PART I.

THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.

VOL. I.--MARCH, 1862.--No. III.

* * * * *

SOUTHERN AIDS TO THE NORTH.

Perhaps the most difficult question at present before the American

people is that so often and so insolently put by Southern journals, and

so ignorantly babbled in weak imitation of them by English newspapers,

asking what, after all, in case of a victory, or even of many victories,

can we do with the revolted provinces? The British press, prompt to put

the worst construction on every hope of the Union, prophesies endless

guerilla warfare,--a possibility which, like the blocking up of

Charleston harbor by means of the stone fleet, is, of course, something

which calls for the instant interference of all cotton-spinning

Christian nations. Even among our own countrymen it must be confessed

there has been no little indecision as to the end and the means of

securing the conquest of a country whose outlines are counted by

thousands instead of hundreds of miles, and whose whole extent, it is

too generally believed, forms a series of regions where dismal swamps,

bayous, lagoons, dense forests, and all manner of impenetrabilities, bid

defiance to any save the natives, and where the most deadly fevers are

ever being born in the jungles and wafted on the wings of every summer

morn over the whole plantation land. The truth is, that the simple facts

and figures relative to this country are not generally known. Let the

Northern people but once learn the truths existing in their favor, and

there will be an end to this misapprehension. There has been thus far no

hesitation or irresolution among the people in the conduct of the war.

'Conquer them first,' has been the glorious war-cry from millions of the

freest men on earth. But when we are driving a nail it is well to know

that it will be possible to eventually clench it. And when the country

shall fully understand the ease with which this Union nail may be

clenched, there will be, let us hope, a greatly revived spirit in all

now interested in forwarding the war.

It is evident enough that if all the millions of the South remain united

to the death in the cause of secession, little else than a guerilla

warfare of endless length is to be hoped for. The accounts of the

enthusiasm and harmony at present prevailing in Eastern Virginia, and in

other places controlled by the active secessionists, have struck terror

to the hearts of many. But, united though they be, they must be more

than mortal if they could resist the influences of a counter-revolution,

and of strong bodies of enemies in the heart of their country, aided by

a mighty foe without. 'Hercules was a strong man,' says the proverb,

'but he could not pay money when he had none;' and the South may be

strong, but she can hardly fail to be entirely crippled when certain

agencies shall be brought to bear against her. Let us examine them, and

find wherein her weakness consists.

The first is the easy possibility of a _counter-revolution_ among the

inhabitants of the mountain districts, who hold but few slaves, who have

preserved a devoted love for the Union, and who are, if not at positive

feud, at least on anything but social harmony with their aristocratic

neighbors of the lowlands and of the plantation. Unlike the 'mean

whites' who live among slaves and slave-holders, and are virtually more

degraded than the blacks, these mountaineers are men of strong character

and common-sense, combining the industrious disposition of the North

with the fierce pride of the South. And so numerous are they, and so

wide is the range of country which they inhabit, that it would seem

miraculous if with their aid, and that of other causes which will be

referred to, a counter-revolution could not be established, which would

sweep the slaveocracy from existence.

In a pamphlet entitled 'Alleghania,' by James W. Taylor, published at

Saint Paul, Minnesota, by James Davenport, the reader will find 'a

geographical and statistical memoir, exhibiting the strength of the

Union, and the weakness of slavery in the mountain districts of the

South,' which is well worth careful study at this crisis. Let the reader

take the map and trace on it the dark caterpillar-like lines of the

Alleghanies from Pennsylvania southward. Not until he reaches Northern

Alabama will he find its end. In these mountain districts which form

'the Switzerland of the South,' a population exists on whom slavery has

no hold, who are free and lovers of freedom, and who will undoubtedly

co-operate with the Union in reestablishing its power. This 'Alleghania'

embraces thirteen counties of North Carolina, three of South Carolina,

twenty of Georgia, fifteen of Alabama, and twenty-six of Tennessee.

According to Humboldt and other writers on climatology, an elevation of

two hundred and sixty-seven feet above the level of the sea is

equivalent in general influence upon vegetation to a degree of latitude

northward, at the level of the ocean. Therefore we are not surprised to

learn from Olmsted that 'Alleghania' does not differ greatly in climate

from Long Island, Southern New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 'The usual

crops are the same, those of most consequence being corn, rye, oats and

grass. Fruit is a more precarious crop, from a greater liability to

severe frosts after the swelling of the buds in the spring. Snow has

fallen several inches in the month of April.'[A]

The Western Virginia portion of Alleghania, which in the

counter-secession programme of its inhabitants was to have formed the

State of 'Kanawha,' embraced in its total population of 284,796 only

10,820 slaves. Its area is 4,211 square miles larger than the entire

State of Maryland. With this we have 'Middle Virginia,' in the valley of

the Shenandoah, which extends east of the main Alleghany range to the

Blue Ridge. This region also is broadly distinguishable in respect to

slavery from the Atlantic counties. With 200,262 freemen according to

the census of 1850, it has only 44,742 slaves, and there is reason to

believe that this population has largely diminished in favor of freedom.

Yet again we have the mountain district of South-western Virginia, where

in its ten counties the proportion of freemen to slaves is nearly ten to

one, or 76,892 to 8,693. As regards internal resources, beautiful

scenery, and all that conduces to pleasant life and profitable labor,

this portion of Virginia far surpasses the eastern division, and will

eventually attract the great mass of immigration.

The reader is aware that Eastern Kentucky, embracing the counties along

the western base of the Cumberland Mountains, 'has nobly responded to

the cause of the Union.' 'They represent a population which from the

first outbreak have been on fire with loyal zeal, repudiating all

sympathy with this war of slavery against the Union.' The proportion of

slaves to freemen in these counties, according to the census of 1850, is

as follows:--

COUNTIES FREE SLAVE

Letcher, 2,440 62

Floyd, 5,503 149

Harlan, 4,108 123

Whitley, 7,222 201

Knox, 6,238 612

Perry, 2,972 117

Clay, 4,734 515

Breathitt, 3,603 170

Morgan, 7,305 187

Johnson, 3,843 30

Lawrence, 6,142 137

Carter, 5,000 257

In contrast to this healthy, temperate Eastern Kentucky, 'a portion of

the great central district of mountain slopes and valleys,' let the

reader turn to the secession hot-bed of the State. He will find it the

largest slaveholding district of Kentucky. It is worth noting that

secession is matured in the slave regions, for though it is popularly

identified with slavery, they are not wanting among its leaders--no, nor

among their traitorous and cowardly sympathizers here at the North--who

constantly assert that secession is simply a geographical necessity, and

slavery only a secondary cause--that the South will, in fact, eventually

emancipate, and that race and latitude are the great fundamental causes

of national difference, constituting us in fact 'two peoples.' How

completely false and puerile are all these assertions, appears from an

examination of the mountain region now under discussion.

Of all these sections of 'Alleghania,' none is of more importance to the

Federal Union than East Tennessee. Immensely rich in minerals, with a

healthy and agreeable climate and much rich soil, it is one of the

finest countries on earth, lying under the temperate zone, and developes

the most extraordinary physical perfection in the human form. Its

proportion of slaves to freemen is no greater than in the other mountain

regions of the South--its area is about equivalent to that of

Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island united. In considering this

with the loyalty of its inhabitants, and in studying 'Cumberland Gap,'

the great natural highway of the Alleghany Range, the observer

appreciates with pleasure the remark of Secretary Chase, who, in a

recent interview with certain eastern capitalists, disclaimed on behalf

of the Government and of General M'Clellan any purpose to send the army

into winter quarters, remarking with much significance that 'a glance at

the map will perhaps astonish those who have never reflected, _how short

is the distance from East Tennessee to Port Royal Harbor, and may

suggest the possibility of cutting a great rebellion into two small

pieces_.'

In the mountain region of North Carolina we have 'the Piedmont of the

Alleghanies.' Its seventeen counties embrace a larger area (11,700

square miles) than the whole of Vermont. Its scenery is of extraordinary

beauty, its peaks are the highest east of the Rocky Mountains. There is

full ground for the belief that in North Carolina a majority of the

people are Union at heart. The following extract from 'Alleghania' will

be read with interest as illustrating the assertion:

In the Union camps of East Tennessee, there are numerous

volunteers from Watauga and other adjacent counties over the

border. At the only popular election suffered to be held upon the

question of Union and secession, the Union majority was as two to

one; and even after the storm of Sumter, the vote in the

convention of North Carolina on a proposition to submit the

ordinance of secession to a vote of the people, received

thirty-four yeas to seventy-three nays. I have confidence that

those thirty-four names, representing one-third of the State, were

given by delegates from the western counties,--the Alleghany

counties,--from the base and sides of the Blue Ridge,--from a land

of corn and cattle, not of cotton. Again, when the news of the

capture of Hatteras was announced in the legislature of North

Carolina, it is evident from the language of the Raleigh

newspapers that an irrepressible explosion of Union feeling--even

to an outburst of cheers, according to one statement--occurred.

Nor is such a state of feeling surprising, when we remember that

not even in Kentucky is the memory of Henry Clay more a fireside

treasure of the people. In this respect, the quiet, unobtrusive

'North' State was in striking contrast to its immediate

neighbors--South Carolina in one direction, and Atlantic Virginia

in the other. Politically, when the pennons of Clay and Calhoun

rode the gale, the vote and voice of North Carolina were ever

given for the great Kentucky leader. Let us accept these omens for

the winter campaign, which will open with the triumph of the Union

and the Constitution on the Cumberland heights of East Tennessee.

'In one-fifth of Georgia, over an area of 12,000 square miles, slavery

only exists by the usurpation of the cotton aristocracy of the lowland

districts of the State.' In all of them, slaves, though in a greater

proportion than in the rest of Alleghania, are very greatly in the

minority, as appears from the following table:--

COUNTIES FREE SLAVE

Madison, 3,763 1,933

Hart,*

Franklin, 9,076 2,382

Jackson, 6,808 2,941

Banks,*

Hall, 7,370 1,336

Habersham, 7,675 1,218

Rabun, 2,338 110

Towns,*

Union, 6,955 278

Lumpkin, 7,995 939

Dawson,*

Forsyth, 7,812 1,027

Milton,*

Cherokee, 11,630 1,157

Pickens,*

Gilmer, 8,236 200

Faunin*

Murphy,*

Whitefield,*

Gordon, 5,156 828

Cass, 10,271 3,008

Floyd, 5,202 2,999

Chattoga, 5,131 1,680

Walker, 11,408 1,664

Catoosa,*

Dade, 2,532 148

* Counties marked with an asterisk, organized after the census of 1850,

of which the foregoing are returns.

Last in the list we have North-east Alabama, in which we find the

following counties:--

COUNTIES FREE SLAVE

Cherokee, 12,170 1,691

DeKalb, 7,730 506

Marshall, 7,952 868

Jackson, 11,754 2,292

Morgan, 6,636 3,437

Madison, 11,937 14,329

Limestone, 8,399 8,063

Lawrence, 8,342 6,858

'It will be observed,' says Mr. Taylor,

That the three counties last named have a slave population, in the

case of Madison exceeding, and in Limestone and Lawrence nearly

equal to the number of free inhabitants. They would seem to be an

exception to our former generalization, and are only included

because there is other evidence that Athens, in Limestone County,

and Huntsville, in Morgan County, were to the last possible moment

the head-quarters of resistance to the Montgomery conspirators. It

was the Union vote of these highland counties, notwithstanding the

number of slaves in some of them, which would inevitably have been

rolled down in condemnation of an ordinance of secession. This was

well known by Yancey and his associates, and it was to avoid this

revelation of their weakness over a compact and populous area of

the State, which was in direct communication with East Tennessee,

that they refused the ordeal of the ballot upon the consummation

of their treason to the Union.

I estimate that the district which could readily be rallied in

support of a loyal organization of the government of Alabama, with

its capital at Huntsville, to be equal to the area of New Jersey,

or 8,320 square miles. With the occupation of the Alleghanies by

an army of the Union, and such a base of operations, civil and

military, in North Alabama, a counter-revolution in that State

would not be difficult of accomplishment.[B]

It will thus be seen, that, in the South itself, there exists a

tremendous groundwork of aid to the North, and of weakness to

secession. The love of this region for the Union, and its local hatred

for planterdom with its arrogance towards free labor, is no chimera; nor

do we make the wish the father to the thought when we assert that a

Union victory would light up a flame of counter-revolution which would

in time, with Northern aid, crush out the foul rebellion. And relying on

this fact, we grow confident and exultant. If Europe will only let us

alone--if England will refrain from stretching out a helping hand to

that slaveocracy for which she has suddenly developed such a strange and

unnatural love, we may yet be, at no distant day, great, powerful, and

far more united than ever.

But we have, in addition to all these districts of Alleghania, a vast

reserve in Texas--that Texas which is now more than half cultivated by

free labor, and which is amply capable of producing six times as much

cotton as is now raised in the entire South. An armed occupation of

Texas, a copious stream of emigration thither, to be encouraged by very

liberal grants to settlers, and a speedy completion of its railroads,

would be an offset to secession, well worth of itself all that the war

has cost. With Texas in our power, with Cumberland Gap firmly held, with

the negroes in South Carolina fairly disorganized from slavery, with

free Yankee colonies in the Palmetto State, with New Orleans taken--a

blockade without and complete financial disorder within, what more could

we desire as a basis to secure thorough reëstablishment of power? Here

our superiority to the South in possessing not only a navy, but, what is

of far more importance, a vast merchant marine containing all the

elements necessary to form a navy of unparalleled power, appears in

clearest light, giving us cause for much congratulation. To effect all

this, _time_ is required. Let those who fret, look over the map of a

hemisphere--let them reflect on the condition to which Southern perfidy

and theft had reduced us ere the war begun, and then let them moderate

their cries. It will all be done; but the programme is a tremendous one,

and the future of the most glorious country on earth requires that it

shall be done thoroughly, and that no risks shall be taken.

But, beyond all the aid which is to be expected from a

counter-revolution in the South, to be drawn from the 'Alleghania'

region, there is one of vast importance, insisted upon in a series of

articles published during the past year in the New York _Knickerbocker

Magazine_, and which may be appropriately reconsidered in this

connection. Should the government of the United States, by one or more

victories, obtain even a temporary sway over the South, it will only

rest with itself to produce a powerful counter-revolution even in those

districts which are blackest with slavery. _Let it, when the time shall

seem fit_,--and we urge no undue haste, and no premature meddling with

the present plans or programme of those in power,--_simply proclaim

Emancipation_, offering to pay all loyal men for their slaves according

to a certain rate. The proportion of Union men who will then start into

life, even in South Carolina, will be, doubtless, enormous. It may be

objected that many of these will merely profess Union sentiments for the

time being. But, on the other hand, those noted rebels who can have no

hope of selling their slaves, save indeed to the Union professors, will

have small love for the latter, and two parties can not fail to show

themselves at once. Those who hope to see the slave principle ultimately

triumphant will oppose selling the chattels; those who wish to 'realize'

at once on them, owing to temporary embarrassments, will urge it; and

dissension of the most formidable character will be at once

organized,--precisely such dissension as the Southern press has long

hoped to see between the dough-faces and patriots of the North, or

between its labor and capital, or in any other disastrous dissension.

Be it borne in mind that the price of slaves is at present greatly

depressed in the South. Those who would sell would speedily acquire

more, in the hope of a profit by selling to government. Those too who

would willingly act as brokers between those who wished to sell, but who

would not dare to openly do so, would be very numerous. Between these

and the leaders of the ultra pro-slavery party there would be bitter

feud. Let a counter-revolutionary party once succeed in holding its own

in the South, and the days of secession would speedily be numbered. In a

land where all rushes so rapidly to extremes, we should soon see the war

carried on for us with a bitterness fully equal to that now manifested

towards the North.

It is with no pleasant feelings that we thus commend counter-revolution.

It is the worst of war that it drives us to such considerations. But

what is to be done when our existence as a nation is at stake, and when

we are opposed by a remorseless foe which would gladly ruin us

irretrievably? There is no halting half-way. It was these endless

scruples which interfered with the prevention of the war under the

imbecile or traitorous Buchanan; it is lingering scruple and timidity

which still inspires in thousands of cowardly hearts a dislike to face

the grim danger and prevent it.

* * * * *

WESTWARD!

How the pink-hued morning clouds

Go sailing into the west!

And the pearl-white breath of noon,

Or the mists round the silver moon,

In silent, sheeny crowds

Go sailing into the west!

The glowing, fire-eyed sun

In glory dies in the west;

And the bird with dreamy crest,

And soft, sun-loving breast,

When throbbing day is done,

Floats slowly into the west.

Oh, everything lovely and fair

Is floating into the west.

'Tis an unknown land, where our hopes must go,

And all things beautiful, fluttering slow;

Our joys all wait for us there,--

Far out in the dim blue west.

* * * * *

IS COTTON OUR KING?

BY A COTTON-SPINNER.

No falsehood has been so persistently adhered to by the Southern

planters and their advocates, and so successfully forced upon the

credulity of the North, as the statement that white men can not perform

field labor in the cotton States, coupled with the equally false

assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism, and ceases

to be an industrious laborer.

It is one of the chief points of weakness in a bad cause, that, although

a _single_ advocate may succeed in rendering it plausible, _many_ are

certain to present utterly irreconcilable arguments. An impartial man,

examining De Bow's _Review_ for a series of years, would arrive at

conclusions in regard to the economy of slave labor, and the necessity

of colored laborers in the Southern States, the very reverse of what the

writers have intended to enforce.

It is constantly asserted that white men can not labor in the tropics,

which we may freely admit; but the inference that the climate of the

Southern States is tropical we have the best authority for denying:

firstly, from the testimony of all Southern writers when describing

their own section of country, and _not_ arguing upon the slavery

question; and, secondly, from Humboldt's isothermal lines, by which we

find that the temperature of the cotton States is the same as that of

Portugal, the south of Spain, Italy, and Australia. Do we find

Australian emigrants writing home to their friends not to come out

because they will not be able to work? We know they do not; and yet the

mean annual temperature of Australia is 70°--greater by five to six

degrees than that of Texas; and, from the best accounts we can get, the

extreme of heat is very much greater.

Examine De Bow's analysis of the census of 1850, and we find him

compelled to admit that one-ninth of the force then cultivating cotton

were white men. If one-ninth were white men in 1850, when the price of

cotton was much less and the crop much smaller than of late years, how

many are there now?

One of the most reliable witnesses to the cultivation of cotton by free

labor is a Quaker gentleman in Philadelphia, who conducts a cotton

factory supplied entirely with free-grown cotton, the goods being sold

to the Quakers, who will not use the product of slave labor of any kind.

This gentleman writes:--

I learned by correspondence with several intelligent Germans in

Texas, that their experiment of raising cotton by their own labor,

without the help of slaves, was a complete success. One planter

offered to supply me at once with one hundred and forty bales

raised in this way. The ground taken by thee that cotton can be

raised by white men, as well as by colored men, is entirely

correct. A very large portion is every year so raised. I have had

particular information of its being thus raised in Texas,

Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North

Carolina. In some neighborhoods thousands of bales are thus raised

within the limits of two or three adjacent counties.

It may be urged that this is upon uplands almost exclusively, and that

upon bottom lands it is not possible, on account of their being

unhealthy.

Two statements will be made to disprove this latter assertion, and we

will then admit it to be true, and prove it to be of no consequence.

The cotton planters, deserting the rolling land, are fast pouring

in upon the 'swamp.' Indeed, the impression of the sickliness of

the South generally has been rapidly losing ground (i.e. among the

whites of the South), and that blessing, health, is now sought

with as much confidence on the swamp lands of the Yazoo and the

Mississippi, as among the hills and plains of Carolina and

Virginia.--_De Bow's Resources of the South and West_.

Dr. Barton, of New Orleans, in a paper read before the Academy of

Science, says:

The class of diseases most fatal at the South are mainly those of

a preventable nature. In another place I have shown that the

direct temperature of the sun is not near so great in the South

during the summer as in the North. In fact, the climate is much

more endurable, all the year round, with our refreshing breezes,

and particularly in some of the more elevated parts of it, or

within one hundred miles of the coast.

Dr. Barton had forgotten that white men can not perform field labor in

the South.

But admit that white men had better work upon uplands,--the crop is

surer, owing to the less liability to frost and overflow; and good

cultivation will give an equal crop. Intelligent Northern men have taken

up exhausted plantations upon the uplands of North Carolina, and, by the

application of moderate quantities of guano, phosphate of lime, etc.,

have carried the crop from two hundred up to eight hundred pounds of

clean cotton per acre; and for the last three years the writer has been

in the habit of selecting the North Carolina guano-grown cotton, in the

New York market, where it has been shipped via Wilmington or Norfolk, on

account of its good staple, good color, and extra strength.

There is nothing in the cultivation of cotton involving harder work than

that of corn. In the early stages of its growth it is more tender than

corn, and requires more care,--which it does not get, since we find

Southern writers deploring that the cut-worm and the louse are charged

with many sins which are caused by careless cultivation and the bruises

inflicted by the clumsy negro hoes. The soil is very light, and most of

the work might be done by the plow and cultivator. Except upon very poor

soil there is only one plant allowed to eight and even ten square feet.

By the admission of Texas planters themselves, in the accounts of their

country which they have written to induce emigration and sell their

surplus land, there is very little work to be done during the hottest

part of the summer; the cultivation taking place in the spring, and the

picking in the fall and winter. Dr. J.S. Wilson, of Columbus, Ga.,

writing upon the diseases of negroes, says there is no article of

clothing so needful to them, and so seldom supplied, as an overcoat.

Should some shrewd Yankee, starting South to go into the business of

raising cotton, lay in a large supply of flannel shirts, thick Guernsey

frocks, and woolen stockings, for his field hands, how many of his

neighbors would remind him of Lord Timothy Dexter's noted shipment to

the West Indies, and ask him why he did not take some warming-pans; and

yet, for his supply of thick, warm clothing he would have the authority

of all Southern physicians.

Examine the directions given for the cultivation of cotton, and see how

much labor could be saved, provided slaves could be induced to use good

tools; planting the seed and covering it requiring one horse or mule and

_four_ hands,--one to smooth the ground, one to open the furrow, one to

plant, and one to cover. All of these operations can be performed by one

man with a planting machine. But the negro can not be trusted with one;

for the moment you begin to teach him the reasons for using it, you

begin to teach him the benefit of using another complicated machine,

which he has not before known much about--his own head and arms, and,

worse than all, his own legs, all of which you have stolen from him; and

then he will misapply his knowledge, as an old fugitive once told me he

had done: 'I took my own legs for security, and walked off.'

I know a fugitive slave who was taught the trade of a blacksmith, and

who stole the art of writing; and a sad use he made of his

accomplishments; he forged free papers with his pen, and the sacred seal

of the State of Alabama with his tools, and then started North. In

Tennessee he got out of money, and stopped to work at his trade, was

suspected, brought before a court, his papers examined and pronounced

genuine, and he passed on to Canada or elsewhere. Surely this man did

not know how to take care of himself!

There is no great reason why the slave should exert himself very much,

and why he should not, cannot be better stated than by the Rev. Mr.

McTeyire, the son of a large planter in South Carolina. 'Men,' he says,

'who own few slaves, and who share the labors of the field or workshop

with them, are very liable to deceive themselves by a specious process

of reasoning: they say, "I carry row for row with my negroes, and I put

no more on them than I take on myself." But the master who thus reasons

is forgetful or ignorant of the great truth that the negroes' powers of

endurance are less than his, while in the case of the latter there are

wanting those incentives which animate and actually strengthen the

master. This labor is for him, the gains of this excess of industry are

to make him rich. What is the servant bettered by the additional bale of

cotton extorted from exhausted nature, only that next year he shall have

more companions in the field, and the field be enlarged?' This is

extremely well put; but Rev. Mr. McTeyire, of South Carolina, must have

been unaware of the fact that it is not possible for a white man to work

row for row on cotton!

But Southern planters are not without some ingenious machines. In a

_premium_ essay upon the cultivation of cotton, read before the Georgia

Agricultural Society, the Hon. Mr. Chambers thus describes one invented

by himself for covering the seed: 'I would cover with a board made of

some hard wood, an inch or an inch and a half thick, about eight inches

broad, beveled on the lower edge to make it sharp, slightly notched in

the middle so as to _straddle_ the row, and screwed on the foot of a

common shovel.' Very safe for negroes to use, not being complicated.

But in the protests of intelligent Southern men, when they occasionally

wake up to the terrible results of their mode of cultivation, may be

found their own condemnation.

Dr. Cloud, of Alabama, editor of the '_Cotton Plant_,' mourning the want

of pasturage in his own State, writes thus: 'Our climate is remarkably

favorable to rich and luxuriant pasturage. The red man of the forest and

the pioneer white man that came here in advance of our _scratching

plow_, tell us they found the wild oat and native grasses waving thick,

as high as a man's head, and so entwined with the wild pea-vine as to

make it difficult to ride among it, all over this country. Every cotton

planter has heard of these fine primitive pasture ranges, and many have

seen them. _If the country or the climate has been cursed in our

appearance as planters here, it has been in the wasting system, that we

introduced and continue to practice_.'

Gov. Wise, in an address upon the agriculture of Virginia, condenses the

whole case in an epigram,--' The negroes skin the land, and the white

men skin the negroes.'

The limit to the production of cotton is in the capacity of the

plantation force to pick the amount cultivated by the field hands; but

the whole available force is insufficient, and large quantities are

lost. The policy of the planters being to buy out the small landholders

in their neighborhood, they have no extra force upon which to draw.

Olmsted says: 'I much doubt if the harvest demand of the principal

cotton districts of Mississippi adds five per cent. to their field-hand

force. I observed the advantage of the free-labor system exemplified in

Western Texas, the cotton-fields in the vicinity of the German village

of New Braunfils having been picked far closer than any I had before

seen,--in fact perfectly clean. One woman was pointed out to me who had,

in the first year she had seen a cotton field, picked more cotton in a

day than any slave in the county.'

'Substitute the French system (that of small allotment or

_parcellement_) for the Mississippi system in cotton-growing, and who

can doubt that the cotton supply of the United States would be greatly

increased?'

Dr. Cloud, the most intelligent writer upon cotton cultivation I have

been able to find, is urgent in his advice to manure the land, practice

rotation of crops, and produce larger crops upon fewer acres. But the

universal practice is precisely the reverse; the process of exhaustion

is followed year after year; cotton is planted year after year; the

seed--which Northern men would cultivate for oil alone, and which

exhausts the land ten times faster than the fibre--is mostly wasted; in

the words of a Southern paper, 'The seed is left to rot about the

gin-house, producing foul odors, and a constant cause of sickness.' The

land is cropped until it is literally skinned, and then the planter

migrates to some new region, again to drive out the poor whites,

monopolize the soil, and leave it once more to grow up to 'piney woods.'

Note again the warning words of Dr. Cloud: 'With a climate and soil

peculiarly adapted to the production of cotton, our country is equally

favorable to the production of all the necessary cereals, and as

remarkably favorable to the perfect development of the animal economy,

in fine horses, good milch cows, sheep and hogs; and for fruit of every

variety, _not tropical_, it is eminently superior. Why is it, then, that

we find so many _wealthy cotton planters_, whose riches consist entirely

of their slaves and worn-out plantations?'

No crop would be more remunerative to a small farmer, with a moderate

family to assist in the picking season, than cotton.

Upon the fertile lands of Texas, which produce one to two bales of

cotton to the acre, ten acres of cotton is the usual allotment to each

hand, with also sufficient land in corn and vegetables to furnish food

for the laborer and his proportion of the idle force upon the

plantation, which are two to one, without reckoning the planter and

overseer and their families. Now, upon the absurd supposition that a

free man, with a will in his work, would do no more work than a slave,

what would be the result of his labor? 1st, food for his family; 2d, 10

acres of cotton, at 500 pounds to the acre, 5000 pounds, at 10 cents per

pound, or $500. But the result would be much greater, for, as a Southern

man has well said, 'the maximum of slave labor would be the minimum of

free labor;' and the writer can bring proof of many instances where each

field hand has produced 13, 15, and even 18 bales of cotton in a year.

With the denser population which would follow the emancipation of the

slaves and the breaking up of the plantation system, a harvest force for

the picking season would be available, and one man would as easily

cultivate 20 to 25 acres of cotton, with assistance in the picking

season, as he could thirty acres of corn, the usual allotment to each

hand upon the corn land of Texas.

The very expense of slave labor is a proof of the profit which must be

derived from it. The writer has elsewhere estimated the cost of slave

labor at $20 per month, which statement has been questioned, because no

allowance was made for the increase of the live stock. Now it is well

understood that where the women are worked in the fields in such a

manner as to make their labor pay, the increase of live stock is much

smaller, and the business of breeding is left to the first families in

Virginia and other localities where the land has been exhausted (readers

will pardon a plain statement,--it will cause them to realize the full

horror of the business). The slaves in the cotton States increased from

1850 to 1860 33-88/100 per cent., in all the other slave States 9-61/100

per cent. The surplus increase in the cotton States, above the average,

was 190,632. Where did they come from?[C] At $900 each, this surplus

represents a capital of $171,568,800. How was this sum earned, and to

whom was it paid?

Let us examine the estimate of $20 per month, and, although it is

admitted that female field hands do not bear many children, take the

average increase of the country, or 2-335/1000 per cent. per annum.

The standard of value for an A 1 field hand is $100 for each cent per

pound of the price of cotton, say ten cents per pound, $1000, and the

standard of value for all the slaves upon a plantation is one-half the

value of a field hand.

Suppose a plantation stocked with

100 slaves, men, women, and piccaninnies,

at 8500 each, $50,000

Interest at 8 per cent., a low rate

for the South, 4,000

Customary allowance for life insurance

or mortality, 1,000

Overseer's wages, 1,000

House and provisions, 500

Doctor's fees, hospital, and medicines, 500

Renewal and repairs of negro quarters, 500

Clothing and food, at $1 per week

for each slave, 5,200

______

12,700

_Credit_.

Increase to keep good the mortality, 2

Annual gain, 2-335/1000, say 3

Gain, 5, at $500 2,500

Net cost, 10,200

The usual allowance for field hands is one-third,--allow it to be forty

in a hundred, the cost of each would be $255 per annum, or $21.25 per

month.

Let each one make his own allowance for the disadvantage of having the

larger portion of the capital of a State locked up in a tool which would

do more and better work if recognized as a man and representing no

invested capital. How much productive industry would there be in New

England, if every laborer or mechanic cost his employer $800 to $1500

before he could be set to work, and if each one who undertook to labor

upon his own account, and was not so purchased, were stigmatized and

degraded and termed 'mean white trash?'

It will again be objected that the theory of the cotton planter is to

raise all the food and make all the clothing on the plantation. The

cultivation of cotton in the best manner is described by Southern

writers as a process of _gardening_. Now what would be thought of a

market gardener at the North who should keep a large extra force for the

purpose of spinning yarn on a frame of six to ten spindles, and weaving

it up on a rude hand loom? Would this not be protection to home industry

in its most absurd extreme? But this is the plantation system.

The correctness of the estimate of cost can be tested in some degree by

the rates at which able-bodied slaves are hired out. Many lists can be

found in Southern papers; the latest found by the writer is in De Bow's

_Review_ of 1860.

A list of fourteen slaves, comprising 'a blacksmith, his wife, eight

field hands, a lame negro, an old man, an old woman and a young woman,'

were hired out for the year 1860, in Claiborne Parish, La., at an

average of $289 each, the highest being $430 for the blacksmith, and

$171 for 'Juda, old woman.'

The Southern States have thus far retained almost a monopoly of the

cotton trade of the civilized world by promptly furnishing a fair supply

of cotton of the best quality, and at prices which defied competition

from the only region from which it was to be feared, viz., India. This

monopoly has been retained, notwithstanding the steadily increasing

demand and higher prices of the last few years.

Improvements in machinery have enabled manufacturers to pay full wages

to their operatives, both in this country and in England, and to pay

higher prices for their cotton than they did a few years since, without

materially enhancing the cost of their goods, the larger product of

cloth from a less number of hands and the saving of waste offsetting the

higher price of cotton; but it is not probable that the cost of labor

upon cotton goods can be hereafter materially reduced. The cost of labor

upon the heavy sheetings and drills which form the larger part of our

exports is now only one and one-half cents per yard, and the cost of

oil, starch, and all other materials except cotton, less than one-half

cent, making less than two cents for cost of manufacturing; but with

cotton at ten cents to the planter and twelve and one-half cents to the

spinner, the cost of cotton in the yard of same goods is five cents.

With cotton at the average price of the last few years, we have supplied

a very small portion of India and China with goods, in competition with

their hand-made goods of same material. With new markets opening in

Japan and China, and by the building of railroads in India, we have to

meet a constantly decreasing supply of raw material as compared with the

demand. Give us cotton at six to seven cents, at which free labor and

skill could well afford it, and the manufacturing industry of New

England would receive a development unknown before. But when we ask more

cotton of slavery, we are answered by its great prophet, De Bow; that

because we are willing to pay a high price we can not have it; for he

says, 'Although land is to be had in unlimited quantities, whenever

cotton rises to ten cents, labor becomes too dear to increase production

rapidly.'

And this is what the great system of slave labor has accomplished. The

production of its great staple, cotton, is in the hands of less than

100,000 men. In 1850 there were in all the Southern States only 170,000

men owning more than five slaves each, and they owned 2,800,000 out of

3,300,000.

These men have by their system rendered labor degrading,--they have

driven out their non-slaveholding neighbors by hundreds of thousands to

find homes and self-respect in the free air of the great West,--they

have reduced those who remain to a condition of ignorance scarcely to be

found in any other country claiming to be civilized--so low that even

the slaves look down upon the 'mean white trash,'--they have sapped the

very foundations of honor and morality, so that 'Southern chivalry' has

become the synonym for treachery, theft, and dishonor in every

form,--they have reached a depth of degradation only to be equalled by

those Northern men who would now prevent this war from utterly

destroying slavery,--they have literally skinned over a vast area of

country, leaving it for the time a desert, and with an area of

368,312,320 acres in the eight cotton States, they have now under

cultivation in cotton less than 6,000,000 (an area scarcely larger than

the little State of Massachusetts); they have less than two slave

laborers to the square mile; and their only opposition to the re-opening

of the African slave-trade is upon the ground that an increase of

laborers will but reduce the price of cotton, give the planters a great

deal more trouble and less profit, and only benefit their enemies in New

and Old England.

Have not the manufacturer, the consumer, the business man, the farmer,

the soldier, every free man, every friend of the poor whites of the

South who are not yet free men, a right and an interest in claiming that

this monopoly of 100,000 cotton planters shall cease, their estates be

confiscated for their treason, and divided among our soldiers, to repay

them for their sacrifices in the cause of their country? First of all,

however, let us claim the 100,000,000 acres, not the property of any

individual, but fought for and paid for by the United States, and then

given to that most ungrateful of all the rebel States, Texas--the great

'Cotton State.'

Upon these fertile lands, and in this most profitable branch of

agriculture, let us find the bounty for our soldiers, the reward for

their sacrifices, and our own security for the future good order of the

state.

By so doing we shall silence the outcry of the South that ours is a war

of conquest (since the right of the government to the public lands of

Texas is unquestionable), and, at the same time, furnish a powerful

incentive to the zeal of our soldiers.

I have compiled a few facts and statements in regard to the soil and

climate of Texas from Capt. Marcy's Exploration of the Red River, in

which he was accompanied by Captain, now General, McLellan, from the

_Texas Almanac_, a most violent pro-slavery publication, and from the

letters of a friend, a loyal Texan, who has been driven from his home,

and is now in the North.

In advocating the Memphis and El Paso route for the Pacific Railroad,

Captain Marcy writes as follows:--

The road alluded to, immediately after leaving Fulton, Ark., leads

to an elevated ridge dividing the waters that flow into Red River

from those of the Sulphur and Trinity, and continues upon it, with

but few deviations from the direct course for El Paso and Dona Ana

to near the Brazos River, a distance of three hundred and twenty

miles, and mostly through the northern part of Texas. This portion

of the route has its locality in a country of surpassing beauty

and fertility, and possesses all the requisites for attracting and

sustaining a dense farming population. It is diversified with

prairies and woodland, and is bountifully watered with numerous

spring brooks, which flow off upon either side of the ridge

above-mentioned. The crest of the ridge is exceedingly smooth and

level, and is altogether the best natural or artificial road I

ever traveled over for the same distance.

After leaving this ridge, the road crosses the Brazos near very

extensive fields of bituminous coal, which burns readily, with a

clear flame, and is very superior in quality.

From the Brazos, the road skirts small affluents of that stream

and the Colorado for two hundred miles. The soil upon this section

is principally a red argillaceous loam, similar to that in the Red

River bottoms, which is so highly productive.

As this route is included within the thirty-second and

thirty-fourth parallels of latitude, it would never be obstructed

with snow. The whole surface of the country is covered with a

dense coating of the most nutritious grass, which remains green

for nine months in the year, and enables cattle to subsist the

entire winter without any other forage.

The line of this road east from Fort Smith would intersect the

Mississippi in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., and would pass

through the country bordering the Arkansas River, which can not be

surpassed for fertility.--_Marcy's Red River Exploration_.

The route thus described lies through the following counties, and

attention is specially directed to their several products in 1858:--

Acres

County White Slave Corn Wheat Cotton Sug. Misc'l Total.

Bowie 2,077 2,321 10,392 1,421 8,240 23 3,232 23,308

Cass 6,112 4,816 28,474 5,552 20,168 36 4,368 58,508

Titus 6,025 1,891 18,987 2,272 9,872 92 6,227 36,450

Upshur 5,999 2,801 22,515 3,092 16,692 45 3,122 46,065

Wood 3,254 733 8,336 1,090 3,194 31 1,841 14,501

Van Zandt 2,548 242 6,504 837 1,213 8 596 8,160

Henderson 2,758 827 8,470 845 4,768 70 908 15,061

Navarro 2,885 1,579 10,531 2,785 4,678 127 2,609 20,730

Hill 1,858 508 5,161 3,189 181 201 761 9,493

Bosque 887 182 2,702 872 224 45 83 4,026

______ ______ _______ ______ ______ ___ ______ _______

34,403 15,800 121,072 22,564 69,330 678 22,748 236,392

Let us allow the usual proportion of field hands to the whole number of

slaves, viz., one-third, and we have a force of 5297; if whites do not

labor in the field, each field hand must cultivate 44 64/100 acres of

land. The customary allotment is ten cotton and five corn, or, where

corn and wheat are the principal products, from twenty to twenty-five

acres.

July 15, 1852. We were in motion at two o'clock in the morning,

and, taking a north-east course towards the base of the mountain

chain, passed through mezquite groves, intersected by brooks of

pure water flowing into the south branch of Cache Creek, upon one

of which we are encamped.

We find the soil good at all places near the mountains, and the

country well wooded and watered. The grass, consisting of several

varieties of the grama, is of a superior quality, and grows

luxuriantly. The climate is salubrious, _and the almost constant

cool and bracing breezes of the summer months_, with the entire

absence of anything like marshes or stagnant water, remove all

sources of noxious malaria, with its attendant evils of autumnal

fevers.--_Marcy's Exploration of the Red River_, p. 11.

Our camp is upon the creek last occupied by the Witchitas before

they left the mountains. The soil, in point of fertility,

surpasses anything we have before seen, and the vegetation in the

old corn-fields is so dense that it was with great difficulty I

could force my horse through it. It consisted of rank weeds

growing to the height of twelve feet. Soil of this character must

have produced an enormous yield of corn. The timber is

sufficiently abundant for all purposes of the agriculturist, and

of a superior quality.

We have now reached the eastern extremity of the Witchita chain

of mountains, and shall to-morrow strike our course for Fort

Asbuekl.

The more we have seen of the country about these mountains, the

more pleased we have been with it. Bounteous nature seems here to

have strewed her favors with a lavish hand, and to have held out

every inducement for civilized man to occupy it. The numerous

tributaries of Cache Creek, flowing from granite fountains, and

winding like net-work through the valleys, with the advantages of

good timber, soil and grass, the pure, elastic and delicious

climate, with a bracing atmosphere, all unite in presenting rare

inducements to the husbandman.--_Marcy's Red River Exploration_.

This section of country is in latitude 34°, longitude 99°; the latitude

the same as the central part of South Carolina and the southern part of

Arkansas.

We will now give statements from the _Texas Almanac_.

The south winds are the source of comfort and positive luxury to

the inhabitants of Texas during the hot weather of summer. The

nearer the sea-coast, the cooler and more brisk the current; but

the entire area of prairie, and a large portion of the timbered

country, feel it as a pleasant, healthful breeze, rendering our

highest temperature tolerable.--_Prof. Forshey, of the Texas

Military Institute_.

TRINITY RIVER AND ITS VALLEY.

So far as I have described the river, the climate is pleasant and

salubrious, and favorable for planting. The forests and

cane-brakes mitigate the cold of the northers in winter, and the

south breezes temper the heat of summer. Contrary to the usual

opinion, plantations, when once cleared of decaying timber, are

found to be remarkably healthy. In fact, there are no causes of

sickness. The river in summer is only a deep, sandy ravine, with a

clear and rapid stream of water running at its bottom, and in the

rear of the plantations, instead of swamps, are high rolling

cane-brakes.

The paradox, that there is more good land on the Trinity than on

the Mississippi, is one which will be readily sustained by those

who are acquainted with the subject.--_Texas Almanac, 1861_.

TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS.

The soil is exceedingly rich, from two to ten feet deep, and when

the seasons are favorable it produces from sixty to one hundred

bushels of corn, and from one and a half to two bales of cotton,

per acre. From twenty-five to thirty acres of corn, or twelve to

fifteen acres of cotton to the hand, are usually cultivated.

Our country upon the whole is fertile and well watered, has timber

enough to supply its demands, and an everlasting amount of stone

for building; it has an eternal range of mesquit grass, on which

horses and cattle that never smell corn keep perfectly fat all

winter. The climate is delightful, the nights pleasant, a fine

south breeze in summer continually playing over the face of our

broad prairies, and the atmosphere so pure and invigorating, that

it is more conducive to good health to sleep out in the open air

than to sleep in-doors. There is something so attractive in this

section of country, that those who live here a short time are

seldom satisfied to live anywhere else.

Our citizens are generally intelligent, enterprising, industrious,

religious, sober, and, _laying politics aside_, honest.--_Texas

Almanac_.

COMAL COUNTY.

BY THE ASSESSOR.

Mostly settled by Germans. In this county there are in cultivation

600 acres in cotton, 15,000 acres in corn, 500 acres in wheat. The

acre yields 500 pounds of clean cotton, 40 bushels of corn, 20

bushels of wheat. From 3,500 to 4,000 white inhabitants; 188

slaves; 396 farms. Improved lands $30, unimproved $3 an acre.

_Most of the farms are cultivatd by white labor_; a white hand

cultivates thirty acres of corn. Peaches yield abundantly; apples

and quinces have been tried successfully. The wild grape, plum,

cherry, _mulberry_, and blackberry grow luxuriantly. Wine of good

quality has been made here.

New Braunfels is the county seat. It has 2,000 inhabitants, and

boasts of having the only free school in the State, supported by

aid from the State school fund, and by direct taxation on the

property of the school district. Four teachers are employed, and

there are 250 pupils.

The letters of my Texas friend give the following description of the

climate of Texas:--

The climate of Texas is very peculiar. This is owing to the body

of water to the eastward of it, and to the dry and elevated plain

of the Llano Estacado, and the lofty mountains which lie to the

westward. To these two causes are due the moisture and the cool

temperature, and at times and in certain localities the excessive

dryness of Texas.

The Gulf stream, in its course along the coast of Florida and in

the Gulf of Mexico, has beneath it, running to the south, a cold

stream, nearly down to the freezing point. The great equatorial

current which strikes north of Cape St. Roque and through the

Caribbean Sea is suddenly narrowed between Cape San Antonio and

Cape Catoche; here the upper and warmer current, being condensed,

strikes deeper, and forces to the surface the cold water from the

under current, sometimes occasioning a roaring and very peculiar

noise. By this means the Gulf stream is divided, part turning to

the eastward around Cuba and between that island and Florida, and

part turning to the westward, north of the banks of Campeachy, and

striking Padre Island, an island upon the coast of Texas, about

one hundred and forty miles this current strikes, there are very

deep soundings, almost up with the land. South of this point, upon

the beach, are found mahogany and other tropical drift-wood,

brought there from the tropics; while north of it the drift wood

is oak, ash, and cotton-wood, brought from the north by a current

running counter to the Gulf stream, which I will hereafter

describe. From Padre Island the Gulf stream strikes off to the

north-east to the mouth of the Mississippi, thence around the

coast of Florida and through her keys, until it joins the other

branch. Inside the Gulf stream, along the coast of Texas, is the

counter-current before referred to, making down the coast at the

rate of two to three miles per hour, and bringing down the silt

and mud of the Mississippi, Sabine, etc. I have seen the water off

the Island of Galveston the color of chocolate, after a long

norther.

Above the centre of Padre Island the coast of Texas deepens at the

rate of about a fathom to the mile, until at twenty fathoms there

is a coral reef, and on the easterly side of this reef the water

deepens, as by the side of a perpendicular wall, to a very great

depth. This reef marks the boundary of the Gulf stream, and also

the boundary of the terrible tornado. The tornado of the Gulf of

Mexico never passes this barrier, never strikes the land, nor has

it been known within memory of man upon the coast.

It seems to confine itself to the course of the warm water of the

stream, and the great 'Father of the Waters' spreads his

counter-current down the coast of Texas, like a long flowing

garment, fending off the storm and the whirlwind, and thus still

better fitting Texas for the white man and the white man's labor.

With this freedom from violent storms comes the delicious

southerly wind in the summer, which gives health and moisture to

the larger part of Texas. This wind varies in the point from which

it flows. From Sabine to Matagorda its course is from south-east

to south-south-east, growing more and more to the south as the

coast tends to the south, until at the Rio Grande it blows from

due south with perhaps a little westing in it. The course of this

wind will explain the three belts of Texas, the rainy, that of

less rain, and that of great drought.

This wind from the south-east corner from across the ocean and

gulf (being a continuation of the south-east trades) laden with

moisture and of a delightful temperature, when it is met by the

cool air from the mountains, and condensed, giving the rains of

Eastern and Central Texas. The more southing they have in them,

the less moisture, until the extreme south-eastern portion of

Texas, or the country near the mouth of the Rio Grande, is one of

almost constant drought. There are thus three belts of moisture:

first, from the Sabine to the mouth of the Brazos, may be called

the belt of greatest rain,--from the Brazos to Lavaca or Victoria,

that of moderate rain,--and from Lavaca to the Rio Grande, the dry

belt. But even in the dry belt there is moisture enough to give

fine grasses, and make the country a fine one for grazing, and the

streams taking their rise in great springs, which probably have

their source in the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, flowing

under the Llano Estacado and breaking out in great numbers in a

line almost north and south, never dry up, even in the dryest

seasons.

In the winter months, Texas has winds from the north, which come

on very suddenly, and produce great variation in the temperature.

They are disagreeable, but wholesome, and clear the atmosphere.

They do not extend north of the Red River, nor very far west, but

increase in intensity as they go south.

No country in the world can be healthier than Texas, and

consumption and pectoral complaints never originate in the area of

the northers.

Eastern Texas is generally well wooded; Middle and Western Texas

have wood on the banks of the streams, and frequent spots of

timber on the prairies.

Most of the country is covered with nutritious grass, affording

good pasture throughout the year, capable of supporting an endless

number of cattle and sheep, and almost all the soil is suited to

the growth of cotton. There are more than five thousand square

miles of bituminous coal in Texas, presenting seams five feet

thick, and hills of pure gypsum seven hundred feet high. These are

all covered by a generous sky and climate beneath which the white

man can live and work without fear of malaria or sickness, and

where he can enjoy all the blessings of the tropics without their

attendant disadvantages.

It is this superb country which we trust General Lane and his forces may

soon redeem from the curse of slavery.

The woolen manufacturer has an equal interest with the cotton-spinner in

demanding that this shall be done, for with this unequaled country for

the production of wool remaining under the curse of slavery, we import

annually nearly thirty million pounds of wool,--about one-third of our

whole consumption. With Texas free, and emigration from abroad--for a

long time reduced almost to nothing--freely encouraged, we should become

exporters of wool, not importers.

But I am warned that I have exceeded the space allotted me. The absurd

assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism and will not

work, can only be met by the question, 'If he will not work except by

compulsion, why does he work extra after his compulsory labor is over?'

Evidence that he does so work can be presented _ad infinitum_, upon

Southern testimony; witness that De Bow's _Review_ makes only a _few_

selections.

The _peculium_ of Southern servants, even on the plantation, is

sometimes not trifling. We make a _few_ selections, showing--

THE NEGROES' CROP.--A friend has reported to us a sale, on

Tuesday, of a crop of cotton belonging to Elijah Cook, of Harris

Co., Ga., amounting to $1424 96-100.--_Columbus_ (Ga.) _Sun_, Dec.

29, 1858.

Mr. J.S. Byington informs us that he made two cotton purchases

lately. One was the cotton crop of the negroes of Dr. Lucas, of

this vicinity, for which he paid $1,800 in cash, every dollar of

which goes to the negroes.--_Montgomery (Ala.) Mail_, Jan. 21,

1859.

Speaking of negroes' crops, the sales of which our contemporaries

are chronicling in various amounts,--the largest which has come to

our knowledge is one made in Macon, for the negroes of Allen

McWalker. It amounted to $1969.65.--_Macon (Ga.) Telegraph_, Feb.

3, 1859.

Upon Louisiana sugar plantations, the exhausting work of the grinding

season can only be maintained by a system of premiums and rewards

equivalent to the payment of wages. Under that system the negroes of the

sugar plantations are among the most healthy and contented in the South;

while the same labor performed in Cuba, under the most severe

compulsion, causes an annual decrease of the slave population, and the

product of the island is only maintained by fresh importations of slaves

from Africa.

With the following Southern testimony as to the intelligence of the

negro, I leave this subject:--

Without book learning the Southern slave will partake more and

more of the life-giving civilization of the master. As it is, his

intimate relations with the superior race, and the unsystematic

instruction he receives in the family, have placed him in point of

intelligence above a large portion of the white laborers of

Europe.--_Plantation Life, by Rev. Dr. McTeyire_.

We claim emancipation for the white man; it can only be secured by the

freedom of the negro. The infinite justice of the Almighty demands both.

If we now fail to accomplish it, to bear in the future the name of

'American Citizen' will be a badge of shame and dishonor.

* * * * *

GENERAL PATTERSON'S CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.

It seldom happens that the history of any series of events can be

written soon after they have transpired. The idea of history implies

correctness, impartiality and completeness; and it is of rare occurrence

that all these requisites can be obtained in their fullness within a

brief period after the time of which the history is required. The

historians of this day write of the past; and the historian of our

present civil war is not yet born, who shall emulate the completeness

and conciseness of Irving's Columbus, or Prescott's Ferdinand and

Isabella, or Motley's Dutch Republic. Nor can we expect an early

solution to the 'Fremont question,' which shall be full and

satisfactory, though the length of time involved be but one hundred

days. But it is different with Gen. Patterson. It is true that his

loyalty is disputed, and in this question may be involved many

complicated issues; but the question of the general result of his three

months' campaign in Virginia admits but one answer;--it was a failure.

And it is an exception to the general rule that we can, within a few

months after his campaign closed, see and understand exactly why and how

he failed.

It is not proposed in this article to discuss the loyalty of Gen.

Patterson, or to take sides with either those who claim for him a

patriot's laurels or those who would have him suffer a traitor's fate.

We shall ignore this question entirely, simply examining the acts of his

last campaign, with reference to his capability and efficiency, the

nature and effects of his policy, and the reasons of his failure. We

propose to try him in the same manner and by the same standard as we

would if his loyalty had never been questioned.

The early morning of the 12th day of June, 1861, found the writer a

volunteer soldier of less than two months' experience in camp, just

arrived with his regiment, from the distant Badger State, at

Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, where it was to join Patterson's division

of the Federal army. For the next two months ensuing, the writer

possessed all the facilities attainable to a private in the ranks for

observing the progress of events in that division of the army, judging

as to the propriety or necessity of the various movements, and forming

opinions as to whether Patterson was using to the best advantage the

military means within his control. These facilities were not many, it is

true; but the public opinion of the North demanded certain actions from

the general, and the writer, though but a private, could judge as to

whether those demands of the loyal North were reasonable, and as to

whether Patterson could accomplish what was required, if he chose. He

was expected to _do something_; it did not matter in what particular

manner; but it was deemed essential that he should in some way hold

Johnston in check, and prevent his junction with the main rebel force at

Manassas. And this was precisely what Patterson did not do. Bull Run was

fought and lost, and the very result attained which Patterson was

expected to prevent. Could it have been prevented?

It is fashionable in these days to set up the cry of inefficiency when a

general does not do everything that public opinion requires. The

Americans are proverbially a fault-finding people; and it will of course

be as easy to make out an _ex parte_ case against Gen. Patterson as

against our other generals. We propose, nevertheless, at the risk of

being unfashionable, to discuss candidly these expectations of the

American people which were not realized, together with the actual doings

of the unsuccessful general. We deem it susceptible of logical proof

that Patterson might and should have prevented Johnston's junction with

Beauregard.

Tents pitched, and the dust of travel from a journey of a thousand miles

washed off, the 'boys' of the 1st Wisconsin regiment stretched their

weary limbs on the fragrant clover of Pennsylvania, and, like American

soldiers everywhere, discussed with earnestness and warmth the causes,

progress, and prospects of the war. Our own position was not a little

interesting. The strength of Patterson's division was not precisely

known, but troops were arriving daily, and it was supposed to consist of

about twenty thousand men. As was well understood, it was intended to

menace Harper's Ferry, a strong natural, military and strategic

position, then held by the rebels. A severe struggle was anticipated if

the Ferry were attacked, and many were the pictures drawn of bloody

scenes and terrible carnage. But the writer, doubting the assumed

strength of the rebels at that point, freely expressed the opinion that

there would be no fight there, but that the rebels would evacuate the

post. And before his regiment left Chambersburg, this prediction was

verified. The rebels, alarmed at the prospect which loomed up before

them of a strong column of Federal troops, burned the Armory and

Arsenal, and fled. And here we may find a key to the whole of the rebel

manoeuvring--they were weak, and unable to cope with Patterson, _and

they knew it_. Upon no other hypothesis can we account for their

evacuating so strong and so important a point as Harper's Ferry.

Up to this time it had been a foregone conclusion with the army, as well

as with the American people, that Patterson was to occupy Harper's

Ferry. No other course of action was for a moment thought of. Even so

late as the 30th of June, when the different brigades were called

together, preparatory to crossing the Potomac, very many were sanguine

that Harper's Ferry was to be made the base of operations, and did not

give up that opinion till they found themselves _en route_ for

Williamsport. But the strong strategic position was neglected for more

than a month; and finally, on the very day when Johnston poured his

fresh legions upon the bloody field of Bull Run, and forced the Federals

to fall back, Patterson, with his back to the foe, entered Harper's

Ferry, with his three months' men, whose term of enlistment was

expiring, by the very road by which Johnston had left it in June.

This neglect of Patterson to occupy the strongest point in his field of

operations puts the stamp of imbecility upon him at the commencement of

his campaign. The rebels expected him to occupy that point, as, even so

late as the time of his crossing the Potomac, the force which disputed

his onward march into the valley of Virginia was not so great as that

held at Charleston to dispute his march from Harper's Ferry in case he

entered the valley there. Patterson himself confessed his mistake, by

retiring to the Ferry in July, for the avowed reason that his three

months' men must soon go home, and he must be in such a position as not

to tempt an attack from the rebels while his column was thus weakened

and disorganized, and before he could be reinforced by three years' men.

Why did not this necessity, and the propriety of holding Harper's Ferry

as a base of operations for this reason alone, if for no other, occur to

the cautious general before, as it did to so many of less military

experience than himself? Patterson, at the last day, thus confesses his

error. It was the first great mistake of his campaign. The second was

one of a different nature.

On the 2d day of July, the army crossed the Potomac at Williamsport, by

means of the ford. The crossing was commenced at daylight, and consumed

the whole of the day. Just before daylight, a little passage at arms

occurred on the Virginia side of the stream, the companies who had been

thrown over the night before as pickets having been fired on by a

detachment of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and returning the fire

promptly. But this served only to stimulate the already keen energies of

the Federal forces, who waded knee-deep through the clear Potomac, and

trudged along over the 'sacred soil' with a willingness unchecked by the

cold nor'wester that raged on that July morning. That portion of

Berkeley County, Virginia, which lies opposite to Willlamsport, is

called 'the Neck,' being in the shape of a horse-shoe, and nearly

surrounded by the detour of the Potomac. The turnpike leading from

Williamsport to Martinsburg and Winchester traverses the whole length of

'the Neck;' and it was on this road that the advance guard of the

division, Abercrombie's Brigade, took its line of march, a brush with

the rebels being momentarily expected. The first view of their pickets,

after leaving Williamsport, was obtained at Falling Waters, by which

sonorous appellation the Virginians designate a small and pretty

mill-pond, which loses itself over the dam of a solitary grist-mill,

within a stone's throw of the Potomac. Here was a strong natural

position, and an excellent place for waging a defensive war, if the

rebels had been so disposed. But they did not make a stand till a point

was reached a mile south from Falling Waters, and about five miles from

Williamsport, where their skirmishers opened fire at 9.15, A.M. The

skirmish which ensued, and which has since been styled the Battle of

Falling Waters, was sustained on the part of the Federals by

Abercrombie's Brigade, consisting of the 1st Wisconsin and the 11th

Pennsylvania regiments, McMullen's Philadelphia company of Independent

Rangers, the Philadelphia City Troop of cavalry, and Perkins' Field

Battery of six guns. This force speedily dislodged a superior force of

the enemy, and pursued them for two miles, as far as the hamlet of

Hainesville, where orders from Gen. Patterson to cease the pursuit

allowed the rear-guard of the rebels to elude their grasp. The contest

and the chase lasted but two hours, and at noon the advance guard

encamped at Hainesville. The remainder of the day was consumed by the

army in selecting grounds and pitching tents; and by night, Gen.

Patterson, with twenty thousand men, had succeeded in marching seven

miles, routing Col. Jackson's rebel brigade, and occupying Camp Jackson,

distant about two and one-half miles from the Maryland shore of the

Potomac. On Tuesday, the 3d of July, the indomitable general advanced

five and one-half miles farther, to Martinsburg, the county seat of

Berkeley County, and occupied the town with his whole force, without

firing a gun; the rebel rear-guard leaving Martinsburg for the south as

the Federal advance entered it from the north.

It would seem that at such a moment a skillful general would take

advantage of such a little success, and follow it up, especially when he

had spent as much time in preparation as had Patterson, by a series of

crushing blows, if anything could be found to crush. And in view of the

facts that Gen. Johnston had thus far made almost no opposition to the

advance of the Unionists, and that Patterson's soldiers were without

exception eager and anxious to push on, the policy of holding back seems

almost unaccountable. But Patterson tarried at Martinsburg for nearly

two weeks, and telegraphed for more troops; and on the 15th of July,

when he commenced his forward march toward Winchester, he suddenly

discovered that Johnston had so fortified that place that it would be

unsafe to attack it! It may be that he could get no accurate information

as to the strength of the rebel force, and that he supposed them to be

superior to himself. Still, there were many signs which a capable

general could have read plainly. It was well known that there were in

Johnston's advance force no really good troops, except the 'Berkeley

Border Guard,' a company of cavalry, composed of citizens of Berkeley

County, who, from their complete and minute knowledge of the country,

their skill in the saddle, and their zeal in the rebel cause, were as

formidable, though not so notorious, as the Black Horse Cavalry of

Fairfax and Prince William. The rout of the rebels at Hainesville, or

Falling Waters, partook of the nature of a panic, as was evidenced by

the profuse scattering of knapsacks, clothing, canteens and provisions

along the 'pike.' Indeed, the conduct of the Virginia militia scarcely

sustained the loud professions of desire to 'fight and die in defending

the sacred soil of Virginia from the invader,' as announced by the

letters and papers found in their knapsacks. And the whole course of

these events convinced the private soldiers, if not the commanding

general, that Johnston's highest ambition at that time was to gain time.

Did he not know as well as any one that the time of enlistment of many

of Patterson's men had nearly expired? And what more natural than for

him to keep the latter at bay till such a time as the withdrawal of very

many of his best troops would force him to retire? There were many true

Unionists, too, in the ranks of the rebels, who would have been glad of

opportunities to escape; this was well known. It seems impossible to

resist the conclusion that Patterson should have acceded to the

unanimous wish of his rank and file, and followed up his success at

Hainesville, by occupying Martinsburg on the 2d, advancing to 'Bunker

Hill' on the 3d, and dispersing the small rebel force known to be there,

and celebrating the 4th of July by marching on Winchester, and attacking

and reducing that post, as it seems he might easily have done at that

time. This would of course prevent the apprehended junction of Johnston

with Beauregard. The history of the war in the Old Dominion would then

have been differently written; Bull Run and its panic would not be a

stain upon our national honor, and--but who can not read the rest? It is

true, Patterson should bear none of the blame of the Bull Run disaster,

if he could have done nothing to avoid it; but we have shown that he

could have done what was necessary, and that there were reasons existing

at the time for taking such a course, of which he should have been

cognizant.

The army left Martinsburg for the south, as we have seen, on Monday,

July 15th. The whole division, with trifling exceptions, moved forward,

and advanced on that day as far as 'Bunker Hill,' ten miles from

Martinsburg. An insignificant rebel force fell back as Patterson

advanced, and at 'Bunker Hill' the army encamped around the smoking

brands of the rebel camp-fires, just deserted. Here was a small

post-town called Mill Creek; and near by, the high ridge called 'Bunker

Hill' formed another fine natural position for defence; but the rebels

were not disposed to defend it. Patterson lay here two days, within

twelve miles of the rebel strong-hold at Winchester, the pickets of the

two armies watching each other by night and day. On the 17th the Federal

army was astir before daylight, and an advance to the south was

commenced. But before the rear-guard filed down from 'Bunker Hill' to

the turnpike, a counter-march was ordered; and the whole division

proceeded twelve miles to the east, leaving Winchester on their flank,

and occupying Charlestown, in Jefferson County. What could have pleased

Johnston better? What wonder that he should take the opportunity, as

soon as satisfied that this flank movement was not intended to operate

against him, to leave his fortifications at Winchester in charge of a

small force, and rush to reinforce Beauregard? And is it not more than

remarkable that Patterson, after occupying Charlestown for four days,

should fall back to Harper's Ferry on the very day when his foe had

effected his _ruse de guerre_, and was actually turning the tide of

battle at Bull Run?

There is nothing in all this to change the opinion, previously formed,

that Patterson should have pushed on to Winchester early in July. The

whole of Johnston's manoeuvering seems to have been calculated merely to

deceive Patterson, and to gain time. And so clever was he in his

strategy, that, when his march to Manassas commenced, Patterson,

learning either of the main movement or of a feint towards himself,

aroused his army at midnight, and held them in readiness to fight, in

apprehension of instant attack. As early as the middle of June, when

Patterson threw a brigade over the Potomac at Williamsport, on a

reconnoitering expedition, Johnston heard of the movement, and advanced

a small force to engage and delay the Federals, which fell back as soon

as the latter retired, as has since been learned from escaped prisoners

and deserters. Indeed, the whole of Patterson's campaign shows far

superior generalship on the part of his adversary.

Scarcely had the cautious general occupied from necessity that point

whose strength and natural facilities he had previously despised, when

the term of his appointment as general of the division expired, and the

government allowed him to retire to private life. His successor's first

act was to retire across the Potomac and occupy the Maryland Heights,

opposite to Harper's Ferry, leaving not a foot of rebel soil to be held

by our army as an evidence of the 'something' which had been expected of

the venerable commander of the army of the Shenandoah. He had spent

three months of time, and ten millions of money, and had only emulated

the acts of that Gallic sovereign whose great deeds are immortalized in

the brief couplet,

'The king of France, with twice ten thousand men,

Marched up the hill, and then--marched down again.'

He had done more. He had committed another grave error, which has

received but little public attention, but which told with disastrous

effect upon the Union cause in Northern Virginia. That section of the

State, as is well known, contained many true Union men. Previous to

Patterson's entry into Virginia, they had been proscribed and severely

treated by the secessionists. Many had been impressed by the rebel

troops; the 'Berkeley Border Guard' had dragged many a peaceable

Unionist from his bed at night to serve in the ranks of Johnston's army.

But many others had been able to keep their true sentiments wholly to

themselves, and had feigned sympathy with secession; while many more had

fled from their homes across the Potomac, and sought refuge in loyal

Maryland, where they hung around the Federal camps, vainly urging an

early advance, that they might go home and take care of their families

and their crops. Thus was Berkeley County completely shackled, and a

reign of terror fully established. And on that bright morning of the 2d

of July, as the Federal army marched over the 'sacred soil,' the cleanly

cut grain fields, with their deserted houses, told plainly of

secessionist owners, who could stay at home and cut their grain while

the rebels were in force, but who fled before the advance of Union

troops, and deserted their homes; while the fields of standing grain,

with the golden kernels ripe and almost rotting on the stalks, and the

cheerless-looking houses, tenanted only by women and children, told as

plainly of the poor Unionists, driven from home and family by the

'Border Guard' who so bravely 'defended the sacred soil.' With the

advance of the Union army came back hundreds of Union refugees from

Maryland; poor, half-starved men crept out to the roadside from their

hiding-places, and told the Union troops that they now first saw

daylight for several weeks; and the lonely yet brave women displayed

from their hovels the Union flags, the true 'Red, White, and Blue,'

which their loyalty had kept for months concealed. And as the army

tarried at Martinsburg, and reinforcements came in, the secret Unionists

avowed their real sentiments; the Union flag was displayed from many a

dwelling; and the fair hands of Martinsburg women stitched beautiful

banners, which, with words of eloquent loyalty, were presented to the

favorite Union regiments, and even now are cherished in Northern homes,

or in Union encampments, as mementos of the gratitude of Berkeley County

for its deliverance from the reign of terror. Yet how was the confidence

repaid which these loyal people thus reposed in Gen. Patterson? In less

than three weeks, not a Union soldier was left in Martinsburg, and

before the first of August they were withdrawn wholly from Berkeley and

Jefferson Counties. And the poor refugees who had returned to their

homes in good faith, and the loyalists who in equal good faith had

spoken out their true patriotism and their love of the Union, were left

to the tender mercies of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and such braves as

the Texan Rangers, the Mississippi Bowie-knives, and the Louisiana Tiger

Zouaves. Gray-headed men like Pendleton and Strother were dragged from

their homes to languish for weeks in Richmond jails, and the old reign

of terror was reëstablished with renewed virulence. Shall we ask these

poor, deceived Unionists of Northern Virginia what they think of Gen.

Patterson, and of the success of his campaign? How can we estimate the

injury to the cause of the Union inflicted in this way alone by a

grossly inefficient Federal general?

There were other reasons than those already enumerated why Patterson

should have occupied Harper's Ferry at an early day, and these were

reasons of economy, which commended themselves to the judgment of almost

every one except the commanding general. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

is the natural and only good thoroughfare along the valley of the upper

Potomac. Harper's Ferry, confessedly the strongest and best military

point in Northern Virginia, and the one best fitted for a base of

offensive operations, is on this railroad, and, of course, of easy

access from Baltimore and Washington. In June last the road was open

from Baltimore to the Point of Rocks, between which last place and the

Ferry were some rebel obstructions easy to be removed. Had Gen.

Patterson occupied Harper's Ferry in June, and opened the railroad to

that point, and from thence carried on the campaign like a brave

general, worthy to command the brave men who filled the ranks of his

army, the government might by this time have made the whole line of the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad of use, as a means of transporting troops

and munitions between Cincinnati and Baltimore,--a desideratum then, as

now, very strongly urged, as the shortest route between those points is

the circuitous one _via_ Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. It could have been

of great use, too, to Patterson's division of the army, in transporting

supplies from Baltimore, by the most natural and expeditious route. But

it was his plan to enter Virginia at Williamsport, so that all supplies

for his division must go from Baltimore and Philadelphia to Harrisburg,

and thence by rail to Hagerstown, where they were loaded upon army

wagons, and transported thus to and across the Potomac, and for fifteen

or twenty miles into Virginia, to the Federal camps, at very great

outlay and expense. So earnest did Gen. Patterson seem to be, either in

doing nothing, or else in causing all the expenditure possible.

These are the arguments which address themselves to our reason, as

bearing on the question of Patterson's success or failure, and as

explanatory of the latter. As before stated, they are urged, not to show

that Patterson should have possessed prophetic knowledge or any

extraordinary powers, but to illustrate his failure to understand what

was transpiring before his face and eyes. He is culpable, not because he

did not achieve impossibilities, but because he did not do what plain

common-sense seemed to require. The writer heard, among the Federal

camps, but one reason suggested for Patterson's neglect to occupy

Harper's Ferry in June, which was, that probably the rebels had

concealed sundry infernal machines in its vicinity, which would destroy

thousands of the Union soldiers at the proper time. This was building a

great military policy on a very small basis. If there was running

through Gen. Patterson's policy any such plan of military strategy, or,

in fact, any plan whatever, we have the curious spectacle presented of a

general of an army ignoring common-sense, and building up a plan of a

great campaign solely upon improbabilities. And it strikes us that this

may be the key to the general's system of warfare, and a very plain and

lucid explanation of his failure.

It is not deemed desirable here to treat of Patterson's other faults,

such as his indulgent treatment of rebel spies, his failure to

confiscate rebel property, and his distinguishing between the property

of rebels and loyalists, by placing strong guards over the former, and

neglecting to take equal care of the latter. Such acts only prove him to

be either more nice than wise, or less nice than foolish; unless we

argue him to be, as many do, a secret secessionist. But we leave it to

others to draw inferences as to his loyalty or disloyalty. Our task is

accomplished if we have shown that whether loyal or false, whether a

patriot or a traitor, his three months' campaign in Virginia proves him

unfit to be a commander, by revealing three great faults, each injuring

the cause he professed to aid, all combining to render his campaign a

failure, and two of the three assisting directly in our disaster at Bull

Run, and deepening that dark stain upon our national escutcheon. His

neglect to occupy Harper's Ferry in June, his failure to push on against

Johnston when there was an opportunity to injure him, and his cool

betrayal of the Unionists of Northern Virginia into the clutches of the

rebel Thugs, will place the name of Patterson by the side of the names

of Lee, Hull, Winder, and Buchanan, who, though not the open enemies of

their country, were its false and inefficient friends.

* * * * *

THE GAME OF FATE.

Ever above this earthly ball,

There sit two forms, unseen by all,

Playing, with fearful earnestness,

Through life and death, a game of chess.

Feather of pride and wolfish eye,

Judas-bearded, glancing sly;

Many a pawn you have gathered in,

Through circling ages of shame and sin!

Fair as an angel, tender and true,

Is he who measures his might with you;

Oft he has lost, in times long gone,

But ever the terrible game goes on.

But where are the chessmen to be found?--

Where the picket paces his dangerous round;

Where the general sits, with chart and map;

Where the scout is scrawling his hurried scrap.

Where the Cabinet weigh the chances dread;

Where the soldier sleeps with the stars o'erhead;

Where rifles are ringing the peal of death,

And the dying hero yields his breath.

Where the mother and sister in silence sit,

And far into midnight sew and knit,

And pray for the soldier-brother or son,--

God's blessing on all that the four have done!

Where the traitors plot, in foul debate,

To war with God and strive with fate;

Digging pitfalls to catch them slaves,--

Pitfalls, to serve for their own deep graves.

Where the Bishop-General proves that the rod

Which lashes women is blest of God.

There's a rod to come, ere the red leaves fall,

Which will swallow your rattlesnake, scales and all.

Where the wretched Northern renegade

On a Southern journal plies his trade,

Swearing and writing, with scowl or smile,

That all that is Yankee is low and vile.

Where the cowardly dough-face talks of war

But fears we are going a little too far;--

Hoping the North may win the fight,

But thinking the South is 'partially right.'

Where the trembling, panting contraband

Makes tracks in haste from the happy land;

And where the officer-gentlemen

Catch him and order him home again!

Where the sutler acts like an arrant scamp,

And aids the contractor to rob the camp;

Both of them serving the South in its sin,

And all of them helping the devil to win.

So the game goes on from day to day,

But there's ONE behind all who watches the play;

Well he knows who at last must beat,

And well he will reckon up every cheat.

Wolfish dark player, do your best!

There's a reckoning for you as well as the rest;

Eastward or westward your glance may wend,

But the devil always trips up in the end.

* * * * *

JONATHAN EDWARDS AND THE OLD CLERGY.

Of late years the attention of many thinking men has been much turned to

the early clergy of America. One reads of St. Peter's Church that,

notwithstanding its immense size above ground, it has an equal amount of

masonry under ground. Of the iceberg even more can be said, since its

submerged proportions are of vastly greater extent than its visible

surface. One may well inquire how much of American greatness is hidden

in its foundation. How massive indeed must be the hidden corner-stone on

which rests the structure of national character. New England is now

turning its attention to the histories of ancient families; genealogy is

no small feature in modern literature, and thus the age seems to confess

that such research is a token of advance.

I believe that the strength of our ancestors was owing to their pure and

simple piety; indeed, one can not go back even for a century without

meeting this element in clear developement. The old New England

preachers were of a character peculiarly adapted to the severe

exigencies of their day. They stood as iron men in an iron age. However

rude in other social features, the early settlers, as they worked their

way to the frontier, demanded the soothing influences of pastoral care,

and the first institution reared in the forest was the pulpit, the next

the school-house. The pastors were settled for life, and minister and

people abode in communion, with little change but that of age. In

seeking a field, the youth just launched into his profession

'candidated' among vacant churches, and was heard with solemn attention

by the selectmen and bench of deacons. Notes were taken by the more

fastidious for subsequent criticism, and the matter was discussed with

all the importance of a national treaty. When the call had been

accepted, the stipend was generally fixed at one hundred pounds, and a

rude parsonage opened its doors of welcome. To this was almost

invariably attached a farm, whose native sterility called for such

expenditure of toil that it might truly have been said,

'The furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke.'

These men indeed united mental and physical labor in a remarkable

degree. The long winters were devoted to study, to sermons, or to

meetings,--the summer to the plow and the harvest. One instance is on

record in which the entire stock of a year's sermons were written

between December and April. But, notwithstanding the inevitable drudgery

of such a life, the ministry was, upon the whole, noted for study. The

course held at Harvard required close application, and even at the

chapel exercises the Scriptures were daily read in the original

languages. These labors and studies are recorded in that quaintest of

all American books, Mather's Magnalia. Whatever be the pedantry and

vanity of its author, he is undeniably worthy of rank among the men whom

he chronicled. Indeed, the Mathers, father and son, illustrated a race

of rare moral and intellectual power. The first of these, who enjoyed

the profitable name of 'Increase,' was equally popular and successful as

president of Harvard or pastor of the church of Cambridge, and the son

takes little pains to conceal his filial pride as he blazons the virtues

of 'Crescentius Madderus.' He is particular in recording him as the

first American divine who received the honorary title D.D. As one looks

back upon the primitive days of the nascent university, he is struck by

the contrast between the present numerous and stately array of halls,

the magnificent library, and all the pomp of a modern commencement, and

the slender procession of rudely clad youth led by Increase Mather. As

they marched out of the old shaky college and filed into the antique

meeting-house, what would they have said to a glimpse of Gore Hall and

its surroundings? But those were the beginnings of greatness, simple as

they were.

The pages of the Magnalia are filled with portraits hit off in a

masterly style. Mather was a true 'Porte Crayon,' and knew how to bring

out salient points with a few happy touches. His picture-gallery is like

an ancient Valhalla, full of demigods. Among their characteristics are

strong contrasts. Here are piety and poverty and learning, hand in hand.

These men, as we have stated, could swing the axe, or chop logic, at a

moment's notice; could pull vegetables, or dig out Hebrew roots, with

alternate ease. Notwithstanding their long days of labor, their minds

kept their edge, being freshly set by incessant doctrinal disputations.

Such, indeed, was the public appetite for controversy that polemic

warfare never slumbered. Our view of their character is assisted by a

contrast with the English clergy of the same day, and which reveals

shameful deformities on the part of the latter--avarice, indolence, and

gluttony. Of such, Milton spake in Lycidas, with withering contempt, as

those who

'for their bellies' sake

Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold.'

If the Puritan poet be charged with prejudice, we have only to turn to

the pages of Macaulay for confirmation. Where, indeed, if this be true,

did Fielding obtain the originals for the ordinary at Newgate, or

'parson Trulliber' in Joseph Andrews?

Sad and strange was that disappointment which awaited the first

emigrants to Massachusetts Bay. But there was a divine mercy in it; they

came to seek peace, but a sword awaited them. I refer to the famous Anne

Wheelright controversy, which rent the infant settlement of Boston for

more than ten years. The excitement extended through the entire colony,

affording many a bitter and vindictive argument. The pulpit belabored it

in sermons of two hours' length, after which the deacons in their

official seats occasionally expatiated to audiences whose patience on

this theme was inexhaustible. As the controversy waxed hot, it got into

the hands of the civil authorities, and some of its disputants were

thrust into jail as heretical. Anna Wheelright was a woman of great

mental vigor, and could hold her own in a debate with her reverend

disputants. Unfortunate as this controversy may appear, it proved a

benefit, by sharpening the public mind to a prodigious degree. Indeed,

the very children of Boston could define the terms of the covenant of

grace. Weary of a controversy bordering on persecution, Anne Wheelright

sought a new home in the wilderness, and was subsequently murdered by

the Indians. But the force of mental exercise which she had put in

motion still continued. It is worthy of remark that almost the only

intellectual peculiarity to which Franklin refers, in speaking of his

father, is 'a turn for polemics.' The great features of New England

character were, at that day, opinion and faith. It was these, as boldly

and defiantly expressed, which excited the fears and jealousy of Charles

the Second, and instigated the deprival of the colonial charters.

The studious and prayerful habits of the clergy continued from

generation to generation, and their piety was most tender and touching

in their ministrations. We might dwell, had we time, on the Cottons, the

Mitchells, and the Sheppards, but, revered above all others, comes

before us the venerable form of John Elliott, the missionary, clad in

homespun apparel, his face shining with inward peace, while his silver

locks overhang his shoulders. He was the Nestor of divines, and the

character of his labors might be judged from his motto--' Prayers and

pains with faith in Christ Jesus can accomplish anything.' His efforts

and successes amongst the Indians were remarkable, and it was commonly

reported that he possessed the gift of prophecy. But he was not the only

man of that day who dwelt so close to the confines of the spiritual

world as to be alternately visited by angels and devils. Indeed, what

tales of the supernatural Mather relates, what a juxtaposition of saints

and demons! Of course, there was a foundation to build upon,--had not

Mather himself in his family for more than a year a possessed girl,

whose familiar haunted the house and made it ring at times like a

bedlam? It was a peculiar characteristic in this chapter of _diablerie_,

that when the Scriptures were being read, or prayers attended, the

spasms became terrific; but when any ungodly book was substituted in

place of the Bible, there was an immediate relief.

The age was one of wonders, and Mather devotes an entire book to what he

calls Thaumaturgia. Many of its statements are bold impositions on the

reader's credulity; but there was much which, in those days of

ignorance, must have seemed to Mather to be undeniable phenomena of a

mysterious nature. After the colony had escaped many minor dangers, a

new ordeal of suffering awaited it in a faith in sorcery, resulting in

the horrible episode of Salem witchcraft, which may be considered the

darkest stain upon the age. The death-beds and parting scenes in such a

community were cherished features in domestic history, and almost every

cottage could boast its Euthanasy. Ministering angels not only hovered

over the couch, but touched their harps in melodies, whose music

sometimes reached the human ear. Youth tender and inexperienced claimed

a share in these triumphs, and Nathanael Mather, though but seventeen,

expires in all the maturity of a saintly old age.

Coming down to the survivors of the first emigration, we find them

lingering amid the respect and veneration of the community, and their

graves were deemed worthy of patriarchal honor. After their departure

the ministry seems to have lost tone and fervor. The union of church and

state swept them into secularities, and thus impaired their strength. So

great was the decline, that by the close of the first century, formality

chilled the churches, and the people bewailed their coldness, while the

aged wept at the remembrance of by-gone days. Cotton Mather had

prophesied of a coming time when churches would have to be gathered _out

of the churches_ in the colony. The cry of the saints was 'Return, how

long, O Lord, and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.' Some of

the more hopeful maintained that the midnight only heralded an

approaching dawn. Two ministers on Long Island, Barber and Davenport,

had received divine assurance of a return of power, and held themselves

in anxious waiting. At last, brilliant flashes began to play athwart the

sky, and instead of the meteoric glare which some feared, it indicated

the purer sunbeam, in whose genial power the church was to rejoice for

more than a third of a century. Whitefield's advent sent a thrill

through all New England. He sailed from Charleston to Newport, where

venerable parson Clapp, tottering with age, welcomed him as though he

had been an angel of God. Whitefield's power was comparable to the

supernatural, and it was in this view John Foster, at a later day, found

the only solution of his success. In the pulpit his appearance and

manners exceeded the dreams of apostolic grace--a youth of elegant form,

with voice of enchanting melody, clear blue eyes, an endurance which

knew no exhaustion--a fancy which ranged both worlds--were all fused by

a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. Such was Whitefield at

twenty-five, and as such he was worthy of that ovation which he received

at Boston, when governor and council went out in form to welcome him.

The evangelist bore his honors meekly, and hospitality did not weaken

the vials of wrath which he poured upon the unfaithful. He found, as he

said, in New England 'a darkness which might be felt.' At Cambridge, he

thundered at the deadness of Harvard and its faculty, and electrified

the land by striking at its glory. The hearers alternately wept and

shivered, and the professors, headed by old Dr. Holyoke (who afterwards

lived to celebrate his hundredth birthday), levelled a defensive and

aggressive pamphlet at their castigator; but Governor Belcher kissed the

dauntless preacher, and bade him 'cry aloud and spare not, but show the

people their sins.'

The second century, like the first, opened with fierce ecclesiastical

tumult. Whitefield's itineracy, like the blazing cross in the Lady of

the Lake, was the signal for an uprising. Fired by his passionate

oratory, the masses revolted from the chill formalism of a dead

ministry. The effect of the excitement which pervaded New England, when

considered merely as an appetizer of the intellect, can not be

over-estimated, and the vigor which the colonial mind thus acquired

astonished in an after day the dullards of the British Parliament. The

chief throb was felt in Connecticut, where strolling preachers of a new

order held forth in barns and school-houses. Among these imitators of

Whitefield were some men of high character, such as Tennant and Finley

(afterwards president of Nassau Hall, Princeton), while others were

frenzied enthusiasts. Davenport, the chief of these, was 'a

heavenly-minded youth,' whose usefulness was wrecked by fanaticism. In

his journey he was attended by one whom he called his armor-bearer, and

their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the

excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been

perpetuated by his admirers; it was a nasal twang, which had great

effect. A law was passed against those irregularities, and Davenport was

thrown into Hartford jail, where he sang hymns all night, to the great

admiration of his friends. On being released he went to Lyme, where,

after sermon, a bonfire of idols was made, to which the women

contributed their ornaments and fine dresses, and the men their vain

books. This religious movement was marred by much evil; yet its fruits,

as we have stated, were found in that mental strength which subsequently

bore the brunt of the Revolution. Its excited scenes are hit off by such

reports as these,--'Sally Sparhawk fell and was carried out of meeting;'

this statement being frequently repeated. The style of preaching in

vogue may be imagined when we read of Tennant's appearance in the

pulpit, with long locks flowing down his back, his gaunt form encased in

a coarse garment, girt about the loins with a leathern girdle, in

imitation of the prophet Elijah. His discourses were 'awful and solemn,'

and the houses were crowded, though the cold was so intense as to sheet

Long Island Sound with ice. Other memorials of this great awakening are

found in Edwards' thrilling sermons, such as 'Sinners in the hands of an

angry God,' 'Wicked men only useful in their destruction,' etc. For

years after, the grand idea of New England was piety and good morals,

and as there were no journals, except here and there a dwarfed weekly,

the power of the pulpit was unrivaled. Religion was a common theme in

every house. As a result, it is stated that during the whole Revolution,

there was but one case of wilful murder in Massachusetts, and Dwight

informs us that up to his day there had never been a lawsuit in

Northampton, nor a loss by fire in which the damage was not mutually

shared by the citizens. He also adds that on a given Sabbath five-sixths

of the community were found in meeting. The minister in each town was

supported by tax, and being in some sense a public officer, the ceremony

of ordination was sometimes celebrated with procession and band of

music.

Jonathan Edwards, the great light of New England, at this time could

have been found in a quiet village on the Connecticut, whence his fame

had already spread to the mother country. How Northampton gloried in her

matchless preacher! For sixty years his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard,

had labored there. Let us linger a moment over those scenes which,

though fled like a dream, once witnessed the joys and sorrows of a

lifetime. Here in this retired street stands the weather-stained

parsonage, graced by a pair of saplings, planted by his own hands, to

which Northampton points as 'the Edwards elms,' and which now fling

giant shadows across the lawn. This dwelling, though scant of

furniture, is passing rich in its domestic treasures. Here is a wife of

lustrous beauty, sweet of disposition, fervent of spirit, and 'mighty in

prayer.' She is a matchless judge of sermons, wise in human nature, and

being wiser still in grace, must long rank as a model of the ministerial

wife. Here, too, is her group of daughters, well worthy of such

parentage, Esther, Sarah, Mary, and Jerusha, all beautiful and artless

as herself. Here a world of daily interest is found in the studies and

duties of a New England home. But who is he, of tall and attenuated

form, whose days are passed in his solitary study, secluded like a

hermit from the common experience of life? Like Moses, he is slow of

speech, and might be considered almost severe of countenance. The

lineaments tell their story of childlike simplicity of character, and

yet they are inspired by an expression of power, which at first seems

repellant. Those large black eyes seem to pierce and read on every

thought. I have referred to this family in a previous article,[D] but

would now speak at more length of its paternal head. This man has but

two pursuits, study and prayer. Of the outer world he has ever remained

in blissful ignorance, and even of his own parish he only knows what he

has learned of his wife. He has no 'turn' for visiting, and can not

afford time for vain talk. The secret of this is, that he breathes an

atmosphere of his own; his soul is like a star, and dwells apart. Behold

him seated at his table, jotting down casual thoughts on the backs of

letters and scraps of paper (for paper is very dear); he is building up

some great argument, whose vast proportions will in due time be

developed, like the uncovering of a colossus. Beware, Mr. Solomon

Williams of Hatfield, and you, Chubb and Tyndal, and John Taylor of

Norwich, for you will each and all of you find your master in this

secluded parson. Thirteen hours per day are given to study, and this has

been the average for years.

And _such_ study to create realities out of the fogs of metaphysics, and

to span the concrete and the abstract with a bridge such as Milton threw

across space. This man can spend hours in pursuit of 'volitions' with

all the excitement of the chamois-hunt. Now his eye brightens, for he

has transfixed an idea, and holds it up in all the nicety of artistic

touch, while he dissects it to its ramifications. It is all _con amore_

with him, though his readers will need a clue to the maze of intricate

reasoning.

One can not pass through the streets of Northampton, so broad, so rural,

and so picturesque, without being overshadowed by that memory, which may

be expressed in the sweet lines of Longfellow,--

'Here in patience and in sorrow, laboring still with busy hand,

Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the better land.'

It is gratifying to know that his memory is honored in Northampton by

the naming of a church, though all may not understand the connection.

The old 'meeting-house' (for the Puritans used the word church only in a

spiritual sense) stood fronting the site of the present enormous

edifice. It was torn down in 1812. Here for nearly a quarter of a

century the tall form, and face pale and meagre from intense thinking,

appeared each Sabbath before a people among whom his recluse habits

rendered him almost a stranger. Here, having rested upon the desk, upon

the elbow of his left arm, whose hand held a tiny book of closely

written MS., he read with stooping form and low tones those solemn

arguments and tremendous appeals which now thrill us from the printed

page. Each of those tiny books was a sermon. Many of these are still

preserved, and Dr. Tryon Edwards, of New London, has a chest filled with

these memorials of his great ancestor. They are written in so fine a

hand as to be hardly legible except to one practiced in their

deciphering--a result of the extreme economy of one who, with all

carefulness, was the largest consumer of paper and ink in New England.

Solemn as was the deportment of this reverend man, sundry practical

jokes at his expense are on record. It is said that the house dog was

his close attendant, and on Sabbath day would invade even the pulpit in

search of his master. Hence he was carefully fastened during 'holy

time.' On one occasion, however, some wag not only loosed the animal,

but actually garnished his neck with a pair of ministerial bands. The

poor dog, unwitting of his sacred insignia, made his way into the pulpit

without being noticed by his absent minded master, until some one showed

him the dog, _a la parson_, perched up behind him on the pulpit bench.

As a public speaker Edwards' delivery was the minimum of force, and in

this feature he admitted his utter failure. Indeed, when driven from

Northampton, he replied to Erskine's invitation to remove to Scotland,

that he was assured that his style would not be acceptable. After his

dismission, the sorrows of poverty fell heavily upon him, and he writes

to the same correspondent that 'he and his large and helpless family

were to be cast upon the world.' A collection was made for him in

Scotland, and forwarded at this time of need. The Scottish saints,

indeed, held strong sympathy with the colonies, and it was their

'benefactions' which supported the mission of Brainerd, the most

successful of modern days. Edwards remained more than a year at

Northampton after leaving its pulpit, and was humbled by seeing the

people assemble to hear sermons read by laymen in preference to his own

ministrations. What a bitter cup this must have been: but Sarah cheered

his heart, and grace reigned. In the mean time the girls wrought fancy

work, which was sent to Boston, and sold in their behalf, and thus they

were spared from want. Subsequently he was appointed missionary to the

Stockbridge Indians. It was Orpheus among the wild beasts, but without

his success. President Wayland quotes this fact in order to support a

theory which is palpably false, that a preacher should not be much above

the literary platform of his people; whereas, Edwards' ill success was

in a large measure owing to the troubles and opposition incident to

frontier life. With all his sorrows, however, he had one great

satisfaction. His chief assailant, Joseph Ashley, of Northampton, who

had borne so large a part in his expulsion, came in deep penitence, and

besought his forgiveness, which was granted with Christian tenderness.

Ashley's compunctions continued, and after Edwards' death increased in

horror so greatly that to obtain relief he published to the world an

explicit confession of his sins against 'that eminent servant of God.'

Edwards, like Milton, had long meditated a work which 'the world would

not willingly let die,' but, although he had for some years been

gathering materials, yet it was not until his removal to Stockbridge

that he addressed himself fully to the mighty task of authorship. His

habits of abstraction grew upon him amazingly during this effort, and

the notable Sarah sheltered him from intrusion, and anticipated his

wants. She was conscious of the greatness of the work with which he had

grappled, and stood by his side like a guardian angel while he

demolished errorists. It was her custom after the labors of the day to

steal up to the study, where, like Numa and Egeria, they held serene

communion. This was his sole medium of secular information, for in his

occasional walks he was like one in a dream. The whole man was engrossed

in what he alone could perform; indeed, to reconcile liberty and

necessity were a task for which he seemed providentially set apart. But

beneath these arguments, which rise Alp on Alp, there lurked a quiet

perception of humor, and the _reductio ad absurdum_, which he

occasionally drives home, showed the keenness of Puritan wit. How he

must have smiled, nay even laughed, in the midst of his abstractions at

that[E] metaphysical animal which illustrates the absurdity of his

opponents. When 'The Freedom of the Will' was finished, and the author

had sent it forth to do battle, he felt that the work of his life was

done.

Just at this time a deputation waited on him to solicit his acceptance

of the presidency of Nassau Hall. It was a strange sight to that rude

hamlet of Stockbridge--those reverend forms finishing their long journey

at the feet of the poor exiled missionary. When their errand was

announced, he burst into tears, overcome by a sense of unworthiness, and

in a subsequent letter he confirms his unfitness by reference to his

'flaccid solids and weak and sizy fluids.' But the demand was pressed,

and Northampton learns with astonishment the exaltation of her banished

pastor. The successful deputation possessed one member of rare interest.

This was John Brainerd, who had succeeded his brother David as a

missionary, and whom Edwards had met ten years before at the bedside of

his dying brother. David would have been, had both lived, the husband of

Jerusha--but now they slept side by side in Northampton burial-ground,

and the surviving brother reappeared bearing this invitation. It was one

not easily resisted; and so, amid dangers and infirmity, he was fain to

say,

'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'

Before another spring, a higher glory awaited him; and the same year,

five of his family, including the incomparable Sarah, were likewise

'received up.' A sad year was that to Princeton and to the church.

We have stated our opinion, that the activity of the New England mind

arose from the digestion of strong doctrine; that very activity now

generated a new style of preaching, which may be termed the metaphysical

school. The days of _thaumaturgia_ were passed, and in place of

discussing demonology and temptation, an appetite for subtle dogma

prevailed. I doubt if Britain and Germany, with their combined

universities, could have equaled, during the last century, the New

England pulpit in mental acuteness or philosophical discrimination. A

reference to Edwards recalls mention among his followers of such names

as Smally, Bellamy, Emmons, and Hopkins. Those who listened to the

preaching of such men could not avoid becoming thinkers, and thought has

made our country what it is. Very possibly what is known as 'Yankee

ingenuity' arose from the thinking habits of careful sermon-hearers. A

man who could follow the subtle theories of the pulpit, could think out

the most elaborate machinery. Next to Jonathan Edwards, Dr. Emmons

possessed the most philosophical mind of the age. So severe and

invincible is his logic, that it is said that the New Haven lawyers

often sharpened their minds on Emmons' sermons. His scheme of making God

the author of sin may be considered one of the errors of a great mind. A

modern novelist has placed old Dr. Hopkins among the characters of a

romance. But however great may be the powers of Mrs. Stowe, it was quite

impossible for an æsthetic and poetic mind to grasp that bundle of

dried-up syllogisms which once occupied the Newport pulpit. Hopkins had

preached the church at Great Barrington empty, and that of Newport died

by lingering degrees. Only to think of that tall, ungainly form, the

head covered with a linen cap, stiff and white, coming forth like an

apparition once a week to the public gaze. We do not wonder at the

child's inquiry '_if it was God that stood up there_.' Hopkins' scheme

of 'indifferent affection' was a grand conception, but as unnatural as

grand: yet it showed an amazing boldness for a public teacher to lay

down as a postulate that a willingness to be damned was a condition of

salvation.

From a survey of the earlier clergy, even as superficial as the present

one, we are struck with its ambition of a lofty range of doctrine. They

'reasoned high

Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,

Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,

And found no end in wandering mazes lost.

Of good and evil much they argued then,

Of happiness, and final misery,

Passion, and apathy, glory, and shame.'

The highest tribute which Milton could offer the fallen angels was that

mental power which survived the general wreck. And no lesser flight

would have satisfied the subjects of this sketch. Their lifelong effort

was still to climb higher, ever exclaiming

'--Paula majora canamus.'

Their services in the cause of public education are beyond our

appreciation, and it may be well for us to remember that Harvard, Yale,

Williams, Union, Princeton, Amherst, Hanover, and other institutions,

sprang from the bold philanthrophy of men so poor as often to be objects

of pity. They saw that knowledge is power, and that power they would not

only possess, but bequeath to coming generations.

Long as these rambles have been, they would still be incomplete without

a tribute to the influence of wives and mothers which soothed and

mellowed the sterner aspect of primitive life; but this can only be

referred to as a theme worthy of distinct treatment. It should not be

forgotten that the children reared under such influences have often been

counted worthy of the highest stations of honor and trust; and although

the scapegrace character of ministers' sons is a common fling, yet

careful research has proved that it has many and brilliant exceptions.

While penning these pages, my mind has often wandered over ancient

burial-grounds where pastor and people sleep side by side. One may find

them in every New England town, and they chain with a spell of which the

modern cemetery with its showy marbles knows nothing! We turn from the

fresh mortality, which chills us with its recent sorrows, to those massy

headstones whose faint inscriptions tell of generations long since freed

from toil. Here one may find the rude monuments of those who still walk

the earth and lead its progress, and here the heart may run over, as

Byron says,

'With silent worship of the great of old!

The dead but sceptered sovereigns who still rule

Our spirits from their urns.'

* * * * *

HEMMING COTTON.

'Hem them in!' is the country's cry;

See how the bayonet needles fly!

Nothing neglect and nothing leave,

Hem them in from the skirt to sleeve.

Little they reek of scratch or hurt

Who toil at hemming the Southern shirt;

Little they'll care, as they shout aloud,

If the Southern shirt prove a Southern shroud.

Hurrah for the needles sharp and thin!

Cotton is saved by hemming it in.'

* * * * *

ONE OF MY PREDECESSORS.

No books have quite the same fascination for me as the narratives of old

travelers. Give me a rainy day, a state of affairs which renders the

performance of a more serious task impossible, and a volume of Hakluyt

or Purchas, or even of Pinkerton's agreeable collection, and I

experience a condition of felicity which leaves Gray and his new novel

far in the background. For I thus not only behold again the familiar

scenery of the earth,--never forgetting a landscape that I have once

seen,--but I am also a living participant in the adventures of those who

have wandered the same paths, hundreds of years before. I visit

Constantinople while the Porphyrogenite emperors still sit upon the

throne of the East; I look upon the barbaric court of Muscovy before the

name of Russia is known in the world; I make acquaintance with Genghis

Khan at Karakorum, and with Aurungzebe at Delhi; I invade Japan with

Kampfer, penetrate the Arctic Seas with Barentz, or view the gardens of

Ispahan in the company of the gallant Sir John Chardin.

This taste was not the cause, but is the result, of my own experience.

My far-off, unknown Arab progenitor says, in one of his poems: 'Fly thy

home, and journey, if thou strivest for great deeds. Five advantages

thou wilt at least procure by traveling. Thou wilt have pleasure and

profit; thou wilt enlarge thy prospects, cultivate thyself, and acquire

friends. It is better to be dead, than, like an insect, to remain always

chained to the same spot of earth.' In the Middle Ages, and especially

among the members of the enlightened Saracenic race, the instinct of

travel was mainly an instinctive desire for education. There was no

other school of knowledge so complete and practical, in the dearth of

books and the absence of other than commercial intercourse between the

ends of the earth, I fancy that this instinct, skipping over some

centuries, reappeared, in my case, in its original form; for it was not

until after I had seen a large portion of the earth, that I became

acquainted with the narratives of my predecessors, and recognized my

kinship with them. With the ghost of the mercantile Marco Polo, or those

of the sharp fellows, Bernier and Tavernier, I do not anticipate much

satisfaction, in the next world; but--if they are not too far off--I

shall shake hands at once with the old monk Rubruquis, and the Knight

Arnold von der Harff, and the far traveled son of the Atlas, Ibn Batuta.

These old narratives have a charm for me, which I do not find in the

works of modern tourists. There is an honest homeliness and unreserve

about them, which I would not exchange for any graces of style. The

writers need no apologetic or explanatory preface; they sit down with

the pressure of a solemn duty upon them. When much of the world was but

dimly known, the man who had reached India, China, or the Islands of the

Sea, and returned to describe his adventures, made his narrative a

matter of conscience, and justly considered that he had added something

to the stock of human knowledge. The world of fable had not then

contracted into as narrow limits as at present; foreign countries were

full of marvels, and science had not made clear the phenomena of nature.

The old travelers had all the wonder and the credulity of children. All

was fish that came to their nets, and their works are singular compounds

of personal adventure, historical episodes, statistics of trade, and

reflections on the laws, manners and religions of races, interwoven with

many astonishing stories, and with the most amusing conjectures and

speculations. Their sincerity is apparent on every page. How delightful

is that remark of honest old Bernal Diaz, when, in describing the

battle of Tlascala, he states that many of the Spanish soldiers believed

that St. James and St. Thomas fought in person against the pagans, and

adds, in the simplicity of his heart, 'Sinner that I am, it was not

given to my eyes to behold either the one or the other of those holy

persons.' Montanus, in his travels through Muscovy, speaks of a

wonderful plant on the borders of Tartary, which resembled a

pumpkin-vine in appearance, only that instead of pumpkins it produced

lambs covered with wool. He calls this 'a mighty pleasant story,' but

takes care to say that he had never seen with his own eyes the lambs

growing upon the vines, but only the wool thereof, which the natives

manufactured into garments.

Another characteristic of the old books of travel is, that they are,

unconsciously, autobiographical. The honest pilgrim, in his desire to

give a faithful description of new lands, is little aware that he is all

the time describing himself as well. His prejudice, his likings, his

disappointments and aspirations are all transparently revealed to us,

and through him we lay hold on the living character of his age. We

follow him, step by step, on his slow and wearisome journey, enjoying

his fatigues and dangers with the better zest, since we know in advance

that he reached home safely at last. One of the most popular modern

books of travel--Eothen--is a poem which gives us the very atmosphere

and odor of the Orient, but nothing more; and the author floats before

our vision in so dim and wraith-like a manner, that many readers have

doubted whether the work was founded on actual experience. On the other

hand, those old narratives, of which Robinson Crusoe is the ideal type,

bear unmistakable stains of the soil on every page. You not only feel

the vital personality of the traveler, but you would distinguish his

doublet and hose among a thousand. He does not soar, with an airy grace,

from one hill-top to another, picking out for you a choice scene here

and there, as he skims the land--he plods along the road, laboriously

and with muddy shoes, and sees the common much oftener than the sublime.

In all that concerns man, indeed, a much plainer speech was permitted to

the old traveler. There were no squeamish readers in those days, and

hence, in some respects, he is too candid for modern taste. But it often

happens that precisely the characteristics or customs of strange races

which are of most value to the anthropologist, belong to those cryptic

mysteries of human nature, to which, in our refined age, one is

prohibited from referring. At least, the absence of constraint--the

possibility of entire frankness, even though the writer should have no

occasion to avail himself of the privilege--imparts a rare loveliness

and raciness to the narrative. On the other hand, in modern works which

I have tested by my own personal knowledge of the subject, I have been

quite as much struck with the amount of suppressed as with that of

expressed truth. Mansfield Parkyns and Captain Burton, I have no doubt,

will bear me out in this statement. Why has no African explorer, for

instance, yet ventured to announce the fact,--at once interesting and

important,--that if a traveler in the central regions of that continent

could be accompanied by his wife, the chances of his success would be

greatly improved? In the apparent celibacy of explorers, barbarous races

perceive simply an absence or perversion of the masculine instinct,

which at once excites their distrust.

Let me resume the volume which I have laid down to pursue the foregoing

reflections, and, while the eastern storm drives through the autumn

woods, hurling its mingled volume of rain and leaves against my window,

ask the reader to look over my shoulder and follow with me for a while

the pilgrimage of Abou Abdallah Mohammed, better known under the name of

Ibn Batuta,--'may God be satisfied with him, and confound those who have

an aversion towards him!'--to apply to himself his own invocation in

favor of another.

Ibn Batuta, a native of Tangier, in Morocco, unquestionably takes the

first rank among the travelers of the Middle Ages, if we consider the

distances he traversed, the remote points he reached, or the number of

years consumed by his wanderings. From Pekin to Timbuctoo, from the

Volga to the Ganges, from Bukhara to Zanzibar, he vibrated to and fro,

making himself acquainted, with the exception of Christian Europe, with

the greater part of the known world. He touched, in many directions, the

borderland of darkness, beyond which the earth fell off precipitously

into chaotic depths which no mortal might explore. Having reached home

again after uncounted perils, he sat down to tell the story of his

adventures. Many of his notes had been lost by the way, and he was

obliged to depend mainly on his memory; but as this is a faculty which

all genuine travelers must not only possess, but cultivate by constant

exercise, his narrative is remarkably clear, complete, and truthful.

Born on the 24th of February, 1304, he set out, in his twenty-second

year, on a pilgrimage to Mecca, traversing the Barbary States and Egypt

on the way. Once fairly launched in the world, twenty-four years elapsed

before he again saw his native town. He explored the various provinces

of Arabia; visited Syria, Persia, and Armenia; resided for a while in

Southern Russia (Kipchak), then belonging to princes of the line of

Genghis Khan; traveled by land to Constantinople, where he was presented

to the emperor; repeated his pilgrimage to Mecca, and reached Zanzibar.

Then, returning, he made his way to Bukhara, and through Afghanistan to

the Indus; exercised, for two years, the functions of a _Kadi_, or

judge, at Delhi; was appointed by the Sultan Mohammed, the son of Togluk

Khan, on an embassy to the emperor of China, but, missing the Chinese

vessel, was obliged to remain a year and a half among the Maldive

Islands. Nothing daunted by the delay, he started again, by way of

Ceylon and the Indian Archipelago, and finally succeeded in reaching

Pekin. He appears to have returned to Tangier in the year 1349, and to

have taken up his residence soon afterwards in Granada, under the

protection of the caliph Yusef. His thirst for exploration, however, was

not yet quenched, and in two years he was ready to undertake a second

journey of greater difficulty and danger. Leaving Fez with a caravan, in

the year 1351, he crossed the Sahara, and spent three years in Central

Africa, visiting the great cities Melli and Timbuctoo. He was thus the

first to give the world an authentic account of those regions. His

descriptions correspond, in almost all respects, with those given by the

travelers of modern times.

Ibn Batuta returned to Morocco in 1354, and there remained until his

death, in 1378. During the year after his arrival, he dictated the

history of his travels to Ibn Djozay, a young Moorish poet, who, having

been unjustly treated by Yusef, in Granada, fled to Fez, where he was

appointed secretary to the Sultan, Abau Inau Faris. The latter, it

appears, commanded that the work should be written, and it was also, no

doubt, by his order that Ibn Djozay became the amanuensis of our

traveler. 'He was recommended,' says the introduction, 'to bestow great

care on the correctness and elegance of the style, to render it clear

and intelligible, in order that the reader may better enjoy the rare

adventures, and draw the greatest profit from the pearl, after it shall

have been extracted from its shell!' To Ibn Djozay, therefore, we are

indebted for the abundant poetic quotations interspersed throughout the

work--the ornaments which hang, sometimes with curious effect, on the

plain, straight-forward story which Ibn Batuta tells us. Making the

usual allowance for Oriental exaggeration, and the occasional confusion

which must occur in a memory so overcharged, we do not hesitate to

pronounce the work worthy of all credit. Burkhardt, Seetzen, and Carl

Ritter have expressed their entire confidence in the fidelity of the

narrative.

This interesting work was known to European scholars, until quite

recently, in a fragmentary condition, frequently disfigured by errors of

transcription. Since the French occupation of Algiers, however, two or

three perfect copies have been discovered, one of which, now in the

Imperial Library at Paris, bears the autograph of Ibn Djozay. The

publications of the _Société Asiatique_ furnish us with the narrative,

carefully collated, and differing but slightly, in all probability, from

the original text. Let us now run over it, freely translating for the

reader as we go. The introduction, which is evidently from the elegant

hand of the amanuensis, is so characteristic that we must extract a few

Title and all, it opens as follows:

A PRESENT MADE TO OBSERVERS,

TREATING OF THE

CURIOSITIES OFFERED BY THE CITIES AND

OTHER WONDERS ENCOUNTERED IN

TRAVEL.

'In the name of God, the Clement, the Merciful: Behold what says the

Shekh, the judge, the learned man, the truthful, the noble, the devout,

the very benevolent, the guest of God; who has acquitted himself of the

visit to the holy places, to the honor of religion; who, in the course

of his travels, has placed his confidence in the Lord of all

creatures--Abou Abdallah Mohammed, son of Abdallah, son of Ibrahim

Allewatee Alhandjee, known under the name of Ibn Batuta: may God be

merciful to him, and be content with him, in his great bounty and

generosity! Amen.

'Praise be to God, who has subjected the earth to those who serve him,

in order that they may march by spacious roads--who has placed them on

the earth, and there located the three vicissitudes of their destiny:

the creation, the return to the earth, and the resurrection from its

bowels. He has extended it by his power, and it has become a bed for his

servants. He has fixed it by means of inaccessible mountains, of

considerable elevation, and has raised over it the summit of heaven,

unsupported by a pillar. He has made the stars to appear as a guide in

the midst of the darkness of the land and the sea; he has made a lamp of

the moon, and a torch of the sun. From heaven he has caused waters to

descend, which vivified the ground when it was dried up. He has made all

varieties of fruits to grow, and has created diversified regions, giving

them all sorts of plants. He has caused the two seas to flow--one of

sweet and refreshing waters, the other salt and bitter. He has completed

his bounties towards his creatures, in subjecting to them the camels,

and in submitting to them the ships, similar to mountains, serving them

as vehicles, instead of the surface of the desert, or the back of the

sea.'

After having, in like manner, pronounced a benediction on Mohammed, the

Prophet's friends, and all others in any way connected with him, he

greets the Sultan of Morocco with a panegyric so dazzling, so

unapproachable in the splendor of its assertions, that we must quote it

as a standard whereby all similar compositions may be measured, sure

that it will maintain its pre-eminence through all time.

'It is his reign (that of Abou Inau Faris) which has cured Religion of

her sickness, which has caused the sword of Injustice to return into the

scabbard whence it had been drawn, which has corrected fortune, when it

had been corrupted, and which has procured custom for the markets of

Science, formerly given up to stagnation. He has rendered manifest the

rules of piety when they would have been obliterated; he has calmed the

regions of the earth when they were agitated; he has caused the

tradition of acts of generosity to revive after his death; he has

occasioned the death of tyrannic customs; he has abated the flame of

discord at the moment when it was most enkindled; he has destroyed the

commands of tyranny, when they exercised an absolute power; he has

elevated the edifices of equity on the pillars of the fear of God, and

has assured himself, by the strongest evidences, that he possesses

confidence in the Eternal. His reign possesses a glory, the crown

whereof is placed on the forehead of Orion, and an illumination which

covers the Milky Way with the skirts of his robe; a beneficence which

has given a new youth to the age; a justice which incloses the righteous

within its vast tent; a liberality similar to a cloud which waters at

once the leaves that have fallen from the trees and the trees

themselves; a courage which, even when the clouds shed torrents of rain,

causes a torrent of blood to flow; a patience which never tires of

hoping; a prudence which prevents his enemies from approaching his

pastures; a resolution which puts their troops to flight before the

action commences; a mildness which delights to pluck pardon from the

tree of crime; a goodness which gains him all hearts; a science, the

lustre whereof enlightens the darkest difficulties; a conduct

conformable to his sincerity, and acts conformable to his designs!'

Let us here take a long breath, and rest a minute. O, Abou Inau Faris!

we envy the blessed people that were gathered under thy wing; we weep

for our degenerate age, wherein thy like is nowhere to be found. No

wonder that Ibn Batuta declares that he lays aside forever his pilgrim's

staff--that, after traversing the Orient, he sits down under the full

moon of the Occident, preferring it to all other regions, 'as one

prefers gold-dust to the sands of the highway.' We, too, had we found

such a ruler, would have laid aside our staff, and taken the oath of

allegiance.

The traveler gives us the day of his departure from home: June 14, 1325.

'I was alone,' says he, 'without a companion with whom I could live

familiarly, without a caravan of which I could have made part; but I was

forced onward by a spirit firm in its resolution, and the desire of

visiting the Holy Places was implanted in my bosom. I therefore

determined to separate myself from my friends of both sexes, and I

abandoned my home as the birds abandon their nest. My father and mother

were still alive. I resigned myself, with grief, to separate from them,

and this was a common cause of sorrow. I was then in my twenty-second

year.'

Having safely reached the town of Tlemeen, he found two ambassadors of

the king of Tunis, about to set out on their return, and attached

himself to their suite. On arriving at Bougie, he was attacked with a

violent fever, and was advised to remain behind. 'No,' said the

determined youth, 'if God wills that I should die, let me die on the

road to Mecca,' and pushed on, through Constantina and Bona, in such a

state of weakness that he was obliged to unwind his turban and bind

himself to his saddle, in order to avoid falling from the horse. He thus

reached Tunis, in a state of extreme exhaustion and despondency. 'No one

saluted me,' says he, 'for I was not acquainted with a single person

there. I was seized with such an emotion of sadness that I could not

suppress my sobs, and my tears flowed in abundance. One of the pilgrims,

remarking my condition, advanced towards me, saluting and comforting me.

He did not cease to cheer me up with his conversation, until I had

entered the city.'

In a short time, he seems to have recovered both his health and spirits;

for, on reaching the town of Sefakos, he married the daughter of one of

the syndics of the corporation of Tunis. This proceeding strikes us as a

singular preparation for a long and dangerous journey, but it is a

preliminary which would immediately suggest itself to a Mussulman of

good character. In fact, it was equivalent in those days--and still

would be, in some parts of the Orient--to a proclamation of his

respectability. Ibn Batuta, however, was not fortunate in this

matrimonial adventure. Two months afterwards, he naïvely informs us:

'There arose such a disagreement between myself and my father-in-law,

that I was obliged to separate from my wife. I thereupon married the

daughter of an official of Fez. The marriage was consummated at the

castle of Zanah, and I celebrated it by a feast, for which I detained

the caravan for a whole day.'

After this announcement, he is silent concerning his domestic relations.

Perhaps the number of his connubial changes was too great to be

recorded; perhaps no son was born to establish his honor among men;

perhaps, with increasing sanctity, he forswore the sex. The last

conjecture is probably correct, as it tallies with the reputation for

wisdom and purity which he gradually acquired.

Finally, in April, 1326, our traveler reached Alexandria, the first

strange city which impressed him by its size and splendor. 'Alexandria,'

says he, 'is a jewel whereof the brilliancy is manifest--a virgin which

sparkles with her ornaments. She illumines the Occident with her

splendor: she unites the most diverse beauties, on account of her

situation midway between the Rising and the Setting.' At that time the

celebrated Pharos was still standing, and the following description of

it, though not very clear, will interest the reader: 'It is a square

edifice, which towers into the air. Its gate is raised above the surface

of the earth, and opposite to it there is an edifice of similar height,

which serves to support planks, across which one must wait to arrive at

the gate of the Pharos. When these planks are taken away, there is no

means of crossing. Inside of the entrance is a space where the guardian

of the edifice is stationed. The interior of the Pharos contains many

apartments. Each of its four sides is a hundred and forty spans in

length. The building is situated on a high hill, one parasang from the

city, and on a tongue of land which the sea surrounds on three sides.

One can therefore only reach the Pharos from the land side, by leaving

the city. I directed my course towards the Pharos a second time, on my

return to the West, in the year 1349, and I found that its ruin was

complete, so that one could neither enter, nor even reach the gate.'

Commencing with Alexandria, Ibn Batuta is careful, in every city which

he visits, to give an account of the distinguished _shekhs_ or _imams_,

with characteristic anecdotes of their saintly or miraculous lives. The

value and interest of these sketches reconcile us to the brevity of his

descriptions. He tells us, for example, that the _kadi_ (judge) of

Alexandria, who was likewise a master of the art of eloquence, 'covered

his head with a turban which surpassed in volume all the turbans then to

be seen. I have never beheld, neither in the East nor the West, one so

voluminous. He was one day seated in a mosque, before the pulpit, and

his turban filled almost the entire space.' At the town of Fooah, in the

Delta, on his way to Cairo, occurred his first marvelous adventure.

'During the night,' says he, 'while I slept on the roof of the dwelling

of the shekh Abou Abdallah, I saw myself, in a dream, carried on the

wing of a great bird, which flew in the direction of Mecca, then in that

of Yemen; then it transported me to the East, after which it passed

towards the South; then it flew again far to the East, alighted upon a

dark and misty country, and there abandoned me. I was amazed at this

vision, and said to myself, "If the shekh can interpret my dream, he is

truly as holy as he is said to be." When I presented myself, in the

morning, to take part in the early prayer, he charged me to take the

lead, in the quality of _imam_. Afterwards he called me to him, and

explained my dream; in fact, when I had related it to him, he said:

"Thou wilt make the pilgrimage to Mecca, thou wilt visit the tomb of the

Prophet, thou wilt traverse Yemen, Irak, the country of the Turks, and

India; thou wilt remain a long time in the latter country, where thou

wilt see my brother Dilehad, who will extricate thee from an affliction

into which thou shalt fall." Having spoken, he provided me with money,

and small biscuits for the journey. I said my farewells and departed.

Since I left him, I have experienced nothing but good treatment in the

course of my travels, and his benedictions always came to my aid.'

Passing over the traveler's visit to Damietta and the other towns of the

Delta, let us hear his enthusiastic description of Cairo, at the time of

its greatest prosperity: 'Finally, I reached the city of Cairo, the

metropolis of the country and the ancient residence of Pharaoh the

Impaler; mistress of rich and extended regions, attaining the utmost

limits of possibility in the multitude of its population, and exalting

itself on account of its beauty and splendor. It is the rendezvous of

travelers, the station of the weak and the powerful. Thou wilt there

find all that thou desirest--the wise and the ignorant, the industrious

and the trifling, the mild or the angry, men of low extraction or of

lofty birth, the illustrious and the obscure. The number of its

inhabitants is so considerable that their currents resemble those of an

agitated sea, and the city lacks very little of being too small to

contain them, notwithstanding its extent and capacity. Although founded

long since, it enjoys a youth forever renewed; the star of its horoscope

does not cease to inhabit a fortunate house. It is in speaking of Cairo

that Wasr ed-deen has written:

"It is a paradise in truth; its gardens ever smile,

Adorned and fed so plenteously by all the waves of Kile,

Which, fretted by the blowing wind, from shore across to shore,

Mimic the armor's azure scales the prophet David wore;

Within its fluid element the naked fear to glide,

And ships, like winged heavenly spheres, go up and down the tide.'"

Ibn Batuta's description of the pyramids is very curious, and we can

account for it on no other supposition than that he merely saw them in

the distance (probably from the citadel of Cairo), relying on hearsay

for further particulars. After stating that they were built by the

ancient _Hermes_, whom he supposes to be identical with Enoch, as a

repository for the antediluvian arts and sciences, he says: 'The

pyramids are built of hard, well-cut stone. They are of a very

considerable elevation, and of a circular form, capacious at the base

and narrow at the summit, _in the fashion of cones_. They have no doors,

and one is ignorant of the manner in which they have been constructed.'

In his journey up the Nile, Ibn Batuta never fails to give an account of

every Moslem saint or theologian whom he meets, but only in one or two

instances does he mention the antiquities, which, in that age, must have

been still more conspicuous than now. He even passes over the plain of

Thebes without the slightest notice of the great temple of Karnak.

Disappointed in his plan of crossing the Red Sea to Jidda, he returned

to Cairo, and at once set out for Syria. Here, the first place of

interest which he visited was Hebron, where he performed his devotions

at the tombs of the patriarchs. We learn that there were archæcological

writings in those days, for he quotes from a work entitled 'The Torch of

Hearts, on the Subject of the Authenticity of the Tombs of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob.' Unfortunately, the evidence adduced would not be very

satisfactory to us, for it rests entirely on the following statement

made by Mohammed to a certain Abou Horairah: 'When the angel Gabriel

took me on the noctural journey to Jerusalem, we passed above the tomb

of Abraham, and he said to me, "Descend, and make a prayer of two

genuflexions, for here is the sepulchre of thy father Abraham!" Then we

traversed Bethlehem, and he said also, "Descend, make a prayer of two

genuflexions, for here was born thy brother Jesus!"'

Of Jerusalem, which he calls 'the noble, the holy--may God glorify it!'

he says: 'Among the sanctuaries on the borders of the valley known under

the name of Gehenna, east of the city and on an elevated hill (the Mount

of Olives), one sees an edifice which is said to stand on the spot

whence Jesus ascended to heaven. In the middle of the same valley there

is a church where the Christians worship: they affirm that it contains

the sepulchre of Mary. There is also another church, equally venerated,

to which the Christians make a pilgrimage. The reason whereof, however,

is a lie, for they pretend that it contains the tomb of Jesus. Each

person who goes thither as a pilgrim is obliged to pay a certain tribute

to the Mussulmans, and to undergo divers sorts of humiliations, which

the Christians perform very much against their will. They there see the

place where the cradle of Jesus stood, and come to implore his

intercession.'

I have not space to follow our traveler through all the cities of the

Syrian coast, northward to Aleppo, but I can not omit offering one

flower from the garland of poetical quotations which Ibu Batuta (or

rather his amanuensis, Ibn Djozay) hangs on the citadel of the latter

capital. I presume the city then occupied the same position as at

present, on a plain surrounding the rocky acropolis, which is so

striking and picturesque a feature as to justify the enthusiasm of the

Oriental bards. Djemal ed-deen All, however, surpasses them all in the

splendor of his images. Hear him:--

'So lofty soars this castle, so high its summit stands,

Immense and far uplifted above the lower lands,

It lacks but little, truly, that with the heavenly sphere

Around the earth revolving, its towers would interfere.

And they who dwell within it must seek the Milky Way;

There is no nearer cistern which win their thirst allay:

Their horses there go browsing, and crop the stars that pass,

As other beasts the blossoms that open in the grass!'

After this flight, I think I can afford to omit the string of quotations

concerning Damascus, which is celebrated with an equal extravagance. Ibn

Batuta gives a very careful account of the great mosque, including its

priests and scholars. During his stay the plague raged with such

violence that the deaths at one time amounted to two thousand a day. He

relates one circumstance which shows that even religious intolerance

vanished in times of distress. 'All the inhabitants of the city, men,

women, large and small, took part in a procession to the Mosque of

El-Akdam, two miles south of Damascus. The Jews came forth with their

Pentateuch, and the Christians with their Gospel, followed by their

women and children. All wept, supplicated, and sought help from God,

through the means of his Word and his prophets. They repaired to the

mosque, where they remained, praying and invoking God, until three

o'clock in the afternoon. Then they returned to the city, made the

prayer of Friday, and the Lord consoled them.'

On the 1st of September, 1326, he left Damascus, with the great caravan

of pilgrims, for Mecca. He enumerates all the stations on the route, and

his itinerary is almost identical with that which the caravan follows at

the present day. Much space is devoted to a description of the religious

observances which he followed; and, singularly enough, if any

confirmation of his fidelity as a narrator were needed, it is furnished

by the work of Captain Burton. The account of the sacred cities of

Medineh and Mecca corresponds in every important particular with that of

the modern traveler. Thus the integrity of Ibn Batuta, like that of

Marco Polo, is established, after the lapse of five hundred years.

In speaking of the chair of Mohammed, which is preserved in the mosque

at Medineh, he relates the following beautiful tradition: 'It is said

that the ambassador of God at first preached near the trunk of a

palm-tree in the mosque, and that after he had constructed the chair and

transported it thither, the trunk of the palm-tree groaned, as the

female camel groans after her young. Mohammed thereupon went down to the

tree and embraced it; after which it remained silent. The Prophet said,

"If I had not embraced it, it would have continued to groan until the

day of the resurrection."'

After faithfully performing all the observances prescribed for the

pilgrim to Mecca, Ibn Batuta left that city and returned to Medineh. He

then crossed the Arabian peninsula in a north-eastern direction, to the

city of Meshed Ali, near the Euphrates, and thence descended that river

to Bassora. Here he gives us two amusing anecdotes, which reflectively

illustrate his shrewdness and the sturdiness with which he maintained

his religious views. 'The inhabitants of Bassora,' says he, 'are gifted

with a generous character. They are familiar with strangers, rendering

them that which is their due, in such a manner that no one finds a

sojourn among them tiresome. They make their Sunday prayers in the

mosque of the Prince of Believers, Ali. I once attended the prayers in

this mosque; and when the preacher arose and began to recite the sermon,

he made numerous and evident faults. I was surprised thereat, and spoke

of it to the judge Hodjat-ed-deen, who answered, "In this city, there is

no longer an individual who has any knowledge of grammar." This is an

instruction for whoever reflects thereon, and let us praise God, who

changes things and reverses the face of affairs! In fact, this city of

Bassora, the inhabitants whereof had obtained preëminence in grammar,

which there had its origin and received its development,--this city,

which gave to the world the master of this noble science, whose priority

no one contests,--does not now possess a single preacher who pronounces

the Sunday sermon according to grammatical rules!

'The mosque has seven minarets, one of which, according to the belief of

the inhabitants, shakes whenever the name of Ali, son of Abou Talib, is

invoked. I ascended to the terrace (roof) of this mosque, accompanied by

one of the men of Bassora. There I saw, at one of the corners, a piece

of wood nailed to the minaret, and resembling the handle of a mason's

trowel. He who was with me took hold of it, saying, "By the head of the

prince of believers, Ali, shake thyself!" Therewith he shook the handle,

and the minaret trembled. In turn, I placed my hand upon it, and I said

to the man, "And _I_ say, by the head of Abou Bekr, successor to the

Ambassador of God, shake thyself!" Therewith I shook the handle, and the

minaret trembled as before. The people were very much astonished.' The

amanuensis, Ibn Djozay, here interpolates the following remark: 'I have

seen, in a town in the valley of Almansura, in Spain,--which may God

defend!--a tower which shakes without the name of a caliph, or anybody

else, being mentioned.'

At the city of Idhedj, in Irak, then the capital of one of the many

Mongol sultans who at that time reigned in southern Persia, Ibn Batuta

gives another proof of his boldness. Calling upon the Sultan Afrasiab,

who was notorious for his drunken and dissolute habits, the traveler

found him seated upon a divan, with two covered vases--one of gold and

one of silver--before him. A green carpet was brought and placed near

him, upon which the traveler was invited to take his seat, after which

the sultan asked him many questions concerning his travels. 'It seemed

to me, however,' says Ibn Batuta, 'that he was quite intoxicated, for I

had been previously apprized of his habit of giving himself up to drink.

Finally, he said to me in Arabic, which he spoke with elegance. "Speak!"

I said to him, "If thou wouldst listen to me, I would say to thee--Thou

art one of the children of Sultan Ahmed, celebrated for his piety and

devotion; there is no cause of reproach to thee, in thy manner of life,

except _that_!" and I pointed with my finger to the two vases. These

words covered him with shame, and he was silent. I wished to withdraw,

but he ordered me to keep my seat, and said, "It is a mark of the Divine

mercy to meet with such as thou!" Afterwards, seeing that he swayed from

side to side, and desired to sleep, I left him. I had placed my sandals

at the door, and could not find them again. The Fakir Fadhill sought for

them in the hall, and at last brought them to me. His kindness

embarrassed me, and I made apologies. Thereupon he kissed my sandals,

placed them upon his head, in token of respect, and said to me, "May God

bless thee! What thou hast said to our sultan, nobody else would have

dared to say. I hope it will make an impression on him!"'

Continuing his journey to Ispahan and Shiraz, he gives us, as usual,

conscientious accounts of the mosques, priests, and holy men, but no

hint whatever as to his manner of travel, or the character of the

country through which he passed. This portion of his work, however,

contains many interesting historical fragments, relating to the reigns

of the Mongol sultans of Persia, and the dissensions between the two

Moslem sects. After a stay of some length at Shiraz, he returned through

Irak to the celebrated city of Cufa, and thence to Bagdad, which was

then the residence of a simple Mongol prince. Here he describes at

length the mosques, colleges, mausoleums and baths, while Ibn Djozay

takes occasion to introduce his favorite quotations from the poets. The

reader, we think, will find the following more picturesque than the

somewhat formal descriptions of Ibn Batuta:--

'Yea, Bagdad is a spacious place for him who's gold, to spend,

But for the poor it is the house of suffering without end:

I wander idly through its streets, as lost us if I were

A Koran in an atheist's house, which hath no welcome there.'

'A sigh, a sigh for Bagdad, a sigh for Irak's land!

For all its lovely peacocks, and the splendors they expand:

They walk beside the Tigris, and the looks they turn on me

Shine o'er the jeweled necklace, like moons above the sea!'

Our traveler, also, was the forerunner of Layard. In visiting Mosul, he

writes: 'Near this place one sees the hill of Jonah, upon whom be

blessing! and a mile distant from it the fountain which bears his name.

It is said that he commanded the people to purify themselves there; that

afterwards they ascended the aforesaid hill; that he prayed, and they

also, in such manner that God turned the chastisement from their heads.

In the neighborhood is a great ruin, and the people pretend that it is

the remains of the city known under the name of Nineveh, the city of

Jonah. One perceives the vestiges of the wall which surrounded it, as

well as the situation of its gates. On the hill stands a large edifice,

and a monastery, which contains numerous cells, apartments, places of

purification, and fountains, all closed by a single gate. In the middle

of the monastery one sees a cell with a silken curtain, and a door

encrusted with gold and precious stones. This, they say, is the spot

where Jonah dwelt; and they add that the choir of the mosque attached to

the monastery covers the cell in which he prayed to God.'

Returning to Bagdad, Ibn Batuta crossed the Arabian Desert a second

time, and took up his residence in Mecca for the space of three years.

His account of the voyage along the eastern coast of Africa, as far

south as Quiloa, is brief and uninteresting; but on his return he

visited Oman, of which province he gives us the first authentic account.

From the Pearl Islands in the Persian Gulf, he bent his way once more

across Arabia to Mecca, whence he crossed the Red Sea to the Nubian

coast, and descended the Nile to Cairo. I shall omit his subsequent

journeys through Syria and Asia Minor, although they contain many

amusing and picturesque incidents, and turn, instead, to his adventures

in Kipchak (Southern Russia), which was then governed by a sultan

descended in a direct line from Genghis Khan. Embarking at Sinope, he

crossed the Black Sea to Caffa, in the Crimea, which was at that time a

Genoese city. Here a singular circumstance occurred:--

'We lodged in the mosque of the Mussulmans. After we had been resting

there about an hour, we suddenly heard the sound of bells resounding on

all sides. I had then never heard such a sound; I was extremely

terrified, and ordered my companions to ascend the minaret, read the

Koran, praise God, and recite the call to prayer,--which they did. We

now perceived a man who had approached us: he was armed, and wore a

cuirass. He saluted us, and we begged him to inform us who he was. He

gave us to understand that he was the Kadi of the Mussulmans of the

place, and added: "When I heard the reading of the Koran and the call to

prayers, I trembled for your safety, and therefore came to seek you."

Then he departed; but, nevertheless, we received nothing but good

treatment.'

From Caffa, Ibn Eatuta traveled in a chariot to Azof, near which place

he found the camp of the Sultan Mohammed Uzbek Khan, of whose court he

gives a very circumstantial description. He also devotes considerable

space to an account of their manner of keeping the fast of Ramadan. The

favorite wife of the sultan was a daughter of the Greek emperor, who at

the time of the traveler's visit was preparing to set out for

Constantinople, in order that her expected child might be born in the

palace of her fathers. 'I prayed the sultan,' says Ibn Batuta, 'to

permit me to journey in company with the princess, in order that I might

behold Constantinople the Great. He at first refused, out of fear for my

safety, but I solicited him, saying, "I will not enter Constantinople

except under thy protection and thy patronage, and therefore I will fear

no one." He then gave me permission to depart, making me a present of

fifteen hundred ducats, a robe of honor, and a great number of horses.'

The journey to Constantinople was made entirely by land, and consumed

more than two months. It is rather difficult to locate the precise route

traversed by the caravan, except that it must have skirted the shore of

the Black Sea; for I find mention of three great canals, which must

refer to the three arms of the Danube. At the frontier of the Greek

empire, they were received by the brothers of the princess, with a

mounted guard. Ibn Batuta's chronology is a little confused, and we can

only guess that the reigning emperor at that time was Andronicus H.

Palæologus. The description of the entry into Constantinople, and the

interview with the emperor, are among the most curious and interesting

passages in the work.

'We encamped at the distance of ten miles from Constantinople, and on

the following morning the population of the city came forth--men, women,

and children, on foot and on horseback, in their most beautiful costumes

and most magnificent vestments. From daybreak the cymbals, clarions, and

trumpets sounded; the soldiers mounted their horses, and the emperor,

with his wife, the mother of the princess, the great men of the empire,

and the courtiers, issued from the city. Over the head of the emperor

there was a canopy, carried by a certain number of cavaliers and

foot-soldiers, holding in their hands long staves, terminated at the top

by a sort of leather ball, with which they upheld the canopy. In the

centre thereof was a dais, supported on staves by the cavaliers. When

the emperor had advanced, the troops mixed together, and the noise

became great. I was not able to penetrate into the middle of the crowd,

and remained near the baggage of the princess and her companions,

fearing for my safety. It was related to me that when the princess

approached her parents, she alighted and kissed the ground before them;

then she kissed their shoes, and her principal officers did the same.

Our entry into Constantinople the Great took place towards noon, or a

little after. Meanwhile the inhabitants caused the bells to sound, in

such measure that the heavens were shattered with the mixed uproar of

their noise.

'When we had arrived at the outer gate of the palace, we there found

about a hundred men, accompanied by their chief, who was stationed on a

platform. I heard them saying, "The Saracens, the Saracens"--a term by

which they designate the Mussulmans,--and they prevented us from

entering. The companions of the princess said to them. "These people

belong to our suite;" but they answered, "They shall not enter here

without permission." We therefore waited at the gate, and one of the

officers sent some one to inform her of this incident. She was then with

her father, to whom she spoke concerning us. The emperor ordered us to

be admitted, and assigned us a house near that of the princess.

Furthermore, he wrote, in our favor, an order prohibiting any one from

interrupting us in whatever part of the city we might go, and this was

proclaimed in the markets. We remained three days in our residence,

whither they sent us provisions, namely, flour, bread, sheep, fowls,

butter, fish and fruits, also money and carpets.

'On the fourth day after our arrival at Constantinople the princess sent

to me the eunuch Sunbul, the Indian, who took me by the hand and

conducted me into the palace. We passed four gates, near each one of

which were benches, with armed men, the captain occupying a raised

platform covered with carpets. When we had reached the fifth gate, the

eunuch Sunbul left me and entered; then he returned, accompanied by four

Greek eunuchs. These latter searched me, for fear lest I might have a

knife about me. The chief said to me, "Such is their custom; we can not

dispense with a minute examination of whoever approaches the emperor,

whether a high personage or one of the people, a stranger or a native."

This is also the custom in India.

'After I had submitted to this examination, the guardian of the gate

arose, took my hand, and opened. Four individuals surrounded me, two of

whom took hold of my sleeves, while the other two held me from behind.

They conducted me into a grand audience-hall, the walls of which were in

mosaic; the figures of natural productions, whether animal or mineral,

were there represented. In the middle of the hall there was a brook,

both banks of which were bordered with trees; men stood on the right and

on the left, but no one spoke. In the centre of the hall of reception

stood three other men, to whom my four conductors confided me, and who

took me by the garments as the first had done. Another individual having

made a sign to them, they advanced with me. One of them, who was a Jew,

said to me in Arabic, "Fear not; it is their custom to act thus towards

strangers. I am the interpreter, and am a native of Syria." I demanded

of him what salutation I ought to make, and he replied, "Say--May

blessing be upon you!"

'I arrived, finally, at the grand dais, where I beheld the emperor

seated on his throne, having before him his wife, the mother of the

princess. The latter, with her brothers, were stationed at the foot of

the throne. At the right of the sovereign there were six men, four at

his left, and as many behind him; all were armed. Before allowing me to

salute him, or to approach nearer to him, he made me a sign that I

should sit down for a moment, in order to recover from my fear. I did

so, after which I advanced nearer, and saluted him. He invited me, by a

gesture, to sit, but I did not comply. Then he questioned me on the

subject of Jerusalem, the blessed rock (of Jacob), the holy sepulchre,

and the cradle of Jesus, Bethlehem and Hebron, Damascus and Cairo, Irak

and Asia Minor. I replied to all his demands, the Jew performing the

office of interpreter between us. My words pleased him, and he said to

his children, "Treat this man with consideration, and protect him!" Then

he caused me to be clothed with a robe of honor, and assigned to me a

horse, saddled and bridled, as well as an umbrella from among those

which were carried over his own head--which was a mark of protection. I

prayed him to designate some one who should ride with me each day

through the city, in order that I might behold its rarities and marvels,

and speak of them in my own country. He granted my desire. One of the

customs of this people is, that the individual who receives a robe of

honor from the emperor, and mounts a horse from his stables, must be

conducted through the squares of the city, to the sound of trumpets,

clarions and cymbals, so that the population may behold him. This is

oftenest done with those Turks who come from the dominions of the Uzbek

sultan, in order that they may suffer no annoyance. I was conducted

through the markets in the same manner.'

But the autumn night is closing in, and we must shut up the volume. We

can not, to-day, follow the brave old traveler through all the

vicissitudes of his long pilgrimage. He allows us to perceive much that

he does not tell us outright, and it is a satisfaction to learn, from

his pages, that if society were less ordered, secure, and externally

proper five hundred years ago, individual generosity and magnanimity

were more marked, and the good in the human race, as now, overbalanced

the evil. One more story Ibn Batuta must tell us, before we take leave

of him,--one story, which must warm every heart which can appreciate

that rarest of virtues, tolerance. The father of the Greek emperor was

still living, having abdicated the crown in favor of his son Andronicus,

and become a monk. The Moslem traveler thus describes his interview with

the old Christian monarch:--

'I was one day in company with the Greek who was appointed to ride with

me through the city, when we suddenly encountered the old emperor,

walking on foot, clothed in hair garments, and with a felt cap on his

head. He had a long white beard and a noble face, which presented traces

of the pious practices whereto his life was devoted. Before and behind

him walked a troop of monks. He held a staff in his hand, and had a

rosary about his neck. When the Greek beheld him, he alighted, and said

to me, "Dismount; it is the father of the emperor." When the Greek had

saluted him, he demanded who I was, then stopped, and summoned me to

him. I approached; he took my hand, and said to the Greek, who knew the

Arabic language,--"Say to this Saracen (that is to say, Mussulman), that

I press the hand which has entered Jerusalem, and the foot which has

walked by the Holy Rock, and the Holy Sepulchre, and in Bethlehem,"

Having spoken, he placed his hand on my feet, and then passed it over

his own face. I was amazed at the respect which these people exhibit

towards an individual of another religion than their own, who has

visited the holy places. The old emperor then took me by the hand, and I

walked along with him. He questioned me on the subject of Jerusalem and

the Christians who dwell there. In his company I entered the consecrated

ground belonging to the church. As he approached the principal gate, a

crowd of priests and monks issued to salute him, for he was now one of

their chiefs. When he saw them, he let go of my hand, and I said to him,

"I desire to enter the church with thee." He said to the interpreter,

"Inform him that whoever enters is absolutely obliged to prostrate

himself before the principal crucifix. It is a thing prescribed by the

Fathers, and can not be transgressed." I then left him, he entered

alone, and I never saw him again.'

* * * * *

THE LATE LORD CHANCELLOR CAMPBELL.

It is worthy of note that the English statesmen of the present century

have mostly originated in two totally distinct ranks of society. They

have either been the scions of noble and powerful families; or they have

arisen, in spite of circumstance, from humble parents, by the sole

recommendation of personal worth. Of the great middle class, the class

which is certainly the most respectable of the English community, and

which is at present the controlling power in the state, but few have

recently attained great eminence. That the titled and wealthy should

advance to power and influence in a government peculiarly influenced by

such recommendations, is not strange. Any son of a great English house,

who has ambition, and a reasonable share of brains, may attain, with

comparative ease, eminence in the state. An apt example is Lord Russell,

who, with but little genius, with no oratorical force, and hardly more

than medium capacity as a statesman, has become the leader of the

predominant party, by dint of shrewdness, a persevering spirit, and

ambition, backed by the powerful influence of the noble house of

Bedford. And that the master-spirits born in poverty should shake off

the incubus of humble birth, and advance to a level with the noblest, is

not so unnatural or improbable but that the history of every nation

affords us abundant examples of such men; while the middle class, who

are neither stimulated by the calls of penury, nor pushed forward by

hereditary interest, naturally retain a contented mediocrity of renown

and honor.

If any of our readers have visited the House of Lords within the past

two years, they doubtless had their attention directed to the venerable

statesman who for that period has occupied, with eminent dignity and

grace, the office of chairman to that body, and whose recent decease has

been noticed with such profound regret in British journals. On inquiry,

they doubtless learned that this was Lord Chancellor Campbell. He had

risen from the lowest drudgery to the highest eminence of the legal

profession. By the prolific arts of perseverance and industry, he had

scaled each successive round in the ladder of promotion, until now, in

his declining years, with accumulated honor and respect, he had thus

reached the summit, taking precedence after the Archbishop of

Canterbury, holding the great seal, and presiding over the peers of the

realm.

He was one of those rare examples of unconquerable pluck, who have

mastered the prejudice of wealth and power, and to whom has been yielded

a position envied by the most worthy descendants of the most illustrious

nobles. In America, where public distinction is within the reach of all,

it is difficult to conceive of the restraints which beset the humble

aspirant in the old country. But notwithstanding such obstacles, the

examples of such men as Eldon, Stowell, Truro, St. Leonards, Ashburton,

Canning, and Campbell exhibit the gratifying fact, that hereditary power

or wealth can not bide the dignity of great genius; that greatness will

thrust aside the lesser privilege of worldly circumstance, whether it be

born in a palace or a cottage; and that you can no more control the

operation of a superior mind by the vanities of title and lucre, than

you can subordinate truth to error, or eternity to time. The glittering

train of peers and nabobs who followed in the path of the great

Elizabeth lie forgotten under the stately arches of the old cathedrals;

while the poverty-stricken player, William Shakspeare, has adorned every

library with his name, and reigns in every appreciative heart, as a

perfect master of nature and lofty thought. The names of the brilliant

court which welcomed George the Third to the throne of the Plantagenets

no longer linger on the lips of men; while every household boasts its

'Rasselas,' and the civilized world holds sacred the memory of the

illustrious 'Rambler.'

John Campbell was born in 1781, and was the son of an obscure Scotch

clergyman. His father destined him for the clergy; in consequence of

which he was sent to the University of St. Andrews, where he met the

great Dr. Chalmers, then a student like himself. But young Campbell

became averse to the profession which had been chosen for him, and soon

turned his attention to the law. Soon after graduation, he betook

himself to London, where he studied with great zeal, meanwhile supplying

his wants by acting as the theatrical critic of the '_Morning

Chronicle_.' There, seated in an obscure corner of the pit or upper

gallery, we may imagine the Chancellor in embryo, jotting down the petty

excellences and failings of the players, to pamper the taste of the

frivolous on the morrow; while below him, in the decorated boxes and

circles, lolled the vain crowd of coroneted simpletons and courtly

beauties, now long forgotten, while he is honored as the benefactor of

his country's laws. He was called to the bar by the Society of Lincoln's

Inn, and then commenced a long life, replete with arduous study, with

untiring interest in duty, and stubborn perseverance. He early espoused

the liberal doctrines of Fox and Grey; and inasmuch as for many years

after the Tories monopolized the power, his politics were an effectual

bar to his professional preferment. He remained, however, through his

whole life, an earnest and consistent advocate of his early convictions.

Owing to the prejudice which Lord Chancellor Eldon entertained against

the Whigs, he did not obtain the silk gown of King's Counsel till the

venerable Jacobite gave place, in 1827, to the more courteous and

liberal Lyndhurst.

He entered the House of Commons in the year 1830, and was soon

recognized as one of the leading members of the British bar. The period

of his debut in public life is one of peculiar significance in the party

history of England. The long dominion of the statesmen of the Pitt, and

Liverpool school was at last overthrown. The political dogmas which had

resisted Catholic toleration, which had sustained the continental powers

in their persecution of the French Emperor, which had resisted the right

of a neighboring people to choose their own rulers, which had held in

imprisonment the first genius of the century, which had opposed the

abolition of the test act, which had sustained the most licentious and

most obstinate sovereign of modern times, now yielded to the more

enlightened views of such statesmen as Russell and Lansdowne, Brougham

and Grey. Several causes operated to bring about this auspicious change.

George the Fourth, whose partiality for the Tories was only surpassed by

his animosity against the Whigs, had given place to a liberal and

enlightened prince, renowned for his zealous attachment to the popular

weal. Again, Canning's influence in moderating the maxims of Tory

theorists was greatly felt among the gentry. Finally, the rapid growth

of general intelligence, developments in the history of nations, and

juster conceptions of the true relations of sovereign and people,

prepared the public mind for extensive reforms in the constitution. Earl

Grey, a statesman eminent no less for his eloquence and sagacity than

for the worth of his private character, succeeded to the premiership in

1830, being the first Whig who held that office since the cabinet of

'all the talents,' in 1806.

It was at such a juncture that Campbell entered the House of Commons.

The sanguine dreams of his youth were dawning into reality; and he was

gratified to see his cherished principles fully adopted by the country,

and to know that he was a participant in the glories of the great

reform.

In 1832, when he had been a member of the House but two years, and a

King's Counsel but five years, and in the same year that the reform of

Russell and Grey received the royal sign-manual, he was elevated to the

dignity of Solicitor General. No one of the long line of his illustrious

predecessors brought to the discharge of this eminent trust greater

learning and acuteness than Lord Campbell evinced; who, at the same time

of this appointment, was honored with the order of Knighthood. In 1834,

after serving as solicitor with the marked approbation of the

government, he was promoted to the Attorney Generalship.

He now re-entered Parliament as the representative of the capital of his

native Scotland, and became a leader in debate and the transaction of

the public business. He continued Attorney General through the

conservative ministry of Sir Robert Peel, and the subsequent Whig

government of Lord Melbourne. In 1841, he held for a brief period the

Chancellorship of Ireland; being at the same time elevated to the rank

of a peer of England, with the title of John, first Lord Campbell. He

retired from office when Sir Robert Peel returned to power in the autumn

of 1841, and turned his thoughts to the gentle and graceful pursuit of

literature. The first production of his pen was the 'Lives of the Lord

Chancellors,' from the earliest times to the close of Lord Eldon's

Chancellorship, in 1827. For the spirited interest of its style, the

clear and precise detail of fact, and the simple yet elegant course of

its manner, it is surpassed by no work of the present century. It is

regarded by eminent critics as a masterpiece of biography, and may

justly rank with the first books of that character in the English

tongue. It has probably been as serviceable to perpetuate the name of

the author, if not more so, than the numerous profound and equitable

decisions which he has left on the records of the Courts of King's Bench

and Chancery.

It was soon followed by 'The Lives of the Chief Justices of England,'

which only enhanced the reputation of the former work; and we would

heartily recommend both of these books to the perusal of all who are

interested, either professionally or as a matter of taste, in this

branch of literature, as a deeply interesting as well as instructive

entertainment.

In 1846, Lord John Russell assumed office, and Lord Campbell was

recalled from the occupation which had proved so congenial to his mind,

to take a seat in the ministry as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

While he held this position, he was a frequent and popular debater in

the House of Peers, where he zealously defended the policy of the

government. In 1850, Lord Chief Justice Denman retired from the King's

Bench, ripe in years and in honorable renown, and Lord Campbell was at

once designated as his successor. In this exalted place, he was removed

from the harassing uncertainties of political life; and he continued for

nine years to administer justice with promptitude, skill, and equity.

It was while Chief Justice that he became eminent for the great light he

brought to bear upon many important and intricate questions of law; and

his fame may be said to rest mainly upon the profound ability with which

he exercised the functions of this trust. In 1859, when Lord Palmerston

succeeded to the brief administration of Lord Derby, Lord Campbell was

finally raised to the summit of his profession. He was the fourth

Scotchman who has been Lord Chancellor within the century, and is a

worthy compeer of such men as Loughborough, Erskine, and Brougham. The

long years of unremitting toil were at length crowned with glorious

success; and the great man died in the midst of duty, affluence, honor

and power, while enjoying the prerogatives of the highest judicial

trust, during the summer of the past year.

Whether we consider him as a lawyer, statesman, author, or man, his

character appears in a most amiable light. Profound without pedantry,

subtle without craft, zealous without bigotry, and humane without

effeminacy, he lived a philanthropic, pure, and consistent life. His

highest eulogium is that he lived and died in the service of his

country; that through every vicissitude his chief care was the national

weal; that his chief fame rests in the love and veneration which he

awakened in his countrymen; and that few Englishmen of the present

century have left more enduring monuments of public wisdom and private

example.

'O, civic music, to such a name,

To such a name for ages long,

To such a name,

Preserve the broad approach of fame,

And ever ringing avenues of song.'

* * * * *

CHILD'S CALL AT EVENTIDE.

Bright and fair,--

Golden hair,

Still white hands and face;

Not a plea

Moveth thee;

Nor the wind's wild chase,

As yesterday, calling thee,

Even as I, in vain.

Come--wake up, Gerda!

Come out and play in the lane!

See! the wind,

From behind,

Sporteth with thy locks,

From the land's

Desert sands

And the sea-beat rocks

Cometh and claspeth thy hands,

Even as I, in vain.

Come--wake up, Gerda!

Come out and play in the lane!

Closed thine eyes,

Gently wise,

Dost thou dream the while?

Falls my kiss

All amiss,

Waketh not a smile!

Sweet mouth, is't feigning this?

Then do not longer feign.

Come--wake up, Gerda!

Come out and play in the lane!

Forehead Bold,

White and cold;

Sealed thy lips and all;

I am made

Half afraid

In this lonely hall.

Night cometh quick through the glade!

I fear it is all in vain,--

All too late, Gerda,--

Too late to play in the lane!

* * * * *

THE GOOD WIFE: A NORWEGIAN STORY.

PART I.

NOTHING LOST BY GOOD HUMOR.

For more than a month I had been ransacking my memory in search of some

story or narrative to offer our readers, but with rather poor success. I

thought of all the good things I had ever heard, and tumbled and tossed

my books in vain--nothing could I find that was suitable for either

children or parents. So I was, very reluctantly, about to abandon the

enterprise, when it chanced that, being unable to compose myself to

sleep, a few nights since, I took up, according to my custom on such

occasions, an old copy of Montaigne, the usual companion of my vigils,

the fellow-occupant of my pillow, and the only moralist whose musings

one can read with pleasure on the wrong side of forty.

I opened the _Essays_ carelessly, for each and every page of them is

precious and replete with themes for meditation. In so doing, I alighted

upon the chapter entitled, 'Of three Good Women,'--which commences thus:

'They are not to be found by the dozen, as every one knows, and

especially not in the duties of married life, for that is a market full

of such thorny circumstances that it is no easy matter for a woman's

will to keep whole and sound in it for any length of time.'

'Montaigne is an impertinent fellow!' I exclaimed, slamming to the book.

'What? this close reader of antiquity, this fine analyst of the human

heart, has been able to find only three good women, only three devoted

wives, in all the Greek and Roman annals! This is playing the joker out

of season. Goodness is the special attribute of woman. Every married

woman is good, or supposed to be such. I bethink me, too, that our old

jurists always make the law presume this goodness to exist, at the

outset,'

Thus meditating, I wandered into my library, and there took up a fine

old volume, bound in red morocco, and entitled 'The Dream of Vergier;' a

book full of wisdom and logic, and written by some venerable clerk,

during the reign of Charles V., king of France. I looked for the page

that had struck my fancy, but--alas! how oddly one's memory changes with

the lapse of years--instead of finding, in that grave old book, the just

panegyric of woman's goodness, I discovered, to my great surprise, only

a violent satire all spiced with texts borrowed from St. Augustine, the

Roman laws and the ancient canons, with this sage conclusion, full

worthy of the exordium:--

'I do not say, however, that there is no good woman at all, but the

species is rare; and hence an old law says that no _law concerning good

women_ should be made, for that laws are to be made concerning things of

usual occurrence, as it is written in _Auth. sinc prohib_., etc., _quia

vero_ and L. _Nam ad ca_, Dig. _De Leffibus_.'

These juridical epigrams, these cool pleasantries, in a serious book,

shocked me more than even the hard hits of the Gascon philosopher. 'Good

women,' I thought to myself, 'are found everywhere. In history? No;

history is written by men who love and admire heroes only, that is to

say, those who rob, subjugate, or slay them. In theology? No; it has not

yet forgiven the daughters of Eve the fault which ruined us,--a sin of

which they have retained at least a little share. In the records of the

law, then? No, again; for men make the laws. Woman is, in their eyes,

nothing but a minor, legally incapable of governing herself. God only

knows what is, here, as in all things, the difference between the fact

and the law. Are these good women to be found in plays, romances, or

novels? No, still; for they are but the perpetual recital of feminine

artfulness. Where, then, shall we look for good women?--In the realm of

fable and fiction, in the kingdom of fancy--the dominion of the ideal.

These are the only regions in which merit holds the place it is entitled

to or justice is done to the claims of virtue. What is the tenderness of

Baucis, or the long fidelity of Penelope? Fiction only. And the

resignation of the gentle Griseldis--what is it? An old tale of other

days. In order to find the good woman we are looking for, this is the

ivory portal at which we must knock.

Acting upon this conviction, I reperused all the old traditions, I

called to my aid that peculiar lore of nations which is embodied in

their legends, and which is so vividly, so amiably, and so ingenuously

expressed. I interrogated the story-tellers of every country, Indian,

Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, French, German,

English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Russian, Lithuanian, and

even the hoary old wayside narrators of the far Thibet. I plunged into

this ocean of fancy with the recklessness of an accomplished diver,

but,--must I acknowledge it?--less fortunate than even Montaigne with

his history, I have succeeded in bringing back only one woman that I can

call really good, and her I have had to disinter from under the ice and

snows of the North, in a wild country, too, and among a people who are

not so delicate and refined as though Paris were in Norway. From Cadiz

to Stockholm, from London to Cairo and Delhi, from Paris to Teheran and

Samarcand, if the stories are to be believed, there are artful girls and

scheming mothers, in any quantity; but the _good woman_!--where does she

lie hid, and why do they never tell us anything about her? Here is a

hiatus to which I specially call the attention of the learned. In

observing it myself, I feel the more emboldened to relate the story of

the only good woman and wife I have unearthed. It is a simple narrative,

and not thoroughly in accordance with every-day experience, and, indeed,

there may be some squeamish people who will say that it is ridiculous.

No matter--it has one good quality which no one can dispute--it is not

in the ordinary style of either adventure or narration. Novelty is all

the rage at the present day, and what imparts value to things is not

their intrinsic merit, but their strangeness.

Here, then, is my story presented to you, kind reader, just as Messrs.

Asbjoernsen and Moe give it, in their curious collection of Norwegian

tales and legends.