most showy plants of the tropics, but my attention was

attracted to a little plantation of damask roses blooming profusely. They

were scentless; the climate which supplies the orange blossom with intense

odors exhausts the fragrance of the rose. At nightfall—the night falls

suddenly in this latitude—we were again at our hotel.

We passed our Sunday on a sugar estate at the hospitable mansion of a

planter from the United States about fifteen miles from Matanzas. The

house stands on an eminence, once embowered in trees which the hurricanes

have leveled, overlooking a broad valley, where palms were scattered in

every direction; for the estate had formerly been a coffee plantation. In

the huge buildings containing the machinery and other apparatus for making

sugar, which stood at the foot of the eminence, the power of steam, which

had been toiling all the week, was now at rest. As the hour of sunset

approached, a smoke was seen rising from its chimney, presently pufis of

vapor issued from the engine, its motion began to be heard, and the

negroes, men and women, were summoned to begin the work of the week. Some

feed the fire under the boiler with coal; others were seen rushing to the

mill with their arms full of the stalks of the cane, freshly cut, which

they took from a huge pile near the building; others lighted fires under a

row of huge cauldrons, with the dry stalks of cane from which the juice

had been crushed by the mill. It was a spectacle of activity such as I had

not seen in Cuba.

The sound of the engine was heard all night, for the work of grinding the

cane, once begun, proceeds day and night, with the exception of Sundays

and some other holidays. I was early next morning at the mill. A current

of cane juice was flowing from the mill in a long trunk to a vat in which

it was clarified with lime; it was then made to pass successively from one

seething cauldron to another, as it obtained a thicker consistence by

boiling. The negroes, with huge ladles turning on pivots, swept it from

cauldron to cauldron, and finally passed it into a trunk, which conveyed

it to shallow tanks in another apartment, where it cooled into sugar. From

these another set of workmen scooped it up in moist masses, carried it in

buckets up a low flight of stairs, and poured it into rows of hogsheads

pierced with holes at the bottom. These are placed over a large tank, into

which the moisture dripping from the hogsheads is collected and forms

molasses.

This is the method of making the sugar called Muscovado. It is drained a

few days, and then the railways take it to Matanzas or to Havana. We

visited afterward a plantation in the neighborhood, in which clayed sugar

is made. Our host furnished us with horses to make the excursion, and we

took a winding road, over hill and valley, by plantations and forests,

till we stopped at the gate of an extensive pasture-ground. An old negro,

whose hut was at hand, opened it for us, and bowed low as we passed. A

ride of half a mile further brought us in sight of the cane-fields of the

plantation called Saratoga, belonging to the house of Drake & Company, of

Havana, and reputed one of the finest of the island. It had a different

aspect from any plantation we had seen. Trees and shrubs there were none,

but the canes, except where they had been newly cropped for the mill,

clothed the slopes and hollows with their light-green blades, like the

herbage of a prairie.

We were kindly received by the administrator of the estate, an intelligent

Biscayan, who showed us the whole process of making clayed sugar. It does

not differ from that of making the Muscovado, so far as concerns the

grinding and boiling. When, however, the sugar is nearly cool, it is

poured into iron vessels of conical shape, with the point downward, at

which is an opening. The top of the sugar is then covered with a sort of

black thick mud, which they call clay, and which is several times renewed

as it becomes dry. The moisture from the clay passes through the sugar,

carrying with it the cruder portions, which form molasses. In a few days

the draining is complete.

We saw the work-people of the Saratoga estate preparing for the market the

sugar thus cleansed, if we may apply the word to such a process. With a

rude iron blade they cleft the large loaf of sugar just taken from the

mould into three parts, called first, second, and third quality, according

to their whiteness. These are dried in the sun on separate platforms of

wood with a raised edge; the women standing and walking over the fragments

with their bare dirty feet, and beating them smaller with wooden mallets

and clubs. The sugar of the first quality is then scraped up and put into

boxes; that of the second and third, being moister, is handled a third

time and carried into the drying-room, where it is exposed to the heat of

a stove, and when sufficiently dry, is boxed up for market like the other.

The sight of these processes was not of a nature to make one think with

much satisfaction of clayed sugar as an ingredient of food, but the

inhabitants of the island are superior to such prejudices, and use it with

as little scruple as they who do not know in what manner it is made.

In the afternoon we returned to the dwelling of our American host, and

taking the train at _Caobas_, or Mahogany Trees—so called from the former

growth of that tree on the spot—we were at Matanzas an hour afterward.

The next morning the train brought us to this little town, situated

half-way between Matanzas and Havana, but a considerable distance to the

south of either.

Letter XLIX.

Negroes in Cuba.—Indian Slaves.

Havana, _April_ 22, 1849.

The other day when we were at Guines, we heard that a negro was to suffer

death early the next morning by the _garrote_, an instrument by which the

neck of the criminal is broken and life extinguished in an instant. I

asked our landlady for what crime the man had been condemned.

"He has killed his master," she replied, "an old man, in his bed."

"Had he received any provocation?"

"Not that I have heard; but another slave is to be put to death by the

_garrote_ in about a fortnight, whose offense had some palliation. His

master was a man of harsh temper, and treated his slaves with extreme

severity; the negro watched his opportunity, and shot him as he sat at

table."

We went to the place of execution a little before eight o'clock, and found

the preparations already made. A platform had been erected, on which stood

a seat for the prisoner, and back of the seat a post was fixed, with a

sort of iron collar for his neck. A screw, with a long transverse handle

on the side of the post opposite to the collar, was so contrived that,

when it was turned, it would push forward an iron bolt against the back of

the neck and crush the spine at once.

Sentinels in uniform were walking to and fro, keeping the spectators at a

distance from the platform. The heat of the sun was intense, for the

sea-breeze had not yet sprung up, but the crowd had begun to assemble. As

near to the platform as they could come, stood a group of young girls, two

of whom were dressed in white and one was pretty, with no other shade for

their dusky faces than their black veils, chatting and laughing and

stealing occasional glances at the new-comers. In another quarter were six

or eight monteros on horseback, in their invariable costume of Panama

hats, shirts and pantaloons, with holsters to their saddles, and most of

them with swords lashed to their sides.

About half-past eight a numerous crowd made its appearance coming from the

town. Among them walked with a firm step, a large black man, dressed in a

long white frock, white pantaloons, and a white cap with a long peak which

fell backward on his shoulders. He was the murderer; his hands were tied

together by the wrists; in one of them he held a crucifix; the rope by

which they were fastened was knotted around his waist, and the end of it

was held by another athletic negro, dressed in blue cotton with white

facings, who walked behind him. On the left of the criminal walked an

officer of justice; on his right an ecclesiastic, slender and stooping,

in a black gown and a black cap, the top of which was formed into a sort

of coronet, exhorting the criminal, in a loud voice and with many

gesticulations, to repent and trust in the mercy of God.

When they reached the platform, the negro was made to place himself on his

knees before it, the priest continuing his exhortations, and now and then

clapping him, in an encouraging manner, on the shoulder. I saw the man

shake his head once or twice, and then kiss the crucifix. In the mean time

a multitude, of all ages and both sexes, took possession of the places

from which the spectacle could be best seen. A stone-fence, such as is

common in our country, formed of loose stones taken from the surface of

the ground, upheld a long row of spectators. A well-dressed couple, a

gentleman in white pantaloons, and a lady elegantly attired, with a black

lace veil and a parasol, bringing their two children and two colored

servants, took their station by my side—the elder child found a place on

the top of the fence, and the younger, about four years of age, was lifted

in the arms of one of the servants, that it might have the full benefit of

the spectacle.

The criminal was then raised from the ground, and going up the platform

took the seat ready for him. The priest here renewed his exhortations,

and, at length, turning to the audience, said, in a loud voice, "I believe

in God Almighty and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and it grieves me to the

heart to have offended them." These words, I suppose, were meant, as the

confession of the criminal, to be repeated after the priest, but I heard

no response from his lips. Again and again the priest repeated them, the

third time with a louder voice than ever; the signal was then given to the

executioner. The iron collar was adjusted to the neck of the victim, and

fastened under the chin. The athletic negro in blue, standing behind the

post, took the handle of the screw and turned it deliberately. After a few

turns, the criminal gave a sudden shrug of the shoulders; another turn of

the screw, and a shudder ran over his whole frame, his eyes rolled wildly,

his hands, still tied with the rope, were convulsively jerked upward, and

then dropped back to their place motionless forever. The priest advanced

and turned the peak of the white cap over the face to hide it from the

sight of the multitude.

I had never seen, and never intended to see an execution, but the

strangeness of this manner of inflicting death, and the desire to witness

the behavior of an assembly of the people of Cuba on such an occasion, had

overcome my previous determination. The horror of the spectacle now caused

me to regret that I made one of a crowd drawn to look at it by an idle

curiosity.

The negro in blue then stepped forward and felt the limbs of the dead man

one by one, to ascertain whether life were wholly extinct, and then

returning to the screw, gave it two or three turns more, as if to make his

work sure. In the mean time my attention was attracted by a sound like

that of a light buffet and a whimpering voice near me. I looked, and two

men were standing by me, with a little white boy at their side, and a

black boy of nearly the same age before them, holding his hat in his hand,

and crying. They were endeavoring to direct his attention to what they

considered the wholesome spectacle before him. "_Mira, mira, no te hardá

daño_"[6] said the men, but the boy steadily refused to look in that

direction, though he was evidently terrified by some threat of punishment

and his eyes filled with tears. Finding him obstinate, they desisted from

their purpose, and I was quite edified to see the little fellow continue

to look away from the spectacle which attracted all other eyes but his.

The white boy now came forward, touched the hat of the little black, and

goodnaturedly saying "_pontelo, pontelo_"[7] made him put it on his head.

The crowd now began to disperse, and in twenty minutes the place was

nearly solitary, except the sentinels pacing backward and forward. Two

hours afterward the sentinels were pacing there yet, and the dead man, in

his white dress and iron collar, was still in his seat on the platform.

It is generally the natives of Africa by whom these murders are

committed; the negroes born in the country are of a more yielding temper.

They have better learned the art of avoiding punishment, and submit to it

more patiently when inflicted, having understood from their birth that it

is one of the conditions of their existence. The whip is always in sight.

"Nothing can be done without it," said an Englishman to me, who had lived

eleven years on the island, "you can not make the negroes work by the mild

methods which are used by slaveholders in the United States; the blacks

there are far more intelligent and more easily governed by moral means."

Africans, the living witnesses of the present existence of the

slave-trade, are seen everywhere; at every step you meet blacks whose

cheeks are scarred with parallel slashes, with which they were marked in

the African slave-market, and who can not even speak the mutilated Spanish

current in the mouths of the Cuba negroes.

One day I stood upon the quay at Matanzas and saw the slaves unloading the

large lighters which brought goods from the Spanish ships lying in the

harbor—casks of wine, jars of oil, bags of nuts, barrels of flour. The

men were naked to the hips; their only garment being a pair of trowsers. I

admired their ample chests, their massive shoulders, the full and muscular

proportions of their arms, and the ease with which they shifted the heavy

articles from place to place, or carried them on their heads. "Some of

these are Africans?" I said to a gentleman who resided on the island.

"They are all Africans," he answered, "Africans to a man; the negro born

in Cuba is of a lighter make."

When I was at Guines, I went out to look at a sugar estate in the

neighborhood, where the mill was turned by water, which a long aqueduct,

from one of the streams that traverse the plain, conveyed over arches of

stone so broad and massive that I could not help thinking of the aqueducts

of Rome. A gang of black women were standing in the _secadero_ or

drying-place, among the lumps of clayed sugar, beating them small with

mallets; before them, walked to and fro the major-domo, with a cutlass by

his side and a whip in his hand, I asked him how a planter could increase

his stock of slaves. "There is no difficulty," he replied, "slaves are

still brought to the island from Africa. The other day five hundred were

landed on the sea-shore to the south of this; for you must know, Señor,

that we are but three or four leagues from the coast."

"Was it done openly?" I inquired.

"_Publicamente_, Señor, _publicamente_;[8] they were landed on the sugar

estate of _El Pastor_, and one hundred and seven more died on the passage

from Africa."

"Did the government know of it?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Of course the government knows it," said he;

"every body else knows it."

The truth is, that the slave-trade is now fully revived; the government

conniving at it, making a profit on the slaves imported from Africa, and

screening from the pursuit of the English the pirates who bring them.

There could scarcely be any arrangement of coast more favorable for

smuggling slaves into a country, than the islands and long peninsulas, and

many channels of the southern shore of Cuba. Here the mangrove thickets,

sending down roots into the brine from their long branches that stretch

over the water, form dense screens on each side of the passages from the

main ocean to the inland, and render it easy for the slaver and his boats

to lurk undiscovered by the English men-of-war.

During the comparative cessation of the slave-trade a few years since, the

negroes, I have been told, were much better treated than before. They rose

in value, and when they died, it was found not easy to supply their

places; they were therefore made much of, and every thing was done which

it was thought would tend to preserve their health, and maintain them in

bodily vigor. If the slave-trade should make them cheap again, their lives

of course will be of less consequence to their owners, and they will be

subject again to be overtasked, as it has been said they were before.

There is certainly great temptation to wear them out in the sugar mills,

which are kept in motion day and night, during half the year, namely,

through the dry season. "If this was not the healthiest employment in the

world," said an overseer to me on one of the sugar estates, "it would

kill us all who are engaged in it, both black and white."

Perhaps you may not know that more than half of the island of Cuba has

never been reduced to tillage. Immense tracts of the rich black or red

mould of the island, accumulated on the coral rock, are yet waiting the

hand of the planter to be converted into profitable sugar estates. There

is a demand, therefore, for laborers on the part of those who wish to

become planters, and this demand is supplied not only from the coast of

Africa, but from the American continent and southwestern Asia.

In one of the afternoons of Holy Week, I saw amid the crowd on the _Plaza

de Armas_, in Havana, several men of low stature, of a deep-olive

complexion, beardless, with high cheek-bones and straight black hair,

dressed in white pantaloons of cotton, and shirts of the same material

worn over them. They were Indians, natives of Yucatan, who had been taken

prisoners of war by the whites of the country and sold to white men in

Cuba, under a pretended contract to serve for a certain number of years. I

afterward learned, that the dealers in this sort of merchandise were also

bringing in the natives of Asia, Chinese they call them here, though I

doubt whether they belong to that nation, and disposing of their services

to the planters. There are six hundred of these people, I have been told,

in this city.

Yesterday appeared in the Havana papers an ordinance concerning the

"Indians and Asiatics imported into the country under a contract to

labor." It directs how much Indian corn, how many plantains, how much

jerked-pork and rice they shall receive daily, and how many lashes the

master may inflict for misbehavior. Twelve stripes with the cowskin he may

administer for the smaller offenses, and twenty-four for transgressions of

more importance; but if any more become necessary, he must apply to a

magistrate for permission to lay them on. Such is the manner in which the

government of Cuba sanctions the barbarity of making slaves of the

freeborn men of Yucatan. The ordinance, however, betrays great concern for

the salvation of the souls of those whom it thus delivers over to the lash

of the slave-driver. It speaks of the Indians from America, as Christians

already, but while it allows the slaves imported from Asia to be flogged,

it directs that they shall be carefully instructed in the doctrines of our

holy religion.

Yet the policy of the government favors emancipation. The laws of Cuba

permit any slave to purchase his freedom on paying a price fixed by three

persons, one appointed by his master and two by a magistrate. He may,

also, if he pleases, compel his master to sell him a certain portion of

his time, which he may employ to earn the means of purchasing his entire

freedom.

It is owing to this, I suppose, that the number of free blacks is so large

in the island, and it is manifest that if the slave-trade could be

checked, and these laws remain unaltered, the negroes would gradually

emancipate themselves—all at least who would be worth keeping as

servants. The population of Cuba is now about a million and a quarter,

rather more than half of whom are colored persons, and one out of every

four of the colored population is free. The mulattoes emancipate

themselves as a matter of course, and some of them become rich by the

occupations they follow. The prejudice of color is by no means so strong

here as in the United States. Five or six years since the negroes were

shouting and betting in the cockpits with the whites; but since the

mulatto insurrection, as it is called, in 1843, the law forbids their

presence at such amusements. I am told there is little difficulty in

smuggling people of mixed blood, by the help of legal forms, into the

white race, and if they are rich, into good society, provided their hair

is not frizzled.

You hear something said now and then in the United States concerning the

annexation of Cuba to our confederacy; you may be curious, perhaps, to

know what they say of it here. A European who had long resided in the

island, gave me this account:

"The Creoles, no doubt, would be very glad to see Cuba annexed to the

United States, and many of them ardently desire it. It would relieve them

from many great burdens they now bear, open their commerce to the world,

rid them of a tyrannical government, and allow them to manage their own

affairs in their own way. But Spain derives from the possession of Cuba

advantages too great to be relinquished. She extracts from Cuba a revenue

of twelve millions of dollars; her government sends its needy nobility,

and all for whom it would provide, to fill lucrative offices in Cuba—the

priests, the military officers, the civil authorities, every man who fills

a judicial post or holds a clerkship is from old Spain. The Spanish

government dares not give up Cuba if it were inclined.

"Nor will the people of Cuba make any effort to emancipate themselves by

taking up arms. The struggle with the power of Spain would be bloody and

uncertain, even if the white population were united, but the mutual

distrust with which the planters and the peasantry regard each other,

would make the issue of such an enterprise still more doubtful. At present

it would not be safe for a Cuba planter to speak publicly of annexation to

the United States. He would run the risk of being imprisoned or exiled."

Of course, if Cuba were to be annexed to the United States, the slave

trade with Africa would cease to be carried on as now, though its perfect

suppression might be found difficult. Negroes would be imported in large

numbers from the United States, and planters would emigrate with them.

Institutions of education would be introduced, commerce and religion would

both be made free, and the character of the islanders would be elevated by

the responsibilities which a free government would throw upon them. The

planters, however, would doubtless adopt regulations insuring the

perpetuity of slavery; they would unquestionably, as soon as they were

allowed to frame ordinances for the island, take away the facilities which

the present laws give the slave for effecting his own emancipation.

Letter L.

English Exhibitions of Works of Art.

London, _July_ 7, 1849.

I have just been to visit a gallery of drawings in water-colors, now open

for exhibition. The English may be almost said to have created this branch

of art. Till within a few years, delineations in water-colors, on drawing

paper, have been so feeble and meagre as to be held in little esteem, but

the English artists have shown that as much, though in a somewhat

different way, may be done on drawing-paper as on canvas; that as high a

degree of expression may be reached, as much strength given to the

coloring, and as much boldness to the lights and shadows. In the

collection of which I speak, are about four hundred drawings not before

exhibited. Those which appeared to me the most remarkable, though not in

the highest department of art, were still-life pieces by Hunt. It seems to

me impossible to carry pictorial illusion to a higher pitch than he has

attained. A sprig of hawthorn flowers, freshly plucked, lies before you,

and you are half-tempted to take it up and inhale its fragrance; those

speckled eggs in the bird's nest, you are sure you might, if you pleased,

take into your hand; that tuft of ivy leaves and buds is so complete an

optical deception, that you can hardly believe that it has not been

attached by some process to the paper on which you see it. A servant girl,

in a calico gown, with a broom, by the same artist, and a young woman

standing at a window, at which the light is streaming in, are as fine in

their way, and as perfect imitations of every-day nature, as you see in

the works of the best Flemish painters.

It is to landscape, however, that the artists in water-colors have

principally devoted their attention. There are several very fine ones in

the collection by Copley Fielding, the foregrounds drawn with much

strength, the distant objects softly blending with the atmosphere as in

nature, and a surprising depth and transparency given to the sky. Alfred

Fripp and George Fripp have also produced some very fine

landscapes—mills, waters in foam or sleeping in pellucid pools, and the

darkness of the tempest in contrast with gleams of sunshine. Oakley has

some spirited groups of gipsies and country people, and there are several

of a similar kind by Taylor, who designs and executes with great force.

One of the earliest of the new school of artists in water-colors is Prout,

whose drawings are principally architectural, and who has shown how

admirably suited this new style of art is to the delineation of the rich

carvings of Gothic churches. Most of the finer pieces, I observed, were

marked 'sold;' they brought prices varying from thirty to fifty guineas.

There is an exhibition now open of the paintings of Etty, who stands high

in the world of art as an historical painter. The "Society of the Arts"—I

believe that is its name—every year gets up an exhibition of the works of

some eminent painter, with the proceeds of which it buys one of his

pictures, and places it in the National Gallery. This is a very effectual

plan of forming in time a various and valuable collection of the works of

British artists.

The greatest work of Etty is the series representing the Death of

Holofernes by the hand of Judith. It consists of three paintings, the

first of which shows Judith in prayer before the execution of her attempt;

in the next, and the finest, she is seen standing by the conch of the

heathen warrior, with the sword raised to heaven, to which she turns her

eyes, as if imploring supernatural assistance; and in the third, she

appears issuing from the tent, bearing the head of the ravager of her

country, which she conceals from the armed attendants who stand on guard

at the entrance, and exhibits to her astonished handmaid, who has been

waiting the result. The subject is an old one, but Etty has treated it in

a new way, and given it a moral interest, which the old painters seem not

to have thought of. In the delineation of the naked human figure, Etty is

allowed to surpass all the English living artists, and his manner of

painting flesh is thought to be next to that of Rubens. His reputation for

these qualities has influenced his choice of subjects in a remarkable

manner. The walls of the exhibition were covered writh Venuses and Eves,

Cupids and Psyches, and nymphs innocent of drapery, reclining on couches,

or admiring their own beauty reflected in clear fountains. I almost

thought myself in the midst of a collection made for the Grand Seignior.

The annual exhibition of the Royal Academy is now open. Its general

character is mediocrity, unrelieved by any works of extraordinary or

striking merit. There are some clever landscapes by the younger Danbys,

and one by the father, which is by no means among his happiest—a dark

picture, which in half a dozen years will be one mass of black paint.

Cooper, almost equal to Paul Potter as a cattle painter, contributes some

good pieces of that kind, and one of them, in which the cattle are from

his pencil, and the landscape from that of Lee, appeared to me the finest

thing in the collection. There is, however, a picture by Leslie, which his

friends insist is the best in the exhibition. It represents the chaplain

of the Duke leaving the table in a rage, after an harangue by Don Quixote

in praise of knight-errantry. The suppressed mirth of the Duke and

Duchess, the sly looks of the servants, the stormy anger of the

ecclesiastic, and the serene gravity of the knight, are well expressed;

but there is a stiffness in some of the figures which makes them look as

if copied from the wooden models in the artist's study, and a raw and

crude appearance in the handling, so that you are reminded of the brush

every time you look at the painting. To do Leslie justice, however, his

paintings ripen wonderfully, and seem to acquire a finish with years.

If one wishes to form an idea of the vast numbers of indifferent paintings

which are annually produced in England, he should visit, as I did, another

exhibition, a large gallery lighted from above, in which each artist, most

of them of the younger or obscurer class, takes a certain number of feet

on the wall and exhibits just what he pleases. Every man is his own

hanging committee, and if his pictures are not placed in the most

advantageous position, it is his own fault. Here acres of canvas are

exhibited, most of which is spoiled of course, though here and there a

good picture is to be seen, and others which give promise of future merit.

Enough of pictures. The principal subject of political discussion since I

have been in England, has been the expediency of allowing Jews to sit in

Parliament. You have seen by what a large majority Baron Rothschild has

been again returned from the city of London, after his resignation, in

spite of the zealous opposition of the conservatives. It is allowed, I

think, on all hands, that the majority of the nation are in favor of

allowing Jews to hold seats in Parliament, but the other side urge the

inconsistency of maintaining a Christian Church as a state institution,

and admitting the enemies of Christianity to a share in its

administration. Public opinion, however, is so strongly against political

disabilities on account of religious faith, that with the aid of the

ministry, it will, no doubt, triumph, and we shall see another class of

adversaries of the Establishment making war upon it in the House of

Commons. Nor will it be at all surprising if, after a little while, we

hear of Jewish barons, earls, and marquises in the House of Peers.

Rothschild himself may become the founder of a noble line, opulent beyond

the proudest of them all.

The protectionist party here are laboring to persuade the people that the

government have committed a great error, in granting such liberal

conditions to the trade of other nations, to the prejudice of British

industry. They do not, however, seem to make much impression on the public

mind. The necessaries of life are obtained at a cheaper rate than

formerly, and that satisfies the people. Peel has been making a speech in

Parliament on the free-trade question, which I often hear referred to as a

very able argument for the free-trade policy. Neither on this question nor

on that of the Jewish disabilities, do the opposition seem to have the

country with them.

Letter LI.

A Visit to the Shetland Isles.

Aberdeen, _July_ 19, 1849.

Two days ago I was in the Orkneys; the day before I was in the Shetland

Isles, the "farthest Thule" of the Romans, where I climbed the Noup of the

Noss, as the famous headland of the island of Noss is called, from which

you look out upon the sea that lies between Shetland and Norway.

From Wick, a considerable fishing town in Caithness, on the northern coast

of Scotland, a steamer, named the Queen, departs once a week, in the

summer months, for Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, and Lerwick, in Shetland. We

went on board of her about ten o'clock on the 14th of July. The herring

fishery had just begun, and the artificial port of Wick, constructed with

massive walls of stone, was crowded with fishing vessels which had

returned that morning from the labors of the night; for in the herring

fishery it is only in the night that the nets are spread and drawn. Many

of the vessels had landed their cargo; in others the fishermen were busily

disengaging the herrings from the black nets and throwing them in heaps;

and now and then a boat later than the rest, was entering from the sea.

The green heights all around the bay were covered with groups of women,

sitting or walking, dressed for the most part in caps and white short

gowns, waiting for the arrival of the boats manned by their husbands and

brothers, or belonging to the families of those who had come to seek

occupation as fishermen. I had seen two or three of the principal streets

of Wick that morning, swarming with strapping fellows, in blue highland

bonnets, with blue jackets and pantaloons, and coarse blue flannel shirts.

A shopkeeper, standing at his door, instructed me who they were.

"They are men of the Celtic race," he said—the term Celtic has grown to

be quite fashionable, I find, when applied to the Highlanders. "They came

from the Hebrides and other parts of western Scotland, to get employment

in the herring fishery. These people have travelled perhaps three hundred

miles, most of them on foot, to be employed six or seven weeks, for which

they will receive about six pounds wages. Those whom you see are not the

best of their class; the more enterprising and industrious have boats of

their own, and carry on the fishery on their own account."

We found the Queen a strong steamboat, with a good cabin and convenient

state-rooms, but dirty, and smelling of fish from stem to stern. It has

seemed to me that the further north I went, the more dirt I found. Our

captain was an old Aberdeen seaman, with a stoop in his shoulders, and

looked as if he was continually watching for land, an occupation for

which the foggy climate of these latitudes gives him full scope. We left

Wick between eleven and twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and glided over a

calm sea, with a cloudless sky above us, and a thin haze on the surface of

the waters. The haze thickened to a fog, which grew more and more dense,

and finally closed overhead. After about three hours sail, the captain

began to grow uneasy, and was seen walking about on the bridge between the

wheel-houses, anxiously peering into the mist, on the look-out for the

coast of the Orkneys. At length he gave up the search, and stopped the

engine. The passengers amused themselves with fishing. Several coal-fish,

a large fish of slender shape, were caught, and one fine cod was hauled up

by a gentleman who united in his person, as he gave me to understand, the

two capacities of portrait-painter and preacher of the gospel, and who

held that the universal church of Christendom had gone sadly astray from

the true primitive doctrine, in regard to the time when the millennium is

to take place.

The fog cleared away in the evening; our steamer was again in motion: we

landed at Kirkwall in the middle of the night, and when I went on deck the

next morning, we were smoothly passing the shores of Fair Isle—high and

steep rocks, impending over the waters with a covering of green turf.

Before they were out of sight we saw the Shetland coast, the dark rock of

Sumburgh Head, and behind it, half shrouded in mist, the promontory of

Fitfiel Head,—Fitful Head, as it is called by Scott, in his novel of the

Pirate. Beyond, to the east, black rocky promontories came in sight, one

after the other, beetling over the sea. At ten o'clock, we were passing

through a channel between the islands leading to Lerwick, the capital of

Shetland, on the principal island bearing the name of Mainland. Fields,

yellow with flowers, among which stood here and there a cottage, sloped

softly down to the water, and beyond them rose the bare declivities and

summits of the hills, dark with heath, with here and there still darker

spots, of an almost inky hue, where peat had been cut for fuel. Not a

tree, not a shrub was to be seen, and the greater part of the soil

appeared never to have been reduced to cultivation.

About one o'clock we cast anchor before Lerwick, a fishing village, built

on the shore of Bressay Sound, which here forms one of the finest harbors

in the world. It has two passages to the sea, so that when the wind blows

a storm on one side of the islands, the Shetlander in his boat passes out

in the other direction, and finds himself in comparatively smooth water.

It was Sunday, and the man who landed us at the quay and took our baggage

to our lodging, said as he left us—

"It's the Sabbath, and I'll no tak' my pay now, but I'll call the morrow.

My name is Jim Sinclair, pilot, and if ye'll be wanting to go anywhere,

I'll be glad to tak' ye in my boat." In a few minutes we were snugly

established at our lodgings. There is no inn throughout all the Shetland

Islands, which contain about thirty thousand inhabitants, but if any of my

friends should have occasion to visit Lerwick, I can cheerfully recommend

to them the comfortable lodging-house of Mrs. Walker, who keeps a little

shop in the principal street, not far from Queen's lane. We made haste to

get ready for church, and sallied out to find the place of worship

frequented by our landlady, which was not a difficult matter.

The little town of Lerwick consists of two-story houses, built mostly of

unhewn stone, rough-cast, with steep roofs and a chimney at each end. They

are arranged along a winding street parallel with the shore, and along

narrow lanes running upward to the top of the hill. The main street is

flagged with smooth stones, like the streets in Venice, for no vehicle

runs on wheels in the Shetland islands. We went up Queen's lane and soon

found the building occupied by the Free Church of Scotland, until a temple

of fairer proportions, on which the masons are now at work, on the top of

the hill, shall be completed for their reception. It was crowded with

attentive worshipers, one of whom obligingly came forward and found a seat

for us. The minister, Mr. Frazer, had begun the evening service, and was

at prayer. When I entered, he was speaking of "our father the devil;" but

the prayer was followed by an earnest, practical discourse, though

somewhat crude in the composition, and reminding me of an expression I

once heard used by a distinguished Scotchman, who complained that the

clergy of his country, in composing their sermons, too often "mak' rough

wark of it."

I looked about among these descendants of the Norwegians, but could not

see any thing singular in their physiognomy; and but for the harsh accent

of the preacher, I might almost have thought myself in the midst of a

country congregation in the United States. They are mostly of a light

complexion, with an appearance of health and strength, though of a sparer

make than the people of the more southern British isles. After the service

was over, we returned to our lodgings, by a way which led to the top of

the hill, and made the circuit of the little town. The paths leading into

the interior of the island, were full of people returning homeward; the

women in their best attire, a few in silks, with wind-tanned faces. We saw

them disappearing, one after another, in the hollows, or over the dark

bare hill-tops. With a population of less than three thousand souls,

Lerwick has four places of worship—a church of the Establishment, a Free

church, a church for the Seceders, and one for the Methodists. The road we

took commanded a fine view of the harbor, surrounded and sheltered by

hills. Within it lay a numerous group of idle fishing-vessels, with one

great steamer in the midst; and more formidable in appearance, a Dutch

man-of-war, sent to protect the Dutch fisheries, with the flag of Holland

flying at the mast-head. Above the town, on tall poles, were floating the

flags of four or five different nations, to mark the habitation of their

consuls.

On the side opposite to the harbor, lay the small fresh-water lake of

Cleikimin, with the remains of a Pictish castle in the midst; one of those

circular buildings of unhewn, uncemented stone, skillfully laid, forming

apartments and galleries of such small dimensions as to lead Sir Walter

Scott to infer that the Picts were a people of a stature considerably

below the ordinary standard of the human race. A deep Sabbath silence

reigned over the scene, except the sound of the wind, which here never

ceases to blow from one quarter or another, as it swept the herbage and

beat against the stone walls surrounding the fields. The ground under our

feet was thick with daisies and the blossoms of the crow-foot and other

flowers; for in the brief summer of these islands, nature, which has no

groves to embellish, makes amends by pranking the ground, particularly in

the uncultivated parts, with a great profusion and variety of flowers.

The next morning we were rowed, by two of Jim Sinclair's boys, to the

island of Bressay, and one of them acted as our guide to the remarkable

precipice called the Noup of the Noss. We ascended its smooth slopes and

pastures, and passed through one or two hamlets, where we observed the

construction of the dwellings of the Zetland peasantry. They are built of

unhewn stone, with roofs of turf held down by ropes of straw neatly

twisted; the floors are of earth; the cow, pony, and pig live under the

same roof with the family, and the manure pond, a receptacle for refuse

and filth, is close to the door. A little higher up we came upon the

uncultivated grounds, abandoned to heath, and only used to supply fuel by

the cutting of peat. Here and there women were busy piling the square

pieces of peat in stacks, that they might dry in the wind. "We carry home

these pits in a basket on our showlders, when they are dry," said one of

them to me; but those who can afford to keep a pony, make him do this work

for them. In the hollows of this part of the island we saw several

fresh-water ponds, which were enlarged with dykes and made to turn grist

mills. We peeped into one or two of these mills, little stone buildings,

in which we could hardly stand upright, inclosing two small stones turned

by a perpendicular shaft, in which are half a dozen cogs; the paddles are

fixed below, and there struck by the water, turn the upper stone.

A steep descent brought us to the little strait, bordered with rocks,

which divides Brassey from the island called the Noss. A strong south wind

was driving in the billows from the sea with noise and foam, but they were

broken and checked by a bar of rocks in the middle of the strait, and we

crossed to the north of it in smooth water. The ferryman told us that when

the wind was northerly he crossed to the south of the bar. As we climbed

the hill of the Noss the mist began to drift thinly around us from the

sea, and flocks of sea-birds rose screaming from the ground at our

approach. At length we stood upon the brink of a precipice of fearful

height, from which we had a full view of the still higher precipices of

the neighboring summit, A wall of rock was before us six hundred feet in

height, descending almost perpendicularly to the sea, which roared and

foamed at its base among huge masses of rock, and plunged into great

caverns, hollowed out by the beating of the surges for centuries. Midway

on the rock, and above the reach of the spray, were thousands of

sea-birds, sitting in ranks on the numerous shelves, or alighting, or

taking wing, and screaming as they flew. A cloud of them were constantly

in the air in front of the rock and over our heads. Here they make their

nests and rear their young, but not entirely safe from the pursuit of the

Zetlander, who causes himself to be let down by a rope from the summit and

plunders their nests. The face of the rock, above the portion which is the

haunt of the birds, was fairly tapestried with herbage and flowers which

the perpetual moisture of the atmosphere keeps always fresh—daisies

nodding in the wind, and the crimson phlox, seeming to set the cliffs on

flame; yellow buttercups, and a variety of other plants in bloom, of which

I do not know the name.

Magnificent as this spectacle was, we were not satisfied without climbing

to the summit. As we passed upward, we saw where the rabbits had made

their burrows in the elastic peat-like soil close to the very edge of the

precipice. We now found ourselves involved in the cold streams of mist

which the strong sea-wind was drifting over us; they were in fact the

lower skirts of the clouds. At times they would clear away and give us a

prospect of the green island summits around us, with their bold headlands,

the winding straits between, and the black rocks standing out in the sea.

When we arrived at the summit we could hardly stand against the wind, but

it was almost more difficult to muster courage to look down that dizzy

depth over which the Zetlanders suspend themselves with ropes, in quest of

the eggs of the sea-fowl. My friend captured a young gull on the summit of

the Noup. The bird had risen at his approach, and essayed to fly towards

the sea, but the strength of the wind drove him back to the land. He rose

again, but could not sustain a long flight, and coming to the ground

again, was caught, after a spirited chase, amidst a wild clamor of of the

sea-fowl over our heads.

Not far from the Noup is the Holm, or, as it is sometimes called, the

Cradle or Basket, of the Noss. It is a perpendicular mass of rock, two or

three hundred feet high, with a broad flat summit, richly covered with

grass, and is separated from the island by a narrow chasm, through which

the sea flows. Two strong ropes are stretched from the main island to the

top of the Holm, and on these is slung the cradle or basket, a sort of

open box made of deal boards, in which the shepherds pass with their sheep

to the top of the Holm. We found the cradle strongly secured by lock and

key to the stakes on the side of the Noss, in order, no doubt, to prevent

any person from crossing for his own amusement.

As we descended the smooth pastures of the Noss, we fell in with a herd of

ponies, of a size somewhat larger than is common on the islands. I asked

our guide, a lad of fourteen years of age, what was the average price of a

sheltie. His answer deserves to be written in letters of gold—

"It's jist as they're bug an' smal'."

From the ferryman, at the strait below, I got more specific information.

They vary in price from three to ten pounds, but the latter sum is only

paid for the finest of these animals, in the respects of shape and color.

It is not a little remarkable, that the same causes which, in Shetland,

have made the horse the smallest of ponies, have almost equally reduced

the size of the cow. The sheep, also—a pretty creature, I might call

it—from the fine wool of which the Shetland women knot the thin webs

known by the name of Shetland shawls, is much smaller than any breed I

have ever seen. Whether the cause be the perpetual chilliness of the

atmosphere, or the insufficiency of nourishment—for, though the long

Zetland winters are temperate, and snow never lies long on the ground,

there is scarce any growth of herbage in that season—I will not undertake

to say, but the people of the islands ascribe it to the insufficiency of

nourishment. It is, at all events, remarkable, that the traditions of the

country should ascribe to the Picts, the early inhabitants of Shetland,

the same dwarfish stature, and that the numerous remains of their

habitations which still exist, should seem to confirm the tradition. The

race which at present possesses the Shetlands is, however, of what the

French call "an advantageous stature," and well limbed. If it be the want

of a proper and genial warmth, which prevents the due growth of the

domestic animals, it is a want to which the Zetlanders are not subject.

Their hills afford the man apparently inexhaustible supply of peat, which

costs the poorest man nothing but the trouble of cutting it and bringing

it home; and their cottages, I was told, are always well warmed in winter.

In crossing the narrow strait which separates the Noss from Bressay, I

observed on the Bressay side, overlooking the water, a round hillock, of

very regular shape, in which the green turf was intermixed with stones.

"That," said the ferryman, "is what we call a Pictish castle. I mind when

it was opened; it was full of rooms, so that ye could go over every part

of it." I climbed the hillock, and found, by inspecting several openings,

which had been made by the peasantry to take away the stones, that below

the turf it was a regular work of Pictish masonry, but the spiral

galleries, which these openings revealed, had been completely choked up,

in taking away the materials of which they were built. Although plenty of

stone may be found everywhere in the islands, there seems to be a

disposition to plunder these remarkable remains, for the sake of building

cottages, or making those inclosures for their cabbages, which the

islanders call _crubs_. They have been pulling down the Pictish castle, on

the little island in the fresh-water loch called Cleikimin, near Lerwick,

described with such minuteness by Scott in his journal, till very few

traces of its original construction are left. If the inclosing of lands

for pasturage and cultivation proceeds as it has begun, these curious

monuments of a race which has long perished, will disappear.

Now that we were out of hearing of the cries of the sea-birds, we were

regaled with more agreeable sounds. We had set out, as we climbed the

island of Bressay, amid a perfect chorus of larks, answering each other in

the sky, and sometimes, apparently, from the clouds; and now we heard them

again overhead, pouring out their sweet notes so fast and so ceaselessly,

that it seemed as if the little creatures imagined they had more to utter,

than they had time to utter it in. In no part of the British Islands have

I seen the larks so numerous or so merry, as in the Shetlands.

We waited awhile at the wharf by the minister's house in Bressay, for Jim

Sinclair, who at length appeared in his boat to convey us to Lerwick. "He

is a noisy fallow," said our good landlady, and truly we found him voluble

enough, but quite amusing. As he rowed us to town he gave us a sample of

his historical knowledge, talking of Sir Walter Raleigh and the

settlement of North America, and told us that his greatest pleasure was to

read historical books in the long winter nights. His children, he said,

could all read and write. We dined on a leg of Shetland mutton, with a

tart made "of the only fruit of the Island" as a Scotchman called it, the

stalks of the rhubarb plant, and went on board of our steamer about six

o'clock in the afternoon. It was matter of some regret to us that we were

obliged to leave Shetland so soon. Two or three days more might have been

pleasantly passed among its grand precipices, its winding straits, its

remains of a remote and rude antiquity, its little horses, little cows,

and little sheep, its sea-fowl, its larks, its flowers, and its hardy and

active people. There was an amusing novelty also in going to bed, as we

did, by daylight, for at this season of the year, the daylight is never

out of the sky, and the flush of early sunset only passes along the

horizon from the northwest to the northeast, where it brightens into

sunrise.

The Zetlanders, I was told by a Scotch clergyman, who had lived among them

forty years, are naturally shrewd and quick of apprehension; "as to their

morals," he added, "if ye stay among them any time ye'll be able to judge

for yourself." So, on the point of morals, I am in the dark. More

attention, I hear, is paid to the education of their children than

formerly, and all have the opportunity of learning to read and write in

the parochial schools. Their agriculture is still very rude, they are very

unwilling to adopt the instruments of husbandry used in England, but on

the whole they are making some progress. A Shetland gentleman, who, as he

remarked to me, had "had the advantage of seeing some other countries"

besides his own, complained that the peasantry were spending too much of

their earnings for tea, tobacco, and spirits. Last winter a terrible

famine came upon the islands; their fisheries had been unproductive, and

the potato crop had been cut off by the blight. The communication with

Scotland by steamboat had ceased, as it always does in winter, and it was

long before the sufferings of the Shetlanders were known in Great Britain,

but as soon as the intelligence was received, contributions were made and

the poor creatures were relieved.

Their climate, inhospitable as it seems, is healthy, and they live to a

good old age. A native of the island, a baronet, who has a great white

house on a bare field in sight of Lerwick, and was a passenger on board

the steamer in which we made our passage to the island, remarked that if

it was not the healthiest climate in the world, the extremely dirty habits

of the peasantry would engender disease, which, however, was not the case.

"It is, probably, the effect of the saline particles in the air," he

added. His opinion seemed to be that the dirt was salted by the sea-winds,

and preserved from further decomposition. I was somewhat amused, in

hearing him boast of the climate of Shetland in winter. "Have you never

observed" said he, turning to the old Scotch clergyman of whom I have

already spoken, "how much larger the proportion of sunny days is in our

islands than at the south?" "I have never observed it," was the dry answer

of the minister.

The people of Shetland speak a kind of Scottish, but not with the Scottish

accent. Four hundred years ago, when the islands were transferred from

Norway to the British crown, their language was Norse, but that tongue,

although some of its words have been preserved in the present dialect, has

become extinct. "I have heard," said an intelligent Shetlander to me,

"that there are yet, perhaps, half a dozen persons in one of our remotest

neighborhoods, who are able to speak it, but I never met with one who

could."

In returning from Lerwick to the Orkneys, we had a sample of the weather

which is often encountered in these latitudes. The wind blew a gale in the

night, and our steamer was tossed about on the waves like an egg-shell,

much to the discomfort of the passengers. We had on board a cargo of

ponies, the smallest of which were from the Shetlands, some of them not

much larger than sheep, and nearly as shaggy; the others, of larger size,

had been brought from the Faro Isles. In the morning, when the gale had

blown itself to rest, I went on deck and saw one of the Faro Island

ponies, which had given out during the night, stretched dead upon the

deck. I inquired if the body was to be committed to the deep. "It is to be

skinned first," was the answer.

We stopped at Kirkwall in the Orkneys, long enough to allow us to look at

the old cathedral of St. Magnus, built early in the twelfth century—a

venerable pile, in perfect preservation, and the finest specimen of the

architecture once called Saxon, then Norman, and lately Romanesque, that I

have ever seen. The round arch is everywhere used, except in two or three

windows of later addition. The nave is narrow, and the central groined

arches are lofty; so that an idea of vast extent is given, though the

cathedral is small, compared with the great minsters in England. The work

of completing certain parts of the building which were left unfinished, is

now going on at the expense of the government. All the old flooring, and

the pews, which made it a parish church, have been taken away, and the

original proportions and symmetry of the building are seen as they ought

to be. The general effect of the building is wonderfully grand and solemn.

On our return to Scotland, we stopped for a few hours at Wick. It was late

in the afternoon, and the fishermen, in their vessels, were going out of

the harbor to their nightly toil. Vessel after vessel, each manned with

four stout rowers, came out of the port—and after rowing a short

distance, raised their sails and steered for the open sea, till all the

waters, from the land to the horizon, were full of them. I counted them,

hundreds after hundreds, till I grew tired of the task. A sail of ten or

twelve hours brought us to Aberdeen, with its old cathedral, encumbered

by pews and wooden partitions, and its old college, the tower of which is

surmounted by a cluster of flying buttresses, formed into the resemblance

of a crown.

This letter, you perceive, is dated at Aberdeen. It was begun there, but I

have written portions of it at different times since I left that city, and

I beg that you will imagine it to be of the latest date. It is now long

enough, I fear, to tire your readers, and I therefore lay down my pen.

Letter LII.

Europe under the Bayonet.

Paris, _September_ 13, 1849.

Whoever should visit the principal countries of Europe at the present

moment, might take them for conquered provinces, held in subjection by

their victorious masters, at the point of the sword. Such was the aspect

which France presented when I came to Paris a few weeks since. The city

was then in what is called, by a convenient fiction, a state of siege;

soldiers filled the streets, were posted in every public square and at

every corner, were seen marching before the churches, the cornices of

which bore the inscription of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, keeping

their brethren quiet by the bayonet. I have since made a journey to

Bavaria and Switzerland, and on returning I find the siege raised, and

these demonstrations of fraternity less formal, but the show and the

menace of military force are scarcely less apparent. Those who maintain

that France is not fit for liberty, need not afflict themseves with the

idea that there is at present more liberty in France than her people know

how to enjoy.

On my journey, I found the cities along the Rhine crowded with soldiers;

the sound of the drum was heard among the hills covered with vines; women

were trundling loaded wheel-barrows, and carrying panniers like asses, to

earn the taxes which are extorted to support the men who stalk about in

uniform. I entered Heidelberg with anticipations of pleasure; they were

dashed in a moment; the city was in a state of siege, occupied by Prussian

troops which had been sent to take the part of the Grand Duke of Baden

against his people. I could hardly believe that this was the same peaceful

and friendly city which I had known in better times. Every other man in

the streets was a soldier; the beautiful walks about the old castle were

full of soldiers; in the evening they were reeling through the streets.

"This invention," said a German who had been a member of the Diet of the

Confederation lately broken up, "this invention of declaring a city, which

has unconditionally submitted, to be still in a state of siege, is but a

device to practice the most unbounded oppression. Any man who is

suspected, or feared, or disliked, or supposed not to approve of the

proceedings of the victorious party, is arrested and imprisoned at

pleasure. He may be guiltless of any offense which could be made a pretext

for condemning him, but his trial is arbitrarily postponed, and when at

last he is released, he has suffered the penalty of a long confinement,

and is taught how dangerous it is to become obnoxious to the government."

From Heidelberg, thus transformed, I was glad to take my departure as

soon as possible. Our way from that city to Heilbronn, was through a most

charming country along the valley of the Neckar. Here were low hills and

valleys rich with harvests, a road embowered in fruit-trees, the branches

of which were propped with stakes to prevent them from breaking with their

load, and groves lying pleasantly in the morning sunshine, where ravens

were croaking. Birds of worse omen than these were abroad, straggling

groups, and sometimes entire companies of soldiers, on their way from one

part of the duchy to another; while in the fields, women, prematurely old

with labor, were wielding the hoe and the mattock, and the younger and

stronger of their sex were swinging the scythe. In all the villages

through which we passed, in the very smallest, troops were posted, and men

in military uniform were standing at the doors, or looking from the

windows of every inn and beer-house.

At Heilbronn we took the railway for Stuttgart, the capital of Wurtemberg.

There was a considerable proportion of men in military trappings among the

passengers, but at one of the stations they came upon us like a cloud, and

we entered Stuttgart with a little army. That city, too, looked as if in a

state of siege, so numerous were the soldiery, though the vine-covered

hills, among which it is situated, could have given them a better

occupation. The railway, beyond Stuttgart, wound through a deep valley and

ended at Geisslingen, an ancient Swabian town, in a gorge of the

mountains, with tall old houses, not one of which, I might safely affirm,

has been built within the last two hundred years. From this place to Ulm,

on the Danube, the road was fairly lined with soldiers, walking or resting

by the wayside, or closely packed in the peasants' wagons, which they had

hired to carry them short distances. At Ulm we were obliged to content

ourselves with straitened accommodations, the hotels being occupied by the

gentry in epaulettes.

I hoped to see fewer of this class at the capital of Bavaria, but it was

not so; they were everywhere placed in sight as if to keep the people in

awe. "These fellows," said a German to me, "are always too numerous, but

in ordinary times they are kept in the capitals and barracks, and the

nuisance is out of sight. Now, however, the occasion is supposed to make

their presence necessary in the midst of the people, and they swarm

everywhere." Another, it was our host of the Goldener Hirsch, said to my

friend, "I think I shall emigrate to America, I am tired of living under

the bayonet."

I was in Munich when the news arrived of the surrender of the Hungarian

troops under Görgey, and the fall of the Hungarian republic. All along my

journey I had observed tokens of the intense interest which the German

people took in the result of the struggle between Austria and the Magyars,

and of the warmth of their hopes in favor of the latter. The intelligence

was received with the deepest sorrow. "So perishes," said a Bavarian,

"the last hope of European liberty."

Our journey to Switzerland led us through the southern part of Bavaria,

among the old towns which formed a part of ancient Swabia. The country

here, in some respects, resembles New England; here are broad woods, large

orchards of the apple and pear, and scattered farm-houses—of a different

architecture, it is true, from that of the Yankees, and somewhat

resembling, with their far-projecting eaves, those of Switzerland. Yet

there was a further difference—everywhere, men were seen under arms, and

women at the plough.

So weary had I grown of the perpetual sight of the military uniform, that

I longed to escape into Switzerland, where I hoped to see less of it, and

it was with great delight that I found myself at Lindau, a border town of

Bavaria, on the Bodensee, or Lake of Constance, on the shores of which the

boundaries of four sovereignties meet. A steamer took us across the lake,

from a wharf covered with soldiers, to Roorschach, in Switzerland, where

not a soldier was to be seen. Nobody asked for our passports, nobody

required us to submit our baggage to search. I could almost have kneeled

and kissed the shore of the hospitable republic; and really it was

beautiful enough for such a demonstration of affection, for nothing could

be lovelier than the declivities of that shore with its woods and

orchards, and grassy meadows, and green hollows running upward to the

mountain-tops, all fresh with a shower which had just passed and now

glittering in the sunshine, and interspersed with large Swiss houses,

bearing quaintly-carved galleries, and broad overhanging roofs, while to

the east rose the glorious summits of the Alps, mingling with the clouds.

In three or four hours we had climbed up to St. Gall—St. Gallen, the

Germans call it—situated in a high valley, among steep green hills, which

send down spurs of woodland to the meadows below. In walking out to look

at the town, we heard a brisk and continued discharge of musketry, and,

proceeding in the direction of the sound, came to a large field, evidently

set apart as a parade-ground, on which several hundred youths were

practicing the art of war in a sham fight, and keeping up a spirited fire

at each other with blank cartridges. On inquiry, we were told that these

were the boys of the schools of St. Gall, from twelve to sixteen years of

age, with whom military exercises were a part of their education. I was

still, therefore, among soldiers, but of a different class from those of

whom I had seen so much. Here, it was the people who were armed for

self-protection; there, it was a body of mercenaries armed to keep the

people in subjection.

Another day's journey brought us to the picturesque town of Zurich, and

the next morning about four o'clock I was awakened by the roll of drums

under my window. Looking out, I saw a regiment of boys of a tender age, in

a uniform of brown linen, with little light muskets on their shoulders,

and miniature knapsacks on their backs, completely equipped and furnished

for war, led on by their little officers in regular military order,

marching and wheeling to the sound of martial music with all the precision

of veterans. In Switzerland arms are in every man's hands; he is educated

to be a soldier, and taught that the liberties of his country depend on

his skill and valor. The worst effect, perhaps of this military education

is, that the Swiss, when other means of subsistence are not easily found,

become military adventurers and sell their services to the first

purchaser. Meantime, nobody is regarded as properly fitted for his duties

as a member of the state, who is not skilled in the use of arms.

Target-shooting, _Freischiessen_, is the national amusement of

Switzerland, and has been so ever since the days of Tell; occasions of

target-shooting are prescribed and superintended by the public

authorities. They were practicing it at the stately city of Berne when we

visited it; they were practicing it at various other places as we passed.

Every town is provided with a public shooting-ground near its gates.

It was at one of the most remarkable of these towns; it was at Freiburg,

Catholic Freiburg, full of Catholic seminaries and convents, in the

churches of which you may hear the shrill voices of the nuns chanting

matins, themselves unseen; it was at Freiburg, grandly seated on the

craggy banks of her rivers, flowing in deep gulfs, spanned by the loftiest

and longest chain-bridges in the world, that I saw another evidence of

the fact that Switzerland is the only place on the continent where freedom

is understood, or allowed to have an existence. A proclamation of the

authorities of the canton was pasted on the walls and gates, ordaining the

16th of September as a day of religious thanksgiving. After recounting the

motives of gratitude to Providence; after speaking of the abundance of the

harvests, the health enjoyed throughout Switzerland, at the threshold of

which the cholera had a second time been stayed; the subsidence of

political animosities, and the quiet enjoyment of the benefits of the new

constitution upon which the country had entered, the proclamation

mentioned, as a special reason of gratitude to Almighty God, that

Switzerland, in this day of revolutions, had been enabled to offer, among

her mountains, a safe and unmolested asylum to the thousands of fugitives

who had suffered defeat in the battles of freedom.

I could not help contrasting this with the cruel treatment shown by France

to the political refugees from Baden and other parts of Germany. A few

days before, it had been announced that the French government required of

these poor fellows that they should either enlist at once in the regiments

destined for service in Algiers, or immediately leave the

country—offering them the alternative of military slavery, or banishment

from the country in which they had hoped to find a shelter.

I have spoken of the practice of Switzerland in regard to passports, an

example which it does not suit the purpose the French politicians to

follow. Here, and all over the continent, the passport system is as

strictly and vexatiously enforced as ever. It is remarkable that none of

the reformers occupied in the late remodelling of European institutions,

seems to have thought of abolishing this invention of despotism—this

restraint upon the liberty of passing from place to place, which makes

Europe one great prison. If the people had been accustomed to perfect

freedom in this respect, though but a short time, it might have been found

difficult, at least in France, to reimpose the old restraints. The truth

is, however, that France is not quite so free at present as she was under

Louis Philippe. The only advantage of her present condition is, that the

constitution places in the hands of the people the means of peaceably

perfecting their liberties, whenever they are enlightened enough to claim

them.

On my way from Geneva to Lyons I sat in _banquette_ of the diligence among

the plebeians. The conversation happened to turn on politics, and the

expressions of hatred against the present government of France, which

broke from the conductor, the coachman, and the two passengers by my side,

were probably significant of the feeling which prevails among the people.

"The only law now," said one, "is the law of the sabre." "The soldiers and

the _gens d'armes_ have every thing their own way now," said another, "but

by and by they will be glad to, hide in the sewers." The others were no

less emphatic in their expressions of anger and detestation.

The expedition to Rome is unpopular throughout France, more especially so

in the southern part of the republic, where the intercourse with Rome has

been more frequent, and the sympathy with her people is stronger. "I have

never," said an American friend, who has resided some time in Paris,

"heard a single Frenchman defend it." It is unpopular, even among the

troops sent on the expedition, as is acknowledged by the government

journals themselves. To propitiate public opinion, the government has

changed its course, and after making war upon the Romans to establish the

pontifical throne, now tells the Pope that he must submit to place the

government in the hands of the laity. This change of policy has occasioned

a good deal of surprise and an infinite deal of discussion. Whatever may

be its consequences, there is one consequence which it can not have, that

of recovering to the President and his ministry the popularity they have

lost.

Letter LIII.

Volterra.

[This letter was casually omitted from its proper place near the

beginning of the volume.]

Rome, _April_ 15, 1835.

Towards the end of March I went from Pisa to Volterra. This you know is a

very ancient city, one of the strongholds of Etruria when Rome was in its

cradle; and, in more modern times, in the age of Italian republics, large

enough to form an independent community of considerable importance. It is

now a decayed town, containing about four thousand inhabitants, some of

whom are families of the poor and proud nobility common enough over all

Italy, who are said to quarrel with each other more fiercely in Volterra

than almost anywhere else. It is the old feud of the Montagues and the

Capulets on a humbler scale, and the disputes of the Volterra nobility are

the more violent and implacable for being hereditary. Poor creatures! too

proud to engage in business, too indolent for literature, excluded from

political employments by the nature of the government, there is nothing

left for them but to starve, intrigue, and quarrel. You may judge how

miserably poor they are, when you are told they can not afford even to

cultivate the favorite art of modern Italy; the art best suited to the

genius of a soft and effeminate people. There is, I was told, but one

pianoforte in the whole town, and that is owned by a Florentine lady who

has recently come to reside here.

For several miles before reaching Volterra, our attention was fixed by the

extraordinary aspect of the country through which we were passing. The

road gradually ascended, and we found ourselves among deep ravines and

steep, high, broken banks, principally of clay, barren, and in most places

wholly bare of herbage, a scene of complete desolation, were it not for a

cottage here and there perched upon the heights, a few sheep attended by a

boy and a dog grazing on the brink of one of the precipices, or a solitary

patch of bright green wheat in some spot where the rains had not yet

carried away the vegetable mould.

Imagine to yourself an elevated country like the highlands of Pennsylvania

or the western part of Massachusetts; imagine vast beds of loam and clay

in place of the ledges of rock, and then fancy the whole region to be torn

by water-spouts and torrents into gulleys too profound to be passed, with

sharp ridges between—stripped of its trees and its grass—and you will

have some idea of the country near Volterra. I could not help fancying,

while I looked at it, that as the earth grew old, the ribs of rock which

once upheld the mountains, had become changed into the bare heaps of

earth which I saw about me, that time and the elements had destroyed the

cohesion of the particles of which they were formed, and that now the

rains were sweeping them down to the Mediterranean, to fill its bed and

cause its waters to encroach upon the land. It was impossible for me to

prevent the apprehension from passing through my mind, that such might be

the fate of other quarters of the globe in ages yet to come, that their

rocks must crumble and their mountains be levelled, until the waters shall

again cover the face of the earth, unless new mountains shall be thrown up

by eruptions of internal fire. They told me in Volterra, that this

frightful region had once been productive and under cultivation, but that

after a plague which, four or five hundred years since, had depopulated

the country, it was abandoned and neglected, and the rains had reduced it

to its present state.

In the midst of this desolate tract, which is, however, here and there

interspersed with fertile spots, rises the mountain on which Volterra is

situated, where the inhabitants breathe a pure and keen atmosphere, almost

perpetually cool, and only die of pleurisies and apoplexies; while below,

on the banks of the Cecina, which in full sigjit winds its way to the sea,

they die of fevers. One of the ravines of which I have spoken,—the

_balza_ they call it at Volterra—has ploughed a deep chasm on the north

side of this mountain, and is every year rapidly approaching the city on

its summit. I stood on its edge and looked down a bank of soft red earth

five hundred feet in height. A few rods in front of me I saw where a road

had crossed the spot in which the gulf now yawned; the tracks of the last

year's carriages were seen reaching to the edge on both sides. The ruins

of a convent were close at hand, the inmates of which, two or three years

since, had been removed by the government to the town for safety. These

will soon be undermined by the advancing chasm, together with a fine piece

of old Etruscan wall, once inclosing the city, built of enormous

uncemented parallelograms of stone, and looking as if it might be the work

of the giants who lived before the flood; a neighboring church will next

fall into the gulf, which finally, if means be not taken to prevent its

progress, will reach and sap the present walls of the city, swallowing up

what time has so long spared.

"A few hundred crowns," said an inhabitant of Volterra to me, "would stop

all this mischief. A wall at the bottom of the chasm, and a heap of

branches of trees or other rubbish, to check the fall of the earth, are

all that would be necessary."