"Let them try it! Ach, Yakov Andreievitch! how you talk! Surely you're not
such a brainless fool as to think that those hogs can ever beat the
Pravoslavnie (orthodox)? Don't you know that Father Alexander
Nikolaievitch (the emperor) is the mightiest of all the kings of the
earth?"
"Well--yes--of course," answers the other hesitatingly; "but still, you
know, didn't Tsar Napolevon march over our borders in the year '12, and
burn Mother Moscow?"
"And what then?" rejoins the oracle, surveying him with calm, indulgent
contempt. "Don't you know that the devil helped him, or he could never
have done anything?"
His hearer responds to this unanswerable argument by a murmur of assent,
and washes it down with a huge gulp of tea.
"And then," pursues Paul, following up his advantage, "didn't Napolevon
come to an evil end at last, as the devil's servants always do? Didn't we
beat him and take him prisoner? and wasn't he chained to a rock in the
middle of the sea, beyond thrice nine lands, and kept there till he
rotted?"
"You speak truth, Brother Pavel; and it served him right, too, the
accursed infidel! for burning our churches and blaspheming the orthodox
faith."
Then follows a short pause, during which the two speakers sip their tea
with genuine Russian enjoyment. At length, Yakov Andreievitch breaks the
silence by saying, in a reverential undertone, "Tell me now, Pavel
Petrovitch--you who know everything--how _did_ the Nyemtzi manage to take
Paris-Gorod if it was such a strong place? I've heard our folks in the
village talk about it, but I couldn't quite make out what they
said--something about trenches, and a bom--bom--"
"Bombardirovanie (bombardment) you mean," suggested his companion, rolling
out the magnificent polysyllable with unmistakable enjoyment.
"That's it!" says the other, visibly relieved at being helped over this
awkward place. "Now, tell me, please, Pavel Petrovitch, what _is_ a
bombardment? Something to do with firing guns, hasn't it?"
"I'll explain all that to you in two words, brother," answers the oracle
in a tone of indulgent superiority. "Here, we'll say, is the town--this
tumbler here; and these four lumps of sugar round it, here, and here, and
here, are the enemy. Well, then, you see, the enemy begin firing their
great cannon at the walls to try and knock them down; and then the
soldiers inside dig little holes in the ground, called trenches, and
burrow in them to avoid the cannon-balls. Then the people outside
here--the besiegers, you know--fire great round things, called bombs,
straight up in the air, so as to fall right into these holes, as you'd put
a cork in a bottle, and smother the men in them; and when they're all dead
the town gives in; and that's called a bombardment."
"Gospodi ponilni!" (Lord have mercy!), cries the startled listener. "What
strange things there are in this world, to be sure!--Well, Pavel
Petrovitch, it's time for us to be going; so let's have one more little
glass together and be off."
DAVID KER.
THE NEW SOPRANO.
"Try that chair by the fire, Steve, and comfort your soles on the mantel
while I unearth a pair of slippers for you. I've a small mound of them in
the closet, built up of the individual gifts of 'grateful pupils.'"
"A cruel waste! You should be a centipede, Hal, instead of that forlorn
biped, a bachelor. By the way, speaking of single-blessedness, how it must
harrow you, my boy, to witness diurnally the bliss of the bride and
bridegroom who sit opposite you here at table! Favor them with Lamb's
'Complaint against Married People,' will you? and send me the bill."
"Bride and bridegroom? Well, that _is_ rich! Have a cigar, deluded youth,
while I enlighten you concerning this mellifluous couple. Did you mark the
gentleman particularly? You can't take him in at a glance: there's too
much of him. Goodwin his name is--Timothy Goodwin: 'Good Timothy' his
friends dub him; and the title applies.
"He sat next me at table when I first came to Mrs. Tewksbury's, five years
ago, and from the outset he showed a fatherly interest in me--an interest
which this quaking stripling of an organist appreciated, I can assure you.
Being one of the pillars of St. Luke's--the church I play at, you
remember--and an esteemed musical critic withal, his hearty approval of
me as a performer was an immense advantage to me.
"You'd hardly suppose such a quiet, imperturbable earthling as he looks to
be would rhapsodize over music, would you? It was a surprise to me to find
how deeply it moved him. He soon fell into the habit of dropping into my
room after tea when he heard me at the piano; and many a time I've caught
the great, strong fellow mopping his eyes surreptitiously over affecting
passages.
"As I came to know him intimately, and to feel what a staunch,
tender-hearted, domestic sort of individual he was, I began to wonder he
had never married. One day I asked him in a joking way how a rich man like
himself could reconcile it with his conscience to remain a bachelor in
America, where there was such a preponderance of unmarried ladies to be
supported? He made a wry face, and said he had assumed the maintenance of
two spinster step-cousins: wasn't that his part?
"'Or if you think it isn't, Hal, I'll tell you what I'll do,' he added,
laughing. 'You marry yourself, and I'll support your wife. Won't that be
fair?'
"'Hardly fair for the lady,' I remarked, adding that I should pity the
luckless unknown who should thus fail to secure him as her Benedict.
"The idea seemed to amuse him immensely.
"'You kindly insinuate that it would be a benevolence in me to take a
wife,' said he with a twinkle in his eye. 'Now, I protest I'm not
conceited enough to think that. On the contrary, if a woman should consent
to give herself to me, I should consider the benevolence entirely on her
side. Can't say I crave such a charity just at present, though,' he added
in comic haste, stretching his long arms as if to waive the bequest. 'The
fact is, Hal, I've never seen the girl I want. Being hard upon forty, it
stands to reason I never shall see her: I fear she died young. May I
trouble you to play Beethoven's Funeral March in respect to her memory?'
"And so the subject dropped.
"Timothy was no woman-hater, you understand. Indeed, he admired the whole
sex, but in a collective way, as you might admire the Galaxy without
preferring any individual star. Young ladies were to him nebulous and
mysterious creations, to be reverenced from a distance: he never lavished
upon one of them a tithe of the attentions he lavished upon me. I had
terrible headaches in those days, and I shall never forget how patiently
he would sit making passes over my head till the pain yielded to his
touch, as it was sure to do sooner or later. He had more magnetism than
any other man I knew. Detesting a dress-coat and white kids as he detested
the machinations of the Evil One, he seldom went into society, but he was
always ready for lectures and concerts, marching off to the hall with me
on his arm as proudly as if I had been the most bewitching damsel.
Excepting on Saturday, when I was usually engaged at the choir rehearsal,
we were rarely separated of an evening.
"We had gone on in this David-and-Jonathan style perhaps a year, when Miss
Sparrow came to St. Luke's as soprano singer. I remember her first
appearance in our dim old gallery that last Sunday in Lent--how she seemed
to brighten and glorify the place like a ray from heaven. And then her
voice! It set you thinking of angels. Moreover, she had the complexion
peculiar to that family, and the blue eyes and golden hair. For the life
of me, I couldn't help twisting my neck to look at her, at the imminent
risk of spoiling my accompaniment.
"That noon Timothy electrified me by appearing in the organ-loft while it
still echoed with the benediction, though heretofore he had invariably
waited for me after service in the vestibule. I happened just then to be
congratulating the new soprano on being in such capital voice that
morning, and as the tenor stepped across to shake hands with Timothy, I
went on talking with her till she left. When I turned the singers were
gone, and there stood my poor David, frowning at a music-rest so savagely
that I fancied he must be suffering from a bad headache, and expressed my
sympathy.
"'Headache? I haven't a headache,' he growled, stalking down stairs in
advance.
"I thought he needn't have felt so enraged if he hadn't, and walked on in
dumb dignity. Presently he observed testily that when he honored me with a
call in my citadel, it might be polite in me to introduce him to my
friends.
"I said I thought he knew the members of the choir--all, at least, but the
soprano.
"'Well, she's somebody, I suppose.'
"'I beg your pardon, Timothy,' I cried amazed. It didn't occur to me you'd
care to become acquainted with her. I didn't present you because I fancied
you'd consider the introduction a bore.'
"'You're sure of that, Hal?' he asked with a sort of fierce eagerness. You
haven't any personal motive for not wishing to extend Miss Sparrow's
circle of gentlemen friends?'
"I burst out laughing at the absurdity of the idea. It was but a week,
remember, since my own introduction to the young lady.
"Timothy drew a long breath, and straightway spent it in questions
concerning her:
Who was her father?
Who was her mother?
Had she a sister?
Had she a brother?
"I told him all I knew. Her father lived on State street; her mother lived
in heaven: sisters she had none, but of little brothers something less
than a score, who dogged her steps as persistently as the bass follows the
air. To escort her home from rehearsal was to lead the van of an infant
squadron, a running accompaniment which the night before had disturbed my
mental harmony.
"For, though I did not feel it necessary to enlarge on this point to
Timothy, I had conceived a prodigious fancy myself for the sweet little
soprano, and should have been glad to learn more of her and less of her
fraternal blessings. I afterward discovered why she surrounded herself
with these as with a garment. It was from pure compassion for her father.
He was a nervous invalid, and the proximity of those boys distracted him.
Of course it did: I could enter into the old gentleman's feelings
perfectly. It distracted me too. Don't smile, my dear fellow. The prancing
young ubiquities were well enough in their way, I'll admit: I only
objected to having them in mine.
"All that week my beloved Timothy seemed strangely preoccupied and
erratic, capping the climax Saturday evening by fidgeting into my room in
his next day's clothes to announce in a shame-faced fashion that, by the
way, he believed he'd look in with me that night at rehearsal if
agreeable.
"It was not agreeable: it was decidedly otherwise, for it upset a
deep-laid scheme of mine. As Fate would have it, by means of sundry extra
rehearsals for Easter I had made great progress in my acquaintance with
Miss Sparrow during the last few days, and but for Timothy I should have
called upon her that evening with the gift of a new ballad, and so, maybe,
have had the pleasure of escorting her to St. Luke's, to the routing of
the brotherkins.
"Well, I could only toss the roll of music under the sofa as gently as
masculine depravity would permit, and conduct my music-greedy friend to
the choir-meeting, ostensibly to listen to the chants, though I knew, and
he knew, that he had always heretofore objected to hearing them practised.
"Of course I presented him in due form to Miss Sparrow when she arrived.
He bowed like a worshipping devotee, and as she moved to her place by the
contralto sat down with an exalted expression upon his hat, to the audible
amusement of the youthful Sparrows perched on the gallery steps. I glanced
at him again during the first soprano solo, and saw him in the same
position, his eyes fixed on the singer. Rehearsal over, he coolly walked
up to her to proffer his escort. I verily believe she was too startled to
decline it. She accepted his arm with a look of blank amazement, and the
two set off together through the April slosh, followed by the inevitable
juvenile guard. Judging from the bespattered condition of Timothy's
overcoat that night, the younglings danced about him like frisky satyrs
all the way; but he wore the face of one who has walked with angels far
above this mud-ball.
"This indifference to his broadcloth struck me at the time as peculiar,
for he has such a constitutional horror of dirt that he really keeps up
his muscle by the use of the clothes-brush; still, though I afterward saw
him spread his Sunday beans with mustard and his Monday bacon with oil, it
was not till late on the latter evening that I came to a just appreciation
of his abnormal state. Without knocking he bolted into my room in great
agitation.
"'For the love of mercy, Hal, tell me what to do!' he cried, upsetting the
piano-stool without perceiving it. 'You're younger than I, and understand
the nature of women better.'
"I did, did I? Well, I agreed with him on hearing his story.
"He had just returned from Miss Sparrow's. The young lady hadn't invited
him to call: she didn't receive calls now, in fact, on account of her
father's rapidly increasing illness, though Timothy was not aware of this.
I dare say she thought he had come at my request with the new anthem I had
promised to send, and she ran down to the parlor at once, not even
stopping to put down the vial of medicine she happened to have in her
hand.
"'Good-evening, Mr. Goodwin,' said she--nothing more nor less; and then
she stood quietly awaiting his message, very pale and interesting, I've no
doubt, from grief and watching.
"I know Timothy's great warm heart swelled with compassion for the
afflicted young thing, but even to express his sympathy he would not touch
so much as the hem of her garment till she gave him the right, much less
would he take her hand.
'"I'm afraid you're hardly prepared for what I'm about to say, Miss
Sparrow,' he began, pacing the roam, and probably hurling the words at her
like pebbles from a sling. 'I'm aware it isn't customary for a man to
declare himself on so short an acquaintance, but I'm a plain,
straightforward fellow, desperately in earnest.'
"Fancy the little soprano's wonderment! I seem now to see her 'baby-blue'
eyes opening each moment wider and wider.
"'Till now I have never met any woman whom I wished to marry,' Timothy
went on, 'and I am forty years old. When at middle age love comes for the
first time to a man of my temperament, it is no milk-and-water sentiment,
Miss Sparrow. I feel that I could give my life to make you happy. Will you
be my wife?'
"'You don't mean to say you charged upon the poor girl in that merciless
way?' I broke in, cutting short his narrative.
"He looked aggrieved and sorely puzzled. What had he done amiss? Hadn't he
acted the part of a gentleman in avowing his feelings? Wasn't it more
honorable to tell her his intentions frankly than it would have been to
try to steal her affections unawares?
"'But how did Miss Sparrow take it?'
"'That's what troubles me,' said my wretched friend. 'She didn't take it
kindly: she seemed offended, and would have run away if I had not put my
hand on the door-knob and begged her to hear me through. I assured her I
would not press her for an immediate answer, but she only burst out crying
declaring I had no right to say such things to her: she would tell her
father. As if I should object to his being told! Indeed, I should have
spoken to him myself on the subject this morning had not Dr. Pillsbury
said he was too ill to see strangers. I tried to make this plain to Miss
Sparrow. I implored her to tell me how I had vexed her, but she broke away
from me and rushed out of the room. I cannot understand her conduct. I
might have known such a bright young girl couldn't fancy an old fossil
like me, but am I so bad a fellow, Hal, that she need feel insulted by my
love? I would have walked barefooted over burning coals sooner than have
wounded her as I have done.' And so on, and so on, till the cock crew.
"I ventured a second time to hint that he had merely been too precipitate
in his wooing, but he shook his head incredulously, and finally went away
as mystified as he came.
"At our next meeting the little soprano asked me in a shy, conscious way
if my friend were quite well. Had I ever fancied his brain affected? I
might have answered with a simple negative: I shall always think a little
better of myself, Steve, that then and there, in the full bewitchment of
Miss Sparrow's presence, I had manliness enough to speak a good word for
Timothy--to tell her that, spite of some eccentricities, he had the finest
brain, as well as the warmest heart, of any man of my acquaintance.
"I did not see her again for months, as she withdrew from the choir to
devote herself exclusively to her father, whose sufferings were becoming
daily more intense. These were not so much from actual pain, as from
extreme nervousness that opiates failed to relieve. Dr. Pillsbury often
spoke of the case--the doctor was boarding here then--and one day he
appealed to Timothy to go with him and try his magnetic power upon the
patient. A queer look came over Timothy's face, but he went at once, and
was able to soothe the sick man simply by the laying on of hands. After
this, while Mr. Sparrow lived, he went often, and comforted him greatly in
his last hours, not only by his mesmeric influence, but indirectly as well
by keeping those boys out of the way. The money he spent at that time in
taking the lads to panoramas and menageries would have constituted him
life member of a missionary society.
"You can see the natural result. Having proved a blessed narcotic to the
dying father, Timothy ceased to be an irritant to the daughter. An
irritant? Timothy couldn't irritate her, and she couldn't irritate
Timothy. I've studied them curiously the three years of their married
life, only to arrive at this conviction. And you took them for bride and
groom? No wonder! since they still feast with unabated relish on connubial
sweets. Ah, well! such diet is not for me, my boy: I thrive upon sour
grapes."
PENN SHIRLEY.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
MIRIDITE COURTSHIP.
The Miridites were until very lately an unknown people to a vast majority
of even well-informed persons in Europe and America. But since their late
uprising against the Turks their name has appeared conspicuously in many
despatches from the seat of war, and their movements have excited the
active interest of the public all over the civilized world. Their close
proximity to the Montenegrins, their indomitable courage and love of
liberty, and the natural advantages of their country for purposes of
defence and for the infliction of damages on Turkish trade with the coast
of the Adriatic, all render them dangerous enemies to the Ottoman empire.
And, indeed, nothing but their greater hostility to the Montenegrins has
prevented their being a more troublesome neighbor to the Turks than the
latter have yet found them. Though apparently pacified for the present,
they are not likely to forget any grievance, real or imaginary, and they
may yet take a very active part in the operations of the hostile forces
near their country. A sudden movement on their part might have caused the
complete destruction of the Turkish army now overrunning Montenegro.
But it is not only in a political light that these little-known
mountaineers are interesting to the outside world. Their habits, character
and tones of thought are so essentially peculiar, and so widely different
not only from those of fully-civilized countries, but from those existing
in the districts immediately adjoining them, that in reading descriptions
of this part of Albania our interest is constantly being excited on some
new point.
Instead of dressing in rich and gorgeously-colored attire, like the other
Albanians, the Miridites wear a conspicuously plain costume. The dress of
the men consists of a long white woollen coat, a red belt, white
pantaloons, rough hide boots and a white felt cap. The women wear coats
like the men, embroidered and fringed aprons, red trousers, and blue
handkerchiefs twisted around the head. The dress of the priests seems to
us strikingly inappropriate, or at least far removed from our notions of
sacerdotal vestments. It consists of a red fez cap, a cloth jacket, and
just such baggy blue trousers as are worn by Greek sailors. The Miridites
are all Roman Catholics, and are as fanatical and violent in their
feelings on the subject of religion as the most ignorant peasants of
Galway or the _softas_ of Constantinople. They will allow no Mohammedan to
settle in their country, and their hatred of the Greek Church is hardly
less pronounced. Yet their religious observances partake of one or two
features which are entirely Greek, and would not be authorized by Romish
Church dignitaries in any other country. And, in fact, the zeal of these
pious mountaineers seems to be tempered with very little knowledge, for
they look upon Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of their country and race,
as an absolute deity, and are in the habit of praying to Christ to
intercede for them with Saint Nicholas.
Another remarkable thing about these people is that they will not, like
the other Albanians generally, fight as mercenaries. When they have
assisted the Turks in their wars--and they have done so repeatedly and
very effectively--it has been as auxiliaries and, as they claim,
independent allies. They take pride in tracing their descent from the
followers of George Castriote, or _Scanderbeg_, who was born at Castri in
their territory, and their prince, Prenk Bib Doda, confidently asserts
that the world-renowned Scanderbeg was his own ancestor. They consider,
therefore, that it would disgrace the memory of their heroic forefathers
to fight as mere hirelings.
But perhaps the most extraordinary custom of the Miridites is that by
means of which they get their wives. When a young man among them
contemplates marriage, he first goes to some Mohammedan locality and finds
out where the maidens are wont to stay. Then he returns, organizes a party
of friends and relatives, and, swooping down on the habitation of the
bride-elect, carries her off to his mountain-home and to a state of
wedlock. But the most singular part of the whole affair is that, in spite
of the appearance of violence, the matter is really devoid of any hostile
feeling, and is, in fact, a perfectly amicable arrangement; for the
husband afterward hands over to the bride's relatives the price that is
considered a bride's equivalent in that part of the world, and both sides
remain contented and on intimate and agreeable terms with each other. The
idea in giving this semblance of force to a courtship, and literally
_taking_ to one's self a wife, seems to be that it is more manly to seize
upon the lady than to sue for her. Why Mohammedan women are always
selected for capture by these fanatical Christians does not appear. But it
is probable that a desire to make proselytes is the chief motive which
causes this action. The women taken are not Turkish, but members of
Albanian tribes which have become Mohammedan; so it is probable that they,
and consequently their children, are looked upon as stray sheep brought
back to the fold. As for the Miridite women, they must take their chances
of getting husbands among the other Christian tribes of Northern Albania,
or else remain virgins all their days, for on no account will the Miridite
men marry within the tribe.
W. W. C.
FRIEND ABNER IN THE NORTH-WEST.
Friend Amos: As thee knows I have been here now some little time, thee
will trust me to give thee a fair description of the country and the
people. The fertility of the land is so widely known that I need not
attempt to enlarge upon that to thee. Broad tracts of gently-rolling
prairie-land spread over the southern portions of Wisconsin and Minnesota,
and vast pine-forests are laid under tribute in the north. The Mississippi
River, which flows between the two States, sorely disappointed me. I
looked for a broad and mighty mass of water, and I found a stream, here at
least, and even for hundreds of miles south, by no means as imposing as
our own Delaware. On either side of it rises a continuous range of
limestone bluffs, showing, far up their rocky sides, the clear wearing of
the ancient water-line. Among these bluffs, stretching back some miles
from the river, curl beautiful and fertile valleys, planted in which, and
often indeed clinging to the unpromising sides of the ragged bluffs, are
the dwellings of the settlers. In the portions longest inhabited rise
often pretty, and sometimes even stately, residences, but in the western
portions many of the settlers are colonists from Norway and Germany, and,
as these are mostly poor, they live more commonly in mere hovels, and
stable their stock under masses of straw resting on frames of posts. The
long and tedious winters being severe on stock, the farmers devote
themselves, in a great degree, to the culture of wheat.
The climate has not the evenness of our own, and the reports I know thee
has heard to the contrary are mistaken. The mercury not unfrequently falls
to thirty-five and forty degrees below zero in many localities, but the
air is dry, and does not try one as much, perhaps, as thee would imagine:
the bitter winds, however, sweep across these prairies and through and
about the valleys until it verily seems, Friend Amos, that the
unaccustomed limbs must freeze. The people, however, are not easily
terrified, but heap on their fires such quantities of wood as seemed to me
extravagant (for wood is abundant here, but coal dear), and pass the
winters cheerfully. I have noticed that affections of the lungs are rarer
here than in our climate, and that the most of those so afflicted brought
their diseases with them from the East.
I was surprised to find that the body of the people are by no means either
ignorant or uncultivated, and have even been shown official statistics to
prove that in the fundamentals at least--reading and writing--the
percentage of ignorance is nearly one-third smaller than that of
Pennsylvania. There is less of higher culture, it is true, and the most
respected and respectable citizens are often heard lapsing into strange
inaccuracies of language and pronunciation. One of the most common is the
use of "dooz" where "does" is meant. "I be" and "you be" are common
instead of "I am" and "you are." In some localities along the Mississippi
River "slough" is pronounced as if it were "slew." These are, of course,
only laxities, and not the result of ignorance. Though learning commands
much respect, persons of high education are comparatively rare, but
shrewdness and general capacity, together with the will to work and the
ambition to succeed, are more universal than with us. I have been pleased
to observe that "gentlemen of leisure" and moneyed young men without
employment are almost totally lacking. The greater number of the
business-men, particularly of the most enterprising and energetic, are
quite young. The most remarkable circumstance concerning them is the fact
that many of them come to the West with wholly insufficient, and sometimes
even no, capital, and open business, relying largely on their adroitness
in "kiting," as it is called, which is practically buying on long time and
selling on short credit or for cash, trusting to quick returns to meet
liabilities. In a few cases this practice is in the end successful,
because circumstances favor, but with the large majority of such failure
of course is only a question of time. It is to me astonishing to what an
extent this experiment is carried. Let me relate to thee a case which came
to my personal knowledge. This was of a buyer of wheat in a country town.
It seems that it is the custom of the large commission-merchants of
Chicago and Milwaukee to receive from country buyers consignments of
produce for disposal, on which they make advances. This person had
secured, by the aid of a friend, a credit of a few hundred dollars at a
certain country store, and proceeded to buy produce from the farmers,
paying in orders on the store. When he had sufficient he shipped a car to
the Eastern market, making at the same time a draft on the consignee
against the bill of lading. This he assigned to the keeper of the store,
and drew orders against it for more produce. I was informed that he had, a
short time ago, in a busy season, purchased and shipped during one single
week fifty thousand bushels of wheat, and all without a dollar of capital
he could call his own. I am assured, Amos, that thee will be as much
astonished as thy friend was to learn that such things are regularly done
by these wonderful people. These things account quite easily for the
constant ebbing and flowing of the tide of business-men in these little
"cities."
Society, in the newer sections, is evidently unsettled. Money of course
commands respect, as money does everywhere; intelligence, in at least
reasonable measure, and some little cultivation, are regarded as
essentials among the better class of associates; but while the mixture is
settling, and the constituents separating and crystallizing, many
wandering atoms seem to be at home nowhere. Family or blood is but little
regarded, occupation is no hinderance ordinarily, and even well-known
irregularities do not necessarily exclude. One of the earliest cautions I
received was never to allude slightingly to divorced people in public,
"For who knows but there may be several such among the company?" Among the
ladies, accomplishments, except dancing, are said to be somewhat
neglected, although in all the arts of pleasing and in the graces of
domestic life they are peculiarly happy.
Trusting now, Friend Amos, that thee may learn to appreciate as I have the
excellencies of this country and these people, and to realize how greatly
in reality they surpass our estimates, I will tell thee no more till I see
thee in person. Though I very much admire the people, and wonder at their
methods and their progress, I long to free myself from all this bustle
and strain and rest in peace at home.
In brotherly love, yours truly,
ABNER.
HOW SHALL WE CALL THE BIRDS?
Birds are the most effective aids to the farmer and the florist in
checking the increase of noxious insects that destroy the fruits of labor.
A single pair will destroy hundreds of worms, grubs, moths or beetles in a
single day; and when they are present in sufficient numbers no insect or
creeping thing escapes their sharp little eyes or their exceeding
quickness of motion. As they multiply rapidly, there is no reason why
every one of our fruit trees, every shrub and vine, should not have its
nest of birdlings. This would be the solution of the dreadful curculio
question, I believe. Heretofore, we have built fences around our orchards
and enclosed fowls in them. This at one time was supposed to be very
effective, but a hundred chickens to the square rod are not so effective
as a pair of birds nesting in each tree, from the simple fact that the
former can only catch the insects that drop to the ground. After we have
shaken the curculio beetles off, to be sure the chickens will devour them
readily, but then the pest has generally done its work. It is not unusual
to have every plum, apricot, nectarine or apple on a tree stung in a
single day; and in South Jersey the curculio has proved victorious in the
struggle with man. Every year we see these trees white with blossoms, and
as regularly every specimen of the fruit bearing the plague-spot--a tiny
crescent-shaped wound in the cuticle--withering, fading and falling. We
painfully gather up this fallen fruit by the bushel, burn it to destroy
the grub of the curculio, and, hoping against hope, witness the same
disaster the following year.
Now, we can have these much-desired friends, the birds, by the thousand
about our farms and gardens and orchards. There are many ways of
attracting them and ensuring their return to us every year, but the first
step involves a sacrifice: we must destroy, shut up or banish every cat
from the premises. Some will find this hard to do. Puss is a very old
favorite. Long before the Pharaohs she was petted, and even held sacred.
The Egyptian goddess Pacht had the head of a cat. The origin of the
veneration of the cat was, it is said, her mice-destroying power. In a
famine-visited country like Egypt the preservation of the crops of grain
was of prime importance; and the cat--allowed from its sacred character to
increase and multiply as cats have the power to do--was no doubt a very
effective means to that end. But in this age of progress we _can_ dispense
with cats--in the country at least. I have proved by experiment that a
half dozen wire-spring mice-traps, kept clean and freshly baited with
toasted cheese, are better than as many cats to keep pantries and
cupboards free of mice. As for rats, everybody knows that one rat-terrier
in a granary is better than an army of cats.
Many people, in their simplicity of soul, have believed that it is
possible to have the confidence of birds without banishing the cats, and
even that the cat might be so reformed that she would come to respect the
rights of the birds. These people generally refer triumphantly to the
"Happy Family" of Barnum--a cage containing a bird, a monkey, a cat and
several mice, all living together in sleepy amity. But this will not do.
The animals of that "family" were kept in such a semi-torpid state by
confinement and high living--even if they were not daily dosed, as some
declared, with Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup--that they had not spirit
enough to exercise their natural passions.
No, puss cannot be reformed; and since there are so many who cannot bring
their minds to destroy their favorite cats, nor to shut them up from
spring till fall, would it not be well to have cat boarding-houses opened
in cities to meet this need? I could name more than one who would
patronize such an institution. Our cat, old Navet--so called from her
habit of bringing up turnips from the cellar and insisting upon munching
them in the library--has been sent some miles away to a friend, who,
having several cats already, cannot expect to have birds about the house;
but if this resource failed, I should not hesitate long between even Navet
and the birds.
I had always known that more birds would nest about places where there
were no cats; but as I had always seen some birds in summer about all
houses, I did not realize what a wonderful effect would be produced by the
total absence of this dreaded foe to birds until I resolved to have no cat
about in summer, and banished the last one. From that day the birds began
to come nearer and nearer, stay longer each day, and finally, reassured,
build their nests in the grapevines, in the orchard trees, in the little
evergreens near the house, and in the branches of the raspberries and
blackberries. Scores came where formerly there had been but two or three
pairs. Two pairs of pretty brown sparrows (_Spizella socialis_) built
nests in a small Chinese honeysuckle on a veranda-pillar not six feet from
the front door. These nests were about four and five feet high; and
although the veranda, being furnished with rustic chairs and a comfortable
Mexican hammock, was almost constantly occupied, yet the birds built their
nests and tended their little families as unconcerned, as confident of our
protection apparently, as if we had been creatures of their own kind. They
would not move from their work when we approached so closely that our
faces were only a few inches from the nests. This spring more little
houses were made and fastened up in the trees--rude little painted boxes,
with a roof and a door in front, the whole set on a small board serving
for a doorstep as well as general foundation. The bluebirds were specially
delighted with these houses, and took possession almost as fast as they
were put up. The catbird, a first cousin of the Southern mocking-bird, is
also very fond of the neighborhood of human beings, and many others which
I know imperfectly as yet.
Besides building little houses for bluebirds and others, a very effective
means of attracting birds generally is a little tray for crumbs, seeds,
etc. A piece of board a foot square with an inch-high border to keep the
food from blowing off, and fastened upon a tree, will answer every
purpose, though it may be improved by a roof. But the wisest device for
calling birds about the house--in places where there are no brooks or
springs near especially--is a bird-bath. Almost all birds are fond of
bathing; and any one who will but take the trouble to fill a shallow dish
every day with water, and place it in some shady nook, will be repaid a
thousand-fold by the sight of the birds bathing--some flashing the spray
in all directions, some dressing their wet plumage in the near branches,
some disputing the right to the first plunge.
To those enjoying the luxury of a garden-fountain it is very easy to
arrange a very excellent bath of this kind, and it is surprising that so
few have thought of it. All that is necessary is to place the edge of a
very shallow dish under the drip of the fountain-basin. Half an inch of
water is sufficient--small birds will not bathe unless the water is very
shallow, and they do not like to get under the spray--or a little platform
could be managed in the fountain-basin. For my birds, as a dish placed
upon the ground always excites the insolent curiosity and meddling of the
turkeys, I have had recourse to another device: a little platform on four
posts about three feet high, perforated to admit a wash-basin to the rim.
Around three sides of this table I set a dozen supple oak saplings,
fastening them by iron staples to the edge of the table, and bringing them
all together, wigwam style, over head about three feet above the basin. At
the foot of the saplings I planted madeira-vine roots, which will produce
an abundance of foliage and blossom after they grow, but not being willing
to wait for this, I covered all the saplings separately from ground to
peak with evergreens from the woods, and then carpeted the whole floor
under the table with various colored mosses. The whole effect of the
structure, standing in the shade of the trees, is very pretty and quaint.
As the water should be changed every night, the waste poured over the
mosses will keep them always in good condition. Of course this basin of
water is far too deep for any sort of bird except a wader or a swimmer,
and to arrange it exactly right, so that the bathing depth can be uniform,
as the heat of the day dries up the water, has not been so easy as one
might imagine it would be. The best thing I have found thus far is a
circle of board held submerged on one side by a weight and a string, the
other side floating. A more perfect thing could doubtless be contrived,
and will be by many who like myself love the birds, and have determined to
foster their presence in every way for their beneficent services, material
and aesthetical.
M. H.
A CHEERING SIGN.
Very pleasant reading is a California item of court-proceedings going to
show that a Mongol still stands within the pale of the law upon the soil
of the Golden State. A wanton murder of some Chinese at Chico was
judicially avenged by the sentencing of two of the Caucasian participants
to twenty-five years' imprisonment, and of a third to the
nicely-calculated, if not nicely-adjusted, term of twenty-seven years and
a half. Had the unhappy victims been whites, or even blacks, the
arithmetic of time would probably not have been drawn on, but summary
recourse would have been made to such punishment as eternity could
furnish. But we must not be too exacting. Let us be grateful that the
criminal law has any shield, be it of the thinnest, for the Chinaman.
Very different is the case when the Celestial ox gores the Yankee bull.
Indemnity, swift and condign, does what mortal hand can do to heal the
hurt. A Chinese court, upon Chinese soil, is not allowed to try a Chinese
for an injury done to the Christian stranger within Chinese gates.
Treaties imposed by the strong arm reserve practical jurisdiction to our
own representatives; and it is the peers of the alleged sufferer, not the
peers of the accused, who virtually try the cause. Similar rules obtain in
the other Mongolian empire. We all possess, as still quite a fresh
sensation, a memory of the account published a few years since of the
committing of harikari by a Japanese official of high social standing, at
the bidding of a native court, in atonement of an affront offered to an
American officer--how the representatives of the United States were
formally invited, in full uniform, to witness the bloody self-immolation
of the proud but to the law submissive Mongol; how everything went off _en
regle_, from the theatrical preparation of the stage with seat, sword and
red carpet to the climax of decapitation of the culprit by his
body-servant; and how our representatives in gilt and blue filed out
shocked, but vindicated, and satiated with more than the full measure of
justice pressed down and running over.
Harikari has not begun, nor is it likely soon to begin, to thin the ranks
of our Californian office-holders. Few die, none resign, and absolutely
none are got rid of in that way. They have no treaty-courts to make them
afraid. Their lives are their own, and we hope may always be. But we
trust, also, that they will accord a like privilege to their neighbors
from over the way, and cultivate the impression that life may be dear as
well to a man with a lemon complexion, oblique eyes and a pig-tail. As an
evidence of a dawning disposition to accept this view we may be permitted
to hail with satisfaction the disappearance for twenty-seven years and six
months of a Californian who declined adopting it.
E. C. B.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
Peru. Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the
Incas. By E. George Squier, late United States Commissioner to
Peru. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Mr. Squier does not give us the date of his explorations in Peru, but he
tells us that they occupied him two years, during which he "crossed and
recrossed the Cordillera and the Andes from the Pacific to the Amazonian
rivers, sleeping in rude Indian huts or on bleak _punas_ in the open air,
in hot valleys or among eternal snows, gathering with eager zeal all
classes of facts relating to the country, its people, its present and its
past." It must not be inferred from this description that he claims the
honors of a pioneer or discoverer. Many previous travellers had pursued
the same quest, encountered the same hardships and described the same
objects. Few of them, however, had enjoyed the same advantages or
possessed equal fitness for the task. His previous studies and
investigations had familiarized him with the aboriginal history of America
and with many of its existing relics; his appointment as commissioner of
the United States to Peru for the settlement of some disputed claims gave
him facilities which, as a foreigner, he might otherwise have lacked; and
his equipments both for personal comfort and for scientific and artistic
purposes seem to have been as complete as a single traveller could be
expected to provide. The result is a work which, if not actually the
ablest, is the most thorough and satisfactory, which the subject has yet
called forth. It contrasts in all respects with the latest of its
predecessors, Hutchinson's _Two Years in Peru_, a book of still greater
size, but deficient in all the elements of critical and literary power,
while replete with pretentiousness and dogmatism. In the narration of his
journeys and adventures Mr. Squier is always entertaining; his account of
the present condition of the country and the people is instructive, though
somewhat meagre; his descriptions of ancient remains, if not always as
vivid or even as clear as one might desire, are generally more careful and
minute than any that have before been given of them, and are supplemented
by admirable views and plans that add greatly to the value and
attractiveness of the volume. Finally, while his knowledge and training
have well qualified him to form independent judgments, he neither seeks to
discredit all previous research nor to support any of the fantastic
theories of which American antiquarianism has been so prolific. He was not
open to the temptation that leads those who are first in the field to
magnify its marvels, and he is equally free from that tendency to belittle
them which betrays the desire of later explorers to display their own
superior acumen. He makes no attempt to reconstruct the past by piecing
together accumulated details and calling to his aid the imaginative
faculty, which, in history and science as well as in art, gives form and
life to its material. But his conclusions, if general in nature and
limited in range, are such as commend themselves to all minds competent to
grasp the problems presented and not led astray by prepossessions. He
finds the existing relics in Peru substantiating in the main the accounts
given by the Spanish writers of its condition at the time of the Conquest,
and he finds that condition accordant with the early history of
civilization under similar circumstances in other parts of the world. He
does not think it necessary, therefore, either to account for the
existence of those monuments with the ruins of which the soil is so
thickly strewn by an immigration from India or Egypt, nor to reduce them
to the proportions and character of the Pueblo remains in New Mexico, in
order to prove that America, in contrast with the Eastern continent, has
had but one original type of development, and that the lowest. On the
contrary, he holds it certain that "the civilization of the ancient
Peruvians was indigenous," and he considers it to have passed through
several stages, and to have proceeded independently among different races
and tribes, culminating at last in the organization of a national polity
and a common rule. Under that rule he believes that "the material
prosperity of the country was far in advance of what it is now. There were
greater facilities of intercourse, a wider agriculture, more manufacture,
less pauperism and vice, and--shall I say it?--a purer and more useful
religion." With the ruins that throw light upon the "customs, modes of
life, and political, social and domestic organization" of "the vanished
empire of the Incas," are others that point to a wholly different state of
society and an immeasurable antiquity. "Combined with the stupendous and
elaborate remains of Tiahuanuco--remains as elaborate and admirable as
those of Assyria, of Egypt, Greece or Rome--there are others that are
almost exact counterparts of those of Stonehenge, and Carnac in Brittany,
to which is assigned the remotest place in monumental history. The rude
sun-circles of Sillustani, under the very shadow of some of the most
elaborate, and architecturally the most wonderful, works of aboriginal
America, are indistinguishable counterparts of the sun-circles of England,
Denmark and Tartary." Such evidence, concurrent with that which abounds in
more northern regions, points unmistakably to an early development on this
continent, similar in character and course, and coeval or anterior in
date, to that which has left like indications in so many parts of the
Eastern hemisphere. There the records are more scattered and more varied,
as from the size and conformation of the continents and the greater
diversities of climate we might have expected them to be; and those at
least of a later period are, from the nature of the case, more easy of
interpretation in the light of legend, tradition and written history. But
the general features are intelligible in all, and the revelation which
they make is identical. They show the human mind, under like external
conditions and with like internal conceptions, advancing on the same line
from barbarism to culture; they show a struggle and rivalry of races and
tribes, in which one or another shoots forward for a time, and is then
outstripped or pushed aside; they show a gradual sifting, blending and
consolidation, in which primitive and fortuitous forms of association are
superseded by a system presenting the symmetry and composite character of
an artificial structure. Everywhere the process is marked by the final
predominance of two principles, which stimulate, direct and regulate all
the efforts that are made toward artistic expression, industrial science
and social organization. For the human mind at this stage all conceptions
of Nature may be comprised under the name of religion, and all ideas of
order and co-operation under that of monarchical rule. The monuments of
this period that have sprung from the united labor of the community all
attest the control and supervision of one or both of these powers. Not
only do temples and palaces bear this stamp, but all public works of
whatever nature testify, by the gigantic results in comparison with the
deficient means, to such an authority in those who planned them and such a
subordination in those by whom they were executed as cannot be conceived
of either under the looser organizations of barbarism or the more
equitable arrangements of modern life. The cyclopean walls, the imposing
edifices, the subterranean aqueducts, the mountain terraces, of Peru tell
the same tale as pyramids and temples, towers and palaces, in Egypt,
Assyria or India. The critic who can find in the ruins at Gran Chimu and
Pachacamac only "communal houses" inhabited by "groups of families" on the
method of the Iroquois, in the vast isolated structures of Tiahuanuco the
remains of "an Indian pueblo after the ordinary form," and in the enormous
and elaborate fortifications of Cuzco and Ollantay-tambo the works of
village communities and petty tribes, is not only bent on the support of a
theory at whatever cost of truth and sense, but predetermined, one would
say, to hold it as a monopoly. Compared with absurdities of this order,
the wildest imaginings of M. Brasseur de Bourbourg are entitled to be
ranked with the conjectures of a sane philosophy.
Mr. Squier, as we have seen, gives no countenance to baseless
speculations, and the publication of his book has, it is evident, fallen
on them as a heavy blow and great discouragement. The preciseness of his
details gives a force and authority to both his statements and opinions
which cannot easily be evaded or resisted even by those most given to
substituting assumptions for evidence and facts. His descriptions of the
stone-work of the ancient Peruvians are not likely to suggest to
unsophisticated readers an identity of race and institutions with the
inhabitants of wigwams. "The joints are all of a precision unknown in our
architecture, and not rivalled in the remains of ancient art that had
fallen under my notice in Europe. The statement of the old writers, that
the accuracy with which the stones of some structures were fitted together
was such that it was impossible to introduce the thinnest knife-blade or
finest needle between them, may be taken as strictly true. The world has
nothing to show in the way of stone-cutting and fitting to surpass the
skill and accuracy displayed in the Indian structures of Cuzco. All modern
work of the kind there--and there are some fine examples of skill--looks
rude and barbarous in comparison." We may imagine the straits to which the
advocates of Lo are driven when they point to the absence of mortar or
cement of any kind in such walls as a proof of rudeness and ignorance in
the builders. But, as Mr. Squier reminds us, Humboldt found a true mortar
in the ruins of Pullal and Canuar, in Northern Peru. Humboldt found, too,
in the same region the remains of paved roads not inferior to any Roman
roads which he had seen in Italy, France or Spain; and though Mr. Squier
states that few traces of such roads now exist in the southern part of the
country, and infers that they never existed here, since "the modern
pathways must follow the ancient lines," and "there is no reason why they
should have suffered more from time and the elements in one part of the
country than in another," it seems to us impossible to reject in so
summary a fashion the testimony of early writers, given, not in mere
general terms, but with a minuteness of description rivalling his own.
Possibly, the explanation may be found partly in the fact that the roads
in one part of the country were generally more ancient than in the
other--many of them, as we know, dating from a period anterior to the Inca
rule--and partly to the greater devastations wrought by the European
conquerors and their descendants in the neighborhood of the capital and on
the most frequented routes. In other particulars, such as the size of the
Peruvian houses and the existence of windows, Mr. Squier finds the facts
to have been understated by Humboldt. Generally, as we have already
intimated, he finds full confirmation of the accounts of such writers as
Cieza de Leon and Garcilasso de la Vega in those relics which still
survive as the surest witnesses of the past, defying the tooth of time,
the ravages of violence and the denials and assumptions of a crazy
scepticism.
Camp, Court and Siege: A Narrative of Personal Adventure and
Observation during Two Wars, 1861-65, 1870-71. By Wickham
Hoffman. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Had the third of this book which is devoted to the writer's reminiscences
of the late civil convulsion in his own country been omitted or reserved
for expansion into a separate publication, the remainder would have had
more unity and attractiveness. The latter is by far the more interesting
portion. Expanded and fortified by details, references and documents,
Major Hoffman's account of his experience as secretary of legation at
Paris in the year of the siege might have filled--and may yet be made to
fill--an important place among memoirs of its class. His narrative style
is clear and pleasant, if never vivid or impressive. It harmonizes with
the complexion of truth, and truth is the first thing we ask from the
diarist and observer. Our confidence is won by his direct and unambitious
way of telling what he saw and shared.
We should think it not improbable that the writer will adopt this course,
and use more fully the material which must be at his command for
illustrating, from an exceptionally favorable point of view, the fall of
the Second Empire and the double fall of its capital. The American
legation, under Mr. Washburne, was brought into close relations with the
Empire, the Republic and the Commune by means of its delegated character
as protector of North German subjects during the war. It was, for that
period, much the most notable among the foreign embassies in France. While
those of the principal European powers, as for most of the time the French
government itself, left the capital, it, with the representatives of two
or three minor states, remained at its post. Outside of the very onerous
function assumed by it at the request of the German government, it had
other great cares and great opportunities for good. These appear to have
been encountered and used with remarkable tact and energy. Its display of
those qualities has been gratefully acknowledged by its own people, those
of Germany and many of the French. At the outbreak of the war thirty
thousand Germans were established in Paris. Summary expulsion was decreed
against these, and the American minister and his subordinates had the sole
charge of applying the meagre funds sent by their own sovereign for
mitigating the suffering due to that order. Some thousands, unable to
leave or preferring to run all risks, remained throughout the war. This
unhappy remnant constantly looked to the American ministry for aid to
subsist and to escape violence. Mr. Hoffman ventures to place the
banishment of the Germans, for acuteness if not mass of suffering, by the
side of the ejection of the Huguenots and the Moors. This exaggeration
serves at least to show the impression it made on an eye-witness.
Major Hoffman's remarks on the causes of the moral breakdown of the Empire
and of the French army do not help us to much that is novel. He lays more
than the usual stress on Ultramontanism as an influence. The death of the
archbishop of Paris could have been prevented, he thinks, had the
Versailles authorities acted with due promptness and determination; and he
avers his belief that the liberalism of that prelate made his death not
unacceptable to the Church party represented now by Eugenie and MacMahon.
He ascribes fanaticism also to the savior of Paris that was to be--Trochu.
Trochu's main hope, he believes, was miraculous interposition. His
statement of the extent to which unreasoning panic had possession of both
soldiers and citizens supports the idea that supernatural aid only could
have saved the city.
The better, and really ruling, traits of the French people are not to be
studied in their periods of "Gallic fury." Thus it is that the book before
us is an unsafe guide on that point. Six years have rolled away since the
revolt of the Commune, the loss of two rich provinces and the imposition
of a tribute nearly half as large as the debt of the United States. The
evidence given and the effective results shown of patience, perseverance,
order, determined good faith, industry and self-control have no parallel
in a like period of the history of any modern people.
The Plains of the Great West and their Inhabitants. By R. I.
Dodge. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Here we are favored with a glance through another military lorgnette, but
at a scene geographically, socially and politically the antipodes of
Paris. Colonel Dodge leads us into the haunts of the original denizens of
Western America, and depicts their traits with a hand made facile by long
familiarity. At part of the aborigines--and that part obviously most
attractive to and most assiduously studied by him--he bids us look through
the sights of the rifle or along the dappled double-barrel. At the other
he essays, with less success perhaps, to aid us with the eye of the
amateur statesman and political economist. The wearers of fur and feather
have no moral side. The Indian has. His condition and future are
correspondingly complicated. How to shoot him is not the sole and simple
question, as it is with his original compatriots except the buffalo. With
the latter shaggy and multitudinous creature the fate of the Indian of the
Plains is more or less linked. They move together, and may be said to die
together. On a map of the territory between the Rocky Mountains and the
Mississippi are traced two pairs of reservations. Of one the Yellowstone,
and of the other the Arkansas, is the centre. Each pair is composed of a
buffalo-range and a group of Indian tribes. The three lines of
east-and-west railway separate them, and shoulder to right and left, north
and south, the savage and his herds.
Of the enormous numbers of the wild cattle which were once the exclusive
property of the Indian we have been accustomed to form but a very
inadequate idea. They exceed those which have raised the Tartar into the
comparatively high rank of a pastoral nomad. The patriarch or poet Job was
a famous cattle-owner, but he was a small dairyman by the side of a
Cheyenne or Rickaree chief, and a stampede of a small detachment of
buffalo would have run down unnoticed the whole of his live-stock. In the
three years 1872-74 four and a half millions of buffalo--considerably more
than half as many as all the black cattle in the British Islands--were
slaughtered. From this fact may be gathered an impression of the vast
provision of human food until lately stored by Nature in a region still
marked on modern geographies as a desert. Of the value of this endowment
the Indian, with all his improvidence, had some notion. It was a resource
he may be said to have husbanded. Of nothing like the wanton and shameful
destruction dealt by the whites since the feeding-grounds were made
accessible by rail was he ever guilty. He managed his hunts
systematically, placed them under the rigid control of a sort of guild
known as "dog-soldiers," and allowed to be slain only what were needed for
his wants. The buffalo was to him what the cocoa-palm is to the
Polynesian; and more, for he needed warm shelter and warm clothing. He
cared for it accordingly. It grew around him almost as the cocoa-grove
around the hut of the islander. A herd will even now graze quietly for
days in the neighborhood of an Indian village of a thousand souls, while
an encampment of half a dozen whites disperses it instantly. The whites
kill only for the hides, two of which they lose for every one saved in
merchantable condition. A very small proportion of the flesh is utilized
when the railway happens to be near enough, and within a like limit of
territory the bones are collected. In the single year 1874 over ten
millions of tons of these were sent East to fertilize the exhausted fields
of the Atlantic slope with the refuse riches of the "desert."
No treaties are made with the buffalo. He is swindled by no agents,
post-traders or secretaries at war. He addresses no pathetic remonstrances
to his Great Father, and expresses no sense of his wrongs by taking scalps
or inflicting worse horrors still. School-houses, temperance societies,
small-pox and whiskey are not for him. Yet does he move toward
annihilation, as we have said, in singularly close lock-step with the
Indian. His problem, like the other, is being settled by the settler. Were
the red man edible, the parallelism in destiny would be more complete. As
it is, the quadruped will disappear before the biped native. Individuals
of the latter will be absorbed into the bosom of civilization, as the
remnants of the Senecas, the Oneidas and the Pamunkeys have long since
been. As a race, the Indians' best hope is euthanasia. Even that is
desperately uncertain. The Cherokees, Creeks and Choctaws, with their
minor associates in the Indian Territory, are, though not increasing in
numbers, living in peace and something like industry. Yet they are at the
mercy of any vagabond who should take it into his head to "salt" with
gold-dust or silver-ore any ravine in the midst of their country. No law
and no army would avail to repel the rush. They would go the way of the
Sioux of the Black Hills, and would have only the choice of drifting out
of existence on the outskirts of white society or of being washed high and
dry over the frontier. Where are the sixty thousand Indians who at the
time of the transfer of California were so comfortably coddled under the
wing of the missions? They have been the victims of no recorded war, and
the agents never had a chance at them. They have gone, however, with a
rapidity unexampled anywhere east of the mountains.
Solutions of the Indian problem are endless, and the writer of the book
named at the head of these paragraphs has his shy at it. His plan is new
chiefly in blaming all round--traders, Quakers, Indians, government and
frontiersmen. If we can venture to centralize his invective, we should lay
it specially on the heads of the class the Indians term "squaw-men"--the
whites who have Indian wives and are established among the lodges. Of
these he gives us a conjectural census--a hundred agencies and
reservations and ten squaw-men to each. From this thousand are drawn all
the interpreters; and not a solitary interpreter, Colonel Dodge insists,
can be relied upon. They are, every man of them, in league with the
agents and traders against the government and the Indians. The two last
named--parties of the first part, as we should style them--never come
together and never understand each other. The colonel's cure is remitting
the whole thing to army control. But that, we need not say, has been
tried, with results by no means brilliant.
For those who have never even seen an annuity distributed to aggravate the
muddle with their suggestions would be most presumptuous. It is as little
as we can do to abstain. We may venture here only to say a word in
mitigation of the deep stain left upon the fair fame of the United States
by its management of Indian affairs. The contrast so frequently drawn with
the course of things in Canada is not wholly just. It was the French who
saved the Canadian Indians from the mere sordid extinction which has
befallen most of their southern congeners, as it was the Spaniards who
kept the California tribes alive. The natives--or rather the French
half-breeds--were made trappers and voyageurs before the English conquest
of the province. But for that preparation they might have gone the way of
our Indians under Anglo-Saxon pressure. Climate also favored them. Only an
infinitesimal fraction of British America is capable of white
colonization.
Dropping a theme which bids fair to remain undisposed of, like the
disputes of Hogarth's doctors, till the patient is dead, we revert to
Colonel Dodge's book, and to those of its pages which it is clear he wrote
most _en amateur_. Soldier and student, he is above all a sportsman. It is
delightful to follow him over the plain and (in spirit and untearable
trousers) into the chaparral. Anywhere between the Rio Grande, the
Missouri and Bridger's Pass he seems to be as much at home as on his own
farm. All its live-stock is familiar to him. His sheep are of the big-horn
breed; his black cattle, the two varieties of buffalo, mountain and
lowland; and his poultry, the prairie-chicken and its relatives. He is
both interesting and instructive. The puma and the panther he avers to be
distinct species. The prong-horned antelope--the only American species,
and now, we believe, assigned by naturalists to a genus of its own--he
demonstrates to shed its horns. He describes six species of native grouse;
to which if we add two others not found within the limits he describes, we
have eight for the United States against two in Great Britain and four
for all Europe. His stories of sport and adventure are given with
circumstance and animation. Extra spice is thrown in by a moderate
infusion of second-hand relations of a more or less imaginative character,
which he is careful to separate from the fruit of his own experience and
observation. The physical conformation of the country and its climate are
described with remarkable distinctness. We do not know a book on the
subject that comes up more faithfully to its title.
_Books Received._
The Struggle against Absolute Monarchy, 1603-1688: Epochs of
English History. By Bertha Meriton Cordery. (Harper's Half-Hour
Series.) New York: Harper & Brothers.
The Tudors and the Reformation, 1485-1603: Epochs of English
History. By M. Creighton, M.A. (Harper's Half-Hour Series.) New
York: Harper & Brothers.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping. Compiled from
Original Recipes. Marysville, Ohio: Buckeye Publishing Co.
University Life in Ancient Athens. By W. W. Capes, M.A. (Harper's
Half-Hour Series.) New York: Harper & Brothers.
The Children of Light. By Rev. William W. Faris. (The Fletcher
Prize Essay, 1877.) Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Reconciliation of Science and Religion. By Alexander Mitchell,
LL.D. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Syrian Sunshine. By T. G. Appleton. (Town-and-Country Series.)
Boston: Roberts Brothers.
The Anonymous Hypothesis of Creation. By James J. Furniss. New
York: Charles P. Somerby.
Personal Immortality, and other Papers. By John Oppenheim. New
York: Charles P. Somerby.
Harry. By the Author of "Mrs. Jerningham's Journal." New York:
MacMillan & Co.
Birds and Poets, with other Papers. By John Burroughs. New York:
Hurd & Houghton.
Atlas Essays. Number 2, Biographical and Critical. New York: A.
S. Barnes & Co.
In the Camargue. By Emily Bowles. (Loring's Tales of the Day.)
Boston: Loring.
Eugenie. By B. M. Butt. (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry
Holt & Co.
Mar's White Witch: A Novel. By G. Douglas. New York: Harper &
Brothers.
Table Talk. By A. Bronson Alcott. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Transcriber's Notes
Page 177 dun-colered replaced with dun-colored.
Pages 158-165 Della Scala, Delle Scale, Della Scale and Delle Scala both
retained.
Page 189 Eitzgerald corrected to Fitzgerald.