"Marietta" is the genuine embodiment of that local attachment and ancestral

pride so remarkable in the mediaeval Florentines, and still manifest in an

exceptional class of their descendants. The modern life of a decayed branch

of the Tuscan nobility in the nineteenth century, the process and method of

its decadence, the charm of "a local habitation and a name," once

identified with the vital power of the old republic, and the sad,

effeminate, yet not unromantic sentiment incident to its passing away,

through the prosperous encroachments of new men, with whom money is the

power once only attached to birth, are most aptly described. The thrifty

farmer of the Apennine, and his slow and handsome son, are capital types of

the frugal and shrewd _fattore_ and rustic proprietor of Tuscany; and his

more astute and polished brother is equally typical of the old money-lender

and goldsmith of the Ponte Vecchio. Simon Boccanera well represents the

tasteful artificer of Florence, and the Gobbo the feudal devotee, whose

political faith has been expanded by French ideas. In the _bon vivant_, the

amateur musician, the amiable and easy Canonico Lunardi, what a true

portrait of the priestly epicure, the self-indulgent but kindly churchman

of the most urbane of Italian communities, and in the Canon of San Lorenzo,

how faithful a picture of the elegant and unscrupulous aspirant and

intriguer! The two girls of the story are veritable specimens, in looks,

dress, talk, domestic aspect and aptitudes, not only of Italian maidenhood,

but of that of the state and city of their birth,--such maidens as are only

encountered on the banks of the Arno. This pleasant story takes us into one

of those massive old Florentine palaces, with its lofty _loggia_

overlooking mountain, river, olive orchard and vineyard, dome and

tower,--its adjacent church with the family chapel and ancestral

effigies,--its several floors let out as lodgings,--its heavy portal,

stone staircase, faded frescos, barred windows, paved court-yard,

moss-grown statues, and damp green garden. We recognize the familiar

elements of the local life,--the frugal dinner, the wine flask, the

coal-brazier, the antique lamp, the violin, the snuff-box, the ample coarse

cloak, the frugality, _bonhommie_, shrewdness, proverbs, greetings, grace,

cheerfulness, chat, rural and city traits, prejudices, pride, and

pleasantness of Tuscan life and character. These all appear in suggestive

contrast, and with accurate detail, woven into a tale which breathes the

very atmosphere of the place.

"Giulio Malatesta," on the other hand, opens with distinctive glimpses of

an old Italian university town; initiates us into the prolonged and patient

political conspiracies of Romagna and the ideal hopes of Gioberti's

disciples. Its hero is a student at Pisa, and one of the brave champions of

Italy who led the Tuscan volunteers to patriotic martyrdom, in 1848, at

Curtone. Nowhere have we read so graceful and graphic a picture of that

noble episode in the history of Tuscany, which redeemed her character and

proved the latent manliness of her children. There is a touching similarity

between the description of the march of the Corpo Universitario from Pisa

to the Mincio,--the fight at the mill, and the death of the generous and

lovely boy, Enrico Palmieri,--and recent scenes in our own civil war,

wherein appeared the same youthful enthusiasm and utter inexperience, the

same hardships and fortitude, valor and faith. In striking contrast with,

these scenes of battle and self-sacrifice, including the tragic incidents

attending the third anniversary of the Tuscan martyrs in the church of

Santa Croce at Florence, three years later, are the episodes of fashionable

and carnival life in that delightful capital. The Cascine and the Pergola

are reproduced with all their gay life and license; the Contessa Zenobia

and her _cavalier servente_, so comical, yet true, are but slight

exaggerations of what many of us have witnessed and wondered at. Provincial

and conventual life in Italy is photographed in this story; fresh forms and

phases of the ecclesiastical element are incarnated from careful

observation; and the political feeling, faith, and transitions of the

period are vividly illustrated. Carlo, the young noble, is a true portrait

of the kindly, genial, but shallow and pleasure-seeking Florentine youth of

the day, such as we have loitered with on the promenade and chatted beside

at the Caffe Doney,--without convictions, playful, always half in love,

with a little stock of philosophy and a lesser one of religion, yet alert

to do a kindness,--full of tact, charming in manner, tasteful and tolerant,

with no higher aim than being agreeable and ignoring care,--impatient of

duty, fond of pastime, utterly incapable of giving pain or attempting hard

work. His friend Giulio Malatesta, on the other hand, adequately

personifies the earnest, thoughtful, and patriotic Italian, to whom _Viva

l' Italia!_ means something,--who is ready to suffer for his country, and

who knows her poets by heart, believes in her unity, and has boundless

faith in her future. Francesca Varini is described with an exactitude which

defines her peculiar charms and traits to any reader who has fondly noted

the modifications of female beauty and character incident to race and

locality in Italy; and old Marta Varini is such a stoical, acute, and

persistent woman as signalized the days of the Carbonari; while Stella and

Madalina are local heroines with characteristic national traits.

In "Beppo the Conscript" we are transported to "the narrow strip of

territory shut in between the Apennines and the Adriatic, to the south of

Bologna and the north of Ancona," where European civilization once centred,

Tasso sung and raved, and the Dukes of Urbino flourished. But not to revive

their past glories are we beguiled to the decayed old city of Fano, and the

umbrageous valleys that nestle amid the surrounding hills; it is the

normal, primitive, agricultural life and economy of the region, and the

late political and social condition of the inhabitants, which this story

illustrates. The means and methods of rural toil,--the "wine, corn, and

oil" of Scriptural and Virgilian times; the avarice, the pride, the love,

the industry, and the superstition of the _Contadini_ of the Romagna; a

household of prosperous rustics, their ways and traits; and the subtle and

prevailing agency of priest-craft in its secret opposition to the new and

liberal Italian government,--are all exhibited with a quiet zest and a

graphic fidelity which take us into the heart of the people, and the

arcana, as well as the spectacle, of daily life as there latent and

manifest. The domestic, peasant, and provincial scenes and characters are

drawn with fresh and natural colors and faithful outlines.

The scene of the last-published domestic novel[16] of the series is laid at

Siena; and, although the story is based upon one of those impassioned

tragedies of love and jealousy which can only be found in the family

chronicles of Italy, the still-life, social phases, and local traits of the

romance are delineated with the same quiet simplicity and graphic truth

which constitute the authenticity of the author's previous delineations of

modern Italian life. The grave, conservative, and old-fashioned Tuscan city

reappears, with its mediaeval aspect and traditional customs. Convent

education, the homes of the patrician and the citizen, the little gig of

the _fattore_, with the small, wiry ponies of the region, the local

antiquarian and doctor, the letter-carrier, family servant, lady-superior,

pharmacist, the noble and plebeian, the costumes, phrases, and natural

language characteristic of that non-commercial and isolated Tuscan city

before the days of railroads and annexation, are drawn with emphasis and

significant detail. Shades and causes of character are finely

discriminated; the old mediaeval _festa_ peculiar to Siena, with all its

original features and social phenomena, is vividly enacted in the elaborate

description of the "Palio" on the 15th of August; while the insalubrious

and picturesque Maremma is portrayed, from the Etruscan crypts of the

ravines to the desolate streets of Savona, by an artistic and philosophic

hand. Incidentally the solidarity of families and the antagonism of

_contrade_, dating from the Middle Ages, are defined in explanation of

modern traits. We pace the bastions of the fortress built by Cosmo de'

Medici for "the subjection of his newly conquered subjects"; we haunt the

cabinet of a numismatic enthusiast, and the forlorn palace-chamber of a

baffled and beautiful scion of the old, fierce Orsini race; we overhear the

peasants talk, and watch the exquisite gradations of color at sunset on the

adjacent mountains, across the lonely plains, or gaze down upon St.

Catherine's house in the dyers' quarter, and muse in deserted church, urban

garden, and precipitous street, consciously alive the while to the aspect

and atmosphere, not only of the Siena we have visited or imagined, but of

mediaeval Tuscany, and its language and life of to-day, as they are

incidentally reflected in the experience of a few distinctly individualized

and harmoniously developed characters,--true to race, period, and locality,

and far more complete and authentic, as a record and revelation, than dry

annals on the one hand, or superficial travel-sketches on the other.

The _justice_ which these writings display, in revealing the latent

goodness in things evil, the instinctive and spiritual graces as well as

the social perversions of the Italian character, is quite as refreshing as

the correct observation of external traits and the true record of

historical causes. A generous and intelligent sympathy imparts "a precious

seeing to the eye" of the agreeable story-teller, who has thus patiently

and fondly explored the past, delineated the present, and hailed the future

of Italy, in a spirit of liberal wisdom and true humanity.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _A History of Florence_, in four volumes; _Paul the Pope and Paul the

Friar_; _Filippo Strozzi_; _The Girlhood of Catharine de' Medici_; _A

Decade of Italian Women_; _Tuscany in 1849_; _La Beata_; _Marietta_;

_Giulio Malatesta_; _Beppo the Conscript_. London: Chapman and Hall.

1856-1865.

[14] _Lindisfarn Chase._ Harper and Brothers, 1863. _Life of Vittoria

Colonna._ Sheldon & Co., 1859.

[15] _Filippo Strozzi_, Tragedia par G. B. Niccolini. _Luisa Strozzi_,

Romanzo par G. Rossini.

[16] _Gemma._ A Novel in three volumes. London: Chapman and Hall. 1866.

A NATIVE OF BORNOO.

Nicholas Said, at the time of his enlistment in the army of the Union,

during the third year of the great Rebellion, was about twenty-eight years

of age, of medium height, somewhat slenderly built, with pleasing features,

not of the extreme negro type, complexion perfectly black, and quiet and

unassuming address.

He became known to the writer while serving in one of our colored

regiments; and attention was first directed to his case by the tattooing on

his face, and by the entry in the company descriptive book, which gave

"Africa" as his birthplace.

Inquiry showed that he was more or less acquainted with seven different

languages, in addition to his native tongue; that he had travelled

extensively in Africa and Europe, and that his life had been one of such

varied experience as to render it interesting both on that account and also

on account of the mystery which surrounds, notwithstanding recent

explorations, the country of his birth.

At the request of those who had been from time to time entertained by the

recital of portions of his history, he was induced to put it in writing.

The narrative which follows is condensed from his manuscript, and his own

language has been retained as far as possible.

* * * * *

Reader, you must excuse me for the mistakes which this article will

contain, as you will bear in mind that this language in which I am now

trying to write is not my mother tongue; on the other hand, I never had a

teacher, nor ever was at school for the purpose of acquiring the English.

The only way I learned what little of the language I know was through

French books.

I was born in the kingdom of Bornoo, in Soodan, in the problematic central

part of Africa, so imperfectly known to the civilized nations of Europe

and America.

Soodan has several kingdoms, the country of the Fellatahs and Bornoo being

the most powerful,--the territorial extent of the latter being some 810,000

square miles.

These nations are strict Mohammedans, having been converted some two or

three centuries ago by the Bedouin Arabs and those from Morocco, who,

pushed by want of riches, came to Soodan to acquire them. Different

languages are found in each nation, some written and some not; but the

Arabic is very much in use among the higher class of people, as the Latin

is used by the Catholic priests. Especially the Koran is written in Arabic,

and in my country no one is allowed to handle the Sacred Book unless he can

read it and explain its contents.

Bornoo, my native country, is the most civilized part of Soodan, on account

of the great commerce carried on between it and the Barbary States of

Fezzan, Tunis, and Tripoli. They export all kinds of European articles to

Central Africa, and take gold-dust, ivory, &c., in return.

Bornoo has had a romantic history for the last one hundred years. The whole

of Soodan, more than two thousand miles in extent, was once under the Mais

of Bornoo; but by dissensions and civil wars nearly all the tributaries

north of Lake Tchad were lost. In 1809 a shepherd arose from the country of

the Fellatahs and assumed the title of Prophet. He said to the ignorant

portion of his countrymen, that Allah had given him orders to make war with

the whole of Soodan, and had promised him victory. They believed his story,

and the legitimate king was dethroned and the false prophet, Otman

Danfodio, was proclaimed Emperor of the Fellatahs. The impostor went at

once to work, and in less than two years conquered almost the whole of

Soodan, excepting Kanem, a tributary to my country. Bornoo, after a manly

effort, was compelled by force of arms to submit to the yoke of the

Fellatahs.

In 1815 Bornoo arose from its humiliating position, to shake off the yoke

of Danfodio. Mohammed el Anim el Kanemy, the Washington of Bornoo, was the

man who undertook to liberate his country and restore her former prestige.

This immortal hero could collect from the villages of Bornoo but a few

hundreds of horsemen; but in Kanem he got eight hundred men, and accepted

an engagement with the enemy. He gained the first victory, and took such

good advantage of his success, that in the space of two months he won forty

battles, drove the enemy entirely out of Bornoo, and captured a great many

places belonging to the Fellatahs.

At the close of the war, El Kanemy found himself at the head of

twenty-eight thousand horsemen, and the real ruler of Bornoo. Like all

great men, he refused the sceptre, and, going to the legitimate heir of the

throne, Mais Barnoma, told him he was at his disposal. Barnoma,

notwithstanding the noble actions of El Kanemy, was jealous of his fame,

and tried a plan to dispose of him, which he thought would be best, and of

which the public would not suspect him. Accordingly he wrote to the king of

Begharmi, promising to pay the expenses of his troops, and some extra

compensation beside, if he would make as though he were really at war with

Bornoo. He agreed to the proposal, and crossed with his army the great

river Shary, the natural frontier of the two kingdoms. El Kanemy was then

in the city of Kooka, which he had built for himself. He heard finally of

the war between Bornoo and Begharmi, and, hastily calling out his ancient

veterans, he reported to Engornoo, where the king resided. The combined

forces numbered some forty thousand men. El Kanemy knew nothing of the

infamous act of the king; but Allah, who protects the innocent and punishes

the guilty, was smiling over him. The armies pitched their camps opposite

to each other; and the king of Begharmi sent a messenger with a letter to

Mais Barnoma, informing him that the heaviest assault would be made upon

the left, and that, if he would give El Kanemy command there, the bravest

of the assailants would surround and kill him at once. This letter the

messenger carried to El Kanemy instead of the king, who, at once seeing the

plot, immediately answered the important document, signing the name of

Barnoma, and loading the messenger with presents of all descriptions for

his master. The next morning El Kanemy went to the king and told him that

the heaviest assault would be made on the right, and that he should not

expose his precious life there. As Barnoma got no letter from the king of

Begharmi, he thought El Kanemy was right, and acted accordingly.

The battle finally began, and the Sycaries of Begharmi, attacking the left

where they thought El Kanemy was, surrounded Mais Barnoma and killed him,

supposing him El Kanemy. The battle, however, went on, and the king of

Begharmi found out before long that he had killed the wrong lion. His army,

in spite of their usual courage, were beaten, and obliged to recross the

river Shary, at that place more than two miles wide, with a loss of half

their number. The victorious army of El Kanemy also crossed the river, and,

pursuing the retreating forces, captured Mesna, the capital of Begharmi,

and drove the king into the country of Waday.

El Kanemy now found himself the absolute ruler of Bornoo, nor had that

kingdom ever any greater ruler. Under his reign the nation prospered

finely. He encouraged commerce with Northern and Eastern Africa, and,

building a fleet of small vessels, sailed with a strong force against a

tribe who inhabited the main islands of Lake Tchad, and who used to commit

depredations upon the neighboring sections of Bornoo, and chastised them

severely. These islanders are the finest type of the African race,

possessing regular features, and large, expressive eyes, though they are

the darkest of all Africans. El Kanemy also subdued many of the surrounding

tribes and nations, until the population of Bornoo and its provinces

amounted to nearly fifteen millions.

My father was the descendant of a very illustrious family. He was the first

man who had a commission under El Kanemy when he went to Kanem to recruit

his forces. He was made a Bagafuby, or captain of one hundred cavalry, and

was in every engagement which El Kanemy went through. The name by which my

father was known was Barca Gana.[17] My great-grandfather was from Molgoi.

He established himself in Bornoo many years ago, and was greatly favored by

the monarchs of that country. My mother was a Mandara woman, the daughter

of a chief. I was born in Kooka, a few years after the Waday war of 1831.

We were in all nineteen children, twelve boys and seven girls. I was the

ninth child of my mother. All my brothers were well educated in Arabic and

Turkish. Two of them, Mustapha and Abderahman, were very rich, having

acquired their wealth by trading in ivory and gold-dust. Both had been to

Mecca as pilgrims. My father himself was rich, but when he was killed, our

elder brother seized the greater part, and those who were not eighteen

years of age had to leave their share in their mother's hands. Five cleared

farms and a considerable amount of gold fell to my share. I do not know how

much the gold amounted to, but my mother used to tell me, that, when I got

to be twenty years of age, I would have as much as either of my elder

brothers.

After my father's death I was given to a teacher to be instructed in my

native tongue, and also in Arabic. In the space of three years I could read

and write both languages. I was tried in my native tongue, and passed; but

I could not pass in Arabic, and my mother and uncle returned me to the

teacher for eighteen months. I stayed the required time, and then was tried

and passed.

I was then old enough to be circumcised. Three hundred boys went through

the ceremony at once, and were then dressed in white clothes, and received

according to custom a great many presents. Fifteen days we ate the best

that Kooka had, the king himself giving us the best he had in his palace.

This generally happens only to the sons of those who have distinguished

themselves in the army, or, to explain myself better, to those of the

military aristocracy. At the end of this time all of us went home. For my

part, this was the first time I had slept in my father's house for four

years and seven months. I was very much welcomed by my mother, sisters, and

brothers, and was a pet for some time.

After returning from school to my father's house, I judge about four or

five years afterwards, I was invited, in company with three of my brothers,

by the eldest son of the governor of the province of Yaoori and Laree, who

lived in the town of the latter name, to visit him. This part of the

province is very charming. The forests are full of delicious game, and the

lake of fish and beautiful aquatic birds; while in the dry seasons the

woods and uncultivated plains are worthy to be called the garden of Eden.

In my childhood I had quite a passion for hunting, one of my father's great

passions also. In spite of the efforts of my elder brothers to check me in

it, I would persuade the other boys to follow me into the thick woods, to

the danger of their lives and mine. My worthy mother declared several times

that I would be captured by the Kindils, a wandering tribe of the desert.

Her prophecy was fulfilled after all, unhappily for myself, and perhaps

more so for those I had persuaded with me. While on the visit just spoken

of, one day,--it was a Ramadan day, anniversary of the Prophet's day,--I

persuaded a great number of boys, and we went into the woods a great way

from any village. We came across nests of Guinea fowl, and gathered plenty

of eggs, and killed several of the fowl. We made fire by rubbing two pieces

of dry stick together, and broiled the chickens and eggs. Then we proceeded

farther, and came across a tree called Agoua, bearing a delicious kind of

fruit. We all went up the tree, eating fruit and making a great deal of

noise. We frolicked on that tree for many hours. Presently several of the

boys told me they heard the neighing of horses. We then all agreed not to

make so much noise, but we were just too late. In about a quarter of an

hour we were startled by the cry, "Kindil! Kindil!" The boys who were

nearest to the ground contrived to hide themselves in the thicket. It

happened that I was higher than any one, and while coming down with haste,

I missed my hold and fell, and lay senseless. When I opened my eyes, I

found myself on horseback behind a man, and tied to him with a rope. Out of

forty boys, eighteen of us were taken captive. I wished then that it was a

dream rather than a reality, and the warnings of my mother passed through

my mind. Tears began to flow down my cheeks; I not only lamented for

myself, but for those also whom I persuaded into those wild woods.

Meanwhile, our inhuman captors were laughing and talking merrily, but I

could not understand them. About six hours' ride, as I suppose, brought us

to their camp. The tents were then immediately taken down, the camels

loaded, and we started again, travelling night, and day for three long

days, until we came to a temporary village where their chief was. After we

got there we were all chained together, except four, who were taken pity

upon, on account of their age and birth. It was then night, and nearly all

the camp was under the influence of hashish, an intoxicating mixture made

of hemp-seed and other ingredients, which when too much is eaten will

intoxicate worse than whiskey, or even spirits of wine. While the robbers

were drunk, we boys were consulting and plotting to run away. We succeeded

in breaking the chains, and four of the oldest boys took their captors'

arms, cut their throats, jumped on their horses, and succeeded in making

their escape. When it was found out, they gave each of us fifteen strokes

in the hollows of our feet, because we did not inform them.

A little while after our comrades' escape we started on again. This time we

had to go on foot for five days, until we reached a town called Kashna,

belonging to the Emperor of the Fellatahs, but situated in the country of

Houssa, where we were all dispersed to see each other no more. Fortunately,

none of my brothers were with me in the woods.

My lot was that of an Arab slave, for I was bought by a man named

Abd-el-Kader, a merchant of Tripoli and Fezzan. He was not an Arabian,

however, but a brown-skinned man, and undoubtedly had African blood in his

veins. He had at this time a large load of ivory and other goods waiting

for the caravan from Kano and Sacca-too. This caravan soon came, and with

it we started for Moorzook, capital of the pachalic of Fezzan. Although we

numbered about five hundred, all armed except slaves who could not be

trusted, a lion whom we met after starting, lying in our path, would not

derange himself on our account, and we had to attack him. Twelve men fired

into him. Four men he killed, and wounded five or six, and then escaped. He

was hit somewhere, as they found blood where he lay, but it was not known

where. When he roared, he scared all the horses and camels composing the

caravan. Abd-el-Kader was one of those who attacked the lion, but he was

not hurt.

Five days after we left Kashna, we came to the first oasis. Here the plains

were all barren and sandy, but full of gazelles, antelopes, and ostriches.

The principal tree growing here was the date-palm, and the water was very

bad, tasting salty.

As the caravan travelled toward the east, the ground rose by degrees. If I

am not mistaken, we passed five oases before we came into the country of

Tibboo, a mountainous region between Bornoo and Fezzan, the inhabitants of

which suffer considerably from the Kindils, though they are also robbers

themselves. The capital of Tibboo is Boolma, built on a high mountain. I

was disappointed when I saw the city, for I had heard that it was quite a

large place. Laree, the smallest town in Bornoo, is a place of more

importance. The people of Tibboo are of dark-brown complexion, and are

noted in Soodan for their shrewdness. The day that the caravan happened to

be at Boolma, two parties were in a warlike attitude about a fair maid whom

each wished their chief to have for a wife. We did not stay long enough to

see the issue of the fight, and two days' journey took us out of the

kingdom of Tibboo.

As soon as the oasis of Tibboo was left, the country became very

rocky,--the rock being a kind of black granite; and the Arabs had to make

shoes for both their camels and slaves, for the rocks were very sharp, and

if this precaution had not been taken, in a few hours their feet would have

been so cut that they could not have proceeded farther. Some Arabs would

rather lose four or five slaves than a single camel. They rode very seldom.

In a journey of ten or twelve weeks I saw Abd-el-Kader ride but once, and

the majority never rode at all.

In these rocky regions of the desert a great amount of salt is found

also,--what is called in our language Kalboo, and I believe, in English,

carbonate of soda. Soodan is supplied by the Moors and Kindils with salt

from the desert. Sea-shells are also occasionally found in this region.

After we left Tibboo fire was never allowed, even in the oases, but I do

not know for what reason.

The mountainous regions of the desert passed, we came to a more level

country, but it was not long before we saw other mountains ahead. As we

passed over the last of them, we found them very dangerous from their

steepness, and a few camels were lost by falling into the ravines. After

passing this dangerous place, a sign of vegetation was seen, oases were

more frequent, and at last forests of date-palm, the fruit of which forms

the principal food of both the inhabitants of Fezzan and their camels,

became abundant.

El Kaheni is the first town or human habitation seen after leaving Tibboo.

It is a small walled town, like all other places in Fezzan. Here I first

saw the curious way in which the Fezzaneers cultivate their land by

irrigation. Each farm has a large well, wide at the top and sloping toward

the bottom, out of which water is drawn by donkeys, and poured into a

trough, from which it runs into small ditches. This process is renewed

every few days until the crop no longer needs watering.

The people of El Kaheni were very courteous. I had a long talk with a young

man, who gave me a description of the capital, Moorzook, but his story did

not agree with that which Abd-el-Kader told me. I afterwards found that the

young man's story was correct. We left El Kaheni the next day, taking a

large load of dates, superior to those of Soodan in size and sweetness.

After three days' journey we could see in the distance a large flag on a

long pole, on the top of the English Consulate, the largest house in the

metropolis of Fezzan. We passed several villages of trifling importance,

and at about noon arrived within the walls of Moorzook. There the caravan

dissolved, and each man went to his own house.

I found Moorzook to be not larger than a quarter of my native town of

Kooka; but the buildings were in general better, every house being of

stone, though of course very poorly built in comparison with European

dwellings. The city has four gates, one toward each cardinal point of the

compass. The northern is the one by which the caravan entered; the eastern

is a ruin; the southern, which is behind the Pacha's palace, has mounted

by it two guns of large calibre; while the western, and the best of all, is

situated near the barracks, which are fine buildings, larger even than the

Pacha's palace. The pachalic of Fezzan is a tributary of the Ottoman Porte,

and the Pacha, a Turk, is very much hated by the Bedouins.

After reaching Abd-el-Kader's house, I found that he was a poor man. The

reader can form some idea from his living in the capital, and having but

one wife, all his property consisting of a piece of land about two and a

half miles from the city, a few donkeys, ten camels, old and young, an Arab

slave, and myself. While I was yet with him he bought also a young Fellatah

girl. As soon as we arrived, he sent me with Hassan, his slave, to the

farm, where I worked some fifteen days. I told him then that I was not used

to such work, and prayed him to sell me to some Turk or Egyptian. He asked

me what my father used to do, and I told him that he was a warrior and also

traded in gold-dust and ivory. On hearing my father's name he opened his

eyes wide, and asked me why I did not tell him that in Soodan. He had known

my father well, but had not seen him for fifteen rainy seasons. From that

day Abd-el-Kader was very kind to me, and said he had a great notion to

take me back. He, however, sold me after all to a young Turkish officer

named Abdy Agra, an excellent young man, full of life and fun. This officer

was always with the Pacha, and I believe was one of his aides. His wife was

a Kanowry woman. He used to bring home money every night and often gave me

some. After he had dressed me up, I accompanied him to the Pacha's every

day. He spoke my language very correctly, only with an accent, like all

strangers trying to speak Kanowry, and he began to teach me Turkish.

Strange to say, in Fezzan the Bornoo tongue is in great vogue, rich and

poor speaking Kanowry. I stayed with Abdy Agra more than three months; but

one day he told me that he had to send me to his father in Tripoli. So

long as I had to be a slave, I hated to leave so excellent a man, but I had

to go. Accordingly, when the caravan was to start, he sent me in charge of

Abd-el-Kader, the man from whom he had bought me. Before leaving the city

we went to a house that I had never seen before, and had our names

registered in a book by a very benevolent-looking man, who wore spectacles

on his eyes, something I had never seen before, and which made me afraid of

him. As we passed out of the city gate we were counted one by one by an

officer.

On our arrival at Tripoli, Abd-el-Kader took me to an old house in a street

narrow and dirty beyond description, where we passed the night. The next

morning he went with me to my new master, Hadji Daoud, the father of Abdy

Agra. When we found him he was sitting on a divan of velvet, smoking his

narghile. He looked at that time to be about forty-five years old, and was

of very fine appearance, having a long beard, white as snow. Abd-el-Kader

seemed well acquainted with him, for they shook hands and drank coffee

together. After this we proceeded to the Turkish Bazaar, where I found that

he was a merchant of tobacco, and had an extensive shop, his own property.

Hadji Daoud had three wives; the principal one was an Arabian, one was a

native of my country, and one, and, to do her justice, the best looking of

them all, was a Houssa girl. He believed in keeping a comfortable table,

and we had mutton almost daily, and sometimes fowls. He had but one son,

and he was far away. He told me that he intended to treat me as a son, and

every day I went to the shop with him. He treated me always kindly, but

madam was a cross and overbearing woman.

About this time my master started on his third pilgrimage to Mecca, leaving

a friend in charge of his store, and taking me with him. We went by sail

from Tripoli to Alexandria, touching at Bengazi. From Alexandria we went by

cars to Ben Hadad, thence to Saida and Cairo, the capital of Egypt. From

Cairo we travelled to Kartoom, at the forks of the Nile, and thence to

Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, where we stayed only twenty-four hours,

my master being in continual fear of his life from the natives, who

differed from him in belief, and then started for Zela, a port on the Red

Sea. From Zela we sailed to Muscat, and thence proceeded to Mecca. I had

not come of my own free will and for the express purpose of a pilgrimage,

and therefore I was not permitted to go with Daoud to the grave of the

Prophet, and was obliged to content myself without the title of Hadji,

which is one much respected among the Mohammedans. We had returned as far

as Alexandria on our way home, when my master was informed that his store

and a great deal of property, in fact, all his goods and money, had been

destroyed by fire. This made the good man almost crazy. He did not hesitate

to tell me that he should have to sell me; but said that he would take care

that I should have a rich and good master, a promise which he kept. The

next day, with the present of a good suit of clothes, I was put on board a

vessel bound for Smyrna and Constantinople. I was to be landed at the

former city. On this vessel was a young man of eighteen, one of the crew,

who spoke my own language. I have heard it only twice, I think, since that

time.

At Smyrna I was sold to a Turkish officer, Yousouf Effendi, a very wealthy

man, and brother-in-law to the celebrated Reschid Pacha, the Minister of

Foreign Affairs. He had a great many houses in Smyrna, as well as

Constantinople. We sailed the next day for the latter city in a man-of-war

steamer, the Abdul Medjid. My duty was that of a Tchidboudji, which

consists in filling and cleaning the pipes and narghiles. This was all that

I had to do, while I was well dressed in cloths and silks, and had plenty

of leisure time. After a service of eighteen months with Yousouf Effendi,

he gave me to his younger brother, Yousouf Kavass, less wealthy than

himself. This brother was, however, a very kind-hearted man, and treated

his slaves, a Nubian, a native of Sennar, and myself, very kindly. While in

this service I became known to Prince Mentchikoff, the Envoy Extraordinary

of Russia at Constantinople, and was finally sold to him by my master. At

the declaration of the Crimean war, after sending his things on board the

Russian steamer Vladimir, the Prince started with despatches for his august

master, via Corfu, Athens, Zara, Trieste, Vienna, Cracow, and Warsaw, to

St. Petersburg. I accompanied him on the journey, and, as the despatches

were of the utmost importance, we travelled with the greatest speed.

The house of my master, to which we went, in St. Petersburg, was situated

on the Nevskoi Prospekt, the Broadway of the city, and was built of

granite, in the Doric style, and very spacious. His family consisted of his

wife, one son, and three daughters, while his servants numbered about

thirty. The Prince, however, was not so immensely rich as some Russian

aristocrats of his standing. Shortly after his arrival at St. Petersburg,

Prince Mentchikoff was assigned to command in the army of the Crimea, and

he hastened there, leaving me in St. Petersburg. After his departure, not

being satisfied with the way in which the head servant treated me, I

engaged service with Prince Nicholas Troubetzkoy.

This family, better known as Le Grand Troubetzkoy, are descendants of the

Grand Duke of Lithuania. The Prince's father was noted for skill and

bravery in the war of 1828. The Troubetzkoys claim relationship with the

Emperor of France, the Duc de Morny, the half-brother of the Emperor,

having married the daughter of Prince Serges Troubetzkoy.

Prince Nicholas was the youngest of five sons, and lived with his brother

Andre, not far from the Italian theatre, both of them being single.

While in this service, I was baptized in St. Petersburg, November 12,

1855, into the Greek Church, my name being changed from

Mohammed-Ali-Ben-Said to Nicholas Said. Prince Nicholas was my godfather. I

shall always feel grateful, so long as I live, for Prince Nicholas's

kindness to me; but I cannot help thinking that the way I was baptized was

not right, for I think that I ought to have known perfectly well the nature

of the thing beforehand. Still, it was a good intention the Prince had

toward my moral welfare. After I was baptized he was very kind to me, and

he bought me a solid gold cross to wear on my breast, after the Russian

fashion. I was the Prince's personal servant, going always in the carriage

with him.

As the Czar Nicholas was godfather to the Prince, he had free access to the

palace. Though he had several chances to become minister at some European

court, he always refused, preferring to live a life of inaction. His

health, however, was not very good, and he was very nervous. I have seen

him faint scores of time in Russia; but when he left Russia, his health

began to improve very much.

Everybody acquainted with Russia knows that Czar Nicholas used to make all

the aristocracy tremble at his feet. No nobleman, to whatever rank he might

belong, could leave the country without his consent, and paying a certain

sum of money for the privilege. This measure of the Czar was not very well

liked by the nobility, but his will was law, and had to be executed without

grumbling.

Prince Troubetzkoy had several times made application for permission to

travel, but without success, so long as Czar Nicholas lived; for he hated

liberal ideas, and feared some of his subjects might, in the course of

time, introduce those ideas from foreign countries into Russia.

The Prince passed the summer season outside of the city, a distance of

about twenty-five versts, at a splendid residence of his own, a marble

house about the size of the Fifth Avenue Hotel of New York City. Adjoining

it was a small theatre, or glass house, containing tropical fruits, and a

menagerie, where I first saw a llama, and the interior of the palace was

lined with pictures and statues. It was a magnificent building, but was

getting to be quite old, and the Prince used to talk of repairing it,

though he remarked it would cost many thousand roubles. This estate

contained many thousand acres, and four good-sized villages, and was about

eight miles square. I had here some of the happiest days of my life.

About this time I went with the Prince to Georgia,--his brother-in-law, a

general in that department, having been wounded by the Circassians under

Schamyl. We reached Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, in January, and

remained there until after the capture of Kars by the English and Turks.

While in the Caucasus, the Prince visited some of the neighboring parts of

Persia, including Teheran and some smaller towns, and he returned to Russia

by way of Novgorod.

After the death of Czar Nicholas, Alexander, his successor, gave the Prince

permission to travel where he chose, without limit of time, and on the 24th

of February he started, going first to Warsaw, and thence, via Cracow, to

Vienna. Here I remained for two months, in charge of his effects, while he

visited a sister in Pesth, in Hungary. On his return we went to Prague, and

thence to Dresden. At this place, I was greatly bothered by the children.

They said that they had never seen a black man before. But the thing which

most attracted them was my Turkish dress, which I wore all the time in

Europe. Every day, for the three weeks we remained in Dresden, whenever I

went to take my walk I was surrounded by them to the number of several

hundred. To keep myself from them, I used to ride in a carriage or on

horseback, but this was too expensive. I thought the way I could do best

was to be friendly with them. So I used to sit in the garden and speak

with them,--that is, those who could understand French. They took a great

liking to me, for I used sometimes to buy them fruits, candies, and other

things, spending in this way a large amount. Prince Troubetzkoy had a

brother, Prince Vladimir, living in Dresden, a very handsome and a very

excellent man, but suffering from consumption. He treated me very kindly,

and when we left gave me several very interesting books, both religious and

secular.

From Dresden we went to Munich, thence to Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Coblenz,

Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Brussels, and Ostende; then, returning to

Brussels, visited the field of Waterloo, and proceeded to Switzerland,

passing through Berne, Interlachen, over the Jura and St. Gothard's, to

Zurich. From Zurich we went to Como in Lombardy, where the Prince's eldest

brother, Alexander, had a villa on the borders of the lake. After a short

stay here, we went on to Verona, and then to Milan, where I was left while

the Prince made a short visit to Venice. Here, while left alone, I did not

behave as well as I might have done, sometimes drinking too much, and

spending my money foolishly. Here also I saw, for the first time since

leaving Africa, a countryman. He was named Mirza, and was born about

thirty-five miles from Kooka, my native place. He was considerably older

than I, and had been away from Africa some fifteen years. He was waiting on

a Venetian Marquis whose name I have forgotten.

After a stay of four weeks in Milan, we started, via Genoa, Leghorn, and

Pisa, for Florence. Here I attended my master at two levees,--one at the

palace of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, where I believe I had a better time

than the Prince, and the other at Prince Demidoff's. This latter gentleman

is a very wealthy Russian, and is very widely known. He is not a nobleman

in Russia, however, but has his title from the Grand Duke. He is well known

for the disagreeable propensity he has for beating his servants. While he

was in Vienna he was worsted in an attempt to chastise a Hungarian footman,

but he would not quit the practice, and has paid several fines imposed by

law in consequence.

Our next stopping-place was Rome, where the Prince remained for the winter,

making meanwhile a short visit to Naples, and leaving in the spring for

Paris. We were in Paris when the Prince Imperial was born, and stayed until

his christening, which was a very important day there. I remember well the

wonder of a young Russian servant-girl, that France should have still so

many soldiers as appeared in the procession,--a fraction only, of course,

of her army,--after losing so many in the Crimea. The Prince always took a

great pride in dress, both for himself and his servants, and particularly

here. I was always dressed in Turkish costume, embroidered with gold, and

never costing less than two or three hundred dollars.

After a three months' stay in Paris we went to London, where the Prince

took rooms at a first-class boarding-house; but he was invited almost all

the time to different country seats, where I had very gay times, for the

English servants live better than any in Europe.

At the conclusion of his English visit, the Prince returned to Baden-Baden,

this time renting a house. While there Napoleon III. passed through the

place on his way to meet the Czar Alexander; and Prince Troubetzkoy was

summoned to Frankfort-on-the-Main to attend on the latter. Here I was one

day told by the Prince to dress myself in my best, and go to the Russian

Ambassador's to wait on the Emperor at dinner. There were present beside

the two Emperors, the King of Wurtemberg, the Grand Dukes of Baden, Hesse

Darmstadt, and Nassau, the Ministers of France and Belgium, the Burgomaster

of Frankfort, Messrs. Rothschild, and many others. A splendid dinner was

served at six o'clock, the usual Russian dinner-hour, and was followed by

a ball, which continued until two in the morning. A day previous to the

monarch's departure Prince Gortchakoff handed my master thirty thalers as a

present for me.

About this time I began to think of the condition of Africa, my native

country, how European encroachments might be stopped, and her nationalities

united. I thought how powerful the United States had become since 1776, and

I wondered if I were capable of persuading the kings of Soodan to send

several hundred boys to learn the arts and sciences existing in civilized

countries. I thought that I would willingly sacrifice my life, if need be,

in realizing my dreams. I cried many times at the ignorance of my people,

exposed to foreign ambition, who, however good warriors they might be,

could not contend against superior weapons and tactics in the field. I

prayed earnestly to be enabled to do some good to my race. The Prince could

not but see that I was very sober, but I never told him my thoughts.

We stayed at Baden-Baden all summer and part of the fall, and then left for

Paris. The Prince made this journey to visit his niece, who had just been

married to the Duc de Morny, formerly the French Ambassador to Russia. She

was a most beautiful person, only seventeen years of age. I was taken to

see her, and kiss her hand, according to custom. She at first hesitated to

give me her hand, undoubtedly being afraid. I had never seen her in Russia,

as she was at the Imperial University, studying. After two weeks we again

left Paris for Rome, via Switzerland, again passed the summer at

Baden-Baden, again visited Paris, and various other points, until the year

1859 found the Prince again in London.

My desire to return to my native country had now become so strong, that I

here told the Prince I must go home to my people. He tried to persuade me

to the contrary, but I was inflexible in my determination. After he found

that I was not to be persuaded, he got up with tears in his eyes, and

said: "Said, I wish you good luck; you have served me honestly and

faithfully, and if ever misfortune happens to you, remember I shall always

be, as I always have been, interested in you." I, with many tears, replied

that I was exceedingly thankful for all he had bestowed on me and done in

my behalf, and that I should pray for him while I lived. I felt truly sorry

to leave this most excellent Prince. As I was leaving, he gave me as a

present two fifty-pound bills. It was many days before I overcame my

regret. Often I could hardly eat for grief.

I now went to board at the Strangers' Home, at the West India Dock, five

miles from where the Prince stopped. Here I waited for a steamer for

Africa. Hardly had I been there two weeks, when a gentleman from Holland

proposed to me a situation to travel with him in the United States and West

India Islands. I had read much about these countries, and my desire to see

them caused me to consent, and we left Liverpool soon after New Year's,

1860.

With this gentleman I went via Boston and New York to New Providence, Long

Keys, Inagua, Kingston, Les Gonaives, St. Marc, Demerara, Martinique,

Guadeloupe, and then back to New Providence, and from there by steamer to

New York. We remained in New York two months, and then visited Niagara,

Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston, Montreal, Quebec, and Ottawa, until, finally,

at a small village called Elmer, my employer's funds gave out, and I lent

him five hundred dollars of my own money. Of this five hundred I received

back only three hundred and eighty, and this failure compelled me to remain

in this country and earn my living by work to which I was unaccustomed.

* * * * *

At this point the written narrative of Nicholas ends, at some date during

the year 1861. He afterward went to Detroit, and taught a school for those

of his own color, meeting there, I believe, a clergyman whom he had seen

years before in Constantinople, while a servant to Prince Mentchikoff. At

Detroit he enlisted in a colored regiment in the summer of 1863. He served

faithfully and bravely with his regiment as corporal and sergeant in the

Department of the South, and near the close of the war was attached, at his

own request, to the hospital department, to acquire some knowledge of

medicine. He was mustered out with the company in which he served, in the

fall of 1865. But, alas for his plans of service to his countrymen in his

native land! like many a warrior before him, he fell captive to woman,

married at the South, and for some time past the writer, amidst the changes

of business, has entirely lost sight of him.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Barca Gana is alluded to in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Vol. V. p.

54) as the general of the Scheik of Bornoo.--EDS.

BY-WAYS OF EUROPE.

FROM PERPIGNAN TO MONTSERRAT.

"Out of France and into Spain," says the old nursery rhyme; but at the

eastern base of the Pyrenees one seems to have entered Spain before leaving

France. The rich vine-plains of Roussillon once belonged to the former

country; they retain quite as distinct traces of the earlier Moorish

occupancy, and their people speak a dialect almost identical with that of

Catalonia. I do not remember the old boundaries of the province, but I

noticed the change immediately after leaving Narbonne. Vine-green, with the

grays of olive and rock, were the only colors of the landscape. The tower,

massive and perched upon elevations, spoke of assault and defence; the

laborers in the fields were brown, dark-haired, and grave, and the

semi-African silence of Spain seemed already to brood over the land.

I entered Perpignan under a heavy Moorish gateway, and made my way to a

hostel through narrow, tortuous streets, between houses with projecting

balconies, and windows few and small, as in the Orient. The hostel, though

ambitiously calling itself an hotel, was filled with that Mediterranean

atmosphere and odor which you breathe everywhere in Italy and the

Levant,--a single characteristic flavor, in which, nevertheless, you fancy

you detect the exhalations of garlic, oranges, horses, cheese, and oil. A

mild whiff of it stimulates the imagination, and is no detriment to

physical comfort. When, at breakfast, red mullet came upon the table, and

oranges fresh from the tree, I straightway took off my Northern nature as a

garment, folded it and packed it neatly away in my knapsack, and took out,

in its stead, the light beribboned and bespangled Southern nature, which I

had not worn for some eight or nine years. It was like a dressing-gown

after a dress-coat, and I went about with a delightfully free play of the

mental and moral joints.

There were four hours before the departure of the diligence for Spain, and

I presume I might have seen various historical or architectural sights of

Perpignan; but I was really too comfortable for anything else than a lazy

meandering about the city, feeding my eyes on quaint houses, groups of

people full of noise and gesture, the scarlet blossoms of the pomegranate,

and the glitter of citron-leaves in the gardens. A one-legged fellow, seven

feet high, who called himself a _commissionnaire_, insisted on accompanying

me, and I finally accepted him, for two reasons;--first, he knew nothing

whatever about the city; and secondly, tourists are so rare that he must

have been very poor. His wooden leg, moreover, easily kept pace with my

loitering steps, and though, as a matter of conscience, he sometimes

volunteered a little information, he took my silence meekly and without

offence. In this wise, I gained some pleasant pictures of the place; and

the pictures which come with least effort are those which remain freshest

in memory.

There was one point, however, where my limping giant made a stand, and set

his will against expostulation or entreaty. I _must_ see the avenue of

sycamores, he said; there was plenty of time; France, the world, had no

such avenue; it was near at hand; every stranger went to see it and was

amazed;--and therewith he set off, without waiting for my answer. I

followed, for I saw that otherwise he would not have considered his fee

earned. The avenue of sycamores was indeed all that he had promised. I had

seen larger trees in Syria and Negropont, but here was a triple avenue,

nearly half a mile in length, so trained and sculptured that they rivalled

the regularity of masonry. Each trunk, at the height of ten or twelve feet,

divided into two arms, which then leaned outwards at the same angle, and

mingled their smaller boughs, fifty feet overhead. The aisles between them

thus took the form of very slender pyramids, truncated near the top. If the

elm gives the Gothic, this was assuredly the Cyclopean arch. In the

beginning, the effect must have been artificially produced, but the trees

were now so old, and had so accustomed themselves to the forms imposed,

that no impression of force or restraint remained. Through the roof of this

superb green minster not a beam of sunshine found its way. On the hard

gravel floor groups of peasants, soldiers, nurses, and children strolled up

and down, all with the careless and leisurely air of a region where time

has no particular value.

We passed a dark-haired and rather handsome gentleman and lady. "They are

opera-singers, Italians," said my companion, "and they are going with you

in the diligence." I looked at my watch and found that the hour of

departure had nearly arrived, and I should have barely time to procure a

little Spanish money. When I reached the office, the gentleman and lady

were already installed in the two corners of the _coupe_. My place,

apparently, was between them. The agent was politely handing me up the

steps, when the gentleman began to remonstrate; but in France the

regulations are rigid, and he presently saw that the intrusion could not be

prevented. With a sigh and a groan he gave up his comfortable corner to me,

and took the middle seat, for which I was booked! "Will you have your

place?" whispered the agent. I shook my head. "You get the best seat, don't

you see?" he resumed, "because--" But the rest of the sentence was a wink

and a laugh. I am sure there is the least possible of the Don Juan in my

appearance; yet this agent never lost an opportunity to wink at me whenever

he came near the diligence, and I fancied I heard him humming to himself,

as we drove away,--

"Ma--nella Spagna--mille e tre!"

I endeavored to be reasonably courteous, without familiarity, towards the

opera-singers, but the effect of the malicious winks and smiles made the

lady appear to me timid and oppressed, and the gentleman an unexploded mine

of jealousy. My remarks were civilly if briefly answered, and then they

turned towards each other and began conversing in a language which was not

Italian, although melodious, nor French, although nasal. I pricked up my

ears and listened more sharply than good manners allowed,--but only until I

had recognized the Portuguese tongue. Whomsoever I may meet, in wandering

over the world, it rarely happens that I cannot discover some common or

"mutual" friend, and in this instance I determined to try the experiment.

After preliminaries, which gently led the conversation to Portugal, I

asked:--

"Do you happen to know Count M----?"

"Only by name."

"Or Senhor O----, a young man and an astronomer?"

"Very well!" was the reply. "He is one of the most distinguished young men

of science in Portugal."

The ice was thereupon broken, and the gentleman became communicative and

agreeable. I saw, very soon, that the pair were no more opera-singers than

they were Italians; that the lady was not timid, nor her husband jealous;

but he had simply preferred, as any respectable husband would, to give up

his comfortable seat rather than have a stranger thrust between himself and

his wife.

Once out of Perpignan, the Pyrenees lay clear before us. Over bare red

hills, near at hand, rose a gray mountain rampart, neither lofty nor

formidable; but westward, between the valleys of the Tech and the Tet,

towered the solitary pyramid of the Canigou, streaked with snow-filled

ravines. The landscapes would have appeared bleak and melancholy, but for

the riotous growth of vines which cover the plain and climb the hillsides

wherever there is room for a terrace of earth. These vines produce the

dark, rich wine of Roussillon, the best vintage of Southern France. Hedges

of aloes, clumps of Southern cypress, poplars by the dry beds of winter

streams, with brown tints in the houses and red in the soil, increased the

resemblance to Spain. Rough fellows, in rusty velvet, who now and then dug

their dangling heels into the sides of the mules or asses they rode, were

enough like _arrieros_ or _contrabandistas_ to be the real article. Our

stout and friendly coachman, even, was hailed by the name of Moreno, and

spoke French with a foreign accent.

At the post-station of Le Boulou, we left the plain of Roussillon behind

us. At this end of the Pyrenean chain there are no such trumpet-names as

Roncesvalles, Fontarabia, and the Bidassoa. Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne,

and the Saracens have marched through these defiles, and left no grand

historic footprint, but they will always keep the interest which belongs to

those natural barriers and division walls whereby races and histories were

once separated. It was enough for me that here were the Pyrenees, and I

looked forward, perhaps, with a keener curiosity, to the character and

forms of their scenery, than to the sentiment which any historic

association could produce. A broad and perfect highway led us through

shallow valleys, whose rocky sides were hung with rows of olive-trees, into

wilder and more abrupt dells, where vegetation engaged in a struggle with

stone, and without man's help would have been driven from the field. Over

us the mountains lifted themselves in bold bastions and parapets,

disforested now, if those gray upper plateaus ever bore forests, and of a

uniform slaty-gray in tone, except where reddish patches of oxidation

showed like the rust of age.

But, like "all waste and solitary places," the scenery had its own peculiar

charm. Poussin and Salvator Rosa would have seated themselves afresh at

every twist of the glen, and sketched the new picture which it unfolded.

The huge rocks, fallen from above, or shattered in the original upheaval of

the chain, presented a thousand sharp, forcible outlines and ragged facets

of shadow, and the two native growths of the Pyrenees--box and

cork-oak--fringed them as thickets or overhung them as trees, in the

wildest and most picturesque combinations. Indeed, during this portion of

the journey, I saw scores of sketches waiting for the selected artist who

has not yet come for them,--sketches full of strength and beauty, and with

a harmony of color as simple as the chord of triple tones in music. When to

their dark grays and greens came the scarlet Phrygian cap of the

Catalonian, it was brighter than sunshine.

The French fortress of Bellegarde, crowning a drum-shaped mass of rock,

which blocked up the narrow valley in front, announced our approach to the

Spanish frontier. The road wound back and forth as it climbed through a

stony wilderness to the mouth of a gorge under the fortress, and I saw,

before we entered this last gateway into Spain, the peak of the Canigou

touched with sunset, and the sweep of plain beyond it black under the

shadow of storm-clouds. On either side were some heaps of stone, left from

forts and chapels of the Middle Ages, indicating that we had already

reached the summit of the pass, which is less than a thousand feet above

the sea-level. In ten minutes the gorge opened, and we found ourselves

suddenly rattling along the one street of the gay French village of

Perthus. Officers from Bellegarde sat at the table in front of the smart

_cafe_, and drank absinthe; soldiers in red trousers chatted with the

lively women who sold tobacco and groceries; there were trees, little

gardens, arbors of vine, and the valley opened southwards, descending and

broadening towards a cloudless evening sky.

At the end of the village I saw a granite pyramid, with the single word

"Gallia" engraved upon it; a few paces farther two marble posts bore the

half-obliterated arms of Spain. Here the diligence paused a moment, and an

officer of customs took his seat beside the coachman. The telegraph-pole

behind us was of barked pine, the next one in front was painted gray; the

_vente de tabac_ became _estanco nacional_, and the only overlapping of the

two nationalities which I observed--all things else being suddenly and

sharply divided--was that some awkward and dusty Spanish soldiers were

walking up the street of Perthus, and some trim, jaunty French soldiers

were walking down the road, towards the first Spanish wine-shop. We also

went down, and swiftly, in the falling twilight, through which, erelong,

gardens and fields began to glimmer, and in half an hour drew up in the

little Spanish town of La Junquera, the ancient "place of rushes." Here

there was a rapid and courteous examination of baggage, a call for

passports, which were opened and then handed back to us without _vise_ or

fee being demanded, and we were declared free to journey in Spain. Verily,

the world is becoming civilized, when Spain, the moral satrapy of Rome,

begins to pull down her barriers and let the stranger in!

I inspected our "insides," as they issued forth, and found, in addition to

a priest and three or four commercial individuals with a contraband air, a

young French naval officer, and an old German who was too practical for a

professor and too stubborn in his views to be anything else. He had made

fifteen journeys to Switzerland, he informed me, knew Scotland from the

Cheviots to John o' Groat's, and now proposed the conquest of Spain. Here

Moreno summoned us to our places, and the diligence rolled onward. Past

groups of Catalans, in sandals and scarlet bonnets, returning from the

harvest fields; past stacks of dusky grain and shadowy olive-orchards; past

open houses, where a single lamp sometimes flashed upon a woman's head;

past a bonfire, turning the cork-trees into transparent bronze, and past

the sound of water, plunging under the idle mill-wheel, in the cool,

delicious summer air,--we journeyed on. The stars were beginning to gather

in the sky, when square towers and masses of cubic houses rose against

them, and the steady roll of our wheels on the smooth highway became a

dreadful clatter on the rough cobble-stones of Figueras.

The Pyrenees were already behind us; the town overlooks a wide, marshy

plain. But the mountains make their vicinity felt in a peculiar manner. The

north-wind, gathered into the low pass of Bellegarde and drawn to a focus

of strength, blows down the opening valley with a force which sometimes

lays an embargo on travel. Diligences are overturned, postilions blown out

of their saddles, and pedestrians carried off their feet. The people then

pray to their saints that the _tramontana_ may cease; but, on the other

hand, as it is a very healthy wind, sweeping away the feverish exhalations

from the marshy soil, they get up a grand annual procession to some

mountain-shrine of the Virgin, and pray that it may blow. So, when the

Virgin takes them at their word, the saints are invoked on the other side,

and the wonder is that both parties don't get out of patience with the

people of Figueras.

The diligence drew up at the door of a _fonda_, and Moreno announced that

we were to take supper and wait until midnight. This was welcome news to

all; but the old German drew me aside as we entered the house, and

whispered, "Now our stomachs are going to be tried." "Not at all," I

answered, "we shall find very good provender." "But the guide-book says it

is very bad," he persisted. And he looked despondent, even with a clean

table-cloth and a crisp roll of bread before him, until the soup steamed

under his nose. His face brightened at the odor, grew radiant at the

flavor, and long before we reached the roast pullet and salad he expressed

his satisfaction with Spanish cookery. With the dessert came a _vino

rancio_, full of summer fire, and the tongues of the company were loosened.

From the weather and the Paris Exposition we leaped boldly into politics,

and, being on Spanish soil, discussed France and the Mexican business. The

French officer was silent and annoyed: he was a pleasant fellow, and I, for

one, had a little sympathy with his annoyance, but I could not help saying

that all Americans (except the Rev. ----) considered the action of France

as an outrage and an impertinence, and were satisfied with her miserable

failure. The Spanish passengers nodded and smiled.

I should not have spoken, had I foreseen one consequence of my words. The

German snatched the reins of conversation out of our hands, and dashed off

at full speed, trampling France and her ruler under his feet. At the first

pause, I said to him, in German: "Pray don't be so violent in your

expressions,--the gentleman beside me is a naval officer." But he answered:

"I don't care,--I must speak my mind, which I could not do in Paris. France

has been the curse of Spain, as well as of all Europe, and there will be no

peace until we put a stop to her pretensions!" Thereupon he said the same

thing to the company; but the Spaniards were too politic to acquiesce

openly. The officer replied, "France has not injured Spain, but, on the

contrary, has protected her!" and he evidently had not the slightest

suspicion that there was anything offensive in his words. The Spaniards

still remained silent, but another expression came into their eyes. It was

time to change the subject; so the principle of non-intervention, in its

fullest, most literal sense, was proposed and accepted. A grave Majorcan

gentleman distributed cigars; his daughter, with her soft, melodious voice,

was oil to the troubled waters, and before midnight we were all equally

courteous and cosmopolitan.

Of the four ensuing hours I can give no account. Neither asleep nor awake,

hearing with closed eyes, or seeing with half-closed senses, one can never

afterwards distinguish between what is seen and what is dreamed. This is a

state in which the body may possibly obtain some rest, but the mind becomes

inexpressibly fatigued. One's memory of it is a blurred sketch, a faded

daguerreotype. I welcomed that hour when

"The wind blows cold

While the morning doth unfold,"

for it blew away this film, which usurped the place of the blessed mantle

of sleep. Chill, even here in African Spain, where the pale pearl of the

dawn foretold a burning noon, and where, in May, the harvests were already

reaped, the morning brightened; but we were near the end of the journey. At

sunrise, the towers of Giron stood fast and firm over the misty level of

the shimmering olive-groves; then the huge dull mass of the cathedral, the

walls and bastions of the hill-forts, which resisted a siege of seven

months during the Peninsular war, and finally the monotonous streets of the

lower town, through which we drove.

The industrious Catalans were already awake and stirring. Smokes from

domestic hearths warmed the cool morning air; cheerful noises of men,

animals, and fowls broke the silence; doors were open as we entered the

town, and the women were combing and twisting their black hair in the

shadows within. At the post some brown grooms lounged about the door. A

priest passed,--a genuine Don Basilio, in inky gown and shovel-hat; and

these graceless grooms looked after him, thrust their tongues into their

cheeks, and made an irreverent grimace. The agent at Perpignan came into my

mind; I winked at the fellows, without any clear idea wherefore, but it

must have expressed something, for they burst into a laugh and repeated the

grimace.

The lower town seemed to be of immense length. Once out of it, a superb

avenue of plane-trees received us, at the end of which was the

railway-station. In another hour the train would leave for Barcelona. Our

trunks must be again examined. When I asked the reason why this annoying

regulation, obsolete elsewhere in Europe, is here retained, the Spaniards

gravely informed me that, if it were abolished, a great many people would

be thrown out of employment. Not that they get much pay for the

examination,--but they are constantly bribed not to examine! There was a

_cafe_ attached to the station, and I advised my fellow-passengers to take

a cup of the delicious ropy chocolate of Spain, after which one accepts the

inevitable more patiently.

I found the landscapes from Giron to Barcelona very bright and beautiful.

Our locomotive had fallen into the national habit: it was stately and

deliberate, it could not be hurried, its very whistle was subdued and

dignified. We went forward at an easy pace, making about fifteen miles an

hour, which enabled me to notice the patient industry of the people, as

manifested on every plain and hillside. The Catalans are called rough and

ungraceful; beside the sprightly Andalusians they seem cold and repellent;

they have less of that blue blood which makes the beggar as proud as the

grandee, but they possess the virtue of labor, which, however our artistic

tastes may undervalue it, is the basis from which all good must spring.

When I saw how the red and rocky hills were turned into garden-terraces,

how the olive-trees were pruned into health and productiveness, how the

wheat stood so thick that it rolled but stiffly under the breeze, I forgot

the jaunty _majos_ of Seville, and gave my hearty admiration to the

strong-backed reapers in the fields of Catalonia.

The passengers we took up on the way, though belonging to the better class,

and speaking Spanish whenever it was necessary, all seemed to prefer the

popular dialect. Proprietors of estates and elegant young ladies conversed

together in the rough patois of the peasants, which to me was especially

tantalizing, because it sounded so familiar, and yet was so unintelligible.

It is in reality the old _langue limousine_ of France, kindred to the

Provencal, and differs very slightly from the dialect spoken on the other

side of the Pyrenees. It is terse, forcible, and expressive, and I must

confess that the lisping Spanish, beside it, seems to gain in melody at the

expense of strength.

We approached Barcelona across the wide plain of the Llobregat, where

orange-gardens and factory chimneys, fountains "i' the midst of roses" and

machine-shops full of grimy workmen, succeed each other in a curious tangle

of poetry and greasy fact. The Mediterranean gleams in a blue line on the

left, the citadel of Montjoi crowns a bluff in front; but the level city

hides itself behind the foliage of the plain, and is not seen. At the

station you wait half an hour, until the baggage is again deposited on the

dissecting-tables of the customs officers; and here, if, instead of joining

the crowd of unhappy murmurers in the anteroom, you take your station in

the doorway, looking down upon porters, pedlers, idlers, and policemen, you

are sure to be diverted by a little comedy acted in pantomime. An outside

porter has in some way interfered with the rights of a station-porter; a

policeman steps between the two, the latter of whom, lifting both hands to

heaven in a wild appeal, brings them down swiftly and thrusts them out

before him, as if descending to earthly justice. The outsider goes through

the same gestures, and then both, with flashing eyes and open mouths, teeth

glittering under the drawn lips, await the decision. The policeman first

makes a sabre-cut with his right arm, then with his left; then also lifts

his hands to heaven, shakes them there a moment, and, turning as he brings

them down, faces the outside porter. The latter utters a passionate cry,

and his arms begin to rise; but he is seized by the shoulder and turned

aside; the crowd closes in, and the comedy is over.

We have a faint interest in Barcelona for the sake of Columbus; but, apart

from this one association, we set it down beside Manchester, Lowell, and

other manufacturing cities. It was so crowded within its former walls, that

little space was left for architectural display. In many of the streets I

doubt whether four persons could walk abreast. Only in the Rambla, a broad

central boulevard, is there any chance for air and sunshine, and all the

leisure and pleasure of the city is poured into this one avenue. Since the

useless walls have been removed, an ambitious modern suburb is springing up

on the west, and there will in time be a new city better than the old.

This region appears to be the head-quarters of political discontent in

Spain,--probably because the people get to be more sensible of the misrule

under which they languish, in proportion as they become more active and

industrious. Nothing could have been more peaceable upon the surface than

the aspect of things; the local newspapers never reported any disturbance,

yet intelligence of trouble in Catalonia was circulating through the rest

of Europe, and _something_--I could not ascertain precisely what it

was--took place during my brief visit. The telegraph-wires were cut, and

some hundreds of soldiers were sent into the country; but the matter was

never mentioned, unless two persons whom I saw whispering together in the

darkest corner of a _cafe_ were discussing it. I believe, if a battle had

been fought within hearing of the cannon, the Barcelonese would have gone

about the streets with the same placid, unconcerned faces. Whether this was

cunning, phlegm, or the ascendency of solid material interests over the

fiery, impulsive nature of the Spaniard, was not clear to a passing

observer. In either case it was a prudent course.

If, in the darkened streets--or rather lanes--of Barcelona, I saw some

suggestive pictures; if the court-yard of the cathedral, with its fountains

and orange-trees, seemed a thousand miles removed from the trade and

manufacture of the city; if the issuing into sunshine on the mole was like

a blow in the eyes, to which the sapphire bloom of the Mediterranean became

a healing balm; and if the Rambla, towards evening, changed into a shifting

diorama of color and cheerful life,--none of these things inclined me to

remain longer than the preparation for my further journey required. Before

reaching the city, I had caught a glimpse, far up the valley of the

Llobregat, of a high, curiously serrated mountain, and that old book of the

"Wonders of the World," (now, alas! driven from the library of childhood,)

opened its pages and showed its rough woodcuts, in memory, to tell me what

the mountain was. How many times has that wonderful book been the chief

charm of my travels, causing me to forget Sulpicius on the AEgean Sea, Byron

in Italy, and Humboldt in Mexico!

To those who live in Barcelona, Montserrat has become a common-place, the

resort of Sunday excursions and picnics, one fourth devotional, and three

fourths epicurean. Wild, mysterious, almost inaccessible as it stands in

one's fancy, it sinks at this distance into the very material atmosphere of

railroad and omnibus; but, for all that, we are not going to give it up,

though another "Wonder of the World" should go by the board. Take the

Tarragona train then with me, on a cloudless afternoon. In a few minutes

the scattered suburban blocks are left behind, and we enter the belt of

villas, with their fountained terraces and tropical gardens. More and more

the dark red earth shows through the thin foliage of the olives, as the

hills draw nearer, and it finally gives color to the landscapes. The vines

covering the levels and lower slopes are wonderfully luxuriant; but we can

see how carefully they are cultivated. Hedges of aloe and cactus divide

them; here and there some underground cavern has tumbled in, letting down

irregular tracts of soil, and the vines still flourish at the bottom of the

pits thus made. As the plain shrinks to a valley, the hills on either side

ascend into rounded summits, which begin to be dark with pine forests;

villages with square, brown church-towers perch on the lower heights;

cotton-mills draw into their service the scanty waters of the river, and

the appearance of cheerful, thrifty labor increases as the country becomes

rougher.

All this time the serrated mountain is drawing nearer, and breaking into a

wilder confusion of pinnacles. It stands alone, planted across the base of

a triangular tract of open country,--a strange, solitary, exiled peak,

drifted away in the beginning of things from its brethren of the Pyrenees,

and stranded in a different geological period. This circumstance must have

long ago impressed the inhabitants of the region,--even in the

ante-historic ages. When Christianity rendered a new set of traditions

necessary, the story arose that the mountain was so split and shattered at

the moment when Christ breathed his last on the cross of Calvary. This is

still the popular belief; but the singular formation of Montserrat,

independent of it, was sufficient to fix the anchoretic tastes of the early

Christians. It is set apart by Nature, not only towering above all the

surrounding heights, but drawing itself haughtily away from contact with

them, as if conscious of its earlier origin.

At the station of Martorel I left the train, and took a coach which was in

waiting for the village of Collbato, at the southern base of the mountain.

My companion in the _coupe_ was a young cotton-manufacturer, who assured me

that in Spain the sky and soil were good, but the _entresol_ (namely, the

human race) was bad. The interior was crowded with country women, each of

whom seemed to have four large baskets. I watched the driver for half an

hour attempting to light a broken cigar, and then rewarded his astonishing

patience with a fresh one, whereby we became good friends. Such a peaceful

light lay upon the landscape, the people were so cheerful, the laborers

worked so quietly in the vineyards, that the thought of a political

disturbance the day before seemed very absurd. The olive-trees, which

clothed the hills wherever their bony roots could find the least lodgement

of soil, were of remarkably healthy and vigorous growth, and the regular

cubic form into which they were pruned marked the climbing terraces with

long lines of gray light, as the sun slanted across them.

"You see," said the Spaniard, as I noticed this peculiarity, "the

_entresol_ is a little better in this neighborhood than elsewhere in Spain.

The people cut the trees into this shape in order that they may become more

compact and produce better; besides which, the fruit is more easily

gathered. In all those orchards you will not find a decayed or an unhealthy

tree; they are dug up and burned, and young ones planted in their place."

At the village of Esparaguerra the other passengers left, and I went on

towards Collbato alone. But I had Montserrat for company, towering more

grandly, more brokenly, from minute to minute. Every change in the

foreground gave me a new picture. Now it was a clump of olives with twisted

trunks; now an aloe, lifting its giant candelabrum of blossoms from the

edge of a rock; now a bank of dull vermilion earth, upon which goats were

hanging. The upper spires of the mountain disappeared behind its basal

buttresses of gray rock, a thousand feet in perpendicular height, and the

sinking sun, as it crept westward, edged these with sharp lines of light.

Up, under the tremendous cliffs, and already in shadow, lay Collbato, and I

was presently set down at the gate of the _posada_.

Don Pedro, the host, came forward to meet and welcome me, and his pretty

daughter, sitting on the steps, rose up and dropped a salute. In the

entrance hall I read, painted in large letters on the wall, the words of

St. Augustine: "_In necessariis unitas; in dubiis libertas; in omnibus,

caritas._" (If these sayings are _not_ St. Augustine's, somebody will be

sure to correct me.) Verily, thought I, Don Pedro must be a character. I

had no sooner comfortably seated myself in the doorway to contemplate the

exquisite evening landscape, which the Mediterranean bounded in the

distance, and await my supper, than Don Pedro ordered his daughter to bring

the guests' book, and then betook himself to the task of running down a

lean chicken. In the record of ten years I found that Germans were the most

frequent visitors; Americans appeared but thrice. One party of the latter

registered themselves as "gentlemen," and stated that they had seen the

"prom_a_nent points,"--which gave occasion to a later Englishman to comment

upon the intelligence of American gentlemen. The host's daughter, Pepita,

was the theme of praise in prose and raptures in poetry.

"Are you Pepita?" I asked, turning to the girl, who sat on the steps before

me, gazing into the evening sky with an expression of the most indolent

happiness. I noticed for the first time, and admired, her firm, regular,

almost Roman profile, and the dark masses of _real_ hair on her head. Her

attitude, also, was very graceful, and she would have been, to impressible

eyes, a phantom of delight, but for the ungraceful fact that she

inveterately scratched herself whenever and wherever a flea happened to

bite.

"No, senor," she answered; "I am Carmen. Pepita was married first, and

then Mariquita. Angelita and myself are the only ones at home."

"I see there is also a poem to Angelita," I remarked, turning over the last

leaves.

"O, that was a poet!" said she,--"a funny man! Everybody knows him: he

writes for the theatre, and all that is about some eggs which Angelita

fried for him. We can't understand it all, but we think it's good-natured."

Here the mother came, not as duenna, but as companion, with her distaff and

spindle, and talked and span until I could no longer distinguish the thread

against her gray dress. When the lean chicken was set before me, Don Pedro

announced that a mule and guide would be in readiness at sunrise, and I

could, if I chose, mount to the topmost peak of San Geronimo. In the base

of the mountain, near Collbato, there are spacious caverns, which most

travellers feel bound to visit; but I think that six or seven caves, one

coal mine, and one gold mine are enough for a lifetime, and have renounced

any further subterranean researches. Why delve into those dark, moist,

oppressive crypts, when the blessed sunshine of years shows one so little

of the earth and of human life? Let any one that chooses come and explore

the caverns of Montserrat, and then tell me (as people have a passion for

doing), "You missed the best!" The best is that with which one is

satisfied.

Instead of five o'clock, when I should have been called, I awoke naturally

at six, and found that Don Pedro had set out for San Geronimo four hours

before, while neither guide nor mule was forthcoming. The old woman pointed

to some specks far up in the shadow of the cliffs, which she assured me

were travellers, and would arrive with mules in fifteen minutes. But I

applied the words _in dubiis libertas_, and insisted on an immediate animal

and guide, both of which, somewhat to my surprise, were produced. The black

mule was strong, and the lank old Catalan shouldered my heavy valise and

walked off without a murmur. The sun was already hot; but once risen above

the last painfully constructed terrace of olives, and climbing the stony

steep, we dipped into the cool shadow of the mountain. The path was

difficult but not dangerous, winding upward through rocks fringed with

dwarf ilex, box, and mastic, which made the air fragrant. Thyme, wild flax,

and aconite blossomed in the crevices. The botany of the mountain is as

exceptional as its geology; it includes five hundred different species.

The box-tree, which my Catalan guide called _bosch_ in his dialect, is a

reminiscence, wherever one sees it, of Italy and Greece,--of ancient

culture and art. Its odor, as Holmes admirably says, suggests eternity. If

it was not the first plant that sprang up on the cooling planet, it ought

to have been. Its glossy mounds, and rude, statuesque clumps, which often

seem struggling to mould themselves into human shape, cover with beauty the

terrible rocks of Montserrat. M. Delavigne had warned me of the dangers of

the path I was pursuing,--walls on one side, and chasms a thousand feet

deep on the other,--but the box everywhere shaped itself into protecting

figures, and whispered as I went by, "Never fear; if you slip, I will hold

you!"

The mountain is an irregular cone, about thirty-five hundred feet in

height, and cleft down the middle by a torrent which breaks through its

walls on the northeastern side. It presents a perpendicular face, which

seems inaccessible, for the shelves between the successive elevations, when

seen from below, appear as narrow fringes of vegetation, growing out of one

unbroken wall. They furnish, indeed, but scanty room for the bridle-path,

which at various points is both excavated and supported by arches of

masonry. After nearly an hour, I found myself over Collbato, upon the roofs

of which, it seemed, I might fling a stone. At the next angle of the

mountain, the crest was attained, and I stood between the torn and scarred

upper wilderness of Montserrat on the one hand, and the broad, airy sweep

of landscape, bounded by the sea, on the other. To the northward, a similar

cape thrust out its sheer walls against the dim, dissolving distances, and

it was necessary to climb along the sides of the intervening gulf, which

sank under me into depths of shadow. Every step of the way was inspiring,

for there was the constant threat, without the reality, of danger. My mule

paced securely along the giddy brinks; and though the path seemed to

terminate fifty paces ahead, I was always sure to find a loop-hole or

coigne of vantage which the box and mastic had hidden from sight. So in

another hour the opposite foreland was attained, and from its crest I saw,

all along the northern horizon, the snowy wall of the Pyrenees.

Here a path branched off to the peak of San Geronimo,--a two hours' clamber

through an absolute desert of rock. My guide, although panting and sweating

with his load, proposed the ascent; but in the film of heat which

overspread the land I should have only had a wider panorama in which all

distinct forms were lost,--vast, no doubt, but as blurred and intangible as

a metaphysical treatise. I judged it better to follow the example of a

pious peasant and his wife whom we had overtaken, and who, setting their

faces toward the renowned monastery, murmured an _Ave_ from time to time.

Erelong, on emerging from the thickets, we burst suddenly upon one of the

wildest and most wonderful pictures I ever beheld. A tremendous wall of

rock arose in front, crowned by colossal turrets, pyramids, clubs, pillars,

and ten-pin shaped masses, which were drawn singly, or in groups of

incredible distortion, against the deep blue of the sky. At the foot of the

rock, the buildings of the monastery, huge and massive, the church, the

houses for pilgrims, and the narrow gardens completely filled and almost

overhung a horizontal shelf of the mountain, under which it again fell

sheer away, down, down into misty depths, the bottom of which was hidden

from sight. I dropped from the mule, sat down upon the grass, and, under

pretence of sketching, studied this picture for an hour. In all the

galleries of memory I could find nothing resembling it.

The descriptions of Montserrat must have made a powerful impression upon

Goethe's mind, since he deliberately appropriated the scenery for the fifth

act of the Second Part of Faust. Goethe was in the steadfast habit of

choosing a local and actual habitation for the creations of his

imagination; his landscapes were always either painted from nature, or

copied from the sketch-books of others. The marvellous choruses of the

fifth act floated through my mind as I drew; the "Pater Ecstaticus" hovered

in the sunny air, the anchorites chanted from their caves, and the mystic

voices of the undeveloped child-spirits came between, like the breathing of

an AEolian harp. I suspect that the sanctity of the mountain really depends

as much upon its extraordinary forms, as upon the traditions which have

been gradually attached to it. These latter, however, are so strange and

grotesque, that they could only be accepted here.

The monastery owes its foundation to a miraculous statue of the Virgin,

sculptured by St. Luke, and brought to Spain by no less a personage than

St. Peter. In the year 880, some shepherds who had climbed the mountain in

search of stray goats heard celestial harmonies among the rocks. This

phenomenon coming to the ears of Bishop Gondemar, he climbed to the spot,

and was led by the music to the mouth of a cave, which exhaled a delicious

perfume. There, enshrined in light, lay the sacred statue. Gondemar and his

priests, chanting as they went, set out for Manresa, the seat of the

diocese, carrying it with them; but on reaching a certain spot, they found

it impossible to move farther. The statue obstinately refused to accompany

them,--which was taken as a sign that there, and nowhere else, the shrine

should be built. Just below the monastery there still stands a cross, with

the inscription, "Here the Holy Image declared itself immovable, 880."

The chapel when built was intrusted to the pious care of Fray Juan Garin,

whose hermitage is pointed out to you, on a peak which seems accessible

only to the eagle. The Devil, however, interfered, as he always does in

such cases. He first entered into Riquilda, the daughter of the Count of

Barcelona, and then declared through her mouth that he would not quit her

body except by the order of Juan Garin, the hermit of Montserrat. Riquilda

was therefore sent to the mountain and given into the hermit's charge. A

temptation similar to that of St. Anthony followed, but with exactly the

opposite result. In order to conceal his sin, Juan Garin cut off Riquilda's

head, buried her, and fled. Overtaken by remorse, he made his way to Rome,

confessed himself to the Pope, and prayed for a punishment proportioned to

his crime. He was ordered to become a beast, never lifting his face towards

heaven, until the hour when God himself should signify his pardon.

Juan Garin went forth from the Papal presence on his hands and knees,

crawled back to Montserrat, and there lived seven years as a wild animal,

eating grass and bark, and never lifting his face towards heaven. At the

end of this time his body was entirely covered with hair, and it so

happened that the hunters of the Count snared him as a strange beast, put a

chain around his neck, and took him to Barcelona. In the mansion of the

Count there was an infant only five months old, in its nurse's arms. No

sooner had the child beheld the supposed animal, than it gave a loud cry

and exclaimed: "Rise up, Juan Garin; God has pardoned thee!" Then, to the

astonishment of all, the beast arose and spoke in a human tongue. He told

his story, and the Count set out at once with him to the spot where

Riquilda was buried. They opened the grave and the maiden rose up alive,

with only a rosy mark, like a thread, around her neck. In commemoration of

so many miracles, the Count founded the monastery.

At present, the monks retain but a fragment of their former wealth and

power. Their number is reduced to nineteen, which is barely enough to guard

the shrine, perform the offices, and prepare and bless the rosaries and

other articles of devotional traffic. I visited the church, courts, and

corridors, but took no pains to get sight of the miraculous statue. I have

already seen both the painting and the sculpture of St. Luke, and think him

one of the worst artists that ever existed. Moreover, the place is fast

assuming a secular, not to say profane air. There is a modern restaurant,

with bill of fare and wine list, inside the gate, ticket-office for

travellers, and a daily omnibus to the nearest railway station. Ladies in

black mantillas lounge about the court-yards, gentlemen smoke on the

balconies, and only the brown-faced peasant pilgrims, arriving with weary

feet, enter the church with an expression of awe and of unquestioning

faith. The enormous wealth which the monastery once possessed--the offering

of kings--has disappeared in the vicissitudes of Spanish history, the

French, in 1811, being the last pillagers. Since then, the treasures of

gold and jewels have not returned; for the crowns offered to the Virgin by

the city of Barcelona and by a rich American are of gilded silver, set with

diamonds of paste!

I loitered for hours on the narrow terraces around the monastery,

constantly finding some new and strange combination of forms in the

architecture of the mountain. The bright silver-gray of the rock contrasted

finely with the dark masses of eternal box, and there was an endless play

of light and shade as the sun burst suddenly through some unsuspected gap,

or hid himself behind one of the giant ten-pins of the summit. The world

below swam in dim red undulations, for the color of the soil showed

everywhere through its thin clothing of olive-trees. In hue as in form,

Montserrat had no fellowship with the surrounding region.

The descent on the northern side is far less picturesque, inasmuch as you

are perched upon the front seat of an omnibus, and have an excellent

road--a work of great cost and labor--the whole way. But, on the other

hand, you skirt the base of a number of the detached pillars and pyramids

into which the mountain separates, and gain fresh pictures of its

remarkable structure. There is one isolated shaft, visible at a great

distance, which I should judge to be three hundred feet in height by forty

or fifty in diameter. At the western end, the outline is less precipitous,

and here the fields of vine and olive climb much higher than elsewhere. In

an hour from the time of leaving the monastery, we were below the last

rampart, rolling through dust in the hot valley of the Llobregat, and

tracing the course of the invisible road across the walls of Montserrat,

with a feeling of incredulity that we had really descended from such a

point.

At the village of Montrisol, on the river, there is a large cotton factory.

The doors opened as we approached, and the workmen came forth, their day's

labor done. Men and women, boys and girls, in red caps and sandals, or

bareheaded and barefooted, they streamed merrily along the road, teeth and

eyes flashing as they chatted and sang. They were no pale, melancholy

factory slaves, but joyous and light-hearted children of labor, and, it

seemed to me, the proper successors of the useless idlers in the monastery

of Montserrat. Up there, on the mountain, a system, all-powerful in the

past, was swiftly dying; here, in the valley, was the first life of the

only system that can give a future to Spain.

DINNER SPEAKING.

A LETTER TO MY NEPHEW.

So you did not enjoy your first Phi Beta dinner, dear Tom, because you were

afraid all the time that the new members would be toasted, and then "the

fellows" had said you must reply for them. That is a pity. As, after all,

the fellows were not toasted, it is a great pity. I am glad you write to me

about it, however, and now it is for me to take care that this never

happens to you again.

I will tell you how to be always ready. I will tell you how I do.

My first Phi Beta dinner was, like yours, my first public dinner. It was on

the day, which this year everybody remembered who was old enough, when Mr.

Emerson delivered his first Phi Beta oration at Cambridge. How proudly he

has the right to look back on the generation between, all of which he has

seen, so much of which he has been! Well, he is no older this day, to all

appearance, than he was then,--and your uncle, my dear boy, though older to

appearance, is not older in reality. What is it dear G---- Q----

sings,--who sat behind me that early day at Phi Beta?

"When we 've been there ten million years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We 'll _have more days_

To sing God's praise,

Than when we first begun!"

Remember that, my dear oldest nephew, as the ten million years go by,--and,

remembering it, keep young or grow young.

Mr. Emerson was young, I say,--and I. We were all young.

Mr. Edward Everett was young. He was then Governor,--and, I think,

presided, certainly spoke, at that Phi Beta dinner. By the almanac he must

have been that year forty-five years old,--just as old, dear Tom, as some

other people are this year by the almanac. He had been pretty much

everything, had gone most everywhere, had seen almost all the people that

were worth seeing, and remembered more than all the rest of us had

forgotten. And he was very young. To those who knew him he always was. The

day he died he was about the youngest man in most things that I knew.

And so it happened that he made the first dinner speech that I remember. We

were all in the South Commons Hall of University, now used as somebody's

lecture-room, say, at a guess, Professor Lovering's. And he gave some

charming reminiscences of Charles Emerson, brother of the philosopher, too

early lost, and everywhere loved,--and then, speaking of the oration of the

day, and of the new philosophy to which it belonged, and of which the

orator was, is, and will be the prophet, he said, in his gracious, funny,

courtly, and hearty way, that he always thought of its thunders as he did

of the bolts of Jupiter himself! Could one have complimented an orator more

than to compare him to Jupiter? And then he went on to verify the

comparison, by quoting the description,--

"Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae

Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri,"--

and translated the words for his purpose,--

"Three ports were raging fire, and three the whelming waves!

But three were _thirsty cloud_, and three were _empty wind_!"

Ah well, my boy! You do not remember what all the world, except a few of

the elect, then said of "Transcendentalism." So you cannot imagine the

scream of fun and applause which saluted this good-natured analysis of its

thunder.

And I,--I was delighted at this aptness of quotation. Should I ever bring

my capping lines to such a market? Here was a hit as good as the famous

parliamentary retorts, which were so precious to us in the I. O. H. and in

the Harvard Union. Should I ever live to see the happy day when I should

find that it was wise, witty, and just the thing to say,

"Tu quoque litoribus nostris AEneia nutrix"?

or,

"Tityre dum redeo, brevis est via, pasce capellas,"

or any other of the T's? Or,

"AEsopus auctor quam materiam reperit,"

or,

"AEacus ingemuit, tristique ita voce locutus,"

or any other of the AE diphthongs? It did not seem possible, but we would

see.

Now it happened that, in the vacation following, a French steamer, I think

the Geryon, came to Boston. And there was, perhaps a civic dinner,

certainly an excursion down the harbor, to persuade her officers, and

through them Louis Philippe, for this was in the early age of stone, that

Boston Harbor was the best point for the projected line of French packets

to stop at,--and somebody invited me to go. And it turned out that few of

the Frenchmen spoke English, and few of the Common Councilmen spoke French,

so that poor little I came to some miserable use as a half-interpreter. I

remember telling a Lieutenant de Vaisseau that the "Centurion" rock was

called so because the 74 Centurion was lost there; and that an indignant

civic authority, guessing out my speech, told me they did not want the

Frenchmen to know anything was ever lost in Boston Harbor! Perhaps that was

the reason the French packets never came. Well, by and by there was the

inevitable collation in the cabin. (A collation, dear boy, is a dinner

where you have nothing to eat.) And we went down stairs to collate. I began

to think of the speeches. Suppose they should call on the youngest of the

interpreters, what could he say? What Latin quotation that would answer?

Not Tityrus certainly! No. Nor AEneas's nurse certainly, for she went

overboard,--bad luck to her!--or was she buried decently? Bad omen that!

But--yes! certainly--what better than the thunderbolts of Jove?

Steam-navigation forever,--Robert Fulton, Marquis of Worcester, madman in

the French bedlam,--bolts of heaven secured for service of

earth,--Franklin,--the great alliance,--steam-navigation uniting the world!

Was not the whole prefigured, _messieurs, quand le grand poete_ forged the

very thunderbolts of the _Dieu des Cieux_?

"Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae

Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri."

What better description of the power which at that moment was driving us

along,--

"Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three more,

Of winged southern winds, and cloudy store,

As many parts the dreadful mixture frame"?

Could anything have been more happy? And fortunately no member of Phi Beta

was present but myself. But, unfortunately, there was no speaking, and for

the moment I lost my opportunity.

But not my preparation, dear Tom. And for this purpose have I written this

long story, to show you how, in thirty happy years since, when I have had

nothing else to say, "Tres imbris torti radios" has always stood me in

stead. One good quotation makes an after-dinner speaker the match of the

whole world. And if you have it in Latin, the people who understand that

language enjoy it especially, and those who do not always appear to enjoy

it more especially. Perhaps they do. There is also the advantage of slight

variations in the translation. Note the difference between Mr. Everett's

above, and John Dryden's.

Imagine yourself, for instance, an invited guest at a Cincinnati dinner in

Wisconsin. Unfortunately, my dear boy, none of your ancestors rose even to

the rank of drummer in the army of the Revolution. Your great-grandfather's

brother had Chastellux to dinner one day. If you can, make your speech out

of that. But I do not think you can. Still, you are called up to speak:

"Our friend from New England,"--"Connecticut,--Israel Putnam,--Bunker

Hill,--Groton,--Wooster," &c., &c. What will you do, my boy? You must do

something, and you must not disgrace old Wooster. Do! You have your

thunderbolts.

"This army,"--"gathered from North and South and East and West,"--"like

another army,"--"whose brave officers still linger among us,--cheer us,"

&c., &c.,--"this army,"--"combining such various elements of power,

endurance, and wisdom,--this army, always when I think of it,--more than

ever to-day, sir, when I see these who represent it in another

generation,--when I think of Manly coming from the yeasty waves of the

outstretched Cape,--of Ethan Allen descending from the cloudy tops of the

Green Mountains,--of Knox, sweaty and black from the hot furnace work of

Salisbury, where

'He created all the stores of war,'--

all meeting at the same moment with the Morgans, and Marions, and the one

Washington from the distant South,--this army always seems to me to be the

prefigured thunderbolt which the Cyclops forged for Jupiter.

'Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae

Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri.'

'Three from the sultry South, three from the storm-beat shore,

Three parts from distant mountains' cloudy store,

While raging heat fused all with three parts more!'"

You see, dear Tom, these audiences are always good-natured, and by no means

critical of your version.

Why, at the only time I was ever at a regimental dinner on the Plains, long

before the war, you know, when to the untaught mind it did seem as if there

was no reason why we were there, and no pretence for mutual congratulation,

I remember when poor Pendergrast called me up to represent science, (I was

at that time in the telegraph business,) the dear old quotation came to my

relief like an inspiration. I got round to the Flag. Do you remember how

safe General Halleck always found it to allude to the Flag?

"The Flag, gentlemen,"--"colors,"--"rainbow of our liberties,"--"Liberty

everywhere." "Blue, white, and red of Low Countries,"--"Red, white, and

blue of France,"--"English Constitution,"--"Puritan fathers, Cavaliers,"

&c., &c.

"Does it seem too much to say, gentlemen, that, with the divine instinct of

poetry, the unequalled bard of the court of Augustus, looking down the ages

beyond the sickly purple of the palace, to the days when armies should be

the armies of freemen, and not the Praetorian guards of a tyrant,--that he

veiled the glad prophecy of the future in the words in which he describes

even the thunderbolt itself? The white crest of the foam, the blue of the

sky, the red of the fiery furnace, are all tossed together, and play

together, and rejoice together, there in the smiles or in the rage of the

very breeze of Heaven.

'Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae

Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri.'

'Three parts of white the crested billows lent,

Three parts of blue the heavens themselves had sent,

Three parts of fiery red with these were blent,

And on the free-born wind across the world they went.'"

You are not old enough, my dear nephew, to remember the great consistory

which the Pope held at Somerville, when for a moment he thought that the

churches of the world had recognized that Union which in fact does make

them one, and were willing to offer one front to the Devil, instead of

fighting, as they always had done, on ten thousand hooks of their own. You

understand, it was not this pope, Pius IX. It was the pope who came after

Gregory XVII. and before Pius IX. Well, at that immense dinner-table, which

had been built on the plan of John O'Groat's, so that each of the eleven

thousand six hundred and thirty popes present might sit at the head,--I was

fortunate enough to be appointed to represent the Sandemanian clergy,--the

only body, as I will venture to say to you, which really preserves the

simplicity of Gospel institutions, or in the least carries into our own

time the spirit and life of fundamental Christianity. Now you may imagine

the difficulty of speaking on such an occasion. I had thought it proper to

speak in Latin. The difficulty was not so much in the language as in what

to say, that one might be at once brave as a Sandemanian, and at the same

time tolerant, and catholic as a Christian. Now it is not for me to say how

well I acquitted myself. If you want to see my speech, you had better look

in the _Annales de Foi_; and, if it is there, you will certainly find it. I

did not think it amiss, certainly, that I was able to close by comparing

the great agencies which the United Church would be able to employ to the

thunderbolt itself. We had there present bishops from England of perpetual

rain, from Sitka of perpetual cloud, from the eternal fires of the torrid

zone, and from the farthest south of Patagonia. When we selected our sacred

twelve, it was easy for us to take them, as if we were forging thunders.

"Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae

Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri."

Now, my dear Tom, I am sure my lesson needs no moral. Of course I do not

think you had better start in life with my quotation. To tell you the

truth, I am still young. I am a life-member of many societies, and, as

they outlive other usefulness, the more frequently do they dine together. I

may therefore have some other occasion when I may be reminded of the

Cyclops. But if, at your dinner, I had happened to be called upon, I

think,--I do not know, but I think that, seeing such men as you describe, I

should have been irresistibly led to consider the varied gifts which the

University every year scatters over the land, and the exquisite harmony by

which, from such different callings, different homes, and different

destinies, they unite in the merriment or in the wisdom of her festivities.

The men of practice who have been taming the waterfall, and made it

subservient; the men of the gentle ministries of peace, whose blessings

distil upon us like the very dews of heaven; and the men of the spoken

word,--of the spirit of truth, of which, like the wind itself, no man

knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth,--these, and the men of war

who have passed through its fires to give us the free America of to-day,

all were around you. Surely in such a union I should have been reminded of

the divine harmony by which elements the most diverse were welded into the

bolts of Jove.

"Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae

Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri."

"Three parts like dews from heaven, three from the wave-beat shore,

Three from the soft-winged breeze, and three from blood-red war."

Always, dear Tom, your affectionate uncle,

FREDERIC INGHAM.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_The Champagne Country._ By ROBERT TOMES. New York:

Hurd and Houghton.

The fear, or hope, that photography will supersede tourists, and at last

take travel out of literature, scarcely concerns this admirable book and

the books of its kind. The class is as yet small, but it increases; and it

is probable that in travel, which is a sort of contemporary history, there

will be more and more works devoted to a single phase of European life, as

studied in a particular city or province; just as, in the history of the

past, the tendency is toward the illustration of certain periods, or even

episodes, in the lives of nations.

The chief topic Mr. Tomes discusses is the manufacture of champagne wines;

but his book is also descriptive of life in Rheims and the adjacent

country, as he knew it during two years' residence in that ancient city.

Indeed, it is only when the reader remembers his former ignorance of

everything concerning champagne, excepting its pop and sparkle and flavor,

that he realizes how thoroughly instructive Mr. Tomes's agreeable pages

are. In them an intelligent sympathy follows the grape through all the

processes of its change to wine;--through the vintage, when it is gathered

by the yeomen of La Champagne, from their own land, and sold to the great

champagne lords of Rheims; through the expression of its juice in presses

obedient to the trained and sensitive touch of hands which give neither

more nor less strength than is adequate to the extraction of the most

delicate flavor; through the season of its first fermentation in casks, and

its second in bottles; through its "marriage" with the kindred juices,

whose united offspring is champagne; through the crisis when it is doctored

with the cordial that bestows a life-long sweetness; through its final

corking and sale in every civilized country. As Mr. Tomes's style is light

and easy, and as he has a quick, unforced sense of humor, his information

is as delightful as it is honest. He counts nothing alien to him that

concerns champagne, and he sketches with a pleasant and graphic touch the

champagne lords and their history, beginning with the great Clicquot

(whose widow, after inheriting him so many years, died only the other day),

and bringing down the list with the Heidsiecks, the Roederers, Moet and

Chandon, the Mumms, and De St. Marceaux, last but not least of the great

champagne houses. As appears from their names, most of these are Germans,

and, according to Mr. Tomes, most of the business of Rheims is conducted by

Germans, who far excel the French in capacity for commerce. They are the

agents and chief clerks even in French houses; it is some German of

enormous physique and iron constitution who is selected as

_commis-voyageur_ to sell the wines and attract custom, by pouring them out

and convivially drinking them wherever he goes. Mr. Tomes's conviction is,

that this commercial traveller leads a difficult and precarious life, for

he cannot eject the wine when once taken into the mouth, as is the custom

of the more fortunate dealers in selling to buyers at the manufactories.

It is around the wine-trade, the great central feature of life in Rheims,

that Mr. Tomes groups notices of the city's minor traits, and gossips of

its cathedral and ecclesiastical history, its picturesqueness, its

antiquities, its dulness, its contented and prosperous ignorance, its

luxury and depravity. His pictures are always artistic, and have an air of

fidelity, and we may believe that they reflect with sufficient truth

provincial society under the second French Empire. Society it is not, of

course, in our sense, and perhaps civilization is the better word. Many of

its characteristics are those common to all Latin Europe,--a religion and

an atheism alike immoral, an essential rudeness under a polished show of

good-breeding, an inviolable conventionality, and an unbounded license. But

to these the Empire has added some traits of its own,--an intellectual

apathy to be matched nowhere else, a content and pride in mere material

success, an enjoyment of none but sensual delights. The government seems to

have besotted the provinces in the same degree that it has corrupted Paris.

Mr. Tomes treats an unworn topic with freshness and authentic skill, and we

welcome his bright and candid book as a more valuable contribution to

literature than most contemporary novels and poems.

_Deus Homo: God-Man._ By THEOPHILUS PARSONS. Chicago:

E. B. Myers and Chandler.

The author of this book assures us that it is in no sense a criticism of

either of the two remarkable works which have lately agitated the religious

and philosophical world; that it is a reply neither to "Ecce Deus" nor to

"Ecce Homo," but that its title is rather descriptive of the belief which

inspired it, than indicative of a controversial purpose. Indeed, it is a

notably calm and uncontroversial statement of the Swedenborgian idea of

Christ's life and character, and presents with great clearness and

simplicity the doctrines of the very earnest sect to which its author

belongs. The author fully accepts the fact of Swedenborg's illumination,

but the reader is only asked to consider the reasonableness of his

philosophy, as applied to the elucidation of all Scriptural truth, and more

particularly the acts and essence of Christ. The people of the New Church

(as the followers of Swedenborg call themselves) affirm the divinity of

Christ with an emphasis which excludes from the Godhead any other

personality than his; and it is in the light of this creed that Mr. Parsons

regards his character, and discusses the facts of his birth, his sojourn in

Egypt, his temptations, his death, the miracles, the parables, the supper,

the Apostles. Naturally, the author has frequent recourse to that science

of correspondences by which Swedenborg interprets Scripture, and so far

there is an air of mysticism in his work; but it is on the whole a most

intelligible declaration of the main Swedenborgian ideas. As such, it must

have an interest for all candid thinkers; and it appears fortunately at

this time, when the life of Swedenborg has been made the subject of fresh

inquiry, as well as the Life which Swedenborg's philosophy is here employed

to illustrate.

_The Sayings of Doctor Bushwhacker and other Learned

Men._ By FREDERICK S. COZZENS. New York: A. Simpson &

Co.

The best thing in this book is that brief sketch of travel, called "Up the

Rhine," in which the British tourist is presented with a delightful

fidelity. Eyes that have once beheld him never forget him, and it is good

to gaze upon him here in his extraordinary travelling-costume, with all his

sightseer's panoply upon him. It affects one like a personal recollection,

when he addresses the American and says:--

"'Going to Switz'land?'

"'Yes.'

"'Y' got Moy for Switz'land?'

"'Moy? I beg pardon.'

"'Yes, Moy,--Moy; got Moy for Switz'land?'

"'Moy! Do you mean money? I hope so!'

"'Ged gad, sir, no! I say Moy.'

"'Upon my word, I _do not_ comprehend you.'

"'Moy, sir, Moy!' rapping vehemently on the red cover of my guide-book that

lay on the table, 'I say Moy for Switz'land.'

"'O, you mean Murray?'

"'Certainly, sir; did n't I say Moy?'"

This is a touch of nature; and nothing else in the book is done with a hand

so free and artistic. Doctor Bushwhacker is passably entertaining in his

talk of tea and coffee and chocolate and wine and salad; but when he comes

to speak of literature, he makes us suspect that the latest thing in

criticism which his professional duties have left him leisure to read is E.

A. Poe's "American Literati." He discourses of "Accidental Resemblances"

between Mr. Longfellow and other poets, defends the venerable Halleck from

the charge of copying "Don Juan" in his "Fanny," and pronounces Joseph

Rodman Drake the only original American poet.

Among the contributions to these "Sayings" by other learned men than Dr.

Bushwhacker, the most admirable are the two imitations of Macaulay by the

late Colonel Porter; of their kind they are nowhere surpassed. But the

editor of the book has left the retiring muse of criticism little to say of

these productions of his _collaborateurs_. In his Preface he efficiently

praises them all, specifying one as "sparkling," and another as

"excellent," and others as coming from persons who have exquisite taste for

true humor, and assemble in themselves great moral, religious, and literary

merits; and finally offers his thanks to the gentleman who indefatigably

urged him to publish the collection.