GOLDEN DREAMS
AND
LEADEN REALITIES.
GOLDEN DREAMS
AND
LEADEN REALITIES.
BY
RALPH RAVEN.
WITH AN
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER,
BY
FRANCIS FOGIE, SEN., ESQ.
New York:
G. P. PUTNAM & CO., 10 PARK PLACE.
M.DCCC.LIII.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853,
BY G. P. PUTNAM AND COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
BILLIN & BROTHERS, Printers and Stereotypers,
20 North William street, N. Y.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
So! I have come to be an old man at last! and I hav'n't been a
great while about it either. No one is a great while about anything
nowadays. Where is my life? heighho! here I am holding tight on to the
little end, and it slipping all the while faster and faster out of my
fingers. And no wonder; sixty-nine years all taking hold of the rope,
and all pulling together, walk it off as fast as two engines racing
to a fire, and here is the seventieth running to join them. By the
way, what a strange dream that was I had the other night! if I were
superstitious, I should suppose it meant something, for I never had
any like it before--the world on fire! ten thousand bells ringing the
alarm! hurry up the engines! pour on water! but the ocean is burning
too! Payne's problem is solved at last. Hark to those volcanoes! great
guns, double shotted, there goes Mount Etna, and there's Vesuvius,
and that, that must be Cotapaxi; what a tremendous burst there'll be
when the fire reaches the great central magazine! but where are the
mourners? do the stars miss one of their number? will its ashes reach
their sphere?
Well, I have seen a great deal--magnetic telegraph railroads, woman's
rights, crystal palaces, California, Australia, and now, ships of
twelve thousand tons, the Atlantic turned into a horse-pond: what is
the world coming to? There was no such thing when I was young--we
didn't profess then to be wiser than all before us. I'm glad I shall
soon be out of the way. And yet I should like to see the end. The end,
when will that be? and who can tell what it will be? Heighho! it racks
my old heart all to pieces, like a locomotive on a corduroy road. No
wonder man's life has been shortened to three score-years and ten.
How poor old Methusalah would have stared! why we live as long in a
year as he did in one of his sleepy centuries. He never could have
stood the racket, unless he had first been dried in an oven. It would
have fretted the skin off him, as it did off that big juicy apple I
had in my pocket when I rode Squire Smith's old trotting horse. Let me
see, that was forty, fifty, yes, fifty-one years ago--strange how I
remember such a trifle.
Well, well, I have overlapped my time, I don't seem to belong here.
That was what that young fire-brain, what's his name, said this
morning. He and I were like an ox yoked with a locomotive. I'm the ox;
yes, yes, he's right; I can't keep up with their new-fangled ways; nor
I don't want to either, they are too fast altogether. All I want is to
die and be buried before they harness their steam to the hearses; and
yet they've done that already. What was that railroad train the other
day at Norwalk but a train of hearses, a great funeral procession?
only that they put the folks into them before they were dead.
Yes, yes, the dead ride fast--tramp, tramp, along the land they go;
splash, splash, along the sea; and why shouldn't they, if they like
it, as well as their betters?
And I won't be buried in the city neither, nor in Greenwood. I've been
crowded enough in my life-time--I'll have room enough after I'm dead.
But where shall I go? There are places a plenty now, but in fifty
years, or ten, who can tell that there won't be a hundred thousand
trampling over my grave? Five dollars a square foot, let me see, that
would be thirty dollars. Alas, poor Yorick! who would give thirty
dollars to secure you a quiet sleep?
That was a glorious idea of that world-weary old Goth to be buried
under a river, forever sounding his funeral dirge; but it's no sort
of use now--that's the very place to be turned topsey-turvey. I'll
be sunk in the very middle of the Atlantic--yes, that'll do--I shall
be safe enough there, in an iron coffin. But wait a minute. They are
talking already of laying their wires to Europe--yes, and then I shall
hardly have settled myself for a nap of a thousand years or so, when
they'll be sure to come foul of me, and perhaps fish me up again, or
at least give me a confounded shock.
I used to think I would be buried by my old mother, under the old
elm in the quiet churchyard. But it's no use: the churchyard is quiet
no longer; the old elm is as dusty and worried as I; and the old
tombstones have stopped mourning for the dead, to stare, and gape, and
gossip over the living. No, I'll not be buried there, to be waked up
every hour by that infernal whistle.
Heighho! what a strange thing it is to grow old all alone, and when
everything else is so young! I used to think the world would grow
old with me, but I believe it's younger than ever. But it's no such
thing--it's only paint and varnish; the older it grows, the thicker
they lay it on. Wash that off, and what is there but a withered,
wrinkled old hag? Faugh! I'd as lieve sit down to dinner with a
skeleton. There's nothing old but the hills. They're not ashamed to be
grey, God bless 'em! They never can paint Mr. Washington.
How I love the sight of their conscious yet unpretending majesty,
their quiet, self-reliant strength! With what grand and noble pity
they seem to look down on our fretting, bustling insignificance!
But stop. Where am I? right in the middle of the nineteenth
century--the last of my race--the last of the old fogies. There's
something in that. There'll never be another after me. Noah, he was
the first, and I'm the last. Who is there to mourn for Logan?
But, no matter. They've enough to do to mourn for themselves. From
my soul I pity them, poor helpless creatures! stuffed full of
self-sufficiency, they've no longer any occasion for our services;
they're no longer sensible of any obligation. When I was young it was
the fashion to respect old age for what it had done, if not for what
it could do; but we have changed all that.
[_He turns over some old papers and reads._]
"July, 1812. Some reflections on the exceeding folly of growing old."
Let me see: what is this? Oh, ha, ha, [_laughing feebly_] I remember
now. It's that paper I wrote for my grandfather when I was younger
and not so wise as I am now; and sister Mary--where is she now, I
wonder--she wouldn't let me put it in his way.
[_He reads here and there._]
"What a fine thing it is to be young, and in this time of the world
too! We are the cream of all that have gone before us. We really live
their life; we begin where they ended; we stand on their shoulders;
their whole learning is only our alphabet; they laid the foundation,
we build the superstructure. But poor old fogies! they would never
have got any farther if they had lived a thousand years. It's a
lucky thing for the world that they didn't--useless lumber, withered
stubble, trees dead at the root--cut, burn, and bury them out of the
way: they have done all the good in the world they ever can do, and
the world wants them no longer."
"They are a clog on its machinery--dirt in its wheels--rust in its
joints--a pebble in its shoe--it's never been a merry world since old
men came into fashion."
"If a man must grow old, if he will be so unreasonable and
unseasonable, let him keep it to himself and not infect everything
about him. If his hair is grey, is that any reason why the sunshine
should be so too?--if he walks with crutches, must the brooks stop
running?--if his eyes are dim, must we put out the stars or clap a
pair of spectacles on to the nose of the moon?"
"Heaven bless the mark! nothing grows old but man and his
inventions--the sky is as blue--the sun's eye, though he has but one,
is as bright--the wind is as frolicsome, as when they first shone and
danced through Eden; the very flowers, though they fade and go out,
yet keep their heart young to the last--who ever heard of a decrepit
rose, a superannuated violet, or a greyheaded butterfly?"
"_I_ never mean to grow old. I can ride as fast and as far as any of
them--my heart beats as many beats to a minute as the best, no one
shall ever ride over me, or cry to me to get out of his way.--My last
pulsation shall be as vigorous as any that preceded it."
[_He lays down the paper with a cold shudder._] Who said I was old?
who was that talking about being buried? away with such idle fancies!
I shant be buried these twenty years. I'm not old--I'm as vigorous
and active as ever I was in my life--there's as much strength in that
arm [_here he stretches out his right arm, and clasps it with his
left hand_] as when I was thirty, and my limbs are as light, [_he
gets up and dances_] I should like to see the young man that could
tire me out, [_he sits down rather suddenly_] only I want practice to
strengthen my wind; and as for my mind, I believe it is capable of
greater exertion than ever, [_he knits his brow, and appears to be
solving some knotty question in state or finance_] yes, I have twenty
years yet as good as the best; hurrah boys! never say die! [_he swings
his hat feebly round his head, then sits down in a tremor of shame and
indignation at being detected by his youngest clerk in such outrageous
fashion_].
In this state he takes his pen and with infinite labour writes these
brief observations, as if all the fog of all the Fogies were in his
veins.
If the author of the following narrative had taken my advice, he
would never have gone to California in the first place, nor written
this book afterwards. It is obvious to the dullest capacity that he
wouldn't have written the book if he hadn't gone; and as for the
other, he allows himself in the very first chapter that I did all I
could to prevent it. It may be gratifying to the reader to know that
I am the very person there mentioned in such flattering terms, and I
can assure him that that account is by no means exaggerated. I believe
I am, at least I have always enjoyed the reputation of being as sober
and prudent as my neighbors; and it was therefore no more than natural
that I should express the unalterable conviction there referred to.
I added moreover my reasons for that conviction which the author has
seen fit not to mention, possibly because his folly and obstinacy
would thereby appear still more inexcusable than they do now; but he
shall not escape so easily, as I am determined to set the whole matter
in the clearest possible light.
My first and principal reason then was that I did not believe there
was any such place as California.
"No such place as California! Well, you have found out your mistake by
this time I suppose."
Not at all, I don't believe it now any more than I did then.
"What! not with all the gold that's pouring into the country, and the
thousands of ships and hundreds of thousands of men that have gone
there!"
Softly, my young friend, all this proves nothing. Indeed, if you
have seen California, you of course are justified in believing, but
not otherwise. I remember a great many people used to believe in the
existence of such a man as Napoleon Bonaparte, and the papers were
full of the subject, just as they are now of California. In fact, (I
was younger then than I am now,) I used to believe in him myself, and
dare say I should have gone on believing to this day if it hadn't
been for that little book of the Bishop of Berkshire proving to a
mathematical certainty that such a series of events was clearly
impossible according to the world's history. But I'm sure California
is just as improbable, just as much out of the common course, and
we've no more proof, in fact not so much, of its existence, for it's a
good deal further off, and though it is a little bigger, it can't make
half so much noise; so that is about equal. To be sure, as you say,
any number of men and ships have set sail for California, but that's
no sign that they ever got there. They say so of course, for no one
likes to be humbugged, but for all we know, they might just as well
have gone to India, or China, or Japan. I have noticed they are never
very fond of talking about their adventures, and when they are, they
say very little about the gold they have brought home, though that
after all is the only real proof; and they are sure to go into a huff
if any one asks them how much they made, or to give some ridiculous
and impertinent answer. So you see that, reasoning _à priori_, the
balance of probability is decidedly opposed to the existence of any
such country.
But supposing that there is such a country, it doesn't follow that
there is any gold in it. In fact this is even more improbable than
the other. There is no gold in New York--why should there be any in
California? Is it because it is so far off? or because it lies on the
Pacific? or because it is good for nothing else? None of these reasons
will answer. There are other countries equally distant, equally
valueless, and in the same ocean, but they contain no gold; why then,
I say, should California?
But a simple proposition will set the matter at rest at once. The
world has now existed, according to the strictest calculation,
six thousand years; which being multiplied by three hundred and
sixty-five, the number of days in a year, will give over two millions
of days, on any of which the gold might have been discovered. The
chances then that it would not be discovered on the first day of the
six thousand and first year are as two millions to one. If we then
take into the account, that during all this time the population of
the globe has averaged about five hundred millions, and that all this
immense number has never made this discovery, the improbability that
it should be made by a single individual, and one too that nobody ever
heard of, is as five hundred millions to one; and these two chances
multiplied together, ought surely to satisfy any reasonable man that
there is no gold there, and never has been.
Besides, even supposing California really to be, and to be as full
of gold as it is represented, my acquaintance with the character of
the late author, was enough to convince me that he would never get a
morsel of it. I was not very well acquainted with him, to be sure,
having only known him twenty years or so, and his character being of
that shallow order, that one could read it at a glance if he would
only take sufficient trouble; but as far as I did know, he was always
an idle shiftless fellow, with an education he had not the capacity to
improve, nor the courage entirely to disown, so he used to say, though
I must confess I never could discover why it should require such a
prodigious effort. He had waited a long time in hopes something would
turn up, and used to justify himself in this particular by reference
to one Mr. Wilkins Micawber, who, according to his account, had
amassed a considerable fortune in that way; though for my own part I
never heard of such an individual before, and always believed that to
be one of his own inventions.
He was fond too of talking, in his barbarous and senseless fashion,
about his having been engaged, at such an early age that he really
had no voice in the matter, to one Clio or Chloe, some person of
colour I suppose, though nobody to my knowledge ever saw her, and he
declared that now he was arrived at years of discretion, (discretion
indeed!) as the laws of society, which he was pleased in his wisdom
to pronounce foolish and absurd, rendered a divorce difficult, he
was determined to run away from her altogether; and the California
fever breaking out just then, he was one of the first to be taken.
But though California seems expressly designed by Providence for the
accommodation and relief of just such good-for-naughts, lazy clerks,
runaway apprentices, men without professions, and professions without
practice--he was really as unfit for anything of the kind as could
possibly be imagined or conceived of. He has seen fit to indulge in
much unseemly and unbecoming mirth over the misfortunes of some of
his acquaintances, but I will venture on my own authority to maintain
that among them all there was not one but was better calculated to
make his way in the world, and in California too, for that matter,
than himself. He might have walked right over a lump of gold weighing
a hundred pounds every day for six months, and would have been sure to
tumble into the hole after it had been taken out, and wonder he had
not seen it before.
As for faith and energy, he hadn't as much as could ride on a
thistledown; and though he could dream fast enough, I warrant you, of
thousands and of millions, yet when it came to the actual, downright,
wide-awake necessity, he was of no more account than a child or a
philosopher.
It was in view of these various reasons that I declared my unalterable
conviction, that he would not get gold enough to carry on his
thumb-nail. Of course, being unalterable, I have never thought of
altering it. And there has been no reason. He did, indeed, for some
time after his return, carry about with him a snuff-box, half full
of an ugly yellow dust he called gold, and some folks were credulous
enough to believe him; but I was too old a bird to be caught with such
chaff. It looked as much like brass as it did like gold. Besides,
nobody knew, nobody could know where it came from, and like enough he
had it manufactured for the occasion. Anything was more probable than
that it came from California.
I could forgive him anything, however, even his good fortune, easier
than his inconsequential, illogical mode of reasoning. It is very
evident that he did not meet with that success he had expected; but
instead of giving the true reasons for his disappointment, he seeks
to conceal his weakness by a variety of evasions equally futile,
ridiculous, and absurd.
In the first place, he was sick! When I was young no one ever thought
of being sick except women and old men; but, I suppose, now the case
is different. But see the folly of the thing! For why? I've known him,
as I said, any time these twenty years, and, to my certain knowledge,
he was never sick in his life; and then, to go and be sick just then,
at the most critical and important crisis, as it were, when so much
was at stake, his whole future prosperity, as one may say, hanging on
it, that is, on his being sick or well--to be sick at such a time, I
say, argues the most deplorable folly and shortsightedness. Why in
the world wasn't he sick during the voyage, when he had nothing else
to do? or why not wait till he got home, when he could have things
comfortable about him?
But the Burke rocker? surely that was a most grievous misfortune.
Not if he had known how to use it. For they employ the Burke rocker
to this very day in the enlightened States of Virginia and North
Carolina; and, of course, it is good enough for such a semi-barbarous
country as California. But, for my part, I wonder at his ever thinking
of anything so plainly unfit for the purpose.
Then there is the loss he sustained by the submarine armour. All I can
say is, served him right. I never saw one of those machines myself,
and know nothing at all about it, but I should as soon think of
ploughing with a balloon, as of digging under water, or out of water,
with a feather bed on my back, a bolster on each leg, a pillow on each
arm, and a great copper kettle on my head.
The project, then, of going to California was conceived with
rashness--determined upon with obstinacy--and executed with folly. He,
to be sure, sets up in defence the fact that the scheme was finally
successful, as if that were enough to silence all objections. Now,
I am an old man, and may perhaps be growing a little crotchety and
whimsical in my old age, but I must and will protest against any such
dangerous and heretical doctrine. Success has here nothing to do with
the matter; in fact he had no business to succeed; his success was and
must be a positive insult to all who are in the habit of governing
their conduct by judgment and right reason. If this plea is to be
received in vindication, there is no crime or blunder that may not be
excused in the same way; we have no longer any use for our boasted
reason, and are at once plunged from the firm ground of induction and
analogy into the quagmire of chance and conjecture. He was always a
sort of wildfire, and knew no more about logic than Will-o'-the-Wisp
does of straight walking. But as even a Will-o'-the-Wisp is sometimes
very useful, in pointing out to the benighted traveller the marshy and
dangerous ground over which it hovers, so the reader may, perhaps, in
like manner, take warning from the example here set before him; and if
so, the author, like a piece of rotten wood,--I cannot stop to perfect
the simile,--will have shed more light from his folly, than he ever
could have produced by his wisdom.
Golden dreams and leaden realities
CHAPTER I.
Early in 1849, the unwilling ship in which I had taken passage for
California, was dragged away from the wharf in the sooty hug of a
remorseless steamtug, like a struggling, kicking schoolboy in the
arms of a hated master. Such an event was not then so common as it
has since become, and an immense crowd had assembled to witness our
departure, with some such feelings as if we had been bound on a voyage
of discovery to the moon, or, at the very least, in search of the
Northwest Passage.
It was a cold grey day; the deck of the Leucothea was sloppy with
melting snow, and littered with chaotic little piles of luggage, among
which the passengers wandered up and down like a hundred cats smelling
about in a strange garret. Some were still crouched, shiveringly, on
the high piles of lumber amid ships, to which they had ascended to
take their last view of home; others jostled in the gangways, as they
revolved in their uneasy orbits from stem to stern; while a third
party, without any ostensible motive, kept running up and down the
cabin-stairs. Everybody looked cross and out of sorts, as if he would
like nothing so well as to get into a quarrel with everybody else.
After proceeding a few miles down the bay, we put back and anchored,
for the night, just out of sight of the city; and the deck being now
almost entirely deserted, I groped my way down the winding stairs
and into the little cabin. At first, I could see nothing but the
misty light of a lantern swinging amidships, faintly illuminating
the white-washed beams, and oil-cloth covered table; but, as my eyes
became used to the darkness, I discovered a small party gathered round
the unsocial airtight, and conversing in a sort of subterranean tones,
of their present dismal condition. Sitting down among them, I was not
so much occupied with my own bitter and thick-coming fancies, as to
take no note of their broken dialogue.
"Ah," said one, with an abortive laugh, "Charley feels bad enough
to-night."
"Yes, he wishes he was up to M----, I guess," returned another, whose
faltering vivacity plainly declared he wished so himself at any rate.
"Humph," retorted Charley, with something between a whine and a growl,
"I think we were all a set of darned fools; if I was only safe back,
you'd never catch me in such a scrape again; you'd better believe it."
"Well," said his companion, "there's a chance left yet; you can go
back in the pilot-boat to-morrow."
"I ain't quite such a fool as all that comes to" sneered Charley;
"we're in for it now, and I mean to put her through."
This speech was followed by a melancholy laugh, and then by a profound
silence, in the midst of which, they, one by one, dropped off to bed
in the adjoining staterooms; leaving me alone in the dingy little
cabin, with the ungenial airtight,--the puffy lantern, with one big,
drunken eye in its belly,--and the greasy table, whose pinching,
miserly face said, as plainly as words could speak, that if it
had ever witnessed one generous feast, it was so long ago that it
remembered nothing about it. I was unable to resist these combined
influences, and soon slunk away to my berth, with a heart heavy as
the gold I was pursuing.
In refitting the Leucothea for a passenger ship, eight supplemental
staterooms had been built on deck, covered, as well as the space
between, with what is called a poop deck, extending from the stern
several feet forward of the mizenmast. My berth was an upper one,
and its already alarming elevation was aggravated by a miscellaneous
collection of boots, shovels, and pickaxes, which I had stored under
the mattrass, partly to economize space, and partly to prepare myself,
by this sort of hardening process, for the privations I expected
to encounter in the mines. Owing to the hurry of my departure, and
the crowded state of my trunks, I had been obliged to resort to a
very ingenious expedient to transport my superfluous wardrobe. When
one shirt became soiled, I hid it with a second, and this process I
repeated till I had no less than six lying one above another. I then
improved upon this invention by adding two vests, a frock, a sack,
a great coat, and a pea-jacket, so that I might easily have been
mistaken for one of those early Dutch navigators immortalized by
Irving, who thought it a great hardship to be obliged to go aloft with
only five coats apiece. Thus fortified, and having my feet encased
in a huge pair of boots, I climbed with infinite difficulty into my
berth, where I slept about as securely as an elephant on the roof of a
house.
The next morning we stood out to sea, which somewhat revived our
drooping courage; as, in battle, it is easier to advance boldly
against the enemy, than to remain, a long time, passively exposed to
his attacks. But our fortitude was soon to be subjected to a still
severer test. Very few of our number had ever been to sea before, and
some had never seen any larger body of water than the pond or river
in which they had fished and bathed in boyhood. All, however, had
heard of the ocean, of its grandeur and sublimity, and, of course,
had already made up their minds to be duly affected, as every one
possessing the least share of sensibility must be, by its mighty
attributes. Accordingly, the sharp outline of the horizon was still
broken on one side by the gradually sinking land, when they went to
work with most commendable ardour and perseverance to raise their
imaginations to the proper level.
I confess, for my own part, to an entire inability to enter into
these emotions. I have no affection or admiration for the ocean, _per
se_. I love it in our winding bays dotted with sails, and reflecting
the flickering shadows of green banks or populous cities, and have
been, once or twice in my life, awe-and-wonder-struck on beholding it
swelling from afar against the rock-bound coasts of New England. Here
its beauty is multiplied by contrast, and its power thoroughly aroused
by opposition.
It is pleasant to lie on some lofty promontory and gaze away off into
the illimitable blue, and dream that so it goes on forever, without
any opposing shore. I am even willing to make short excursions with
it, to meet it half way, as it were, on this neutral ground; but I
care not to go home with it, or to venture into its own undisputed
domain. As Shylock says to Bassanio, "I will buy with you, sell with
you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following,--but I will not
eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you"--there is such a
thing as too great intimacy. The sea itself suffers by this undecent
familiarity. Instead of that mysterious and salutary dread we formerly
entertained towards it, we come to regard it, in a manner, as our
bond-servant, or beast of burden. Its sublimity is gone--its vastness
becomes wearisome monotony--its royal pomp and power sink into peevish
ill-humour or sullen bravado. It is not so very big either. A circular
disc of salt water, thirty or forty miles across, is all you can
see. If its waves were indeed mountains--if one sailed among Alps,
in valleys lighted only by the mid-day sun, or along the face of a
precipice, towering as high towards heaven as it sunk sheer down to
the abyss--then, indeed, the naked, melancholy ocean would not need to
borrow any element of sublimity from the continent earth.
This was the nature of the reflections produced by the first view of
the rounded ocean; if I should hereafter take just the opposite side
of the question, I hope not to be charged with inconsistency;--in a
long voyage one's opinions change almost as often as the winds. The
revolution, however, is seldom as sudden or as ludicrous as in the
case of our unlucky enthusiasts. While they were even yet expatiating
on the grandeur and sublimity of the scene, they became aware of
certain uneasy and mysterious sensations, the precise locality of
which it was hard to determine, but which seemed to have their capital
seat somewhere in the region of the diaphragm. Strange horrors seized
them, and pangs unfelt before. But it is the nature of this malady to
dispose its victims to conceal their weakness as long as possible.
They shrink from the mortifying disclosure, and obstinately persist,
to the last moment, in declaring they never felt so well in their
lives.
The little party of Vermonters, the same that had collected in the
cabin the preceding evening, were among the first to feel the advances
of the insidious foe.
"I say, boys," cried Charley, "isn't this--ugh--worth going to
California for?"
"Grand!" "splendid!" "magnificent!" echoed the three boldest of the
party, with sundry unaccountable grimaces, while the rest thought it
more prudent at that moment, to keep their mouths shut as tight as
possible.
"I hope, a--ugh--you ain't a going to be--a--ugh--sick," returned
Charley, glancing doubtfully at the pale faces of his followers, as
if to satisfy himself how many he could rely upon in the approaching
struggle. "I--a-a--ugh--don't feel sick in the least," and away he
hurried to lee-ward, where, for the next hour, the whole party might
be seen, hanging like so many dish-clouts, over the bulwarks.
"What do yer see--a whale?" drily inquires an old salt, with a
cold-blooded cruelty, of which no one with the heart even of the
most magnanimous mouse, would be guilty. But they are too sick to be
angry--contempt, that pierces the shell of the tortoise, touches them
not,--there is a dignity, springing from the very depths of their
abasement, that sets them above the reach of injury or insult--their
ridiculous, indeed, reaches to the sublime. Solomon and Dr. Johnson
are commonly considered the highest authority on the vanity of
life--but was there ever a sufferer from sea-sickness who did not
moralize, by the hour together, in a far more affecting strain? Every
sigh is a book of Ecclesiastes, and is there any other philosophy like
his? so sudden and effectual in its operations? that dives down so
deep to the very root of pride and self-laudation?
For three days and nights I lay in my berth, dressed as I have said,
parched by thirst, and tantalized by waking dreams of every cooling
and delicious draught. Meanwhile, the Leucothea had reached the
Gulf-stream, and in that region of storms, encountered one of the
most terrific. Huge waves came foaming in over the bows, sending
their crests even to my door, and pouring down the forehatch into the
steerage, drowned out the frightened passengers in the very dead of
night. The alarm was so sudden that some had time only to snatch their
clothes; and, with them in their hands, they came running aft as to a
place of comparative safety. When reproached for their pusillanimity,
they offered the paltry excuse, that the water came down the hatch as
big as a hogshead, and that it was already deep enough in the steerage
for a man to swim in. This might have touched my healthy sympathies,
but it now gave me no concern. I believe I may say without vanity,
that at that moment I felt perfectly reconciled to the idea, thus
suggested, of thirty or forty of our fellow-passengers being drowned
like so many rats; though, for my own part, so great was my thirst,
I doubted whether there was water enough in the ocean to drown me.
Through the open door of my stateroom I could see the white tops of
the waves, as the ship leaned over to embrace them; and I thought it
no great thing to make my throat a passage for the whole Atlantic.
But I had still no relentings of purpose; through storm, and thirst,
and burning fever, I was sustained by dreams of golden joy. At the
period of our departure, what is commonly called the sober and prudent
part of the community, regarded California as a mischievous humbug.
None of my friends favoured my going; and one, still more sober and
prudent than the rest, had emphatically declared his conviction,
adding considerately that he did not wish to discourage me, that I
should not find gold enough to lay on my thumb-nail. Few, however, who
had set their hearts on going, were ever dissuaded, I apprehend, by
such arguments; even the last pleasant and ingenious comparison failed
to convince me: having once made up my mind, I fixed my eyes on the
mark and overlooked all intervening objects. Yet my calculations, so I
thought, were by no means extravagant; the simple brevity of argument
with which I silenced all opposition was $2,000 certain--$20,000
probable--$100,000 possible. I now saw these numbers printed in
glaring ciphers, with all the lifelike, seductive reality of a lottery
placard, all over the walls of my stateroom. Who would not, for such
reward, endure the discomforts of a four months' voyage, even though
every week should be like the first?
The idea of a life in the mines was rather agreeable. It had about it
a smack of Robinson Crusoe; and then, it would be so exciting to bring
our gains home at night, and, every two or three days, to light upon
a whole nestful of ingots--hunting birds' nests would be nothing to
it. If the first discoverers, I said to myself again and again, have
met with such astonishing success, with their pans and wash-bowls,
what may I not expect, with my improved machines, and the experience I
have gained by reading of their adventures? As I said this, I glanced,
with a look of complacency, upon the ingenious fabric of our invention
which was stowed piecemeal just above my head, and was destined, in
spite of its humble pretensions, to work out such astounding results.
It consisted simply of a roll of wire-webbing, with meshes about
one-sixth of an inch in diameter, and several rough boards six or
seven feet long, with which we proposed to construct three huge
sieves, one for each of our company. If these implements failed of
their intended purpose, or indeed were never constructed, it was not
owing to any fault in them, but entirely to the unexpected, and,
if I may be allowed to coin a word, unexpectable nature of that
perverse country whither we were going. I saw, in my mind's eye, an
immense sandy plain, intersected by rivers, and sentinelled about by
lofty mountains. The auriferous sands were to be sifted through our
wire-webbing, while the bit of gold would be caught in the meshes.
When some meddling adviser suggested that these were too large, and
that we should thus lose the finer particles, I, magnanimously, and
rather disdainfully, replied, that I intended to leave something for
those who should come after me, and that, for my part, I cared for
nothing smaller than peas.
Thus, three days and nights I lay; while day dreams, as bright as
those of Alnaschar, and oh, too like in sad event! alternated in my
sea-sick brain with visions of a darkened chamber--of a spacious
bed covered with soft white sheets--of women's voices soft and
low--of cool sherbet and fragrant lemonade--and all the "monarchal
prerogatives" attendant on a sick man's state at home. Here there
was nothing but the casual attendance of the cabin-boy bringing me
an occasional cup of gruel, and the querulous sympathy of others
as helpless as myself. In a week, however, most were sufficiently
recovered to take their meals in the cabin, though in a few
instances, the sickness was much more prolonged. A German from
Hamburg was the greatest sufferer, the experience he had gained in
once crossing the Atlantic seeming not to assist him on the present
occasion. For weeks after the rest of us had almost forgotten our
trials, he still lay hoaning and moaning to himself in his berth.
"Well, John," asked one, with as much sympathy as could be expected to
remain in his oblivious stomach, "how do you feel this morning?"
"Oh!" he replied, with a dolorous shake of the head, "if I live two
week, I shall die!"
The ladies on board were almost equally unfortunate--and here I beg
their pardon and that of the reader for not having sooner introduced
them to each other. It was not every ship in those days that was
blessed with female society; and the owners of the Leucothea had
taken care to make the most of this important distinction. In setting
forth the advantages of the "good ship Leucothea, of superior
accommodations," this had been the brightest star in the glorified
galaxy that was to dazzle the eyes of the genteel adventurer. The
library, the piano, and the ladies,--learning, song and beauty were to
shed their benign and humanizing influence over our rude and savage
natures, and prevent us from sinking back into worse than heathen
darkness and barbarism. It must be confessed that the piano was sadly
out of tune, and that the library consisted mainly of such books as
everybody had read, or else nobody ever does read; and, furthermore,
the proportion of ladies was small, only three or four to a hundred;
but then it is well known that a drop of certain substances can be
detected in a whole hogshead of water, and I have no doubt that the
sight of a bonnet or lady's slipper hung in some conspicuous position
about the ship, nailed to the mainmast, for example, would exert a
most salutary influence; in the same way as a horseshoe nailed to a
barndoor is a most effectual scarecrow to all predatory ghosts and
witches.
Be that as it may, the presence of the ladies, considered simply as
as an abstract idea, was highly edifying and satisfactory to all on
board; and it was no fault of theirs, if we failed to derive from
their society all the benefits we had expected.
Mr. Tape, our supercargo, was a man of infinite good nature; he smiled
easily, and made promises with equal facility. "Do you think we had
better lay in any private stores, Mr. Tape?" we inquired, after
settling more important matters with that smiling functionary.
"Oh, no sir, no sir; there's no need of anything of the sort. You'll
find everything you want aboard the ship."
"But," we persisted, "we might take a few preserves or crackers,
or----"
"No; save your money. You'll want it more when you get to San
Francisco. You'll eat at the same table with Mrs. Tape and the other
ladies, and I suppose you don't want to live any better than they do."
"Oh dear! no, sir! not we! no indeed!"
"Well, then, it's all right," and away bustled little Mr. Tape to go
through the same form with another applicant.
A few weeks sufficed to dispel the pleasing illusions which these
assurances had produced. As the cabin was too small to accommodate us
all, we divided into two messes; or, as we styled them in our amateur
nautical phraseology, the starboard and larboard watches. But when
all had recovered from sea-sickness, even this expedient was found
insufficient, and here arose a plausible pretext for a third division.
The captain, the supercargo, and the doctor retired with their wives
into the after-cabin, already dignified by the presence of the library
and piano; and thus, at one "unexpected blow, worse than of death,"
annihilated all our hopes of that feminine grace and propriety
that was to preside over our meals, converting the salt junk into
delicatest beef, the muddy coffee into nectar, and the ship-biscuit
into ambrosian cates.
To be sure, we were still allowed to behold them at long intervals,
sitting on deck in chairs lashed to the mizenmast, or to hear their
dulcet voices, rising like a steam of rich distilled perfumes, through
the skylight of the after-cabin; but our former state and dignity were
departed forever. We no longer basked in the sunshine of royal favour,
but resembled rather a capital city from which the seat of empire has
been removed, and which is left to languish in obscurity and neglect.
The steerage passengers regarded us with commiseration, or made odious
comparisons in our hearing. The delicacies in which we should have
shared, were borne past our door into the after-cabin, and their place
supplied with lobscouse and dunderfunk--the first, a detestable hash
or ragout of everything edible in the ship--the second, a johnnycake
constructed on the same principle, except that the beef and pork
were commonly excluded. I always looked with suspicion upon the man
who professed a fondness for lobscouse; and if, in our expressive
phrase, he was able "to go" dunderfunk, I avoided him as if he had the
leprosy. It was impossible to reconcile such tastes with the least
twinkle of high or generous feeling; one might as well associate with
a cannibal or a ghoule.
In order to add the pleasures of anticipation to those of actual
fruition, or to cheat our imaginations with the semblance of more
terrene banquets, a bill of fare was duly provided, calculated,
apparently, with the far-reaching accuracy of an almanac, for the
whole duration of our voyage, and for any meridian. Here, each dish
had its own peculiar day, to which it returned, from its hebdomedal
revolution, with all the punctuality of Encke's comet. Two days--I
remember them well--Monday and Thursday, were allotted to baked
beans--three to salt beef, pork, and potatoes--one each to salt
fish and ham. The names of Tuesday and Wednesday were lost in the
more alluring and alliterative appellation of Dough-days; the first
syllable being made, by a double analogy, to rhyme with tough. Some
do even spell it Duff, but this is a manifest cacography, and of the
most pernicious description, since it loses sight of the etymology of
the word, which would otherwise at once explain its meaning to the
most cursory reader.
For breakfast and supper, there were tea and coffee, most "pitiful
hearted butter," pilot bread, lobscouse, and dunderfunk. Two or
three times a week we had hot bread; once a week we had gingerbread;
and, on one occasion, a nondescript article about which there was a
good deal of curious speculation, till at length one, more ingenious
than the rest, suggested that it was intended for an apple-pie. This
solution was hailed with shouts of applause, and it was at once
voted to present the article, with the thanks of the company, to the
lucky discoverer, who happened to be the identical Charley so often
mentioned; who being naturally of a philosophic and inquisitive
temper, wished to add this unique specimen of naval architecture to
a list of curiosities he was then engaged in collecting; and which
already consisted of a shark's left eye "kep in spirits in a bottle,"
and a set of very ingenious checkers made out of his back bone.
The third week of our voyage a terrible feud arose among the
passengers, something like that recorded by Gulliver as having existed
between the Lilliputians and Blefuscians as to the proper method of
eating eggs. The cause of quarrel in our case, however, was even more
mighty and important, since it involved the nicest casuistry, and
furnished the most unfailing test of character. The question at issue
concerned the lobscouse, and the warcries of the contending parties
were "onions" and "no onions." The two factions were almost equally
divided; and, though the onionists had the captain on their side as
well as most of the old fogies, the revolutionists, or liberals, as
they styled themselves, by help of the doctor and supercargo, still
upheld the war. As this dissension finally threatened the most serious
consequences, a compromise was effected, and it was agreed to settle
the difficulty by a division; when the parties being drawn up on
either side of a seam in the deck, the disonionists were found to
have a majority of one, and thus the matter was brought to a peaceful
termination.